Talk:Digital terrestrial television in Australia

Changes

I've moved some tings around and added a history section to this article - what I'm wondering is, whether something like this should go in the technical section (which needs expanding):

LCN	Channel Name

timgraham 14:42, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Great work on the article Tim :). With regards to the table above, I do not think it belongs in the article as Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. A link could be provided to an external website that contains the LCN channel-lineup, however I do not think it should be placed on the article. As a compromise, a table containing information on what channel numbers "6-699" are used for, etc, would possibly add encylopedic worth to the article.Stickeylabel 11:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I have now implemented my idea here: Digital television in Australia#Technical. I hope to hear your thoughts. Thanks. Stickeylabel 12:06, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

The idea was based on what was in the UK equivalent to the article had. What you've done looks good. timgraham 13:34, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks :). I have now added a To Do template at the top of this page, so we are able to see what is needed in order to bring the article to a GA standard. Please modify and add anything I have missed. Stickeylabel 06:55, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

There's only so much you can add, though - I have a book on the ABC which has a few mentions of ABC2 so I'll see what I can do.. timgraham 08:53, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

That's true Tim, there is not too much more that can be added. However, the multi-view section could be expanded, as I have only added bare information, and I will try to expand it soon. Also, I will try and research information for the Technical section, with regards to changes in broadcast parameters. Stickeylabel 09:11, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

You might want to add to your to-do list subscription and community TV - I'll expand on that soonish but I do know that the old pay TV service Galaxy was the first to use digital. Then there's the whole issue of Channel A and Channel B, and digital community TV. timgraham 11:51, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Good points about Channel A and Channel B, as well as community TV. In my opinion, it would be best to focus the article on terrestial free-to-air, as adding subscription will confuse and complicate the article with regards to history, technical standards and content. However, I will add Channel A and Channel B, as well as community TV to the to-do list. Stickeylabel 12:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Good article nomination on hold

My main suggestion is that there should be a new section at the start of the article which orientates the reader to the topic of Digital terrestrial television in Australia and provides Context for what is to follow. Terms such as "datacasting" and "high definition services" should be briefly explained. (I realise that these terms are wikilinked, but feel that more is needed in this article.)

Also, there are quite a few awkward sentences:

Transmissions are available in most regional and metropolitan areas, with regional and remote Western Australia, and Central Australia the final markets to have yet to launch any digital television transmissions.[4]

The establishment of digital terrestrial television in Australia can be traced back to 1993, when a group of specialists drawn from the then-Australian Broadcasting Authority, Department of Transport and Communications as well as broadcasters and manufacturers.

Similar to the approach taken by the United States, it allowed the commercial and public broadcasters 7Mhz of spectrum free of charge for 8 years, in order to simulcast services in digital and analogue, after which it was to be returned to the Commonwealth.[7]

The Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcasting Selection Panel, a group of representatives comprised of representatives of the public broadcasters ABC and SBS, commercial and regional broadcasters, the Department of Communications, the Information Economy and the Arts, and the Australian Broadcasting Authority, announced the choice of the European DVB-T system for digital terrestrial television was announced on June 18, 1998.[8]

And this paragraph was also difficult to follow:

Since the commencement of Digital television in Australia on January 1, 2001, various broadcasters have provided digital multiview enhancements and datacast services. For the duration of the Rugby World Cup in 2003, the Seven Network provided a multi-view service, consisting of two additional channels; an alternate commentary and a statistical datacast channel.[24] For both the June 2004 and March 2005 telecasts of Pompeii: The Last Day, the Nine Network and NBN Television provided a multi-view channel, featuring onscreen informational text. During the telecast of the 2004 Summer Olympics, both the Seven Network and Prime Television provided a multi-view datacast service, which provided various audio, visual and textual enhancements.[25] Similarly in 2005 for the Melbourne Cup, Australian Open, Australian Open Golf, and the One-Day International series from the United Kingdom, the Seven Network provided a multi-view datacast service.[26]

This paragraph talks about digital multiview enhancements, datacast services, multi-view service, statistical datacast channel, multi-view channel, and multi-view datacast service. I found it very confusing. Maybe some of these terms could be explained in the Context section that I spoke of.

