Digital Terrestrial TV test for Dublin/Louth/Meath

Round Cable

DTT tests will be starting soon from Three Rock and Clermont Carn, it sounds promising, I wonder will they pull it off this time.

http://www.businessworld.ie/livenews.htm?a=1202643%3Bs=rollingnews.htm

markmiller321

from breakingnews.ie


"The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Noel Dempsey has announced a Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) pilot project in Ireland.

The Minister's department has been planning the DTT pilot for a number of months and various procurement packages are being put together to implement it.

The first process is now underway, with the Department seeking expressions of interest around the multiplexing and networking elements of the pilot.

"I am committed to the long-term provision of a free-to-air digital terrestrial television platform in Ireland," said Minister Dempsey today.
"Most countries in Europe are starting to switch over from analogue terrestrial transmission to digital and for very good reasons. DTT can provide much more to the free-to-air viewer in terms of additional channels, improved quality of service and innovative new services."

Initial broadcasts will transmit from the Three Rock site in Dublin and the Clermont Carn site in Co Louth. Such transmissions will allow for technical testing of services


yeah so it should be available nationwide around 2020

dmeehan

markmiller321 wrote:

from breakingnews.ie
yeah so it should be available nationwide around 2020

lol

BlueShaun

thats a bit optimistic, considering the wonderfull broadband rollout that the government seems convinced has happened.

Sponge Bob

BlueShaun wrote:

thats a bit optimistic

He'll switch on 2 transmitters and then announce 80% coverage on day one even though only 2 bits of 2 counties are working . They love their 80% coverage when they go off to swing ministerial mickeys at each other in Brussels.

RTE still dont have 100% analoge coverage after 40 years so expect 100% DTT coverage in 2045 or later.

Why the fúks coudn't buy 4 transponder slots I'll never know.

The Cush

Department of Communications eTender Notice Multiplex and Network Service Elements for a Digital Terrestrial Television Pilot Network

Department of Communications Press Release

Department of Communications Digital Terrestrial Television Pilot Webpage

News Stories
Dempsey seeks tenders for digital TV pilot - siliconrepublic.com

Tony

yet another pilot programme, seems they need to have one every five years

dmeehan

well its better than announcing a report into or a feasability study
its a step (albeit a small one) in the right direction


how long will the pilot last and will we be using (eventually) the same kind of STB as freeview?

netwhizkid

Spin, Spin and more Spin, Shouldn't this government be dizzy by now. This is bull it'l never happen especially here. Why don't they just go FTA or FTV similar to the British Systtem of FTV cards all via Satellite on Astra (Sky) or one of the other Sat's Eg. Hotbird - Eutelsat. It would give 100% coverage unless you live at the foot of a mountain that is. DTT would be great but this corrupt Government is sure to fudge it.

Regards netwhizkid

DMC

This is Digital TerrestrialTV, not Satellite.

Moved to Terrestrial board, and merged with existing thread.

lawhec

I remain half sceptical. The Irish Government has dragged its heels on this no for some time. I'd now only really take notice if a firm date for this was started.

I fully expected Three Rock to be part of this but it's a pity they didn't go for Truskmore as well - it would have certainly been an interesting testing ground for compatability with UK DTT boxes as Clermont Carns' DTT Transmissions (at least the ones assigned for it) are to transmit south only.

Elmo

www.iftn.ie

_________________________________________________________________
The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Noel Dempsey T.D., has announced that he is developing a Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) Pilot in Ireland and is seeking expressions of interest for the infrastructural elements.



According to a statement issued yesterday, the government has been planning the DTT Pilot for a number of months and various procurement packages are being put together to implement the Pilot. The first process is now underway, with the Department seeking expressions of interest around the multiplexing and networking elements of the Pilot.
It is estimated the pilot DTT scheme will be running in locations before the end of 2005. Three Rock site in Dublin and the Clermont Carn site in County Louth have been chosen as the first sites for transmission. “Such transmissions will allow for technical testing of services, for trialling and demonstrating of existing and new broadcast channels and services and for illustrating and displaying the possibilities of DTT at the viewer and user level,” said the Minister. “Operating on a limited third party trial basis, I expect that the Pilot will generate the awareness and discussion among broadcasters, investors and other interested parties to move towards a full national roll-out of DTT in time. I will be engaging with interested parties in this regard as soon as the Pilot commences,” added the Minister.

