Aside from rushing HD to air during the early days of DVB-T rather than waiting for the technology to mature like New Zealand did, another major mistake was not making MPEG4 part of the Australian digital TV standards as early as 2007-08.
OK so a few manufacturers may have put MPEG4 encoders into their equipment as far back as 12-13 years ago, but quite a lot didn’t. Many people rushed to buy the cheap decoders which flooded the Australian market during the analogue switchoff transition period early last decade and guess what? Most if not all of those can’t receive the latest MPEG4 channels!
Surely by 2023, we should be looking at transitioning to DVB-T2 and H265/HEVC encoding (which is really the only option if we want all channels in HD and eventually, perhaps even things like 4K) rather than making the best out of an ordinary situation by keeping DVB-T but switching everything to MPEG4?
The LCN has nothing to do with what channel is the Primary channel, take a look at the document I mentioned in my last post.
A brief outline of what a Primary Channel means.
The declaration formally sets out the ‘primary service’ for each of the commercial TV networks in a licence area. A primary service has special obligations compared to other services. These relate to:
content, captioning, media diversity, other responsibilities.
The Primary Channel has to have certain things on, or associated with it, where as others don’t, it has nothing to do with the LCN or what has previously been thought to be, or associated with the main channel number.
The idea was really to clear up bandwith for the telcos, which both NZ and Australia achieved, so in the politician’s eyes, it probably makes little difference which standard anyone’s ended up with.
Inevitably a new standard will replace the old one, it’s just a matter of (sigh) when.
I highly doubt that a transition will ever happen - it requires investment that the broadcasters appear disinterested in doing (they already dismissed DVB-T2 during the testing) and will be reliant on the government to force (and subsequently fund) any change
Agreed - technological changes in this space where the end consumer is required to purchase new hardware are very difficult and lengthy processes.
In 1975 we introduced colour, yet still B&W sets persisted for years despite the clear benefit to owning a colour TV. Fortunately for users with older sets in this case the new technology was backward-compatible which delayed the need for change.
In 2001 we introduced digital TV, and despite the clear benefit in terms of picture/number of choices, the transition took 10+ years and there were still people caught out in the end when analogue switched off.
We’d now be asking a big chunk of the audience to go out and buy a new TV for, what? A slightly more efficient codec that might mean another infomercial channel or two can fit in? But no benefit in terms of picture or sound for the end consumer, not one that’s readily perceivable by most anyway.
I agree with the comments regarding some past decisions allowing those horrid cheap, nasty STBs and TVs into the market are coming back to bite. The number of places I’ve been to/stayed at that have those cheap Dick Smith brand TVs (or equivalent) that can’t decode HD/MPEG4 astounds me. But it’s also a reason why it will make a conversion even more difficult - they are still out there in large numbers.
I hate being the negative one about technological innovation but I just can’t see a case being made for a ‘slightly better’ form of DTV being introduced at great cost to the broadcasters and the consumer, not anytime soon anyway.
It doesnt help that there are a vast number of devices out there that dont adhere properly to the standards - this isnt just cheap devices either
It doesnt help that its difficult to gauge the numbers around people who would need to upgrade - devices that cant do the MPEG-4 services are a slam dunk, but I suspect that its a lot larger then that. Upgrading needs some kind of carrot
That was a good thing though, my Uncle apparently made quite a bit of money in his younger years by grabbing his textas and offering his services to the neighbours colouring in the pictures on their TV for their evening viewing because they didn’t want to buy a colour TV.
I always found it weird what my Uncle had to do for a bit of pocket money. When he was really young he had to clean up the dead people from behind the TV after the evening Western movie had been on.
Television sets are undoubtedly cheaper these days than they were even ten years ago. But surely for most people, a decent new TV for the loungeroom is still a “once in a decade” purchase with few opting to upgrade any more frequently than that?
If the price for such equipment is reasonable, I’d probably be willing to spend money on a new TV and PVR if/when fulltime DVB-T2 and/or 4K transmissions (rather than just technical trials) are up and running in Sydney. But until/unless that happens, I’m perfectly happy to stick with my HD/MPEG4-capable equipment.
You don’t HAVE to buy a whole new TV… new set top box or PVR will allow you to take advantage of the latest broadcast technologies for a fraction of the cost.
A bulk of houses in this area (about 11km out of Renmark) appear to have their antennas pointing towards the transmitter that services the Ramco/Waikerie area instead of the Loxton transmitter
For me, that website, whilst it’s very useful, it will never be 100% accurate, and if anything, it will err on the side of conservative so people don’t complain about channels that this website says they should get, but don’t.
bit outdated the website is. Compared the Myswitch site with the TX Australia site, the Mount Lofty transmitter is lucky to reach Waikerie on the coverage map whereas TX Australia has the Mount Lofty transmitter reaching close to Loxton
