I agree with the others, but I’m not convinced that 7 North QLD is just a test given that they’ve had the titlecard on air on LCN73 for at least 3 months now advising that 7mate is on 74 in HD.
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I think the 7QLD regional option is good , where they have put up a slide on 73 that takes up virtually no bits and put 7Mate HD on another LCN. The slide could probably be better - rather than just “7Mate Now on channel 74 in HD, You may need to rescan.” A bit more info to say that it may not be compatible with TVs purchased before 2009 or something.
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As I’ve mentioned a while ago, the networks should band together for a switchover date in a year’s time (July 1 2022?) where they all do the switch to MPEG4.
We can’t stick on MPEG2 forever.
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I think they should definitely go down the route of switching all multi-channels over to MPEG-4, and switch another one to HD in the process (if there’s space).
And then just leave the main channels in MPEG-2 only, for the time being.
This would leave them with 3x MPEG-4 HD channels, remaining multis/shopping in MPEG-4 SD and the main channel in MPEG-2 SD.
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Sounds like a good idea. Maybe also with that keep News 24 on MPEG2 for the time being as well - probably a good idea to have a news channel available to everyone during the switchover period
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If we’re going to get a full years preparation they might as well switch to DVB-T2 as well. Can be sold to viewers as one big switchover (can probably even be nationwide instead of region-by-region like the digital switchover), much easier to understand even if their TVs are completely fine and they don’t need to upgrade. If the networks are able to knuckle down and make a switchover happen without needing the government then they absolutely should. It shouldn’t be too hard of a change, most Australians should remember the digital switchover.
In any case, running a test channel loop would be one way to help viewers understand the switchover as well. Ad campaigns can include something along the lines of:
If you can see and hear the test channel on Channel [x] with no issues then you’re good to go, there’s no need to change your TV. If you can’t see or hear the test channel, you’ll need to buy a set top box or upgrade your TV.
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A year isn’t very long when almost everyone will need to purchase a new TV or set top box. Given the worldwide electronics chip shortage I don’t even know if it would be possible to supply that many in that timeframe.
I think a switch to DVB-T2 would just speed up the decline of FTA. A lot of people, particularly those who don’t watch much FTA now would simply not bother to upgrade.
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How new does a tv have to be to support that ?
My 2017 Sony X90E does, but not sure if it’s a mandated requirement these days, there are possibly new TVs (particularly at the cheaper end) that still don’t have it.
I recall asking and trying to check on that spec and no-one knew at even the best places and the specs were hard to get.
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Let’s hope that Prime roll-out 7mate HD across their network (including GWN) before the Olympics, preferably with some warnings.
We (viewers outside the metro cities) don’t need another Olympics in SD.
It’s been frustrating to see Wimbledon on WIN’s 9GEM SD instead of 9HD until about midnight, because that’s not a problem in metro areas where 9GEM is HD. At least it’s available in HD on 9Now, but that’s often not the case with other sport coverage/other networks.
Hopefully WIN follow suit and upgrade 9GEM to HD this year. I’m almost surprised they didn’t just roll it out as HD only at the affiliation swap (since they were disrupting viewers anyway).
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Most GWN7 viewers already get 7mate in HD, albeit in MPEG-2.
9Gem is also available in HD in Northern NSW via its O&O station. Same for Darwin, which was the first O&O market to get 9Gem in HD since November 2015.
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7mate has been in HD in Perth since last January.
I agree. The affiliation swap would have been the perfect time for WIN to just launch 9Gem as HD.
But I suppose they may not have wanted more complaints given they were already taking 9Life off air.
Likewise, I don’t normally watch 9Gem, but have been tuning in for Wimbledon and finding the poorer quality feed frustrating.
Almost wish that I had an Android TV so that I could just program in the better quality 720p m3u8 streams for 9’s multi’s instead of the local feed.
WIN are dedicating a tonne of bandwidth to 9HD, still up around 8 Mbps when I checked last night… (which from what i’ve learnt here is high for an MPEG-4 channel)… surely they’ve got the space to have another HD channel
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Could split 9 HD’s bandwidth in half for 9Gem HD and would be still watchable (albeit lower than ideal)
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You could also cast 9Now in HD (9Gem) I think?
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Their live streams are all 720p, but I’m not sure if on demand content is 1080p. I doubt it.
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There aren’t any FTA on demand services at 1080p. All are 720p except for 10Play at 576p
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They could take some bandwidth from 9SD too to balance them out.
9SD has been up around 6Mbps and 9HD around 8Mbps.
They could easily fit in 9GemHD if they put 9SD down to 5Mbps, and allocated 5Mbps to 9HD and 9GemHD each.
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Are they broadcasting in constant or variable bit rate? I thought it was the latter, in which they’d need to have null packets—something not being taken into account with these suggestions. They won’t want to overflow their mux.