There’s really no need for the Government to get involved unless it is going to be a more substantial shift like trying to achieve a second digital dividend.
A minimal intervention might be along the lines of updating what a compatible Australian market receiver is, to discourage importation and sale of non-compliant receivers, specifying HEVC+DVB-T2 and having a labelling scheme like the old Digital Ready.
SEN recently did a tie up in Kalgoorlie with Harvey Norman to provide radios capable of tuning up to their off band AM frequency to listeners - there’s nothing stopping the FTA networks jointly or individually doing such a thing for set top boxes for MPEG-2 only viewers, should they wish to hurry up a conversion and are concerned about lost viewers.
To me it’s all about networks just needing to bother doing communication - even Seven’s recent efforts sucked "this channel has moved’ - but doing nothing to assist those who the new channel doesn’t work for. A hotline with a recorded message and offer to mail out a pamphlet, a “talk to your retailer” etc.
I like the careful consideration for older viewers in these scenarios, as well as using ‘Lite’ branding for the legacy services. Also the collab with manufacturers to get some cheap or even free set-top boxes out to households is a great idea.
But I don’t know if the networks need to go to these extremes in this day and age. If this was done 10 years ago then it would be wise to be this thorough. But this is more of a technical change than a revamping of the entire Freeview platform. Communication is a must, but it doesn’t need to be so complex, in my opinion.
This is how I’d do it if I were somehow in charge of what every network does (lol)
Silently switch all the multi-channels to MPEG-4, HD or otherwise
Move 10 (SD) to LCN 1, move 10 HD to LCN 10
Rename the channels on LCN 1, 2, 3, 7 and 9 to include “SD” at the end of the name
Run a crawler every X minutes for 6 months across these 5 channels, advising of their future closure
Run a Freeview-branded campaign during commercial breaks a week before closure
Close the SD’s, replace their slots with simulcasts of the primary HD channels
I’d like the crawler to read as follows:
“This channel will only be available in HD from Friday, 3rd November 2023. If you currently receive this channel in HD on channel X0, you don’t need to do anything. If not, you will need to upgrade your TV or set-top box to continue watching. For more information, head to free.view/help or message Freeview on social media.”
Honestly, on one hand I am of the belief that one should be able to access the same FTA channels across Australia, which currently doesn’t happen even within O&O broadcast areas
On the other hand, why are we still holding out on MPEG2! Force a switch date of June 30 2023 and be done with it - if you haven’t changed, your loss!
The Communications Minister should set a timeframe of when all our free-to-air digital channels switch off their SD simulcasts and broadcast in DVB-2 HD and MPEG-4.
We are almost in 2023 and 7, 9, 10 as well as ABC and SBS have SD simulcasts of their main channels and the ABC News channel is in SD and MPEG-2 on LCN 24.
Yes that would be a good idea, also use the 4 LCN with the name “TV CHECK” like what @WAtvVideos suggested in the thread. You wouldn’t be able to use the other LCNs in areas like the GC as 4/40-49 are the only ones available.
I would assume it would be mandatory for all networks to switch to MPEG-4 incl. regional and joint venture (HD if a full MPEG-4 HD switch would happen) but they would not have to carry all channels.
There’s no reason for the Government to care, much less mandate a technology shift the networks largely voluntarily do. The legislative blocks on the networks doing so were removed, the networks can take it from here, coordinated or not - the Government shouldn’t be stepping in to mandate such a change.
For a similar example - other than the original analogue mobile network closure - none of the changes to mobile phone technologies have been government led. 3G switch off is unfolding fairly similarly to MPEG-4 - they have slowly degraded the service on 3G as some frequencies were shifted for 5G usage, but others remain and will shut off at a final date - these are different per mobile operator, per their requirements.
The networks worked out their own timeframes and made a decision - 2G/3G hasn’t been made illegal and the Government didn’t need to act.
Personally, I think that now that 7 owns Prime/GWN, they should renumber all the 6/6x channels to 7/7x, except where there are overlapping markets (e.g. gold Coast) or people are likely to get channels from a state capital and regional transmitter (e.g. Mandurah).
If a big switchover does happen, I would like to see it happen to all regional affiliates. However, because of overlap some markets would be excluded:
Sunshine Coast
Gold Coast
Toowoomba
Lismore
Central Coast
The other markets would be going to their respective LCNs, for example SCA10 is on 10-19, 7 on 70-79 and WIN9 on 90-99. I could also see a reshuffle of the channels for example the WIN channels would be made in line with Nine’s.
Exactly. And then you look at areas like Newcastle and Wollongong which would have overlaps with Sydney. You end up with so many exceptions then what’s the point of it. These services have had this channel numbering for almost 20 years, what’s really to achieve by changing it?
The regional stations overlap with themselves far more often then they in practice overlap with metro. If a receiver can deal with getting both a Bendigo and a Shepparton version of a channel, it can deal with getting a Bendigo and a Melbourne version of the channel. The strongest signal wins.
I’d agree they probably shouldn’t bother changing - but except for the genuine overlap markets where you expect the same level of reception - like Gold Coast or Central Coast - there’s no need for split LCNs.
Outside of those wanting 1:1 duplication of metro networks, regional viewers are likely to be more concerned on channel/program availability, as opposed to whether they move their thumb over their remote another couple of mm from 8 to 9
Regional/regional overlaps exist already and they are currently handled in a certain way (one of the channels allocated to 350, 351, etc.) so this doesn’t need to change.
Regional/capital cities overlaps exist already and are handled by the regional commercial channel being on a different number than the equivalent state capital. This does not need to change.
The only thing that would change is that regional commercial stations that don’t overlap with state capital commercial channels would have the same number as the respective state capital channel.
The main reason for this change is that it doesn’t quite make sense to have channel 7 on 6, 9 on 8 and 10 on 5 etc. unless there is a good reason (e.g. most people in a given market already receive channels with those numbers). There are historical reasons but with the change to many regional channel names, it doesn’t quite make sense any more for many of them.
The reason, I thought, was so the regional networks aren’t relegated to the 35x range in cases of overlap. They remain in a prominent position on people’s EPG’s so they’re not forgotten.
It also made sense since the regional stations were only affiliates of the metros and the affiliation was not fixed. With Seven owning Prime and Nine owning NBN, those areas could change to 7x and 9x respectively. However, there’s nothing to prevent another affiliation change for the other networks.
Where say a network in an overlap area owns both the metro and regional markets, what is to stop them running the same LCN set of numbers in both? This already applies to both ABC and SBS, so what makes the commercials different? Programming and branding is very much identical now, it makes no sense to keep a separate set regional LCNs running.
And when will all networks finally move their main channel HD services to the single digit main LCNs with 10 obviously for 10HD? Surely there can not be that many who still watch main channel SD anymore, as those services are so degraded now PQ wise it is not funny.
