We should, but they aren’t going be around on broadcast television post-December
They were prevented from doing anything other than a single SD channel as part of their license.
5 Likes
How much content would the community stations even have had in native HD? My guess is very little to none.
If I’m not mistaken, community TV stations were very fortunate to even be able to switch to Digital TV in the first place.
Couldn’t be less than what the ABC seem to have!
I’d expect a decent chunk - a lot of their YouTube uploads are HD - so except for the older/lower budget programming I’d expect plenty to be produced in HD.
3 Likes
Sydney has 3 news studios, Studio 23 for NSW 7pm News and ABC News at Noon, Studio 24 for 7:30/Lateline, and the ABC News Studio in the atrium/foyer at Ultimo. Not sure of what its number is, think it is Studio 27 or Studio 28? As Studio 21/22 are production studios at Ultimo, studios 25 and 26 are sound stages at Gore Hill in Lancely Place and Studio 29 was last used as a news update only studio at Ultimo.
Melbourne has 2 news studios, Studio 38 for VIC 7pm News, News Breakfast, Insiders, Offsiders and Studio 39 for The World etc, formerly the Australia Network News studio.
Canberra has 2 news studios, Studio 11 at Northbourne for ACT 7pm News and Studio 12 at Parliament House
Every other capital only has one news studio thesedays.
Townsville ceased having a functioning TV studio in the mid 80s, and there never has been any studios on the Gold Coast, Cairns or Newcastle, having always been on relay.
3 Likes
When I did a placement at 44 Adelaide (around the time they started digital transmissions 2011?), the show that they were producing in house at the time (The Noticeboard) was shot and edited at 720p50 if my memory serves me correctly.
This wasn’t done for any future-proofing or quality reasons, but because the cameras and switchers supported HD anyway, it didn’t take anything extra to produce in HD.
It was funny though, because the playout at the time was an old composite mixer connected to a few DVD players, and the microwave link was really analogue (visible noise and terrible sound).
Programs looked really good before they went to air, but looked terrible on sets at home.
1 Like
I think it’s absolutely outrageous that they went and launched the channel without any HD content.
What they should have done, if they were smart, was launch some sort of test channel with rolling high definition test footage and launch the channel on the day they’re capable of HD broadcast (i.e. New Years Eve by the looks of things).
2 Likes
Gonna have to agree but that being said ten hd had that issue too but I think they are starting to get some hd content. The real test for the abc is whether they will the New Year’s Eve celebrations in HD like they promised.
[quote=“Bluejays1985, post:674, topic:279, full:true”]The real test for the abc is whether they will the New Year’s Eve celebrations in HD like they promised.
[/quote]They bloody better. Ever since that promise was announced I’ve been looking forward to recording and watching the NYE fireworks in true HD. They better not disappoint. It’s disappointing that by all accounts they don’t even have a single thing in HD on debut after all the hype as it is.
1 Like
ABC HD hasn’t picked up yet on my foxtel STB so guess I am happy to wait for it to appear as really it’s not really an upgrade from SD atm.
Yea, honestly - not having tapes, or servers to play to equipment, or studios ready, or cables ready - or not wanting to pay to money re-caption a HD master of a repeat - these are all not reasons. If these are genuine “reasons” - then don’t announce an HD channel in March and switch it on in December.
Announce it today December 2016 - and switch it on September 2017.
What exactly have ABC been doing to prepare for this launch in the 9 months since they announced it?
As @pelican said, any smart organization (actually, you don’t have to be that smart) would have been preparing for HD over the last 5 years. even though “main” channels were not in HD - ABC and 7 and 9 and the others all knew eventually their main signal would switch to HD. For the last 5 years they should have been slowly upgrading studios, cameras, cables, graphics, edit bays - training make up artists for HD - and training staff. And mandating that all deliveries be delivered in HD.
The fact they (and Ten) couldn’t do this escapes me.
ABC has really F;d this up. And in some ways damage the HD brand in Australia. In some ways people are already skeptical of the benefits and picture quality - and now after months of advertising and much fanfare - people tune in - only to see the same old SD - they are never gonna buy into HD hype again.
8 Likes
I’ve thought of one program ABC will have the opportunity to air in HD prior to NYE.
Doctor Who, they always air the Christmas Special on Boxing Day, within 12 hours of its UK premiere.
As they’ve said everything that’s delivered in HD, will be in HD. Given that it’s not even aired yet, there’s no reason they can’t obtain a HD copy when it’s given to them.
1 Like
Wait and see I guess. But I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if it wasn’t. 
The NYE broadcast should (will) be the first content to air in proper HD. It better be otherwise…
Well said!
By the time the ABC broadcasts their first original production in HD, this video shot in 1080i will be 28 years old:
1 Like
Well, I don’t think there will be any more HD launches since every metro FTA network has now “launched” HD, and only Nine and ABC made any real noise about it.
When we eventually go MPEG4 with HD across the board, I can’t see any real noise being made about the likes of 7TWO , 9GO! or ONE being HD as it will be a bit old hat by then as 4K content will be gaining more traction via next gen Blu Ray (or similar) and via online (hopefully the NBN rollout will make it feasible for us).
1 Like
I agree.
If/when Australian TV networks ever think that they need to broadcast a fourth multichannel (don’t think it won’t ever happen, I’m sure at some point we all thought that a main channel + two multichannels would be the limit!), unfortunately I suspect that the current HD channels would be the first thing to go.
I was thinking that Yearly Review edition of The Weekly with Charlie Pickering next Wednesday might be in HD since it is probably in production now. We can always dream.
1 Like
The ABC states on its website that Studios 22 and 21 in Sydney are “Capable of both standard and high definition production output”. So there appears to be no reason why non-news programs made in Sydney would not now be in high definition.
http://www.abc.net.au/studiosmediaproduction/studio/studio22.html