Digital TV Technical Discussion

Do this before the cricket 7 p l e a s e

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but it seems like all channel 7 channels have gone off air here in Apollo Bay. Is anyone else experiencing issues with channel 7?

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Fantastic. No doubt coming to the other metros soon too.
Hopefully the other networks follow suit.

According to the site - regional NSW & VIC are getting the change as well.
Promising signs.

The changes for regional NSW/ACT and Victoria were already done back in October.

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That’ll render a few old TVs useless, especially those using a Set Top Box with an old analogue TV.

Foxtel must have known in November that it would happen or could happen soon. From the Foxtel topic in early November:

The only FTA channels in the 200’s range on Foxtel set top boxes are HD channels. Thus for 7TWO to pop up on 256 rather than the previous 156 means that Foxtel must have expected 7TWO to be in HD in the near future.

I don’t remember where @EMTV was located, but it was happening here in Melbourne and presumably the other mainland state capitals as well.

Hallelujah! Let this be the beginning of a complete transformation across all networks.

Except the ABC of course, which will lag behind in only offering one fairly ordinary quality HD channel for who knows how many decades.

Re: Band 1 use - DVB-T is very sensitive to impulse interference breaking up the transport stream. Hence even electric arcs from household switches play havoc in the VHF-Lo band.

Less of an issue with 8VSB (ATSC 1.0) modulation apparently, but that has problems with multipath signals.

Worth noting that ACMA were considering using VHF Band 1 for digital radio transmissions in regional Australia (DRM+ modulation). That seems to be off the table. They did issue a report in 2020, but having unique frequencies used was frowned upon by the radio industry given Australia would require expensive bespoke receivers.

Regional WA is next, over the coming months.

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Does regional WA have access to less spectrum such that 7two can’t go HD?

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On VAST possibly I’m guessing that’s why 7two can’t be HD seemingly as I imagine VAST and free to air have to be the same. Straight free to air terrestrial is no different to over in the east.

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I thought that iShop TV closed down. Did this happen already and did I mistake the order on the page for being chronological order?

Apparently the transmission upgrades page could’ve been posted around the same time as the Regional NSW/ACT/VIC upgrades, so it has either already happened or they haven’t gotten around to it yet. Can anyone confirm if the upgrades happened months ago?

Regional WA’s MPEG-4 transition, which that page refers to, was completed around 6 months ago.

Nope, nothing stopping them matching the rest of 7 Regional now from a technical perspective. Around 10 Mbit/s free space on terrestrial, and VAST is flexible and can expand on bandwidth where needed.

I’m not entirely sure why Seven never launched 7twoHD, 7Bravo, etc as part of the Regional WA rollout. Space isn’t the issue. VAST-to-terrestrial conversion doesn’t appear to be an issue either unlike before. Seven must just see the market as too small to offer the full suite of channels, like every other non-Seven market.

If we’re lucky, they might switch 7two to HD when Perth switches?

Clearly the page pre-dates ishoptv’s closure.

I confirmed it in this thread in June.

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But i imagine if Seven want extra bandwidth to put 7two on VAST in HD, they’d have to pay for that. And I’m guessing they don’t want to, main channel and 7mate get HD preference for AFL and cricket mostly.

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It looks that way. But they did convert 4 channels from SD to HD as part of the changes (3 x 7, 1 x 7mate). Surely a 5th conversion was possible?

I reckon it’s just the fact 7twoHD was a pretty new thing at the time and wasn’t part of the plan. Hopefully they’ll make the switch eventually!

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Actually no. Optus has asked some broadcasters to reduce capacity and are moving a bunch of channels from D3 to Optus 10.

https://www.myvast.com.au/vast?id=prof_oper

I assume this is to give space for SkyNZ.

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It looks like Sky moving is off - they made an announcement to the NZX the other day

https://www.nzx.com/announcements/445728

Sky can now confirm that several critical milestones have been met on its preferred satellite option. As a result, Sky is now focusing its migration activity on the preferred satellite, which will be located in the same orbital slot as D2. The alternative satellite which is in a different orbital slot will remain a contingency option for Sky, further improving security of supply for its customers.

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With cricket on the main channel an 7Two in HD in 7QLD thought the bit rates would be interesting. 7Mate without sport has the highest average bitrate. Bravo is also higher (on average) than the channels with sport.

Main HD 4.1
7Two HD 4.0
7Mate HD 5.2
Bravo HD 4.5
7Flix 1.3
TVSN 1.6
Race 2.2

7Two HD

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