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Saorview is the national free-to-air digital terrestrial television (DTT) service in Ireland.

The service began operation on 29 October 2010 on a trial basis with full launch on 26 May 2011. 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.

Saorview was officially launched on 26 May 2011 by Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte TD.

Overview
Saorview is the Ireland's Public broadcasting (PBS) DTT service. The Irish word Saor means free, thereby mirroring a common name of DTT service in many regions, Freeview, through a mix of the English and Irish languages. It is operational and available free-to-air (FTA) to approximately 90% of the population from 29 October 2010 on 24 sites. It will launch in a full capacity sometime in Spring 2011 with ASO campaign phase beginning Dec 2011 or such date the Minister may specify as required by the Broadcasting Act 2009. RTÉ has recommended that the date for the public national launch be Q2 2011 but this must be decided by the Minister for Communications. On 1 July 2010 RTÉ announced that Mary Curtis their current Deputy Director of Programmes in RTÉ Television would take on the role of Director of Digital Switchover (DSO) in September 2010 and will report to the Director General.

Saorview will be available from perhaps 51 DTT transmitters covering 98% of the population by the end of Q3 2012. The existing analogue terrestrial television (ATT) network is available to 98% of the population from 150 ATT transmitters. Initially one multiplex is available to the RTÉNL Saorview service with a second becoming available after the digital switchover which will be finished by the end of October 2012. A further four multiplexes are available for commercial pay DTT.

The service is free-to-air and 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.

Initially RTÉ Two will be carried on what is known as "high definition light", selected live "pass through" programming will be carried in high definition, SD programmes will be upscaled to HD. For example, RTÉ would be able to cover the GAA championships of the summer of 2011 in high definition on a "whistle to whistle" basis as they do not have all the infrastructure at their studios to show the rest of the coverage in high definition. Once the RTÉ playout facility has been upgraded for high definition this will enable the playout of HD recorded material. RTÉ propose that the high definition services should be offered on DTT only, in direct contravention of the Broadcasting Acts, which state RTÉ should offer all their channels to all television platforms.

The service is expected to provide significant coverage throughout Northern Ireland.

RTÉNL will provide commercial DTT capacity on its network for pay TV services that can agree terms with it and the BAI. 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". This is to allow the PSB side to proceed to successful ASO transition to DSO, a stabilised 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 that it currently has with the broadcasters and interested parties but not with RTÉNL.

Costs
Costs of the service vary from €60 to €150, with each set top box (STB) costing "up to €100 each". In addition, some viewers will have to purchase new aerials, particularly in the south- east. Only some households are currently envisaged getting a subsidy.

Analogue switchoff (ASO)
On 14 October 2011, it was announced that the analogue switchoff in Ireland is scheduled to happen on 24 October 2012.

List of channels
There are a range of channels for Saorview which are either offered from RTÉNL, or the BAI.

Saorsat - Saorview service via satellite
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. RTÉ publicly announced at an Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications discussion in mid July 2010 that a free-to-air satellite service, called Saorsat, would be offered to complement the terrestrial DTT service. Saorsat will enable Irish public service channels to be made available free to air and 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 free-to-air 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.

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.

It is anticipated that the Saorsat satellite service will be available from the second quarter of 2012. Test loop transmissions detected from the end of May 2011 and received on generic DVB-S2 HD set-boxes.

Video on demand
The service could offer video on demand, via an Ethernet port, from:


 * RTÉ player
 * 3Player
 * TG4 Player

Additional information

 * The service is operated by RTÉNL, who can also accommodate a commercial pay TV operator. Saorview is a free public service giving viewers access to the list of proposed channels shown above.


 * Integrated digital televisions (iDTVs) and set-top boxes which comply with the RTÉ free-to-air DTT receiver - Minimum Requirements will be eligible to display the Saorview logo. Receiver testing and approval will be carried out by Teracom.


 * 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.


 * 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. 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. 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.


 * In most areas Saorview equipment does not receive Freeview. For decades Irish analog television viewers in the right location could also receive BBC One Wales, BBC Two Wales, ITV Wales (HTV until 2004), S4C and Channel 5 (Five at the time) as the Welsh transmitter was close enough to Ireland and used almost identical technology. This stopped just after midnight on 1 April 2010 when digital switchover was completed in Wales. Irish viewers around the border region can still receive UK channels due to the analogue signal "overspill" from Northern Ireland, as it is still due to switchover to digital sometime in 2012. As of late 2010, only one television manufacturer (Walker) was "Saorview Approved".