Aussies criticizing Seven Network for compressing HD feeds
by Darren Murph 
posted Jul 4th 2007 at 9:59PM
Same story, different continent. The compression bug has seemingly struck again, and this time its aggravating those Down Under who'd like to enjoy Seven Network's 1080i programming in all of its high-definition glory. After just recently flipping the switch to broadcast content in HD, a sect of Australians have already begun to grumble over the "relatively low amount of bandwidth the network has allocated to the high-definition channel." Of course, it should be noted that "most" viewers have seen no reason to get bent out of shape, but for those relaxing in Oz, what say ye on the Seven situation?
Filed under: Cable
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
fd @ Jul 4th 2007 10:20PM
We have cancelled our HD service due to over compression / poor image quality in the few HD channels available to us and their HD broadcasts.
HDNET was super. The rest was generally up-sampled and looked worse than SD. I will not pay a premium price for mediocre quality. When I returned the box to Adelphia / Time Warner, the lady behind the counter said "Well I have HD and I don't see anything wrong with my image". Right. On her standard TV ... Talked to a local executive of the ABC affiliate and he understood the issued, but said the signal was based on whatever ABC headquarters decided and made available to them, that they were not the source of the programming, nor the cable company. Which is true.
Too bad. I really like HD. Maybe in a few years I'll be back on HD when channels start to decide it is important to have a crisp image that doesn't have to catch up with itself (artifacts, ...) .
Andrew @ Jul 5th 2007 3:54AM
What makes 7 so bad here is that their definition of "HD" is 576P - which is what the rest of the world would call enhanced definition. Even the ABC (government owned station equivalent to PBS/BBC) broadcasts in 720P, with 9 and 10 both supporting 1080i. Only SBS - the govt owned ethnic broadcaster - is left on 576P. Pick up your game Seven.
What makes me really laugh is their constant promos for movies etc "in high def". I support the concept that multi-channeling is preferred to using the bandwidth for true HD, but at least move to 720P - and especially before the olympics next year.
Mathew McBride @ Jul 5th 2007 5:51AM
I suspect Sevens compression antics are due to sport multichannelling.
ABC and SBS also have a lot of bandwidth taken up by ABC 2, SBS 2, various radio services over DVB-T.
(In Australia the government owned broadcasters, ABC and SBS, can multi channel under certain restrictions. Commercial ones currently can only multi channel for sport events)
And as Andrew notes, its never been taken seriously by 7. Most of the country is [probably] on $50 SDTV boxes anyway.
(From what I understand, the US has pushed for HDTV preferred over the air from the start. In Aus we've pushed for SDTV for the masses, then HDTV, as there are rampant interference problems relating to analogue transmissions of various channels. )
SimbaDogg @ Jul 5th 2007 3:44PM
ABC...oh yeah, australian broacasting company
Kevin @ Jul 5th 2007 11:57PM
Andrew, Seven have changed from 576p to 1080i so we can finally put that whole issue to rest. The issue now is that they've not allocated enough bandwidth to the 1080i channel.
What Seven have now is far better than what we had before, but they still have a little way to go before everyone is happy.
Obake @ Jul 6th 2007 1:12AM
Ch7 recently (about 2 weeks ago) changed to 1080i. I still haven't decided if i prefer 576p(@9500Kbps) or the new 1080i(@105000Kbps). Maybe they should have gone 720p(@105000Kbps), I think i prefer watching a progressive image apposed to interlaced and my TV is only 720p anyway :)