Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia, received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The verb "to stream" refers to the process of obtaining media in this manner. A client end-user can use their media player to start playing digital video or digital audio content before the entire file has been transmitted. Distinguishing delivery method from the media distributed applies to telecommunications networks, as most of the delivery systems are either inherently streaming or inherently non-streaming. For example, in the 1930s, elevator music was among the earliest popular music available as streaming media; the term "streaming media" can apply to media other than video and audio, such as live closed captioning, ticker tape, real-time text, which are all considered "streaming text". Live streaming is the delivery of Internet content in real-time much as live television broadcasts content over the airwaves via a television signal. Live internet streaming requires a form of source media, an encoder to digitize the content, a media publisher, a content delivery network to distribute and deliver the content.
Live streaming does not need to be recorded at the origination point, although it is. There are challenges with streaming content on the Internet. If the user does not have enough bandwidth in their Internet connection, they may experience stops, lags, or slow buffering of the content; some users may not be able to stream certain content due to not having compatible computer or software systems. Some popular streaming services include the video sharing website YouTube and Mixer, which live stream the playing of video games. Netflix and Amazon Video stream movies and TV shows, Spotify, Apple Music and TIDAL stream music. In the early 1920s, George O. Squier was granted patents for a system for the transmission and distribution of signals over electrical lines, the technical basis for what became Muzak, a technology streaming continuous music to commercial customers without the use of radio. Attempts to display media on computers date back to the earliest days of computing in the mid-20th century.
However, little progress was made for several decades due to the high cost and limited capabilities of computer hardware. From the late 1980s through the 1990s, consumer-grade personal computers became powerful enough to display various media; the primary technical issues related to streaming were having enough CPU power bus bandwidth to support the required data rates, creating low-latency interrupt paths in the operating system to prevent buffer underrun, enabling skip-free streaming of the content. However, computer networks were still limited in the mid-1990s, audio and video media were delivered over non-streaming channels, such as by downloading a digital file from a remote server and saving it to a local drive on the end user's computer or storing it as a digital file and playing it back from CD-ROMs. In 1991 the first commercial Ethernet Switch was introduced, which enabled more powerful computer networks leading to the first streaming video solutions used by schools and corporations such as expanding Bloomberg Television worldwide.
In the mid 1990s the World Wide Web was established, but streaming audio would not be practical until years later. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, users had increased access to computer networks the Internet. During the early 2000s, users had access to increased network bandwidth in the "last mile"; these technological improvements facilitated the streaming of audio and video content to computer users in their homes and workplaces. There was an increasing use of standard protocols and formats, such as TCP/IP, HTTP, HTML as the Internet became commercialized, which led to an infusion of investment into the sector; the band Severe Tire Damage was the first group to perform live on the Internet. On June 24, 1993, the band was playing a gig at Xerox PARC while elsewhere in the building, scientists were discussing new technology for broadcasting on the Internet using multicasting; as proof of PARC's technology, the band's performance was broadcast and could be seen live in Australia and elsewhere.
In a March 2017 interview, band member Russ Haines stated that the band had used "half of the total bandwidth of the internet" to stream the performance, a 152-by-76 pixel video, updated eight to twelve times per second, with audio quality, "at best, a bad telephone connection". Microsoft Research developed a Microsoft TV application, compiled under MS Windows Studio Suite and tested in conjunction with Connectix QuickCam. RealNetworks was a pioneer in the streaming media markets, when it broadcast a baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Seattle Mariners over the Internet in 1995; the first symphonic concert on the Internet took place at the Paramount Theater in Seattle, Washington on November 10, 1995. The concert was a collaboration between The Seattle Symphony and various guest musicians such as Slash, Matt Cameron, Barrett Martin; when Word Magazine launched in 1995, they featured the first-ever streaming soundtracks on the Internet. Metro
Digital terrestrial television
Digital terrestrial television is a technology for broadcast television in which land-based television stations broadcast television content by radio waves to televisions in consumers' residences in a digital format. DTTV is a major technological advance over the previous analog television, has replaced analog, in common use since the middle of the 20th century. Test broadcasts began in 1998 with the changeover to DTTV beginning in 2006 and is now complete in many countries; the advantages of digital terrestrial television are similar to those obtained by digitising platforms such as cable TV, telecommunications: more efficient use of limited radio spectrum bandwidth, provision of more television channels than analog, better quality images, lower operating costs for broadcasters. Different countries have adopted different digital broadcasting standards; the amount of data that can be transmitted is directly affected by channel capacity and the modulation method of the transmission. North America uses the ATSC standard with 8VSB modulation, which has similar characteristics to the vestigial sideband modulation used for analog television.
