I agree that this is the most bizarre HD strategy yet.
Perhaps it’s Seven’s way of demonstrating to the AFL that 7mate on 73 isn’t attracting any fewer AFL viewers because it’s now in SD - ratings couldn’t be much lower anyhow? (and wouldn’t know it’s HD on 70 and watch it in SD).
Hopefully that wil convince the AFL that HD isn’t a necessity in the non AFL states and soften their stance.
ALSO… Nine wouldn’t be allowing the AFL to dictate it’s multi channel strategy, they’d be telling the AFL to stick that idea where the sun don’t shine, and rightly so. Seven should have shown more spine to the AFL here.
This whole HD simulcast scenario must be confusing as hell to regular viewers. Hopefully this whole situation clears up in all states in the coming months or weeks in time for the Olympics and doesn’t stay the state it is now. A mess.
A byproduct of the mess is that the picture quality of both the main channel and 7Two have fallen, at least in Brisbane. The combined bit rate of 7Mate and 7HD is higher than the original 7Mate so there are less Mbps available.
Currently the main channel is averaging just 2.63 and the SD version of 7Mate is unbelievably higher at 3.09 despite being available in HD. 7Two is only 2.52.
It appears the AFL has control over Seven’s operations. All these changes are specifically to cater to AFL. Nothing else matters. A by-product of these changes is those in Melbourne and Adelaide get Seven in HD.
Yep. While there are two local AFL teams and therefore obviously some Sydneysiders who are interested in the sport, the NRL/rugby league is still by far the most popular Winter sport in Sydney and probably NSW generally.
I completely agree! Sure, break away from the feed of the main channel to show 7mate AFL coverage in HD if you must but I don’t think that people in Sydney (or South East Queensland, or Perth) would be particularly happy to miss out on seeing programs like House Rules, etc in HD.
Is there really that much interest in 7mate programs like Outback Truckers or Storage Wars in the current 7mate HD markets that it deserves to be seen in High Definition over premium main channel content like House Rules and The X Factor, etc? I would guess most likely not.
Yeah but back in the old days of TV, the commercial TV stations were owned by different companies (even if there was some shared common programing) in each city. That’s why there were different programing schedules in Sydney and Melbourne, for instance.
While it’s true that Seven has traditionally prided itself on having a more local identity compared to Nine and Ten, Australian commercial TV in general has mostly been run on a networked schedule (aside from local news, some local programing and a few minor changes for things like sport and the annual local telethons, etc.) since about the Late '80s/Early '90s. Whether or not having the mostly the same/similar programing everywhere is a good thing or not is a debate for another time and place.
…and there’s now a SD MPEG2 simulcast of 7mate (which IMO, is probably even more pointless than those damn duplicate LCNs!) on 73 in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth to go with the HD MPEG4 version on 70. Good for the increasing minority of viewers without HD-capable equipment, not so welcomed by everyone else…
I think i’ve seen on this thread at some point earlier that 7 are broadcasting the new 7HD MPEG4 channel at an incredibly high bitrate for MPEG4 (like double what they’d need).
What’s stopping them halving the bitrate on the current 70 broadcast and putting a main channel HD simulcast on 70 in all areas and a 7mate HD simulcast on say 75 in all areas as well?
I’ve read somewhere that TV4ME won’t be shown anymore beyond the end of this month.
If that eventuated, would 7 be able to use the extra bandwidth from that to have 7 HD & 7mate HD in all markets?
Surely they have something in the pipeline rather than having one channel called “7 HD” in all markets simulcasting two different channels.
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