WINTV, New Channels SOON for Regional viewers !!!

[mickstv]

They have made some changes in the Bendigo Region.


8 WIN SD
81 WIN SD
82 GEM SD The twits are running it in 4:3 ratio so all wide screen programs are squished.
83 GO SD
88 GO SD

[gordon_s1942]

At the moment after having to do Factory Reset to get rid of the plethora of weird numbers on the one TV with a MPEG4 tuner, the 2 Topfields and 1 Strong 5430 STB, I almost have everything available but for some reason the Strong is only showing a BLACK picture with no audio on 80 WINHD and after a few moments up pops a floating box saying 'HD Unsupported' !!!
The Strong as far as I am aware is both HD and able to receive MPEG 4 signals and is showing every other channel BUT LCN 80 WINHD.
Any one know why it is doing this?

[Escape_from_Oz]

I with the Strong 5430 STB I would switch it off for 5 minutes then when you re power it do a factory reset and then do a fresh scan to receive all the channels.


I am back in Sydney for the time being so when I go back down south I will have do the same thing to the STRONG STU I have also in order to get the new WIN channels + potentially by then the new Prime TV channels.

[hidefdave]

Amazing how good WIN HD looks. Never thought we'd see decent PQ from WIN, but there you are!

GEM is in an incorrect 4:3 aspect at the moment, but it appears the WIN techs are on to that. There is also no EPG information for LIFE atm. GO! looks better than before the changes to my eyes as well...interested to hear what others think.

Regional SA and Tas will be rolled out later today.

Probably helps that LIFE, Extra and GOLD are all MPEG4 also, which one imagines has freed up some bitrate for the HD channel. WIN SD looks very average by comparison...wonder if they've dropped the bitrate on that one. Is someone able to do a bitrate scan?

D.

[gordon_s1942]

I have already done that to remove the unwanted channels it added during the 'update'.
However I have just repeated the exercise and still just a black screen with the Info bar showing what is on and the box with the message 'HD unsupport' is centre screen.

Just in case you have forgotten, the code for the Strong is five Zero's, ie 0,0,0,0,0.
I had to go and download the user manual because I have mine safely put away 'somewhere' to find the pin number.
Until now the Strong has shown ALL the channels, 4METV, Racing.dot.com and the 2 Logos advising of todays commencement for WIN.
I checked the specs in the User manual and it clearly shows the tuner is able to receive MPEG 4 but it sure aint at present.

I have just checked one of the TV's with a Topfrield connected just in case there was a transmission problem but its showing WINHD on LCN80.......

mickstv, same here with GEM, the movie Carry on Cleo is in 'Vertical Vistavision' too.................maybe they think by having a narrower footprint, their saving the Planet?

[hoe]

Nothing in Kalgoorlie yet....

Sent from my SM-G925I using Tapatalk

[Escape_from_Oz]

Then I have no further advice for why the Strong STU is not showing the channel.

I made a quick call to a friend out at Orange and they said everything is working the right way save for GEM being the wrong aspect ratio.

Looks like they are going high bit rate for HD which means they have stripped WIN SD again, that is just crazy since the % of those without MP4 is higher than those with.

[Windy]

[QUOTE=Windy;689529]WIN HD sucks! it pixelates every 5 seconds and can be unwatchable on late model TVs. Even TV dongles for PCs can't display WIN HD without it freezing-up

Comment withdrawn - all good. Well done WIN! although GEM is still 4:3 (not a problem as I don't watch it)

[gordon_s1942]

Tried again with no change, it simply wont show Video or Audio on LCN 80, WINHD.
The annoying thing is until they did the change over night, the Strong showed every channel !!
I had a look at Strong's website but they show no updates for this model at all unless its the same as those close numerically to it.
At this time all I can do is give them a ring on their Support Line tomorrow and see what they say.
I dont want to put one of the TopFields on this specific TV as there seems that some of the IR codes can trigger other 'screens' on the TV.
Changing it over wont make the channel work but it would mean I had access to all channels using a TopField on that TV because its the main house TV.

[Smacca]

Nothing in Kalgoorlie yet....

WA won't get it until Tuesday 8 March.

[garrycol]

And of course half the population cannot view the new channels as it is only quite new TVs are MPEG4 compatible.