This provides more immunity to interference, but is not immune to multipath distortion and does not provide for single-frequency network operation. The modulation method in DVB-T is COFDM with either 16-state Quadrature Amplitude Modulation. In general, 64QAM is capable of transmitting a greater bit rate, but is more susceptible to interference. 16 and 64QAM constellations can be combined in a single multiplex, providing a controllable degradation for more important program streams. This is called hierarchical modulation. DVB-T are designed to work in single frequency networks. Developments in video compression have resulted in improvements on the original H.262 MPEG 2 codec, surpassed by H.264/MPEG-4 AVC and more H.265 HEVC. H.264 enables three high-definition television services to be coded into a 24 Mbit/s DVB-T European terrestrial transmission channel. DVB-T2 increases this channel capacity to 40 Mbit/s, allowing more services. DTTV is received either via a digital set-top box, TV gateway or more now an integrated tuner included with television sets, that decodes the signal received via a standard television antenna.
These devices now include digital video recorder functionality. However, due to frequency planning issues, an aerial capable of receiving a different channel group may be required if the DTTV multiplexes lie outside the reception capabilities of the installed aerial; this is quite common in the UK. Indoor aerials are more to be affected by these issues and need replacing. Main articles: List of digital television deployments by country, Digital television transition Afghanistan launched digital transmissions in Kabul using DVB-T2/MPEG-4 on Sunday, 31 August 2014. Test transmissions had commenced on 4 UHF channels at the start of June 2014. Transmitters were provided by GatesAir. Bangladesh had its first DTT service DVB-T2 / MPEG-4 on April 2016 launched by the GS Group; the service is called RealVU. It is done with partnership with Beximco. GS Group acts as a supplier and integrator of its in-house hardware and software solutions for the operator's functioning in accordance with the modern standards of digital television.
RealVu provides more than 100 TV channels in HD quality. The digital TV set-top boxes developed by GS Group offer such functions as PVR and time-shift, along with an EPG. India adopted DVB-T system for digital television in July 1999; the first DVB-T transmission was started on 26 January 2003 in the four major metropolitan cities by Doordarshan. The terrestrial transmission is available in both digital and analog formats. 4 high power DVB-T transmitters were set up in the top 4 cities, which were upgraded to DVB-T2 + MPEG4 and DVB-H standards. An additional 190 high power, 400 low power DVB-T2 transmitters have been approved for Tier I, II and III cities of the country by 2017; the Indian telecom regulator, TRAI, had recommended the I&B to allow private broadcast companies to use the DTT technology, in 2005. So far, the Indian I&B ministry only permits private broadcast companies to use satellite, cable and IPTV based systems; the government's broadcasting organisation Doordarshan had started the free TV service over DVB - T2 to the mobile phone users from February 25 onwards and extended to cover 16 cities including the four metros from April 5, 2016.
Israel started digital transmissions in MPEG-4 on Sunday, August 2, 2009, anal
BBC One
BBC One is the first and principal television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom, Isle of Man and Channel Islands. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution, it was renamed BBC TV in 1960, using this name until the launch of the second BBC channel BBC2 in 1964, whereupon the BBC TV channel became known as BBC1, with the current spelling adopted in 1997. The channel's annual budget for 2012–13 was £1.14 billion. The channel is funded by the television licence fee together with the BBC's other domestic television stations, shows uninterrupted programming without commercial advertising, it is the most watched television channel in the United Kingdom, ahead of its traditional rival for ratings leadership, ITV. As of June 2013 the channel controller for BBC One was Charlotte Moore, who succeeded Danny Cohen as an Acting Controller from May 2013; the BBC began its own regular television programming from the basement of Broadcasting House, London, on 22 August 1932.
