TV from the French Pacific islands in the Western USA

Adam792

Specialist Contributor
Joined
Sep 5, 2009
Messages
1,260
Reaction score
1,152
Points
113
Age
31
My Satellite Setup
Dishes: 80cm (5°W), 80cm (30°W), 60cm Zone 2 (13°E/19.2°E/28.2°E)
Receivers: HTPC w/ TBS6905 4x DVB-S2 PCIe tuner card running TVHeadend, Octagon SF8008 mini.
My Location
Cheltenham
I was reading the other day about some of the French territories in the Pacific Ocean (New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna and French Polynesia). This led on to me finding out how they receive French television there. In French Polynesia there's a pay satellite provider called Vini, which carries most of the mainstream commercial French channels (on a 12-odd hour delay to match Paris time up with the local timezones!) as well as the France Télévisions channels including the local Polynésie La 1ère service that also go out on the French overseas territories DVB-T multiplexes.

These are all carried on Intelsat 18 at 180ºE, and it looks as if the beam they're on which covers French Polynesia also covers the West Coast of the US! I was just wondering out of curiosity - a question most probably for @Terryl as I think you're located in the Western US if I remember rightly - if you can actually receive these services there in the US?

They're in European polarisation (H/V rather than L/R circular), on 11075V and 11155V DVB-S2 8PSK, mostly encrypted except for a few channels which are in the clear (LCP/Public Sénat - French parliament channel, Franceinfo: - French public 24 hour news channel, and Tahiti Nui TV - French Polynesian local channel which also goes out on digital terrestrial in Polynesia, along with several French public radio stations). They will all be in the 50Hz TV standard (576i50).

There's another transponder on 11155H which carries all of the France Télévisions channels including the La 1ère channels for all three Pacific territories, but this is listed as being on a separate beam which only covers New Caledonia and Eastern Australia/NZ for smaller dishes.

Amazing really how much of the World gets covered by mainstream French channels due to how integrated their overseas territories are! As an aside I was in the Eastern Caribbean at the start of the year and visited Martinique, Guadeloupe and Saint Martin. Very surreal to sit on a Caribbean beach and listen to France Inter on FM in Martinique being broadcast live via satellite with the full RDS data getting output (along with the Paris RDS time, five hours ahead of the Caribbean!) exactly the same as in metropolitan France.

 
Last edited:

Terryl

Specialist Contributor
Joined
Apr 14, 2011
Messages
3,246
Reaction score
1,932
Points
113
Age
82
My Satellite Setup
OpenBox X5 on a 1 meter motorized dish.
And now a 10 foot "C" band dish.

Custom built PC
My Location
Deep in the Boonies in the central Sierra Nevada mountains of California.
I can hit 180E with my big dish, it has a "C" and "Ku" band LNB on it, a couple of years ago I did pick up a couple of transponders, but now with my actuator dead on the big dish I can't move it to test and get a show me report right now.
 

Adam792

Specialist Contributor
Joined
Sep 5, 2009
Messages
1,260
Reaction score
1,152
Points
113
Age
31
My Satellite Setup
Dishes: 80cm (5°W), 80cm (30°W), 60cm Zone 2 (13°E/19.2°E/28.2°E)
Receivers: HTPC w/ TBS6905 4x DVB-S2 PCIe tuner card running TVHeadend, Octagon SF8008 mini.
My Location
Cheltenham
Ah that’s a pity about your actuator @Terryl !

A good 3m dish should catch it in the majority of wester.


Intelsats own coverage claims


It seems a huge Ku band coverage zone that it hits both French Polynesia and towards the Eastern coast of Australia but then also up as far as Western Canada.

I wonder how they actually uplink the channels onto a satellite that’s pretty much completely over the opposite side of the planet from mainland France. The rest of the satellite services for the French overseas territories are on the African beams of 16°E (for Reunion and Mayotte off the East coast of Africa) and 34.5°W (for the French Caribbean and French Guiana), so both orbital positions that are well over the horizon in Paris to be able to get the services over in a single hop. I guess they must have to send it all by fibre over to an Intelsat teleport in California or somewhere like that to get onto 180°E.
 

hvdh

Specialist Contributor
Joined
Dec 10, 2004
Messages
2,357
Reaction score
3,336
Points
113
Age
59
Website
gso-satellites.nl
My Satellite Setup
Dr.HD F16, TBS 5927, T-55, Laminas 120 cm
My Location
Oss, NL (5.5°E 51.8°N)
I guess they must have to send it all by fibre over to an Intelsat teleport in California or somewhere like that to get onto 180°E.
Indeed, the teleports listed for IS-18 (Napa & Riverside) are both in California:

IS-18.png
 

Adam792

Specialist Contributor
Joined
Sep 5, 2009
Messages
1,260
Reaction score
1,152
Points
113
Age
31
My Satellite Setup
Dishes: 80cm (5°W), 80cm (30°W), 60cm Zone 2 (13°E/19.2°E/28.2°E)
Receivers: HTPC w/ TBS6905 4x DVB-S2 PCIe tuner card running TVHeadend, Octagon SF8008 mini.
My Location
Cheltenham
In theory, since last week, the France Télévisions services on 180°E (as well as the other satellite positions serving French overseas territories) are now all HD - including the Free to Air Franceinfo!

I’d be interested to know if the HD versions have replaced the SD ones, or if they’re additional on the transponder. The terrestrial distribution in the “Outre Mer” territories is still SD for now, so they’re either duplicated on satellite or being downscaled before transmission on the islands.

Interestingly, this change seems to have coincided with when some of us started to have difficulties watching the France Télévisions channels on the 5°W multistream with certain receivers on the 15th January. My hunch is that FT upgraded their encoders across the board for the services they directly provide on that date, including digital terrestrial/multistream and HD satellite feeds to overseas France.
 

Adam792

Specialist Contributor
Joined
Sep 5, 2009
Messages
1,260
Reaction score
1,152
Points
113
Age
31
My Satellite Setup
Dishes: 80cm (5°W), 80cm (30°W), 60cm Zone 2 (13°E/19.2°E/28.2°E)
Receivers: HTPC w/ TBS6905 4x DVB-S2 PCIe tuner card running TVHeadend, Octagon SF8008 mini.
My Location
Cheltenham
Someone on a US board kindly provided me with a TS dump of the Caribbean versions of France Télévisions from Intelsat 35e at 34.5°W.

France 2, France 3, France 5, Arte, Franceinfo and all of the La 1ère channels are HD on there (according to the metadata for the encrypted ones). Franceinfo is FTA and in full HD 1920x1080i - so higher resolution that the versions on 5°W (SD only) or even the HD 1440x1080i TNTSat version on 19.2°E.

There's sets of EPG metadata for all of the different versions of the DVB-T TNT ROM1 multiplex (Guadeloupe, St Martin/St Barthélemy, Guyana and Martinique), but the channels themselves must be being downscaled to SD for transmission on-site as the SD versions aren't carried on the satellite link.

France Inter and the La 1ère radio stations are 256kbps MP2, just like the FM transmitter feeds on 5°W, and there's a PID carrying all of the Radio France national RDS data in UECP (identical to the TDF RDS on 5°W 11480H), including un-needed RDS Radio Text information for all of the different France Bleu stations in mainland France! Easier to just duplicate rather than provide a tailored stream I guess!

I'd expect that it'll be the same as this on the 180°E versions, just with the Pacific Island La 1ère services in place of the Caribbean ones. :D

It was interesting to take a look at!
 
Top