Abc1 Soon To Be Hd ?

[BigH]

  Again Just by way of interest, I see the ABC has now added a caption over the ads promoting  HD that "... It's only available to viewers with MPEG-4 compatible receivers" (or words  the that affect.) Seems like the ABC must have been swamped by calls  from views the didn't.

Edited December 7, 2016 by BigH

[MichaelCPE]

5 minutes ago, BigH said:

The move is not about putting 'Programs' out in HD it's about putting 24 hour News in SD, while still complying with the "must have" an HD channel regulation.

I think the move is all about making ABC1 available in HD. And this will apply to all newly acquired content including home made such as Hard Quiz.

My big issue is that the ABC is not making clear that at the moment it is just upconverted SD and they are not making clear when we will see our first real HD (though this is likely to be the NYE fireworks). 

The other thing we don't know is whether or not the ABC had the foresight to have content bought over the last decade be in HD. If, as a cost saving measure, they only bought shows in SD, or have only stored these shows in SD, then all the old material is still going to be just upconverted SD. 

[MichaelCPE]

What makes no sense to me is doing the marketing for wonderful HD, and having people look at it and (rightly) thinking it doesn't make any difference. 

Can you imagine any manufacturer marketing a new improved product, labelling it as such, but just having the old product in the box (with the intention of doing another marketing push when they finally get around to putting the new improved product into the box)? 

[BigH]

I can't wait to see Hard Quiz in HD. Wow what  breath taking experience that will be. I wonder if it will also have 7 track surround-sound?

[MichaelCPE]

Hard Quiz would look wonderful in full HD, so why not allow those who enjoy this show and who appreciate video quality enjoy it this way?

I agree with you that the ABC doesn't have much at the moment that is worth watching, and in fact I didn't watch anything on ABC20 on Tuesday or Wednesday. 

[laurie]

Meanwhile at Foxtel the so called technical team are unable to explain why ABC HD haven't shown up on their IQ3 satellite stb?

 

cheers laurie

[hrh]

2 hours ago, MichaelCPE said:

is that the ABC is not making clear that at the moment it is just upconverted SD

How is this any different to the other networks? They are ALL showing a bunch of program content which is SD on their SD/HD parallel services.

 

2 hours ago, MichaelCPE said:

marketing for wonderful HD, and having people look at it and (rightly) thinking it doesn't make any difference

In all reality most people seriously cannot tell the difference until they have it actually pointed out to them and even then a lot of them are still oblivious.

 

I think there is too much angst and an over expectation that EVERYTHING on Aunty would somehow magically be absolute real full-on HD.

[hrh]

.

Edited December 8, 2016 by hrh
strange double post - site very sluggish

[MichaelCPE]

25 minutes ago, hrh said:

How is this any different to the other networks? They are ALL showing a bunch of program content which is SD on their SD/HD parallel services.

I doubt this. I think the ABC is showing some SD sourced content in upconverted SD and is showing lots of HD sourced content in upconverted SD.

I expect that once the turn the HD on (which is probably the NYE fireworks) that from then on content bought in the last few years will go to HD. 

One key example of this is Doctor Foster which of course was shot in HD and must be available in HD yet I suspect will be shown in upconverted SD for the next few weeks.

[pgdownload]

3 hours ago, BigH said:

However, just to make it very simple. The move appears not about putting 'Programs' out in HD it's about putting 24 hour News in SD, while still complying with the "must have" an HD channel regulation.

Not sure there is such a regulation? There used to be a minimum 1080 hours of HD required (i.e. a HD channel) but that was dropped about three years back. Stations are pretty much free to broadcast in the definition mix they want these days IIRC.

I think people are being a bit cynical on HD on the ABC. Its only day two and no doubt everything is just starting to settle down from the change. Lets wait a little bit and see what the ABC slips in before canning it already.

Regards

Peter Gillespie 

[MichaelCPE]

2 minutes ago, pgdownload said:

I think people are being a bit cynical on HD on the ABC. Its only day two and no doubt everything is just starting to settle down from the change. Lets wait a little bit and see what the ABC slips in before canning it already.

I think the ABC fully deserve canning for not telling us what is going on.

