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Saorview
Company typeDTT platform operator
IndustryMedia
Founded29 October 2010
HeadquartersDublin, Ireland
Area served
Ireland and Northern Ireland (via overspill)
Key people
Mick Kehoe (Executive Director 2RN)
ServicesDigital terrestrial television
Websitewww.saorview.ie

Saorview (/ˈsɛərvjuː/ SAIR-vew) is the national[1] digital terrestrial television (DTT) service in Ireland. It is owned and operated by 2RN (RTÉ Networks).[2]

The service began operation on 29 October 2010 on a trial basis with full launch on 26 May 2011.[3] By legislation it was required to be available to approximately 90% of the population by end of October 2010 in a public testing capacity and nationwide by December 2011. The national public launch was preceded by a public information campaign, which began on 15 March 2011, with a television and radio advertising beginning 17 March 2011.[4]

Saorview was officially launched on 26 May 2011 by Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte TD,[5][6] and the service became the primary source of broadcast television in Ireland following the ending of analogue transmissions on 24 October 2012.

Overview

Saorview is Ireland's national DTT service. The Irish word Saor [sˠiːɾˠ] means free, thereby mirroring a common name of DTT services in many regions, Freeview, through a mix of the English and Irish languages.

Saorview is available from 64 DTT transmitters covering 98% of the population as of the end of Q3 2012. The previous analogue terrestrial television (ATT) network was available to 98% of the population from 150 ATT transmitters, however TV3 and TG4 were not available on all transmitters.[7][8]

The service is a DVB-T/MPEG-4 HD set top box (STB) receiver or iDTV and UHF aerial will be required. MHEG-5 has been selected as the middleware standard for digital teletext, Saorview branded EPG and interactive services. For non MHEG-5 compatible receivers regular analogue TV teletext will continue to be available and programme information will be displayed through the receiver's own inbuilt EPG. Either DVB or Teletext subtitling can be displayed when broadcast.

Mary Curtis became Director of Digital Switchover (DSO) in September 2010 and reports to the Director General.[9]

Launch

The service was launched in 2011 with ASO campaign phase beginning Dec 2011. Two campaigns were launched. The first campaign was marketing Soarview and was paid for by RTÉ, this cost RTÉ over €3million, meanwhile a second campaign featuring featuring Gay Byrne was also launched by the Department of Communications, it also cost in the region of €3million. Both campaigns used social media such as Facebook and Twitter alongside their own websites www.goingdigital.ie (now defunct) and www.saorview.ie. The lack of services on the new digital system did not prevent such costly campaigns.

Initially only one multiplex was available on the service, the second public service Mux was launched with the introduction of RTÉ One HD on 16 December 2013.

Saorview on launch carried just one High Definition (HD) service, a second HD service was launched for RTÉ One on 16 December 2013. RTÉ One and Two HD are the Republic of Ireland's only free-to-air HD services. Currently RTÉ One and RTÉ Two HD are carried on what is known as "high definition light", selected live "pass through" programming is carried in high definition, SD programmes are upscaled to HD. For example, RTÉ Two HD covers the GAA championships in high definition on a "whistle to whistle" basis as the production studios at Donnybrook have not been upgraded to HD yet.[10]

It is expected that TG4 and TV3 will eventually become high definition services. TV3 have already launched their HD definition studios in association with Sony, while TG4 have launch a trial HD service on the UPC cable network. TG4 received €1.4million in aid from the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources in 2011 for the role out of their HD service.

Commercial Muxes

A further four multiplexes are available for commercial pay DTT.

2RN will provide commercial DTT capacity on its network for pay TV services that can agree terms with it and the BAI.[11] However that is not likely until 2013 according to the BAI following on from a de-briefing exercise the BAI held with the three consortia involved in the 2008 failed licence process. The BAI said "the Authority now considers that it will not be feasible to introduce commercial DTT as originally intended until after Analogue Switch Off (ASO) at the earliest. The position will be reviewed towards the end of 2011 and the Authority may seek expressions of interest in the provision of commercial DTT at that point. A competition could potentially be held during 2012 with a view to commercial DTT being operational in 2013". It continued "it is the considered view of the Authority that as part of the preparation for the successful launch of commercial DTT in the future, legislative change will be necessary to enable the Authority to have formal relationships with the applicants, as obtains at present, and with RTÉNL".[12]

