Free satellite TV coming soon
By Adrian Weckler
Next month, broadcasters and television manufacturers will try to sell us new TVs and new channels in time for the World Cup.
But there is another way to get your high definition World Cup into your living room: using Freesat.
Ninety per cent of Irish households watch television through cable providers or Sky. But Freesat and DIY satellite equipment is an alternative that is growing in popularity.
Freesat is a free television service aimed at Britain and the North. Funded by the BBC and ITV, it is targeted at British households who are outside the coverage areas for analogue and digital terrestrial television (DTT) networks. But because of our proximity to Britain, Irish households can also get the service.
It is available to anyone with a satellite dish and a basic decoder.
There is no monthly or annual subscription to pay.
What you do not get from the service is RTE, Sky or any premium film and sports channels. For these channels, you must rely on an analogue aerial.
There are dozens of satellite installation firms across Ireland.
While most concentrate on lucrative pub and hotel customers, many now service private homes. A new organisation called the Irish Satellite and Aerial Association was founded by Steve Staveley of Astral TV and Gerry Walsh of VSat Communications; its website offers a county-by-county guide to installation firms.
One of the reasons for the enthusiastic adoption of satellite systems is that sports fans can subscribe to premium sports packages licensed in other countries. An example would be the Saudi Arabian based ART Sport channel, which is officially licensed to show English Premier League football games. To view these games, a decoder card is required, which can be purchased online for between €100 and €150. This gives access to 12 months’ premium sport at less than the cost of a Sky subscription.
However, some in the industry caution against relying on satellite equipment for this purpose. ‘‘We used to sell subscriptions to ART Sport, but we don’t any more,” said Tony Moore, founder of Satellite.ie, a Dublin-based satellite installation firm. ‘‘We found that these rights get changed around quite often. As a retailer, you can get stuck with a lot of access cards that are out of date.”
Another premium sporting competition that is available with the right equipment is the Heineken Cup, which is broadcast free-to-air on French station France 2.
Another reason for the popularity of DIY satellite systems is the on going uncertainty over Ireland’s switch to digital terrestrial television (DTT). Last month, the last remaining consortium of private sector investors pulled out of launching a commercial DTT service in Ireland. This leaves the prospect that only RTE,TV3 and TG 4 will be available on the digital television platform when Ireland switches from analogue to digital networks in 2012.
To set up the equipment, you need a south-facing roof, wall or patch of land that is not obstructed.
This is because the Freesat satellite is located 28 degrees to the south. Satellite TV enthusiasts get much more out of their services than just Freesat. ‘‘If you purchase a bigger dish, you can pick up thousands of stat ions,” said Staveley, director of Mullingar based satellite installer Astral TV.
‘‘You can pick up stations from as far away as Russia and the Middle East, all the way back across Europe and northern Africa.”
To achieve this, Staveley said that the dish must be a minimum of 80 centimetres across, with dishes of 1.2metres in diameter preferable. It must also be ranged on a motorised arc to follow the geostationary position of different satellites.
Such a system can cost up to €1,000 to install, with suitable electronic programming systems.
It is the falling cost of these do-it-yourself systems that is attracting customers.
‘‘A basic Freesat installation costs between €200 and €300 from a professional installation firm,” said Staveley. ‘‘You can do it yourself for less by buying equipment from Lidl or Aldi.
But you need to know what you’re doing, especially in getting the angle of the dish right.” High definition broadcasts are available over satellite.
Both the BBC and ITV offer their HD service on Freesat.
This means that it will be possible to watch events such as the World Cup in high definition, although a high definition decoder box will be required.
