Yes, I got the message on the PVR about extra channels. The only one I can receive from Rockhampton is 36 because the others are blocked by the Sunshine Coast South translators and 36 is the “spare” frequency.
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Thanks! Did you lose any of the Sunshine Coast South ones (eg black screen caused by both signals being strong enough to interfere with each other)?
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No, the signals were 100/10 for the other channels. There is often a lift on 36 when Rockhampton troppo occurs, though not always to a strong enough level for sustained reception. The other station often received is 10 from Wide Bay as that is the spare in Brisbane.
Example of 36 reception
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Down here, I have Central Coast co-channelled with Sydney SW. Same channels on same frequencies, but they are different polarity (my UHF antenna is vertical for the Central Coast, Sydney SW is horizontal).
When Sydney SW is strong enough, it can cause signal quality to drop from 10/10 on my Panasonic PVR to 5 or 6 out of 10. This will cause pixelation and make it unwatchable. Only usually gets this severe once or twice a year.
I’m not sure if the polarity is causing this or if the channels are slightly out of sync (noting its probably not intended to be a true SFN in that respect).
Wollongong will knock out Newcastle totally (0 signal quality resulting in a black screen on all channels) and this happens regularly since its coastal.
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The South Sunshine Coast stations are like local for me and can be used instead of the VHF ones. But the other Sunshine Coast stations are subject to the problems you describe with cochannel interference . Also the Nambour SFN suffers.
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Ahead of the changes to the SBS multiplex tomorrow here are the current bit rates averages tonight.
| 3 | SBS ONE | 2.44 | Mpeg 2 |
| 30 | ONE HD | 3.05 | |
| 31 | VICELAND HD | 2.83 | |
| 32 | Movies | 3.03 | |
| 33 | Food | 2.79 | Mpeg 2 |
| 34 | NITV | 2.43 | Mpeg 2 |
| 35 | Watch | 1.44 |
NITV 34 will go HD and switch to MPEG 4
NITV SD will be available on LCN 36
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The new lineup:
It looks like they’ve ditched all 4 radio simulcasts in the 36-39 range. Good! Also, SBS Food appears to be in MPEG-4 now.
NITV on VAST has also ‘quietly’ switched to HD. It doesn’t have ‘HD’ in the channel name and there is no SD simulcast on 36 either.
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SBS leading the way now with four HD channels. Keeping two SD mpeg-2 simulcasts makes sense for SBS given the importance of SBS ONE and NITV.
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SBS Food was planned to go MPEG 4 at the same time. These are the new bit rates.
| 3 | SBS ONE | 1.88 | Mpeg 2 |
| 30 | ONE HD | 2.77 | |
| 31 | VICELAND HD | 2.81 | |
| 32 | Movies | 3.02 | |
| 33 | Food | 1.74 | |
| 34 | NITV HD | 2.75 | |
| 35 | Watch | 1.33 | |
| 36 | NITV | 1.98 | Mpeg 2 |
The above includes the audio stream. Food and Watch had their audio allocation reduced in the change while NITV SD audio is about half the other channels. The video bit rates for SBS’s HD channels are well below that of other HD channels.
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SBS World Movies is already HD
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Why does SBS ONE HD have a lower bitrate than Viceland HD?
There is no need to simulcast SBS Radio channels on TV anymore, given they are already available on SBS Audio app and online.
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The simulcast referred to was LCNs 36-39 had radio streams that were simulcasts of 4 radio channels in the 301-307 range. NITV took the 36 LCN and SBS ditched 37 -39.
| 36 | Arabic24 |
| 37 | Radio 1 |
| 38 | Radio 2 |
| 39 | Chill |
Radio channels now are only on
301 Radio 1
302 Radio 2
303 Radio 3
304 Arabic24
305 PopDesi
306 Chill
307 PopAsia
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Hopefully ABC eventually move all their radio channels to the 2XX range too… and hopefully every other network follows SBS’s lead now with moving to MPEG4.
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Didn’t really matter on VAST as all channels are MPEG4 and all VAST boxes are capable of MPEG4 and 1080i HD
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I think they are all variable depending on the content, so if SBS One HD has soccer on for instance, their bit rate will probably increase given HD sport needs more bits to display the faster moving content, and other channels will reduce to make space available.
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It’s always hard to say what the bit rate will be for each program but I agree that for fast moving sport the bitrates will automatically be higher. There will be issues when there is fast moving sport on two channels. We often seen that with the commercial channels with just two HD feeds.
I have been running the decoder all day and now the highest bit rate goes to NITV HD with World Movies second and Viceland 3rd with SBS ONE HD the lowest but the difference between the 4 is just 19Mbps
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It’s called “statistical multiplexing”. Basically, they set up a pool bit rate and then each video stream is given a min and max bit rate, and a priority. The stat mux then allocates bit rate according to the needs of each stream based on the parameters set and how much movement there is between each frame, fitting it all within the pool bit rate. Audio isn’t included in the stat mux and is usually constant bit rate.
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Probably unlikely for a while as they like to plug on ABC Radio about it being on TV Channel 25 - maybe they could move it to 200 though but they plug it on the overnights programs reguarly just like the listen app.
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More gold plating and smoke screens from pollies!
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Yep, and i haven’t heard anything about it since!
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