DIGITAL VERSIONS OF FRANCE TELEVISIONS NOW AVAILABLE ON SATELLITE

[Martin963]

As I mentioned might be going to happen a few weeks ago,  it is now possible to receive France 2,  France 3, France 5, the Parliament channel and Arte DIGITALLY from Atlantic Bird 3 at 5 degrees west.  For those of you with the dreaded analogue SECAM compatibility problems,  this route offers a way out in that most digital receivers are capable of using this new signal and will then work with PAL-only TV sets.

 

The details are 11.589 GHz,  Symbol rate 19634 kB/s,  vertical polarisation,  FEC 2/3

 

The unusual symbol rate means that a Murdoch Sky box will NOT be suitable for reception.

 

I should also stress that these transmissions are not primarily aimed at public reception;  the transmission  is in fact a feed to transmitters all over France providing them with the input signal for TNT (Digital Terrestrial TV).   There is a possibility that they may go scrambled if the rights people start fussing.   So do not waste a lot of time and money on new installations.   However,  if you already have a dish pointing at AB3 (and many French houses do) then it may be worth trying it out.

 

No TF1 (not part of the TV public sector) but a new channel will be available,  France 4 (original title eh?) 

[Martin963]

Actually even as I wrote the post above France 5 and 4 vanished.   So please heed the warning I gave that this may be only temporarily available.    Tant pis... 

 

Ah,  ils sont de retour!   (Elles actually if they're chaines).

[IAN_S]

Martin

I set this up without a problem. As you say, no TF1, why is this not public sector tv and where do they get it then for the analogue channels?

Couldn't see 4 but I'll keep looking. On the Lyngsat site they describe this as "Festival", what sort of content is it do you think?

 

Ian

[BJSLIV]

TF1 is the french equivalent of ITV ie paid for by the adverts. It used to be public until it was sold off many years ago.

[Martin963]

Glad you've found it Ian.  I'm told by my spies in Paris that the picture quality is niticeably superior on these satellite feeds than on the TNT signal being broadcast (on test) from the Tour Eiffel.

BJSLIV is correct, and that's why TF1 will be carried on a different transponder on AB3,  along with other components of its relevant TNT multiplex.  

The sad part is that what we are watching at the moment is likely to be the only "visible" frequency on AB3 in this context.   TDF have got to distribute all the other components of TNT (DTT) round the country but will apparently be "concentrating" the other multiplexes in pairs onto single satellite transponders,  which will render them unuseable on ordinary satellite receivers.   It is just luck that with only 5 TNT multiplexes one of them is "odd",  and it just happens that the public sector multiplex is the one that we can see as a result of its not being paired off with another.

If you see what I mean....

Festival is I believe being used as a place marker while they sort out France 4.  I have no idea what programme content will be like.

Finally, bear in mind that even this public service TV feed may slip into encryption at some point.