Please also bear in mind that the lead section needs to summarise the main points of the article (see WP:LEAD). As it stands there are some points in the lead which don't seem to appear in the body of the article.

The one last thing is that the ABC2 image needs a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image is consistent with fair use in this article.

I'm putting this article on hold as the article has the potential for GA status, however the issues noted above must be dealt with before GA status can be awarded. I hope that this can be addressed within the seven days allowed by on hold, and wish you all the best with your editing... -- Johnfos 03:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I've added a bit to it and tried to correct what you've pointed out - thanks for that by the way - although there might be some changes that others want/need to make. timgraham 06:22, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I have now cleaned up the article a bit, and I have written fair-use rationales for all fair-use images on the article. Hopefully the article is now up to a standard where it can be awarded GA status. Stickeylabel 09:06, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Good Article

Thanks, SL and Tim, the changes look good and the article now meets all of the GA criteria... congratulations... Johnfos 08:35, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Electronic Program Guide clarification needed.

There are two quite different types of guides being broadcast and this article does not distinguish between them. There is the text data stream that PVRs (such as MythTV) frequently want for programming, and then there is what the commercial stations are calling "EPG"s. These latter ones are additional video streams with formatted guide information and a miniature view of the main channel. ABC and SBS (AFAIK) do not devote bandwidth to these latter things. There is also a dedicated video channel for all guide information.

The text data stream has been spotty in support. ABC has been the best: data is provided for programming up to a week in advance for both the main channel and for ABC2. SBS provides data for at least some hours in advance (possibly more - I haven't looked) but only for the HD stream. Until very recently, the three commercial stations only gave the current and the next program, which was quite inconvenient, although they covered both SD and HD streams, and D44 doesn't provide any.

However, I discovered in the last week that Ten and Nine are now providing data for several days in advance, which is quite a welcome improvement. Seven is conspicious by its omission.

If no-one has more information, I'll add a section about this in a few days, based on what I've written here.

StaticSan (talk) 00:49, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

FTA channels available via Satellite.

I changed Sydney/Foxtel/Austar to Sydney/Foxtel/Austar/Satellite because there are some channels available via satellite. These are free to air channels that don't have a subscription fee. List of satellite channels from Australia: http://www.lyngsat.com/freetv/Australia.html More channels, mostly from overseas, are available from other satellites.

122.108.50.15 (talk) 14:26, 5 May 2009 (UTC)Anonymous

Future Channels

The entire section seems to be garbage. The appearance of LCN's on SBS is not indicative of a launch of future channels, nor is speculation or a possible desire by the heads of such channels in the future.~ Trisreed my talk my contribs 05:38, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

reverting me

Apparently a user by the IP address of 122.107.175.135 (talk) keeps on removing <!-- (diff 1, diff 2 and diff 3.). Could you please tell him to stop? -- PK2 (talk) 10:36, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Need to have current channel table.

As Freeview is only an advertising name, there is a need to keep a current channel table here. Also, if you look at other articles (for example, List of digital terrestrial television channels (UK) or Digital radio in Australia) they are listed under the type name, instead of the company. Wally Otto (talk) 09:59, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

New channel table

The channel table in this article and Freeview (Australia) has been changed to a template. The main reason is that the channel tables in both articles are for the exact same purpose and should display the exact same information. Obviously whenever an edit is made to the table in one article, it means having to update the table in the other article, so it makes sense to have a template to act as the channel table in both articles to avoid having to do that. I don't see any reason why anyone should object to it, since the tables in each article are virtually identical.

