Digital TV Technical Discussion

Understandable, you need to maintain integrity for employment.

On the link provided by @littlegezzybear, the 2019 licences are on differing freqs between the GCT site and TVQ. How can it be SFN if they’re on adjacent channels?

And, why change the GC freq between the current trial and next year?

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I noticed that the frequencies were different, might be doing a long range adjacent channel test too, I haven’t been told that?

I can’t answer why the change of Gold Coast frequencies between now & next year either?

I can try to find out more & post what I’m allowed.

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If there were more hours in the day, I’d email them and see what response I get, or lack thereof. Perhaps another member can do so and let us know.

No OTA broadcasts at all. Interesting.

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Too many hills?

Apparently less than 2% use DTT. Otherwise it’s cable or satellite or streaming.

A sign of things to come?

The way things are going here, I wouldn’t be overly surprised if DTT is turned off in the next 10-15 years.

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I think our broadband infrastructure has a long way to go before we can even think about that.

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A fair chunk of NZ outside the major cities & more populated areas, especially the South Island, don’t have DTT transmitters, as you can see on the map below.

Don’t worry! By 2033 we will all be able to stream at 480P without buffering!

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Agreed. Even though terrestrial TV broadcasts here in Australia will probably come to an end at some point in the future, at the moment we’re nowhere near ready to turn off transmitters.

This switchoff seems driven by distribution costs - similar to how most Canadian stations just switched off analogue rather than converting to digital - cable/sat distribution was how the vast majority of viewers got their service, so it made no sense to keep the signals for minimal audience.

In Australia OTA broadcasting - at least in the current regulatory environment - is the most cost effective broadcast means of reaching the whole population. Our shut off will come near to when linear TV as a whole is no longer viable.

I would expect that we will see many regional stations close translator stations and lapse to VAST coverage sooner, but I don’t see a total shutdown in the next 20-30 years at least.

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If all three networks take up the 100% reach rule ie. Seven owns SCA 7 in Tas/Remote and GWN7, then yes, in those small towns where it is not cost effective to maintain translators, there is likely to be a push from the networks to move those viewers onto VAST.

But not as likely to happen now whilst most regionals are under different ownership.

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But population-wise it’s the remaining 14% outside of DTT. FTA DTH does the infill.

NZ’s internet infrastructure still needs work too!

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If the original NBN had been allowed to go ahead as planned it would have been perfect for distributing both FTA and subscription services without the need for additional hardware everywhere (e.g. satellite dishes) and could have been run independent of internet plans - i.e. you have your Internet with Telstra on port 1 but your Foxtel is active on port 2 and not part of your quota with Telstra, is completely isolated.

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Well I think NZ and Switzerland have the advantage that their satellite platforms aren’t area restricted and both have a lot more compatible devices. So I think people areas with poor reception (but those that still wouldn’t get the full VAST service in OZ) are more likely to go the DTH route (since you can hide a dish more easily than a big terrestrial antenna for fringe receotion).

In NZ since the sat broadcast is FTA you can just use any cheap set top box from China or a lot of modern TVs have satellite tuners integrated too. In Switzerland you do need to get a decription card, but with a CI module you again can use it again pretty much in any modern TV with sat tuner.

Plus Switzerlands DTT was at best a berebones service to begin with. You only got the public channels from your own language region and the main channels from the two other regions (so if you were in the German part you’d get the German channels and the main channel in Fench and Italian). No commercial channels on DTT at all and only SD as well. Meanwhile with DTH you get all the public TV channels in HD (with about 10 mbps MPEG4 and DD5.1 AC3 as well), plus the main comemrcial channel and you have the ability to get channels from Germany, France, Italy and the UK with a multi-sat-setup. I wouldn’t think twice if I had to choose there.

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It’s down to whether the cost of reaching those viewers is substantially more than the revenue they drive, losing revenue to a competitor doesn’t matter if the effect is a net positive on the books.

Many VAST viewers are already within the official license area of FTA broadcasters, that were previously covered with fringe analogue, but never got viable digital signals.

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After 2300 Brisbane time, ABC 24 went off air momentarily on two, possibly three occasions.

Did not appear in the ABC fault page.

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I’m currently in a holiday cabin with my family at Jindabyne. The TV in there doesn’t receive SBS channels, and i’m sure the Snowy Mountains transmitter of Canberra channels no longer likes them. Was it like that before?

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It might be the TV. Does it pick up SMTV, the local Snowy Mountains channel.

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