Yes, post #16 of this thread.
There wasn’t really anything interesting to report about my most recent stay on the Central Coast, MATV wise. Just your stock-standard Sydney metro & Central Coast regional (interesting my tuner could decode a signal from WIN Newcastle - presumably from the Forresters Beach translator - but it was so low that it was unusable) terrestrial TV channels although interestingly, the lounge room TV had an Optus Fetch box!
This is more common than you probably think. Usually it’s the installer doing all the channel naming and positioning and they’re not always clued on with the network’s standards. They’ll name stuff how they think it’s named, like NBN in your case. I’ve also seen “GWN” instead of “GWN7”, “Mate” and “7 Mate” instead of the proper “7mate”, “Racing” instead of “Racing.com”, etc.
I stayed at a winery north west of Melbourne 2 weeks ago and amongst the horrible quality and wrong ratio Foxtel channels was TVSN labelled as FX
At a motel in Taree, have all digital channels but Foxtel is delivered via analog. Only 4 channels from what I can tell (due to duplicates and channels of just static even after a rescan); Movies Romance/Action and Fox League and Fox Footy.
Possibly one of the the poorest offerings of Foxtel?
I’m staying at an Adina in Sydney. They have three Fox Sports channels and a channel called Fox8:Discovery which when I looked at it was Fox8. The four Foxtel channels are analogue with no EPG with the channel numbers 101 - 104. The digital free-to-air channels are old and wrong with the Ten multichannels still labelled One and Eleven. You can’t rescan as all the functions on the televisions at Adina are disabled.
Hence why I never stay at them. I have found Airbnb properties good for no restrictions.
I am holidaying in Adelaide for a week, including going to the day/night test between Australia and Pakistan at Adelaide Oval next Friday night. I am staying at Holiday Inn Express which is on Hindley Street. The TVs have full selection of FTA stations plus these Foxtel channels:
Channel 1: Fox Cricket HD
Channel 2: Fox League HD
Channel 3: Fox Sports 503 HD
Channel 4: Fox Footy HD
Channel 5: ESPN HD
Channel 6: FOX8 HD
Channel 7: National Geographic HD
Channel 9: Foxtel Movies Premiere HD
Channel 10: Foxtel Movies Comedy HD
Channel 11: LifeStyle
Channel 12: TLC
Channel 13: CNN International
Channel 14: Sky News HD
Channel 15: Nickelodeon
Channel 16: Fox Showcase
Channel 17: Max
What channels are they using for free to air if 1-17 is taken up by FOXTEL?
Pretty good range there. I’d be quite happy finding them on my room’s TV. Do they have a working EPG?
The FTA channels start from ABC HD (channel 20), then the usual range of channels until 9Gem HD (channel 95), then:
Channel 100: 10 HD
Channel 101: 10Peach
Channel 102: 10Bold
There are no SD channels of ABC, Seven, Nine or 10.
Yes the TV has a working EPG.
A good compromise, although I wonder if it would have just been easier numbering the Foxtel channels from 100 onwards to avoid having to renumber 10’s channels.
Extra points to the installer for not bothering to remap 10 SD, too!
Don’t know why, but it is indeed 9Gem HD.
Surely by now you know that most MATV systems are installed in a cupboard or room somewhere and left alone until something fails or they need upgrading. Hotel owners and managers aren’t obsessed with channel information, nor are 99% of the tenants, so only us TV geeks notice these things. There’s no need to act so surprised when you see little inconsistencies like this.
I checked out the Mater entertainment system again today. In addition to the screen with the TV channels, there is a radio station screen plus a streaming service screen - you need to have your own private log-in but that screen included Netflix and Stan plus SBS On Demand. There was also a page that had Facebook and
Skype.
There’d be dozens of them…
Whereabouts on the Gold Coast?
Just gonna dig out the old family book… It’s Tallebudgera
Staying in Sydney for a few nights at Fraser Suites in the city, which has a dated looking 32 inch Phillips LCD TV which has odd looking graphics and is all SD only, with a thick bezel, blacks that look very grey and still has TEN Digital, One and Eleven as the LCN names, though at least 7flix and 9Life are present, and the correct LCN numbers.
It has a decent selection of FOXTEL and overseas channels, also with mostly correct LCNs as well, but the channel names aren’t quite correct with eg. “501 FOX Sports 1HD” instead of FOX Cricket but only shows the SD channel.
Currently staying at a hotel in Canberra, TV has all digital channels but does not support MPEG4. Foxtel channels are surprisingly delivered via DVB-T but is in 4:3 and analog.
This is a list of the extra channels (after a rescan):
501- “Fox Sports 1”, no video/audio
502- “Fox Sports 2”, showing Fox League
503- “Fox Sports 3”, showing Fox Sports 503
504- “Sky News”, no video/audio
505- “Nat Geographic”, no video/audio
506- “Arena”, showing Fox Footy
507- “Universal”, showing ESPN
508- “In House DVD”, no video/audio
509- “CNN”, displaying “No satellite signal”
510- “Showcase”, showing Fox Showcase
511- “Discovery”, showing Discovery
512- “BBC Know”, displaying “upgrade your subscription” on BBC First
517- “Disney”, displaying “No satellite signal”
518- "Comedy, showing Comedy Channel
519- “Nick - Jr”, displaying “upgrade your subscription” on Nick Jr
520- “Lifestyle”, displaying “No satellite signal”
That’s so bad. Out of all those Foxtel channels, only 5 are showing what they’re meant to show. It’s tempting to speak to management and offer to fix it for a free night’s accommodation.
I offered to fix a bad system at a small hotel in Port Douglas once. Nowhere near as bad as Petarko’s experience. But even though I could see all the STBs sitting behind reception they said they had their own “technician” and that was that.
I guess staff at reception couldn’t care less about such “trivial” things when it’s hard enough to run a hotel. And you can bet only we perfectionists would complain about such things. The only time the average guest would complain about the TV offerings would be if they couldn’t watch the football/cricket on whatever OTA station was broadcasting it. Even if it was in SD and stretched 4:3. Shudder!