To date the BAI have not announced any plans for a competition for a commercial DTT service. In August 2013, the BAI confirmed that it would launch another attempt of finding a service provider for the commercial DTT service.[13]

This was to allow the PSB side to proceed with an ASO transition to DSO, a stabilized economic backdrop by that time (3 years time) to emerge and changes in the Broadcasting Act 2009 to allow it have statutory mediation powers in dealing with RTÉNL (now 2RN) that it currently has with the broadcasters and interested parties but not with 2RN. 2RN is currently regulated by ComReg.

In August 2013 a report into Commercial DTT by Oliver & Ohlbaum was given to the BAI, the report outlined the main problems associated with DTT in Ireland including the lack of free-to-air services on Saorview. Based on this report the BAI have decided not to proceed with a licence competition for pay-DTT. The report was published on the BAI website in January 2014.[14] On its publication Bob Collins, Chairperson of the BAI said “The contents of the report raise a number of policy implications for consideration by Government and also for the BAI, having regard to its statutory obligations and its enduring objectives in respect of diversity and plurality. In submitting copies of the review to the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, the BAI would now welcome the opportunity to discuss the findings of the report and the policy implications arising at an early date.” [15]

Main transmitters[16]

Site Mux 1 Mux 2 Power Approximate area served
Cairn Hill, County Longford 47 Horiz 44 Horiz 160 Kw North Midlands
Clermont Carn, County Louth 52 Vert 56 Vert 160 Kw North East / Belfast
Holywell Hill, County Donegal 52 Horiz 56 Horiz 30 Kw North East Donegal/Derry Londonderry
Kippure, County Wicklow 54 Horiz 58 Horiz 63 Kw East
Maghera, County Clare 48 Horiz 55 Horiz 160 Kw West
Mount Leinster, County Carlow 23 Horiz 26 Horiz 160 Kw South East
Mullaghanish, County Cork 21 Horiz 24 Horiz 200 Kw South West
Spur Hill, County Cork 45 Horiz 49 Horiz 50 Kw Cork City and environs
Three Rock, County Dublin 30 Horiz 33 Horiz 63 Kw Dublin City and environs
Truskmore, County Sligo 53 Horiz 57 Horiz 160 Kw North West

Saorview Anywhere

As part of RTÉ's 5-year plan, they have suggested the development of an on-demand service utilizing Saorview and broadband service providers. The current name of the service is Saorview Anywhere. It will provide access to the RTÉ Player and a number of new IPTV services that RTÉ wish to launch with suitable commercial providers. The new "anywhere" service may also include both TG4's and TV3's on demand services.[17]

Channels

Television

[18]

LCN Channel Saorview Multiplex Resolution
1 RTÉ One HD 2RN Mux 2 HD (1440x1080i) Fulltime
2 RTÉ2 HD 2RN Mux 1 HD (1440x1080i) Fulltime
3 TV3 2RN Mux 1 SD (544x576i) Commercial
4 TG4 2RN Mux 1 SD (544x576i) Cultural
5 3e 2RN Mux 1 SD (544x576i) Commercial
6 UTV Ireland 2RN Mux 2 SD (544x576i) Commercial
7 RTÉjr 2RN Mux 2 SD (544x576i) Part Time (Childrens)
8 RTÉ One +1 2RN Mux 2 SD (576i) (Duplicate) moving to 11 (24/3/2014)
11 RTÉ One +1 2RN Mux 2 SD (576i) Part Time (Timeshift)
none Saorview Information 2RN Mux 1 SD (544x576i) Caption message
none RTENL (Hidden channel, test service) 2RN Mux 2 HD (1080i) Colour Bars (caption "2RN Ata Cliath Ardghleine")
none RTENL (Hidden channel, test service) 2RN Mux 2 HD (1080i) Test Card
none RTENL (Hidden channel, test service) 2RN Mux 1 SD (544x576i) Test Card (Captions "2RN" and "Éireann")
17 Oireachtas TV (Hidden channel, test service) [19] 2RN Mux 2 SD (576i) Parliamentary (Testing)
21 RTÉ News Now 2RN Mux 1 SD (576i) Rolling news (Not live)
  • 9 - 10, 12-16 and 22-199: currently blank
  • 201-208: radio services
  • 901 Upwards reserved for legacy analogue tuners (where applicable): blank

