Brian Greene

follow the sun, this h-h mount is environmentally sound and tastes good too.

photo by NAKKERO

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Bars & Tones from André Chocron on Vimeo.

Not often do I have something nice to say about $ky. But this time the $avings are yours and the environment! The digibox will now go on auto standby night & day if not used for a period, cutting 14-18volts of power to the LNB on the arm of your dish, Sky expect to reduce their (your collective) carbon footprint by 90,000 tonnes (a year?).

Telly addicts fear not you can turn off auto standby. Sky explain “if you regularly watch TV in the early hours of the morning it is possible to permanently switch off Auto Standby by using an option in the Settings menu of the Sky Guide. Go to Services, 5 – Sky+ Setup, Auto-Standby: set to off”

with a tv slogan “however you look at it, everyone is affected by business” the Business Channel is off air. EPG says programmes start at 6.00am but normally it is looping. it was off air before 9pm yesterday evening. 

business channel off air?

Yesterday evening, Joe Higgins a leading member of the Irish Socialist Party and the Committee for a Workers International gave a press conference in Santiago.

The Press Conference took place at 19.00 hours, in the TallerSol Cultural Centre, in the ‘Barrio Brasil’ in downtown Santiago – a well known rendezvous for artists, filmmakers and cine and arts lovers.

Joe explained that the team of the Irish language (Gaelic) TV was in Chile filming about the current political and social situation in Latinamerica, following the journey of Che Guevara through the continent. But Joe Higgins, in the name of all his team, also expressed his solidarity with Elena Varela, the Chilean journalist and author of ‘Newen Mapuche’(Mapuche Strength), who was arrested while she was filming another project about the struggle of the Mapuche people. The Irish TV team requested the immediate release of Elena Varela and her film material. Joe announced the launch of an international solidarity campaign, with this purpose, with the participation of the organizations and members of the Committee for a Workers International. source cwi

BBC ALBA TEST- service begins mid Sept 2008 on 12seconds.tv
[media network] [wikipedia entry]
Location: 28.2 deg east 11.954 GHz Horizontal SR:27500 FEC:2/3 Label:6736

Today is gonna be the day the DTT Trial ends. RTE point people to Aertel 169 for more details.

What was the trial? it tested MPEG2 DTT in Ireland to a closed audience on about 1000 homes, what format will DTT in Ireland be? MPEG4. The Trial did test MPEG4 on one of the MUX but in the main the test was of MPEG2 multiplex. MPEG4 is of higher quality and better spectrum efficiency. The MPEG4 in Ireland will be DVB-T1 MPEG 4 (afaik) and the UK will adopt DVB-T2 MPEG4 when it introduces MPEG4. MPEG4 signals from RTE from August 4th will not work with digital ready TV sets unless they are MPEG4. Most STBs for DTT & integrated digital tv tuners are compatible with the trial that ends today but are not MPEG4 ready. see article below re same from a few weeks ago in SiliconRepublic.

RTENL say

RTÉNL will commence DTT engineering test transmissions during the week commencing 4^th August 2008. The system will operate with MPEG4 encoding only and is in accordance with the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland’s (BCI) requirement that DTT receivers should support MPEG4 in its Guide to Submissions for DTT Multiplex Contracts (see www.bci.ie). Please also see ComReg documents 07/90a & 07/90b at www.comreg.ie . The Department of Communications, Energy & Natural Resources trial used both MPEG2 & MPEG4 encoding. Standard UK “Freeview” type set top boxes will not be able to decode these test transmissions.

bold added by me

Consumers warned TVs may not be ‘digital ready’

11.07.2008

Irish consumers thinking they are buying digital TV sets capable of handling digital TV may end up with defunct technology as digital terrestrial TV DTT, when it launches, will be on a new MPEG4 standard, it has emerged.

At present three consortiums – Boxer DTT comprising BT and Swedish broadcaster Boxer Group; OneVision consortium including TV3, Eircom, Setanta and technology firm Arqiva; and EasyTV Limited consisting UPC and RTÉ – have been shortlisted by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland BCI for the three DTT licenses that will be awarded later this year.

Until lately, DTT trials in the Dublin and Dundalk areas have been based on the MPEG2 standard. However, a move to MPEG4 will allow providers to offer high-definition television and other interactive services.

The move to MPEG4, while described by broadcast enthusiast and web developer Brian Greene as showing foresight, will make most people who think their TVs will be ready for digital TV see their investment ruined.

