Saorview Updates - 2023

It's an abbreviation of cúlabúla, which is just Irish language slang for 'cool'. The children's strand on TG4 - or TnaG, as it was - was called Cúlabúla 4.

Cúla = back ?

My Irish is near non-existant.

The TG4+1 is a very dark logo on the Saorview Connect EPG, however it lights up when you highlight it, not that important, just thought I'd mention

Yeah, when I try that it goes to the Service Mapper tab and just sits there showing Mapped 0, Ignored 0, Failed 0

Mapper options - unticked all, no change, forced scan, no change.

The play button wants to save a playlist file - the TG4+1 one works when opened in VLC! (I expect the Cula4 one would work during the day too)

Kodi still can't see either channel, though - closed and reopened and still no go, there is a "Scan for channels" button in Kodi under PVR and Live TV Settings but it says the PVR backend does not support scanning. 14 and 18 don't appear in the channels list or EPG and are ignored if I type in the numbers. I also tried clearing the channel list data in Kodi, still no go.

I never 'map all' channels, but select those I want to have listed and map those.

If you got a lot of 'junk channels' listed then I guess you mapped all, else I have no idea how they were listed.

Do you also have Satellite channels in your setup?

Yeah the lack of an "Off Air" graphic threw me at first.

I now use a bouquet file of my own to map the channels I want listed, in the order I want to see them. So a one-time set up of the channels and use the same file even when the hardware changes. I just enable that bouquet file and it automaps the contents. Over the years there have been a few channel changes which meant small edits to the file, and re-map.

The only prerequisite I can recall is that I must select to use picons rather than icons, and then the info is provided for me to copy to the file.

It is worth the effort because I have a lot of satellite channels in addition to the Saorview channels.

@Johnboy1951 Cúla4 comes from the TnaG days when the children's programme was call Culabula, meaning great or cool, but I am not sure if it comes from Irish Language slang or simply Hiberno-English.

Great but this isn't a thread about what you like to watch. I think you'll find most Saorview users have satellite as well.

At a cost of €700k a year there's much better things RTÉ should be doing with money.

ITV1 HD it is so! VM's loss.

My own guess - given that Sky are rebranding Pick as Sky Mix later this month, they might take the opportunity to put the channel (in SD) on Saorview - this would then mirror on Saorview the three stations they have in Freeview in the UK (Pick/Sky Mix, Challenge & Sky News), but would depend on a number of factors including wherever Sky think it's worth it, and wherever 2RN believes it can fit in another SD station on either multiplex without significantly affecting the picture quality of the current broadcasts on the same multiplex. IIRC Mux 1 has 2 HD & 4 SD concurrent streams & Mux 2 has 1 HD & 7 SD concurrent streams. I can be pretty sure though that a third multiplex won't be fired up to simply add one additional SD or even HD channel, given the payment model for being on the platform (unless someone bungs 2RN ridiculous amounts of money for the privlige).

As for the Virgin Media channels, IMO if they wanted to have any of their stations broadcast on HD on Saorview, they would have done it by now. Since the majority of viewers in the state can watch the channel in HD via a subscription service, and that only a small minority of viewers rely on their Saorview broadcasts, they've likely crunched the numbers and feel it isn't worth it financially and would prefer you to subscribe to their cable offering (or at least get their cut from Sky). Then again, I didn't think Sky News & Challenge would come on to Saorview when they did, so never say never.

Sky Mix would be a good addition to the Saorview platform, if it happens