Are Saorview ever going to add more channels?

368100

Do RTE get paid by sky ireland for carrying their channels?

Sam Russell

368100 wrote: »

Do RTE get paid by sky ireland for carrying their channels?

No, but they should, as should the other platforms.

368100

Sam Russell wrote: »

No, but they should, as should the other platforms.

Agree, strange business decision not to charge sky given their financial situation.....ah but sure just increase the license fee.

Can see why they're in trouble.

dxhound2005

368100 wrote: »

Agree, strange business decision not to charge sky given their financial situation.....ah but sure just increase the license fee.

Can see why they're in trouble.

What if Sky said no thanks, take your channels elsewhere? Anyway this is the Terrestrial forum and there has been plenty of discussion on the topic on the Satellite forum where is belongs.

Johnboy1951

dxhound2005 wrote: »

What if Sky said no thanks, take your channels elsewhere? Anyway this is the Terrestrial forum and there has been plenty of discussion on the topic on the Satellite forum where is belongs.

It might waken people up to realise they do not have to pay to receive the vast majority of the channels they watch!

Harry Palmr

Sam Russell wrote: »

This is nonsense.


2. Picture Quality on DTT is fantastic compared to analogue. No fizz and pop, snow, shadows, fade or colour changes as the signal reduces - that is until it falls off the digital cliff, and disappears.

Sorry but the crap SD picture of saorview is worse than the analogue picture I used to watch telly on. Maybe I was lucky but beyond some rare summer HP ghosting it was perfectly fine. Why is the SD picture so poor? It's not even as good as the pretty shoddy SD of minor channels on satellite.

Sam Russell

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Sorry but the crap SD picture of saorview is worse than the analogue picture I used to watch telly on. Maybe I was lucky but beyond some rare summer HP ghosting it was perfectly fine. Why is the SD picture so poor? It's not even as good as the pretty shoddy SD of minor channels on satellite.

The difference between analogue and digital signal processing is quite profound.

Analogue signal processing is a constant battle against noise. Noise creeps in at every possible point, and it cannot be removed. Engineers go to great length to try to reduce its inevitable intrusion.

Digital processing is quite different. Once the signal is in digital form, the signal can be reformed with no degradation, as long as the signal quality is above a threshold.

Now the balance has shifted from the engineers to the bean counters. Lower quality is cheaper, so reduce the bandwidth - never mind the viewer.

There is no excuse for the piss poor picture quality of the current SD channels on Saorview. It is ComReg and BAI who are responsible. Write to them and complain.

368100

dxhound2005 wrote: »

What if Sky said no thanks, take your channels elsewhere? Anyway this is the Terrestrial forum and there has been plenty of discussion on the topic on the Satellite forum where is belongs.

Alright. ....calm down

The Cush

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Sorry but the crap SD picture of saorview is worse than the analogue picture I used to watch telly on.

Not here, we went from analogue VHF RTÉ 1&2 from Mullaghanish to DTT, a vast improvement.

The Cush

368100 wrote: »

Do RTE get paid by sky ireland for carrying their channels?

No, but they would like to - http://www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/media/committees/communicationsclimatechangenaturalresources/publicservicebroadcasting/gsbroadcastingamendmentbill2017/20170711-RTE---Mediatique-presentation.pdf

icdg

Maybe we can just get back on topic and leave it at that

Thurston?

Sam Russell wrote: »

... Analogue signal processing is a constant battle against noise. Noise creeps in at every possible point, and it cannot be removed. Engineers go to great length to try to reduce its inevitable intrusion.

Digital processing is quite different. Once the signal is in digital form, the signal can be reformed with no degradation, as long as the signal quality is above a threshold.

Now the balance has shifted from the engineers to the bean counters. Lower quality is cheaper, so reduce the bandwidth - never mind the viewer.

The limit is always financial. You're conflating 2 completely different issues anyway, signal quality & resolution. Analogue resolution depended on bandwidth too, I assume you realise.

Sam Russell

Thurston? wrote: »

The limit is always financial. You're conflating 2 completely different issues anyway, signal quality & resolution. Analogue resolution depended on bandwidth too, I assume you realise.

My point was that a perfect analogue picture, whatever its resolution (defined by bandwidth) would always get degraded by noise no matter what, and the engineers battled against this.

With digital signals, once sufficient signal quality existed, the picture quality was defined by its bandwidth granted to it (and hence resolution, plus other factors such as changing detail resolution), and so the picture quality is perfect - improvement on this can only be got by better bandwidth, and hence higher cost.

For example, a remote user would get a better analogue picture with a better aerial, but a digital user will see no improvement of a good-enough aerial.

Picture quality is not an issue for Saorview but an issue for broadcasters who short change the viewer.

Harry Palmr

Sam Russell wrote: »

Picture quality is not an issue for Saorview but an issue for broadcasters who short change the viewer.

Well not quite - it's an issue for the governing body which allows such a poor picture quality from TG4 and the Virgin owned channels. The minister really should just write a one line addendum stipulating a minimum resolution of 720 x 576.

Thurston?

Sam Russell wrote: »

For example, a remote user would get a better analogue picture with a better aerial ...

'Better' might just have meant 'slightly less worse', especially in the case of TV3, with them not even being carried at the fill-in sites, which I'm pretty sure was a financial decision ...

Anyhow, certainly in my own experience with RTE analogue, what looked like constant low-level co-channel interference was more of a subjective nuisance than any 'noise' introduced by transmission/reception components along the way, which again points to a lack of investment in the transmission network, having to persist with the effects of frequency re-use within band III.

Sam Russell

Thurston? wrote: »

'Better' might just have meant 'slightly less worse', especially in the case of TV3, with them not even being carried at the fill-in sites, which I'm pretty sure was a financial decision ...