Radio

LCN Service Saorview Multiplex Audio Bitrate
200 RTÉ Radio 1 2RN Mux 1 128 kb/s
201 RTÉ Radio 1 Extra 2RN Mux 1 128 kb/s
202 RTÉ 2fm 2RN Mux 1 128 kb/s
203 RTÉ Lyric fm 2RN Mux 1 160 kb/s
204 RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta 2RN Mux 1 128 kb/s Programmes in Gaelic
205 RTÉ Pulse 2RN Mux 1 112 kb/s
206 RTÉ 2XM 2RN Mux 1 112 kb/s
207 RTÉ Junior 2RN Mux 1 112 kb/s Shared (0700-2100)
207 RTÉ Chill 2RN Mux 1 112 kb/s Shared (2100-0700)
208 RTÉ Gold 2RN Mux 1 112 kb/s
209 RTÉ Choice 2RN Mux 1 - (Defunct)
  • 210 - 999: blank
  • A large number of blank/duplicate radio (and data) signals are transmitted (particularly on mux2) these have no LCN's assigned but may be placeholders for future services.

Upcoming

Analogue switchoff (ASO)

At 10am on 24 October 2012 all analogue television transmitters in Ireland were switched off and Saorview became the primary source of Irish terrestrial television. The process was televised live on RTÉ One and RTÉ News Now, with the kill-switch being thrown by television personality Miriam O'Callaghan.[21]

Saorsat - Saorview service via satellite

Main article: Saorsat

Following the failure of the commercial DTT process RTÉ submitted a revised DTT plan including a FTA satellite option to the Department of Communications in mid June 2010 for approval.[22] RTÉ publicly announced at an Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications discussion[10] in mid July 2010 that a satellite service, called Saorsat, would be offered to complement the terrestrial DTT service. Saorsat will enable Irish public service channels to be made available, unencrypted, for the first time, as a means of covering the last 2% of the population who will be unable to receive the Saorview terrestrial service.

RTÉ said the combined offering was designed to be the most cost-effective solution for viewers and broadcasters; to offer for the first time 100% coverage of public service television services in Ireland; and to provide full national back-up coverage on satellite in the event of an emergency or catastrophic failure of the DTT system [dubious – discuss].

Approval for the revised National DTT plan and the new Saorsat satellite service was announced by the Minister for Communications at the end of July 2010.[23]

Test loop transmissions detected from the end of May 2011 and received on generic DVB-S2 HD set-boxes.[24]

Additional information

  • The service is operated by 2RN (an RTÉ Subsidiary), who can also accommodate a commercial pay TV operator.
  • DTT launch was completed on target insofar as the FTA multiplex, following direction from the Minister for Communications, Energy & Natural Resources to RTÉ and signing of Statutory Instrument 85 of 2010 RTÉ (National Television Multiplex) Order 2010 on 26 February 2010.[26]
  • The FTA DTT had to be operational by 31 October 2010 to 90% of the country but launch could be any time before 31 December 2011 leaving just over a year for actual launch date to be decided. The planned DTT information campaign was between Summer 2010 and Autumn 2011, regardless of the outcome of BAI commercial DTT negotiations.[27] This also tallies with RTÉNL proceeding with Irish DTT receiver certification announced in January 2010, following the selection of Teracom to conduct the tests and expansion of the network engineering tests during 2009.[28] Commercial DTT launch was determined by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland after Easy TV declined negotiations on the Commercial DTT licence offer, following the BAI's closure of negotiations with OneVision in April 2010.[29]
  • Freeview, Britain's terrestrial digital service, is not available throughout most of the Republic of Ireland. For decades Irish analog television viewers in the right location could also receive BBC One Wales, BBC Two Wales, HTV/ITV Wales, S4C and Channel 5, as the Welsh transmitters were close enough to Ireland and used PAL System I, as does Ireland. This stopped [dubious – discuss] just after midnight on 1 April 2010 when digital switchover was completed in Wales. Irish viewers around the border region were still able to receive UK channels due to the analogue signal overspill from Northern Ireland but this ended in line with Northern Ireland's switchover to digital on 24 October 2012. As of late 2010, only one television manufacturer (Walker) was "Saorview Approved" but now all of the Samsung TV range are "Saorview Approved".[30][31] Although Freeview HD and Saorview both encode using MPEG4, Saorview uses, DVB-T, whilst Freeview HD uses DVB-T2. This, coupled with the fact that most standard definition Freeview broadcasts are DVB-T MPEG2 means that Saorview boxes can receive Freeview SD, but not HD, whilst Freeview HD boxes can receive all SD and HD channels receivable in both countries.
  • On 29 May 2012 the UK Government confirmed TV viewers in Northern Ireland will be able to watch TG4 and RTÉ One and Two on Freeview from Northern Ireland-based transmitters following digital TV switchover, through a special agreement in which RTÉ and TG4 arranged a not-for-profit venture which will be responsible for the installation of the new infrastructure. Freeview delivery of these channels will be supplemented by overspill coverage from Saorview transmitters in the Republic of Ireland. Although broadcasts are in standard definition, only Freeview HD (not normal Freeview or Saorview) boxes will receive them.

