Finally officially confirmed what we knew, ASO (Analogue Switch Off of television) in NI, and Ireland is end of October 2012. The exact date is confirmed as 24th October 2012.

Other posts and Forums

http://www.rtedigital.com
(By Astral TV)

http://www.techtir.ie/isaa/saorsat_...
http://www.techtir.ie/isaa/saorsat/...
http://www.techtir.ie/isaa/saorview...

Introduction and boards.ie links

http://www.techtir.ie/watty/soartv

Saorsat speculation
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/show...

Saorview Content Speculation
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/show...

Saorview Awareness
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/show...

Terrestrial Forum
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/foru...

Saor is Gaelic (Irish) for Free and is pronounced "seer" as in seering meat in a pan.

Saorview is Digital Terrestrial in Ireland using DVB-T (DVB-T2 tuners will work), HD, MPEG4 H.264. HD downsampling on SCART is needed for non-HDTV with setbox. MHEG5 middleware. A regular UHF aerial is used for reception.

We (Techtir) have had a Work Experience Student doing a survey this week. The results are very bad.

DSO Digital Switch Over. The fact that Saorview is now available officially since 29th October 2010, though full Launch is May 2011

ASO Analogue Switch Off. Existing "traditional Analogue" TV transmissions (not the new Digital ones) will all be turned off in Q4 2012

Cable TV uses 110MHz to 872MHz for TV and also Broadband download.

The "Digital Dividend" (UHF TV spectrum 700MHz or 780Mhz to 872MHz to be freed by ASO)  is most likely to be auctioned to LTE Mobile Operators. A Mobile phone or Mobile transmits as well as receives. Since your LTE phone or Modem could be near your Cable TV set-box, DOCSIS Cable Modem or the cable company Coax there is a potential for Interference.

Ofcom are not renowned for admitting problems (PLT & Home plugs) but in this case they admit that LTE used within 3' / 1m of cable equipment causes a severe problem.

Saorview certification is just a convenience for retailer and consumer to take away guess work.

Distributors and Manufacturers in a sense should be smarter.

Please go http://www.techtir.ie/saortv/analog...

If you are receiving analogue television from across the border in Northern Ireland (BBC1, BBC2, UTV, Channel 4, possible Five in a few places), you should be aware (if you're not already) that these transmissions will cease in about two years time (at the time of writing, shutdown likely to be the second half of 2012) to be replaced with high-powered digital services, known in the UK as Freeview.

The question then lies as to if the current aerial pointing into the North will be good enough? Fortunately there is a "rough" test that was developed by engineers at BBC Research & Development using teletext to see if your current aerial should be suitable after the analogue signals are closed down.

As of this moment, none of the main transmitters in the North nor any of its relays except one should require a new aerial installation for this switch over although some of the relays are moving to new frequencies within the same aerial group (Kilkeel and Gortnalee are two that may affect viewers in the Republic), so to test wherever your analogue reception is strong enough to receive at least some DTT services from N.I. after the analogue signals are terminated, do the following...

*** Please note, this test is no good if your analogue signals are coming from a "deflector" ***

I'm going to try moving some posts here that cover the Logo and Campaign issues of Saorview

Though there is some new content planned for Irish Digital TV,  really there is nothing new. So far it's really just a replacement of Analogue with very basic repeat of RTE news and possibly the addition of TV3's "3e"

via http://www.independent.ie/national-...

Seen on a Retail mag for TV in Ireland and scanned by Byte 20th August 2010

(From IER , Irish Electrical Review, a Trade magazine for Electrical Retailers)