Magnet TV or Sky+/SkyHD

Omnipresence

Hello,
I'm fortunate enough that my new gaff has fibre-to-the home connection with Magnet networks. This is great for broadband, so sorted there...
However I still don't know whether to use their TV service.... I have heard varied reports of quality/outages of the digital TV offering... this could be teething problems ... dunno... However I do like the idea of Sky+/SkyHD... seems like a more polished solution....

Anyone any info... anyone from Magnet lurking around here ???

-A

watty

See
http://icdg.bytelive.com/

The ICDGopedia by members of ICDG on Boards.ie


See Sky Specific and Satellite General sections

bk

aloleary wrote:

However I do like the idea of Sky+/SkyHD... seems like a more polished solution....

Sky+ won't work with Magnet, Sky+ requires that you be connected to an analogue telephone line, since you have a fibre line from Magnet, then you can't get Sky+.

However you can get standard Sky, but it will cost an extra €100, you can't get multiroom (needs phone line) and you can't sign up to ppv events, etc.

Omnipresence

Crap...

Sky+/HD analogue phone connection to magnet ip phone anyone ?

Not having a choice is crap... how do magent and these companies get total monopoly ?

I use NTL and NTL broadband MAX where i am now and its fantastic but I am unable to transfer !!

-Alan

bk

aloleary wrote:

Crap...

Sky+/HD analogue phone connection to magnet ip phone anyone ?

Not having a choice is crap... how do magent and these companies get total monopoly ?

I use NTL and NTL broadband MAX where i am now and its fantastic but I am unable to transfer !!

-Alan

In fairness to Magnet, they use VoIP which isn't compatible with the technology that Sky uses. This is a problem for many BB users and it is really skys fault. It is believed that for the next generation Sky HD boxes, they wiill use ethernet so that you can use it with Sky.

However I do agree completely with your point that companies shouldn't be allowed to do exclusive deals with property development and Management companies, it just shouldn't be allowed it simply reduces customer choice and creates mini monopolies.

Actually this is something I would love to see IOFFL to take a look at.

cormac_byrne

bk wrote:

In fairness to Magnet, they use VoIP which isn't compatible with the technology that Sky uses. This is a problem for many BB users and it is really skys fault.

I assume you're talking about getting sky by satellite to get sky+

If so get an analog terminal adapter ATA and plug the Sky box into that.
(Magnet will give you one if you ask) Don't think that it would officially be supported but you should get away with it. Or get your own ATA and put in blueface, smart or freespeech config into it.

I've just got magnet but not hooked up TV yet. they've told me that it requires 8Mbps for a good TV connection (my line has tested at 6.3 Mbps apparently) Assume if you have Fibre there shouldn't be an issue with the TV.

Magnet also do sky by wire, dunno if you get a sky+ digibox this way or just the extra channels on the Magnet TV box (Aminet110), if it's the latter maybe replace the magnet box with a PVR
e.g. http://www.trimedia.co.uk/product.asp?id=203

paulm17781

cormac_byrne wrote:

If so get an analog terminal adapter ATA and plug the Sky box into that.
(Magnet will give you one if you ask) Don't think that it would officially be supported but you should get away with it. Or get your own ATA and put in blueface, smart or freespeech config into it.

This won't work. Sky needs an analogue phone service. It uses it to send data, much like a modem. An ATA converts analogue to digital and sends it that way. The sky box will not work over that. Try a dial up connection through the ATA, it will not work.

bk

cormac_byrne wrote:

I've just got magnet but not hooked up TV yet. they've told me that it requires 8Mbps for a good TV connection (my line has tested at 6.3 Mbps apparently) Assume if you have Fibre there shouldn't be an issue with the TV.

I hope you won't need Sky Multiroom or Sky+, because there are not going to work with Magnet, even with the ATA that you described. Sky needs an analogue connection just like a modem or fax, it won't work over VoIP, even with an ATA.

