HD Broadcasting in Australia

Found some of my old HD demo loop recordings. I remember these played when there was no native HD programming on, or during ad breaks:

50-minute loop from WIN HD (2004):

25-minute loop from SCT HD (2006):

13.5-minute loop from 7 “HD”, which was only 576p at that point (2006):

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Is this part of the HD/ digital test thing they did many years ago similar to the 4k test loop that was done more recently?

Not so much a test. They were on all the time on the HD channels all the time when HDTV first started in the early 2000s. From memory, basically, they were on whenever the programme being shown wasn’t available in HD (which was most of the time in the early 2000s).

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Not my caps - I’d assume downloaded from the old DTV Forums at the time, but they had separate “test” broadcasts, which I think were actual programming, but while the regional networks were still sorting out doing HD at all beyond the loops.


The loops in general provided something to show people in stores to sell them on buying $5000 TV sets, the last of them faded once Blu-Ray was out to provide a better source of demo footage.

The other minor historical aside - Prime was both 1080i HD before Seven was, and switched off their HD channel and redirected it to the SD version when it wasn’t native content, so you never saw a loop on there to my knowledge.

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If my memory serves me correctly, when Prime HD first launched, it was 1080i - but then I think they too dropped down to 576p like 7 (because of pressure from 7 perhaps?). Or maybe my recollection is wrong - it’s been 20 years already :sweat_smile:.

576 for HD? I know 720 is still used as “HD” by ABC and FOX.

Technically 576 is classified as HD but in these days 576 is classed as SD.

576p was also known as ‘enhanced definition’ for a time there. It had advantages over 576i, especially for live sport.

But ultimately 720p and 1080i were far better options but Seven at the time were being stingy and only offered 576p as their HD channel for a number of years.

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From memory, 7 had their HD service as 720x576p sort of as a protest. They had wanted to do multichanneling instead but the rules at the time was 1 SD channel and 1 HD simulcast of the SD channel (with ABC/SBS being exempt from this rule).

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Yeah - there was a loophole embedded into the original HD channel requirement, which counted 576p, 720p or 1080i as HD for the purposes of meeting the quota.

The ABC/SBS had a further exception which allowed them to count upscaled content towards the quota, which meant the ABC/SBS “HD” channels were just 576p simulcasts of the main channel for many of the early years of digital.

ABC even blocked out their HD channel during local program windows, as I believe they had just one encoder for the country.

The ABC launched a 720p channel when they finally started doing native HD content. I’m moderately sure they stayed 720p up until flipping the channel to MPEG-4. Unlike the US though, I don’t believe they ever actually were “native” 720p, so everything was a downscale from 1080.

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I concur. ABC News 24 was their HD channel at 720p up until MPEG-4 came along and ABC TV HD began. ABC News 24 then became 576i as it is now.

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This is correct, although I think they eventually just ran ABC NSW on the HD channel across the country.

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The first 1080i iteration of ABC main channel when native HD content was starting to be transmitted around 2006 was when playout was still in-house. Yes, up until this occurred, 576p was in use for their HD channel as the ABC did not have native HD playout facilities from the start of DTV unlike some commercials who did. This 576p feed was a SD simulcast upconvert with SD crash slide switched over NSW only content, being the NSW state feed was also the bed or network feed for all other states back then.
Then the horror that was ABC News 24 when it commenced from their outsourced playout provider, with the main channel 1080i HD LCN20 discontinued and ABC News 24 which was upconverted SD for many years as 720p. The ABC totally lost their HD edge during that period. Even their main and multichannel playout stayed SD internally from their outsourced playout provider for many years until they (slow clap) resumed main channel HD 1080i h.264 transmission several years later.
And they seem to be taking forever to switch LCN22, 23 and 24 to HD being they are national feeds, it would not take much investment.

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Seven wanted 576p to be considered HD because they preferred multichannelling over HD.

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576p looked no different to SD. Plenty of outrage at the time.

We missed so much good content in HD because of it. (eg the last 4 years of Blue Heelers). Finally after years you can watch it in HD thanks to streaming.

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