I absolutely agree that something needs to be done to educate people. It’s all very well for Nine to put HD on all of its promos. But if people don’t know about how to access the HD version they won’t bother looking for it.
It became apparent when I visited a very tech savvy friend of mine who was watching Masterchef at the time. On 10 of course. I told him about the HD version on 13 and he said he never knew it existed!
I’ve noticed that nearly every pub or shop that have TVs on the wall display the SD channel. That doesn’t help.
A lot of it is laziness in that it’s easier and more familiar just to select 2,3,7,9 on the remote than have to press two buttons. Or they just just dial up and down with the arrow button. And the audio issues mentioned don’t help.
So two things… the stations have to educate people. Put a banner at the start of each native HD show that says “Available in HD on Channel xx”
And consider changing the LCN for the HD channels to the single digit numbers. Easy for Ten. They could just relocate 13 to 1. And either rebrand One or just keep it running on 12. The downside… lots of blank screens for people without MPEG4 TVs. Again educating the audience will help!
Most waiting rooms/areas I’ve been in recently have the Nine SD channel playing. Medicare/Centrelink had a degraded analogue feed of Seven on an 4:3 cathode ray tube television. At least they are not wasting our taxes on new televisions.
Another possible way to educate viewers (especially older viewers who might not necessarily have internet access or even know how to use the EPG) about the existence of HD simulcasts: Getting the newspapers and TV Week to mention the numbers for the HD channels alongside the SD versions in all of their print TV guides.
Of course, I completely agree that the networks need to do more to educate viewers about their HD channel simulcasts. Considering changing the LCNs for the HD channels to the primary positions (to use the metro markets as an example: 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, 32) probably wouldn’t be a bad idea at some point down the track.
With the audio of the HD channels, I thought Nine and Ten are the only ones to do Dolby 5.1 while the others do stereo or 2.1? In any case, I probably have to agree that the same audio format should be used for both SD & HD channels if possible.
Yeah, I’d have to agree with most of what’s been said here.
The only time I’ve seen a TV tuned on the HD channel over the last few months is my own TV at my house.
Every venue, waiting room, restaurant, airport, university, etc. I’ve been in recently, every single time the TV is on the SD version, even places with brand new, clearly MPEG-4 enabled TVs!
Hell, a chunk of these TVs likely haven’t even been retuned since last year’s affiliation change.
I think the problem with Nine using 9HD branding on their channels is, non-tech savvy people could easily be confused and think they are already watching 9HD.
Moving the HD channels to the single digit LCNs would certainly be a good way to improve use, I believe.
I also think the old popups of (Available in HD on LCN xx) are needed, as mentioned.
It’s just a pity that there isn’t a feature on modern TVs that automatically chooses the best quality stream. i.e. push 7/70/71, TV automatically shows 7HD.
It’s taken me a while to stop plugging in 2, 3, 7, 9 and 10 by default and instead go straight to 20, 30, 70, 90, 13. I imagine many people are still just defaulting to the SD channels just out of sheer habit and showing no inkling to change. And totally agree that all networks need to up their game in promoting HD. Apart from “9HD” logos popping up in station promos, I haven’t seen Nine do anything to push channel 90 HD. Likewise for the other networks, too. They switched on HD and just want the populace to go to it without any promotion.
Panasonic receivers have a swap function in the tuning menu so it is easy to swap 9 for 90 so the HD channels can be put on 2,3,7,9, 13 etc. If you wanted you could put any channel on any number - like back ‘in the old’ days when you manually tuned the TV or VCR pre-sets.
I disagree with putting the HD primary channels on the single digit LCNs. The whole purpose of the HD primary channel on _x_0 is to keep a “clean” list of channels in the double digit range. Single digits are just being kept for posterity. Besides, those that can’t receive MPEG-4 wouldn’t understand why they suddenly can’t watch the primary channel on the traditional numbers.
Ideally, in future (when everyone can access MPEG-4), we could see the HD multichannels on the double digit numbers and the SD channels relegated to triple digits.
I don’t have the ability to swap the LCNs on my TV, but I’ve completely deleted the SD simulcast LCNs so even if they’re pushed nothing comes up. Luckily my other half just pushes the channel up/down buttons and I only have the HD versions of channels programmed in.
A bright vision when everyone had adopted MPEG-4 for SD and HD, so that all channels can be simulcast in HD.
Even if the 75% rule is ditched, there will no doubt still be affiliates operating smaller markets that the networks won’t want to buy, hence the affiliate lists.
An individual’s behaviour or lack of knowledge or care about HD are not the only problems in places with lots of TV’s like hospitals, universities, hotels, etc. There would be MATV systems out there that are still using MPEG-2 distribution equipment, even connected to old MPEG-2 TV’s that are yet to be upgraded. Corporate bodies and property owners would be thinking ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, especially if the only return on investment is the same group of channels.
I just watched Offsiders on ABC “HD”. It looked terrible. The wide shot showing all four of them with a horrible photo behind them looked especially dreadful. What’s going on there?
They really need to get both Insiders and Offsiders in HD.
I’m really sad that the previous Insiders set didn’t return following the studio renovations at ABC Melbourne. Much nicer than the yellow-orange-grey smudge currently in use.
