was/is Saorview a flop?

Kristopherus

Johnfred wrote: »

Humax freeview boxes work fine with Saorview. Records no problem.

But does it do series link?

dublinman1990

The choice of channels on Saorview when without Freesat is very poor.

When the VOD come on board it may entice people with good broadband to use the service if they need it. Although if it's only an Irish service with broadband; the choice it's leading Irish consumers wanting to have it is not going to be very widespread by those who are not really into new tech or who have a lack of choice with suitable ISP's and poor broadband connectivity in their area.

Those customers, who won't intend on using it because of those issues, may stick with pay TV as a suitable alternative.

readytosnap

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Until they get into the 21st century it'll be just what it is .

knowing RTE that will be sometime in the 23rd century

Kristopherus

Kristopherus wrote: »

But does it do series link?

It did once upon a time until Saorview bafflingly nobbled it.

lertsnim

As a direct replacement for the analogue service that it replaced it is more than adequate. It is what I use to watch Irish tv as I don't have Sky or UPC

ShaneOC

Not a flop. But could easily do so much better. Major issue is lack of HD channels. When they decided on mpeg4 instead of mpeg2 they should have also decided / insisted that all channels should be HD. The current issue of carriage costs would never have been an issue.

If they do come up with a proper integrated saorview / freesat / catchup solution they will really begin to take off. A decent receiver with that as a base could also have pay DTT built in which could be used at some point in the future. No pay channels would join unless there was a critical mass of viewers available.

Sam Russell

How can Saorview be a flop?

It is free and it was meant to be free - so how can that be a flop? If no-one used it then it would not matter. If no one used the Phoenix Park or St Stephen's Green - would that matter?

The problem with it is that the transmission charges have been made unworkable by preventing 2RN to act in a commercial way. As a result, they have a charging system that is impossible and so we only have two HD services instead of five.

Also, the Oireachtas Channel is paid to appear on Sky, and is behind a paywall on other platforms, but on the national FTA platform it is only 'testing' while the politicians try and wriggle out of paying for it.

That shows where the flop is, and where the blame lies. Remember to vote on Feb 26th.

Andy From Sligo

ShaneOC wrote: »

.... If they do come up with a proper integrated saorview / freesat / catchup solution they will really begin to take off. A decent receiver with that as a base could also have pay DTT built in which could be used at some point in the future. No pay channels would join unless there was a critical mass of viewers available.

Not only that - if they do come up with a proper saorview / freesat box I hope they put an internal Hard drive in it for recording/time-shifting/live pause (or even better modern/up to date SSD drive . although they are very expensive, especially when you get into large capacity, at the moment) and internal wi-fi and ethernet LAN cable socket

The Cush

ShaneOC wrote: »

A decent receiver with that as a base could also have pay DTT built in which could be used at some point in the future. No pay channels would join unless there was a critical mass of viewers available.

Pay TV on DTT is a non-starter, more so now than it was in 2008 and not because of existing alternatives like Freesat, Sky or Virgin but the emerging IPTV services and Netflix type services and the declining spectrum for terrestrial broadcasting.

Even though terrestrial spectrum survived the demand from the mobile lobby at the recent WRC-15 for further co-allocation I believe we're at the beginning of the end of terrestrial broadcasting and in 20 years time terrestrial TV landscape will be very different.

Right now the DTT frequency plan is being revised for the clearance of the 700 MHz band, this will reduce our national allocation of DTT muxes from 8 down to 6 as currently required by the Broadcasting Act. Unfortunately due to restrictions to avoid co-channel interference to our neighbours not all of these muxes will be able to provide full national coverage, at most only 3 maybe 4 muxes will be able to provide close to national coverage. Not an economically viable proposition for a pay DTT operator to roll out a 3 mux pay DTT offering in a small market that's already saturated with pay and FTA services in a small country with a network that won't be able to provide full national coverage.

Harry Palmr

As its hard to imagine a future where all Irish telly would and could be IP based with a full service of free and pay channels and the DTT switched off so maybe an integrated UK/Ireland market would be the best for the long term.

Any takers?!

The Cush

Harry Palmr wrote: »

As its hard to imagine a future where all Irish telly would and could be IP based with a full service of free and pay channels and the DTT switched off so maybe an integrated UK/Ireland market would be the best for the long term.

Not necessarily all IP, another broadcast technology being tested is LTE-A+ which adds the capability to access spectrum from ‘high-tower, high-power’ terrestrial broadcast networks which use much bigger cells than those deployed in a typical mobile network and can co-exist with 2 way LTE "Low Power/Low Tower" mobile networks. Early days yet.

The future of UHF DTT broadcasting spectrum will be decided at WRC-23.

In Europe the Netherlands is a country that in recent years was discussing the future of DTT broadcasting in the UHF band, consideration was been given to switching off DTT when the licences expire next year. The country has over 93% cable coverage. The commercial muxes will now go to auction mid 2016. The 3 national public channels and regional public channels are carried on a single FTA mux.