Also it looks like you won't be able to get even one TV stream on your Magnet connection. MPEG2 (which Magnet seem to be using) requires about 4mb/s for Standard Defition TV, so they would need 8mb/s to give you both one TV stream and the 4mb/s BB and you can forget about getting a second TV or even recording off one channel while watching another. It jsut goes to show the limitations of IPTV over DSL.

watty

You can use Sky+ without phone. But not a Mirror sub.

If their ATA supports high speed fax (14.4K) then the Sky modem might work.

PPV can be done over the phone manually. If you pester them. Personally they can keep all their PPV and interactive phone charge stuff!

Blaster99

bk wrote:

Also it looks like you won't be able to get even one TV stream on your Magnet connection. MPEG2 (which Magnet seem to be using) requires about 4mb/s for Standard Defition TV, so they would need 8mb/s to give you both one TV stream and the 4mb/s BB and you can forget about getting a second TV or even recording off one channel while watching another. It jsut goes to show the limitations of IPTV over DSL.

He has a fibre connection, so no limitations.

bk

Blaster99 wrote:

He has a fibre connection, so no limitations.

I was actually commenting on cormac_byrne, who has DSL, not fibre.

BTW there are also issues with IPTV over fibre (but the issues are less serious). It is interesting to note that Verizon, with one of the largest fibre rollouts in the world isn't actually using IPTV technology over their fibre network, instead they are using traditional cable type technology where each and every channel is actually sent down the fibre to each customer and the customer uses their decoder to "tune" into the particular channel.

Omnipresence

Yeah I can get "Sky By Wire" from Magnet...

I don't really like sky ... but again the whole package thats offered with sky+ (skyHD in future) cannot be compared ..

But again thats not offered by Magnet... I would have to take the slimed down version without a PVR and integrated schedule etc...

With sky you can also order the freeview card for a one off fee of 150 euro and get all the free to air channels... although I wonder if anyone can tell me if this is available in ireland ?

-Alan

DemonOfTheFall

SkyHD sounds like it'll be fairly crap anyway. There's not much lined up to be on it really... Limited release of a couple of stations.

gibo_ie

bk wrote:

However I do agree completely with your point that companies shouldn't be allowed to do exclusive deals with property development and Management companies, it just shouldn't be allowed it simply reduces customer choice and creates mini monopolies.

Folks,This IS NOT ALLOWED in Ireland, I currently have a case against Sky Conway and Danninger going through Irish Competition Authority about the same issue. It is totally anti-competitive and they were shocked to learn that some companies have a monopoly in buildings that the builders would not allow other carriers into the building. Please please please register your complaint on http://www.tca.ie/complaints.html as the more complaints they get the easier it will be for them to sort this problem.They review complaints each Friday morning.
cheers
Gibo

Blaster99

aloleary wrote:

With sky you can also order the freeview card for a one off fee of 150 euro and get all the free to air channels... although I wonder if anyone can tell me if this is available in ireland ?

Are you referring to Sky's FTV card that's available in the UK for £20? You can't get it in Ireland but you can normally get them on eBay or on web sites or through somebody in the UK.

Sorry bk about the fibre confusion, I wasn't reading the message you responded to correctly... I agree, IPTV is a dead-end.

Does the Competition Authority ever achieve anything, by the way? They always struck me as yet another toothless gesture towards market regulation. Price fixing is rampant in Ireland.

watty

aloleary wrote:

With sky you can also order the freeview card for a one off fee of 150 euro and get all the free to air channels... although I wonder if anyone can tell me if this is available in ireland ?

-Alan

Er... no.

The Free to air channels don't need ANY card. Only C4, Five and Sky3 use the Freeview card.

You can buy any 150 Euro satellite system and get all the free channels.
http://bytelive.com/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Free+To+Air+on+Sky


If you order a Sky sub to get a free Sky System:
* You own the gear from day one
* min. Initial Contract for 1 year, and phone connected for one year
* You can pay an extra 37 Euro to aviod phone requirement
* You can downgrade to a 2 x mix pack after 1 month
(From these channels:
http://bytelive.com/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Sky+Channel+Lineup
In these mix packs:
http://bytelive.com/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=mix+packs
)

* A cancelled Irish Card gets Sky3
* After cancelling renewal can be for about 2 months and takes minutes
* After cancelling the free channels all are unaffected.

