So would that mean that if the metro stations merge with their regional affiliates in the future, based on this operation (with no affiliate owners), would they be able to use the same LCNs like ABC and SBS do nationwide?
When I was in Hobart for a holiday last month, the TV at the hotel room I stayed in had 9Gem on LCN 50, 9Go! on LCN 55 & 9HD on LCN 800. As for the WIN channels, WIN SD was at LCN 81, One at LCN 83 & 88, WIN Network (the placeholder that lists all the WIN channels) at LCN 84, TVSN at LCN 85 & Gold at LCN 86.
The only Nine Tas (TDT) & WIN channels that were in the correct LCNs were Nine SD (LCN 5 & 51), WIN SD (LCN 8), WIN HD (LCN 80) & Eleven (LCN 82). At least that same TV had ABC HD included & at the correct LCN (20). 
Is this how you’d like it to work?
Because it doesn’t do that.
350+ is an automatic technical measure in the tuner; tuners have no idea if the content is the same or not; LCNs (and the channel titles) are meant to distinguish that, and overall - in percentage terms - areas with multiple signals of good strength should be quite low.
But any automated system can only do a best-guess based on logic programmed into it, and sometimes it won’t be what a viewer wants.
When the programme content is the same it doesn’t matter which gets relegated to 350+, and that’s usually the case (e.g. for repeaters), and for ABC & SBS (apart from the state border areas), but obviously there are times/areas where it does matter, such as where news programmes are different, for example in the Gold Coast where all three commercial neworks’ main channels have such differences (e.g. NBN9’s NBN News vs QTQ9’s 9News Gold Coast & Brisbane).
BTW when I was in Hobart earlier this year the hotel’s TV had stored plenty of duplicates in 350+ and they appeared to have as strong signals.
The operative word is “should” - that is the Australian standard, some tuners don’t fully comply.
However, the tuner does know if the transmissions are the same as each has a network identifier. If the ID is the same, so are the transmissions. For example the QTQ relay on the Gold Coast has a different ID to the Brisbane transmitter but the Sunshine Coast relay has the same ID because all the programming is identical. ABC and SBS have different network identifiers for their metro and regional broadcasts so in fringe metro areas the regional station will be stored in the 350 range.
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Yes, both my Samsung TV and Panasonic PVR will only store the strongest signal of that LCN Channel name.
But my Topfield STB will store multiple transmssions of that LCN Chnnael name into the 1000+ channel range.
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Excuse me while I call One Nation for comment…
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I’d be interested to know what their reply was!
A "Please Explain " perhaps?
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Do you reckon they hate kebabs (not because they’ve tried it) but because it’s middle eastern lmao
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and because its not fish and chips
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the only reason Hanson refuses to eat a Halal Snack Pack
My Panasonic TV does do this. I get Sydney signals from Artarmon + Kings Cross and Illawarra signals from Knights Hill.
At my location, the Kings Cross signals are the weaker signals, so whilst they scan, they don’t show up at all on the channel listings, as the TV recognises that they’re exact copies (using the network provider data). ABC and SBS from the Illawarra, however, do show up in the 350+ range, as they have a different network provider listed (e.g. ‘ABC NSW’ for Illawarra instead of ‘ABC Sydney’).
There are actual differences between ABC/SBS Sydney and the regional versions. For example, SBS has different ads. Or when ABC had an promo for NewsRadio, the Sydney broadcast had its frequency shown on screen whereas the regional broadcast didn’t. The regional signals are also a few seconds behind the Sydney transmissions.
On the other hand, my Sharp TV doesn’t follow the Australian standard and also puts a copy of all the Kings Cross transmissions in the 350+ range. This makes it reach channel 399 and after that, the excess duplicate channels simply don’t show up.
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On my cheap no name $29 STB I would get duplicates of all channels with the same numbers. In north west Sydney I could receive the main Sydney channels from Artarmon and the translators in north west & south west Sydney, I also got Wollongong channels from Knights Hill and a very weak copy of those from a translator. I had to go through the channel list of 130 odd channels and delete most of them - it was a real pain.