Carawaystick

2rn breaking series link and pvr's because they can isn't helping it's success

Sam Russell

Carawaystick wrote: »

2rn breaking series link and pvr's because they can isn't helping it's success

They also have messed with the signal. They broadcast 38 blank channels plus two SSB channels - the only purpose is to render non-Saorview approved sets close to inoperable. I can think of no legitimate reason for them to do this.

noodler

CramCycle wrote: »

Saorview is grand, got rid of UPC tv once it came out, pick up a fair bit of freeview with no box, just using an old fashioned aerial.

Not sure what the negativity is for, it was meant to replace our old signal transmission, it did, reception is clearer and more consistent, job done.

I was about to say!

Its the same but better quality!

No idea what people were expecting to label it a flop.

Digifriendly

noodler wrote: »

I was about to say!

Its the same but better quality!

No idea what people were expecting to label it a flop.

No HD on 2 of main channels and we are in 2016 when virtually all new medium to large screen sets being sold are Ultra HD not even HD!

bk

Compared to Freeview in the UK Saorview is certainly a flop.

Freeview in the UK carries more then 30 channels, including 95% of all actual viewing! Meaning Freeview has become a real player in the UK market and has forced real competition with Sky and Virgin. In particular for multiroom and is the bsis on which BT's TV service is built on.

By comparison Saorview is a very sad and inadequate service. It has just 9 channels and includes non of the UK channels that Irish people want and most of the channels it does have aren't in HD. Add to that the terrible situation with lack of decent PVR and broken series link. Honestly you couldn't devise a worse service.

It's only saving grace is that in can work ok when combined with a Freesat box for the UK channels. But even then we lack an official box with a combined and usable Saorview/Freesat EPG.

Just 9 poor quality channels is ridiculous in the generation when we have Sky launching a revamped modern platform, Vodafone/Eir launching IPTV and overtop services like Netflix, etc. It simply isn't compeitive.

Saorview and I would say RTE desperately need to bring out a decent combined Freesat/Saorview PVR in order to remain relevant against all this new competition.

PabloAndRoy

I think we all (myself included) are wrongly equating our perceived quality of the service with whether the service is a "flop", which is what the question asked.

I suppose really "flop" should be about whether the uptake is successful rather than what we think about the service.

Here are some figures from a survey RedC ComReg commissioned in 2013 with a good demographic spread:




Interestingly a 2015 survey shows a solid rise (over 100% change) in Saorview usage.




The change i find odd is the decrease in Freesat. I cannot imagine why this should fall off.

So I guess the question is whether a 1 in 5 penetration is considered a success or a flop? I don't now if there were any targets at Saorview launch time.

Survey sources:
2013: http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg1346.pdf
2015: http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg15123a.pdf

ftakeith

bk wrote: »

Compared to Freeview in the UK Saorview is certainly a flop.

Freeview in the UK carries more then 30 channels, including 95% of all actual viewing! Meaning Freeview has become a real player in the UK market and has forced real competition with Sky and Virgin. In particular for multiroom and is the bsis on which BT's TV service is built on.

By comparison Saorview is a very sad and inadequate service. It has just 9 channels and includes non of the UK channels that Irish people want and most of the channels it does have aren't in HD. Add to that the terrible situation with lack of decent PVR and broken series link. Honestly you couldn't devise a worse service.

It's only saving grace is that in can work ok when combined with a Freesat box for the UK channels. But even then we lack an official box with a combined and usable Saorview/Freesat EPG.

Just 9 poor quality channels is ridiculous in the generation when we have Sky launching a revamped modern platform, Vodafone/Eir launching IPTV and overtop services like Netflix, etc. It simply isn't compeitive.

Saorview and I would say RTE desperately need to bring out a decent combined Freesat/Saorview PVR in order to remain relevant against all this new competition.

Saorview is a hit in my view

Most people have saorview with Freesat

They even have it alongside Sky TV

Saorview Connect will hope have all the saorview channels with on demand content with less ads before content is played

Tenshot

We switched from UPC to Saorview + Freesat about three years ago, never looked back.

The quality of the Saorview HD channels is great; no complaints here. It's disappointing TV3 isn't HD yet (apparently is on Sky & UPC) but since we don't watch much TV3, it doesn't bother me personally.

We timeshift almost everything on Windows Media Center and being able to record/playback the digital stream instead of having to encode a grainy analogue signal is SO much better than what we had before.

It's a bit unfair to compare the Saorview channel lineup with Freesat -- they're aimed at completely different markets. It's hardly as if there are lots of native Irish channels struggling to find an outlet.

Could Saorview be improved? Of course! There's lots more potential. But what we have now is free, works well, and does the job for me. I can't believe the tone of this thread is so negative.

noodler

Digifriendly wrote: »

No HD on 2 of main channels and we are in 2016 when virtually all new medium to large screen sets being sold are Ultra HD not even HD!

