[DrNookie]

How dumb of the BBC and ITV not to add a viewing card slot onto their boxes.

New UK satellite service coming in February 2010

A Top Up TV-style service for satellite is set for a 'soft' launch in February 2010

Trade title New Media Markets reports that Real Digital will offer access to 200 standard and high definition free to air channels including those available on Freesat plus a selection of as-yet-unannounced pay TV channels which could bring the total to 250 at launch.

The service will initially be made available to owners of certain Fortec Star receivers including its Passion Plus and Innovation models in February requiring a software update which includes the addition of a Real Digital EPG. Subscribers will be asked to purchase a viewing card for a one-off fee of £20 but it is not known what form of encryption will be used.


Full article - What Satellite & Digital TV

[Mike02]

Originally Posted by DrNookie

How dumb of the BBC and ITV not to add a viewing card slot onto their boxes.

It really defeats the purpose, mate Freesat [Free Satellite]

[DrNookie]

Originally Posted by Mike02

It really defeats the purpose, mate Freesat [Free Satellite]

It would have given users the option to subscribe to other broadcasters who did not wish to be free.

[Mike02]

Originally Posted by DrNookie

It would have given users the option to subscribe to other broadcasters who did not wish to be free.

I think Real Digital will be popular once it gets up and running as an
aternative platform - David designed their EPG and has already
stated its far superior to SKY and Freesat. We'll just have to
wait and see how it performs

EDIT: Here's a Real Digital fan already: lol

Frickin brilliant!! Love the fact that David Henry is involved!! Was sceptical when I saw it on Fortec Star's site, then read it here. I will be buying a receiver and card just for the sake of it not being Sky.

[Starburst]

A one off £20 card to receive as yet unnamed PAY channels, I know SKY don't pay a lot for some very well established third party channels like V1 and Living but they do shell serious cash for Viacom/Disney so £20 is a bit of a joke unless they bundle together some real junk.

Is is possible the article has simply got confused with the £20 Freesatfromsky card?

[Mike02]

Originally Posted by Starburst

A one off £20 card to receive as yet unnamed PAY channels, I know SKY don't pay a lot for some very well established third party channels like V1 and Living but they do shell serious cash for Viacom/Disney so £20 is a bit of a joke unless they bundle together some real junk.

Is is possible the article has simply got confused with the £20 Freesatfromsky card?

AFAIK its Real Digital's own card

This is a quote from Rapture TV's post:

At least one Pay TV channel that is not available on any other UK platform has started the process of a launch on REAL next year. The NDA prevent any further information being offered here.

[davemurgatroyd2]

Originally Posted by Starburst

A one off £20 card to receive as yet unnamed PAY channels, I know SKY don't pay a lot for some very well established third party channels like V1 and Living but they do shell serious cash for Viacom/Disney so £20 is a bit of a joke unless they bundle together some real junk.

Is is possible the article has simply got confused with the £20 Freesatfromsky card?

The £20 fee is only for activation of a card to receive the EPG and to enable you to pay extra to receive pay TV channels it appears not to give access to anything other than already FTA channels.

[Geofbob]

Originally Posted by DrNookie

How dumb of the BBC and ITV not to add a viewing card slot onto their boxes.

Originally Posted by DrNookie

It would have given users the option to subscribe to other broadcasters who did not wish to be free.

Actually they're not the BBC's & ITV's boxes; but if they were how would it have benefited them to add a card slot, & allow access to pay channels?

[Starburst]

Originally Posted by Mike02

AFAIK its Real Digital's own card

This is a quote from Rapture TV's post:

At least one Pay TV channel that is not available on any other UK platform has started the process of a launch on REAL next year. The NDA prevent any further information being offered here.

Well it would have to be if they are going to offer PAY telly but I'm just puzzled that any form of PAY channel could exist off the back of a one off £20 payment and have no interest in the 11million households with SKY and Freesat be it free or within a PAY package on SKY, DTT or Cable.

Either way I'm sure a certain music based channel will be making a comeback and given the issues surrounding EPG payments to other companies will be exclusive to this adventure in broadcasting

Originally Posted by davemurgatroyd2

The £20 fee is only for activation of a card to receive the EPG and to enable you to pay extra to receive pay TV channels it appears not to give access to anything other than already FTA channels.

Is that legal?
SKY and Freesat hardware do not charge any fee for reception of the EPG, the charge broadcasters for placement and for SKY you need a card for the FTV channels and it aids in regional allocation (not a big issue on Freesat or Generic boxes).
Mind you VM get away with charging you for watching the BBC digital channels so I suppose there is a loop hole in there somewhere.

[Jonstone]

I swapped from sky to freesat primarily due to the fact that I found I wasn't watching most of the channels I was paying sky for and most of my viewing consisted of programmes on the free to view channels.

I do however believe that if you do have an interest in the pay to view channels that sky actually offers pretty good value for money and that any competitor trying to establish itself in the pay tv market is going to have its work cut out trying to compete on price and service.

