I’ve seen similar stretched pictures in Quest Apartments.
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Obviously a very MediaSpy thing to do, but stayed at a Rydges in Sydney over the weekend and this post is quite indicative of their TV service.
Channel listing was very odd - didn’t write them all out, but notable ones are:
TVS still being there. I was briefly like “yay” as I don’t think I ever got to actually watch TVS, then after about 20 seconds of the promo that happened to be for the same hotel chain I was staying in, I remembered that TVS stopped existing years ago.
SBS and “SBS HD” were both there, and uniquely fed, despite content being identical. Viceland was there labelled as ‘SBS 2’, but no Food/NITV/Movies.
No 9Life, 7Food, 7Flix or Racing - the 10 channels were still called Eleven/One.
Then there were the Foxtel channels themselves. Sky News had just a static help slide. Others seemed to work, about 10 channels. They were all really low quality, analogue feeds - the Fox channels were significantly worse quality than the FTA channels.
So, I just turned off the TV and watched stuff on my phone, at least the WiFi was good enough that I could use that instead of my data.
Still, I’d have traded that for some water pressure…
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While not a TV distribution system, the large Community venue I’m working on features a Denon HEOS Superlink and Autonomic Mirgae MMS-5e music streaming devices for 8 channels of BGM which feeds into a QSC Q-Sys system for AV control.
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Staying in an ibis in Brisbane tonight.
The room has one of the best MATV systems i’ve seen, most channels are HD. They all have accurate logos loaded into the EPG and Channel List.
The TV is running on entirely custom software. Menus and EPG all use background imagery showing various photos of ibis rooms.
All TV channels work well, and they have their own custom LCN configuration.
This is the lineup. Channel names listed exactly as they are shown on the TV.
1 Hotel Channel
2 Sky News HD
3 CNN
4 FoxCricket HD
5 FoxSports 503 HD
6 FoxSports 505 HD
7 Fox League HD
8 Fox Footy HD
9 ESPN HD
10 FOX8 HD
11 Binge HD
12 Cartoon Network HD
13 Nat Geo HD
14 Nat Geo Wild HD
15 Discovery HD
16 MTV
17 ABC HD
18 ABC Comedy/Kids
19 ABC ME
20 ABC NEWS
21 7HD Brisbane
22 7TWO
23 7mate
24 7flix
25 9HD Brisbane
26 9Gem
27 9Go!
28 9Life
29 10 BOLD
30 TEN HD
31 ELEVEN (showing 10 Peach, the 10 Peach logo correctly appears on the EPG)
32 SBS ONE
33 SBS HD
34 SBS VICELAND HD
35 NITV
36 SBS Food
37 7Food Network
38 TVSN
39 YourMoney (showing 9Gem HD)
40 SpreeTV
41 RACING.COM
42 ABC Jazz
43 Double J
44 SBS Radio 1
45 SBS Radio 2
46 SBS Radio 3
47 SBS Arabic24
48 SBS PopAsia
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That’s a great selection of channels for a budget chain!
The main improvement I would make is for the channels to mirror the FTA and FOXTEL numbers
eg. Channel 7 on 7 (not 21) and FOX Sports on 503 (not 5).
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In Toowoomba tonight.
The MATV system in the motel is not as good as the last one.
The FTA channels are all normal for a regional area, and all work as expected.
The ABC channels are all in the 2’s
The SBS channels are all in the 3’s
The Nine channels are all in the 5’s
The WIN channels are all in the 8’s
There is a strange discrepancy with 7 channels.
I’ve got:
6 - 7 Toowoomba
60 - 7 Toowoomba
61 - 7 Toowoomba
62 - 7TWO Toowoomba
63 - 7mate Toowoomba
65 - openshop
66 - 7flix Toowoomba
68 - RACING.COM
74 - 7food network
“31 Digital” also appears on LCN 44, which I assume is from Brisbane?
Outside of the normal FTA, I have
101 “Sky News Live” (actually showing 502)
102 “FOXSPORTS2” (showing 507)
103 “Lifestyle CH” (showing Lifestyle)
104 “Fox 8” (showing BBC First)
105 “COMADY” (showing A&E)
106 “Showcase”
107 “PREMIER MOVIES”
108 “Lifestyle Home” (showing Nat Geo wild)
109 “FOXSPORTS1” (showing 501)
110 “DISCOVERY”
111 “TBA” (showing static)
112 “TBA” (blue screen)
All Foxtel channels are 4:3
Some are 16:9 squashed into 4:3
Others are just normal 16:9 with black bars covering the areas outside of the 4:3 area
Others are the full 16:9 screen letterboxed to 4:3 with black bars on the sides and top and bottom.
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Guess they don’t bother with resetting the TV / checking if someone is logged in after a guest comes through!
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I wonder if Netflix has a hotel system that can do that? Like it logs the user out after 24 hours or something?
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Since when was Cartoon Network in HD?
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I saw the MATV system for patients at the St Vincent’s Private Hospital Northside today.
All the FTA channels were on the correct LCNs including all the ABC and SBS radio stations and HD channels (9GEM included). Also available was a small number of Fox channels starting on LCN 101 including FOX 8, a couple of FOX sports (incl League), Discovery, Nickelodeon, There was also a Chapel channel. All channels (except Chapel) had now/next EPGs. The biggest problem was the only way to select a channel was with an up of down channel button.
At start up there was a Phillips logo (though that may have been the TV).
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Another health centre visit last week took me to the Master Rehab Unit. There, the TV’s had the full selection of FTA stations on the correct LCNs plus what looked like at least the basic Foxtel package. Correct aspect ratio but no HD channels.
An interesting aspect was that the screen was on a very long articulated pantographic arm. This was needed as it was a touch screen, with no remote control of any function. A button was pushed and an EPG was revealed that could be scrolled/swiped until the channel/program was found and selected.
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Wow, a touch screen TV!
Never heard of one before!
And with good reason!
Not to mention that it would become difficult to watch after a while with fingerprints all over it.
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It looked very hard for the patient to use IMO - trying to get the screen close enough to reach.
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Here I was thinking the Telstra Bedside units in SA public hospitals was bad…
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It’s also a hospital. I’d imagine it’s a good idea to keep people from touching things which could communicate infectious diseases. Much more difficult to clean a touch screen properly than it is to wipe down a remote control (which probably already has an anti-bacterial coating on it…)
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Wouldn’t a sheet of glass be easier to clean than a remote control covered in tiny little buttons that trap crap beneath/between them?
One spray and a wipe down.
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The hospital remote controls are always the membrane type with a single sheet of plastic covering the actual electronics underneath, much like the bed up/down controls. Quite small, easy to spray down and give a good scrubbing along with the bed up/down controls.
In the RAH example, the touch screen and keyboard (oh dear) arrangement smacks of something that’s almost impossible to clean properly.
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The keyboards on these units, both the new model used at the RAH and the old model used at every other SA public hospital with beside monitors, are fully sealed though…
The keyboards do see very little use though considering that the whole point of these bedside monitors was to combine patient entertainment plus provide access to new Electronic Medical Record software. In reality though these units both new and old are considered not fit for purpose for the SA Health EMR 
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Does anyone remember the time when @SydneyCityTV went to the Central Coast and they had a MATV system on their old 4:3 TVs?
It had a movie service, FTA main channels and a few Foxtel channels (maybe 13 in all?). Hilariously, they labelled Channel Nine as NBN as if they had no knowledge of what they were rebroadcasting!
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