It is reported that consumers will get RTE, TV3 and TG4 for free, but it is unclear if they will be able to receive British channels such as BBC without paying a subscription.

The Minister has come under criticism for his previous failure to launch DTT in Ireland, especially since it has been implemented in the UK (Freeview service) since 2002. Acknowledging Ireland’s catch up status Dempsey said: “I am committed to the long-term provision of a free-to-air digital terrestrial television platform in Ireland. Most countries in Europe are starting to switch over from analogue terrestrial transmission to digital and for very good reasons. DTT can provide much more to the free-to-air viewer in terms of additional channels, improved quality of service and innovative new services.”

For further info go to http://www.dcmnr.gov.ie/Broadcasting/DTT+Pilot.htm

DMC

Moved to Terrestrial and merged with existing thread

byte

Maybe being late will have it's advantages, so we can learn from the mistakes of others, especially ITV Digital. It'll be interesing to see how they go about it and the compression etc, they will use. QAM64 or QAM16...

Ulsterman 1690

Clermont Carns' DTT Transmissions (at least the ones assigned for it) are to transmit south only

considering that most of Claremonts analouge viewers and virtually all its digitally equipped viewers live in NI thats rather stupid

RE: compatability with the UK system I remember reading somewhere that they are planning to use 8K COFDM rather than 2K COFDM which is the UK standard although most UK boxes will work with either

It would be complete idocy to go for something totally incompatable with the UK system but then again if they drag their heels much longer it would make more sense to forget about convntional DTT altogether and go directly over to HDTV

Richard

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

considering that most of Claremonts analouge viewers and virtually all its digitally equipped viewers live in NI thats rather stupid

I guess that due to frequency agreements, they can't broadcast north as it would interfere with NI channel allocations which are, let's be honest, pretty crowded these days.

I imagine they would if they could!

lawhec

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

considering that most of Claremonts analouge viewers and virtually all its digitally equipped viewers live in NI thats rather stupid

I would assume it's down to frequency clearences with the UK government, perhaps they insisted on restrictions to protect current services in Northern Ireland.

I once had a spreadsheet which detailed the DTT allocations Ireland had cleared with the ITU and most of the border transmitters had allocations with severe restrictions in towards Northern Ireland with the exception of Truskmore, whose allocations had the same restrictions as those for analogue UHF transmissions.

Edit: click on the link below and scroll down to the bottom - this shows the large restrictions placed on Clermont Carn for its current DTT allocations.

http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/7225/uhfdig.txt

Further edit: The original Irish DTT plan called for 64QAM 8K transmission (Don't know FEC or guard interval) with MHP instead of MHEG for interactivity,

Ulsterman 1690

with the exception of Truskmore

One reason why Truskmore might be different is because it has two unused UHF analouge allocations which could be reassigned to digital

Pity about Claremont though Surely they could even find ONE channel for transmitting into NI. Granted it would be a waste to transmit all six multiplexes into NI since most of the channels on Irish DTT would in all likelihood be relays of UK channels

byte

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

One reason why Truskmore might be different is because it has two unused UHF analouge allocations which could be reassigned to digital

Pity about Claremont though Surely they could even find ONE channel for transmitting into NI. Granted it would be a waste to transmit all six multiplexes into NI since most of the channels on Irish DTT would in all likelihood be relays of UK channels

Yes that is true. RTE 1 and 2 are still VHF only, despite 2 UHF freqs being allocated (53 and 56 or thereabouts). Though I think the reason for this is because some small Tx's use the VHF off-air from Trusky, and changing to UHF would make it more difficult (VHF travels further than UHF).

On another note, is it possible to use VHF for DTT? I'm sure it can be, and could be possibly better for dodgy terrain, like the area covered by Truskmore.

