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New Pay channels on the air

Today marks the arrival of a slew of new Foxtel channels and features, including iSuggest with its snazzy poster grid.

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isugg4Foxtel’s new channels and features are on the air.

Today marks the arrival of a slew of new channels and features, including iSuggest with its snazzy poster grid and offering to record programmes with just one button. A prompt during advertisements will automatically set the show for recording on the iQ / iQ2.
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Sky News Active has had a makeover while Sky News Local offers dedicated footage from 5 metro cities -but so far no introduction to stories it has lifted from others, including Channel Nine.

New channels are now on air and listed on the Foxtel EPG. Channel Seven has been added to satellite viewers in Melbourne and Brisbane (at long last).

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As you become more familiar with the changes, TV Tonight is interested in hearing about the good, the bad and the ugly.

What are your thoughts on both content and functionality?

76 Responses

  1. Nother really to get too excited from my point of view. Would rather they fix the irritants than keep adding. Specifically no FTA on satellite in Adelaide & Perth, blackout AFL games (same cities), non widescreen channels. Its actually getting harder to justify the expense when all they really add are gimmicks (iSelect i’m looking at you)

  2. @Stayin with FTA says:
    November 16, 2009 at 6:29 pm
    ‘Looks like Foxtel have done it again. Overcharged and under delivered. Par for the course. Not worth the money”

    Please define where they have overcharged….I really would be interested to know where and your reasons as to why ???

    (note: you had an option/choice to change things long before the live date)..

  3. disappointed with showtimes offering. genres seemed like a good idea but checked out their webstie to see how the list of movies looked next month and it was all the same stuff again. I counted a few titles that played 17 times in the next month or so on the Action channel! WTF … its what I was worried about. They dont have enuf movies to feed the beast they created with action, comedy and drama

  4. If I remember correctly back to the Galaxy days you could change the order of the channels. EG I would be able to move BBC News to channel 602 and everything just bumps along.

    Maybe an idea for the next firmware update??

  7. Overall I’m pretty happy with the new channels. I had a nostalgic blast watching Dennis The Menace and Sonic on Kids Co. I like the French rugby on EuroSport, also had a bit of a laugh watching arm wrestling. ^_^

    I like British human interest docos, so there’s programming on LifeStyle You which is up my alley. I have no interest in Style Network and Turbo Max. Da Vinci’s Inquest is the only show I like on 13th Street. I am very pleased with the additions of the 111 Hits and showcase timeshifts.

    I find it totally unnecessary to have moved BBC World News so that History and Discovery etc. could move up two measly positions while BBC WN is all the way at the back. As a consequence I notice I’m watching little to no Sky, Fox, CNNI because I’m just going directly to 649, whereas I’d normally go to 606 and surf through the other news channels. It’s hardly the end of the world but it does make things noticeably less convenient. (I also preferred it when BBC Knowledge and CI were next to each other). I checked out Sky News Local and was surprised the picture was not full-screen. It’s great to finally have Seven on satellite in Melbourne.

    Add Al Jazeera English please and I’ll be over the moon.

  8. It’s good having the new HD channels for free to start with but when you look closer, like with free to air, not that much of the content is really in HD. Some movies on the HD channels are not really HD for instance – you see what is and isn’t with the “i” button. Not sure if it will be worth paying the extra for HD once the free two weeks are up for HD, especially considering a HD movie can use 10% of disc space on IQ2 and we already have so much recorded to watch at later dates and its only building up leading up to summer (and empties out during non ratings).

  9. When the dust clears we will all see that its nothing more than a powder puff makeover. Fancy having three channels now on which to watch UK TV as if most of the shows on there would benefit from HD. What a disaster loosing BBC.
    As for the other new channels well havent we seen that show somewhere before hmm its like a repeat of a repeat!

  11. @craig that story seems like total BS on Arena’s part. Whenever Arena has content on Foxtel on demand, the shows are shown in full 16:9, so obviously they have access to content in 16:9. Why can’t they just make the channel 16:9 and slowly add 16:9 content?

  14. I contacted Arena and they don’t plan on going widescreen until sometime in the middle of 2010, there reason was the cost of converting shows. Which is silly since most can’t be ‘converted’ to 16×9 and shouldn’t. There are lots shows on Arena (and the other 4×3 channels) already made in 16×9 but cropped to 4×3, really how much does it cost to update a few station promos and other equipment to widescreen?

  15. @ross

    I’m not too sure but snippets of Super Mario Bros (the first series) was shown as part of a generic promo on the channel so I assume it’s coming at some stage (certainly it was made by DiC which are part owners of the channel)

  17. The unequivocal bottom line here dear friends is that Foxtel are going for quantity over quality. Repackaged/ repeats galore……Still, anything is better than Network alone. P.S Foxtel – you better stick to your word and give us 7Two and Go next week!

  18. Russell, Scifi is in widescreen but yes I agree would have loved it in HD, but I am guessing in time it will be. I also wish the other 4:3 channels would go widescreen, hate the black bars

  19. It’s quite underwhelming after all the hype of Next Generation.
    Most disapointed that the Sky News Active channels can’t go full screen, I’m sure when the announcment was made that this was one of the features.

    Also unhappy that there are still so many channels in 4:3 aspect ratio, TV1, History, Discovery etc. It’s a joke that they advertise this as next generation but still have channels in 4:3

  20. Style Network is beamed straight in from the US I believe, like E! (They are both owned by the same company) hence the US accent on all promos. These two networks do nothing in Australia, just take the cheap option and beam in from the US. Shame really.

    And on the 4:3 channels guys. Remember Foxtel only owns and operates some channels, the others are third party channel providers. Foxtel owns Comedy, Arena and History. Really no idea why those are still in 4:3. In fact History should be in HD. 90% of their programming is sourced from History USA and History USA has nearly all their programming in HD now. Arena could be in HD too as must of it’s programming is from Bravo in the US, and Bravo now produces all its shows in HD. They could do Project Runway Australia in HD too.

    TV1 is a separate company. They run Sci Fi and TV. Again, both those could be in widescreen and HD as so much of their content is widescreen and HD. The Discovery Channels like Turbo, Home and the Nat Geo Channels like Wild are beamed in from Asia. They will be stuck in 4:3 for a while. I’m surprised so little channels are HD. Arena, TV1, History, Sci Fi, Lifestyle and Sky News are all perfect candidates for HD

  22. Well we can’t get any of the new channels and have actually lost some of our old channels (like some +2’s and Travel and Living). We called them and they said it was because of how old our satellite is. We can supposedly get some sort of upgrade to the satellite but they can’t even guarantee if that will work once it’s done. We are renters in a big block, so are going to write to our landlord, don’t like our chances. We are probably going to cut back to the basic package, because we are now paying for so much that we can’t even see. It’s ridiculous and we are not happy. We only got Foxtel in the first place for the AFL coverage, which is needed if you live in Sydney. However, we came to really like a bunch of other stuff, but it’s now almost pointless. If it wasn’t for the AFL they would lose our business all together.

    Not happy.

  25. Ad in todays Melbourne Herald sun for channels 7 and 72 – said that all subscribers now have 7 and will have 72 November 24th. So I am hoping that means Satellite as well? I assumed it did before i read this thread. Fingers crossed!

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