[quote=“Aurora, post:1180, topic:279, full:true”]
Too bad they don’t rebrand the multi-channels as SC TWO and SCmate with the star in place of the 7.[/quote]Why would they muck around doing something that’s so trivial as that? SCA show no interest in doing these types of petty things. They are no WIN (one of them is bad enough thanks! ).
[quote=“TV-ACT, post:1182, topic:279, full:true”] so it’d sooner expect them to rebrand the main channel to SC7 or just 7 instead.
[/quote]Brand loyalty and the like would be a huge thing for the SC7 station. Who knows for certain, but that’s one of the main reasons I just can’t see them rebranding anytime soon to simply “Seven” or “Southern Cross 7”.
The latter would be more likely if they were to eventually down the track though.
I’ve just moved house and had to set up my old Samsung TV that I bought in Feb '07. To my surprise all the MPEG-4 HD channels work on it! I didn’t think they started putting MPEG-4 decoders in TVs until at least a couple of years later. Anyone else had this experience?
My previous TV in which I replaced recently was a mid-2008 Samsung model and it also picked up MPEG-4. It also had the feature of automatically adding new channels to its memory without the need of doing recans all the time.
A surprise, but a good surprise to see that we now have a network doing two channels in MPEG4 HD.
It’ll be rather interesting to see if the ABC and/or commercial networks do something similar in the future. Especially when it comes to sports coverage (most notably, for AFL coverage on 7mate and NRL coverage on 9Gem in some markets), you’d think that it’s at least under consideration.
Anything that encourages people to upgrade to MPEG4-capable equipment (more HD channels is a good incentive IMO) is a good thing, if you ask me.
Those who really want to see SBS programing in HD will probably upgrade. Otherwise, everyone can still watch both SBS (ONE) and SBS VICELAND in MPEG2 SD for now.
Exactly. My bedroom ‘no name’ branded LCD TV that I bought from The Good Guys in 2012 is said to be a HD set, back when all HD channels (ie. ABC News 24, 7mate, Gem, One, SBS HD) were transmitting in MPEG-2. But now that all HD channels (at least in metro areas) have moved to MPEG-4, my TV is now practically an SD-only TV, with the only way to get the HD channels on that TV is through an MPEG-4 capable STB, such as a Topfield.
With that latest development, the only HD channel to still be transmitting in MPEG-2 is 7mate in mainland regional areas (ie. Prime7/GWN7/7QLD & SCTV outside Tasmania).
Yep, my Soniq TV is now basically a SD-only TV although I have a MPEG4-capable Topfield STB and of course a USB tuner for HDTV watching/recording purposes.
The HD picture quality looks quite reasonable on the A-League soccer match currently on. A few hints of compression every now and again, but certainly much more watchable than the SD version of SBS VICELAND which is rather blurry and uncomfortable to watch at times especially with the wider panning shots.
The one oddity is that it’s MPEG-4 video, but using the same 2 channel MP2 audio as the SD channels at 192kbps. Probably not enough bits for surround, but having that same data rate, but in AAC, would improve the audio quality and not lose any compatibility. But that’s just nitpicking.
Video bitrates for the two are on par with the other commercial MPEG-4 HD channels - they seem to have just short of 10Mbps to share between them, with fairly dynamic bitrates, with the SD channels all just above 2Mbps - which is fine for SD.
Hopefully SBS run some kind of consumer awareness campaign to explain this all to viewers.
Regional NSW (Prime)
Regional Vic (Prime)
Regional Qld (Seven)
Regional WA (Prime)
Griffith (WIN)
Eastern SA (WIN)
Darwin (SCA)
Remote (SCA)
Western SA (SCA)
9Gem
Griffith (WIN)
Eastern SA (WIN)
Western SA (SCA)
Remote (Imparja)
Regional WA (WDT)
Fantastic to see SBS now broadcasting 2 HD channels.
I seriously hope this is the start of something with the other networks too.
With SBS clearly showing that they’re able to broadcast 4x MPEG-2 SD alongside 2x MPEG-4 HD channels, I see no reason why the other networks can’t manage to fit in something similar.
My guess would be that Nine would be first to make a change.
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