Feeds to Irish Channels

Just out of interest, because I've had a quick search and not turned very much up. How do live programmes on ITV/Channel 5 etc. get fed to TV3/3e/be3 in Ireland?

Such as Big Brother, I'm A Celebrity, or X Factor?

Are fibre feeds used? I know the X Factor is on satellite, but from what I've seen this is usually for channels on the continent that show it like Finland and Denmark. Plus it wouldn't explain how ITV get other stuff like I'm A Celebrity over to TV3.

Obviously for the brief period UTV Ireland existed, any ITV programming was played out via Belfast which is part of the network anyway. Plus non-live programming, like EastEnders and other BBC programming (complete with BBC Worldwide branding) on RTÉ One/RTÉ 2 etc, is delivered in advance. I'm just interested in how a clean HD feed of live programming is delivered?

I’m looking at the TV3 Producer Checklist for international deliverables and it looks like all prerecorded programs are supposed to be sent to Sky Vision. Sky Vision does not have any specifications on program delivery rather it looks like the website is more geared to selling programs abroad.
However their website doesn’t mention live deliverables nor does RTÉ.

Despite not seeing TV3 or RTÉ as members of the Digital Production Partnership - ITV and TG4 are so I imagine the standards may be similar. I’m guessing based on these guidelines they would want to receive an uncompressed HD-SDI feed via fiber.

That would very much depend on their budget I suspect. Uncompressed would be ideal - as they are adding an additional hop to the DPP specs that will have been used to get the live programmes to ITV Playout. However uncompressed circuits are not insignificant in cost, and that may mean that a compressed solution is preferable in budget terms.

I'd avoid taking the DPP Live stuff as gospel. The bitrates specified in that document for satellite, for instance, are not always complied with. 24Mbs and 34Mbs H264 (and lower bitrates) are in widespread use for contribution circuits, and I know of very few shows that have paid for 60Mbs MPEG2 satellite circuits...

The EBU use less than 45Mbs H264 for their main distribution circuits (the Eurovision Song Contest - which is pretty challenging content to encode - is around 38Mbs H264 I think)

Thanks both. TV3 have somewhat of a reputation for doing things on the cheap from what I can gather, so I can imagine them not being too worried about a compressed feed. I guess with the connectivity available these days between the UK and Ireland it's much cheaper than a satellite link would be.

As an aside, I believe the cable and IPTV networks in Ireland pretty much (if not) all source their feeds of the UK channels from the satellite broadcast as used by Sky/Freesat, and certainly in the case of the IPTV networks, re-encode them. Back when UPC carried UTV pre UTV Ireland, they apparently received it off air from the North via Freeview and then re-encoded it (MPEG2 to MPEG2), which I imagine looked utterly dreadful.

When UTV Ireland was in operation, they had access to the same “semi-clean” ITV Network feed that UTV themselves did (and STV still do). On at least one occasion, automation failed and ITV promos were aired on UTV Ireland by mistake. Don’t know what arrangements are in place now for TV3.

When MMDS was introduced, a fibre-optic link was put in place, owned by Irish Multichannel, that provided themselves and Cablelink (and others?) off air feeds from Divis of the NI terrestrial channels. That link remained in place into the 2000s, at least.

That could well be an uncompressed feed for UTV. I think ITV circuits - including UTV - have been IP over BT MPLS circuits since 2004 (though the MPLS carriage may have been replaced by a different BT solution since then - as HD was introduced).

Whether TV3 get the same circuit - or just the same contents passed on via a different route and thus a compressed/converted version of it - I guess would be the interesting point. Don't know if BT provide direct connectivity in the Republic, and if not whether it would be carried over a different carrier's network (or a dedicated circuit leased / owned by someone )



Those will be very low bitrate emission-rate SD feeds though, with each service less than 8Mbs (probably around 4-5Mbs). Compare that to the 270Mbs for uncompressed SDI (170Mbs for 8-bit 4:2:2 720x576 if you run 8 not 10 bit and discard blanking), or 1.5Gbs for uncompressed HD-SDI (830Mbs if you accept 8-bit 4:2:2 1920x1080 if you do the same)

BT have an Irish subsidiary so they presumably use that.

What sort of links are there from say ITV News at ITN or GMB to ITV Playout or the live ITV shows?

I'd expect them to be something like HD-SDI carried as SMPTE 2022-6 over ITV's IP network provided by BT.

ITV's internal circuits have been IP (initially over an MPLS fibre provision) from BT since around 2004. I imagine ITN is included in this.

This is not much more than an informed guess though.

It’s a shame the ebu encode the Eurovision I used to marvel at the vividness of watching 45mbps HD 4:2:2 transmission then connecting it via HDMI to the tv

Do you mean encrypt? It's always been MPEG2 or H264 encoded since the digital era arrived?

noggin, do you know if the HD-SDI over IP is used to transport program material from the HD regions to ITV Playout and then to Coding and Mutiplexing where it’s mixed with the BBC HD feeds? And how are the feeds sent to the cable companies (I understand Sky just programs their receivers to take the FreeSat feeds).