Astra 19.2 digital

[Removed Member]

Viva Plus,Viva,Mtv Central,Sky News,Fox on TV plus LOADS of Redhot Radio Channels like RADIO 538.

Anyone else find this great free-to-air service equally as enjoying as I do.

My main reason is that it's culturally different and just takes a different approach than the SKYDIGI view we have all come to know in the last 2 years.

Also - I'm not too happy to see RTE bully their way to the SKY EPG for Ireland - It smacks of them going on 102.7mhz fm and 88.5 mhz all those fateful years ago.

[021]

Why are you getting worked up about RTE being on the Sky EPG??
It is not as if they displaced anyone else.

[Arnold]

Have to say I'm pleased that RTE are now on the EPG for a couple of reasons.

Firstly it has put a rocket up the arse of NTL, Chorus et al who had been back-peddling like mad on their obligations to get digital cable rolled out. The squeeling that came from them after it was announced was something to behold. We might now start to get some of the services that were promised when Cablelink was bought over all those years ago.

Secondly and more importantly it has given RTE the Digital Interactive platform that the authorities had demanded of them. Without Sky they would have been railroaded into building a terrestrial digital network which they could ill afford to do given the state of current finances. You can be sure that once the network had been built and paid for it would have ended up being flogged off to some friend the self same authorities. With the signal available through Sky it allows some time while the general idea of digital terrestrial broadcasting dies a death.

[Mike]

But we NEED DTT because

1) Not everyone wants or can afford a $py digital subscripton
2) Not everyone can have a dish put up (bedsit dwelers for example)
3) The need to stop the Rupert Murdoch's and Tony O Rielly's of this world becoming Furher
4) Something called competition
5) Something else called choice

[Arnold]

Hi Mike

Some fair points, I was looking at the situation from the point of view of someone who exists in cable TV land and I'll respond from that perspective. I'm not excluding others, just talking from where I stand.

But we NEED DTT because

1) Not everyone wants or can afford a $py digital subscripton.
A)Sod all difference between the cost of cable or Sky.

2) Not everyone can have a dish put up (bedsit dwelers for example)
A)Fair point, no easy answer.

3) The need to stop the Rupert Murdoch's and Tony O Rielly's of this world becoming Furher.
A) Absolutely no disagreement on this point, however I think it's a political rather than technical viewpoint

4) Something called competition
A)RTE on Sky is competition, the reaction of the cable companies and their attempts to stop it are proof positive of this.

5) Something else called choice
A)Same answer as above

RTE can't currently bear the expense of building a Digital Terrestrial network in the South and no-one else wants to do it, in this situation the addition of RTE to the Sky to the EPG is I feel a bonus and has already driven the lacklustre cable companies to get their fingers out.

With regard to Sky the one thing that is in the pipeline to happen and I feel needs to happen is for Sky CAMs to become available so that you can use SKY and Free To Air services with only one reciever in a multisat environment