Freeview 'digital mutton dressed as lamb"

Martyn · Post by **Martyn** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 15:19

Interesting article....

http://www.smh.com.au/news/home/technol ... 76080.html

SMH
Rachel Browne
January 11, 2009

IT'S being touted as the dawn of a new era in Australian home entertainment but media experts have derided it as "lipstick on a TV pig".

Freeview is the umbrella term for the free-to-air networks' new channels. The 15 free digital channels are made up of the existing five networks, their high definition (HD) versions and their new standard definition (SD) offshoots.

But only the SD channels are new. The five free-to-air channels have been around for decades and the first HD channel was launched on January 1, 2007.

Rather than offering viewers greater choice, Freeview is a marketing ploy designed to encourage viewers to switch from analog television to digital and slow the flow of viewers to pay television, some television experts say.

"We are a bit pessimistic about it," said media analyst Steve Allen of Fusion Strategy. "It is little more than a marketing tool designed to staunch the onward march of pay TV and encourage people to switch to digital."

Digital television has existed in Australia since 2001 but the take-up has been low. About 40percent of Australian households have made the switch.

The Federal Government announced recently it would cut off the analog TV signal in 2013, requiring all Australian viewers to have a digital tuner or set-top box to receive a signal.

"That will entail some expense for everybody and that's what the Federal Government and the networks are worried about," said media commentator David Knox, of tvtonight.com.au.

"So they are making Freeview sound like this wonderful new service when in fact it's not offering anything particularly different."

Of the SD channels, only ABC2 is well established, with new programming as well as time-shifted programs from ABC1.

The proposed World channel from SBS is dependent on government funding. Of the commercial networks, only Channel Ten has announced plans for its new SD channel. Called One, the 24-hour sports channel will begin broadcasting between April and June this year.

Mr Knox said: "Ten is fairly well advanced with its plans [but] I find it staggering that Seven and Nine, who have known for a long time that as of January 1, 2009, they would have all these extra channels, are yet to announce what they are doing. I think it's a case of each one waiting to see what the other guy is doing."

The commercial networks are also wary of further fracturing their audiences, which have been in slow decline over the past decade due to the advent of pay television and the internet.

Mr Allen said: "Content is the biggest problem for anyone launching a new channel. Are we to believe there are all these hidden gems out there in the world that we haven't seen? I don't think so."

Mr Knox is also sceptical. "I can't see the networks making loads of new programs for these channels. And I can't see them cannibalising the main channels to provide extra entertainment on the new ones. It's just mutton dressed up as lamb."

Foxtel also questioned the 15-channel claim, saying only three of them - One and the yet to be announced channels from Nine and Seven - were new.

But Freeview chairman Kim Dalton said: "[Freeview] means more channels and that means more content and greater choice."

"The digital service also offers better picture quality and better sound quality."

But he admitted: "The reality for the commercial channels will be that new local content will be limited because of the cost of producing new programs."

prl · Post by **prl** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 15:21

Yes, the author has a firm grasp of the bleedin' obvious

I agree wholeheartedly with pretty much everything in the article, though you don't need to be an "expert" to work this out. A passing familiarity with arithmetic suffices

Gully · Post by **Gully** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 15:47

It's what I and others have been saying from the start and as Peter said more of the bleeding obvious.

Still one unanswered question for me and that is what's happening with Community TV like Channel 31?

IanSav · Post by **IanSav** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 15:53

Hi,

There is also little said about where the bandwidth for these new channels is coming from. I expect the quality of all the LCNs to drop when they have to make space for the new channel. That is, the poor quality of the HD channels is more than likely going to be changed, for the worst, when the new channels arrive.

Regards,
Ian.

prl · Post by **prl** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 15:58

Gully wrote:...
Still one unanswered question for me and that is what's happening with Community TV like Channel 31?

I suspect that it will be expected to continue with its current (lack of serious) funding.