The BBC Television Service began regular broadcasts on 2 November 1936 from a converted wing of the Alexandra Palace in London. On 1 September 1939, two days before Britain declared war on Germany, the station was taken off air with little warning, with one of the last programmes to be shown before the suspension of the service being a Mickey Mouse cartoon. BBC Television returned on 7 June 1946 at 15:00. Jasmine Bligh, one of the original announcers, made the first announcement, saying, "Good afternoon everybody. How are you? Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh?". The Mickey Mouse cartoon of 1939 was repeated twenty minutes later; the BBC held a statutory monopoly on television broadcasting in the United Kingdom until the first Independent Television station began to broadcast on 22 September 1955, when ITV started broadcasting. The competition forced the channel to change its identity and priorities following a large reduction in its audience; the 1962 Pilkington Report on the future of broadcasting noticed this, that ITV lacked any serious programming.
It therefore decided that Britain's third television station should be awarded to the BBC. The station, renamed BBC TV in 1960, became BBC1 when BBC2 was launched on 20 April 1964 transmitting an incompatible 625-line image on UHF; the only way to receive all channels was to use a complex "dual-standard" 405- and 625-line, VHF and UHF, with both a VHF and a UHF aerial. Old 405-line-only sets became obsolete in 1985, when transmission in the standard ended, although standards converters have become available for enthusiasts who collect and restore such TVs. BBC1 was based at the purpose-built BBC Television Centre at White City, London between 1960 and 2013. Television News continued to use Alexandra Palace as its base—by early 1968 it had converted one of its studios to colour—before moving to new purpose-built facilities at Television Centre on 20 September 1969. In the weeks leading up to 15 November 1969, BBC1 unofficially transmitted the occasional programme in its new colour system, to test it.
At midnight on 15 November with ITV and two years after BBC2, BBC1 began 625-line PAL colour programming on UHF with a broadcast of a concert by Petula Clark. Colour transmissions could be received on monochrome 625-line sets until the end of analogue broadcasting. In terms of audience share, the most successful period for BBC1 was under Bryan Cowgill between 1973 and 1977, when the channel achieved an average audience share of 45%; this period is still regarded by many as a golden age of the BBC's output, with the BBC achieving a high standard across its entire range of series, plays, light entertainment and documentaries. On 30 December 1980, the BBC announced their intention to introduce a new breakfast television service to compete with TV-am; the BBC stated it would start broadcasting before TV-am, but made clear their hands were tied until November 1981 when the new licence fee income became available, to help finance extending broadcast hours, with the hope of starting in 1982. On 17 January 1983, the first edition of Breakfast Time was shown on BBC1, becoming the first UK wide breakfast television service and continued to lead in the ratings until 1984.
In 1984, Bill Cotton become managing director of Television at the BBC, set about overhauling BBC1, slated for poor home grown shows, its heavy reliance on US imports, with Dallas and The Thorn Birds being BBC1's highest rated programmes and ratings being over 20% behind ITV. Cotton recruited Michael Grade to become Controller of BBC1, the first time the Corporation had recruited someone outside of the BBC, replacing Alan Hart, criticised for his lack of knowledge in general entertainment, as he was head of BBC Sport prior to 1981; the first major overhaul was to axe the unpopular Sixty Minutes current affairs programme: this was a replacement for the news and magazine show Nationwide. Its replacement was the BBC Six O'Clock News, a straight new programme in a bid to shore up its failing early evening slot, it was believed the BBC were planning to cut short the evening news and move more light entertainment programming in from the 18:20 slot, but this was dismissed. The Miss Great Britain contest was dropped, being described as verging on the too offensive after the January 1985 contest, with Worlds Strongest Man and International Superstar being axed.
BBC1 was relaunched on 18 February 1985 with a new look, new programming including Wogan, EastEnders and a revised schedule to help streamline and maintain viewers thr
2016 Summer Olympics
The 2016 Summer Olympics known as the Games of the XXXI Olympiad and known as Rio 2016, was an international multi-sport event, held from 5 to 21 August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, with preliminary events in some sports beginning on 3 August. These were the first Olympic Games to be held in South America and the second to be held in a developing country, after the 1968 games in Mexico City. More than 11,000 athletes from 205 National Olympic Committees, including first time entrants Kosovo, South Sudan, the Refugee Olympic Team, took part. With 306 sets of medals, the games featured 28 Olympic sports, including rugby sevens and golf, which were added to the Olympic program in 2009; these sporting events took place at 33 venues in the host city, at five separate venues in the Brazilian cities of São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Manaus. These were the first Summer Olympic Games to take place under the International Olympic Committee presidency of Thomas Bach; the host city Rio de Janeiro was announced at the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 2 October 2009.