ON south/south east facing windows, the dish may even work inside through a window in apartments not allowing a dish.

You can get a dish disguised as a patio lamp and put it on Balcony.

Omnipresence

watty wrote:

Er... no.

The Free to air channels don't need ANY card. ...

Er... yes....

Sorry this is what I was talking about :

http://www.sky.com/skycom/article/0,,91095-1178747,00.html


Freesat from Sky is the best way to get access to free digital TV in your home for only £150.

150GBP... was just wondering what this was about .. not freeview but Freesat..

Again I'm a Dumb consumer... just looking around...

On the competition thing... its pretty scary... where I am moving into is what only can be described as a massive new development in Dublin. Note: Only magenet triple play have got contract... no phone line, no NTL....

NO COMPETITION.... :mad:

Omnipresence

Oh yeah.. this stops me being able to get monitored home security also ... unless I go for an expensive SIM card based one but these are not certified by the Gardai just yet !!

Blaster99

aloleary wrote:

Freesat from Sky is the best way to get access to free digital TV in your home for only £150.

150GBP... was just wondering what this was about .. not freeview but Freesat..

It's £150 for the equipment + card, or £20 for the card. If you already have a Sky Digibox and dish, then all you need is the card.

paulm17781

aloleary wrote:

Oh yeah.. this stops me being able to get monitored home security also ... unless I go for an expensive SIM card based one but these are not certified by the Gardai just yet !!

The Gardai don't do home monitoring. Third party security firms do it.

NIBBS

yeah, he means stuff like Eircom Phonewatch (which I think is crap anyway, purely from what people have told me)......I think it's crazy that people haven't got the option to go with whichever carrier they want for these services - but a big problem is that you won't get someone else like NTL going into an estate that's precabled with another vendor for just a few users, it wouldn't be a financial gain......

cormac_byrne

bk wrote:

Also it looks like you won't be able to get even one TV stream on your Magnet connection. MPEG2 (which Magnet seem to be using) requires about 4mb/s for Standard Defition TV, so they would need 8mb/s to give you both one TV stream and the 4mb/s BB and you can forget about getting a second TV or even recording off one channel while watching another. It jsut goes to show the limitations of IPTV over DSL.

Connected up the TV last night, the picture & sound are excellent. Apart from the occasional blockiness on the screen. In this regard it's simlar to my Sky digital, which can go blocky when it's raining heavily (or the magpies are attacking the LNB). What's most annoying when Sky glitches is the loud clicking that accompagnies it as the audio breaks up. Magnet's audio has so far not broken up, except for while changing channel.

Changing channel is slow 1 - 2 seconds, the audio can be a bit darlek like when the new channel starts streaming. The EPG that covers nearly half of the screen and stays on for about a second when changing channel is awful.

Re: second TV, yes that would probably be too much, certainly not while downloading anything. expect they have QoS settings in the router to protect TV & phone from downloading.

Re: recording 2nd channel, I would be more optimistic about this, as the PVR doesn't necessarily have to download the program in realtime.

"The AmiNET500 is designed as a cost-effective and rugged IPTV decoder with inbuilt PVR, capable of displaying video from either incoming multicast or VoD streams, or from the inbuilt hard drive.

Where the user has access to a high bandwidth external network connection, the AmiNET500 allows the user to watch incoming streaming IPTV or video on demand. The AmiNET500 will support simultaneous watch and record, time shifting, or allow the user to record the incoming stream whilst watching a previously recorded stream from the internal hard drive.

Where the bandwidth of the external network connection, or quality of service is insufficient to allow direct user access to network video streams, video content can be uploaded in nonreal time to the AmiNET500 internal hard drive, for subsequent playback with full trick-play support."

