MUX 2 launch date ?

gordongekko

watty wrote: »

UTV is likely to lose N.I. DTT to ITV PLC if ITV PLC has its own way. The only faint hope for STV remaining independent is maybe Scottish Independence, all the rest of Mainland UK independent TV is gone.

November 2012 we also received the positive news, as announced by the UK Culture Secretary Maria Miller, that UTV’s broadcast licence had been renewed for a further ten years to 2024, once the present licence expires in 2014. The announcement recognised the major role UTV plays in Northern Ireland, both as a broadcaster reflecting what is happening on-screen, and as a business providing employment for staff, contractors and the creative industries. The commitment of our staff has never been stronger and the quality of our regional output continues to enjoy the highest ratings across the entire ITV Network

Onthe3rdDay

irishfeen wrote: »

But in reality if TV3 lost all ITV live/archive programming the numbers watching would be minuscule... I'm sure sky would prefer UTV on 103 with high viewership rather then TV3 with very little.

If TV3 ever lost it's ITV shows it would go off air in the morning. It fills up daytime with very cheap programmes that cover much of it's Irish content commitments. It's unlikely they'd make any irish programmes at all if they had a choice. Just relay ITV all day.

SKY only have the irish stations on the EPG to drive subscriptions. There are many people around the country that use SKY to receive RTE because their Saorview reception is poor. Yes, there is Saorsat but it's complicated or appears to be to the average man on the street. The first five stations on Saorview will always probably be the first five stations on the SKY EPG.

I do think if a rival broadcaster offered a wheelbarrow of cash to SKY that they would consider moving TV3 and 3e, However that won't be happening in this financial climate

The Cush

galtee boy wrote: »

Mux 2 is needed for RTE One HD I presume, but other than that, having Mux 2 switched on makes no other difference ? ie no extra channels, RTE One HD will replace RTE One SD , so to the ordinary punter in the street, no other change will be visible ?

Correct, no visible change other than RTÉ 1 from SD to HD format. No extra channels or other changes that we know of.

The Cush

irishfeen wrote: »

But aren't 101-104 sky epg numbers not put aside for terrestrial broadcasters like the UK?.. So potentially TV3 could loose their prime position if they jumped ship?

These epg positions are reserved for the PSB channels in the UK and Ireland, before 3e (Channel 6) was purchased by TV3 they were unable to get a prime epg position but once they became part of TV3 and under their PSB licence they were allocated position 105. TV3's licence expires September 19th 2018.

irishfeen

The Cush wrote: »

These epg positions are reserved for the PSB channels in the UK and Ireland, before 3e (Channel 6) was purchased by TV3 they were unable to get a prime epg position but once they became part of TV3 and under their PSB licence they were allocated position 105. TV3's licence expires September 19th 2018.

I wonder what would happen if another channel came about (say UTV) and became an Irish PSB .. where would sky place them I wonder?

irishfeen

Onthe3rdDay wrote: »

If TV3 ever lost it's ITV shows it would go off air in the morning. It fills up daytime with very cheap programmes that cover much of it's Irish content commitments. It's unlikely they'd make any irish programmes at all if they had a choice. Just relay ITV all day.

SKY only have the irish stations on the EPG to drive subscriptions. There are many people around the country that use SKY to receive RTE because their Saorview reception is poor. Yes, there is Saorsat but it's complicated or appears to be to the average man on the street. The first five stations on Saorview will always probably be the first five stations on the SKY EPG.

I do think if a rival broadcaster offered a wheelbarrow of cash to SKY that they would consider moving TV3 and 3e, However that won't be happening in this financial climate

This is TV3 we are talking about .. they probably would try hang on for a period after.

Hotblack Desiato

The Cush wrote: »

Correct, no visible change other than RTÉ 1 from SD to HD format. No extra channels or other changes that we know of.

There will be extra bandwidth available, hopefully the SD channels would get a boost in PQ, and TG4 could go HD.
2RN will want paying for the extra bits used though...

watty

If there was some way that The BAI could get BBC, UTV and Channel four on a Mux, then after a year or two some form of Pay DTT service might be possible.

Free main UK channels On DTT makes DTT Pay TV un-viable. About 92% of what people watch on Pay TV are actually free channels or programs on free channels.

Your own comment makes that clear. Cable and Sky only got to 82% penetration because Freesat didn't then exist. They can only shrink now.
That's why UPC's marketing is emphasising the Broadband and Netflix.

The Cush

irishfeen wrote: »

I wonder what would happen if another channel came about (say UTV) and became an Irish PSB .. where would sky place them I wonder?

There are no other PSB licences available under the Broadcasting Act unless TV3 return their licence and UTV bid and win any readvertised licence.

The Cush

ninja900 wrote: »

There will be extra bandwidth available, hopefully the SD channels would get a boost in PQ, and TG4 could go HD.
2RN will want paying for the extra bits used though...

That would be good but we'll see I guess.