Rio became the first South American city to host the Olympic Games. These were the first games to be held in a Portuguese-speaking country, the first summer edition to be held in the host country's winter season, the first since 1968 to be held in Latin America, the first since 2000 to be held in the Southern Hemisphere; the lead-up to these Games was marked by controversies, including the Brazil's political and economic crisis. However, nobody competing in or attending the Olympics contracted the Zika virus and the Games took place without any major incident; the United States topped the medal table, winning the most gold and overall medals, 46 and 121, as well as its 1,000th Summer Olympic gold medal overall. Great Britain finished second and became the first country of modern Olympics history to increase its tally of medals in the subsequent games after being the host nation. China finished third. Host country Brazil won seven gold medals, its most at any single Summer Olympics, finishing in thirteenth place.
Bahrain, Jordan, Puerto Rico, Tajikistan, Ivory Coast and Vietnam each won their first gold medals, as did the group of Independent Olympic Athletes. The process for the 2016 Olympic Games was launched on 16 May 2007; the first step for each city was to submit an initial application to the International Olympic Committee by 13 September 2007, confirming their intention to bid. Completed official bid files, containing answers to a 25-question IOC form, were to be submitted by each 14 January 2008. Four candidate cities were chosen for the shortlist on 4 June 2008: Chicago, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo, which hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics and will host again in 2020; the IOC did not promote Doha to the candidature phase, despite scoring higher than selected candidate city Rio de Janeiro, because of their intent of hosting the Olympics in October, outside of the IOC's sporting calendar. Prague and Baku failed to make the cut. Nawal El Moutawakel of Morocco headed the 10-member Evaluation Commission, having chaired the evaluation commission for the 2012 Summer Olympics bids.
The commission made on-site inspections in the second quarter of 2009. They issued a comprehensive technical appraisal for IOC members on 2 September, one month before elections. Many restrictions are in place designed to prevent bidding cities from communicating with or influencing directly the 115 voting members. Cities may not invite any IOC member to visit nor may they send anything that could be construed as a gift. Nonetheless, bidding cities invest large sums in their PR and media programs in an attempt to indirectly influence the IOC members by garnering domestic support, support from sports media and general international media; the final voting was held on 2 October 2009, in Copenhagen with Madrid and Rio de Janeiro perceived as favourites to land the games. Chicago and Tokyo were eliminated after the first and second rounds of voting while Rio de Janeiro took a significant lead over Madrid heading into the final round; the lead held and Rio de Janeiro was announced as host of 2016 Summer Olympics.
On 26 June 2011, it was reported on AroundTheRings.com that Roderlei Generali, the COO of the Rio de Janeiro Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, resigned just one year after taking the job at ROOC. This comes. Pestana withdrew during the 2012 Summer Paralympics. Renato Ciuchin was appointed as COO. Events took place at eighteen existing venues, nine new venues constructed for the Games, seven temporary venues; each event was held in one of four geographically segregated Olympic clusters: Barra, Copacabana and Maracanã. The same was done for the 2007 Pan American Games. Several of the venues were located at the Barra Cluster Olympic Park. Athletes could access their venues in shorter than ten minutes and about 75 percent could do so in less than 25 minutes. Of the 34 competition locations, eight of them underwent permanent works, seven were limited, nine were perpetual legacy venues; the largest venue at the games in terms of seating capacity was the 74,738-seat Maracanã Stadium, which served as the ceremonies venue and site of the football finals.
The second largest stadium was the 60,000-seat Estádio Olímpico João Havelange, which hosted track and field events. The athletes' village was said to be the largest in Olympic history. Fittings inc
BBC Online
BBC Online known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services co-branded BBC iPlayer, the children's sites CBBC and CBeebies, learning services such as Bitesize; the BBC has had an online presence supporting its TV and radio programmes and web-only initiatives since 1994 but did not launch until December 1997, following government approval to fund it by TV licence fee revenue as a service in its own right. Throughout its short history, the online plans of the BBC have been subject to harassment from its commercial rivals, which has resulted in various public consultations and government reviews to investigate their claims that its large presence and public funding distorts the UK market; the website has gone through several branding changes. Named BBC Online, it was rebranded as BBCi before being named bbc.co.uk. It was renamed BBC Online again in 2008, however the service uses the branding "BBC".
