# Article in Today's indo re Free-to-Air satellite



## Betsy Og (11 Nov 2010)

Good for anyone unfamiliar with it.

Apart from the lidl box + aerial set up that I have and many will be familiar with (article plugs www.satellitetv.ie at €290 for a kit), it also mentions UK Freesat's HD box with 500GB hard drive to record up to a years programmes - per Tony Moore of www.satellite.ie That €300 for dish box & installation.

What it didnt mention was that RTE plan to go free-to-air shortly. Anyone have dates, or even an expected year - on this? MIght not be worth buying and installing an aerial if going to get everything on the dish is a years time - get Sky subscription for a year, then dont renew and have RTE on free-to-air. 

I presume TG4 and TV3 would have to go free-to-air as well or risk losing people due to dwindling aerial users basis.


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## TarfHead (11 Nov 2010)

Is that the same as this ?

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=145937


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## Hoagy (11 Nov 2010)

Betsy Og said:


> What it didnt mention was that RTE plan to go free-to-air shortly. Anyone have dates, or even an expected year - on this? MIght not be worth buying and installing an aerial if going to get everything on the dish is a years time - get Sky subscription for a year, then dont renew and have RTE on free-to-air.
> 
> I presume TG4 and TV3 would have to go free-to-air as well or risk losing people due to dwindling aerial users basis.


 
RTE won't be going to FTA on the Astra satellite, for copyright reasons. There is a plan for a 'Saorsat' service but it will be on a different satellite which hasn't launched yet. Sky dishes won't work.

There's some info about it[broken link removed].


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## TarfHead (11 Nov 2010)

There was an article in a recent Sunday Times (now hidden behind a paywall so I can't search for or link to it).

IIRC, RTE won't be ready to switch off analog transmissions by the EU deadline. In summary, they haven't the funds to invest in a new digital network. The private equity lined up for it has since been withdrawn.


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## jpd (11 Nov 2010)

The digital network is now in test and covers 90% of the population

http://www.rte.ie/saorview/


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## Luternau (11 Nov 2010)

if your tv has a built in mpeg4 tuner you can receive the test -full broadcast of RTE 1, NET2, TG4 , TV3 and Digital Radio channels. If your tv says DVB-T or 'UK Freeview' the chances are you will not be able to see pic-just sound and EPG.


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## Betsy Og (12 Nov 2010)

Would be ridiculous if RTE doesnt go on Astra, people without other options (cable) would have to go for 2 dishes aimed at different satellites, which would require separate decoders (I'd say) - maybe you can combine the feeds from 2 dishes into 1 box?

How do you get digitial if you're out in the sticks?, no cable, is there such a thing as a "digital aerial"? An article I read before said that, more or less, they were going on satellite to ensure full coverage as uneconomic to cable to many parts of the country.


oh dear, travesty if forced into a 2nd dish


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## Betsy Og (12 Nov 2010)

From scanning that website (will read up later) it looks like a digitial aerial should work for most places (so swap my analogue one for that), OR there appears to be a 'jazzy' dish that can take feeds from a few different satellites simultaneously (maybe I'm wrong, sounds bit iffy)


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## jpd (12 Nov 2010)

There is no such thing as a "digital" aerial. 

SOARVIEW or DTT TV, as now in test mode has nothing to do with satellite.

You can have up to 4 receivers mounted on a satellite dish which will allow you to capture  satellite signals from up to 3 different satellite positions. In general, there are a multitude of satellites in each position.


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## Betsy Og (12 Nov 2010)

JPD, I know of dishes called "quads" - basically 4 individual feeds from the dish but (I'd thought) all from the same satellite - meaning you can watch 4 different channels from the same satellite on different tellys in the house.

From my camping tv set up I know its damn hard to lock onto 1 satellite, let alone more than 1 at the same time (maybe the bigger size of the dish allows you to pick up more than 1??).

