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.
Variable I believe.
I’m using the figures they’re currently outputting to look at other scenarios… so they’d still have the same amount of null packets as currently.
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Those are the peak values and not the averages, right?
AFAIK the bitrates (per second) are the average recorded over a period of time. The rates vary across the LCNs depending on content but always add to the multiplex maximum. So if 9HD needs some more bits, it gets them from another channel. As well as varying from minute to minute , the average will vary across the day depending on content; so fast moving sport will drag bits to that station while perhaps a cartoon or programs without much action will have a lower need.
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Yes, I know that. I was aking because 8mbps on average sounds pretty high, when compared to metro 9HD. Wich apperently averages 3mbps.
https://www.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?mux=CHANNEL-9&liste=1&live=36&lang=en
I can confirm that WIN HD has on some occasions averaged up to 8 (vision + audio) as measured during NRL on the first night:
No, averages.
As @TV.Cynic has linked above, and my own testing a few nights ago, WIN have been allocating an average of around 8 Mbps to 9HD at times, which, yes, is very high for MPEG-4, and I feel could be better allocated to allow 9Gem HD to fit in as well.
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Hope the picture quality is amongst the best in the country with those numbers.
Watching the NRL on Win since the swap the picture quality is not as good as when it was on SCA. You can see a lot of blur on the grass when the picture moves.
Fox league simulcast much better which is no surprise.
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