Some customers have asked us about this thing they heard of called Mheg5 and what is it’s significance for the new Saorview Digital Tv service here in Ireland. We and other websites have a range of boxes for sale and as aprt of the specification you might see something like Mheg5 Engine, Mheg5 Middleware or Supports Digital Teletext. What this basically means is that if a box has Mheg5 on it, you can receive Ireland’s new Digital Aertel Teletext service. Currently it on is only on RTE2 HD but is expected to be rolled out to all the channels at some stage in the future.
The new Digital Teletext service is much quicker & far more relaible than the old traditional teletext service you may be familiar with. It is far more versatile also. Check it out in the video above and see one of the new cool feature of the Digital TV service in Ireland
Just to let everyone know that have been ringing and emailing that the new Xoro DTV-M5 Irish Digital TV Receiver has arrived. The DTV-M5 is Ireland’s first generic High Definition Digital TV Receiver that has an Mheg5 engine which will allow you to receive the new Irish Digital Teletext service and future interactive services.
It comes with an impressive media player that can handle a wide array of video, music and picture formats and is available at lower cost than the vast majority of official Saorview boxes.
Click on the graphic above to be brough to the product page and make sure to check out all the associated videos and tutorials.
We at TV Trade want to give a quick shout out to the lads at the Irish Satellite & Aerial Association (ISAA). They are doing great work in the area of promoting the proper installation & maintenance of Satellite and TV Aerial equipment, both for analogue and digital alike.
Irish Satellite & Aerial Association
The ISSA only allows membership to those companies and individuals who;
Honour all warranties for equipment supplied & installed
Have Public liability insurance
Use appropriate equipment for the job undertaken
Have received necessary training in satellite & aerial installation
Are a registered Business or Company
With the digital switchover taking place within the next number of months, the ISAA will be carrying out their new training course for Digital TV Installations, starting on the 21st & 22nd of Feb 2011 in the City North Hotel on the M1.
If you are interested in joining, feel free to contact the ISAA office at:
By hiring an Irish Satellite & Aerial Association member to install your Satellite Dish, repair or replace you Satellite Receiver, mount your TV Aerial or distribute your TV signal to different rooms etc, you can be assured that they are fully up to date on the latest technologies, are fully insured and can stand over their work.
On Oct 29th 2010, the Saorview Digital TV service went live. It’s nationwide coverage initially was around 90%. Initially it was a limited service (Only the RTE owned channels) but on Nov 3rd 2010, TV3 was added to the channel list and on the 17th Nov 2010, TV3s sister channel 3e was added too. In November RTE2 started broadcasting in HD only but this was reversed to include a standard definition RTE2 to accomodate those views who only had SD Digital Receivers.
There was meant to be a limited public information campaign in November to inform people of the Saorview turn on, however this was very limited. Some shops and outlets started receiving Saorview approved boxes around November and December time. Generally, these were the Walker boxes and were retailing around 99euro. There were meant to be a limited umber of Saorview approved TVs in shops too, altough I have yet to see one locally yet.
This blog post is basically to outline the possible timeline for the rest of the Saorview Digital TV roll-out and for the switch off of the analogue TV signal.
Below are best guess estimates and may change as time goes on but as of now they are based on best available information.
From February 2011, there is to be a major publicity drive regarding Saorview
From April/May onwards there should be much more variety in Saorview Set Top Boxes as more arrive on the market.
After the public launch of Saorsat (Saorview’s Satellite Counterpart) around May timeframe, there will be full information campaign about the analogue switchoff.
In 2012, you can expect all the RTE owned channels to be broadcasting in HD on Saorview.
Also you can expect the nation wide coverage of the Digital Terrestrial TV signal to be around 98%. (Saorsat is going to overlap here and make up the additional 2% aswell as offering people more choise in how they receive it)
From Oct 2012, the analogue signal will begin to be turned off.
At the latest, Feb 2013 will be when all of the analogue signal will be switched off.
Towards the end of 2013, we expect to have TV3 in HD and possibly 3e.