If you look at the links pasted below it clearly states "Like existing TV, Saorview is received with an aerial", so there is such a thing as a digital aerial. I gather its because up to 8% of the population wont be able to get the signal on an aerial that they are going on satellite as well.


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## Betsy Og (12 Nov 2010)

Seems you can get a "Dual/Multifeed" dish that will pick up 2 satellites at once. 

The Saorsat uses Ka LNBF not Ku LNBF - a different "yoke" to you and me! Means Soarsat can take one feed and give to any number of tv's/set top boxes, whereas on sky/freeview any 1 of the feeds (of, say, the 4 on a quad) can only feed one box (though depending on your set up that 1 box can feed another telly - but both tellys have to watch the same satellite channel ..... complicated innit !!).

Looks like a digital aerial and a freeview dish might be the easiest solution - the multifeed dish looks big/expensive/complex


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## TarfHead (12 Nov 2010)

jpd said:


> There is no such thing as a "digital" aerial


 
Are you sure ?

A couple of years ago, when RTE starting trialling a digital broadcast, a former colleague of mine was able to play it on his laptop, courtesy of an 'aerial' attached to the PC via a USB port.


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## Betsy Og (12 Nov 2010)

If you look at the Saorview website it even says that most people's existing aerial will be fine (just that unless your telly is fairly new you might need a set-top box to reformat the signal to what yer auld telly was designed to show).

A telly that will work fine is one an iDTV, integrated digital television. In the last 18 months or so a lot of tellys are advertised as "HD Ready" which is great for when you get a HD signal, but I dont think that means its necessarily ready for digital tv. ALso they are warning about UK freeview TV's which are UK TV's set up for their digital service but apparently wont work for our saorview.

If you want to get totally flummoxed, I googled and theres 51 pages of technical debate on a thread on boards.ie........


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## Thirsty (16 Nov 2010)

I have the FTA satelite set up with (pretty useless) indoor aerial for the Irish channels and a new (1 yr old) Philips TV.

Can anyone give me (and everyone else!) the Dummies guide to see if we can get these Irish Channels on the FTA set up?


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## Betsy Og (16 Nov 2010)

Thirsty said:


> I have the FTA satelite set up with (pretty useless) indoor aerial for the Irish channels and a new (1 yr old) Philips TV.
> 
> Can anyone give me (and everyone else!) the Dummies guide to see if we can get these Irish Channels on the FTA set up?


 
In a word ...No. What you could do is a) try out a digital aerial for the new digital service Saorview or b) get a 2nd dish to pick up Soarsat, the FTA satellite service for Irish channels which (helpfully ) is on a different satellite from Sky TV/Lidl FTA. They are on Astra, Soarsat is on something else.

I gather you could get a new dish to pick up both, but you'd need a pro to pick and install that. My advice is sit tight until next year when Saorveiw and Saorsat take off and all the TV guys have it worked out and Lidl start doing packages to pick up Saorsat.


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## michaelm (16 Nov 2010)

Betsy Og said:


> is there such a thing as a "digital aerial"?


No.  I have the 4 Irish digital channels via a rabbits ears in the attic which runs through a signal booster (must test without this) behind the TV.  It's perfecto.


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## soy (22 Nov 2010)

I got one of these recently for the Irish Channels (have the rest via FTA set-up). I assume I am using the analogue capabilities as I am feeding it into a non-digital TV....but the specs say that it also works as a digital ariel - so they do exist.

http://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/5343243.htm

I assume that I would have to buy a MPEG4 receiver box to get digital signal on this. AFAIK my current FTA receiver is only MPEG2


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## michaelm (22 Nov 2010)

michaelm said:


> I have the 4 Irish digital channels via a rabbits ears in the attic which runs through a signal booster (must test without this) behind the TV.


I took the signal-booster out of the loop (was required previously to improve my analogue reception) and the digital channels are still picked up perfectly with my cheep-as-chips rabbits ears.


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