[Blubatt]

In the last few months, I've been doing a lot of traveling, and staying in Hotels. This summer, I was in Benidorm, and was surprised to find ITV Channel Television, Channel 4, and other UK channels playing in our room.

Fast forward to now, I currently have Zweite Deutsche Fernsehen playing in my UK Hotel room. My question to the community is: how do they do this? And as follow up, what have you discovered while channel surfing on your holidays?

Currently, De Quiz Champion is on. While my German is rusty, it seems that a relatively good natured head to head round is on, and it's a film and television question

[i.h]

Hotels, especially those in major cities or tourist areas, will want to have a mix of countries to cater for their international clientele.

A number of European broadcasters transmit on satellite "free to air", ie they are not encrypted. The main UK channels do so on a satellite whose "beam" is supposed to be restrictive and centered on the UK/Ireland so it should be hard to receive in mainland Europe, but in practice it goes further, especially if you can use a large enough satellite dish. The German channels are on a Europe-wide "beam" so virtually everyone can pick it up with no difficulty at all. I can't speak for how easy it might be to get the UK channels in Benidorm, though.

It wasn't uncommon to have German TV in UK *homes* in the 90s as they used the same satellites as Sky's analogue service. If you felt like putting up a dish you could have it again today.

Once you've got the signal a few hundred £ in electronics and you've got it piped around the hotel alongside the Freeview channels.

I've not seen anything surprising, though I did once stay in a Swiss hotel that paid for each room to have cable TV but the slot for the decryption module (check your TV for a long thin slot, might say CAM or CI) was bust on the TV in my room

[TVenthusiasm]

When I was in Dublin for a few days I decided to channel surf and found ZDF and one of its sister channels ZDFneo, along with the Irish channels (and a few UK channels thrown in for good measure). Technically I could also pick up ARD in the mornings as ZDF shows ARD's morning show Morgenmagazin following their own morning show also called Morgenmagazin. The channel list also claims you can also watch the German Euronews though you actually can't get it.

[Ash101]

We stayed in a Premier Inn on the Isle of Wight last year and the BBC and ITV regions were both different parts of the country… ITV was Yorkshire if I remember correctly.

Channels 1 to 5 on the telly were as you’d expect but then they had a random selection of Freeview channels like 5USA, Yesterday & More4 in the slots up to about 28 (not on their usual numbers) and that was your lot.

The EPG worked and it was Freeview branded in the top right, so I had wondered how it worked?

[Orry Verducci]

We stayed in a Premier Inn on the Isle of Wight last year and the BBC and ITV regions were both different parts of the country… ITV was Yorkshire if I remember correctly.

Channels 1 to 5 on the telly were as you’d expect but then they had a random selection of Freeview channels like 5USA, Yesterday & More4 in the slots up to about 28 (not on their usual numbers) and that was your lot.

The EPG worked and it was Freeview branded in the top right, so I had wondered how it worked?

Sounds like they're using a TV distribution headend. They take inputs from aerial and satellite and modulate DVB-T multiplexes with a selection of channels from those inputs. The channels to distribute are chosen by the operator (i.e. the hotel).

As it creates normal DVB-T multiplexes in the UHF band, in exactly the same way the Freeview service is transmitted, it can be fed in to TV's via the aerial socket and they will tune it in as if they were picking up Freeview.

This setup is very common in hotels in Europe as it allows them to distribute TV to the rooms with a selection of channels from across Europe picked up from satellite, without having to mess around giving each room its own satellite receiver.

The bit about this I find strange though is I've never seen Premier Inn do this. I've stayed at quite a few of their hotels over the years, and they've all had normal Freeview from the TV aerial (i.e. the really cheap option).

[Ash101]

Sounds like they're using a TV distribution headend. They take inputs from aerial and satellite and modulate DVB-T multiplexes with a selection of channels from those inputs. The channels to distribute are chosen by the operator (i.e. the hotel).

As it creates normal DVB-T multiplexes in the UHF band, in exactly the same way the Freeview service is transmitted, it can be fed in to TV's via the aerial socket and they will tune it in as if they were picking up Freeview.

This setup is very common in hotels in Europe as it allows them to distribute TV to the rooms with a selection of channels from across Europe picked up from satellite, without having to mess around giving each room its own satellite receiver.

The bit about this I find strange though is I've never seen Premier Inn do this. I've stayed at quite a few of their hotels over the years, and they've all had normal Freeview from the TV aerial (i.e. the really cheap option).

That's really interesting - thank you! Had been wondering about this for a while. Makes sense to do abroad when they're getting the channels via satellite, but a little bit pointless when normal Freeview is basically what people would expect in the UK?

It was a brand new Premier Inn. The TV was also limited to a medium volume and only went up to about 15 or so.

[bkman1990]

When I was in Dublin for a few days I decided to channel surf and found ZDF and one of its sister channels ZDFneo, along with the Irish channels (and a few UK channels thrown in for good measure). Technically I could also pick up ARD in the mornings as ZDF shows ARD's morning show Morgenmagazin following their own morning show also called Morgenmagazin. The channel list also claims you can also watch the German Euronews though you actually can't get it.

Which hotel in Dublin were you staying at to see those channels?

[Bogdan222]

When i was in hotel in Greece the TVs there were taking the Astra 19.2E satellites so we had all of the German FTA channels on our TV plus other FTA channels and I watched a couple of german channels.

[TVenthusiasm]

Which hotel in Dublin were you staying at to see those channels?

The Gibson Hotel, brilliant hotel

[Pete]

The Gibson Hotel, brilliant hotel

Hotel Indigo in Newcastle had a rather nice TV with All4 and iPlayer built in. It also specifically stated it'd wipe your logins when you checked out.

I use the brand All4 on purpose, however, as it was an ancient version of the app that was so old it didn't support Channel4+ so showed the ads regardless.