Maybe if they use a different channel model, so it is easier to purchase the individual channels you want rather than being forced to buy packages of channels then this may offer a viable alternative.

I think sky themselves may well have to rethink their approach in this area themselves in the near future as online alternatives for watching movies etc start to put pressure on sky to offer the movie package as a seperate option.

As for there being no viewing card slot on freesat boxes, I believe that was a condition imposed on freesat when it was setup, the BBC would not have been allowed to use licence fee payers money to help setup a commercial rival to sky for instance

[Davey H]

Originally Posted by Mike02

At least one Pay TV channel that is not available on any other UK platform has started the process of a launch on REAL next year. The NDA prevent any further information being offered here.

What's the betting it'll be a return of Rapture TV to DSAT?

[Mike02]

Originally Posted by WavyDavy

What's the betting it'll be a return of Rapture TV to DSAT?

brilliant lol

make it 2/1

[DrNookie]

Originally Posted by Geofbob

Actually they're not the BBC's & ITV's boxes; but if they were how would it have benefited them to add a card slot, & allow access to pay channels?

The BBC and ITV set the requirements for the boxes. For a start the broadcasters would have not all been stuck on Astra 2D.

Pay channels would have just been an extra option.

[Starburst]

I fully agree, the mandatory provision of a CI slot would have given the platform a lot more flexibility, yes they can trumpet Iplayer all they want but a reliance on free channels is a dead end given the future of linear advert driven television.
Of course you have to put any platform that doesn't generate cash from the viewer in a different category to those that do, how many watch via a Freesat box is pretty irrelevant in terms of the cost of license fee and the revenues generated by the likes of ITV and CH4 and by extension the programming they can make.

In reality there was never going to be a move from 2D and the reintroduction of encryption for the BBC and ITV channels on a large scale for the obvious reasons of cost and political tactics.

[davemurgatroyd2]

The rumour is that the BBC did not want CI slots because they feared that the Government would drop the license fee and force them to go subscription.

[Starburst]

Originally Posted by davemurgatroyd2

The rumour is that the BBC did not want CI slots because they feared that the Government would drop the license fee and force them to go subscription.

Yes, politics
Greg Dyke to his credit came clean and stated the move from SKY encryption to FTV was not all about the money they had to pay SKY but the threat of having encryption as a viable option on Cable, Dsat and DTT.
The BBC are never afraid to spend licence fee money to protect the corporation from the real world.

[Geofbob]

Originally Posted by davemurgatroyd2

The rumour is that the BBC did not want CI slots because they feared that the Government would drop the license fee and force them to go subscription.

An interesting prospect - I suspect we'd finish up paying far more than £12pm (the current licence fee) for Paysat & Payview.

[Sonic67]

I don't need a viewing card for my Freesat box in the same way as I don't need them for my Freeview box. You want pay TV there's enough options around. Adding extra kit will make the box bigger and more expensive for people who don't want it.

[everett_psycho]

the main argument for the card slot i've not seen here is copyrighting isn't it? No card slot means no encryption on the FTA channels freesat offers and therefore they can not be sent from certain satellites as their footprint extends beyond the UK and studios will start suing our broadcasters because they didnt pay to broadcast the content in other countries. Adding a card slot means you can use the sky method of encrypting FTV channels, it doesn't essentially mean a monthly fee would follow for channels just that there is more room on the satellites to beam them down from.

One solution i did see elsewhere was an idea that if you get your freesat box plugged in to the net it could be plausible to send the decryption key as it were down the internet to you so you wouldnt need the card slot but they could encrypt channels to get them over to over transponders

[williamus]

If I'd wanted pay channels I'd have stuck with Sky. IMHO if this happens it'll be the beginning of the end of Freesat. I think as soon as any channels become pay options we'll start to lose some of our free channels which will reappear in subscription bundles. The incentive to add new channels to the Freesat line up will disappear overnight. If that happens, I'm going to be making friends with Mr Murdoch again. How sad .

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by everett_psycho

the main argument for the card slot i've not seen here is copyrighting isn't it? No card slot means no encryption on the FTA channels freesat offers and therefore they can not be sent from certain satellites as their footprint extends beyond the UK and studios will start suing our broadcasters because they didnt pay to broadcast the content in other countries. Adding a card slot means you can use the sky method of encrypting FTV channels, it doesn't essentially mean a monthly fee would follow for channels just that there is more room on the satellites to beam them down from.

One solution i did see elsewhere was an idea that if you get your freesat box plugged in to the net it could be plausible to send the decryption key as it were down the internet to you so you wouldnt need the card slot but they could encrypt channels to get them over to over transponders

Freesat is supposed to offer a similar service to freeview to those who's geographical location precludes a freeview service. Many of these locations will be beyond the reach of an internet service so would kind of defeat the whole point of the service