The web-based service of the BBC is one of the most visited websites and the world's largest news website. As of 2007, it contained over two million pages. On 26 February 2010 The Times claimed that Mark Thompson Director General of the BBC, proposed that the BBC's web output should be cut by 50%, with online staff numbers and budgets reduced by 25% in a bid to scale back BBC operations and allow commercial rivals more room. On 2 March 2010, the BBC reported that it will cut its website spending by 25% and close BBC 6 Music and Asian Network. On 24 January 2011, the confirmed cuts of 25% were announced leaving a £34 million shortfall; this resulted in the closure of several sites, including BBC Switch, BBC Blast, 6-0-6, the announcement of plans to sell on the Douglas Adams created site h2g2. The service's original home was www.bbcnc.org.uk launched by BBC Education on 11 May 1994 as a non-profit paid subscription service. For a joining fee of £25 and a monthly subscription of £12, members of the club were given access to an early type of social networking site featuring a bulletin board for sharing information and real-time conversation, along with a dialup Internet connection service.
Within 12 months, the BBC offered "auntie" on-line discussion groups. The BBC Director General John Birt sought government approval to direct licence fee revenue into the service, describing planned BBC Internet services as the "third medium" joining the BBC's existing TV and Radio networks, achieving a change in the BBC Charter; this led to the official launch of BBC Online at the www.bbc.co.uk address in December 1997. As well as the licence fee funded www.bbc.co.uk, BBC Worldwide launched the commercially funded beeb.com, featuring entertainment focused content, with sites including Radio Times, Top Gear and Top of the Pops. BBC Online launched licence fee funded web sites for Top of the Pops and Top Gear, resulting in some duplication. Beeb.com was refocussed as an online shopping guide, was closed in 2002. Beeb.com redirected to the BBC Shop website, run by BBC Worldwide. In 1999, the BBC bought the www.bbc.com domain name for $375,000 owned by Boston Business Computing, but the price of this purchase was not revealed until 6 years later.
As of 2005, www.bbcnc.org.uk no longer exists. In 2001, BBC Online was rebranded as BBCi; the BBCi name was conceived as an umbrella brand for all the BBC's digital interactive services across web, digital teletext, interactive TV and on mobile platforms. The use of letter "i" prefixes and suffixes to denote information technology or interactivity was much in vogue at this time; as part of the rebrand, BBC website pages all displayed a standard navigation bar across the top of the screen, offering category-based navigation: Categories, TV, Communicate, Where I Live, A-Z Index and a search function. The navbar was designed to offer a similar navigation system to the i-bar on BBCi interactive television. After three years of consistent use across different platforms, the BBC began to drop the BBCi brand gradually. Interactive TV services continued under the BBCi brand until it was dropped in 2008; the BBC's online video player, the iPlayer has, retained an i-prefix in its branding. On 14 December 2007, a beta version of a new bbc.co.uk homepage was launched, with the ability to customise the page by adding and rearranging different categories, such as'News','Weather' and'Entertainment'.
The widget-based design was inspired by sites such as Facebook and iGoogle, allowed the BBC to add new content to the homepage while still retaining users' customisations. The new homepage incorporated the clock design used in the 1970s on the BBC's television service into the large header and a box containing featured content of the website; the new BBC homepage left beta on Wednesday, 27 February 2008 to serve as the new BBC Homepage under the same URL as the previous version. On 30 January 2010, a new webpage design became available as a beta version, that by May 2010, replaced the old homepage; this homepage expanded on the customisation theme. The website all
Sky Ireland
Sky Ireland Limited is a subsidiary of Comcast-owned Sky and supplies television and telephony services in Ireland. Its corporate headquarters are in Dublin which were opened by Taoiseach Enda Kenny on 18 January 2013. Sky's broadband services are unlimited. Sky Ireland employs around 900 staff in Dublin. In 1998 Sky Digital launched its digital television services within Ireland. Sky Ireland provides opt-out feeds of key Sky television channels which includes Sky One, Sky Sports, Sky News and Sky Atlantic. Sky Media Ireland is the media sales arm of Sky Ireland, they sell advertising opportunities across all of Sky's wholly owned channels including Sky One, Sky Living, Sky Atlantic, Sky News and Sky Sports. In addition, they sell on behalf of media partners including Viacom International Media Networks Europe and Discovery Networks Northern Europe. Sky operated an Irish version of Sky News called Sky News Ireland from 2004 to 2006; as of January 2013: The company has 500 workers that work from its contact centre with a possible increase of 1,000 by year end.
