Was it possible to buy anything other than a set top box? I don’t think there were any screens with integrated digital tuners.
There may have been one or two, and they werent cheap
I remember seeing one at Clive Peeters (RIP) for a mere $8000 around the time digital TV started. It looked like a widescreen CRT but had a flat screen and integrated tuner. I’d never seen anything like it since so i gather it didn’t sell well.
Other than that i think you could just get a STB and connect it to your TV or to a flatscreen TV which in those days didn’t include a tuner, they were just like large computer monitors
And even if you had a HD STB it was moot by plugging it in to your CRT TV which downgraded it to SD anyway 
Is it any wonder nobody rushed to get digital?
I seem to recall Seven did use the Olympics for some test demonstration of digital TV. Vaguely recall they had a tuner set up at the Royal Melbourne Show for a demonstration but I could be wrong.
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I believe I have seen some programs produced for Aussie TV in widescreen before 2001. I’d say the rollout of widescreen production started around 1999, and was only able to be taken advantage of with the start of digital transmissions in 2001.
None of the Olympics coverage by Channel 7 was produced in widescreen.
From this site -The Opening Ceremony Of The 2000 Olympic Games :
Sorry to start with this particular topic, but this transfer has caused something of a stir. In the spirit of attempting to be fair to all concerned, as well as to provide as accurate a picture as possible, we sought the assistance of Warner Vision Australia and through them DVM who authored the DVD. We would like to thank in particular Daryl O’Connor and Brian Rollason from the respective organizations for their assistance in providing significant additional information to us.
Broadly speaking, the issue of the transfer gets down to the usual question of licensing, as ever with just about everything to do with the Olympics. To clarify the main points:Channel 7 was the official Australian broadcaster and licensee for the television rights for Australia and therefore only official broadcast material from that source can be licensed in Australia. Sorry, but that Channel 7 watermark throughout the show is just something that we have to live with, as is the rather pathetic Channel 7 commentary. Warner Vision Australia simply are unable to license another source for the material.
There is in theory one source of “clean” footage available, which is controlled by the IOC directly. It is unavailable to any entity until such time as it has been fully catalogued, presumably for archival purposes. For practical purposes, that is far too late for commercial release. This material is presumably what will form part of the extensive IOC archive and may be available for issue purposes in the future, presumably for releases like those videos recently released about the 1996 Olympic Games.
There is no widescreen IOC material available. It has been confirmed by SOBO (Sydney Olympic Broadcasting Organization) that all IOC footage was recorded in Full Frame format and this was apparently agreed to four years ago. All 198 international broadcasters were supplied with material in Full Frame format only. It has been acknowledged that some overseas broadcasters did broadcast this in widescreen format by matting the image, thereby losing detail from the top and bottom of the picture.
The likelihood of this material being released in other territories is not high, but should it happen then the video may well be similar but the audio would be different, depending upon where the material was sourced from.
Obviously there are a lot of legal matters to be covered when putting together a release like this, and these do have an impact on what is available for release. The broad situation is that if you want a record of the Opening Ceremony, then you will have little option but this release. The only real possibility for a “better” source material is the official IOC record which in theory could be released at some future date - but commercial realism says that is unlikely to happen.
I remember watching back the Sydney Olympic opening ceremony on a VHS tape and distinctly remember seeing a scene where a bunch of people were gathered around a widescreen plasma TV…which was stretched out to buggery in order to fit the 4x3 analogue transmission onto the widescreen TV.
Some early LCD and Plasma screens didn’t even have built-in inputs - their brains were located in a separate box and hooked up using a proprietary link cable (presumably to keep the screen as thin as possible, whereas with CRTs you could just hide all the guts beneath the picture tube). Then on top of that you’d need the digital set top box.
LG made a big song and dance around 2005 about how their LCD and Plasma TVs came with built-in digital tuners (with tuna fish swimming around).
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Apparently Ten was making Neighbours in widescreen on demand of the BBC which was adopting widescreen as standard for all new content from 1999 or 2000.
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I suppose that could also explain Rove Live being in widescreen in that clip - if they upgraded all of those studios rather than just the stuff used for Neighbours.
That stuff about NHK was more what I was thinking - that I thought there were some broadcasters trialling it - similar to how NBC used their own cameras to get HD coverage of Athens (I think).
I suppose Seven couldn’t have exactly used another broadcaster’s equipment when they are supposed to be the host broadcaster though.
