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Networks to trial technology for 4K broadcasting

Broadcasting trials in Sydney will test DVB-T2 technology, which can carry 4K TV broadcasts.

Free to Air networks will trial DVB-T2 technology, which can carry 4K TV broadcasts.

Free TV and Broadcast Australia, joined by SBS and the ABC, will all participate in the trials.

DVB-T2 surpasses the current DVB-T standard for television delivery, with 4K broadcasting four times the picture quality of the current High Definition standard.

Broadcast Australia CEO Peter Lambourne said: “Terrestrial free to air television delivers its service to 99% of the population and over 20 million Australians tune into television every week. This trial is an important part of ensuring that when the time is right, the terrestrial television platform is ready for the next stage of its evolution and that it can deliver the best possible viewing experience.”

Free TV CEO Bridget Fair said: “While our current platform has many years of life in it, this trial is about planning for our long-term future. Over the past 62 years, television broadcasters have demonstrated their ability to evolve with the times, from black and white to colour, analog to digital, standard to high definition. I’m very pleased to be working with BA to ensure that all Australians will continue to have access to the free news, sport and entertainment programs that they rely on and love.”

Trials will commence from three transmission sites across Sydney from April to June.

19 Responses

  1. Ha, when you had cases like 7Flix downgrade from MPEG4 to 2, I doubt they’ll take this up really.
    Apart from SBS, nobody else has more than one HD channel.

  2. Where’s the spectrum going to come form to carry it? By my calculations, a 4k channel would take the space of 3 existing channels.

    And if/when it does come in, they will no doubt insist on leaving SD channels there with old standards so people with old equipment can still watch them. Technically each network could broadcast 5 or 6 HD channels but they don’t as they need to run all the SD channels on the old system so anyone with old equipment can still watch FTA TV.

    SBS has 2 HD channels, why don’t the others?

    And why is Foxtel not onto 4k yet? or maybe closing a few channels is freeing up space…

    1. Each area has a single channel (RF that is) spare. If, and that’s a big if indeed, the money could be found a T2 mux could be setup in each area and leave the existing DVB-t system alone completely.

      It would require all broadcasters in that area to be willing to share a single mux for 4k and it would require bit rate comprimises if all 5 ever wanted to provide a 4k programme simultaenously, even if HVEC is involved. Keep your eyes skyward, pigs will start to fly shortly thereafter.

      1. Can’t see that happening with the networks paying for and sharing that extra RF channel but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of it being used for 4k special event broadcasts – the 2020 Olympics come to mind for example, AFL & NRL Grand Finals, etc. Probably too late for 2018 World Cup. Sort of like what happened with 3D 7 years ago.

  3. Broadcast Australia will partner with FreeTV to do the trials, from Gore Hill, Kings Cross & North Head sites. VHF-10 for Gore Hill and UHF-29 for the Kings Cross & North Head sites. (MediaSpy.org)

  4. “From black and white to colour, analog to digital, standard to high definition…”
    (…and then back to standard again for many years…)

    Obviously anything to advance quality is a step in the right direction but a great trial doesn’t mean the networks won’t find some way to stuff it up. The early days of HD FTA were very promising until they stuffed all those additional channels into the multiplex and downgraded the primaries to SD.

    Sure we have our HD back with MPEG-4/AVC but it still seems like we have less native HD content on our screens now than we did a decade ago and the bitrate and resulting video quality is pretty poor. (also particularly odd is the amount of CBS content presented as upscaled SD on Ten HD given their new owners.) Technical capabilities are one thing but they just don’t care.

    FTA standards are looking increasingly archaic next to Netflix and…

  5. April-June, huh? That’s 10 years, almost to the day, from when OFCOM/BBC started their own DVB-T2 trials in the UK – and only a little over 6 years since the UK moved all their terrestrial HD to DVB-T2.

    Truly, our networks are at the forefront of evolution and amongst the most innovative in the world…

    1. Yeah, but remember the way TV is broadcast in the UK is considerably different to how it’s done here. Over there the broadcaster and the transmission network are more or less separate. This allowed the UK to shuffle channels around to make space for the T2 mux and then move all HD channels to it. Over here, each broadcaster operates (in various serpentine arrangements that make even tax law look simple at times) its own transmission. There is no opportunity here to achieve what the UK did, at least not without considerable difficulty.

      By the time Australia is in a position to move to T2 and perhaps 4k, 10 + years away IMO, it won’t matter. Streaming services are eating broadcasters lunch and already offer 4k. Given that the commercial broadcasters are only still operating due to ever increasing subsidies from tax payer it’s hard to see them coming up with the money to roll…

  6. Broadcasters have not exactly rushed to satisfy the increasing consumer demand for HD which has been available to supersede SD channels for over a decade, it has been the challenge posed by the streaming services in particular that is lighting the way for 4K and UHD broadcasting, it is a wake up call to compete for or lose an audience share who are buying larger numbers of large screen UHD TV’s.

  7. This is clearly a use of the new modern definition of ‘evolve’, whereby its meaning becomes ‘forced to take on new methodologies by the government of the day’.

  8. Great news indeed for fta. I can see Foxtel eyes lighting up when deciding what to charge their customers…… we charge $10 for HD ok lets charge $20 for 4K

  9. Yet another attempt to make everyone throw out all their current TVs to the kerbside-it may have escaped the developers’ attention but there are physical limits to what the human eyeball can actually see.

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