Stay away from Humax. My experience with that brand wasn’t good. I’ve had a Fetch Mighty for a couple of years. I don’t record very much FTA these days, rarely two things at a time. I have the news set to series record each evening but sometimes it won’t record and I’ll have to watch via catchup. I don’t know if it is just my box or antenna connection. I also find I have to unplug the box and reset it at least once a week because it freezes up. It’s nowhere near as reliable as my old Toppy. I really miss that reliable old workhorse.
It’s good that the Fetch has all the catchup services on it but if I miss a recording for 60 Minutes or Sunday Night I tend to use a stick computer connected to the TV because it has ad block installed on the browser.
Strange. My parents have that freezing problem with their set top box for their MySat satellite TV, in the past few months. They have been constantly asking me to fix it but I’ve now trained them to do it themselves. Must be something to do with the ageing components.
I’ve got a couple of different Panasonic ones. One I’ve purchased inside the last 12 months, the other I’ve had 5-6 years maybe.
Both can record 2 things at once. The older one has a DVD player. On the newer one, you can watch the other channels within the 2 Networks you are recording, the older one you cannot. I quite like the newer one, I don’t know the model number though.
At the moment we have probably more TV channels right now than ever before but viewers seem to stick to the established products, I guess in the same way that people tend to always buy the same brand of toothpaste or whatever product at the supermarket.
Not sure if I agree that there’ll be less TV stations on-air in 12 years time, but I do think the current trends of people moving away from traditional TV and over to streaming services will continue in the foreseeable future.
As it’s already been pointed out, 4ME ceased transmission in May 2016.
When 9Life launched in Late 2015, that was at the expense of the “EXTRA 2” infomercial channel.
my opinion of future tv is that it will all be svod based and all the channels will be on the internet the younger gen will start emerging and tv that we know will change and ifs all svod it will also be in hd . all the big heads of tv will realise the only way will be internet
That my friend will probably take at least 50 years to occur, but merging of channels or channels like 4Me and Extra2 will disappearing (something I stand corrected on) is a distinct possibility
i think at least 6 FTA channels will be maintained at for at least 50 years.
Those being ABC, ABC News, SBS, 7, 9 and 10
Other services will be available online
Current restrictions such as minimum 55% Australian produced television (between 6am and midnight) will exist on non-internet based broadcasting and I think there will be other minimum content requirements such as return of Childrens programmes to non-internet based broadcasting (probably set at 10% of broadcast time between 6am and midnight including minimum of 260 hours of ‘C’ classified programming and minimum of 130 hour of ‘P’ classified programming) - possibly even setting the times these could air (eg between 6am and 10am and 3pm til 5:30pm)
That’s the problem with Foxtel is having to pay extra to get the channels you’d actually want and would have a bunch you don’t. Not to mention the plain fact that the Pay TV market in this part of the worldis a Murdoch owned monopoly
I think the biggest indication that TV isn’t going anywhere just yet is that despite the various online services now having strong market penetration, very few people have ditched having TV at home, and it is still the primary way that the vast majority of people watch particularly live content.
Just as mobile devices have taken hold, and are now the primary device for accessing the internet, most people still have a computer as well.
Live content, particularly sport is going to be the biggest savior for linear TV, as it is content that people want to watch live, and has limited appeal after the fact. The technology currently prevents online streams from being completely live, with delays of anywhere between 30-60 seconds, and delays that vary between devices. It means that different viewers will see the outcome at different times, which in particular would be annoying if you wanted to have 2 screens running at the same location. At least with the few second delay of digital TV, everyone still gets the same signal at the same time and those few seconds mean nothing unless you’re actually watching the event in person.
You just need to look at the year-on-year ratings (and for even more disturbing comparisons 5yrs or 10yrs) to see the trouble TV is having especially FTA.
Radio exists because it has had the car factor which has locked people in for some time (sure, some people played cassettes or CDs) but it’s only now with Aux cords and Bluetooth streaming where newer cars make it significantly easier not to listen to radio. People also enjoy the companion factor of radio, with live information or presenters, which podcasts can only go someway to replicating and a music-shuffle service is unable to.
Cinemas exist because movie companies haven’t found an alternative distribution source for blockbuster movies that still makes back the money they need. The biggest films these days are spinoffs of a 1970s franchise or comic book adaptations because they have a built in audience.
Newspapers, well their audience is dying every year so that’s one that will be gone.
Books, no they haven’t died not has live theatre.
But none of the above have been challenged quite like TV has in its distribution model. As @webguy points out, live sport may be the last bastion. Hence why we have just seen 1 billion dollars go to Cricket Australia. It’s unique content that can’t be sought out elsewhere and needs to be viewed in real time. Streaming services are only going to get deeper libraries and attract more customers. Watching a show at a certain
time that a network tells you? Yes I can see that being dead sometime in the next 30 years. TV will remain, but in a different form.
That’s also why the FTA networks have their On Demand Streaming platforms as well. eg 9Now and TenPlay and whatever 7 has. Cause even if they do deny it publicly they DO see those streaming services as competition. So it’s the old cliche of if they can’t beat them join them
In 10-15 years time probably will still be seeing networks broadcasting in SD. Hopefully not but I think it’s still likely.
Hopefully we move to MPEG-4 for all channels or whatever than other standard is better. I can’t think off the top of my heard what that other word was , not just MPEG-4 it is some broadcasting standard they use in the UK.
I’d like to see everything on free to air in HD and everything on catchup services in HD hopefully sooner rather than later. It’s ridiculous that in 2018 only 9Now is offering HD for catchup services.
Why do we have HD tv’s if free to air barely broadcasts it .
Edit:
DVB-T2 or future video compression standards such as MPEG-H HEVC (H.265)
Hope we end up using that ? Or will that not happen?
Except Community Newspapers are generally on the up, or at least holding position. Perhaps they offer something the big dailies don’t (probably news!). RNZ’s Mediawatch had a good bit about papers last Sunday, basically that all the ‘spare’ money out of the business has been siphoned off to the execs, shareholders, etc, and they’ve nothing left to combat change.
All these industries have had to deal with change as the next thing joins the market. There have been naysayers and doomy-gloomy predictions for them all and all have survived. Formats come and go and they adapt.
I think what TV needs to do is what TV3 were doing ten years ago (cue ridicule…), i.e. to promote LOCAL stories, identities and sport. The USA can’t make NZ or 'Stralian television, nor can the Scandies. Yes, there will probably be some market consolidation and job-losses but that’s pretty much what technology does.