D-Day for Definition
Viewers in other countries will now see Neighbours in high definition ahead of Australians. What does ONE HD mean for drama, comedy and light entertainment?
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
The arrival of ONE HD tonight is a big, bold step by Network TEN in the switch to digital television.
A 24 hour sports channel will provide many armchair sports fans with oodles of events, some of them big, many that are obscure, for TEN viewers in 5 capital cities. Regional viewers now know, somewhat belatedly, they are struggling to be heard in an issue TEN has handballed to Southern Cross.
Yesterday TEN announced its sponsors for ONE including Harvey Norman, Hungry Jacks, Mars, Panasonic, Pokerstars.net and Sportsbet.
But the arrival also marks the end of TEN HD and with it a swathe of programming that was available to viewers in high definition.
In the race to corner the advertising market in sports, TEN will leave behind viewers who were enjoying dramas, light entertainment and other programming in glorious high definition sound and pictures.
From today they are no longer available. There are no immediate plans to address this.
Staggeringly, in 2009 shows that will no longer air in HD include Neighbours, So You Think You Can Dance Australia, Australian Idol, House, Rove and more.
Recently, TEN even upgraded its facilities to allow shows like Neighbours to shift to the digital age. Now, viewers in other countries will enjoy the superior quality over those in Australia.
What an astounding outcome.
So as the industry and Freeview screams at us to upgrade to digital, you could be forgiven for asking “what for?”
Wasn’t the whole point of upgrading to see our favourite shows in superior sound and image?
TEN was brief in response to the problem when the point was raised by TV Tonight.
“Whilst we had the opportunity we provided viewers with programs in HD, however this is a brand new offering and a brand new channel – ONE launching on Thursday at 7:30pm,” said a spokesperson.
TEN also diminished its alternative drama programming on TEN HD this year. Shows that had moved from TEN to TEN HD such as Monk, Smallville, Psych and Friday Night Lights are now a slim chance at finding new timeslots.
This is a race for revenue and branding with viewers, and drama, left out of the picture.
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- Tagged with Australian Idol, Friday Night Lights, House, Monk, Neighbours, ONE HD, Psych, Rove, Smallville, So You Think You Can Dance Australia
49 Responses
I don’t mind it.
They took a risk with an ambitious concept for their second channel and were willing to invest in it.
If sports channel was SD only, then in the future you would have had viewers complaining that sport is not shown in HD.
They had to make a choice and they were inevitably going to annoy a group of viewers.
why dont ten just use channel 11 for ten hd?? considering its the same as 12 hd and 1 hd
This is complete bullsh*t Channel 10. I officially hate you now.
This is probably one of the biggest cons of digital TV, As tax payers we paid for the conversion for each of the licensed channels, we then paid for the upgraded TVs and set top boxs (for some there have been two upgrades) Then the networks have effectively taken away the service. In fact the better approach would have been to put sport on another standard definition channel but the combination of 2 std and one HD is too much for the bandwidth available.
Retirement of the old analog service does not guarantee any better result either. Could I also point out in the regional areas of QLD and NSW they are still waiting to see any of their programs in HD because the lazy regional broadcasters leave the old HD test signal rolling all night showing hot airballoons rising and people picking bunches of flowers in a loop !
All of Tens programming & financial decisions in the last 2 years have reduced the share price by 2/3 ! They have failed as a business . Their transmission licence is their only asset. I predict FOX of USA wil bail them out .ONE in HD is a mistake, again. Until Digital tv is the only transmission they must put their programs out in analogue & SD digital. Particularly in country areas.
mac, read some of the comments in the post ‘afl live in melbourne’ where you will find out why the AFL isn’t being shown live across the country. Also, ONE HD is the first real new fta commercial channel to launch in 40 years because it is stand alone whereas the HD channels on 7 & 9 only breakaway from their main channels at certain times and are simulcast at other times.
ONE really would’ve worked better as a secondary SD channel rather than both SD and HD, I believe the second SD channel should be the alternate channel whilst HD remains for seeing the main channel in better quality, it makes sense to me. Its a shame for sure.
according to the newspapers there has been the first new fta channel in 40 years 3 time since October: 7HD, TENHD and ONE lol
I swear to god Neon Kitten you really need to do some research. You claim you have but you obviously haven’t.
There is a group of females I know who are looking forward to the One HD, for particular sports, just as well as the males.
Neighbours was great in HD, I have the screencaps and the videos to proove it but I hardly watch TEN anymore so this doesn’t really affect me.
Rush is a crap program, wasn’t looking that good in HD in the first place.
4. More people will rely on illegal downloads to watch their favourite shows on HD
For me this comment does not apply to me. Why waste 8-12 gigs on HD file when it will be released on dvd eventually . I rather not waste my bandwith on these such things. I rather have a standard dvd copy that I bought legally.
Honestly I think they did the right thing by canning TEN HD and making away for Sports.
Agree with Neon Kitten that 10’s HD channel should have been a combination of both ONE and 10 programs thus allowing 10’s HD shows to be shown in HD.