If this is some real HD being broadcast but they have gone with a VERY soft picture then I can't see why they bothered.

And if as many suspect this is all just unconverted SD and some real HD (which does look significantly better than what is on 21) doesn't start to be broadcast until the fireworks then just tell us this. Not that if they had done this then all the fuss here (and at Whirlpool) would not have happened. 

[davmel]

17 hours ago, MichaelCPE said:

It seems that SBS HD has done something that has removed the problems it used to very often have when fading into a dark scene where everything would get very blocky, and this could last for several seconds. Whatever they have done to fix this problem has made a huge difference. So, assuming that this fix isn't temporary, well done SBS!

Earlier this week they decided to massively increase the bitrate of SBS HD at the expense of the other SD channels (some of which had high bitrates of 5-6 Mbps.

Up until this week SBS HD had an average bitrate of ~3 Mbps which was bloody awful and caused all the rapid scene change blocking problems. Increasing the bitrate back up to the levels it was at several years ago (currently averaging 9.2 Mbps).has improved the situation substantially. The resolution also increased from 1440x1080i to 1920x1080i.

I imagine the "me too" timing of the SBS HD quality change was done deliberately at the same time ABC HD launched as a rather sad attempt to not look like SBS had the worst HD channel of all the broadcasters once ABC HD started. Frankly, it's rather pathetic that FTA broadcasters only get off their ass and improve picture quality when a competitor does something that would make them look bad. They don't give a sh*t what viewers want to see and the quality of the experience for viewers. It's all driven by ego and which network can get away with delivering the absolute minimum to keep the boss happy and money rolling in.

[MichaelCPE]

57 minutes ago, davmel said:

Up until this week SBS HD had an average bitrate of ~3 Mbps

I find it hard to believe that SBS HD had a bit rate that low. MPEG2 SD at only 3M doesn't look great, and apart from the blocking problem upon fading in to dark scenes, SBS HD usually looked OK.  

Given that almost everyone now has the capability to receive MPEG2 HD it makes sense to drastically reduce the bitrate of the SD version of SBS1. 

So far the change of SBS2 going to VICE seems to have been a disaster for the viewer - I've never seen programs repeated so often - so whilst I would have been upset by a decline of picture quality for SBS2 I'm not as bothered by a decline in VICE.

[hrh]

5 hours ago, MichaelCPE said:

I doubt this. I think the ABC is showing some SD sourced content in upconverted SD and is showing lots of HD sourced content in upconverted SD.

Anything that is not HD on ANY of the HD services is upconverted, and as I stated earlier they ALL have some SD content showing on their HD services. We can't just point the finger at Aunty. And some of the content may very well have been HD but has been ingested SD due to limitations of
available equipment. So it has been downconverted then upconverted. But if we want the program that is what must happen - at least in the short term.

5 hours ago, pgdownload said:

Lets wait a little bit and see what the ABC slips in before canning it already.

Agreed

5 hours ago, MichaelCPE said:

I think the ABC fully deserve canning for not telling us what is going on.

What they do or don't choose to tell us is up to them, they have absolutely no obligation to say one way or the other.

In all seriousness have you directly communicated your beef to the ABC? If not, do so, then come here and tell us what they say.

Edited December 8, 2016 by hrh

[pgdownload]

6 hours ago, MichaelCPE said:

I think the ABC fully deserve canning for not telling us what is going on.

If this is some real HD being broadcast but they have gone with a VERY soft picture then I can't see why they bothered.

And if as many suspect this is all just unconverted SD and some real HD (which does look significantly better than what is on 21) doesn't start to be broadcast until the fireworks then just tell us this. Not that if they had done this then all the fuss here (and at Whirlpool) would not have happened. 

Essentially they have. The news station is going to SD, there's a new better quality version of the main SD channel (no ones actually said much about how the new HD channel compares to the main SD channel?) The rest doesn't really need explaining IMO. At the end of the day we now have a SD News station that no one ever wanted to be the only HD station (Tick?) and a primary HD station that has better quality than the SD one we used to only have (Tick?). All that's left is for whirpool to devolve into endless debates about bit rates and source resolution (Tick)

Regards

Peter Gillespie

[MichaelCPE]

Sorry Peter, but can you tell the difference between HD and SD?

