With Bruce McAvaney on the Gold Coast, i’d guess Jason Bennett or James Brayshaw for FNF.
Normally, Brian Taylor will do Friday Nights. I think that Darcy will be in the chair with BT.
James Brayshaw will stay with Saturday Night Footy and will be next to Lingy.
Jason Bennett will probably fill in on Sunday Arvo when Hamish McLachlan is at Gold Coast for the games.
Can someone more technically minded explain why SBS can have 2 HD channels and the other networks haven’t done so?
Luke Darcy is listed as calling on MMM with Mark Howard, so it could be Jason Bennett or James Brayshaw.
I’ll take Jason Bennett over James Brayshaw any day of the week.
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Capacity.
Each network only has 23mbps of bandwidth to use for video, audio and other data such as EPGs.
Seven broadcast 6 channels in metro areas (7, 7HD, 7two, 7mate, 7flix and racing.com) - this makes them pretty full up. Same with Nine who also have 6 (9, 9HD, 9Gem, 9Go, 9Life and Extra).
SBS also have 6 channels including 2 HD channels (SBS, SBS HD, Viceland, Viceland HD, Food and NITV).
Before they got Viceland HD, SBS HD was in MPEG2. They were able to find the capacity for Viceland HD by making both SBS HD and Viceland HD MPEG4.
If 7 wanted to add in 7mateHD aswell, they would have to get rid of an existing channel.
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Hang on! I thought Racing.com,7flix,7Two,7mate were MPEG2 if they change them to MPEG4 it will allow an extra HD channel y/n?
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I believe that BT will call the Western Bulldogs v Essendon game at Docklands
racing.com is already MPEG4, but yes, the others have MPEG2.
Theoretically, yes, if they all changed to MPEG4 SD they could add another channel. However, they could also convert all the MPEG2 SD channels to MPEG4 HD and still fit them in (all equipment that can receive MPEG4 will be find with both SD and HD).
The problem is that a lot of TVs aren’t MPEG4 compatible, so lots of people wouldn’t be able to watch them. Free TV will give you some stat that lots of households are now MPEG4 compatible, but that just means that the households have at least 1 MPEG4 TV - any subsequent TVs that aren’t are excluded.
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Thanks webguy surely a $40 stb will fix that up!
Probably cheaper, although a lot of people, particuarly older people wouldn’t have the skills to install it themselves and would need to pay someone.
Regardless, the networks so far have steered clear of forcing upgrades on people since the introduction of digital TV.
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Well BT normally does call Sunday Afternoon Matches on Seven.
Jason Bennett and Brian Taylor calling tonight’s match.
Even when the entire telecast is on 7mate it still won’t finish on scheduled time of 11pm AEST. It is still showing post-match press conferences by both coaches.
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McDonald’s now sponsoring the Friday post game.
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< Regardless, the networks so far have steered clear of forcing upgrades on people since the introduction of digital TV.>
Surely these people represent a very small minority and may be slowing down changes?
Major play-out error (apparently) on 7mate Brisbane/Gold Coast this afternoon, probably only for a moment or two?
Viewers on social media said the AFL (Gold Coast vs Fremantle) suddenly changed to horse racing.
Oops 
[Image from Sean Dyvustyn: “problem here, #AFLSunsFreo just became horses”]
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Back in the old days, they’d use Rex Hunt, Gerard Healy or Malcom Blight- to do the main play commentating. tHese days, they use Jason Bennett.
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Looks like Darcy and BT calling today?
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Seven didn’t bother with a channel change advisory? 
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