Changes at TV3

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Ultimate Geek
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#396484 27-Oct-2010 20:24

The bandwidth is available for 'FOUR' to go HD on the mediaworks DTT mux. It would be expensive to upgrade the station to generate it though. At the moment tv1,2 & 3 share the market as far as advertisers are concerned. There's basically no money in HD as far as they are concerned. The main 3 channels have lost share since going HD so theres no financial advantage to put up another one. My guess is that it would cost around 300k to upgrade C4 to HD and even more for 5.1. Maybe if they got to 15 percent audience it might happen. I hope so!

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NZCrusader

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Ultimate Geek
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#396500 27-Oct-2010 20:44

Hmm well the changes arent that exciting for me. Ild like to see some more channels. Maybe a 24/7 movie channel or nat geo something. Kinda sucks that sky is the only provider to do that.

Only channels I watch is 2,3 & rarely C4. Other channels dont have anything appealing to me. Mainly watch 2,3 & C4 when theres movies or favorite comedy shows playing.

Im not sure what the general opinions are out there, but all I know is that the UK & USA have a heap more channels & im keen for some more variety too.

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hdinsider

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#396526 27-Oct-2010 21:21

hmmmm... Uk and usa do have more channels but they are all pay channels. It would be great to see more channels on freeview, maybe they should have some subscriber channels to help to pay for different content. would you pay for freeview?

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Foo

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#396539 27-Oct-2010 21:31

hdinsider: hmmmm... Uk and usa do have more channels but they are all pay channels. It would be great to see more channels on freeview, maybe they should have some subscriber channels to help to pay for different content. would you pay for freeview?

Hmmm, wouldn't that then not be 'freeview'?

Subscriber channels - would Sky and/or Saturn get a bit miffed about that?

Flippikat

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Master Geek
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#396542 27-Oct-2010 21:37

hdinsider: hmmmm... Uk and usa do have more channels but they are all pay channels. It would be great to see more channels on freeview, maybe they should have some subscriber channels to help to pay for different content. would you pay for freeview?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_digital_terrestrial_television_channels_(UK)

Doesn't look like they're all pay channels to me.

I think this is the sort of variety people are talking about.

richms

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#396543 27-Oct-2010 21:37

If you pay, then its not freeview, and how would it work with all the existing tvs and recorders? It would basically be no different to getting sky, which if sky were not asses, would allow you to choose more granularity of channels and have cheaper offerings.

Richard rich.ms

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hdinsider

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Ultimate Geek
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#396558 27-Oct-2010 21:56

I guess that the good uk freeview lineup is a product of the larger population. I notice that there are only 4 HD channels there though... lots of +1 options... I like 'dave ja vu' - aka dave+1.

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richms

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#396561 27-Oct-2010 22:03

Dave is a great channel.

The picture quality off digital in the UK is real bad. I was watching some stuff and I thought it was done on a dvd-r at the 4 hour rate, but no, it was a direct stream rip.

Richard rich.ms

Foo

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#396566 27-Oct-2010 22:07

The other thing to remember is that in the UK every household pays a broadcasting fee of 145.50 pounds per year. This equates to just over $300 NZ.

I know, you can argue that TVNZ is paid out of our taxes, but this is still a reasonable sum that has to be paid each year.

This broadcasting fee combined with a larger population means a greater number of channels available.

Foo

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#396569 27-Oct-2010 22:09

richms: Dave is a great channel.

The picture quality off digital in the UK is real bad. I was watching some stuff and I thought it was done on a dvd-r at the 4 hour rate, but no, it was a direct stream rip.

I have watched a fair bit of digital stuff in the UK and it has looked fine to me - that was both Hi Def and non Hi Def. Perhaps it was the particular show you were watching rather than it being a case of all digital being real bad?

richms

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#396593 27-Oct-2010 22:46

We have people here saying that freeview sat looks fine, so I suspect that some people are just unable to see the blocking and edge artifacts of lowbitrate mpeg2.

It was off dave not the plus one channel.

It seems that the process of converting them to divx and the resulting lowering of the resolution masks the blocking to quite a degree, so I think thats why its less offensive on downloaded stuff.

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Flippikat

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Master Geek
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#396642 28-Oct-2010 07:45

Foo: The other thing to remember is that in the UK every household pays a broadcasting fee of 145.50 pounds per year. This equates to just over $300 NZ.

I know, you can argue that TVNZ is paid out of our taxes, but this is still a reasonable sum that has to be paid each year.

This broadcasting fee combined with a larger population means a greater number of channels available.

True enough, but it will be interesting to see if the savings made by analogue switch-off are transferred into a greater diversity of DTT here.

The extra digital channels here are IMO a disappointment so far. TV3+1 is useful only so-often, and although C42 has a nice selection of music, there's just no structure to it (some genre-specific shows would be handy, even without presenters!)

Admittedly I haven't seen much of TVNZ6, but it all seems to be kids shows (with the same guy presenting all day) or re-runs of Shortland Street :-(

TVNZ7 is so far the pick of the bunch.

old3eyes

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#396658 28-Oct-2010 08:42

But doesn't the OK License go only to BBC TV?? The rest survive on ads like in NZ..
Dave TV PQ must have really gone down the tubes over the past year then as I downloaded a cap of Red Dwarf (the new series) and it looked great.. I think it may have been in HD..

Regards,

Old3eyes

openmedia

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#396810 28-Oct-2010 13:20

richms: We have people here saying that freeview sat looks fine, so I suspect that some people are just unable to see the blocking and edge artifacts of lowbitrate mpeg2.

It was off dave not the plus one channel.

It seems that the process of converting them to divx and the resulting lowering of the resolution masks the blocking to quite a degree, so I think thats why its less offensive on downloaded stuff.

Some of the UK terrestrial content is quite low quality due to MPEG2 video and the number of channels they have squeezed in. To avoid artifacts quite a few channels transmit at 544x768 but flagged as either 16:9 or 4:3. This results in a softer picture at lower bitrates. Some of the +1 channels use this along with Virgin 1.

With my old 29" CRT I could see a lot of the NZ Freeview DTH artifacts on my screen. Since switching to a Samsung LA40C650 set I'm not noticing them anywhere near as much even though I've got a much bigger screen and doing 1080 upscaling.

Once comparison I did make recently was the NZ Music Awards. The DTT copy in SD on C4 was far clearer thanks to H.264 video compared with the DTH SD copy off TV3 a couple of days later.

Steve

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

allstarnz

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#398562 1-Nov-2010 15:01

hdinsider:
Bit harsh criticism of bathhurst on 3!

You know why the podium was cut off...? CH7 Australia was delaying the end of the race- yes, the Aussies didn't see the race live!!! They delayed presentation to the winners so that the coverage could catch up with live.

I had CH7 going at the same time as TV3 at home. TV3 was live, CH7 was delayed. Every ad break TV3 played was identical to CH7's breaks. There was no more race coverage that could be shown. I was looking for it!

You know if it was on Sky that they would put ads on while you would be paying for it. Too little live sport on FTA in my opinion to moan about something that's free!

I disagree on this. TV3 would have been taking the Globecast World Feed, which did show the podium etc in full. They really have no excuse. Doubt they would have got it routed via Seven.

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