Even if they advertised that the channel was in MPEG4, I somehow doubt that people would’ve gone out and upgraded their equipment just to see 7Flix.
Anyway, Seven is still broadcasting a SD MPEG4 channel in RACING.COM! 
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TV captioning rules: ACMA calls for submissions
The Australian Communications and Media Authority has begun a review of the captioning rules for television broadcasters. It is calling for public submissions to a consultation paper, released today.
The captioning rules for television broadcasters are set out in the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (BSA) and include:
• targets for the amount of programming that must be captioned
• reporting and record-keeping requirements
• exemptions from captioning requirements
• requirements about quality set out in the Captioning Standard.
The BSA also requires the ACMA to conduct the review before 31 December 2016 and to provide a report to the Minister before 30 June 2017.
‘The captioning of Australian television broadcasts is essential for many Australians, and the ACMA encourages all interested parties to make a submission to the review,’ said ACMA acting Chairman Richard Bean.
Information about how to make a submission is available here.
Submissions are due COB Friday 22 July 2016.
I wonder what has happened with AD (Audio Description) that ABC was trialling?
Tenterfield in NSW is having problems with co-chanelling on their input signal:
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Interesting. I always thought Tenterfield was part of the old SDQ4 Warwick service area, so I was surprised it gets signal input from Mt Nardi rather than the Southern Downs. I guess it does make sense though, being in NSW and all
I recall seeing (probably here or the old forum) similar issues in other locations such as on the South Coast of NSW and down in Apollo Bay in Victoria, where distant co-channeled signals are swamping either local signals or their off-air input signals. Sounds like poor channel planning in these crowded areas, plus a reliance of many of these lower-power repeaters on off-air relays rather than more reliable feeds from satellite
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IMO, the worst picture quality of any channels broadcasting in Sydney (aside from datacasts) is definitely Seven’s various SD MPEG2 channels. I don’t know if it’s because they’re using older encoding equipment or what, but there are quite visible compression artefacts (especially around the watermark and on-screen text, etc.) even on scenes with relatively little/slight motion!
I personally think that Australian free to air TV can do decent quality SD (the ABC’s channels have decent SD quality IMO) and HD (sure it’s not perfect, but the quality of Nine and Ten’s HD channels look reasonably good for the most part) broadcasts, the problem is that there’s just not enough of it because most networks like to cram as many channels on the multiplex as possible!
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Easily the best example out there. Followed closely by Nine, by what I see around 3 or 4 times a year. Yet to see a regional commercial station produce quality SD services like these two.
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Just for the record, before the changeover.
These are the average Mbps tonight for the WIN and SC10 multiplexes as transmitted from Bald Knob Sunny Coast averaged over 1.5 hours from about 6.30pm.
SC10 (TNQ47)
ONE 9.25
SC10 4.07
Eleven 4.07
TVSN 1.55
Aspire 1.55
WIN (RTQ 46)
WIN HD 7.25
WIN 5.16
GO 2.02
Gem 1.83
Life 1.72
Gold 1.11
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Apologies if this is old news, but has TV4ME disappeared everywhere?
Currently. It’s not available for me via 7 Sydney or Prime7.
74 now has nothing or has disappeared totally whilst 64 has a blank screen with “iShop TV” as the LCN name.
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Yeah, you’re a bit late there!
Brand New Media, the owners of 4ME went into administration on April 29 and the channel went off air via the Prime7 multiplex at midnight. 4ME via Seven in metropolitan/Regional QLD markets was replaced by a very poorly produced “Channel Is Unavailable” placeholder slide (the quality was so bad that it looked like something made on Microsoft Paint and probably would’ve been torn to shreds if posted in the mocks thread!) on May 18-19 and then pulled off the multiplex entirely about a week or so later with the bitrate allocated to making 7Flix an MPEG2 channel.
Thanks… Goes to show how much I watched that channel… not very much at all.
Apologies if this has been shared elsewhere, but just saw yet another location is dealing with ongoing reception issues:
Anglesea has been for as long as I’ve known a troublespot for TV reception, with a number of houses resorting to 10+m high masts to get Melbourne TV. Evidently the compressing of the TV bands has resulted in further issues with the (relatively) new translators installed to overcome this problem, as TV signals from the Latrobe Valley are interfering.