What a load of nonsense - Prime did it a while back and I lost 64ME which I did watch a bit.

[Escape_from_Oz]

Exactly, which is why Seven for their primary channel are looking at the MPEG2 HD option for 7HD, at the moment the the metro population that have MPEG2 HD equipment is approx 98%, for regional areas where Prime (including GWN7), Southern Cross Media (Broken Hill, Mount Gambia, Darwin, Alice Springs and some other zones) and WIN (where WIN hold the supplementary licence in regions like MIA and Tasmania) the population that can view MPEG2 HD via terrestrial tranmission is something like 96%.

There is also the inherant advantages that they can switch off MPEG2 SD and allocate the approx 5Mbits direct 7HD which means they could affectively have a very good picture quality HD channel whereas both Nine and Ten would have to keep SD versions on high bit rate SD which is a waste of bandwidth they can't give to there HD channels because the total MPEG4 HD equipment in the population (all regions) is approx 80%, so once that number reaches a higher % they can then switch to MPEG4 HD and still offer more MPEG4 SD channels (approx 2 more channels).

Back to WIN, looks like they have fixed GEM and also rebalanced the bitrate to be way smoother, there issue now is a waiting game to see if media lawd are given green light by Parliament to be changed, if they are well then it wont be long until Nine Ent Co get there hands on Southern Cross Media Austereo and come July 1 WIN will either have to go at it alone and try to enter the Sydney and Melbourne metro markets with the content they have (and they can easily reach Sydney metro from Campletown where they own a FM Radio station) or make a forced deal with Network 10 ...

[gordon_s1942]

'GEM' might be 'smoother but its still in 'Vertical Vistavison' mode here.
I suppose I am a bit of a Dinosaur and unappreciative of the finer quality of MPEG4 but I cant see how MPEG2 is lacking in Video quality compared to MPEG2 generally and I would be very surprised to see both modes being shown on side by side on same size, make and model TV's and sit 10 people down and see who can pick which one is what.
I still subscribe the the premise that I dont care how fantastic the transmission mode used is, if the quality of the program being broadcast is crap, then its MPEG4 in Crap also.

[garrycol]

If the authorities and TV channels want to move to MPEG 4 - I do not understand why it was not specified right from the start in the digital specifications. At this stage I am not really prepared to ditch my relatively new non MPEG4 digital TVs.

I find the whole digital/ Freeview program to be an absolute crock - we have more channels but the same networks who are too tight to buy new content into their libraries so we end up seeing the same programs over and over and over or cheap reality TV programs.

It is little wonder Aust is the pirate download capital of the world.

Garry

[mtv]

If the authorities and TV channels want to move to MPEG 4 - I do not understand why it was not specified right from the start in the digital specifications. At this stage I am not really prepared to ditch my relatively new non MPEG4 digital TVs.

How old are your 'relatively new' TV's?

Were there MPEG4-capable TV's available at the time you made your purchases?

There were options to broadcasters and consumers at the time of the introduction of DVB-T in Australia.

Did you buy TV's with the latest technology available?

Whilst I sympathise with you and others in this situation, the simple fix is a cheap ($40) STB.

I agree MPEG4 would have been a much better choice from the beginning, but it was not widely used way back then. (over 16 years ago now)

None of the digital TV's were made in Australia, with most being multi-system for global markets, which is a good indication of how muck MPEG4 was in use globally at that time.... bugger all.

Technology is constantly changing and we all have a choice whether to upgrade with it, or stay behind.

There will be more advances in video compression in the years to come, when MPEG4 will become 'old' technology.

An interesting comparison would be mobile phones... just look how many changes to technology have occurred over the same period of digital TV in Australia.

There was no simple $40 fix when analogue phones switched to digital... people whinged, having to buy a new relatively expensive new digital phone, but they soon embraced the technology as it evolved to what it is today, often spending thousands of dollars upgrading to the current technology, which no doubt will be obsolete in the near future.

By comparison, viewers still get the majority of TV channels with old technology tuners.... even after 16 years of TV evolution.

[SpankedHam]

IIRC MPEG-4 AVC (h264 or what ever you want to call it) wasn't even standardised until well after Australia commenced terrestrial digital television transmission. Even once the ink was dried it took a bit longer for the carriage of MPEG-4 AVC in DVB-t transport streams to be standardised.