My understanding is current bandwidth allows 1 HD and 4 SD channels or 2 HD channels only. Obviously they cannot have 2 HD’s as they must provide at least one SD channel.
When analogue switches off in 2013, there will be more bandwidth allowing for another 2 HD channels or extra SD’s obviously subject to licensing rules then.
I’ll put my 2cents in for the regional viewer, we have never seen TenHD (alternate programming) and for the last couple of months have only had the demo loop 24 hours a day 7 days a week. We missed the last series of programs that did show on TenHD such as Torchwood S2, Smallville, Battlestar Galactica etc etc.
ONE’s website says “Thanks to the introduction of ONE, Network Ten’s new 24-hour free-to-air sports channel, we now have the opportunity to play sport live – whatever time of the day or night the event occurs”
well the first program on ONE is AFL which will only be shown live in Melbourne, i guess there saying they have the opportunity but they wont take it. isnt the swimming being shown in other states from days ago, im sure more people in none afl states would watch this highly anticipated afl match than days old swimming.
I just don’t understand why they can’t keep the 4 going like they have now. Make preset 1 ONE HD [sport], 10 10HD [HD transmission of regular broadcasting], 11 as 10SD and 12 as ONE-SD.
It’s a massive step back in terms of giving viewers HD content which is readily available in so many countries. It is incredible that the USA can go fully digital in about 1/3 of the time we have to come this tiny far!
TEN: “Whilst we had the opportunity we provided viewers with programs in HD, however this is a brand new offering and a brand new channel – ONE launching on Thursday at 7:30pm.”
Umm. How does that answer the question about HD programming, Ten?
am I the only one suspicious/paranoid enough to think that the whole reason behind ONEHD is so that the FTA broadcasters can point to it and claim that they still require anti-siphoning laws for sport content as they really DO play out all the sport they hold rights to?
I’m sure TEN have done their research and it all makes sense to them, but as a consumer it makes no sense to me. Why take away an HD channel with broad appeal and replace it with one that only speaks to one, albeit significant, market segment?
Ultimately, I don’t really care. Most of what I watch is on Foxtel as the FTA broadcasters screw around with their programming so much that now I just wait for it to be run on cable.
Johnson, this has already started. eg The Tudors, Damages.
I also bought Blu-ray Cranford from the UK and of course it is infinitely better than what was shown on the ABC.
This was my major concern when I first heard of ONE’s inception. They seriously don’t care if viewers are not seeing their shows (that aren’t sport) in the best possible format available. There are still lots of viewers out there that won’t be bothered with ONE.
Does not affect me very much as over the past 2 years, there has only been 3 shows on Ten that I have watched.
Two of them are no longer being produced and the other one is Lie to Me.
Goes I will get it from somewhere else now.
Its a shame for the loyal viewers that Ten just treats them like dirt.
There are no immediate plans to address this because they can’t. There is only room in Ten’s digital bandwidth for a single HD channel. What they should have done is make the new SD channel 24/7 sport and made the HD channel a combination of prime-time normal shows and rest-of-the-time sport. It was the logical thing to do (indeed, it’s pretty much what they were doing already last year), but logic doesn’t come into any of this – Ten, it seems, is desperately clutching at straws as they slowly go broke.
One show not mentioned is Rush. Imagine how the producers of that show feel about their hit show, produced in HD with 5.1 surround sound, being reduced to VHS quality in the very city it’s made. Ironically, it’ll probably be pirated in HD – from New Zealand!
Freeview is a joke, really. It’s being sabotaged by the same old “advertisers are everything” bollocks that’s been killing FTA TV here for the past half-decade or more. And a channel devoting its entire HD capacity to 24-hour niche sports that will be of interest only to a narrow male demographic that’s so lazy they’ll never get off the couch to actually go and buy anything… that’s just insane.
Apart from the loss of those great shows, (unless 9 buys them for their 2nd SD channel) Why can’t all SD channels be simulcast in HD or is there regulations blocking that at the moment for FTA?
Don’t like watching sport much do you David? I hardly think it is a race for revenue…if that is what it was about they wouldn’t have launched a new channel yet…just kept putting it off like 7 & 9.
To this day I still think Ten has not planned properly what to do with Australian and overseas programs produced in HD after ONE debuts tonight. I think there could be several outcomes:
1. Ten stops producing shows like Neighbours in HD and switches all its production equipment to ONE
2. The Australian Communications and Media Authority allocates more spectrum so that Ten can start another HD channel (highly unlikely, as the quality may decrease and can Ten afford another new channel?)
3. US studios that produces programs such as House and NCIS in HD begin to sell TV series in Blu-ray in retail stores
4. More people will rely on illegal downloads to watch their favourite shows on HD
TEN has just pushed television back TEN years. What a sorry state of affairs. Freeview is in danger of becoming a dinosaur at this rate.
Would I be mean to say I hope the whole 1HD venture is a total failure?
This is a pity because I watched Neighbours in HD a few months back and it was fantastic! It was almost as if Susan and Karl were standing right in front of me!