N.B. I have no idea if Magnet intend offering any PVR.
They are rolling out Video on Demand, If they were to put all of yesterdays programs or even a whole weeks programs onto the 'On Demand' system, you could download any number of programs, the quality of the live stream and numbers of TVs connected would be less of an issue

bk

cormac_byrne wrote:

N.B. I have no idea if Magnet intend offering any PVR.
They are rolling out Video on Demand, If they were to put all of yesterdays programs or even a whole weeks programs onto the 'On Demand' system, you could download any number of programs, the quality of the live stream and numbers of TVs connected would be less of an issue

VoD is good, but not great, IMO I prefer real PVR's. I used VoD in the US on Comcast cable, watching a couple of episodes of Rome via Vod was great, but the problem was that there really wasn't very much content on it, just HBO stuff.

Will Magnet have every show on every channel, very unlikely, it more likely that they will have a limited number of shows and movies, which you will probably have to pay extra for.

Also there are some major technical problems with using VoD as a complete TV solution.

BTW I've got 6 months of shows on my TiVo.

watty

bk wrote:

I was actually commenting on cormac_byrne, who has DSL, not fibre.

BTW there are also issues with IPTV over fibre (but the issues are less serious). It is interesting to note that Verizon, with one of the largest fibre rollouts in the world isn't actually using IPTV technology over their fibre network, instead they are using traditional cable type technology where each and every channel is actually sent down the fibre to each customer and the customer uses their decoder to "tune" into the particular channel.

If you have 4000 users watching 100 channels, then traditional IP packaged DVB (a kind of multicast/broadcast IP that needs no handshake) is more efficient than even broadcast IPTV in bandwidth.

Video on demand only makes bandwidth sense if each small neighbourhood has its own video juke box. True VOD can never compete with DVB in bandwidth. Hence sky's ploy on Sky Box office to eventually axe the every 15 minute copies of same channel and just have one for each video, giving 5 times as much choice. The reserved storage on the Sky+ or SkyHD boxes will speculatively store the video in case they are ordered. Instant viewing from start of film mimicing VOD. Far more sense than IPTV or VOD, works on cable or fibre too of course.

bk

watty wrote:

If you have 4000 users watching 100 channels, then traditional IP packaged DVB (a kind of multicast/broadcast IP that needs no handshake) is more efficient than even broadcast IPTV in bandwidth.

Video on demand only makes bandwidth sense if each small neighbourhood has its own video juke box. True VOD can never compete with DVB in bandwidth. Hence sky's ploy on Sky Box office to eventually axe the every 15 minute copies of same channel and just have one for each video, giving 5 times as much choice. The reserved storage on the Sky+ or SkyHD boxes will speculatively store the video in case they are ordered. Instant viewing from start of film mimicing VOD. Far more sense than IPTV or VOD, works on cable or fibre too of course.

Yes there are three major problems with "true" IPTV/VoD services:

1) Not enough bandwidth to carry multiple streams, in particular HD streams (about 10mb/s required using MPEG4). DSL tech is particularly hit badly by this problem, cable and Fibre potentially less so in the future.

2) Storage space for lots of video content isn't exactly cheap.

3) The ratio of customers to streaming servers. I have heard some shockingly bad figures, which means you would need lots of servers to stream content to all your customers, this is very expensive and a major road block to VoD.

Some people have this idea that VoD will mean you can watch any show made in the last 50 years at anytime. While this is a wet dream for the content companies (the long tail busineess model) the reality is that we won't get anything like this for many years to come. In the meantime, like Watty describes we will have hybrid PVR/VoD services, where the top 10 movies are downloaded to your PVR without you knowing and are immediately played when you order them.

Or similarly they download tomorrows top 20 show (Cornation Street, etc.) or if they get really clever they could setup a system where you can order a show 24 hours before hand, or even subscribe to a series and they multicast the new episode to all people who ordered the show, the night before the show.

I'm sure Sky is looking at systems like these, in fact it gels with the recent rumour that Sky is going to make Sky+ free and the standard box for customers. With the Sky+ box as standard they could start to deliver these types of services.

