Frankie Roberto said at March 11th, 2008 at 11:38pm

Am I correct in saying that the BBC has started broadcasting their satellite channels ‘in the clear’ (un-encrypted). Not because of any particular anti-DRM philosophy, but because it saves having to pay Sky for the encryption technology, and saves consumers from having to get hold of a decryption card, paving the way for ‘freesat’.

(This is all from memory and I haven’t bothered to check the facts, so correct me if I’m wrong).

Adam Bowie said at March 12th, 2008 at 12:40am

I believe that most of the terrestrial channels are unencrypted on Astra (ie. Sky) to allow viewers to receive them free to air via satellite. They are on Astra 2D which is one of several Astra satellites that channels available on Sky digiboxes sit. 2D is specifically pointed at the UK, but as above link shows, it’s not that tightly focused on the UK. And indeed you’re only likely to need a marginally larger than normal dish to receive a good signal in Iceland as James noticed.

Other Astra satellites, include 2A and 2B which carry Sky Sports, and cover most of Western Europe. This explains why you can see the football in Spanish bars, although you might not be able to watch Eastenders on BBC1.

Of course James, while your local pub may have been getting Arabic coverage of the Premier League just to avoid Sky fees, it’s likelier that they wanted to show Saturday 3pm games which are blacked out in the UK (to persuade people to actually watch live football rather than sit in pubs watching it). That said, Sky’s charges to the licenced trade are not low - a landlord can’t just buy a standard consumer subscription. If you watch Sky in the pub, if the picture is “legitimate” (I believe the actual “legalness” or not pictures is not cut and dried, hence dodgy feeds in pubs), you’ll see the outline of a pint in the bottom right hand corner indicating a Sky pub feed. The ads in pubs are different too!

I understand that there’s long been a tradition of Ireland getting UK channels. Of course much of the north of the country gets its signal easily across the border from Northern Ireland. But even in the south of the country, a terrestrial UK signal was always relatively easy to get, and indeed local communities actually set up illegal repeaters from antennae on hilltops to retransmit programmes to towns and villages in the valleys. Now, with the satellite pictures in the clear, this is less of an issue I guess.

Rights of acquired programming such as sport and US drama can cause problems. When Sky won 24 from the BBC, one of the reasons that was suggested at the time was the fact that the BBC transmitted it in the clear (and thus less income would be received from French, Dutch and Belgian broadcasters). There were also questions over some of the film rights at the time too. Of course I’m sure it was nothing to do with Sky sharing a common owner with Twentieth Century Fox in Rupert Murdoch…

But, yes, DRM will always be defeated. I guess broadcasters have to try to do something or they run the risk of incurring the wrath of the rights owners. On the other hand, it can be infuriating to know that I can freely record a programme off-air in any format I like, but I can only legally download a crippled version. And it’s up to me to Google my way out of that problem and look up a solution.

And I’d certainly argue that Apple’s DRM is as awkward as anybody’s; don’t exceed the five licenced machines will you (you don’t actually need five different PCs to reach this stage)? And heaven forbid that my next mp3 player should not be an iPod. If I had a significant iTunes store collection I’d again be facing hacking or the pain of burning to CD and then re-ripping.

I look forward to Amazon selling DRM-free mp3s, as do Play.com and eMusic (although, yes I’d like more space efficient DRM-free mp4 files, but one step at a time). The film and television industry might want to look at the path the music industry has finally taken, and cut out some of the pointless steps we’ve needed to take along the way. They won’t be at the beck and call of Apple in setting prices, and consumers might get into the habit of buying programming in the knowledge that it will play on their portable games console, mobile phone and laptop as they wish. Pie in the sky…

Brian Greene said at March 12th, 2008 at 12:47am

yes Frankie. July 2003 the Beeb went FTA on 28E. that move by Greg Dyke allows the formation of Freesat.co.uk which launches any spring month soon.

Astra 2D overspill does not seem to be an issue for BBC or ITV or Film 4 or the rights owners. But this over spill fear for TV rights is not a two way street. RTE in Ireland in on 28E encrypted and this is a huge assist to Sky revenues in Ireland. €0.5Billion per annum.

So when spilling over into a small neighbouring state (republic of ireland) there is no issue for soccer of films etc. But when small state spills into a big state, and perhaps small state has first airings (because if they did not there would be little point buying the programme) then there is a huge issue, so it would seem.

But another way to look at this is that small state just asks for similar treatment to large state with the rights owner and if that is not forthcoming then go to the european courts.