Though those seem to be coming back now - I had to deal with a curved Samsung screen that put all its HDMI inputs into a separate box that connected over a proprietary cable. I think it has a spot on it to then attach dongles to get component/composite inputs.
I suppose that’s so people mounting it on curved walls don’t have any problems?
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Someone else remember that TEN did the Bathurst 1000 (year 2000) in 16x9 SD 720x576i so they could showcase the future DVB-T set up, they also did some multi-channel content.
Or was that 2001 …
Just realised that:
the date of DTV rollout in AU - Jan 1 2001 = 111 (or 01/01/01)
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I watched DTV on a flatscrren 16:9 aspect Panasonic CRT that was capable of HD but only had an analogue tuner.
The first SD STBs used a SCART connector to get the signal out. The first HD STB used component cables.
As well as widescreen programs mentioned above this clip of Sandra reporting on 911 seen on Ten’s 50 year anniversary package was wide screen.
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IIRC, I think WTV done some cricket coverage.
Memory is a bit vague on the Adopt A Dots but I do recall it was around the time of the Olympics.
I was never convinced that there was any technology involved in the “dots” at all but just promoted as such to get people to stick these cardboard icons to a TV screen and stay tuned to 7.
From what I recall the “technology” was some red cellophane sandwiched in between two bits of cardboard that had a hole drilled through the middle, and the red part was supposedly to track the information off the screen.
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IIRC there were 3 extra channels LCNs 11, 12 and 13. One was pit lane, another was in-car (both with separate commentary) and the third was data on placings.
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I don’t recall WIN doing Cricket, if they did it might of been anything from Canberra, they did however do St George Illawarra games in 1999 through to about 2004? when Dragons played out a Wollongong Showgrounds which is now WIN Stadium.
Here is one of the historians buffs, did NWS-9 (Channel 09 Adelaide which I assume in 1997/8 were owned by WIN) cover any Adelaide Ram games (as in did production and distribution?) or did Fox Sports (no doubt contracted local production) do all these games?
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According to the info on offer it was “Charge your dot”, Seven did a promotion where you would buy something that was shaped around the “7 in a box” logo and you would place it on the 7 watermark on the TV and it would glow or something like that, that was all for the re-brand of 7 from old style logo to the current one.
Not that early. I think it was still owned by the Lamb family at that time.
I meant WTV as in (West Television), the main community station in Perth.
yes something like that, the problem was no one could view it 
, I am wondering if that was 2000 or 2001? I recall it might of been 2000 as it was a showcase test for DVB-T technology and how it the TV channels would be broadcasting sport into the future … that said as history tells us it never took off for FTA TV, I think Nine did trial something based on what Fox Sports was doing in 2005 using MHP.
I also vaguely recall SBS doing something similar with Tour De France around that time also.
Of course none of it was as advanced as what Optus were doing from late 2001 through March 2003, I mean was able to use my TV to order from Pizza Hut and also have e-mail on TV, watch the Dinosaurs with Interactive view switching, also watch heaps of SONY Music Video concerts where they (Optus & SONY) were trialing camera switching technology where you would have the main camera vision but be able to choose different camera angles or different audio tracks, you guys & gals missed out as Optus Interactive- TV was very good for a 2001 to 2003 service, much better than anything Foxtel has ever dared to try due to the technology path they opted for which meant no broadband return path so all they could do was offer 1 way digital not true interactive tech like Optus iTV did.
thanks for that, then who did the Adelaide Ram games that were played in Adelaide during 1997 and 1998?
ah ok, did know know that, as I remember it Packer (Kerry) made the big offer I think it was Boxing day 2006 (or was that the day he passed?) anyway he made the offer, Seven (which had Ten backing them) waiting a few days once Packer had passed away and then matched the rights offer, the problem was that Seven (and Ten) did not have any pay TV distribution and this was well before any multi-channels like 7Mate or ONE HD.
They were going to basically buy air time the Community 31 set ups, anyway a deal was made with Foxtel (and Optus ironically) to use Main Event as national distribution (so Northern states and everywhere else there was no 7 or 10 terrestrial) since they could block out basically the AFL states from viewing it via Main Event.
It was in the era of the ‘Access 31’ rather than West TV - they carried coverage of The Ashes in 2001 (a Sky Sports UK feed), as the time zone difference meant more of the coverage was wiped out than in the eastern states where it was on after prime time (I think from 9:30 or so, portions of play were still missed). Channel 7 then resumed the broadcast later in the evening.
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