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Something else has changed with the SBS playout…
It seems that the feed for SBS NSW is now running ahead of SBS Sydney (based on a PiP comparison of VHF 7 from Sydney and the local Newcastle UHF 38) by about 1 to 1.5 seconds.
I’m not sure if this has been caused by any of the MPEG 4, Viceland or Arabic Radio changes, but it was the other way around last year before these changes were made (Sydney being ahead)…
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Just checked - same in QLD with the regional stations ahead of metro.
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Just did a bitrate test on all FTA channels here in Townsville not too long ago, all using 2 minute samples.
ABC
4.14 Mb/s -> ABC HD [MPEG-4]
3.62 Mb/s -> ABC
4.04 Mb/s -> ABC 2
0.65 Mb/s -> ABC 3 (showing o’night placeholder)
3.77 Mb/s -> ABC News 24
0.12 Mb/s -> Double J
0.12 Mb/s -> ABC Jazz
SBS
2.37 Mb/s -> SBS
2.89 Mb/s -> SBS ONE HD [MPEG-4]
4.10 Mb/s -> SBS VICELAND HD [MPEG-4]
2.14 Mb/s -> SBS VICELAND
3.69 Mb/s -> FOOD NETWORK
3.41 Mb/s -> NITV
0.12 Mb/s -> SBS ARABIC 24
0.12 Mb/s -> SBS RADIO 1
0.12 Mb/s -> SBS RADIO 2
NINE (via SCA)
6.55 Mb/s -> 9HD [MPEG-4]
3.69 Mb/s -> NINE
3.04 Mb/s -> 9GEM
3.73 Mb/s -> 9GO!
2.31 Mb/s -> 9LIFE [MPEG-4]
1.09 Mb/s -> TO BE ADVISED [MPEG-4]
1.16 Mb/s -> ASPIRE [MPEG-4]
SEVEN
3.06 Mb/s -> 7 SD
3.91 Mb/s -> 7 TWO
10.02 Mb/s -> 7 MATE HD
2.99 Mb/s -> 7 FLIX
1.75 Mb/s -> RACING.COM [MPEG-4]
TEN (via WIN)
7.01 Mb/s -> WIN HD [MPEG-4]
3.34 Mb/s -> WIN
3.73 Mb/s -> ONE
2.86 Mb/s -> ELEVEN
1.29 Mb/s -> WIN NETWORK
1.98 Mb/s -> TVSN
1.07 Mb/s -> WIN GOLD [MPEG-4]
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Since the transmissions are now stat-muxed, I recorded the Sydney and Illawarra signals simultaneously to provide a more accurate comparison between the different transmitters. Whilst I recorded them at the same time, the broadcasts from the towers are not synched (I think Prime is more than 10 seconds behind 7, as an example), so it’s not a 100% like-for-like comparison, but still gives a good indication. As with NQCQTV2’s comparison, it is based on a two-minute sample of each transmission.
Green cells indicate MPEG-4/H264 for video and AAC/AAC+ for audio. There are 7 MPEG-4/H264 channels in Sydney compared to 12 in the Illawarra.
The WIN Network slide has a ridiculously high audio bitrate for some reason (384 kbps). At the other end, 7 uses AAC+ on Racing.com at only 48 kbps.
Chart:
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Interesting to see that Seven Sydney is running the racing channel at a ridiculously high level for an MPEG 4 SD channel as the same is happening in Brisbane - the picture quality however doesn’t reflect the bit allocation.
What a waste of space for SCA’s blank channel and WIN’s placeholder. Even ABC Me on its overnight run is considerably lower. How can WIN Gold, that actually shows content, be taking up less space than WIN’s placeholder?
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Endless recycled promos for Crawford’s DVDs, infomercials and very old 4:3 early morning religious programs - it’s pushing it to call that ‘content’! 
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