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)