I don’t know the answer to the compatibility question either, but I agree that it would be more problematic than H.264.
Seven have a very dynamic stat mux, sometimes 7HD isn’t even their highest channel - at the moment I’m looking at a sample where the lowest channel is Racing.com at 2.45Mbps, and their highest is 7HD at 3.8Mbps. Other times channels can be 5-6Mbps at the high end or below 2Mbps.
They have about 2.5Mbps of null packets in that mix - but they have done that for a while, I think they need it as headroom in case multiple channels need to peak highly simultaneously, though could likely operate with less buffer.
Because they run their multiplex like that, they can essentially just squeeze another in there, and everything else would just adjust down. Sounds like the channel wouldn’t be 24/7 anyway so they could probably scale it down to a near static slide at times.
As mentioned in my previous post, one tactic would be to reduce the bits of 7SD, currently it seems like all of Seven’s channels are weighted evenly in the mux.
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My suggestion is 7Horses.
Also I think HEVC would probably come with DVB-T2 and/or 4k. Major hurdle being both licensing it and people being able to receive it.
You can view Department Of Commuications documents on it from 2013 here - Plans relating to transition to DVB-T2 and MPEG-4 - a Freedom of Information request to Department of Communications and the Arts - Right to Know
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My name suggestion is 7Horse 
It’s the same story in the southern half of the Sunshine Coast, where both 7 Brisbane & 7 Sunshine Coast are available from the Bald Knob transmitter, which is located near Maleny, west of Caloundra.
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What’s the issue with the audio on 9HD when recorded?
It sounds very tinny and like I was tuned into a CB channel with the wrong modulation.
It started not long after 9HD came online and goes away intermittently.
Example:
…and on Nine’s SD channels, I think they still have the “buzzing” sound in the background that’s been there since (approximately) Late 2011?
I’ve never heard that before on a actual TV set but I might run a sample of video through Audacity and see if there is any buzz.
From the looks of it, it only happens on Nine’s O&O stations running through the main transmitter sites (SFN’s would be relayed off air).
I think that’s understating it. I’d say compatibility would be basically zero at the moment.
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For on the shelf STB’s and TV’s.
Add SDR’s and TV tuners into the mix and the sky is the limit.
@RFBurns posted above about issues with ducting interfering with feeds to translator sites.
Well I have to say I’m VERY surprised Bouddi would be affected by this, since it’s only 35 km from Artarmon.
And I don’t think it’s good enough for Central Coast viewers, a population of some 300,000 people to mostly be without their preferred commercial TV channels because of this. They deserve to have their TV sites inputted with more reliable signals.
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Port Stephens had greater problems then the Central Coast. The Illawarra digital tv channels used to kill the feed from Mt Sugarloaf when they got ducted. I believe they have implemented a new solution that has fixed the problem.
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In defence, just about every TV translator site in Australia will be fed off air, from a high power main site (or off air from other translator sites), except for extreme cases.
It’s cost prohibitive to feed them via microwave, fibre or even satellite. It’s cheaper to make the area a blackspot & give the viewers a VAST Service.
The current conditions are extreme & rare.
Bouddi alone, doesn’t serve 300,000 viewers either.
Bouddi was an issue because it’s a major site (but not main), & there were viewer complaints. Our monitoring said everything was working as normal, & Bouddi never went off air, so we don’t know if it was transmitting a pixelated picture from the receiver, or the issue was at the viewers locations?
The current conditions have been unpredictable, we’ve had no reception on a top diversity antenna, & good reception on a bottom diversity antenna, 3 meters lower down the tower, at at least one site.
Aside from the Sydney issues, the Port Stephens translator site eventually got upgraded to a microwave feed, but that was an absolute last resort (due to costs involved), after many things were tried, but nothing else worked. It was also effected for long periods of time, multiple times per year, creating a high percentage down time.
Generally speaking, this current sort of ducting & off air feeds issue, would cause less than 1% of down time per year, at most larger, (tiny small population area & the old self help type site are not included), TV translator sites.
I lost my TV reception at Floraville last night, due to I’m guessing Knights Hill (going by posts here about Newcastle TV around Campbelltown), from Mt Sugarloaf (Main site) & also the local translator at Belmont North.
Not much point having the local translator on Block B, when it’s fed off air from Mt Sugarloaf on Block C, in a spot that is well known for regular ducting Block C co-channel interference issues from Knights Hill.
The Sydney issues are not Co-Channel ducting issues, they are refracting signals from the main site, not being where they are supposed to be, & where they normally are.
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Having issues again with Kurrajong Heights (NW Sydney) in Stanhope Gardens signal and quality went from 100% to 0%, thank god for Netflix!!
May need to put up a 10 element band 3 antenna and get DTV directly from Sydney and use my UHF for Illawarra. Ducting will be worse for Illawarra of course!!
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Thanks, the 300,000 also included Wyong and Gosford, I assumed they were impacted by the same issue as Bouddi had, though maybe not to the same extent.
I can understand that off air feeds are the most cost effective solution.
Yes, I’ve been losing Sugarloaf on my external TV antenna a bit lately too, though oddly neighbours in my building haven’t reported the same issues. But in any case, rabbit ears usually gets Sydney reception perfectly on those occasions. I didnt watch any telly yesterday though.
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Noticed the TV antennas in these tweets about Royal National Park (as one does)
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Also cheaper to feed it via IP and use the 7plus and 9Now streams and play them out via CasparCG on Linux for down conversion and addition of HD overlays.
I think that would be problematic given they are on an SFN, the streams would need to be in sync, and buffering could be an issue with IP.
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Ah. I don’t know much about SFN’s and how they need to be exact.
The stream would already be out by around 1-2 seconds with the IP transmission but buffering wouldn’t be a real big issue if there is a NBN FTTN connection ready to be connected to the site.
I know for a fact that my TvHeadend server which is a TV Server for linux is out by 3-4 seconds from the time it comes off the mux and into the IP system.