2RN get paid for transmission and distribution by RTÉ as the multiplex licensee, the broadcasters pay RTÉ a multiplexing fee (DTT Tariff) for carriage of the channels on the multiplex.

Onthe3rdDay

watty wrote: »

Free main UK channels On DTT makes DTT Pay TV un-viable. About 92% of what people watch on Pay TV are actually free channels or programs on free channels.

Your own comment makes that clear. Cable and Sky only got to 82% penetration because Freesat didn't then exist. They can only shrink now.
That's why UPC's marketing is emphasising the Broadband and Netflix.

What I'm saying is that if BBC and co were on DTT that soarview usage would grow. It's far lower than it should be. A bigger market would be possibly attractive to a Pay TV operator to launch a light Pay TV service, probably with just sports coverage. (for example, BT sport, Setanta and Racing UK)

I'm not saying it would succeed and of course it's very unlikely to happen as the BBC is unlikely to appear on Saorview.

It's just that the BAI don't seem to have anyone that knows about basic marketing.

The Cush

Onthe3rdDay wrote: »

What I'm saying is that if BBC and co were on DTT that soarview usage would grow. It's far lower than it should be. A bigger market would be possibly attractive to a Pay TV operator to launch a light Pay TV service, probably with just sports coverage. (for example, BT sport, Setanta and Racing UK)

I'm not saying it would succeed and of course it's very unlikely to happen as the BBC is unlikely to appear on Saorview.

It's just that the BAI don't seem to have anyone that knows about basic marketing.

Most likely any pay DTT provider would provide the UK terrestrial channels in a basic tier which would act as a gateway to premium channels. Providing them FTA wouldn't push anyone into buying a new pay DTT box and sub for a few extra channels.

If you wanted to go half-way the option would be to make them FTV (free-to-view) meaning they would be soft-encrypted and would require a pay DTT box/card to decode them but no sub.

The main problem is who would pay the associated DTT transmission costs and royalties. UPC and Sky I believe pay a royalty per subscriber, they would unhappy if they had to pay and Saorview didn't.

We're still waiting for some news from the BAI on the report into future of commercial DTT which was to be discussed by them earlier this month.

Onthe3rdDay

The Cush wrote: »

Most likely any pay DTT provider would provide the UK terrestrial channels in a basic tier which would act as a gateway to premium channels. Providing them FTA wouldn't push anyone into buying a new pay DTT box and sub for a few extra channels.

If you wanted to go half-way the option would be to make them FTV (free-to-view) meaning they would be soft-encrypted and would require a pay DTT box/card to decode them but no sub.

The main problem is who would pay the associated DTT transmission costs and royalties. UPC and Sky I believe pay a royalty per subscriber, they would unhappy if they had to pay and Saorview didn't.

We're still waiting for some news from the BAI on the report into future of commercial DTT which was to be discussed by them earlier this month.

I think the oppertunity for paying for BBC on DTT in Ireland is long gone. However, the half way option is logical and would get new boxes out there, but again there's been no thought put into this whatsoever by the BAI. Most people who use Saorview aren't going to buy another box now after buying new equipment in the last 12 months. This should have been sorted out years ago. UPC do pay royalties. SKY pay for the EPG listing for the BBC channels but I don't know if they pay actual royalties.

I honestly believe that we'll end up with what we have at the moment plus A Dail TV channel that might show other stuff when it's not in session.

The only other broadcaster that might take an interest would be Channel 4 which might find it worthwhile broadcasting on DTT in the Irish Market because of Advertising.

Sam Russell

I do not understand the reluctance to run the second Mux. We had four analogue channels, each costing about the same as a mux to run. So now we have problems in paying for one?

The second mux would allow much better PQ on all channels. It seems obvious to me that RTE would get mux1 for their sole use for lots of reasons. That leaves TV3 and TG4 to populate mux2. I cannot see that transmission charges would be such an issue, but then, if you are broke, you are broke.

glimmerman123

Mux 2 from Maghera now fired up with three HD test cards on channels 11,12 and 14. Looks like TG4 HD might make an appearance as well as RTE 1 HD.

gordongekko

Would there be the opportunity for rte to show extra services short term on the extra mux. Things like extended olympics coverage or world cup matches for instance.

apollo8

Mux 2 also testing from Kippure 7 test cards in total 3 in HD

formerly scottish paddy

Presumably they (RTÉ?) are going to have to start advertising a Saorview retune date quite soon.

Gerry Wicklow

Interesting to note channels 1, 2 and 4 are HD. As in RTÉ 1, 2 and TG4 and up yours TV3 perhaps? :rolleyes:

irishfeen

gordongekko wrote: »

Would there be the opportunity for rte to show extra services short term on the extra mux. Things like extended olympics coverage or world cup matches for instance.

That would be a great idea, something like a red button service exclusive to saorview would do very well.

whitebriar

Onthe3rdDay wrote: »

What I'm saying is that if BBC and co were on DTT that soarview usage would grow. It's far lower than it should be. A bigger market would be possibly attractive to a Pay TV operator to launch a light Pay TV service, probably with just sports coverage. (for example, BT sport, Setanta and Racing UK)

I'm not saying it would succeed and of course it's very unlikely to happen as the BBC is unlikely to appear on Saorview.