The Cush

A new Department of Communications tender notice for a Project Manager for the proposed Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) Trial has been posted here

lawhec

byte wrote:

Yes that is true. RTE 1 and 2 are still VHF only, despite 2 UHF freqs being allocated (53 and 56 or thereabouts). Though I think the reason for this is because some small Tx's use the VHF off-air from Trusky, and changing to UHF would make it more difficult (VHF travels further than UHF).

Truskmore's spare UHF allocations are E53 and E57 for analogue broadcasting. The frequencies cleared for DTT are 55, 59, 62, 65, 48 and 67, each with 50kW ERP (compared to 0.5kW which is transmitted from Brougher, pfff!)

Yeah, I would reckon that the current relays take the VHF feed to retransmit, but I don't think any of Truskmore's relays don't carry TG4, which would mean that a reasonably decent UHF signal must be reaching these relays, all that would be needed to be done would be to reconfigure feeds to transposers and retuning their input.

byte wrote:

On another note, is it possible to use VHF for DTT? I'm sure it can be, and could be possibly better for dodgy terrain, like the area covered by Truskmore.

Yeah, perfectly possible. The Germans do it, the Italians also do. The Aussies do as well as do the Yanks (albeit with their flavour of 8VSB) with Band I thrown in by the last two for good measure. However the Australians plan to shift all their Band I DTT Transmitters to Band III when they start their analogue switchoff with the USA not sure what to do yet. The only ones that I've heard that have completely ruled out DTT on VHF have been the British (naturally, as there's no analogue broadcasting there!) and the Swiss.

The Cush

Northern Correspondent wrote:

The Aussies do as well as do the Yanks (albeit with their flavour of 8VSB) with Band I thrown in by the last two for good measure. However the Australians plan to shift all their Band I DTT Transmitters to Band III when they start their analogue switchoff with the USA not sure what to do yet.

The FCC's DTV Rules and DTV Channel Allocations were decided back in 1997.

The USA is nearing completion of their transition (i.e. swithover) to DTV. Completion date is expected to be Dec 2006.

When will the DTV transition be complete?
The target date for the end of the transition from analog to digital television signals is December 31, 2006. That date may be extended, however, until most homes (85%) in an area are able to watch the DTV programming. At that point, broadcasting the current “analog” channels will end and that spectrum will be put to other uses. Until the transition to DTV is complete, television stations will continue broadcasting on both their digital and analog channels.

(Source: http://www.dtv.gov/consumercorner.html)

The USA's digital service will broadcast in core spectrum Channels 2 - 51 (VHF Band I / III and UHF). Channels 52 - 59, 60 - 69 are been reallocated to other uses.

Question: What are the channel assignments for digital television?
Answer: Under the FCC spectrum plan, we have provided most existing broadcasters with access to a 6 MHz channel for digital broadcasting within a core digital TV spectrum, i.e., TV channels 2 to 51. Because of the limited availability of spectrum and the need to accommodate all existing facilities with minimal interference among stations, however, during the transition some broadcasters would be provided DTV channels outside of this core spectrum (channels 52 to 69). These broadcasters would have to move their DTV operations to a channel in the core spectrum when one became available. Broadcasters whose existing NTSC channels were in the core spectrum could move their DTV operations to their NTSC channel at some time in the future. Broadcasters whose DTV transition channel and existing NTSC channel were both outside of the core area could obtain a new DTV channel when channels in the core spectrum are recovered.
After the transition period (2006), the VHF channels (2-13) will remain available for DTV and the analog TV service will end on all channels.

(Source: http://www.fcc.gov/oet/faqs/dtvfaqs.html)

Links to US DTV Sites
DTV Standards http://www.atsc.org/default.html
FCC DTV Regulatory Information http://www.fcc.gov/dtv/
FCC Consumer Information Site http://www.dtv.gov/
Broadcasters Information Site http://www.myfreehdtv.org/
CE Industry Site http://www.ce.org/about_cea/cea_initiatives/hdtv_happenings.asp?name=269&title=HDTV:TransitiontoDigitalTelevision
The National Association of Broadcasters http://www.nab.org/Newsroom/Issues/digitaltv/default.asp

General Info Sites
http://www.digitaltelevision.com/consumer/what.shtml
http://www.tvhandbook.com/resources/resources.htm