Why is Prime not on Freeview?

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lchiu7

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#15286 14-Aug-2007 09:35

Just wondering why not? I had rumours it had to do with the HPOL and VPOL issue on D1 so that Australians could potentially pick up the Freeview signal since it's not encrypted and Prime has re-broadcast rights for some shows (Rugby League?) that it has no rights to broadcast to Australia? If that is the case, it seems like an easy solution would be to black out those broadcasts on Freeview when they are on. When I lived in the US that was common practice - black out games which featured the local football team in the local area while making the transmission available in the rest of the country, unless the game was sold out.

Is there another technical reason or is it just commercial?

Larry

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cyril7

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#82295 14-Aug-2007 09:51

Purely commercial

Cyril

PromNZ

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#82296 14-Aug-2007 09:52

Commercial.

Prime is owned and run by Sky. So it already has a free piggyback for broadcasting its signal.

allstarnz

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#82322 14-Aug-2007 11:49

probably commercial, but also may be broadcast rights too.

would be nice if was on Freeview, then I could schedule shows like The Crowd Goes Wild much easier.

lchiu7

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#82329 14-Aug-2007 13:45

I watch very little if any of Prime since the PQ on TCL cable is pretty poor and I can't get it clearly OTA. But I had heard rumours that they might go Freeview terrestrial which makes me wonder if it's commercial?

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allstarnz

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#82330 14-Aug-2007 13:53

lchiu7: . But I had heard rumours that they might go Freeview terrestrial which makes me wonder if it's commercial?

Yes, exactly my thinking.

:edit: as I have stated here before, here's what the Australia Network has

Some of our exclusive sports coverage is delivered via an encrypted signal due to broadcast rights.

and

Due to broadcast rights in certain territories, the telecast of the Super 14 Rugby Union will be subject to encryption

guess who shows S14 in NZ? And no, World Cup is not relevant in this case, as that's a separate agreement.

lchiu7

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#82337 14-Aug-2007 14:26

I will let Cyril comment on the technical side but my understanding that Ozzies can pick up Freeview. Now if TV3 shows the WC on Freeview is it an issue that the Ozzies can pick it up? Not from what I have heard since TV3 owns the rights and so they transmit it to anybody they want. This is different from Prime since it does not own the rights, only re-transmission rights which might be more restrictive

Larry

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cyril7

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#82342 14-Aug-2007 14:37

Neither of the FreeView muxs nor the current Sky Hpol muxs can be seen in Aus (except purhaps with a very large dish). So there is no issue on that front. However I think the issue is that the agreement with the Super14 defines that broadcast of their match's via Satellite must be encrypted.

As has been said, we could be shown black pictures or knitting lessons when the S14 is on and still see the remaining 99.99% of Prime programming in FTA DVB-S.

Cyril

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openmedia

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#82350 14-Aug-2007 16:02

cyril7: Purely commercial

Cyril

And also tactical. Sky have stated that Prime will go FTA on digital terrestrial, but not on satellite.

I'd recommend contacting Prime/Sky about this and complain.

Meanwhile if freeview managed to get some interesting channels that Sky wants then there could be some interesting discussions behind the scenes.

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

old3eyes

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#82447 15-Aug-2007 08:27

Just wish that Prime was in 16:9 on the Sky platform.. Then they could get rid of the letterboxed 4:3 stuff.. Seems so backward

Regards,

Old3eyes

Al

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#82545 15-Aug-2007 19:08

openmedia:
I'd recommend contacting Prime/Sky about this and complain.

I did that 3 weeks ago but did you think Sky would answer