Discuss topics relating to the Northern NSW/Gold Coast Nine Network affiliate.
Old thread: http://www.mediaspy.org/forum/index.php?/topic/18277-nbn-television/page-38?
Just thought I’d share this from NBN’s facebook page, where they are being inundated with HD questions:
NBN Television Hi Joel, at this stage, HD was more a metro rollout but rest assured, we’re working hard on getting a HD signal into all of our regional areas.
Like · Reply · 27 December at 15:43
Thanks MarkHD.
I remember them saying they were hoping to have HD on before Xmas, obviously didn’t happen…
Wonder if Life will be launched at the same time or sooner maybe…
@Radiohead the bloke I spoke to at NBN a few weeks ago said they hoped to have “some cricket in HD”… now that runs until around Feb… so things better be moving. I’ve told them the “metro rollout” is a load of bollocks - they’re fully owned by Nine and it’s Nine’s responsibility to get their stations running properly. It’s not a “metro rollout” - they simply forgot or couldn’t have cared less about NBN or WIN before announcing it.
With any luck, NBN HD should (hopefully) be launched before WIN HD. To be quite honest, I actually wouldn’t mind it so much if NBN take their time with the upgrade if that means we’ll get to see NBN News in native HD rather than upconverted SD.
In any case, it’ll certainly be interesting to see if either regional network has any HD channels up and running by the start of the 2016 ratings season.
I think it will be a while before NBN has its 6pm news in HD.
Given NBN has only 6 markets to ready for HD vs WINs 20 or so, it’s a fair bet NBN HD will be on air before WIN HD is.
I know the Chef Engineer at NBN, & while I haven’t spoken to him about it, part of the reason NBN & WIN haven’t gone HD with the main channel yet, is funding allocation & the number of new HD encoders needed.
Nine Metro already had an HD encoder for every market, it was a simple few clicks of a mouse, to swap channels around & make the main channel HD.
NBN & WIN only have 1 or a few HD encoders across the entire network, that’s why the same ads are shown across multiple markets in the network on the HD channels.
NBN & WIN have to buy & install an HD encoder for every single market area, & possibly upgrade/adjust network links to accommodate multiple, different HD feeds to play-out.
Same will apply to Prime7 & SCATen should 7 & 10 networks go down the same path.
I know it’s annoying, but I’m sure NBN are getting it done as soon as possible, not sure about WIN.
I know the NBN Chief Engineer has tried to balance the NBN channel spectrum bitrates as best he could (right from the start of digital TV), to give the NBN viewer the best quality vision. Most of the time, the NBN main channel & HD channel has run higher bitrates than the 9 metro stations have done, so I’m certain getting NBN HD up & running is top priority & he’s going as fast as he can.
Why can’t they do a “national” feed of NBN in MPEG4 HD, Local feeds continue on NBN SD, GEM in SD, GO in SD and the new 9LIFE.
Given they would need the two feeds minimum, one for the Gold Coast one running on EST and one for the rest of the market area, there wouldn’t be much difference in the effort between 2 markets and 6.
I’d wonder if the delay is because they plan to move playout to Nine’s facility and don’t want to invest more in NBN’s equipment in the interim?
That would only delay the need for them for if/when the rules change to allow HD-only broadcasts of the main channels are allow
I thought that the networks are allowed to do HD-only broadcasts of the main channel as of September this year when the rules are changed?
Anyway, didn’t NBN very briefly do HD simulcasts of all six local variants of the primary channel in 2010 before the launch of GEM? Mind you, the playout/transmitting equipment might have to be upgraded to handle MPEG4 broadcasts.
@RFBurns - Steve’s a good guy… but the communication between 9 and affiliates needs to be better… this wouldn’t have happened if communication was there and the regionals knew the plans beforehand. I was told both NBN and WIN were “blindsided” by Nine’s announcement.
Because the adverts would not be local. Regionals need the submarkets to sell local adverts.
It would be a temporary measure until they setup all the local HD feeds. A goodwill gesture to their loyal viewers.
SC10 used to show a demonstration loop on their HD channel in lieu of commercial breaks.
and the scenery loops were just beautiful… I could sit there all day and look at them.
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They were pretty fantastic weren’t they?! By the end I’d totally memorised the complete order of where all the scenic shots would appear. 
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I remember a lot of TV stores showed the HD loop on pretty much EVERY TV as it looked pretty darn good back in that day to help sell tellys ie. that it was shot in any a way so that it didn’t show up ANY blocky-ness, jagged lines or any other artefacts on pretty much any HD set - even those 1st gen ones that didn’t have the same level of motion smoothing / picture processing capabilities of today’s TVs.
There was a Blu Ray disc of that loop available for purchase - can’t remember what it was called though.
@Sifon biggest issue is if you are an advertiser and paid top dollar to have your advert in front of so many eyeballs only to find out that half those eyeballs are now watching a different feed if the same channel not showing your ad. You would be pissed.
The number of hd capable TVs and set top boxes would be higher today then when the regionals were showing demo loops and scenic shots.
Then just don’t promise advertisers that. It’s not that hard to explain.
so then advertisers will ask “for the $ I’m spending, just how many eyeballs will see my ad”. If the program is being split across SD and HD streams but only the SD stream is carrying the ad… how do they justify the ad spend to advertisers? At this point there is no differentiation in ratings between SD and HD simulcast. If I was an advertiser I’d not want to hand over my ad dollars but then get a vague disclaimer that “oh, by the way, a portion of our audience won’t see your ad because they’ll be watching on HD. But we can’t actually tell you what share of the audience that is.”
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