RTE Announce FTA Saorsat service

tlaavtech wrote: »

What's in it for Sky?

They get to "sell up" to one of their packages.

Sponge Bob wrote: »

There are households in a satellite shadow (they live on the north side of a hill or mountain), what about them ??

There are housholds in a 9e satellite/tree shadow who can get 28e....and vice versa, what about them ??

Would a normally Ku band DVB-S/S2 receiver work with Ka band and whats the kludge if any??

Ka band LNBs are around 4x the cost of Ku band owing to lack of production scale , would the receivers work with them??

I mean as fill in to existing terrestrial Reception. Existing Analogue coverage is extremely poor compared to 1970s UK coverage (pre Ch5 days, C5 created problems, hence it was on Analogue 19.2E)

After Analogue Switch off it's for the 2% to 7% that can't get DTT.

You would have to live beside a cliff. Elevation is 29 degrees. Sky/Freesat elevation is 22.5 degrees. Even a sky dish with bottom edge 20cm above gutter can "see" over most roofs. Dish can be plastic cased rear feed (1/4 area of Irish Sky Dish needed).



You can get Ka LNBs for ordinary L-Band Sat IF. The price will fall rapidly over the next 2 years to Ku prices. A Ku Band LNB is under €5.

You need a DVB-s2 receiver.

It's likely no expensive Quads or Quattro with Multiswitch needed for hotel/Guesthouse/Multiroom/Apartment.

Macy0161 wrote: »

I'd also echo earlier comments - it's actually a well done from me to RTE. It's actually an innovative and cost effective solution.

ditto... it really does seem like a good solution all round and cheap (for RTE) too

Perhaps they should have used all the millions spent so far on DTT transmitters (and the future annual running costs) on a 9e dish/lnb for everyone in the country and ditched DTT altogether... probably would have money left over

No, that's not quite true.

The FTV card scheme was originally funded by BBC, then C4, Five and last ITV joined as they joined the platform.

The BBC never intended to remain encrypted. S4C~digidol (first UK channel FTA) was used to test the Rights issues and UK services intended to be FTA that used Encryption migrated to the then new "Spot Beam" Astra 2D. The BBC leaving FTV scheme (Solas) created a funding crises and it collapsed after ITV left. For a while till Sky decided (on their own initiative) there was no way to get a new card, though existing ones worked. Five was the last terrestrial Channel to leave the system. There are now no channels on the Freesat from Sky Card that "must" be free. Fiver, Five US are not "must carry" or protected terrestrial channels like BBC, ITV, C4 and Five.

Sky for its own marketing reasons has a few PayTV channels on the Freesat-from-Sky card. It is no longer the FTV card. They can enable any pay package on it.

The Owner of Five (German Bertlesmann) has their UK channels for sale at possibly a nominal £1 as they are so unprofitable.

If the new satellite can potentially provide such value for Saorsat, could it also be of interest to Freesat? Most of the UK seems to be covered by 3 spots.

Could that bring us back to a one dish solution?

slegs wrote: »

No, it would eliminate Irish coverage from Freesat as they would only take the spots that cover the UK.

Should we not get those with a slightly bigger dish? And they would have to consider NI.

When SaorSat is in full operation, will RTE still pay to be on the Sky system?

It wouldn't make sense for €15 million of license payers to be going direct to Sky, when RTE have a viable alternative. Sky might carry then for free to keep the Irish customers.

endakenny wrote: »

When Saorsat becomes operational, will it be possible to get the Irish terrestrial channels on Sky via "Other Channels"?

Theoretically, yes, but only with a share of technical jiggery pokery, and it wouldn't be the most user-friendly solution.

watty wrote: »

If RTE was paying for a copy of Saorview on Sky that would be about
€1.1M for EPGs excluding Radio (9 placements)
€9M for FTV /Encryption (assuming 1/20th of charges to BBC)
€3M to €8M for Transponder ( 28.2 is one of most expensive)
Total RTE Cost about €12M a year, likely much more, perhaps €21M

Cost of cards to Consumers 30 x 100,000 = €3M

That's €12M to €20M a year leaving the state to Sky pockets. Only a 1/3rd is real costs, which is still €4M to €7M.

Tony, from the quote from watty.

Do you know what RTE are paying at the moment to be on Sky?

warlikedave wrote: »

Its dependent - i seriously doubt rte will be able to go FTA on 28.2e (right restrictions for programming due to the wide beam on astra2 and also the carriage contract currently in place with sky) so it looks like it will be on the Ka Sat which means teh add channels option isnt one as the lads pointed out so we have to wait and see....:D

It could happen that sky and rte keep thier services agrement in place so no FTA on 28.2 east and also have a Ka Sat ( 9 east ) FTA eire only beam for anyone not willing to use sky....

Ahhh, but I said nothing about them going FTA on 28e.

The 'jiggery pokery' I refer to, is that you'd use a 2x LNBF setup, one aimed at 28E for the Sky channels and the other aimed at 9E for the Irish channels. No diseqc in a Sky box, so you'd instead have to use some other sort of switch (e.g. manual or RF-controlled) which would swap the incoming feed from 28E to 9E, allowing you to tune in the RTE channels on a SkyHD box via other channels (assuming the symbol rate was compatible).

As I said, not user-friendly, but still possible. A separate FTA box would be much easier though.

Even if Sky did do FTV is would only be 5 channels and no HD.

Not the full SaorTV lineup which will expand over next two years. Nor the extra radio channels.

RogerThis wrote: »

Tony, from the quote from watty.

Do you know what RTE are paying at the moment to be on Sky?

RTE pay nothing to be on sky, I think you mis interpreted Watty's point.

STB wrote: »

How easy is to have a 28.2E and 9E Ku and Ka on the one bracket on the one dish.

.

Only currently possible on a Wavefrontier T55. Which is an expensive beast.

28.2 & 13E is about the limit and that's slightly iffy even on 80cm to 90cm dish. Ka band is nearly twice the frequency, thus a dish has nearly x4 gain. A large dish is nearly x4 harder to align than on Ku! (regular satellite).

A regular 65cm Sky dish is too big. Also some Ku mesh dishes may be too open and/or rough. Solid is preferable.

We will have an Irish Spot! In London a 43cm works for Sky and in Limerick you need 65cm in rain. Maybe slightly more in extreme West, South West, North west in heavy west coast rain.

The Ka Sat is more effective power due to spot pointed at US (a novelty, only some of the Schools Satellite Internet and RTE OB has ever had that!).

So the really cheap small 44cm metal cone with rear mounted standard fitting LNB (and secondary mini cassegrain reflector inside lid) will work. These are in a plastic box with square front and tapered rear. Only about 25 Euro. Light so if you buy a pallet from factory the shipping is a lot less than for Sky dishes.


Rear of dish unit (the LNB has been "hacked" for mysterious non-satellite application)
(The other half of pole mount missing) Low weight and low wind load means it can go on a tv bracket mount.


Front (Digiweb Metro outdoor radio beside it)

This doesn't look like a dish. So will usually "beat" the one dish rule

Elevation is 29 degrees for kasat @ 9E compared to 22.5 Degrees for Sky.
Put Diseqc switch at existing dish and run coax to where ever you put this 45cm square plastic box (inner 44cm dish in box).