Why don't TG4 use second audio stream in English ?

OldRio

icdg wrote: »

But some people do, and they are licence fee/taxpayers too. Do they deserve to be punished with a lesser service for their licence fee/taxes for having taken up Sky. Whatever about TV3 & UTV, RTE and TG4 have a duty to be platform neutral wherever possible. Of course the reality is that due to the unsustainable pricing structure adopted for Saorview, companies other than RTE (who ultimately get their money back) are finding it uneconomic to launch new services on it.

So by this logic people who don't subscribe to view Irish broadcasters should be 'punished'. Ludicrous IMHO.

If TG4 offer a second audio stream it should be done for all viewers.
If Sky offer a second audio stream of TG4, obviously it will be for their subscribers.

Elmo

OldRio wrote: »

So by this logic people who don't subscribe to view Irish broadcasters should be 'punished'. Ludicrous IMHO.

If TG4 offer a second audio stream it should be done for all viewers.
If Sky offer a second audio stream of TG4, obviously it will be for their subscribers.

I think that is what icdg is saying, if TG4 offer AD or HD etc it should be platform neutral

gaiscioch

Sam Russell wrote: »

The problem with Saorview is a political problem which the Minister is part of - and is unwilling to do anything about.

Saorview should be the paramount platform for broadcasting in Ireland, and it should be part of the terms of broadcasting in Ireland that Saorview is used for broadcasting by those licensed, and the services must appear on it - including HD, and plus 1 services. OTV, TV3 + 1 etc should all be required to appear on Saorview if they appear on another platform.

I'm totally ignorant of this so what exactly are you alluding to in the bold part? Why, if it should be the paramount platform, is the government not making it so? Thanks.

Sam Russell

gaiscioch wrote: »

I'm totally ignorant of this so what exactly are you alluding to in the bold part? Why, if it should be the paramount platform, is the government not making it so? Thanks.

That is the political problem. The current Minister (White) and his predecessor (Rabbitte) were silent on the matter.

At the death of the rump FF Government, Pat Carey, temporary Minister in charge of this disaster, signed a SI that prevented a proper running of Saorview by preventing RTE from getting any revenue from two of its four Saorview channels. Comreg allowed TV3 to force 2RN (then RTENL) to charge for bandwidth used as the only mechanism for Saorview transmission. This had the effect of increasing the charge for HD to a level no operator was prepared to pay - but the joke is they have to pay it anyway because 2RN are guaranteed €12m a year for their troubles if they run two muxes, which they do. The charges are divvied out among the operators according to the use of bandwidth.

Now if it was a requirement that any service offered by any licensed broadcaster had to be offered (and paid for) on saorview as it is the nation platform, then Saorview would have OTV, TG4HD, TV3 +1, and when HD comes to TV3 and UTV, this too would be on Saorview. If it all fits on two muxes, the same charges would still apply but would be shared differently.

Elmo

Sam Russell wrote: »

At the death of the rump FF Government, Pat Carey, temporary Minister in charge of this disaster, signed a SI that prevented a proper running of Saorview by preventing RTE from getting any revenue from two of its four Saorview channels.

One thing to say about Pat Carey is at least he made a decision and allowed the channels begin airing. IMO looking at what Rabbitte did and what White is doing, RTÉ NN, RTÉjr and RTÉONE +1 wouldn't exist, not because of a bad decision by either minister but due to lack of action.

RTÉjr, the Broadcasting Charge and TG4 HD are all good examples. (Though TG4HD goes back futher).

TAFKAlawhec

Any OB feeds for sports events that TG4 are covering that I normally find have at least two audio circuits, the main Irish language audio and a non-commentary audio track. I presume that the latter is in place for later editing for highlights etc.

It would be technically possible for a second audio track to be implemented for TG4 on DTT but it comes with a small cost of data rate for the video stream.

For the poster who mentioned that the pictures from S4C and BBC Alba look better than those on TG4 for Saorview - I'm pretty sure that S4C & BBC Alba use a full D1 SD resolution of 704/720 x 576 pixels whereas TG4 on Saorview is 544 x 576, meaning the latter's picture will look a bit softer. Interestingly, TG4's picture resolution on the Mini Multiplex in Northern Ireland is 720 x 576 pixels and is notably sharper than that broadcast on Saorview in my experience - you certainly notice it on on-screen captions and sport scoreboards that provide high contrasts.

MentalMario

Strawberry HillBilly wrote: »

@Tedddy don't agree with your point re:GAA viewers are used to it. Case in point last Sunday, struggled to watch the KK v CE match until I synced up Clare FM as the audio but didn't bother to even try the same with the Waterford match afterwards.

I definitely think TG4 would increase audiences and advertising by implementing this option.