“Anything on sale in Irish TV shops that claims to be ‘digital ready’ will no longer be after 31 July when RTÉ switch to MPEG4.

“As DTT in Ireland will be minimum standard MPEG4, all UK TVs that are Freeview-ready will be obsolete in Ireland as they won’t get a Freeview signal and Irish DTT will not be compatible.

Greene said when analogue TV is switched off at the earliest at the end of 2012 or by the latest 2015, the leftover spectrum should be used to allow for parallel broadcasting of MPEG 2 so that people’s investments will be safeguarded.

Greene said it’s important that organisations ranging from the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources to BCI, RTÉ and various consumer bodies should be warning consumers not to buy products in the mistaken belief they are optimised for DTT just because they say ‘digital ready’.

“The state should warn retailers not to sell pig in a poke TV sets. If the set is not going to be Digital Ready MPEG4, then stickers should be removed and shoppers should be warned that UK digital TV sets will not work here,” Greene warned.

By John Kennedy

1972: today I found the old family Pong game so I had to find a 1980’s TV for the 70’s game& a ‘72 song for pong http://qik.com/video/143324

Today I went down to the westbury to see the 3 public presentations for the 3 commercial DTT mux that will join the states public service (not commercial entity) mux. What follows is all about style not substance – the fact that there was no questions allowed to be asked today must mean that substance is in the main documents submitted to the BCI beyond the exec summaries we could read in the press or the BCI website. Here follows my review of the styles of those glass slipper holders as they seek to find their Prince.

BOXER
Ending as they started with the very able Lucy Gaffney boxer put some meat on the bones of what they have to offer. Lucy then closed with a video which starred the DTT ‘champion’ character of Swedish DTT “Robbie” doing a rocky style run & shadow box to the tune ‘Gonna Fly Now’ (theme from rocky). I’m not so keen on robbie and I would drop him for the irish game. the big play here is, we have done it (Sweden / Denmark), can do it in Ireland, we are DTT champions. bhg scores 70%

EASY
Roaring out a distorted audio the Easy TV presentation began and went down hill from there. If the prizes were given based on quality of presentation today then Easy TV would be any easy 3rd place. To a format of, I stepped out and he stepped in again, the projected presentation slide cueing seemed difficult for the Easy TV pair of presenters to manage, on this basis I wouldn’t give them a DTT playground to play in. Easy TV should have been presented differently/better (like get the very talented Kate O’Sullivan from UPC to do it, too late now). Big play here was we are the big boys in this space we will be well integrated with the public mux, well integrated with RTE NL bhg scores 45%

ONEVISION
Opening with a video (no audio distortion here) the video looked like it was made by TV people which is more than can be said about the other two camps videos (which looked made by flash designers). To the sound of Queen – One Vision this slick video started off the best presentation of the afternoon. On cue out of the video no pause no fade Fintan Drury launched a Barack Obama sytle (ok I exaggerate for effect) “We have one vision” speech, introduced his team, explaining the investors etc. All speakers were very well coached and not over coached but delivered like people who wanted to a run TV platform. Big play here, we are Irish we are not big players in the media space so we wont own too much media. bhg scores 90%

All platforms proposed have a pay element. Based on my reading of this market (and I don’t want to make any money out of it) I would tend to think the player with the most FTA and least PPV or pay as you go will succeed. That player is OneVision. As RTE NL is involved with all 3 above the difference is the flavour of DTT not the ability to provide it. A Boxer slide said that they would provide a free box while later sides talked about the networks & chains that would be partners to sell boxes, i’m confused, but with Aldi UK selling MPEG2 freeview for £18 boxer might get a SD/HD MPEG4 box out for free but at some cost, if they are more about top up than subscription TV then the free kit for contract ain’t on offer, I would have liked them to have been asked about this.

I have presented before the IRTC in the past and it is nerve wreaking. The best pitches do not always win but this is a BEAUTY contest. And I know who the ugly sisters are, and who Cinderella is. Remember Cinderella didn’t always get to go to the ball but after a while she met her Prince. I would still bet on an ondigital meets freeview future for Irish DTT, why? its MPEG4 (that’s good, that’s also problematic) & there is plenty of PPV euros wanted by all the entrants in a saturated carrier market, and today was about the last and smallest entrant. RTE on Freesat would kill DTT dead and that’s not going to happen either. Roll on July 31st when the BCI decide.