It's just that the BAI don't seem to have anyone that knows about basic marketing.

The only way imho to get the 5 UK channels onto saorview would be to add about 30 euro's onto the licence/broadcasting charge,with a €20 discount for anyone who can prove a pay tv sub that already includes saorview channels.
I don't think more than €30(less than €3 a month) would be palatable,so if the mux space costs more,its a non runner,unless UK channels on Sat are encrypted again.
The admin on that would also need to be charged,but it ought to be a simple enough process,as an post now have or will soon have Upc and Sky customer lists.

Onthe3rdDay

whitebriar wrote: »

The only way imho to get the 5 UK channels onto saorview would be to add about 30 euro's onto the licence/broadcasting charge,with a €20 discount for anyone who can prove a pay tv sub that already includes saorview channels.
I don't think more than €30(less than €3 a month) would be palatable,so if the mux space costs more,its a non runner,unless UK channels on Sat are encrypted again.

That's a non runner I reckon because the UK channels are not going to be encrypted. They've spent a lot of time and money developing freesat. There's no way to stop people in Ireland watching free signals beamed at the UK and Ireland. Plus an extra 30euro charge for something most people have won't go down well.

whitebriar

well to be fair,I think 30 euros for 10 years and you have 300,the cost of a decent sat set up and over 10 years,the cost of a decent humax pvr.
People should look at things in that way more and we'd have progress on a lot more things.30 euros wouldn't go far on a night out,but over 12 months,you'd be using the service daily,365 days with free flexible multi room viewing.

Jpmarn

There is 4 SD channels on top of the 3 Hd channels. For tv3 remember there is a Hd channel on mux 1.

watty

whitebriar wrote: »

The only way imho to get the 5 UK channels onto saorview would be to add about 30 euro's onto the licence/broadcasting charge,with a €20 discount for anyone who can prove a pay tv sub that already includes saorview channels.

That's crazy money for something free, and for less than 1/4 of the usable Freesat channels. A once off payment distributes all of Freesat to 8 PVR or 16 basic sat receivers or a mix. It's unlikely €30 would cover it, esp. for HD and why pay for an inferior SD when the HD is free. You have Transmission charges and royalites (though the royalties are tiny compared to the transmission costs). The DTT costs are more than the satellite transponder costs, excluding EPG.

Why should I pay extra forever for the 15% of people that don't get UK TV via Cable, Freesat, Direct NI or Wales DTT or Sky.

Basic UK TV on DTT isn't economically viable.

Onthe3rdDay

watty wrote: »

Why should I pay extra forever for the 15% of people that don't get UK TV via Cable, Freesat, Direct NI or Wales DTT or Sky.

It should be pointed out that the majority of that 15% probably don't want BBC or any of the other UK services. Anyone who wanted the BBC now has it. Of course there are awkward individual circumstances but not everyone on this Island can get RTE either. There's even some down in Kerry that can't get a saorview signal and for whatever reason they can't get saorsat either.

Mr. Rabbit

Onthe3rdDay wrote: »

It should be pointed out that the majority of that 15% probably don't want BBC or any of the other UK services. Anyone who wanted the BBC now has it. Of course there are awkward individual circumstances but not everyone on this Island can get RTE either. There's even some down in Kerry that can't get a saorview signal and for whatever reason they can't get saorsat either.

I must be one of the lucky ones who can receive both Freeview (from several transmitters), Saorview, and the NI mux (from sevceral transmitters as well).

RTE all over the place on DTT these days.

whitebriar

watty wrote: »

That's crazy money for something free, and for less than 1/4 of the usable Freesat channels. A once off payment distributes all of Freesat to 8 PVR or 16 basic sat receivers or a mix. It's unlikely €30 would cover it, esp. for HD and why pay for an inferior SD when the HD is free. You have Transmission charges and royalites (though the royalties are tiny compared to the transmission costs). The DTT costs are more than the satellite transponder costs, excluding EPG.

Why should I pay extra forever for the 15% of people that don't get UK TV via Cable, Freesat, Direct NI or Wales DTT or Sky.

Basic UK TV on DTT isn't economically viable.

First -€2.50 a month is hardly crazy money.
Secondly,we are talking probably 4 sd ch's excluding Itv
Thirdly even those with satellite fta,would use it if it were there,of course they would on 2nd or 3rd tvs.
Fourthly,mux 2 will be on air anyway,so we'd be putting something useful on it rather than shopping ch's
Fifthly,it brings in a few million to allay mux 2 running costs.
Sixthly,proper pay tv on dtt in Ireland is dead in the water,it may have been a runner a decade and a half ago but multi agency faffing killed any prospect of it,bedding in Sky.

Souriau

Clermont Carn also fired up for MUX2 E56

12 element

Secondary sites are transmitting 2nd MUX now too.