Any edits made to the channel table should now be directed at the template here. Thanks Fruit.bmp (talk) 08:46, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

• Neutral I can see a point in saving having to cut and paste it so often, as well as keeping two seperate tables, however, as the Freeview one has to match the Freeview descriptions and listing, whilst this article's one has the current listing (to cancel out any new stations, like Eleven, as they have their own section), so therefore it's moderately important they remain seperate. Wally Otto (talk) 00:00, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

• OK, I see what you mean. So this article's table should be more focused on a more neutral perspective, while the Freeview list of channels should reflect how Freeview presents its suite of channels. For example, the Freeview table should include Eleven, but this article shouldn't include it until it has launched. As I said before, at the moment the two tables are identical with the exception of a few insignificant details, so a major clean up would be needed on both tables. Anyone else's view on this would be appreciated. Fruit.bmp (talk) 12:12, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose I can see what you're trying to do but the template isn't easy to edit (you have to navigate to the template page to edit it), it is unlikely to prevent vandalism (infact the template can do more harm then good). If this was a template similar other templates (e.g. {{Weather box}}, {{Infobox dam}} ect) then I would consider it. Bidgee (talk) 07:25, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

• Fair enough. Wally Otto's comment actually made me reconsider my point of view on the template. The channel tables on each page being identical was the reason why I made the template, but I see now that differentiating the two tables is a better solution. I've cleaned up the Freeview channels section, removing information that doesn't have anything to do with the Freeview brand itself and editing the list of channels to better represent Freeview, as there's a difference between Freeview and general digital TV. Fruit.bmp (talk) 07:48, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Major reorganisation of channels section

This is the major clean up I mentioned. This is slightly bigger than the current channel section, but less messy and cluttered. It's based on the UK channel table, includes a 'parent company' section which I think is necessary, and is divided into separate sections. It also eliminates the ambiguous notes column. Improvement or too big? Fruit.bmp (talk) 06:58, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

General entertainment

Channel Name	Parent company	Broadcast hours	Format	Availability information
ABC1	Australian Broadcasting Corporation	24 hours	576i SDTV	LCNs 2, 21.
ABC2	Australian Broadcasting Corporation	5:30am to 2:00am	576i SDTV	LCN 22.
Seven Network	Seven Media Group	24 hours	576i SDTV	Metro: LCNs 7, 71. Regional: Branded as GWN in regional Western Australia, SCTV in Tasmania and Darwin and Prime in most other regional areas, LCN 6.
7Two	Seven Media Group	24 hours	576i SDTV	LCN 72 (Metro, Darwin), 62 (other broadcast areas).
7mate	Seven Media Group	24 hours	1080i HDTV	LCN 73 (Metro), 70 (Darwin), 60 (Tasmania), 63 (other broadcast areas).
Nine Network	PBL Media	24 hours	576i SDTV	Metro: LCN 9. Regional: Branded as NBN in northern New South Wales and WIN in most other regional areas, LCN 8.
Go!	PBL Media	24 hours	576i SDTV	LCN 99 (Metro), 88 (other broadcast areas).
GEM	PBL Media	24 hours	1080i HDTV	LCN 90 (Metro), 80 (other broadcast areas).
Network Ten	Ten Network Holdings	24 hours	576i SDTV	Metro: LCN 10. Regional: Branded as Ten Digital in Tasmania, Mildura, Darwin and Regional Western Australia and Southern Cross Ten in most other regional areas, LCN 5.
SBS One	Special Broadcasting Service	5:00am to 2:00am	576i SDTV	LCNs 3, 33, 34
SBS One HD	Special Broadcasting Service	5:00am to 2:00am	720p HDTV	LCN 30.
SBS Two	Special Broadcasting Service	6:30am to 1:00am	576i SDTV	LCN 32.

Genre-specific

Channel name and genre	Parent company	Broadcast hours	Format	Availability information
ABC3 (children 6-15)	Australian Broadcasting Corporation	6:00am to 9:00pm	576i SDTV	LCN 23.
ABC News 24 (news)	Australian Broadcasting Corporation	24 hours	720p HDTV	LCN 24.
One HD (sport)	Ten Network Holdings	24 hours	1080i HDTV	LCNs 1, 11 (Metro), 50 (other broadcast areas).

