Why is Saorsat on a new Satellite?

user1842

Hi,

Can anyone answer this question?

Why is RTE going to launch their Saorsat service on a new satellite? When this is launched will the signal be able to be picked up by a Freesat dish with a Freesat tuner?

Why didnt RTE not just add their 4 channels to the Freesat/Sky satellite? For god sake they are already on their just encrypted by Sky. Just make them freeview and job done no?

Thanks

Minstrel27

dmclean1842 wrote: »

ust make them freeview and job done no?

If only it was that simple. There is a thread a million miles long that will give you a good debate. Here it is, http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055968485

JDxtra

Yes, they could have done that. Only one slight issue – your TV licence fee would go up exponentially in price as RTE would have to purchase the rights for their programs to be shown across the UK as well.

user1842

JDxtra wrote: »

Yes, they could have done that. Only one slight issue – your TV licence fee would go up exponentially in price as RTE would have to purchase the rights for their programs to be shown across the UK as well.

Im sure the new Saorsat will be able to be picked up in the UK and a lot of Europe too?

watty

It's unlikely to be picked up in England or rest of Europe. Even most of Wales is unlikely. No matter how big your dish is.


If it wasn't on Ka-Sat, it wouldn't exist at all.
http://www.techtir.ie/saortv/saorsat-coverage

If Saorsat was on ANY other satellite you would need a Licence fee of about €1,900 to €3,200 p.a. for Free To Air!

Also the 5 TV channels on Sky are there at Sky's expense part of payTV. Encryption for a FTV card scheme would cost about €200 extra per person at least on TV licence.

Saorview/Saorsat is a lot different to Sky eventually. http://www.saortv.info/

user1842

So will a sky dish be able to pick it up?

St Senan

No. have a look at the dish here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=66911631&postcount=12

user1842

****

Tony

dmclean1842 wrote: »

Im sure the new Saorsat will be able to be picked up in the UK and a lot of Europe too?

No, the whole idea is that its not picked up outside of Ireland which answers your question as to why it is on a different satellite.

Kensington

If you are within coverage of DTT, you won't need SaorSat.

If you are not, then SoarSat hasn't launched yet anyway, so certified equipment and pricing details haven't been made known at this time.

watty

dmclean1842 wrote: »

So will a sky dish be able to pick it up?

you need a Solid dish. The holes and surface of a sky dish is likely too large and rough since it's nearly twice the frequency.
You need a different type of LNBF (ka -band)
and point dish at 9E.

user1842

Could RTE not have made an agreement with sky to supply these channels.

SKY provides the hardware (RTE could subsidise if necessary)

SKY provide a special RTE card that only shows the RTE channels.

Im sure SKY would jump at the chance as I would say most would pay for the extra SKY channels.

Im sure this would cost a lot less that 1.5 million a year.

But maybe im totally wrong?

You can get a special freeview card for your sky box in the UK, why not in Ireland

watty

It would cost €12M to €40M a year.

The BBC, ITV C4 and Five are pulling out of that scheme (BBC entirely gone). It's too expensive. I think at one stage costing BBC over €80M a year.

Also it means a closed platform always trying to entice people to payTV. Saorsat is an open platform. Even PC DVB-S2 cards will work.

For Ireland also it would mean Satellite controlled entirely by a Foreign PayTV company (Sky) that doesn't even own any Satellites.

Also cards DO NOT limit Geographic area. They only raise revenue. To Rights holders for RTE true limitation of Geographic area is what counts!
You any idea how many N.I. Sky subs there are in mainland UK?
UK FTV cards in Ireland?
Sky boxes with FTV cards or Subscriptions from Spain to Cyprus?
How many non-Sky UK/Ireland subscriptions that Pubs and other sports fans have over the last few years of Sky italia, Jazzera, Tring, Cyfra+, Digitalb and others?

Cards only raise money. They are impossible to geographically limit. Everyone knows this now. (some of us knew it 15 years ago!).

Also carriage alone on 28.2E would be several times Ka-Sat before you add Sky Encryption charges, EPG charges (More than entire cost of ka-Sat carriage), card call centre costs (over €1M a year even if RTE ran it) and Sky Card management charges.

user1842

watty wrote: »

It would cost €12M to €40M a year.

The BBC, ITV C4 and Five are pulling out of that scheme (BBC entirely gone). It's too expensive. I think at one stage costing BBC over €80M a year.

Also it means a closed platform always trying to entice people to payTV. Saorsat is an open platform. Even PC DVB-S2 cards will work.

So are sky paying €12M to €40M a year to provide Irish Sky viewers with the four Irish channels or is that just what Sky would charge for the service? Seems to me like a total rip off.

Another question did the Irish government give SKY permission to rebroadcast the Irish channels on their network? Is permission needed? If so it sounds like a bargaining chip to me, as if RTE was not on SKY, I would not get sky

watty

Sky is a rip off. But Ofcom investigated three times for three broadcasters:
BBC
ITV
Rapture

and has decided Sky Charges are OK.

But also the Ku Carriage charges inherently higher. The Ka-Sat has more than TWENTY times the capacity of a modern Ku Satellite like Eurobird2 or Astra2D. Almost 1000x original TV satellites. That makes Ka-Sat carriage FAR cheaper.

