Holy Moses!
That’s A LOT of happy clapping to be had.
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I know 
While VAST’s RC&E commercial channels remain stuck in 2010, happy clapper channels are thriving.
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Also nice to see SCA’s commitment to “Woolongong”.
Surely they can add the markets for their “news updates” while they’re at it?
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The three new channels (Daystar, Victory, and Amazing Facts) went live on Friday, 15th December. So they’ve been there for a couple of weeks.
Edit: LCNs are:
Daystar - 102 & 670
Victory - 108 & 620
Amazing Facts - 112 & 612
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What makes these channels special enough to get access to the VAST platform?
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Are they specifically on VAST?
I think I remember reading that VAST boxes would pick up any unencrypted channel on the same Optus satellite as VAST, so could they just be paying Optus to be on the satellite?
According to Digital Bitrate, they’re encrypted
They aren’t strictly on VAST, but actually on the narrowcast part of the Aurora Digital Platform. VAST is just one part of Aurora Digital. It’s Aurora Digital, not VAST, that’s encrypted.
These channels pay Instal-Life, which buy bitrate from Optus.
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Looks like this is the operator: https://mychristiantv.com.au/
From their website about moving to ‘VAST’ (as they put it) - https://movedish.com.au/broadcaster/
Optus has assigned Instal-Life the role of a specialised reseller of religious content for the VAST (Viewer Access Satellite Television platform). Additionally, Instal-Life is the only ‘Christian organisation‘ in Australia to offer Satellite Broadcasting Services.
Yes, that’s correct. More info about their aggregation on the platform can be found at movedish.com.au.
Edit: beat me to it.
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Semi-Related, I’ve heard that Optus will stop distributing Optus Sport via satellite by the end of January as well too
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They say VAST, because as with on MediaSpy, hardly anyone refers to, or even knows, what Aurora Digital is. Also, the only way to get it is with a “VAST certified” STB.
I’ll just add that it’s only the TV channels with Instal-Life. The radios are on their own.
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Interesting development. There are a number of issues with pushing viewers onto VAST just to make up for 1 missing station. I don’t think many will bother with the costs involved and the difficulty in integrating a set-top box just to watch 10.
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Just come back from visiting Murrayville, Victoria with viewers being on VAST can’t believe how many channels they have access to puts what we are getting In the Mildura TV market to shame, Although I must admit it’s weird seeing ads from Alice Springs & Mt Isa all the way here In Victoria.
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They have all been on the VAST System for sometime, they moved over when D1 failed and they moved over D2 to the same spot.
They are part of the VAST system as you can only access them with a VAST Box, they are Irdeto Encrypted same as all VAST Channels, why they didn’t make them open like they were on D1 I am not sure
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Out of Interest are all these channels 24 hours.
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Of those channels, only the TV ones moved when D2 was moved. The radio channels were already there. Also, 3ABN International had already been on the platform since 2017.
The boxes themselves are not VAST boxes, but VAST certified boxes. That is they fulfil the specifications required for VAST on the Optus Aurora Digital platform.
The encryption is part of the Aurora Digital platform, and thus all services on the platform, with the exception of the info channel and the D3 tune channel, are encrypted.
Aurora Digital has three parts (as seen here):
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RemoteCast: Free-to-air television and radio services provided to rural and remote areas of Australia. These are also known as “Viewer Access Satellite Television”, or VAST
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MultiCast: NarrowCast television services for closed (eg. content for pubs and clubs, cinemas) or open viewer groups. Open content is available to anyone with an Aurora Digital set-top box
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AudioCast: NarrowCast radio services for closed or open groups. There are around 100 audio-only channels on the Aurora Digital platform
The Christian Channels and NIRS are part of the NarrowCast services on the platform. They are certainly not VAST.
Confusingly though, it’s the VAST support team at Optus that look after the Aurora Digital platform.
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Yes, all the channels are 24 hour channels.
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Imparja just recently posted to Facebook with a link to their website about upcoming changes to VAST retransmission sites for the commercial services.
Starting October 28 through mid-November, retransmission will change from being transcoded to MPEG2, to passing through the MPEG4 service from the satellite.
Nothing about HD upgrades or new channels.
Apart from preparing for possible future HD upgrades or extra channels, the main benefit I can see is one viewers wouldn’t be aware of. Doing away with the on-site transcoding improves reliability. Each one of those site has a few “transcoding engines” handling a few channels each. They have a habit of locking up on one random channel when rain fade is hovering around the signal cutoff point. It can take many minutes for a single channel alarm to be raised in the telemetry (full service alarms are nearer to instant) so that channel can be off for quite a while after the rain fade before someone is alerted to login and reset the transcoder, which causes an outage on all the channels on that transcoder, not just the affected channel.
Passthrough of the MPEG4 service eliminates this issue, so VAST ReTX should be a bit more weather-resistant.
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I don’t see them going to HD if Sky NZ moves to D3. Won’t be enough room to accommodate all of that.
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