I recognise SD can sometimes look worse on a HD screen than on an SD screen but overall it was a free upgrade (quality, particularly RTE 2HD obviously, and a few extra channels like +1s or the news) for a great many people.

ftakeith

Tenshot wrote: »

We switched from UPC to Saorview + Freesat about three years ago, never looked back.

The quality of the Saorview HD channels is great; no complaints here. It's disappointing TV3 isn't HD yet (apparently is on Sky & UPC) but since we don't watch much TV3, it doesn't bother me personally.

We timeshift almost everything on Windows Media Center and being able to record/playback the digital stream instead of having to encode a grainy analogue signal is SO much better than what we had before.

It's a bit unfair to compare the Saorview channel lineup with Freesat -- they're aimed at completely different markets. It's hardly as if there are lots of native Irish channels struggling to find an outlet.

Could Saorview be improved? Of course! There's lots more potential. But what we have now is free, works well, and does the job for me. I can't believe the tone of this thread is so negative.

I agree

Sam Russell

The real problem with the launch of Saorview was the inability - for whatever reason - of RTE or RTNL to point out that Saorview and Freesat would satisfy about 80% of the public and all for free. If this had been pointed out, they could have found a supplier to make the holy grail - a Freesat/Saorview STB.

Now, there is talk of such a box - not too late if it provides a single EPG for both services.

bk

Tenshot wrote: »

It's a bit unfair to compare the Saorview channel lineup with Freesat -- they're aimed at completely different markets. It's hardly as if there are lots of native Irish channels struggling to find an outlet.

That is the thing, they really aren't all that different markets.

The two largest TV distributors, Sky and Virgin operate in both Ireland and the UK and offer almost exactly the same product.

The TV channel lineups of UK and Ireland are almost 90% the same.

Saorview on it's own is a flop, Irish people want the UK channels too. Saorview can only be seen as a success when it is paired with Freesat, which is exactly my point.

Saorview should have made more effort to bring more of the UK channels onto it's service. ITV, C4, C5 with Irish TV adverts. Instead Saorview did far too little to make the service relevant or interesting to people.

In fact I would argue that Saorview did absolutely the minimum which was required of it. They just threw up the Irish channels, most in bad picture quality, with terrible decisions on EPG data, PVR etc.

At the very best I'd give it a barely passing grade.

If they want to make Saorview relevant and interesting, then they need to get an official Saorview + Freesat PVR box out now.

BTW I'm saying this all as a person who is happily using Saorview + FTA sat on a Linux box and haven't paid for Sky in years which I think is a complete rip off. However I'm looking at this from the perspective of the bigger picture.

Sam Russell

2RN and Saorview have a hidden agenda.

They have made bizarre decisions to make the signal inoperable for non-Saorview approved kit. Why?

They have failed to make their kit interoperable with UK kit even where this would have been trivial and have used trivial signal changes to kill any existing interoperable facets.

There has to be a reason.

Capt'n Midnight

Technically it works, but TG4* , UTV , and TV3 should be in HD

Few people use it as their primary viewing source. Many people with SKY , Virgin or Freesat either don't use Saorview or use it as 'top up TV' so lots of people are watching the same programs on other platforms which means they are watching ads on other platforms.

*please, please let it be true about TG4 going HD

dublinman1990

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

*please, please let it be true about TG4 going HD

I can add to this. Please, Please let it be true that there is a red button service apparently coming to Saorview from next week.

Why does RTE 1+1 close down so ridiculously early? Closed down at 25 minutes past midnight tonight. Does it still share space with RTE Jr? If that's the case why doesn't it keep going until whenever RTE Jr starts?

brick man

Deleted User wrote:

Why does RTE 1+1 close down so ridiculously early? Closed down at 25 minutes past midnight tonight. Does it still share space with RTE Jr? If that's the case why doesn't it keep going until whenever RTE Jr starts?

This goes back to when minister gave approval for extra RTE services in 2011 . RTE only wanted it for a year then they wanted to create a new channel RTE plus but we're denied by minister and only got approval for plus 1 for 4 years running from 7pm till round 2am and after new channels were to be reviewed . there is talk of it going 24 hrs a day but time will tell

readytosnap

brick man wrote: »

there is talk of it going 24 hrs a day but time will tell

24 hrs a day of tripe, cannot wait.

Andy From Sligo

was in local currys store on Sunday - saw a (very pricey!) Blue-Ray player with Built in 1TB hard drive ... on the front 'FreeView+HD' so it was definately marketed for UK, but pretty sure on the Label on the shelf it said 'Saorview Recorder with 1TB Hard Disk' - well fair enough, am sure it does indeed record Saorview, but what about the TV guide etc? - is it likely to work OK with the Saorview TV Guide and series linking? thats the thing