Greens support primary channel switch to HD
Exclusive: Senator Ludlam says the Greens back viewers & networks wanting HDTV on our main channels.
- Published by David Knox
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EXCLUSIVE: The Greens are now supporting a call to pass legislation that would enable networks to change their primary channel from Standard Definition to High Definition.
The call to switch primary channels to HD is one of the biggest gripes of TV viewers, a large majority of whom updated their televisions to High Definition ahead of the analogue switch-off in December 2013.
Yet still many of our top-rating Dramas, Documentaries, Sport and Reality shows are broadcast in SD.
FreeTV Australia, representing Seven, Nine and TEN, have previously called upon the government to make the change.
In a statement to TV Tonight, Greens Senator Scott Ludlam said, “Australia has long had the capacity for HDTV. It is a broadcast standard that many people now expect from our main channels.
“It is disappointing that a regulatory hurdle is preventing people from enjoying watching HDTV on the main free-to-air channels.
“TV networks and Free TV Australia are supportive of efforts to remove this block and the Greens are keen to work with the Coalition, ALP and broadcasters to ensure the relatively minor regulatory change required is able to occur without any unnecessary delays.”
Yet while the change is considered by many in Canberra to be minor, the legislation appears to be tied to much bigger media reforms that are part of a political tug of war. For the HD switch to get a free pass by the Coalition, Labor and Greens insiders suggest it needs to made clear that such change would not trigger bigger problems or be traded off for anti-siphoning list or license fee changes. Unless it can be shown to be ‘non-political’ the problem will likely drag on.
The other issue it faces is that, according to some sources, not everybody in Canberra understands the HD issue and don’t rate it as a significant concern.
But to viewers it is.
In successive Audience Inventory surveys on TV Tonight the topic of ‘Making Primary Channels HD’ has consistently rated as ‘Very Important’ with readers. Recent OzTAM data indicates that all Australian television homes can access digital terrestrial broadcast channels on at least one household TV set.
Networks are also behind the move.
FreeTV Australia CEO Julie Flynn recently said, “It is something we are absolutely working on and it is something we hope the government will do, but they have not yet done.
“This is something they could do tomorrow. Just do it. It’s bleedingly obvious.”
21 Responses
There’s not a great deal keeping the primary channels off HD. The networks no longer have to put their drama quota content on the main channel. I’m pretty sure the children’s content is the same. So that just leaves the anti-syphoned sport which may need to be simulcast across two channels on occasion.
In addition to the amount of ads, lack of local content, too much reality TV, this is another reason I don’t watch TV. It looks like crap on my TV.
Half the battle is getting the primary channels in HD. The other half is getting the regional networks to actually take HD seriously and encode their channels using a decent method and outputting HD content in the same good quality as the metro networks. I’m looking at you, WIN.
Sport’s good in HiDef, doesn’t matter about drama’s and the like
Yes it does. It should all be in HD.
I’m glad to hear they are starting to talk about it.We are so far behind other countries
my sister use to have a old crt tv hooked up to a hd set top box i gave her to be able to get the digital channels and she got One 7Mate and Gem picture just not in HD
Now that you can get a decent HD TV for $300 there isn’t a reason for the enforced SD simulcast.
However, I will need to get a larger DVR.
There’s a good reason primary channels aren’t in HD at the moment – not everyone has HD televisions. How are people with only SD TVs able access HD only primary channels? I’ve got a feeling people complaining about SD television are those who complain about flying economy class when they are so used to business.
Well here in Tasmania, everything is digital, so it doesn’t make a difference if tv is sd or hd as long as they have a set top box.
Well, here in Australia everything is digital. But if you have a SD TV or SD set top box you won’t be able to receive any HD channels.
The number of people who have SD boxes much surely be insignificant now. I had one I bought back in 2004 and stopped using in 2007 when I bought a HD TV (which I still have but it does look positively primitive compared to what is out there now!)
There’s a clown on another forum who has been claiming for 5 years or more that 90+ % of TVs in use are HD. The available data never supported his claim, and he twisted what little data there was into pretzels to avoid admitting he was making it up.
However, the OzTAM Trends reports suggest that TV HD capability _did_ hit the magic 90% mark in metro markets mid last year – so now’s probably the time to start looking at requiring the primary channel to be HD.
(Although, other data I’ve seen indicate that HD capability lags considerably in PayTV households – presumably due to old STBs & an unwillingness to pay extra for HD. That shoud probably be factored into any decision e.g. by requiring an SD simucast of the HD primary, at least on PayTV.)
Not really, every flatscreen for years has done HD, the boxes the government gave out to disadvantaged not only supported HD but MPEG4 too. Right now you can go down to Kmart and get an HD STB for $29, I imagine there’s quite a few second hand ones floating around too.
I guess it was inevitable that chance would throw up a Greens policy that seems vaguely sensible and I can support but I still find myself a bit surprised.
Shocked in fact!
Canberra is too busy trying to work out how to get their corporate mates massive tax breaks to worry about what the Australian public actually want.
They’ve got important work to do.. like running their bank accounts.. oops i mean the country
What is really bad for retailers is trying to sell 55″ TV which are tuned into the SD channels, they look so bad up close.
Why not just leapfrog straight to 4K? #firstworldproblem
Because there isn’t enough bandwidth to transmit one channel at full HD, without stealing bits from other channels so that they suffer from macro blocking / pixellation. We’d need to move to MPEG-4 like everybody else but that doesn’t look like it will be happening soon.
If the Australia FTA starting broadcasting their primary channels (or anything else) in 4K it would be in MPEG-4. But even then there would be mux bandwidth issues with the current allocations.
It would be nice if the muxes currently held by the Channels 31 would be auctioned for MPEG-4 DVB-T transmission (and if part of that was assigned for community use).