[mythtvnz] Freeview hd via satellite

[Neil Bertram]

Nick Rout wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Mark Crawford <rustbucket99 at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> It would be good that in the future if Sky is going to be given the HD feeds
>> for their customers, the deal is done so that they transmit them unencrypted
>> so we could receive them too.  Anyone got any contacts at Freeview to help
>> with this?  They could turn off the encryption of Prime at the same time.
>>     
>
> Yes Freeview don't seem to be very tough in their bargaining with Sky.
>   
As I understand it, Freeview won't give Sky their exclusive channels
(TVNZ6, TVNZ7) because Sky won't give them Prime. Sky won't/can't give
Prime because some content that's broadcast on it isn't licensed for FTA
satellite.

The problem with FTA satellite is there is the possibility for other
countries to receive those channels, eg. people with a ~4m dish in
Australia can get all our Freeview channels. Those that license the
programmes to the channels know this, and so FTA satellite licenses are
more expensive than terrestrial ones.

In many countries (eg. Japan) the FTA channels are still encrypted and
the domestic public are issued with CAMs/cards for them. This gets
around the licensing problem, but is obviously a PITA.

But still, I'm sure FTA satellite licenses would be available for Prime
content if someone was willing to pay for them. I think Sky and Freeview
are just in a stalemate right now.


Neil