almost 2021 still no Virgin HD

IrishHomer wrote: »

As title says.

It's almost 2021 and Saorview still have no Virgin Ireland channels in HD.

WTF is going on, my family won't watch SD channels for the past decade

It is very poor, as I said on another thread, VM do the bare minimum on Saorview. They must be aware of the numbers of people using FTA tv, yes that is competition for their subscription operation, so why support it but then why not maximise the potential offered by FTA. When possible we watch or record programmes on ITV, a practice repeated all over the country I'm sure. Allowing a subscription service aquire half the channels on Saorview was a bad move by the regulator, it's done now but the regulator should insist on standards. I believe Virgin have a significant share in ITV, yet ITV are involved in freesat, Freeview and Britbox. There is also the restricted access to the VM player along with all that.

VM are also locking heads with Eir along Saorview. They had VM One HD & VM Three HD and VM One+1 (now intermittent service) running on the Eir Vision service. Now all HD services are gone for months and the VM One+1 usually is just a black screen. I often wonder what kind of small minded business model their execs are working on. As other posters have inferred, given the choice of watching a programme on VM or alternatively going to one of the UK channels to watch in HD even with British commentary for sport is a no brainer. I would prefer to watch commentary by Irish presenters for the Ireland slant but usually watch games (esp Rugby) on UK HD and switch to VM for half time and after match punditry. They look silly and give an annoying image when their people can't seem to come to business agreements with other broadcasters/carriers to further their own stubborn attitude (just as was with TV3).

Machinehead wrote: »

Good to see last night that Virgin Media One HD & VM Three HD have now restarted to broadcast in HD on my Eir Vision STB. Was disappointing to have these only in SD, even though they had DOGS indicating that they were supposed to be in HD. Good to have the return of HD before the Six Nations championship.

Good for you, but it's a disgrace that the only way to watch Ireland's only independent tv channels in HD is through pay tv.

galtee boy wrote: »

Good for you, but it's a disgrace that the only way to watch Ireland's only independent tv channels in HD is through pay tv.

I've said the same myself on these forums for years. Back in the day of crap analogue terrestrial for me in my area, the only way to get a decent picture was via Sky. RTÉ have stepped up to the mark with their HD offerings but heads at higher levels in government, Saorview and Virgin Media need to locked together & have this dismal service dragged kicking and screaming out of the dark ages into the 21st. century.

JDxtra wrote: »

They've only themselves to blame for the dwindling TV numbers. Netflix at the push of a button with all the HD (and 4K) content you could want on demand.

The days of soft SD broadcast TV with tons of ads are numbered.

THIS! It made me pause and think when was the last time i've turned on Irish TV... Maybe 8 months ago. Wife still tunes in for RTE news every now and then but that's it.
My kids (6 and 8 year old) have never watch Irish live TV. Between Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney+ they have everything they need or want to watch. I think they are the generation that will kill "live" TV as they have never experienced it or care for it.

Machinehead wrote: »

That's a shame really. I totally get your point. I'm of the age where I'm approaching retirement age much too quickly. I remember when we got Sky (pre Sky Digital) over 30 years ago I & my newborns rarely watched RTÉ. This was due in the main to two factors, 1/ analogue TV picture quality was decrepit, 2/ content was felt to insular & regional. Nowadays it's a complete situation reversal (the big reveal of old age). The first stations checked on the guide are RTÉ's channels, then it's the BBC network, then Channel 4 & then Dave! After that it's mindless surfing through the TV Guide, Netflix, Disney+ or Amazon to find something to watch. (Mind you family subscriptions are great, one pays for Netflix, another Amazon & I pay for Disney+ -Marvel & Pixar for the grandchildren!).

Yeah I know what you mean, it is a bit shame. I personally have limited time to watch tv so its always going to be TV show I can watch on-demand and without adverts. I'm not interested in sports on tv, if I'm not playing I'm not interested And news I get from RTE app on the phone.

And for kids I think its very interesting to see from their perspective, the youngest one is 6 and she doesn't get the point of live tv. On one occasion I was trying to explain it to her and she told me its boring, you have to watch only what they tell you to watch and you can't forward to next!:D:D:D

lgs 4 wrote: »

Virgin with being behind the sky paywall and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland dragging heels on HD Saorview channels. Virgin and hiding behind the excuse that 2RN (RTÉ Networks) fees are too high.

Perhaps 2RN's fees might be too high, but who are we to be the judge on that? Individual channels seem to decide what fees are appropriate. All we need to do is look across the Brexit divide and look at Channel 4, who when they thought the HD carriage fees on Freesat were too high, went on to pull the FTA HD variant from the Freesat EPG. Now their HD satellite version is behind a paywall (crazy though, it can be tuned manually) yet FTA on terrestrial Freeview. It's like VM being in HD on terrestrial but not on the Saorview EPG.