Probably for the best if they were going to leave it this late - wouldn’t want people finding out their equipment isn’t compatible the first time they go to watch an event.
Unless they could do 7Qld style and flip it to MPEG-2 HD and reshuffle some bits around.
If they’re going to shuffle bits can they just do it like metro and squeeze a 7mateSD and 7mateHD in?
Surely the bandwidth required for a decent MPEG-2 HD channel is roughly the same as an SD MPEG-2 channel and an HD MPEG-4 channel anyway.
It’s more that they’d need another set of encoders in each market to add another channel. I don’t know if Prime would be in a position to do that.
Japan is both, NTSC-J 60 and 50 Hz country.
50Hz for the Eastern Side (Tokyo)
60Hz for the Western Side (Kyoto)
Disappointing. It would have been great to see a commercial network flick the switch like this, despite the risk (which gets less as each day passes)
Although it’s probably too risky to make such a switch at a time large swathes of the country can’t go out and buy a new TV if their current one doesn’t meet the test, even if they really wanted to!
Im guessing their trial in Canberra got some feedback that made Prime reconsider it - agree that the risk is diminishing, but I’d imagine that the biggest event of the year is probably not the best time to test it!
If they’re not going to go HD - at least allocate 7mate some more bandwidth, its shocking atm
Even for just the duration of the games would have been a low risk strategy. 7Mate programs fans would be missing nothing and anyone who complained they couldn’t watch Olympics on 7Mate could at least see it on Seven.
At the moment where a large part of their viewer base is unable to go and buy a new TV the risk is probably a little higher than normal circumstances.
On the contrary, I think a big event is exactly what’s needed to drive such a change.
Well a lesson learnt hear don’t believe something until it actually happens, I was looking forward to 7mate having sport and movies in HD.
Very strange if they’ve backed away.
Only a few days ago I saw an Olympics promo on Prime7 which mentioned something about the coverage being in HD on 7 and 7mate, and i’m pretty sure I can remember the Prime7 logo being on screen.
Prime7 should’ve at least kept 7mate as MPEG4 HD in Canberra.
While Sydney & surrounding areas (plus some other areas in NSW), Victoria & South Australia are locked down, the ACT & surrounding areas aren’t, so that’s not stopping anyone here buying a newer TV for the Olympics.
7mate on Prime is really bad compared to Prime7 in HD. Surely they could have temporarily dumped the shopping channel and taken a few bits from the SD channels to somehow squeeze in a HD version of 7mate.
Did Prime7 dump 7Mate HD everywhere?
I haven’t heard any complaints of a downgrade to SD from WA (I gather 7mate has been HD in Prime’s GWN7 viewing areas for some time now).
7mate HD via Prime7 (MPEG-4) only had a test run in Canberra the other week. 7mate HD (MPEG-2) is available in GWN7 markets. All other markets are MPEG-2 SD only.
A shame really. It’s clearly a massive struggle moving to MPEG4. The government needs to intervene to help move us forward with it, otherwise we will always be stuck.
GWN7’s North-West market also has SD-only 7mate. Alongside SD-only GWN7. You east-coasters have got it good.
Forgot about that anachronism. Does DVB-T have much of a take up in regional and remote WA? Having an entire VAST ensemble to itself, might be a good test case of switching off terrestrial services and moving folks over to satellite only as has been suggested for some parts of the east coast.