Supposedly the BBC is also looking at such service in conjunction with Freeview and BT and I wouldn't be surprised if NTL is also looking at it.

Omnipresence

paulm17781 wrote:

The Gardai don't do home monitoring. Third party security firms do it.

The Gardai will only work and call out to a home monitoring system that meets a specific specification (some ISO-blah), two I know of are ADT and Phonewatch... both of these need an analog phone line...

I was just saying I could setup a monitoring system with a SIM card (offered by some companies... that can txt my mobile or call me) but I cannot hook it up to diall the Gardai as they do no recognise this type of setup...

Again just more anger that I don't have an option to choose what I want...

paulm17781

aloleary wrote:

The Gardai will only work and call out to a home monitoring system that meets a specific specification (some ISO-blah), two I know of are ADT and Phonewatch... both of these need an analog phone line...

I was under the impression that phonewatch and ADT alarms call Phonewatch and ADT call centres, from here the Gardai are contacted. I stand to be corrected on this.

watty

bk wrote:

Some people have this idea that VoD will mean you can watch any show made in the last 50 years at anytime. While this is a wet dream for the content companies (the long tail busineess model) the reality is that we won't get anything like this for many years to come. In the meantime, like Watty describes we will have hybrid PVR/VoD services, where the top 10 movies are downloaded to your PVR without you knowing and are immediately played when you order them.

The math suggests maybe never. Amazingly in USA a company did a true VOD trial in a small town. They spent MILLIONS. It basically only worked if only 0.5% or less used it. 20 minutes with pen, paper & calculator would have saved a lot of money.

Similarly repeated attempts to use Broadcast mediums without creating tiny cells won't work for Broadband. New Satellite Broadband systems are great till they start to get many customers (Actually I lied a bit, even then the near 2 second latency makes them unplesent for many users).

Cable only works for broadband because in reality each bunch of users are on a small segment with separate higher speed backhaul, it is like a cabled cell phone system. This why it is so costly to take a city cabled for analog and make it work for Digital phone/TV/BB combo. Nearly each major street needs new gear. So having used up all the bandwidth then for BB, phone and TV channels (with ever greater demand for BB), it can never do more than a handful of HDTV and no true VOD at all.

The Hybrid PVR/VOD ala Sky model (All newer Sky+ already have 1/2 storage reserved for this) will be final nail on coffin of Video Rental. Already they try to compete with HMV, Tesco etc selling stuff rather than rental. Already video rental only does little more than the top 20 or 30 films which can be downloadable to a PVR on an on going basis (Only need to add 5 or 10 new titles PER MONTH, very little bandwidth). 200G of reserved storage on a 450G disk allows FIFTY films available to rent instantly.

The Satellite transmit bandwidth for 3million customers is less than 640kbits/s to change the entire catalog of fifty films every month!

The hybrid PVR/VOD is always going to win. If Sky only changed 5 films a month out of the fifty they could even put the stream on EVERY transponder, it would background download no matter which channel you watched. In fact if they had equivalent of ONE radio station in BW on every transponder, they could have 20 fresh films a month (no matter which channel you watch) out of the 50 to 60 stored on your PVR.

With a dual tuner as there is in all Sky+ and to be released Sky HDTV box, they can have up 30Mbit/s download (from a dedicated transponder) while you are not recording. About 2 films an hour. So one month of only 2 hours a night non-recording would be 60 films.

Makes true VOD look stupid.

bk

watty wrote:

The math suggests maybe never.

I wouldn't quite say never, never is a long time in the IT industry. I remember only 5 years ago that the storage and distribution of music was a big problem. Now itunes feeds millions of downloads with little problem. Video is a big problem at the moment, however technology advances at such a quick pace, it will get easier.

There are many companies working hard on this tech, a big reason for IBM's Cell processor (same used in PS3) rack servers is designed to serve more video customers per server.

watty wrote:

Cable only works for broadband because in reality each bunch of users are on a small segment with separate higher speed backhaul, it is like a cabled cell phone system. This why it is so costly to take a city cabled for analog and make it work for Digital phone/TV/BB combo. Nearly each major street needs new gear. So having used up all the bandwidth then for BB, phone and TV channels (with ever greater demand for BB), it can never do more than a handful of HDTV and no true VOD at all.

