173 replies to this topic

[hrh]

M, on 12 March 2012 - 04:25 PM, said:

They were testing for a while this morning, all stations where working.

We did notice one thing, the signal was much stronger than usaul. much stronger than we usally get from Mawson that is. This got me beat.

Probably a tropospheric scatter ducting event.

Bunbury maybe?

[alanh]

doodli,
The easy way to solve this is to find out which RF channels are being used.
If it is Bunbury
ABC channels 2, 21, 22, 23, 24 all are carried by RF channel 36
SBS channels 3, 30, 31, 32 all carried by RF channel 34
TENWest Channels 5, etc all carried by RF channel 37
GWN7 channels 6 etc all carried by RF channel 35
WIN channels 8 etc all carried on RF channel 39

The Perth equivalents are
TEN RF channel 11,
ABC 12
SBS 29
Seven 6
Nine 8.

If the info screen does not show which RF channel is being used it is usually shown doing a channel scan.
Wagin allocated digital channels
ABC currently uses RF channel 38 but will eventually move to channel 29
SBS RF channel 28
30 WIN
31 TenWest
33 GWN7

Alanh

[ebeneezer goode]

Does anybody know of anywhere in Australia where a self help site is successfully and reliably rebroadcasting the full suite of digital channels totally in accordance with the ACMA guidelines?

IE. all channels, with EPG and parental lock, with a successful conversion to MPEG2.

[Gray Connolly]

Ive now heard that esperance has been put back till 1 August, can anyone confirm this for me
Cheers in advance Gray

[alanh]

ebeezer goode,
Terrestrial translators contain a partial receiver down to an Intermediate Frequency which is then fed in to a transmitter on a different channel. There is no recovery of data and recoding.
The above equipment is repeated 5 times to repeat all commercials and a pair of government funded stations.

Since the data is not recovered all facilities on the main transmitter are repeated.

For remote areas which in WA does not include most of the South West/Central Ag/Great Southern, Geraldton & surrounds, as well as Kalgoorlie/Esperance satellite receivers are used to decode to a serial data stream which is fed into a low powered digital transmitter. Again all facilities will be repeated and in WA the 5 satellite receivers and decoders will cover GWN7, WIN, TenWest, ABC and SBS along with their HD and SD programs including EPGSs

As far as compression goes the only MPEG-4 transmissions at the moment is the HD versions on VAST. This means One, GEM,7Mate, SBS HD and ABC24.These signals are basically fed to remote areas in Australia. In WA its the Kimberley, Pilbara and areas other than those mentioned above.

If the terrestrial main transmitters change to MPEG-4 compression no modifications are required at self-help sites as the mimic exactly their input signals. VAST signals which are currently MPEG-4 compressed have to be decoded and MPEG-2 compressed and remuxed prior to retransmission. This is a considerable extra cost to the self-help funders.  With some MPEG-4 set top boxes for $27 not re-radiating the HD in MPEG-4 is an expensive waste. When Australia converts to MPEG-4 the satellite receiver will output the data stream and it is then sent to a transmitter unchanged.

I am currently updating the transmitter lists for the "Get the best reception" posts. I am indicating which sites are self help funding.

Essentially the digital switchover is excluding populations of under 500 people because its cheaper to use individual satellite receivers in the houses than paying for 5 sets of  receivers, transmitters, running costs etc. However if a community wants to pay for a self help retransmitter they can provided it is licenced by the ACMA.

AlanH

Edited by alanh, 23 March 2012 - 03:31 PM.

[DrP]

"As far as compression goes the only MPEG-4 transmissions at the moment is the HD versions on VAST."

WOW!  Really?!  Only HD is MPEG-4 AVC?!

As for terrestrial re-transmission without recompression, alanh still fails to explain how to efficiently fit VAST's > 23Mbit/sec (not only is each transponder's transport stream far inexcess of 23Mbit/sec, the sum bit rate of programming for a single network - say SBS - at times exceeds 23Mbit/sec) transmissions into a DVB-t service "unchanged".  I doubt he ever will.  These concepts seem to escape him.

[ebeneezer goode]

alanh, on 23 March 2012 - 03:10 PM, said:

ebeezer goode,
Terrestrial translators contain a partial receiver down to an Intermediate Frequency which is then fed in to a transmitter on a different channel. There is no recovery of data and recoding.
The above equipment is repeated 5 times to repeat all commercials and a pair of government funded stations.

Since the data is not recovered all facilities on the main transmitter are repeated.

For remote areas which in WA does not include most of the South West/Central Ag/Great Southern, Geraldton & surrounds, as well as Kalgoorlie/Esperance satellite receivers are used to decode to a serial data stream which is fed into a low powered digital transmitter. Again all facilities will be repeated and in WA the 5 satellite receivers and decoders will cover GWN7, WIN, TenWest, ABC and SBS along with their HD and SD programs including EPGSs

As far as compression goes the only MPEG-4 transmissions at the moment is the HD versions on VAST. This means One, GEM,7Mate, SBS HD and ABC24.These signals are basically fed to remote areas in Australia. In WA its the Kimberley, Pilbara and areas other than those mentioned above.

If the terrestrial main transmitters change to MPEG-4 compression no modifications are required at self-help sites as the mimic exactly their input signals. VAST signals which are currently MPEG-4 compressed have to be decoded and MPEG-2 compressed and remuxed prior to retransmission. This is a considerable extra cost to the self-help funders.  With some MPEG-4 set top boxes for $27 not re-radiating the HD in MPEG-4 is an expensive waste. When Australia converts to MPEG-4 the satellite receiver will output the data stream and it is then sent to a transmitter unchanged.

I am currently updating the transmitter lists for the "Get the best reception" posts. I am indicating which sites are self help funding.

