Isn’t 720p not HD, I know this as ABC have Kids & Entertains at 720p and it’s noticeable going from 10HD/9HD/7HD to ABC Entertains for Doctor Who, WILTY & Gruen.
720p was generally called “HD”, distinct from 1080p’s “Full HD” and the more recent “Ultra HD” for 4K. YouTube for example doesn’t label it as HD in their resolution picker, but it’s certainly a HD standard - just lower detail than the higher options.
“High Definition” is an era based term, so 720p is probably not “high” anymore because the baseline has improved - in the 1930s the 405 line black and white broadcasts in the UK were called “high definition” compared to 240 line mechanical television.
Interesting - the Ballarat multiplex certainly was also 1080 for Peach. I’d probably put it down to misconfiguration, rather than testing options out.
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Don’t ABC, ESPN and Fox in the US broadcast 720p still?
That’s weird then. Wonder why this is the case in Eastern VIC?
Yep. It’s native 720p network feeds, and often natively producing content at that rate - as opposed to here where nearly all 720p broadcasts were downscales of 1080 content.
A small number of affiliates of ABC/Fox are 1080 though, including some ATSC3.0 services in 1080p, as obviously plenty of content from syndication and local productions are produced in 1080, but they have to upscale the network feed, as it’s all still only 720p all the way through the chain and unlikely to change.
It’s 1080i from the Illawarra. There’s no 1080p on terrestrial FTA in Australia – only 576i, 720p and 1080i. Previously, there was also 576p.
ABC Kids/Entertains is 576i SD (720x576i), rather than 720p HD (1280x720p).
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Agree, and IIRC, either 7 or ABC, tried 576p “HD” in the early years of DTV too?
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Both Peach and Bold are 1080i in Bendigo.
Yes, ABC, SBS and 7 had 576p previously.
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How would you reorganise the FTA service for Central Australian (IMP, QQQ, CDT)? Would you remove the channels or what?
What I’d love to see from 10 in the regions is scrapping the 10 SD simulcast and dropping Nickelodeon onto the network there, keeping Sky and adding nickelodeon as SD or HD channel.
Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing theyve done seeing Peach is now HD
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Nick is already on the regionals?
That’s pretty much all already happened.
In regional Queensland, Victoria and Southern NSW there’s no 10 SD simulcast, and Nickelodeon is available (in SD). The NRN markets WIN operated don’t have Nickelodeon, but 10 is already HD only.
The joint venture Ten stations have never had Sky, but I think only TDT has Nickelodeon.
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I was referring to the newly acquired WIN markets in NNSW.
Looks like the ABC are next to start the MPEG4 switchover, only for channel 23 and 24 from June 11, progressively rolling out across the country.
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FINALLY!
ABC News Channel in HD. 
Wednesday 11 June – Tasmania and South Australia
Tuesday 17 June – Western Australia and Northern Territory
Thursday 19 June – Queensland
Tuesday 24 - NSW and ACT
Thursday 26 - Victoria
Wish the other networks could roll out their changes this quickly rather than drip-feeding.
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Now all they’ve got to do is switch ABC Kids/Family over and ABC will be the first to have full HD only nationally
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Will also be the same date for NT and SA viewers who use VAST due to the ABC Entertains QLD feed being the main feed for those states.
Hmmm, at least my 16 year old DVD/HDD recorder will still be able to record ABC Main and Kids in SD MPEG-2. Not that I do so much at all these days anyway.
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