As I say, this is a rough guide to the Saorview timeframe. This may change over time but if you want to ensure your Saorview compatibility now, you will ahve to either upgrade/replace your Digital TV receiver and / or buy yourself an MPEG4 HD Digital TV. This of course only applies to those who do not subscribe to the LIkes of NTL or Sky but even at that, if you want to have a free to air option along side your subscription package without paying for mulit room, then this is something you will have consider doing in the near-medium term.
Since the Digital TV signal was turned on in Oct 2010, I have been asked may times, what is the difference between digital and analogue. Without getting into the technicalities in this blog post, I have made up a quick guide explaining the main differences, at least what the end user will experience anyway.
The first one will be the Electronic Programme Guide or EPG as it is commonly known. The EPG on Digital TV will give a seven day programme guide with a summary of the content of each programme. People are probably used to this now with Sky it’s competitors so this will be a nice addition for most people.
Do you remember the days when you have to fiddle with knobs on the TV to tune in stations or even now, you can do it with the remote control, well from now on, the TV channels automatically tune themselves in!!!
There will be far better coverage of the Digital TV signal and it’s strength will be greatly increase also meaning a far better picture and for more of the population.
All of RTE’s Digital Radio channels will also be received by your Digital Receiver. And there are plans to increase the range of TV channels in the future also. Not sure if they will be free to air or pay per view, only time will tell I suppose.
Once fully up and running, all the domestic Digital TV channels will be broadcast in high definition adding further to your viewing pleasure.
Not to be too technical but there may be some issue with older TVs regarding aspect. Parts of the TV picture may be chopped off on some TVs.
Finally, some of the new Digital Receivers will be either PVR Ready(add External Hard Drives) or have full PVR (hard drive built in) enabling you to pause live TV, rewind live TV and record your favourite TV programmes.
All in all, there is no comparison between Analogue and Digital TV and the sooner the better the former is turned off.
I just wanted to let everyone know that we have a new Digital TV receiver in stock. We have completed the testing on the box and have updated the website with it’s user manual and video instructional guides.
Fortec Star FS-3300 HD Digital TV Receiver
We have been left astounded by this new digital receiver. It was sold to us as an mpeg4 & HD compatible box that could receive the new Saorview Digital Television service in Ireland. Although it is not a Saorview approved box, it is compatible with it and meets the necessary technical specifications. What amazed us was the extras that come with the receiver as standard and had not been advertised to us when buying them.
The FS-3300 HD Digital TV Receiver is PVR ready which means with the addition of an external hard drive or USB Memory Stick, you can pause and rewind live TV or record you favourite TV show. That by itself is not what amazed us, it was the media player that is built into the DTT receiver that left us speechless. Some satellite receivers and Digital TV receivers these days come with media players built in but this is usually advertised and also the media player is usually only standard def movie compatible.
The Fortec Digital TV reciver’s media player is not only SD movie compatible, it is also HD movie compatible. We tried several movies in HD and it played several HD formats. The only thing to be aware of is if your External Hard Drives formatted to FAT32, then you can’t store any file of 4GB on it, so if your movie file is larger, make sure the ext HDD is formatted to NTFS but the FS-3300 HD Digital Receiver TV receiver can handle both (NTFS & FAT32) formats.
That was a first for us here at TV Trade. We had never seen either a satellite or digital tv receiver that’s media player could handle downloaded HD films (legally of course)on an external storage device. Wow! The Fortec Star Digital Tv Receiver is really a suprising little piece of kit.
Of couse it’s main feature is to receive the Saorview Digital TV signal in Ireland. To do this all you need is a UHF TV aerial, some cabling, connectors and either an MPEG4 compatible receiver or television. The new digital tv signal was turned on officially in Oct 2010 and to date as I write this you can receive the following channels in crystal clear digital.
Currently RTE2 is the only one broadcasting in High Def, but the others will follow shortly. These are no pay per view services available at the moment but some may be added in the future.
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Fortec Star FS-3300 HD Digital TV Receiver