If what we are seeing now really is what the ABC are going to present as HD then really there is not much difference between this and what we had before. 

Part the difference between 20 and 21 now is due to 21 now having a reduced bit rate, so the quality of 21 is not as good as before. 

It's like an Australian distributor put out a blu-ray and rather than going to the expense of getting an HD source just upconverted their SD version into HD. If this happened, and people who can actually see the difference between SD and HD complained, you would just say that I have a blu-ray in HD and so what is the problem?

Now if the ABC want to have a great launch of HD, and this is the NYE fireworks, then it makes sense in a way to start channel 20 so that people can do rescans, etc, so they are prepared to watch ABC1 relaunch in HD. My guess is that was the plan, but the marketers have chosen not to let us know that 20 is, for now, just SD quality. Hence all the fuss. 

SBS HD is looking very good tonight. I don't know why people Peter who seem not to be able to tell the difference between 30 and 20 are bothering with HD at all. 

 

[laurie]

2016 Royal Variety Performance Premiere
tx: Sunday 25 December at 7.30pm

Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo 2016 Premiere
tx: Sunday 1 January at 7.30pm

Be interesting to see what these look like on ABC 20 HD

https://decidertv.com/page/2016/12/7/abc-reveals-summer-tv-schedule-abctv

cheers laurie

[lizclinton]

19 hours ago, laurie said:

Meanwhile at Foxtel the so called technical team are unable to explain why ABC HD haven't shown up on their IQ3 satellite stb?

 

cheers laurie

They seem utterly clueless at Foxtel telling us it would be available on launch day then when it didn't show telling customers to rescan their IQ3s to load the new channel before finally saying it wouldn't be made available to satellite customers. Now they're asking us all to provide our postcodes when the problem seems to be a universal fault effecting all satellite IQ3s. Does one of our knowledgeable crew here have an idea as to what the real problem is with ABC HD and the IQ3 and is it going to be a big deal to fix it?

[MichaelCPE]

11 hours ago, laurie said:

2016 Royal Variety Performance Premiere
tx: Sunday 25 December at 7.30pm

Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo 2016 Premiere
tx: Sunday 1 January at 7.30pm

Be interesting to see what these look like on ABC 20 HD

https://decidertv.com/page/2016/12/7/abc-reveals-summer-tv-schedule-abctv

cheers laurie

The only mention of HD in what must be an cut-and-paste of the ABC press release, is the NYE Fireworks.

Thus I think it likely that the Royal Variety Performance will be upconverted SD on ABC 20 and thus look about the same as the old ABC 21.

My HOPE is that after the NYE Fireworks that the ABC finally turn the switches to start broadcasting lots of other stuff in real HD, so there is a chance that the Royal Tattoo will be real HD and thus look much better than the old ABC 21.

[mello yello]

i can see why they didnt make a huge deal out of this ... this "HD" channel is woeful,

 

and these are the guys who assured us our Census data is safe

[alanh]

Liz Clinton,

Viewer Access Satellite Television VAST has been MPEG-4 compressed for HD streams from the start. Therefore all receivers are HD MPEG-4 capable and their DVB-S2 channels can carry more data than DVB-T transmissions on the ground.

The complication is that the ACMA forced the community owned low power transmitters of their programs to decompress HD MPEG-4 signals and then recompress them as MPEG-2. To do this the signal must be separated into individual channels from a single broadcaster and then after recompression combined in a multiplexer to recreate a single digital signal for retransmission. Thus the demux and mux would have to be programmed for channel 20 and a cable connecting the demux and mux would also be required one each site.

These devices would have to be removed so what ever data was received is demodulated to the Asynchronous Serial data and fed straight into the terrestrial transmitter modulated. Ie the data is totally unmodified. The VAST commercials in the Eastern and Central Footprints do not transmit any HD programs. In the Western Footprint WINHD is advertised.

ABCHD is on VAST and can be received by a satellite receiver, but will not be re-radiated from the community sites until the above equipment is bypassed.