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.saorview.ie Official Irish DTT web site
  2. ^ RTÉ NL. "Saorview". RTÉ NL. Retrieved 2012-11-18.
  3. ^ http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0601/dtt.html RTÉ News
  4. ^ http://www.saorview.ie/news/saorview-launches-public-information-campaign/
  5. ^ "Saorveiw Officially Launched". IFTN. Retrieved 26 May 2011.
  6. ^ "Saorview free-to-air digital television launch". RTÉ News. 26 May 2011.
  7. ^ "Minister confirms RTÉ's €70m DTT service". RTÉ News. 30 July 2010.
  8. ^ http://www.techtir.ie/tv-radio/Irish-DTT-Sites
  9. ^ "RTÉ Appoints Director of Digital Switchover (DSO)". RTÉ Press Office. 1 July 2010. Retrieved 1 July 2010.
  10. ^ a b http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=MAJ20100714.XML&Ex=All&Page=2
  11. ^ "Digital TV switch by 2012, says Ryan". Irish Independent. 21 May 2010.
  12. ^ http://www.bai.ie/about_news_art023.html
  13. ^ http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2013/08/19/bai-revives-irish-commercial-dtt/
  14. ^ http://www.bai.ie/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/20131204_OOCommDTTRpt_v.Final_MT.pdf
  15. ^ http://www.bai.ie/?p=4236
  16. ^ 2RN. "Saorview frequencies" (PDF). 2RN. Retrieved 5 April 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  17. ^ http://static.rasset.ie/documents/about/rte-strategic-plan-long-version-2013.pdf
  18. ^ http://en.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?live=15&mux=PSB-MUX-2&liste=2&lang=en
  19. ^ https://twitter.com/DamoIRL/status/513770447356583938
  20. ^ BAI Warns on Saorview/DTT Charges www.adworld.ie
  21. ^ "Analogue TV switched off amid last-minute rush". Irish Independent. 24 October 2012. Retrieved 16 November 2012.
  22. ^ McDonald, Brian (28 June 2010). "West the loser as RTÉ cuts digital TV coverage". Irish Independent.
  23. ^ http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/Press+Releases/New+%e2%82%ac70+million+digital+network+to+be+built+by+RT%c3%89+including+new+satellite+service.htm
  24. ^ "Saorsat testing on KA-Sat". What Satellite & Digital TV. 31 May 2011.
  25. ^ http://rtenl.ie/downloads/RTE-FTA-DTT-Receiver-Spec.pdf
  26. ^ http://www.irisoifigiuil.ie/currentissues/Ir020310.PDF
  27. ^ http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20100302.xml&Node=H3-3#H3-3
  28. ^ http://www.rtenl.ie/dtt.htm#Free-to-Air
  29. ^ http://www.bai.ie/about_news_art013.html
  30. ^ The Irish Times, 18 December 2010, page 5
  31. ^ http://www.rte.ie/saorview/receiving.html Saorview website; viewed 18 Dec 2010
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