BSkyB chief executive Jermey Darroch announced on 18 January 2013 that Sky Ireland will invest a further €1 billion over the next five years in Ireland. As of September 2013: Sky Ireland now employ 800 people at its Dublin base. Sky Ireland have confirmed they expect to invest €1.25 billion with expansion into the Irish market with Irish specific productions and further expansion of its existing Irish telecommunications company. In October 2013 Sky Ireland Launched the On Demand service to its Irish customers. December 2013 Sky launched Ireland's biggest Catch-up TV Service. In 2017 Now TV was launched in the Republic of Ireland; when Sky Digital was launched in 1998 the new service used the Astra 2A satellite, located at the 28.5°E orbital position, unlike the analogue service, broadcast from 19.2°E. This was subsequently followed by more Astra satellites as well as Eutelsat's Eurobird 1 at 28.5°E), enabled the company to launch a new all-digital service, with the potential to carry hundreds of television and radio channels.
The old position was shared with broadcasters from several European countries, while the new position at 28.5°E came to be used exclusively for channels that broadcast to the United Kingdom and Ireland. New Astra satellites joined the position in 2000 and 2001, the number of channels available to customers increased accordingly; this trend continued with the launch of Eurobird 1 in 2001. Additionally, some channels received new numbering — However, in early 2006, the majority of channels received new numbering, with some receiving single digit changes, whilst others received new numbers entirely. Sky is transmitted from the Astra satellites located at 28.2° east and Eutelsat's Eutelsat 28A satellite at 28.5°E. Sky's standard definition broadcasts are in DVB-compliant MPEG-2, with the Sky Movies and Sky Box Office channels including optional Dolby Digital soundtracks for recent films, although these are only accessible with a Sky+ box. Sky+ HD material is broadcast using MPEG-4 and most of the HD material uses the DVB-S2 standard.
Interactive services and 7-day EPG use the proprietary OpenTV system, with set-top boxes including modems for a return path. Sky News, amongst other channels, provides a pseudo-video on demand interactive service by broadcasting looping video streams. Sky utilises the VideoGuard pay-TV scrambling system owned by a Cisco Systems company. There are tight controls over use of VideoGuard decoders. Sky has design authority over all digital satellite receivers capable of receiving their service; the receivers, though designed and built by different manufacturers, must conform to the same user interface look-and-feel as all the others. This extends to the Personal video recorder offering. Sky maintains an electronic programme guide which provides information about upcoming programmes and a list of channels. Channels available on Sky are assigned a three digit logical channel number which can be entered on a remote control to access the channel and determines in what order channels are listed; the EPG in Ireland gives priority to Irish channels.
All channels are grouped into categories depending on their content. What section of the EPG a channel gets allocated is determined by rules set up by Sky Ireland. Sky Ireland has no veto over the presence of channels on their EPG. Any channel which can get carriage on a suitable beam of a satellite at 28° East is entitled to access to Sky's EPG for a fee. Third-party channels which opt for encryption receive discounts ranging from reduced price to free EPG entries, free carriage on a Sky leased transponder, or actual payment for being carried; however in this case, Sky does not carry any control over the channel's content or carriage issues such as picture quality. In October 2007, Sky's parent company Sky plc announced that they would not accept new applications to launch channel on their EPG, citing "very significant memory constraints" on many of its older digiboxes. In June 2012, Sky Ireland launched a new EPG for Sky+ HD boxes; the update boasts improved functionality. The Sky EPG lists. Many channels are free, others are available only with a subscription.