 

Alanh

Edited December 9, 2016 by alanh
Muxing

[alanh]

Big H,

At previous enquiries into Digital Television by the Department of Communications, it is predicted that 80 - 90 % of TVs are HD MPEG-4 compatible in 2013. These figures come from receiver sales. Of course they don't include multiple TVs in single households or the longevity of old TVs. There is around 5 million homes in Australia so if 10 % don't have an MPEG-4 TV then 500,000 could possibly complain.

In a reply to me SBS complained that they were swamped with calls when the commercials started primary channel HD. They should have put on the rider that the TV had to be MPEG-4 capable as well.

So what does the word swamped mean? There is no way they could have answered half a million calls, when the other 4.5 million are happly either watching in HD or not watching HD at all.

Alanh

[pgdownload]

14 hours ago, MichaelCPE said:

Sorry Peter, but can you tell the difference between HD and SD? If what we are seeing now really is what the ABC are going to present as HD then really there is not much difference between this and what we had before. 

I won't speak to the quality of the broadcast (its largely subjective). If people want to complain they don't like the PQ then that's fine by me. I was trying to address your complaint which appeared more about how much the ABC has informed people of the changes. The PQ doesn't really need explaining since you can gage it for yourself.

Part the difference between 20 and 21 now is due to 21 now having a reduced bit rate, so the quality of 21 is not as good as before.

This is not really comparable. yes the bit rate was reduced but the compression algorithm was also greatly improved. Presumably the trade off resulted in an overall improvement in PQ? I still find it funny no one has actually mentioned directly comparing channel 20 to channel 21. Does one look better than the other?

It's like an Australian distributor put out a blu-ray and rather than going to the expense of getting an HD source just upconverted their SD version into HD. If this happened, and people who can actually see the difference between SD and HD complained, you would just say that I have a blu-ray in HD and so what is the problem?

I'd have no problem if the retailer was offering both discs for the same price (which is essentially what the ABC is doing - your choice, watch ch20 or watch ch21.) 

Not sure what's with the SBS HD, Some one said they're running it at 9Mbps which should definitely look great.

Guess now we'll all wait and see what happens after the fireworks.

Regards

Peter Gillespie

[MLXXX]

48 minutes ago, pgdownload said:

I still find it funny no one has actually mentioned directly comparing channel 20 to channel 21. Does one look better than the other?

No. And that is the point. All the fuss about launching an HD service, and it looks no better than the SD service.

[pc10]

1 hour ago, alanh said:

Liz Clinton,

Viewer Access Satellite Television VAST has been MPEG-4 compressed for HD streams from the start. Therefore all receivers are HD MPEG-4 capable and their DVB-S2 channels can carry more data than DVB-T transmissions on the ground.

The complication is that the ACMA forced the community owned low power transmitters of their programs to decompress HD MPEG-4 signals and then recompress them as MPEG-2. To do this the signal must be separated into individual channels from a single broadcaster and then after recompression combined in a multiplexer to recreate a single digital signal for retransmission. Thus the demux and mux would have to be programmed for channel 20 and a cable connecting the demux and mux would also be required one each site.

These devices would have to be removed so what ever data was received is demodulated to the Asynchronous Serial data and fed straight into the terrestrial transmitter modulated. Ie the data is totally unmodified. The VAST commercials in the Eastern and Central Footprints do not transmit any HD programs. In the Western Footprint WINHD is advertised.

ABCHD is on VAST and can be received by a satellite receiver, but will not be re-radiated from the community sites until the above equipment is bypassed.

 

Alanh

"the VAST commercials in the Eastern and Central Footprints do not transmit any HD programs"  

That is not correct - 7Mate Central has a reasonable amount of native HD programming during the day and also at night.  For example the NFL on weekday mornings.   I am not referring to upscaling either - native HD MPEG 4 1920 X 1080.   Imparja GEM has recently increased the amount of native HD programming - in response to viewer concerns about the main channel not going over to 9HD.  GEMs HD is less and more sporadic than 7, but nevertheless in HD MPEG 4 1920 x 1080.

One HD on the Central footprint is not supplied a HD feed from the Ten Network and therefore no longer shows any native HD material - classic upscaling in the old tradition