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Euro TV Channels on satellite that show Waterpolo.

Beijing 2008 TV Schedule

Here’s a list of channels that broadcast water polo matches – that you can receive in the UK, or anywhere in Europe. Here is the satellite “footprint” of Hotbird satellite, showing how big a dish you need to receive the signals from around Europe.

Equipment
You need a dish pointing to the correct satellite, connected to a DVB-S receiver. It’s all digital and in MPEG2 except for HD channels where you’ll need a special HD receiver. You can use an old Sky Digibox to receive these FTA channels – but you’ll have to connect it to a dish (usually larger) pointing to your desired satellite.

You can buy cheap kits from Maplin that will do the trick for £60.
Or £150 for HD capability. Here’s a leaflet.
For more options go to dedicated satellite shops like this one.
This guy has written a page on installing a satellite dish which is pretty thorough. It’s definitely a DIY job, but you can pay an installer if you wish.
In the UK, I have a 90cm dish on a motorised mount that can point to all satellites. I have a Humax receiver that can be patched with codes, and a pc card that can show it on my computer using Alt DVB and also use softcams (software decoders for encrypted channels).

Which satellite (s)?
There are 4 main satellites that I use,

1. Astra 2 @ 28 dgrees East ; where Sky UK sits.
2. Astra 1 @ 19 degrees East; where many European channels are.
3. Hotbird @ 13 degrees East; which is the best satellite to look at in terms of waterpolo.
4. Intelsat @ 1 degree West; which beams down Digi TV- a bouquet of encrypted channels that is currently hacked and quite easy to decode (not that you should).

Hotbird is the best satellite because it has many FTA (free to air or unencrypted) European channels on it that show waterpolo matches all year round. Astra2 will show about 5 matches over the Olympics (BBCi) and that’s it. Astra1 will show a bit, but Olympics only. Intelsat 1 West is only good if you can decode Digi TV.

Channels
Astra 2 – If you have Sky in the UK, this is where you’re pointing already.

1. BBCi. These are the BBCi channels for Sky and Cable – not Freeview which has less. Freeview is showing only one match. These are only around for the Olympics.

Astra 1

1. Das Erst – ZDF Info Kanal. These are German channels transmitted by Ard. They’ll show German matches and maybe finals/semis. Very good Quality, but only around for the Olympics. Being German, they always show what they say they are going to show and on time.
2. Teledeporte. They show a lot of Spanish and non Spanish water polo. Unfortunately not hacked at the moment and very difficult to get without a proper subscription to Digital+. There has been a cat and mouse game between the encrypters and the hackers getting codes out, encrypters are winning now, but last year it was obtainable.

Hotbird

1. RTS Sat - They show Serbian games – often live, but information is difficult to get. Rubbish quality. Waterpolo in Serbian is “vaterpolo”
2. ErtSat - I’ve seen one waterpolo match on this channel – so don’t get your hopes up.
3. RaiDue - Tends to show waterpolo and other sports during Olympics. Often interrupted; like to chop and change sports. It has quite good information and transmits teletext too where you can listings for a couple of days. Water polo in Italian is “pallanuoto”.
4. RaiSatSport - Best channel for waterpolo coverage. 1 match per week during national league season and all ITA national matches. Women’s too. They also show a bunch of other sports too – like canoe polo, handball and men’s figure rollerskating.
5. M2 - Tend to show all Hungarian matches, women’s too. But bigger matches then go to mtv1 (M1) which is sadly not FTA. Waterpolo in Hungarian is “vizilabda”.
   M2 16:9 Same as above. Amazing bitrate!
   M2 HD .Only free HD waterpolo anywhere. Picture is amazing!
6. RTCG - Will show all MNE matches live and repeated – not great quality. Show loads of celebrations too.
7. Planeta Sport - Very good for the European Champs, but I don’t think they’re showing much this Olympics. Usually show Russian matches. Russian for waterpolo is “ВОДНОМУ ПОЛО”
8. SLO2 or RTVSlovenia2 - Easy to view if you have an “updateable” receiver or computer card. It is encrypted, but the codes haven’t changed for about 4 years.

Intelsat 10-02
Codes are available for all of these channels – Digi TV.
m2 - Same as m2 on Hotbird.
Sport1 - Very good for the European Champs and Hungarian national league – not sure about Olympics.
Sport2 - Same as above.
TVR1 - They show a surprising amount of waterpolo, even though Romania aren’t competing.
Eurosport - Pretty rubbish for waterpolo – always!
RTS1 and 2 - More likely than RTS Sat to show Serbian matches.
Telesport - May show a bit – check their website.

Table of relevant channels.

Click on the names for their listings website – you may have to change the date in the url. FTA means it’s free to air and any receiver can get it.
ResH and ResV are the transmitting resolutions. DVD PAL is 720 x 576.
Bitrate is probably the most important factor measured in bits per second; waterpolo on tv is very busy (compression wise) and looks crap at low bitrates (like RTS). DVD’s are about 4-8 MBps depending how long they are, so the new m2 16:9 channel from Hungary transmits better than the maximum DVD bitrate- it looks really good, even on a large progressive display like plasma or LCD.

What other channels do I get?

Of course if you get a satellite setup, you’ll get thousands of other channels (mainly not watching). Have a look at Lyngsat.com to see them all. Another good webpage on Lyngsat shows all of the FREE tv channels for various countries, it’ll tell you all FTA channels for a particular country and on which satellites they reside.

If you have any question, email me at dan@waterpolodvds.com

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