Channels on this list are owned by Sky and broadcast adverstising for the Irish market. Sky One Sky Two Sky Atlantic Sky Living Sky News Pick Challenge TV Sky Sports Racing Sky SportsSome other channels available on the Sky platform carry Irish advertising, such as the channels provided by Channel 4. Sky subscribers in Ireland have
1080i
1080i is an abbreviation referring to a combination of frame resolution and scan type, used in high-definition television and high-definition video. The number "1080" refers to the number of horizontal lines on the screen; the "i" is an abbreviation for "interlaced". A related display resolution is 1080p, which has 1080 lines of resolution; the term assumes a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9, so the 1080 lines of vertical resolution implies 1920 columns of horizontal resolution, or 1920 pixels × 1080 lines. A 1920 pixels × 1080 lines screen has a total of 2.1 megapixels and a temporal resolution of 50 or 60 interlaced fields per second. This format is used in the SMPTE 292M standard; the choice of 1080 lines originates with Charles Poynton, who in the early 1990s pushed for "square pixels" to be used in HD video formats. Within the designation "1080i", the i stands for interlaced scan. A frame of 1080i video consists of two sequential fields of 540 vertical pixels; the first field consists of all odd-numbered TV lines and the second all numbered lines.
The horizontal lines of pixels in each field are captured and displayed with a one-line vertical gap between them, so the lines of the next field can be interlaced between them, resulting in 1080 total lines. 1080i differs from 1080p, where the p stands for progressive scan, where all lines in a frame are captured at the same time. In native or pure 1080i, the two fields of a frame correspond to different instants, so motion portrayal is good; this is true for interlaced video in general and can be observed in still images taken of fast motion scenes. However, when 1080p material is captured at 25 or 30 frames/second, it is converted to 1080i at 50 or 60 fields/second for processing or broadcasting. In this situation both fields in a frame do correspond to the same instant; the field-to-instant relation is somewhat more complex for the case of 1080p at 24 frames/second converted to 1080i at 60 fields/second. The field rate of 1080i is 60 Hz for countries that use or used System M as analog television system with 60 fields/sec, or 50 Hz for regions that use or used 625-lines television system with 50 fields/sec.
Both field rates can be carried by major digital television broadcast formats such as ATSC, DVB, ISDB-T International. The frame rate can be implied by the context, while the field rate is specified after the letter i, such as "1080i60". In this case 1080i60 refers to 60 fields per second; the European Broadcasting Union prefers to use the resolution and frame rate separated by a slash, as in 1080i/30 and 1080i/25 480i/30 and 576i/25. Resolutions of 1080i60 or 1080i50 refers to 1080i/30 or 1080i/25 in EBU notation. 1080i is directly compatible with some CRT HDTVs on which it can be displayed natively in interlaced form, but for display on progressive-scan—e.g. Most new LCD and plasma TVs, it must be deinterlaced. Depending on the television's video processing capabilities, the resulting video quality may vary, but may not suffer. For example, film material at 25fps may be deinterlaced from 1080i50 to restore a full 1080p resolution at the original frame rate without any loss. Preferably video material with 50 or 60 motion phases/second is to be converted to 50p or 60p before display.
Worldwide, most HD channels on satellite and cable broadcast in 1080i. In the United States, 1080i is the preferred format for most broadcasters, with Inc.. Viacom, AT&T, Comcast owned networks broadcasting in the format. Only Fox-owned television networks and Disney-owned television networks, along with MLB Network and a few other cable networks use 720p as the preferred format for their networks. Many ABC affiliates owned by Hearst Television and former Belo Corporation stations owned by TEGNA, along with some individual affiliates of those three networks, air their signals in 1080i and upscale network programming for master control and transmission purposes, as most syndicated programming and advertising is produced and distributed in 1080i, removing a downscaling step to 720p; this allows local newscasts on these ABC affiliates to be produced in the higher resolution to match the picture quality of their 1080i competitors. Some cameras and broadcast systems that use 1080 vertical lines per frame do not use the full 1920 pixels of a nominal 1080i picture for image capture and encoding.
Common subsampling ratios include 3/4 and 1/2. Where used, the lower horizontal resolution is scaled to capture and/or display a full-sized picture. Using half horizontal resolution and only one field of each frame results in the format known as qHD, which has fram