One interesting question the article does raise is about funding for ABC3/Kids and for SBS World News (and how that differs from the existing SBS Digital/SBS News service). And the follow-on question about what happens with the children's programming on ABC1 and ABC2 if there's a dedicated ABC Kids' service, and if it moves, what replaces it?

prl · Post by **prl** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 16:00

IanSav wrote:Hi,

There is also little said about where the bandwidth for these new channels is coming from. I expect the quality of all the LCNs to drop when they have to make space for the new channel. That is, the poor quality of the HD channels is more than likely going to be changed, for the worst, when the new channels arrive.

Regards,
Ian.

Indeed. That's another instance of the tyranny of arithmetic. The only thing is that the numbers to work from require a modicum of research.

Gully · Post by **Gully** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 16:03

prl wrote:
Gully wrote:...
Still one unanswered question for me and that is what's happening with Community TV like Channel 31?
I suspect that it will be expected to continue with its current (lack of serious) funding.

I'm sure that will always be the case but I think they will have to do something to make digital accessible for them.

prl · Post by **prl** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 16:05

Gully wrote:
prl wrote:
Gully wrote:...
Still one unanswered question for me and that is what's happening with Community TV like Channel 31?
I suspect that it will be expected to continue with its current (lack of serious) funding.
I'm sure that will always be the case but I think they will have to do something to make digital accessible for them.

Oops, forgot that bit, even though I heard mention of it in The Media Report on RN not long ago.

Paul55 · Post by **Paul55** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 18:31

IanSav wrote:Hi,

There is also little said about where the bandwidth for these new channels is coming from. I expect the quality of all the LCNs to drop when they have to make space for the new channel. That is, the poor quality of the HD channels is more than likely going to be changed, for the worst, when the new channels arrive.

Regards,
Ian.

I'm not as pessimistic on this front. Currently Ten network currently has 2 x HD (digital 1 and 12) and 1 x SD (10). When this becomes 1 x HD and 2 x SD, I can't see a bandwidth problem - though I may be missing something bleedin' obvious.
ABC already has 1 x HD and 2 x SD, so no change there. I also assume networks Nine and Seven have similar bandwidth as ABC and Ten.

tonymy01 · Post by **tonymy01** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 18:35

Yes, you are missing the bleeding obvious, that TenHD only has 1HD stream, and LCN1 & LCN12 both point their video, audio etc PIDs to that stream.
Also, look at how poor the ABC2 quality is. Look at how poor the ABCHD quality can be when there is any kind of colourful contrasts and movement. ABCHD is also not 1080i, but only 720p.
Regards

prl · Post by **prl** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 18:48

tonymy01 wrote:... Look at how poor the ABCHD quality can be when there is any kind of colourful contrasts and movement. ...

But also remember that almost nothing on ABC HD is actually HD. It's almost all upscaled SD. At the moment only Rain Shadow is actually HD source material.

The broadcast parameters of the commercial channels in the ACT give them, IIRC, 23Mb/s. They broadcast between 12 and 15Mb/s for their HD channels. Two decent bitrate HD channels leave essentially no room for anything else (or worse). Two SD channels at about 6Mb/s and one HD channel at 15Mb/s just won't fit. As I said, it's the tyranny of arithmetic.

Edit: The bitrate for SC10 Canberra is about 21Mb/s. The linked post has some examples of the current bit budget for broadscats in the ACT.

brianh · Post by **brianh** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 20:31

....NOT to forget that another more covert agenda of Freeview is the denial of an unencrypted EPG to those without "Freeview" branded hardware.

I still say that participation in this aspect of their operation by the ABC is outside their brief.

prl · Post by **prl** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 15:17

Martyn wrote:Interesting article....

http://www.smh.com.au/news/home/technol ... 76080.html

SMH
Rachel Browne
January 11, 2009

... Of the commercial networks, only Channel Ten has announced plans for its new SD channel. Called One, the 24-hour sports channel will begin broadcasting between April and June this year.
...