As a means to measure the willingness for viewers to select audio as English or Irish where both were available has anyone got any idea on the match viewing figures when TV3/3E simulcasted All Ireland minor final matches in English /Irish ?

How did you do this? Tippfm, KCLRfm and WLRfm are always out of sync with TG4.

Strawberry HillBilly

Paused the TV picture until the online Clare FM commentary caught up��

Melodeon

The few times I've tried using a radio commentary with the TG4 video, the audio has always been running ahead of the video, making it impossible (with the equipment I have: Saorview/SKY box/FM radio) to synchronise them satisfactorily

STB.

TAFKAlawhec wrote: »

Any OB feeds for sports events that TG4 are covering that I normally find have at least two audio circuits, the main Irish language audio and a non-commentary audio track. I presume that the latter is in place for later editing for highlights etc.

It would be technically possible for a second audio track to be implemented for TG4 on DTT but it comes with a small cost of data rate for the video stream.

For the poster who mentioned that the pictures from S4C and BBC Alba look better than those on TG4 for Saorview - I'm pretty sure that S4C & BBC Alba use a full D1 SD resolution of 704/720 x 576 pixels whereas TG4 on Saorview is 544 x 576, meaning the latter's picture will look a bit softer. Interestingly, TG4's picture resolution on the Mini Multiplex in Northern Ireland is 720 x 576 pixels and is notably sharper than that broadcast on Saorview in my experience - you certainly notice it on on-screen captions and sport scoreboards that provide high contrasts.

The reason why the audio feeds are seperate is because other broadcasters use them too. One is just the crowd noise (taken from the sideline).

On the days that Tg4 are broadcasting live they are mixing both sources live. RTE do the audio mix afterwards for the highlights. Infact you can hear this on the days that RTE are not broadcasting live but are using Digisat uplink services as the RTE commentator who does the whole game live is using one audio stream and the other is just the crowd. There is seperate feeds one clean/one live with captions on two different TPs.

Regarding the video encoding, the clean/raw feeds are 1920x1080 from those Ericsson MPEG4 Encoders (see the screencap of the National League game, which is from the off air feed for RTE). What it is broadcast in after that is up to limitations of the output parameters of the platform, I would imagine.

BTW TG4's video feeds arent actually viewable by generic receivers as its not just 4:2:2 that they are using.

(for those looking for the GAA english language feeds, they are regularly reported on this thread. They are on 23.5E.

STB.

icdg wrote: »

But some people do, and they are licence fee/taxpayers too. Do they deserve to be punished with a lesser service for their licence fee/taxes for having taken up Sky. Whatever about TV3 & UTV, RTE and TG4 have a duty to be platform neutral wherever possible. Of course the reality is that due to the unsustainable pricing structure adopted for Saorview, companies other than RTE (who ultimately get their money back) are finding it uneconomic to launch new services on it.

But ICDG, Platform neutrality has nothing to do with this discussion. In any event each PSB's primary responsibility is ensuring its availability free to air to the island, not free to view.

An individual's private subscription is between them and the pay company, so in the case of Sky customers they take their complaints to Sky.

Case in point RTE1 HD. Why arent Sky providing that to their customers ? Thats how its broadcast natively, on Saorview. Under the must offer/must carry rule of Section 77 of Broadcasting Act "re-transmission” is defined as near-simultaneous, unaltered and unabridged transmission. It wont become or be made an issue until Sky replace all their long suffering customers who have cheap proprietary SD boxes with HD boxes though, will it So I doubt they will be shouting about platform neutrality when it appears that the cannot hold up their end of the must carry obligations.

As regarding the economics of Saorview, the simple point is that commercial companies dont belong on a PSB mux and there are no commercial muxes. RTE will never recover their money that they ploughed into the platform.

icdg

STB. wrote: »

But ICDG, Platform neutrality has nothing to do with this discussion.

You're absolutely right, it has nothing to do with the topic at hand and is an entirely separate discussion for a different forum really.

dhoun

Could they not offer the facility to provide background sound only (i.e. without the Irish commentary)? We could watch it in peace then without the grating commentary. I'm not against the Irish language at all (in fact I'm the proud owner of a Fainne) but the guttural Gaeltacht Irish is too much for me (By the way, I always thought the Irish for again was arís and not arísht). TG4 seem to revel in picking the most unattractive sounding commentators and analysts for their rugby and GAA broadcasts.

dhoun

Could they not offer the facility to provide background sound only (i.e. without the Irish commentary)? We could watch it in peace then without the grating commentary. I'm not against the Irish language at all (in fact I'm the proud owner of a Fainne) but the guttural Gaeltacht Irish is too much for me (By the way, I always thought the Irish for again was arís and not arísht). TG4 seem to revel in picking the most unattractive sounding commentators and analysts for their rugby and GAA broadcasts.

icdg

We don’t drag up old threads