OSIRUS (21-12-09)
Ultimately Senator Conjob, I'll believe you when I'm able to watch these extra channels.Local residents have argued over the poor mobile and phone reception they receive in the areas surrounding the Mudgee township at a meeting with the Minister for Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy Senator Stephen Conroy and Federal Member for Parkes Mark Coulton MP.
In opening the meeting Mr Coulton said of the 107,000km his electorate covered, this was the worst area for mobile and phone coverage.
Other issues raised at the meeting included Broadband and digital television (DTV) reception in the area.
Senator Conroy said a satellite service would be available to those who were not reached by a digital (DTV) service.
"Very soon we are looking to deliver a metro service all around the country.
“Ultimately this will deliver you all 16 channels (as received in the city areas)," Senator Conroy said.
OSIRUS (21-12-09)
Look Here -> |
Oh dear, its definately sounds like all or nothing with that statement, as this really stuffs up regional areas that can get basic commercial SD channels, with none of the extras like OneHD, GO and Sevens second channel.Senator Conroy said a satellite service would be available to those who were not reached by a digital (DTV) service.
You sure the same folks that manage Optus Aurora aren't involved here
Last edited by porkchops; 21-12-09 at 05:15 PM. Reason: fixing butchered quote when editing post
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them - Albert Einstein
Thanks for the info BlackDuck, lets hope he can deliver what he says,
A Full digital Metro service to black spot areas would be better than the current Aurora Service in my Opinion,
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I never thought of that porkchops, I hope you're wrong.
They have to be involved, They own the satellites and someone has to pay for the transponders used, and that same someone will have to pay the commercial channels for the rebroadcast of their programming.
No free TV lunches.
Just a thought - what if Aurora had upgraded to widescreen with a HD version of Imparja, SCTV, Win and GWN when D3 went up. I'm sure very few people would be clamoring for access to capital city FTA services. For me its more of a quality thing - 4:3 aspect ratio, low resolution signal is an absolute killer if you have a large widescreen plasma or LCD.
What really pisses me off is the way, the broadcasters and Optus simply ignore any requests to go fully digital. They knew about D3 and the opportunities for an improved service years in advance but simply 'sat on their hands' and did nothing. I was once a great supporter of this service, but I really hope they all die in a ditch and the government replaces it with a capital city based service, ie Freeview - don't really care if there is a time differential, just get rid of Aurora.
Media release. Warren Truss MP, member for Wide bay and leader of the Nationals.
Mr Truss, As a rural TV viewer for nearly 10 years let me assure you that I'll be over the moon if Senator Conboy actually comes up with the goods.Digital Television – a turn off, 6th January, 2010
The Federal Government‟s plans for the closure of the analog television network will mean the death of local television content for thousands of Australians living in rural areas, the Leader of The Nationals, Warren Truss, said today.
Mr Truss said that Labor‟s plan to convert to digital only 100 of the existing network of at least 600 “self-help” television transmitters will leave thousands of people living in country communities with blank screens when analog transmissions close.
“Labor is offering these people a new satellite service – one for Western Australia, one for Queensland and the Northern Territory, and one for the rest of Australia,” Mr Truss said.
“These new services will transmit regional news broadcasts in rotation – so some people in country areas will have to get used to watching their news service late at night or make a choice between local news and their favourite program being broadcast during their news slot.
“And what about local community service announcements, local advertisements, and special local programs? In addition, Labor is only prepared to pay $300 towards the estimated cost of more than $600 to fit satellite dishes to affected households.”
Mr Truss said that once again the Rudd Labor Government is treating country Australians as second class citizens.
“Cabinet ministers would never be game to tell the capital city electorates that in future they will have to watch another city‟s news bulletin and rely on a satellite bulletin for local news, weather, sporting and community information.”
Mr Truss said that the Government wants to close the analog network so that it can sell off the spectrum for other services. The Government expects to make billions of dollars from the sale of the spectrum, but is not prepared to do what is necessary to ensure that country viewers are not disadvantaged.
“Labor is spending $66 million on advertising the conversion to digital. That amount of money alone would be enough to convert another 400 „self-help‟ transmitters to digital.
“Most of the 'self-help' blackspot transmitters were funded by the previous Coalition government and are now maintained and managed by local Councils or community organisations. They were provided in areas which were uneconomic for the television channels to service, but which were receiving no useable television signals.
“The Government‟s conversion from analog to digital is showing all the signs of being another Labor telecommunications debacle – like the analog phone turn-off and Labor‟s high speed broadband fiasco.”
