Digital TV Technical Discussion

People won’t bother replacing them more like. They will more like cut their FTA cord from their wall.

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That’s one alternative… but as we’ve seen with the 7Plus AFL Grand Final fiasco, I’m still not convinced streaming is reliable enough.

Think you will find Seven (Prime) has also a separate Central Coast feed.

Yes they do but the difference from the Newcastle feed is very minor… it’s mostly the same ads in a different order, occasionally a local one… and i don’t think there is a different local news update.

Yes, but it has always shown Newcastle news IIRC with only local ads.

WIN doesn’t even have a Central Coast feed, with one of the three transmitters having WIN Newcastle and the others not having WIN at all, and people have to watch 10 Sydney.

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And my understanding the last time I heard, the commercials were opposed to being made to share 2 mux’s between them, preferring full control over their current single mux per network instead.

I am a bit suprised WIN haven’t done anything about this… but then maybe since Mappy died a quiet death, they decided not to bother.

Doubt the numbers would be worth it these days, especially as a Ten affiliate. Question would be whether there is any real survey impact from this.

We will find out in the next few years how good it is. I was always against relying on streaming but I have to admit as years have gone on it has only gotten better. It would be good though if someone developed software that seamlessly channel changing between streams for people who rely on it to watch tv.

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They actually have. There used to be a program available for Windows called Aussie TV FTW which did just that available on the Microsoft Store. But the program description says that they were asked to remove the program from the store.

That’s another thing… channel surfing is nigh on impossible with streaming… and also the ability to rewind and fast forward again as I do all the time on my PVR.

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This year’s final? That wasnt a limitation of the technology, rather one of rights holding

It is also harder to timeshift with steaming. You have to rely on the broadcaster to put their programs onto the catch up platform and they are often very slow. It’s hard to decide to watch a program that started 30 minutes earlier. With a PVE you can start watching immediately.

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What was the 7Plus AFL Grand Final fiasco? I remember stuff happening but wasn’t sure if that was the problem or there was more to it than that.

From what I remember, 7Plus’s channel 7 live stream carried border security instead of the grand final (normal for an AFM Match) and 7Plus had a separate live stream for the grand final, BUT only for some devices (e.g. Telstra TV), not for others (e.g. Chromecast or via the web). I’d consider that to be a bit hard on viewers regardless of whether there are genuine rights issues or not, but was that the fiasco?

Rights or technical issues or not, until streaming gets to a point whereby you can confidently go to a source and know that you’re going to be able to watch something with no issues, free to air is still more reliable.

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You could apply the same argument to Foxtel having the AFL rights - because I cant confidently go to a source (being Fox Footy) and watch the AFL Grand Final, it’s by your definition not reliable.

Seven decided to roll the dice on using their limited streaming rights to stream the GF and it was a shambles - that’s not a reflection on the medium of transmission that’s poor form from the broadcaster, a very different situation.

FOX Footy has never promoted themselves as having live rights to the AFL Grand Final, that’s different again.

Whether it’s poor form or not, viewers couldn’t rely on 7Plus for the AFL GF.

Seven were clear that the stream was only for selected devices

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Unless your TV is really old, free to air (MPEG2 at least) works on every TV! :smile:

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You’d need something like a distribution amplifier to overcome signal loss with splitters.

Like 10MM-DMA42 - Distribution Amplifier UHF/VHF 40dB with 4G/5G Filter and Power Supply - Matchmaster Digital TV Antenna

Not sure how much they cost.

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