Seven Network's 7HD launch takes Australia by surprise
Australia's Seven Network took its competitors and its customers by surprise yesterday when it officially launched its HDTV channel, six weeks ahead of the original December launch date. 7HD's plan is to "blitz" its competitors, according to executive David Leckie, and it seems to have worked, with Channels Ten and Nine still waiting 'til December to go ahead with HD broadcasts. No word yet if they have resolved the 1080i compression problems noted during testing in July, but some forum posters are complaining that the advertised 5.1 surround sound is still just regular stereo.Read - DTV Forum Australia
Read - Herald Sun
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Curt @ Oct 17th 2007 7:45PM
You seem to have missed the point. You've made it sound as if this is about HD broadcasts and not HD multi-channelling. 7's competitors have offered 1080i on their HD channels for years with 7 only just catching up in June (up from 576p). Their commencement of multi-channelling 6 weeks early is nothing to applaud them about.
as6 @ Oct 22nd 2007 12:41AM
The problem is that Seven haven't launched ANOTHER HD channel, they are now just using the one that they have for alternate programming. All this has done is annoy the hell out of me. Why? I have a HD hard disk recorder which I use to record shows like The Unit and Stargate. I missed these shows last week because, as I usually record them on the HD channel to watch on my big plasma, I ended up recording something completely different. Now I have to put up with SD recordings of late night programs, which kinda defeats the purpose of a HD hard dick recorder and big plasma tv.