Well, if the customer per node is low enough and if you remove all the digital, analogue and VoIP channels and instead use all the frequency to carry BB using DOCSIS 3 type tech, you can easily do shared multi gigabit speeds that would be capable of delivering independent HD streams to all the customers, there are people already working on this type of tech.

However the number of customers per node would need to be less then 200 (which isn't unusual in better networks) and you would still be faced with the number of customers per server problem. But it is doable on cable and Fibre, at least from a bandwidth perspective.

watty wrote:

Makes true VOD look stupid.

I agree with almost everything you say Watty, hydrid PVR/VoD services are what will develop first and be very important. However what I could eventually see happening is a hybrid service, where the most popular recent shows and movies are preloaded to PVR's, while older content would be accessible through true VoD streaming. The idea being that most people would watch most TV through normal TV broadcasts or preloaded popular content, while only a small group of people would be viewing older content via true VoD and therefore put less strain on the network.

It is important to point out that US cable companies and NTL UK have already done limited VoD services and it is proving highly successful.

watty

My "weasel" word was maybe

If storage keeps ahead of bandwidth as it has since 1970s, then the hybrid "background download on PVR" pretending to be VOD will always be cheaper and offer more content and better performance.

Indeed the video equvialent of iTunes is here today, but just as I prefer to buy a CD than iTune, for a long while I'll prefer to buy a DVD than a download. Esp. in a few years if I have a HD TV and buy BluRay disks. One bluray disk (available almost now) is close to my monthly cap.

Storage stays ahead of bandwidth.


We live in interesting times.

cormac_byrne

bk wrote:

Also it looks like you won't be able to get even one TV stream on your Magnet connection. MPEG2 (which Magnet seem to be using) requires about 4mb/s for Standard Defition TV, so they would need 8mb/s to give you both one TV stream and the 4mb/s BB and you can forget about getting a second TV or even recording off one channel while watching another. It jsut goes to show the limitations of IPTV over DSL.

Done a bit more testing

Magnet told me that my line is capable of 6.3 Mbps which mightn't be enough for TV as they recommended 8 Mbps. (N.B. this only mentioned after signup)

My package is for 3Mb down /512kbps up + 6 tv channels + phone (voip)

The upload is pretty constant at just under 1Mbps
The download varies from 1 - 4 Mbps (not tested it thoroughly to be honest)
The download indicator on the irishisptest site does sometimes jump to 5 or 6 before settling at a lower figure.

last night the d/l was 3.99, I turned on the tv box and the d/l dropped to
2.67, after turning off the tv box the d/l went to 3.82.

So by my estimate the tv stream consumes about 2.5Mbps
(probably would be more if I was watching something livelier than Oireachtas report)

Downloading a large file or running irishisptest does cause serious interference to the tv picture. casual web browsing or phone usage doesn't seem to affect it.

Naively I was expecting the 3Mb d/l and the TV stream to be completely separated.

I can live with the fact that they're not, in fact it's an advantage to have free extra d/l when not watching the telly. Would prefer better QoS for the tv though. Will see what can be done, I don't have the router password to see what QoS options there are.

In summary

- broadband better than advertised

- phone working well, blueface setup also works

- tv bit iffy (but ok as I'm only using it as an alternative to wonky aerial in the attic for RTE, TV3, TG4)

- connecting a second iptv box doesn't look likely (not a prob for me, but may be an issue for others)

special mention for the EPG which looks crap and doesn't work
(no program listings, listings from yesterday?)
and the slowness of the channel change

also as I've only 1 scart on TV needed to get smart scart block to connect along with with dvd player & sky digibox (for free uk channels) need to put digibox into standby to allow iptv box. I suppose connecting the RF in/out would remove this hassle.

I image most users wouldn't be trying to connect both Sky & magnet TV, particularly if they have NTL.