The Minister for Communications, Senator Stephen Conroy, has admitted he has no idea how many Australians will lose their television signal following the conversion to digital. He said “when they flick the switch it will become apparent because you will have a blank screen”.
“This is an appallingly arrogant response from the Minister. In the last Budget, the Federal Labor Government cut funding for a program to test for digital TV blackspots and it seems Senator Conroy does not even care which areas will be without reception.”
Mr Truss said that while regional viewers have often been the last to receive new digital free-to-air channels, the Federal Government has decided that analog television will switch off first in regional areas with the cities receiving analog transmissions into 2013.
“This must be the first time a Labor Government has ever given something to country areas before the cities”, Mr Truss commented.
“Even in urban areas, many television viewers are complaining that their digital signals seem to be lower strength and are too regularly interrupted.
“Labor‟s analog shut-down program should guarantee that no Australian, particularly those living in regional and remote areas will be worse off. Nor should Labor expect battling country communities to pick up the tab for their multi-billion dollar analog sell-off windfall,” Mr Truss said.
I haven't had local news in all of those 10 years and couldn't care less about Merv Appleby's cow giving birth to twins.
When I downloaded this I was going to point out to the good minister that for those people who depend on satellite for all of their TV and radio reception, there may be some flaws in his reasoning.
However my darling wife opened the second bottle of the local Merlot and as a result I'm afraid the good minister will have to wait until I'm suffering from sobriety before we can discuss some of the the errors in his logic.
It will be interesting to see how the AFl is broadcast
Currently on Win Qld its nearly Midnight on Friday Nights and the Brisbane Lions or any game at Surfers is on Live
While SCTV gives you Friday night at 8,30 and shows what they play on TV in Victoria (mainly live).
7 HD and 9HD showed AFL sunday morning and AFL footy Show on Thursday
One showed before the game.(drooling while looking at Digital TV guide)While regular Win and 7 showed the NRL versions.
If we get 7two and SCHD and One and its comming out of NT and Qld will it show Live Lions games or Both or will it be NRL and Lions driven?
It will be interesting and I assume sad for either the AFL or NRL fan
I think Mr Truss is reading these proposals how he wants too.
He's not lying, he just isnt filling in the details.
Something every politician in Opposition is good at.
A 'reverse' spin as it were.
I see the comment that the Federal Govt is only going to upgrade 100 self help loctions out of the 600 in use as good news because Mr truss, I will bet you a cows ear to a Sheeps dag that the other 500 are old and to update would be idioticaly expensive and would not cover their own area as a Satelitte broadcast signal can.
I know of one analog repeater that cover the Hartley Valley just east of Lithgow and it doesnt have SBS and I have been told it has a very low signal strength.
I also understand there is another around the Capertee area to the west of Lithgow that is also a very lowpowered small coverage area transmitter.
Why would you waste money upgrading them when a single satelitte can do it all.
Also Mt Truss, since when does Impaja from Alice Springs and C7 from Southern Queensland give LOCAL news for any of NSW areas they boadcast into ??
As for getting 'Your News' at a suitable time, with C7 being Queensland oriented and ONE HOUR behind and Impaja in Central Australia being 30 minutes behind sure dont sound like 'Local news at a suitable time to me', Mr Truss.
I told a farming aquaintance one time that to be elected to the Country /National Party you need to have 4 legs, a head one end, a tail the other and go Neigh, Bleat, Moo or Bahhh.
And based on those comments, I believe Mr Truss fits those requirements admirably.
PS/ bugger the football, it can be worked around as can the HD/SD signal.
To get all the channels I would not cry if they were in SD only at this point of time.
OneHD is simulacast in the metro on SD so why not via Satelitte??
Just remember that a HD satelitte box is over $400 EACH, PER TV in your house not $70 as a Terrestial HD stb is currently for those non HD tuner TV's.
Last edited by gordon_s1942; 09-01-10 at 12:30 AM.
BlackDuck (09-01-10)
Clear, Concise and straight to the point Gordon.
And to for those with a green tinge, consider that every City probably has 4 TV transmitters, each of which would be consuming over 150kw of power from the grid, 24 hours a day.
Compare this to a satellite that's getting all of it's operating power from the Sun, and is capable of carrying all of the terrestrial transmitter's programs 10 times over, without the need to build "Mini Eiffel towers" to transmit from.
regional TV hasn't existed in NZ for years (in this case I refer to the main broadcasters, not someone like Cue or CTV). Our country is about the same size as a state, all our news comes out of Auckland, and the stuff on satellite is all national (except TVNZ that foolishly for some reason 'regionalised' TV One, where the only difference is the ads shown).