This seems to be a misreading of what the Ten press release actually says about Ten's plans:

New sports digital multi-channel to launch in 2009: ONE
Network Ten today announced the first all-new commercial free-to-air television channel in almost 50 years, a dedicated sports channel to provide Australians 24-hour sports coverage from home and around the world.

As a free-to-air channel, it will be available to Australians who are widely acknowledged as the world?s greatest sports enthusiasts. The new channel will allow Australians to share their unifying passion for sport: and will be named ONE.

ONE will be broadcast from early in the second quarter of calendar 2009 in High Definition (HD) on Channel 1 and it will also be available in Standard Definition (SD) on the network's second SD channel (Channel 12).
...

My emphasis.

That reads to me like the abandonment of the current Ten HD for ONE, with only sport content being shown on Ten in HD, and the second SD channel simply being a downscaled version of ONE, the HD "dedicated sports channel".

peteru · Post by **peteru** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 15:37

Sounds like Ten are going to start competing with Nine for the worst programming line up.

Replacing high definition shows like BSG with synchronised swimming? What are they thinking?

prl · Post by **prl** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 15:58

peteru wrote:Sounds like Ten are going to start competing with Nine for the worst programming line up.
...

I'd make it: Sounds like Ten are going to start competing with Fox for the worst programming line up.

bohemian · Post by **bohemian** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 18:40

prl wrote: I'd make it: Sounds like Ten are going to start competing with Fox for the worst programming line up.

Naaaa, peteru got it right, best for us to compare complete and utter twits, with complete and utter twits

prl · Post by **prl** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 21:31

bohemian wrote:
prl wrote: I'd make it: Sounds like Ten are going to start competing with Fox for the worst programming line up.
Naaaa, peteru got it right, best for us to compare complete and utter twits, with complete and utter twits

One of the things where I think the article is right is that Freeview is an attempt to "take on" pay TV. The advertising is trying to paint it as essentially "free pay TV", with a large amount of choice, but with no cost. Hence the comparison with Fox.

Ten, I suspect, will be followed in general by the other two commercials. They must fund another channel of content essentially on the hope of stealing audience share from pay TV (and other competition like downloads). I doubt they will shift audience share much. Ten is doing this essentially by pretending that two channels is three. I don't expect any better from the others, though they'll probably do it in diferent ways.

Of course this is only part of the Freeview agenda. The other, and again I agree with the article here, is to shift the audience from analog to digital, with claims of lots more choice. The takeup of digital is still only about 40%. They don't want the screams to be too loud when the plug is pullled on the analog transmitters in Sydney and Melbourne in 2013. And, of course, there are the suspicions about funny business with the EPG and PVR ad skipping. I'm still quite unsure how that will pan out. They risk alienating a lot of people in that existing 40% if they pull something really stupid. I still wouldn't put it past them.

Another thing that the press release indicates is that because of existing contracts and anti-siphoning laws, some sport will be shown on the existing Ten SD service, and some of that will be simulcast on ONE, and on the ONE SD clone. So it will be all three services showing the same stuff. Some choice.

Peter D · Post by **Peter D** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 08:47

I thought the anti-siphoning laws still allowed a network to broadcast on other dioital services instead of the service that is simulcast on analogue.

download · Post by **download** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 09:19

Peter D wrote:I thought the anti-siphoning laws still allowed a network to broadcast on other dioital services instead of the service that is simulcast on analogue.

I think the AS laws are about to go up for review as they're doing the exact opposite now of what they were intended to. I believe the current situation is listed sports can only be shown on the main SD channel. They can optionally be simulcast on other channels - theoretically in this situation 10 should switch the ONESD channel to show something other than sport.

Regards

Peter Gillespie

Paul55 · Post by **Paul55** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 12:17

But then some viewers would complain that Ten aren't meeting their claim of having a 24/7 sports channel. It's a no-win situation for them.