Also RTE NL needs Ka-Sat to backup feed the DTT sites, anyway. 28.2E Sky isn't suitable. BBC, Five etc also use non-Sky Satellite feeds for DTT sites. So in a sense the viewer cost for Ka-Sat is really nearly zero for RTE NL.

user1842

Ok sorry for all the questions one final one:

I understand that BBC has to pay for broadcasting rights for programs to all the countries it broadcasts to. As Ireland can receive the BCC freesat signal, the BBC are paying the programs makers for the extra population they are broadcasting to in Ireland. This is the reason RTE cannot use the same for SAORSAT?

If the above is the case why not allow the BCC freeview signal be reboradcast in Ireland. It would be nice to stick up an aerial and get freeview in Dublin. There must be old relay sites and could be made operational?

Would it be legal to do so, I know there was an attempt to add the BBC channels to SAORVIEW but it fell through?

watty

UK is more than 20x size of Ireland.
UK TV has been in Ireland since BEFORE RTE started!
85% of people in Ireland had Analogue UTV/HTV before ITV was available on Satellite.

So UK has always pretty much had UK/Ireland Rights.

Similarly since RTE has been Broadcast via Terrestrial in Analogue to N.I. seriously since 1970s (now nearly 50% population coverage in Analogue), the fact that Saorsat can be received in all of N.I. isn't an Issue.

Also Sky pays BBC to have BBC1 & BBC2 on the Irish EPG and BBC pays Sky to be on Sky UK EPG!

RTE and TG4 are on Virgin cable and SKy pay TV in N.I. also.

There was never an Attempt to Add UK channels to Saorview. Saorview is the FREE Tv. UK channels terrestrially would realistically only have been provided by a Pay TV provider. Which would Irish Digital Terrestrial, but not Saorview. Pay TV on Irish DTT is economically viable. Government has been trying to do that since 2000!
It's TV, Boxer, OneVision and Easy TV all looked at payTV. But no-one signed. It's a good way to lose over €10M a year, at least.

If the above is the case why not allow the BCC freeview signal be reboradcast in Ireland. It would be nice to stick up an aerial and get freeview in Dublin. There must be old relay sites and could be made operational?

It would have to use at least one whole multiplex channel nationwide allocated to payTV. Who would pay the Roll out costs, Electricity, Distribution costs and maintenance, any one of which is much more expensive than the Royalties? It's maybe €10M a year.

STB

dmclean1842 wrote: »

Ok sorry for all the questions one final one:

I understand that BBC has to pay for broadcasting rights for programs to all the countries it broadcasts to. As Ireland can receive the BCC freesat signal, the BBC are paying the programs makers for the extra population they are broadcasting to in Ireland. This is the reason RTE cannot use the same for SAORSAT?

If the above is the case why not allow the BCC freeview signal be reboradcast in Ireland. It would be nice to stick up an aerial and get freeview in Dublin. There must be old relay sites and could be made operational?

Would it be legal to do so, I know there was an attempt to add the BBC channels to SAORVIEW but it fell through?

Are you in the UK ?

Just get a HD combo box, does the british stations (BBC1 HD 2,3.4, ITV HD, etc Ch4 E4 Sky News etc) and irish digital stations (RT1,2,Tv3,TG4 ,3e andRTE news Now) in channel one list

user1842

STB wrote: »

Are you in the UK ?

Just get a HD combo box, does the british stations (BBC1 HD 2,3.4, ITV HD, etc Ch4 E4 Sky News etc) and irish digital stations (RT1,2,Tv3,TG4 ,3e andRTE news Now) in channel one list

Im not in the UK. I thought that you cannot get Freeview in Dublin unless you have a massive aerial and a mast head amplifier and only then if your lucky.

Freesat is my next option but I dont want a STB and only a very few TVs have built in Freesat SAT tuners.

Ideally I would love to be able to pick up Freeview and Saroview using my USB digital TV card and use windows media center to play the lot but I know thats just a pipe dream.

STB

dmclean1842 wrote: »

Im not in the UK. I thought that you cannot get Freeview in Dublin unless you have a massive aerial and a mast head amplifier and only then if your lucky.

Freesat is my next option but I dont want a STB and only a very few TVs have built in Freesat SAT tuners.

Ideally I would love to be able to pick up Freeview and Saroview using my USB digital TV card and use windows media center to play the lot but I know thats just a pipe dream.

The HD Combo Box - does both the Saorview and the Freesat stations (without the 7 day epg for Freesat - just now/next). But they are in one controllable channel list. €160-€200.

There is ven a Linux box that has 2 sat tuner and a USB dtt tuner that support 7 day epg for both and plays all media formats - called the VU+ Duo - good thread on it in the Foreign satellite forum.

And again same crack if you want to build a HTPC - can be done no problem, loads of DVB-2 DVB-T combo cards out there.

You will then need an aerial for Saorview and a Sat Dish for the DVB-S2/Freesat signals.

Combo Boxes
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056086354

Loads of discussions on building your own HTPC in this and the terrestrial area.

Everything is possible!

icdg

Plenty of places to discuss this, really. Maybe if we keep Saorsat questions to the Saorsat thread?