This shouldn’t really be a surprise to anyone either. By way of its geography the Surf Coast has great line of sight to the east, and reception of VHF signals (i.e. FM radio) from that way has always been very common down that part of the coast.
This comes after reception problems have been highlighted in Apollo Bay and East Gippsland, again in no small part due to the co-channeling of TV frequencies.
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Anglesea page omits the Melbourne community licence on UHF 32.
Apollo Bay page is interesting where it gives a mention to Melbourne services.
Also mentions the inferior engineering solution regional broadcasters, hell bent on getting into Great Ocean Road towns went to.
What ACMA and broadcasters fail to realise is that no one on the Great Ocean Road towns have a community of interest with Ballarat TV, most are not interested in regional TV and want to watch Melbourne signals whether it’s intended or not.
Again with East Gippsland, most don’t want to watch local news on a carousel basis nor ads from an area far removed from theirs. ACMA mention ‘unnecessary’ second antennas, again, they exist due to local dissatisfaction with broadcaster quality.
As seen in West Gippsland, Great Ocean Road, Sunshine Coast and many other locations, new high gain antenna installations are often taking place. Consumers don’t care for what ACMA pump out on their websites nor what’s in the Act. In this age of the internet, they should be relaying this more persuasively to government to update legislation when reviewed.
5 blocks of channels clearly is not enough.
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According to Lyngsat Channel 7 and 9 are broadcasting all of their channels on Optus D1 FTA.
With Channel 9, is that a clean feed with no ads PRG etc or is that the dirty feed?
Also whilst trying to key the frequencies into the receiver, i have unable to receive them when i can receive the ABN uplink.
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Yes, they are commercial-free clean feeds, but you may need a dish larger than a typical Foxtel dish. 90cm-120cm from memory.
Not all regions are available and they’re not always active.
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Confirming, the TCN clean feed comes in fine here in Sydney on my 90cm dish.
However, be aware that you can’t just get any old receiver for the other Seven and Nine Network signals – they require a 16APSK-compatible satellite receiver, which are relatively rare.
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What’s the go with radio stations over digital TV, for example what ABC and SBS broadcast?
I’m thinking, apart from the obvious bandwidth limitations, is there anything stopping SCA from broadcasting some of their digital radio stations into regional areas through their TV signals?
Obviously it would require listening through the TV rather than on a DAB+ radio so could have limited appeal, so I’m not saying it would be a good or bad idea, but if it was done and embraced by audiences it could give SCA an advantage over their competitors.
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SCA only has licenses to broadcast radio within specific areas using assigned frequencies.
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The VAST service offers over 100 radio stations like this - via DVB and can only be listened through a TV or set-top box. SCA operates 2 commercial stations although they’re not open to the public and are there for terrestrial retransmission only. I do wonder how popular these “DVB audio” services actually are considering their limitations.
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There was a specific rule about datacast licenses - “Each datacasting licence is subject to the condition that the licensee will not transmit matter that, if it were broadcast on a commercial radio broadcasting service, would be a designated radio program.”
However, now the multichannel limits are removed, there’s nothing I can think of that would stop commercial broadcasters from including radio only channels in their broadcast.
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The Broadcasting Services Act appears to prohibit a transmitter licence issued under the Radiocommunications Act to a commercial television licensee to be used for any purpose other than free-to-air commercial television.
7 Conditions of commercial television broadcasting licences
(1) Each commercial television broadcasting licence is subject to the following conditions:
…
(p) if the licensee holds a transmitter licence under section 101B, 101C, 102 or 102A of the Radiocommunications Act 1992 that authorises the operation of a transmitter–the licensee will not operate, or permit the operation of, that transmitter to transmit in digital mode:
(i) a commercial broadcasting service that provides radio programs; or
(ii) a subscription radio broadcasting service; or
(iii) a subscription television broadcasting service; or
(iv) a subscription radio narrowcasting service; or
(v) a subscription television narrowcasting service; or
(vi) an open narrowcasting radio service; or
(vii) an open narrowcasting television service;
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