Anyhow, certainly in my own experience with RTE analogue, what looked like constant low-level co-channel interference was more of a subjective nuisance than any 'noise' introduced by transmission/reception components along the way, which again points to a lack of investment in the transmission network, having to persist with the effects of frequency re-use within band III.

Co-channel is noise. Use of band III was 'sufficient' at the time. It was fortunate or unfortunate (depending on your point of view) that in Ireland just a few band III transmitters covered a huge percentage of the population, and was useful when RTE started.

Did you have a good quality TV tuner in the TV and quality directional aerial? Could you have switched to UHF to get a better signal? Digital does remove that problem, and did indeed do so.

Remember, we used to have four TV channels frequencies for four TV stations and we now only use two channels for 8 channels (plus lots of radio channels and test cards etc.). Each of those analogue channels cost €3m each per year.

Gerry Wicklow

Sam Russell wrote: »

...
Remember, we used to have four TV channels frequencies for four TV stations and we now only use two channels for 8 channels (plus lots of radio channels and test cards etc.). Each of those analogue channels cost €3m each per year.

All busily keeping the mice warm around the country at the tax payers expense. :mad:

Sam Russell

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

All busily keeping the mice warm around the country at the tax payers expense. :mad:

Not quite. The test cards could be replaced by zeros with no effect as it costs the same to broadcast 1.01 muxes as 1.99 muxes. The mux is over capacity because some broadcasters will not agree to pay for the unused bandwidth, even if their viewers would benefit.

The minister should change the charging system by either making the minimum bandwidth equal to 720 by 576i, or allowing 2RN to change the charging regime to make HD worth it for all broadcasters.

Gerry Wicklow

But that's my point. It's costing the same to run regardless of content. That same bandwidth could / should be used to improve existing quality.

The Cush

Sam Russell wrote: »

The minister should change the charging system by either making the minimum bandwidth equal to 720 by 576i

Can't see that happening, in the UK for example, Ofcom removed the minimum requirement of 720x574/704x576 for ITV/Ch.4/Ch.5 last year.

Sam Russell

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

But that's my point. It's costing the same to run regardless of content. That same bandwidth could / should be used to improve existing quality.

Exactly. Write to the Minister and ask him to do something about it.

Thurston?

Sam Russell wrote: »

Co-channel is noise. Use of band III was 'sufficient' at the time. It was fortunate or unfortunate (depending on your point of view) that in Ireland just a few band III transmitters covered a huge percentage of the population, and was useful when RTE started.

Did you have a good quality TV tuner in the TV and quality directional aerial? Could you have switched to UHF to get a better signal? Digital does remove that problem, and did indeed do so.

No option for UHF, & a 'quality directional aerial' isn't much use if the offending transmitter(s) are in the same direction as your wanted one.

Co-channel interference between analogue vision carriers produced quite specific effects to put it in a category of its own, & engineers discriminate between noise-limited & interference-limited networks. Thankfully the CCI levels have to get far higher with digital before it starts to cause trouble.

I remember where my parents lived in Kerry we had two distinct problems with analogue reception:

RTE One and Two on VHF from Mullaghanish had no snow but some ghosting. It tended to get diagonal dot pattern interference from electrical devices in the house too.

They couldn't get RTE One, Two or TG4 from Listowel despite being in range, due to Knockmoyle coming in from the opposite side on the same frequency. It gave the classic venetian blinds effect on screen. So they had to rely on Maghera for TV3 and TG4 but it could only come in clearly during occasional high pressure weather conditions.

Thankfully Saorview from Knockanore gives them the best picture they ever had.

Sam Russell

Karsini wrote: »

Thankfully Saorview from Knockanore gives them the best picture they ever had.

Exactly. I would expect that to be true for (nearly) every house in the country.

They have filled in a few black spots since launch.

However, the biggest black mark goes to the broadcasters who refuse to go HD or even proper SD (720 by 576i).

Digifriendly

If the UK is that bad why do so many in ROI watch UK channels and why do so many not have Saorview only?

Sam Russell

Digifriendly wrote: »

If the UK is that bad why do so many in ROI watch UK channels and why do so many not have Saorview only?

I do not recall anyone saying UK TV is bad - in fact many people think UK TV is up with the best in the world - particularly BBC.

With Freesat freely available to most homes in Ireland, why would people here not take advantage of some of the best TV in the world? However, Irish TV has a lot to offer an Irish audience. Obviously, access to both is a privileged position to be in, and so. people should go for it.

lertsnim

Digifriendly wrote: »

If the UK is that bad why do so many in ROI watch UK channels and why do so many not have Saorview only?

Why do so many people watch freely available tv channels? That's a real head scratcher.

Capt'n Midnight

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Well not quite - it's an issue for the governing body which allows such a poor picture quality from TG4 and the Virgin owned channels. The minister really should just write a one line addendum stipulating a minimum resolution of 720 x 576.

Actually a minimum bandwidth might be better

The Cush wrote: »

Can't see that happening, in the UK for example, Ofcom removed the minimum requirement of 720x574/704x576 for ITV/Ch.4/Ch.5 last year.

For all their channels or just the ones that are also broadcast in HD ?

It might make some sense on the +1's

Sam Russell

The Cush wrote: »

Can't see that happening, in the UK for example, Ofcom removed the minimum requirement of 720x574/704x576 for ITV/Ch.4/Ch.5 last year.

We do not have the same regime as the UK. We have excess bandwidth on Saorview so we should use it. Also, if all channels increased bandwidth by say 25%, then we would still excess bandwidth, but the transmission charges would remain as is.

The Cush

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

For all their channels or just the ones that are also broadcast in HD ?

The main SD channels ITV/CH4/CH5, the secondary SD channels are 544x576 I believe.