freesat in europe next year?????????

[rob43]

anyone heard anything about freesat being available throughout europe next year? i tried to translate an article in a spanish sat mag, i got the jist of it. but just wondered if anyone else knew about it. rob43

 

[PaulR]

When you say Freesat do you mean the service currently offered by $ly using the equivalent of the old Solus (Free to View) card, the proposed service that the BBC and ITV are trying to put together or something that a Spanish company is putting together?

 

[Likvid]

They are doing the ITV4 commercial quite frequently now, that is FREESAT.

 

[PaulR]

They are doing the ITV4 commercial quite frequently now, that is FREESAT.

I think that ITV4 will be FTA (Free-to-Air, needing no card) but that isn't Freesat.

Strictly speaking Freesat was trademarked by the BBC for a future satellite service - in fact the one they are trying to put together now I believe.

$ly tried to buy the name off the Beeb for their FTV (Free-to-View, ie needs a card) service but failed. Despite that I think they still used the name.

 

[Likvid]

But it says FREESAT on the commercial that ITV4 shows, its a logo down in the left corner.

 

[Analoguesat]

$ly tried to buy the name off the Beeb for their FTV (Free-to-View, ie needs a card) service but failed. Despite that I think they still used the name.

I think the BBC licensed the Freesat name to Sky. Not even Sky would be daft enough to flagrantly use another companies trademark.

 

[rob43]

When you say Freesat do you mean the service currently offered by $ly using the equivalent of the old Solus (Free to View) card, the proposed service that the BBC and ITV are trying to put together or something that a Spanish company is putting together?

hi paul. it is the proposed service that the BBC and ITV are putting together. i had my son read it. and it says "freesat" will be available in europe within a year. in competition with sky. so hopefully we´ll get back some progs we´ve missed! rob

 

[PaulR]

From what I've read the Beeb and ITV are trying to get a viable equivalent to the terrestrial Freeview going. It would probably stay on 28E as they are both already there. There are supposedly talks going on with box manufacturers to try to produce a suitable (cheap!) STB (set top box).

I don't know whether there would be all the interactivity that you can get through a digibox but I'm sure that some could be engineered in that doesn't require $ly software.

The biggest problem I can see is that C4 and Five won't and can't be part of any free to air transmissions as they both still have a couple of years or so left to run with their contracts with $ly. This contract appears to be the reason why the new More 4 channel had to be encrypted on 28E although I am unclear why it had to be part of the basic $ly package.

 

[PaulR]

Here's another thought.

I obviously haven't see the contracts but it might be possible for C4 and/or Five to simulcrypt in another encryption sustem and then issue cheap cards that aren't as restrictive as $ly's videoguard ones. It would mean an increase in cost for the receivers as they would either have to have a built-in CAM or, at the very least, a CI slot for an external CAM.

So, all in all I can't see that happening either