Radio

Channel Name	Parent company	Broadcast hours	Format	Availability information
ABC Dig Music	Australian Broadcasting Corporation	24 hours	Audio only	LCN 200.
ABC Jazz	Australian Broadcasting Corporation	24 hours	Audio only	LCN 201.
SBS Radio 1	Special Broadcasting Service	24 hours	Audio only	LCN 38.
SBS Radio 2	Special Broadcasting Service	24 hours	Audio only	LCN 39.

Community television

Channel Name		Broadcast hours	Format	Availability information
TVS		24 hours	576i SDTV	LCN 44 (Sydney).
C31		24 hours	576i SDTV	LCN 44 (Melbourne).
44 Adelaide		8:00am to 11:30pm	576i SDTV	LCN 44 (Adelaide).
31 Digital		24 hours	576i SDTV	LCN 44 (Brisbane).
West TV		7:00am to 12:00am	576i SDTV	LCN 44 (Perth).

Defunct channels

Date of closure	Channel Name	Notes
June 30, 2003	ABC Kids	Shared space with Fly TV, axed due to budget cuts. Replaced with ABC2 in 2005.
June 30, 2003	Fly TV	Shared space with ABC Kids, axed due to budget cuts. Replaced with ABC2 in 2005
January 25, 2007	SBS Essential
February 25, 2008	MyTalk	News and EPG channel, regional areas only.
July 4, 2008	Seven Guide	EPG channel.
November 13, 2008	Nine Guide	EPG channel.
February 11, 2009	Ten Guide	EPG channel.
March 26, 2009	Ten HD	Replaced with One HD.
June 1, 2009	SBS World News Channel	Replaced with SBS Two.
July 6-8, 2010	ABC HD	Replaced with ABC News 24.
September 25, 2010	Seven HD	Replaced with 7mate.
September 26, 2010	Nine HD	Replaced with GEM.

The following channels were only available in Sydney as part of the Digital 44 suite of channels.

• 4 - DTV Guide Ended 30 April 2010.
• 40 - NITV Ended 30 April 2010 (Available on Pay-TV).
• 41 - Digital 44: ABC News, Sport & Weather Ended 30 April 2010.
• 42 - Digital 44 Homepage Ended 30 April 2010
• 45 - Teachers TV launched November 2008. Ended 30 April 2010
• 46 - Australian Christian Channel Ended 30 April 2010.
• 47 - Macquarie Digital Ended 11 June 2007.
• 48 - TAB Channel Ended February, 2005.
• 49 - EXPO Ended 30 April 2010.
• 401 - House of Representatives. Moved to Channel 47 c. June 2007. Ended 30 April 2010
• 402 - Senate. Ended 30 April 2010 Moved to Channel 48 c. June 2007. Ended 30 April 2010
• 403 - House of Representatives Main Committee.
• 404 - Committee Room 1.
• 405 - Committee Room 2.
• 406 - Committee Room 3.
• 407 - Committee Room 4.

Future channels

Date of expected launch	Channel Name	Notes
October 31, 2010	Nine	Spencer Gulf/Broken Hill region.
January 11, 2011	Eleven	Replacing One SD.
2011	Ten Central	Remote Central Australia region.

Digital Channel Technical Details

IS it worthwile adding a section of Technical parameters of Digital TV in Australia. E.G bandwidth, modulation and even FEC etc? If its worth while, I can provide the info directly off the air (as seen by a MythTV receiver) from a single capital city. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.243.109.192 (talk) 02:14, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

There should at least be a mention of the fequencies used by DTV in Australia. I've just looked at all the articles linked and not one mentions the radio frequencies blocked aside for the technology. 121.45.74.126 (talk) 04:40, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Needs overhaul

This site is filled with old information. Digital TV switchover is now complete: why doesn't this page reflect this? 213.160.112.98 (talk) 12:59, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

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