It’s impressive these old Austar and Foxtel DVB-S boxes still work .
Obviously they can’t do HD or 4K but even with the Optus D3 and Optus 10 transponder changes over the years they’ve managed to ensure these old boxes still work.
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I’m currently staying in the Abode in Woden, Canberra which has installed the Sonifi Staycast solution in our room. Simply put it’s a Google Chromecast (second gen hockey puck style) installed behind the TV, powered by the TVs USB socket and accessible via the hotel guest Wi-Fi network. The customised Home Screen has a rolling security code that needs to be entered once to pair.
A welcome addition and has proven reliable and easy to use. I’d be glad to see it implemented in other hotels.
Didn’t check the FTA channels as I clearly didn’t have need to.
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Good choice of a dozen US channels plus France 24 news channel.
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That’s probably just an example of what you can cast, not what the TV has as channels.
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Interesting.
I stayed at Abode Belconnen in Canberra last week and it was a simple FTA TV (no Chromecast) . I was even able to rescan it and add 10Shake.
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The Abode I stayed in near Batemans Bay last year only had free-to-air, and very very slow WiFi. And it’s in a marginal Optus and Telstra reception area. I watched Netflix on my laptop using my phone’s internet, but had to download the programs first as the speed was too slow to stream. In a marginal mobile phone area the Abode should have ensured that the in-house WiFi was a decent speed.
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Wifi in most hotels/airbnbs I’ve stayed in over the past week have been shocking.
Right now I’m at Batemans Bay and my 5G speed is 300mb+
Not even worth considering WiFi at this point.
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No issues here and I’ve even been able to stream those sites…
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Agree, I’ve had more unsatisfactory experiences with hotel wifi than good ones.
A decent amount of mobile data is essential for me when travelling.
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It’s usually to do with poor coverage across all rooms especially with motel style buildings
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just got back from a week down the gold coast at the Tallebudgera Creek Tourist Park I was in a 2 Bedroom Waterfront Superior Cabin that included limited foxtel.
i didn’t get a chance to get the list of avalable channels, but the fox sports channels were avalable, along with BeIN - No espn.
The boxes were old Austar branded, connected via AV using the old yellow, red and white RCA, and the picture quality suffered.
we did however get all the FTA from Brisbane, as well as GC and Lismore
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It amazes me that some places STILL use these in this day and age.
It’s SOO 00s.
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Staying at Fraser Suites in Perth City. All the free-to-air channels are available and in their logical positions. There are also a decent number of Foxtel channels available in a rather random order. All in HD if available which is nice:
- FoxCricketHD
- FoxLeagueHD
- FoxSports503HD
- FoxFootyHD
- FoxSports505HD
- FoxSports506HD
- FoxSportsMoreHD
- FOX8 HD
- ESPN HD
- Discovery HD
- Nat Geo HD
- LifeStyle HD
- FOX SHOWCASE HD
- Kids HD
- FOX ARENA
- Nick Jr
- Universal TV HD
- MTV Classic
- SKY News HD
- BBC Wld News
(Shown here with exact naming and order)
The system itself is pretty cool. Comes with working YouTube and casting ability and a simple remote as well. Clearly a TV made for hotels. They also include the HDMI sources as channels in the guide if that makes sense. Haven’t seen that before.
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What the hell is Kids HD?
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It looks like Foxtel Movies Kids in HD. It replaced Foxtel Movies Disney a while ago now.
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And an EPG for the FOXTEL channels, which is very rare for an MATV system that doesn’t have a Pace or iQ set top box.
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Look like a Philips MediaSuite Hospitality TV.
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My dad is/has been in both Royal North Shore Hospital and Gosford Hospital lately so I was able to check out the TV setups.
RNSH’s TV was free and seemed to just contain the local FTA TV on digital.
Gosford has retained the pay-to-access model ($5 per day) keeping the ancient paper card system but now with LCDs instead of CRTs. It had all the local FTA channels with 5 Foxtel sourced channels (all labelled FOX-#), all were in ads so I can’t say what channels they are. Only other extra channels were a Chaplin channel and I guess a scenic relaxation channel. The channels that had some local radio stations (107.7 etc) with a Windows 95 desktop are gone. Interestingly it seems that the channels are delivered via ethernet.
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What type of connecting cable is used to plug into the TV in a motel, because I want to take my own PVR and connect the motels tv antenna into the terrestrial input on a pvr , and if it isn’t a standard terrestrial connection is there an adaptor I could use. Just the terrestrial channels not pay tv
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