The proposal seems to make sense to me. The first thing that needs to be done is standardise the technology (ideally use MPEG4 STB's), thus removing the need for an HD specific channel. Thereby only needing one version of the channel rather than an HD and SD version. Seems a lot of duplication of bandwidth.
The football and league should be able to be sorted out, but I think that will be the biggest contentious issue. Suppose the (in general very good) anti-siphoning laws make this even more sticky.
I think The Government should bite the bullet & provide a Digital Television service for each state on satellite, if the ABC & SBS can afford it why can't the Commercials have the same,
I do think they may find a lot more people than they think will not be able to receive Digital FTA terrestrially, & the government should subside the cost of Satellite equipment to say $70 (cost to home owner) so it is on par with what the Terrestrial Reception Home owner has to pay
I guess they reason that The Satellite Blackspot service is only for some 250,000 people, but they should still make it as good a service as they can.
Last edited by OSIRUS; 09-01-10 at 01:53 PM.
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ABC and SBS costs are carried by the taxpayers, Whereas commercial operators must cover their own costs and show a profit.
All of the commercial TV stations own their infrastructure, Studios, Towers etc, and would expect a cash return for the retransmission of their programs, Same with Optus, They expect a capital return for transmissions from their satellites.
I can't see much of a case being made for capital city commercial stations wanting to charge their advertisers extra revenue because of an expanded satellite audience base when that audience base may be hundreds of km away or in some cases in a different state.
Even if the commercial stations permitted retransmission at no charge the taxpayer will still have to pay Optus.
I agree with the standardisation at the viewers end. But I think SD and HD simulcasts will be needed. If the networks decide to air breakaway programming on their HD channel, then satellite viewers would miss out. I reckon 5x HD channels all in the EDST timezone would be fine, with more time zone customisation given to the more popular SD services.
They could do something like 'FOX Sports Plus' on Foxtel. This channel gives some sports priority to some states. I think it could work well on the supposed Local News channels when they're not showing anything. I can see problems in the Qld/NT market as the NT love their AFL, and Qld love their NRL, but they will both be serviced by the exact same channels.
Great points as always, Gordon. Just one thing;
SCTV Central and Imparja both run off EST. Imparja was based in CST until they dropped Network Ten programming in early 2008. So these days, they're both heavily Queensland focused, which is great for Queenslanders, but down right wrong for every other state.
gordon_s1942 (09-01-10)
It depends how far you'd want to go with that. I'd like to see it as well, but at the same time it would be a gigantic waste of satellite space. For the NSW/Vic/SA zone, I'd be happy if all the extra multi-channels were just based in one state, but available in all states. EG; A viewer in SA would get the same GO!, 7TWO, One, ABC2, ABC3, SBS TWO and all the HD's as a viewer in NSW would. This would mean that only the primary channels need to be state-based. I think that could work very well provided the networks come to an agreement to share revenue from the multi-channels.
WA and Qld/NT zones would definitely need their own multi's as a 3 hour difference is a bit much, but I think the other zone would be fine with one set of multi's and heaps of sets of state-based primary channels.
OSIRUS (09-01-10)
From Media Release
Senator the Hon Stephen Conroy
Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate
Digital television Australia-wide
........While the final cost of the digital satellite broadcasting service will be determined following negotiations between broadcasters and satellite service providers, the Government is committing $40 million per year over the four-year forward estimates to build and operate the service, for the potential benefit of up to 247,000 households across Australia. This is an ongoing Government commitment..........
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I'd like to see the break down of annual costs and disbursements, should make interesting reading.
OSIRUS (09-01-10)
You know, I would like to ask Gerry Harvey of Harvey Norman and Ad Guru John Singleton, what they think about the prospect of their advertising campaigns being seen by ALL Australia ??
Not only in Woop Woop, Hay, Hell or Booligal but on EVERY TV set in Australia ????
Even Blackduck hiding out in the spinifex or those underground at Coober Pedy, Marble Bar and Lighting Ridge would be prospective customers.
Ol Metho Bill prospecting in the Kimberlies with his Pedal powered Satellite TV is a potental customer when Bunnings has a Buy in Bulk sale on his favourite tipple.
There's not a store within a 1000 k's of some people BUT they still need to buy furniture/Fridges/washing machines/TV's etc so just think of all the jobs this COULD create if people could see whats available and then it has to be DELIVERED creating even MORE jobs !!
And you dont mean to tell me that the TV broadcaster is going to knock back the chance for extra fees based on a potential viewing audience??
MONEY waiting to be made !!!
Last edited by gordon_s1942; 09-01-10 at 05:34 PM.
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