So why didn't "they" do it from the start? They simply couldn't...

[gordon_s1942]

I dont remember even FreeView who were quite loud promoting their 'Approved' devises clearly saying what they wanted people to buy were MPEG4 capable and it would be part of the transmission modes in the future.
At best all they said was what they approved would be suitable but they never elaborated just why.

I am certainly not technically savvy but all I ever saw regarding MPEG4 was it was supposed to be better, a later improvement on MPEG2 which I had little idea about anyway.

[Escape_from_Oz]

In 2001 in the broadcast TV rehlm there was:

- MPEG2
- PAL
- NTSC

Now MPEG2 was actually first used in Australia and actually world wide by Galaxy Multi-Channel pay TV (and CETV/ECTV which became Austar) for there DTH satellite service which as we all now know as Foxtel and there night actually be a few thousand MPEG2 only satellite decoders still in use by Foxtel for those in MDU'S that can be converted to MPEG4 decoders (I could be be wrong on that). I do know in cable there are many 1st gen Foxtel digital boxes still in use that are MPEG2 only. From memory they are the PACE 420-F/O (F for Fox O for Optus) and these boxes are pushing innsome case now up to 11 years of service and they most certainly don't have MPEG4 decoders.

So back then it's not like they were gonna do broadcast WMV/A for DTV here.

So that is there the issue came from that the idiots in Canberra (at the time Howard and Co) made the DTV rules up and mandted DVB-T MPEG2 (with MPEG or PCM audio) which could be multi-plexed using QAM64 modulation, if you can remember that far back that basically means 576i DTV primary with upto 2 multi-channels, 1 was the EPG and the other was HD up to 576p which I think 7 and 10 used as a "barker" channel showing what HD was like, 10 also went as far as to multi-view and Nine introduced "interactive" options for those TV with the correct middleware (also Foxtel satellite boxes).

It was not until 2007 that additional multi channels for the commercial broadcasters were allowed and all of a sudden you had HD channels pop up nd even then it took a further 2 years before Nine launched Go and the others launched there multi-channels.


It's been a huge mess up from the start as they should of mandated HD as the primary channels

[SpankedHam]

... and SECAM (since we are clearly not talking just Australia given NTSC was mentioned).
... and all the weird and wonderful variants of the main analogue standards

Then there's more exotic formats such as the MAC series, used in satellite broadcasting... but hey, who's counting. There's only 3!

[Windy]

If the authorities and TV channels want to move to MPEG 4 - I do not understand why it was not specified right from the start in the digital specifications. At this stage I am not really prepared to ditch my relatively new non MPEG4 digital TVs.

Garry

How old are your 'relatively new' TV's?

Were there MPEG4-capable TV's available at the time you made your purchases?

There were options to broadcasters and consumers at the time of the introduction of DVB-T in Australia.

Did you buy TV's with the latest technology available?

Whilst I sympathise with you and others in this situation, the simple fix is a cheap ($40) STB.

I agree MPEG4 would have been a much better choice from the beginning, but it was not widely used way back then. (over 16 years ago now)

None of the digital TV's were made in Australia, with most being multi-system for global markets, which is a good indication of how muck MPEG4 was in use globally at that time.... bugger all.

Technology is constantly changing and we all have a choice whether to upgrade with it, or stay behind.

There will be more advances in video compression in the years to come, when MPEG4 will become 'old' technology.

An interesting comparison would be mobile phones... just look how many changes to technology have occurred over the same period of digital TV in Australia.

There was no simple $40 fix when analogue phones switched to digital... people whinged, having to buy a new relatively expensive new digital phone, but they soon embraced the technology as it evolved to what it is today, often spending thousands of dollars upgrading to the current technology, which no doubt will be obsolete in the near future.

By comparison, viewers still get the majority of TV channels with old technology tuners.... even after 16 years of TV evolution.

It wasn't all that long ago Plasmas, LCDs or LEDs didn't have a tuner! You lucky to get a Flat Screen with HDMI. Now TVs come with all sorts of goodies such as 4K, DLNA, HbbTV/FreeView+ and they far lighter, cheaper than they were 10 years ago. Next year we could be looking at 8K TVs