7flix - Programs and Schedules

Launching in just over a week and still no guide!

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This channel is MPEG-4. The promos seem to all soft picture quality that looks really bad. The sound is AAC but to me doesn’t sound the same as the other channels.

Surely they aren’t going to keep it like this when it launches ? MPEG-4 i thought meant they could have a better picture quality. Also how come you can have channels of MPEG-2 AND MPEG-4 ? I thought that say it had to be all the same to fit . I know they did not make all channels MPEG-4 as some people with a TV wouldn’t be able to see it. I think in Nz on free to air all the channels are MPEG-4 not a mix of 2 and 4.

I’ve noticed the same.
The picture quality seems poor, and the sound that comes through sounds like i’m listening to it through a tunnel.

Hopefully they’ll sort all of that out when they start broadcasting properly though.

For those wondering if 7Flix will be streamed, from a yesterdays Half Yearly results speech:

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Thanks for that.

Ch 7 seem ahead of Ch 9 and the ABC who are only streaming their main channels at the moment. I wonder what Seven’s definition of “premium” movies are unless they are planning to put new movies on there.

The sound on 7flix is HE-AAC. HE-AAC is used in situations where there is limited bandwidth and the audio stream is under 128 kbps (DAB+ uses HE-AAC, aka AAC+ or AACplus). It sounds bad/artificial because at sub-128 kbps bitrates, there is insufficient bandwidth to carry the full 48 kHz (i.e. frequency response up to 24 kHz) sampling for the audio track. I think the HE-AAC streams actually have 22 kHz sampling (frequency response up to 11 kHz) and anything above 11 kHz, HE-AAC essentially guesses at what it should sound like based on harmonics. At even lower bitrates, say around 48 kbps and lower, even more drastic bandwidth-saving measures are used (i.e. HE-AAC v2). The actual audio stream becomes monaural and the codec esssentially takes a guess at what the stereo image should sound like (called parametric stereo) based on some low-bandwidth channel intensity information.

Refer to my previous post here for more information: Car Radios - #31 by tvcl

MPEG-4 provides better image quality than an MPEG-2 transmission at the same bitrates; however, the bitrate they’ve been giving 7flix is much lower than that.

Why not? Technically (legislation aside), any digital content can be broadcast within the 23mbps they have. Just as with your Internet connection, you can have two different streams playing from two different websites and of different resolution/codec.

Sounds like a dumb question but … When you say 23mbps I keep hearing… that sounds like an internet speed on ADSL.

My LG (2009) said just AAC didn’t mention HE-AAC .

Does Australia use DAB+ ? Hmm not sure what my tv would be using thought it was DAB. Or are newer ones having that capability if things change in the future ? DAB is related to sound and picture ? I think I’m confusing DAB with DVB.

Yes, it’s the same concept. Mbps is a measure of how much data can be sent through (i.e. megabits per second). It applies to TV transmissions in the same way as an Internet connection – the main difference being that everyone receives the same thing and there’s no transmitting back to the station from the end users.

You are, DAB+ is the digital radio standard used in Australia. DAB+ is using the same audio codec as what 7flix is using. DAB is not related to DVB-T, which is the digital television standard used in Australia.

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I would suspect the guide is embargoed until Monday.

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My TV is from 2009 is it possible it isn’t picking up HE-AAC,or DAB+ ? . It picks up MPEG-4 channels like 7Flix.

It definitely only said AAC SD no HE added before it. There is definitely sound on the channel.

So do I need to buy a newer tv ?

If you can hear audio on the channel, then I wouldn’t think so. HE-AAC is an extension of AAC. The TV manufacturer might have thought it was sufficient to just say AAC. Although there’s a small chance that your TV only does AAC and not HE-AAC, in which case, you would simply hear the baseline AAC audio (i.e. without the extrapolated treble [above 11 kHz]).

So according to the promos, there will only be a movie at 8:30pm each night?

But surely not, isn’t it pretty much a 24/7 movie channel, maybe it’ll be their ‘main’ film time?

They will screen all the dramas + The Amazing Race that were shown in the promo probably in the 7:30 pm time slots. Daytime will most likely be filled with repeats of shows that they own with some kids shows mixed in between. So yeah I would say movies will fill the 8:30 pm onwards timeslots weeknights with more movies being screened during the weekend ( most likely movies geared towards kids).

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Don’t think any of the guides have come though for the week commencing 28 February at this stage, but yeah, they’re usually embargoed until the Monday arvo from memory.

We (probably Cynic) will post it up as soon as it comes through.

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Just waiting for the inevitable “When will it be on Foxtel?” questions to start.

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So movies get higher numbers of people watching. Yet Eleven puts new content on and a movie on GO! will outrate it. Might as well dump all the content off Eleven and make it just movies then.

So that’s why 7Flix will have movies every night because they get higher ratings I’m assuming.

And I bet there’s a new promo, or series of them this time perhaps, launched during the Molly special this Sunday

Ratings wise, I think that 7Flix will be a bit of a slow starter for the first year or so. Keep in mind that it’s realistically the first “major” multichannel to be broadcast exclusively in MPEG4…a format that not every Digital TV device (quite possibly including OzTam ratings boxes!) can handle.

when will it be on Foxtel Cynic?

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Love Actually next Sunday 8.30