Essentially the digital switchover is excluding populations of under 500 people because its cheaper to use individual satellite receivers in the houses than paying for 5 sets of  receivers, transmitters, running costs etc. However if a community wants to pay for a self help retransmitter they can provided it is licenced by the ACMA.

AlanH

Alan,

I'm not technically minded, so a lot of what you said doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but I think you may have misinterpreted me.

I live in a community with a self help anaolgue transmitter. We are trying to get together a quote / cost to upgrade to digital so we can start looking for funding sources. But we can't find any companies that can help, or are willing to help. The issue seems to be that we will be taking the feed from VAST (MPEG4) that will require a conversion to MPEG2 while retaining EPG and parental lock. And to date we haven't been able to find a company that can provide a stable solution to this.

[Gray Connolly]

Gray Connolly, on 23 March 2012 - 02:36 PM, said:

Ive now heard that esperance has been put back till 1 August, can anyone confirm this for me
Cheers in advance Gray

Anyone???

[Gray Connolly]

we will be last in australia for sure

[alanh]

Grey,
You won't be the last. The last on the WA broadcasters' schedule is the Kimberlies. Then there are many the Self-funded satellite repeaters and translators through all of the remote areas of Australia. There is no requirement for any of the broadcasters in WA and remote areas to have digital transmitters going until the middle of next year. Lots of smaller sites will switch analog off in the morning and switch digital on in the afternoon. This also applies to poorly serviced areas in Sydney, Central Coast NSW, Melbourne, Adelaide.

AlanH

[RobertL]

West Digital sites on air in WA as of 29/3/2012.

Bunbury
Margaret River
Manjimup
Bridgetown
Nannup
Pemberton
Augusta
Albany
Kalgoorlie
Wagin
Mawson
Broome
Karratha
Mingenew
Norseman
Merriden
Southern Cross
Kojonup
Kambalda

Robert

Edited by RobertL, 29 March 2012 - 12:55 PM.

[alanh]

RobertL,
Which of those sites do not now have 3 commercial transmitters. For example Mawson has had a digital transmitter for a long time, have the other 2 been added?
Bunbury has all 3 for example.

AlanH

[RobertL]

alanh, on 29 March 2012 - 08:24 PM, said:

RobertL,
Which of those sites do not now have 3 commercial transmitters. For example Mawson has had a digital transmitter for a long time, have the other 2 been added?
Bunbury has all 3 for example.

AlanH

All have three transmitters, All Multiservices.

Robert.

[Stretch Man]

Narrogin has the Channel 10 channels now, not great quality but watchable. Looking forward to 7 & 9 to start up!

[RobertL]

Stretch Man, on 30 March 2012 - 12:45 AM, said:

Narrogin has the Channel 10 channels now, not great quality but watchable. Looking forward to 7 & 9 to start up!

Installation has commenced at Narrogin and due to commence 1st May. None of the transmitters have been turned on yet.
The Channel 10 service you have been seeing is possibly from Wagin or Mawson.
Robert.

[Stretch Man]

Thanks Rob. That explains why there is a bunch of ABC & SBS channels cluttering up the channels now! Why can't we get the other stations from there? When I first did a channel search yesterday (Wednesday) the channels were found, but didn't have a picture or anything. Since then they have disappeared altogether.

[fishermansteve]

Sorry if I missed a previous response, but is there any update to the commencement of transmission in Geraldton?

[jblyth]

RobertL, on 11 November 2011 - 05:18 PM, said:

Hi John,

Carnarvon is set for 11th May 2012.

Robert

Is Carnarvon still on track for the 11th of May????

The local paper has been trying to find out but have apparently hit a brick wall.....

Thanks
John

Edited by jblyth, 04 April 2012 - 04:35 PM.

[RobertL]

jblyth, on 04 April 2012 - 04:35 PM, said:

Is Carnarvon still on track for the 11th of May????

The local paper has been trying to find out but have apparently hit a brick wall.....

Thanks
John

Hi John,

It has slipped a week and is now set for 17th May.

Robert

[jblyth]

RobertL, on 05 April 2012 - 12:20 AM, said:

Hi John,

It has slipped a week and is now set for 17th May.

Robert

Thanks Robert,

That is reassuring.

The local paper has also been getting the run around on the shut down date for analogue TV too. They have been led to believe that the two things happen simultaneously ie - when the commercial channels go digital, their analogue signals will be switched off at that time.

This is not how I have understood it, but can you confirm the case either way.......

It is simply amazing to me that the various bodies concerned are playing this all so secretively!

Many thanks once again
John

[alanh]

jblyth,
This information is publically available
http://myswitch.digi...earch=carnarvon
This is an early switchoff town, the analog transmitters will be switched off on the 17 May
If you can already receive ABC and SBS digital no antenna changes are required.

AlanH

[jblyth]

alanh, on 05 April 2012 - 01:29 PM, said:

jblyth,
This information is publically available
http://myswitch.digi...earch=carnarvon
This is an early switchoff town, the analog transmitters will be switched off on the 17 May
If you can already receive ABC and SBS digital no antenna changes are required.

AlanH

Thanks Alan,

What a lousy web site that is!

If you don't enter a local address it says the switch over is mid-2013, which is not correct. Entering manually a local address confirms Digital transmission will start on the 17th MAY and Analogue transmissions will also STOP then! (and the place to enter the address is not clearly identified either)

It seems this information is extremely hard to come by. The Shire has only just found out, and the local newspaper has been give the run around for a couple of weeks.

Why hasn't this info been more obviously in the public domain for months, I ask.....

If it wasn't for this forum, we would all still be in the dark about this imminent changeover.

Cheers
John

[alanh]

John,
If you go to www.digitalready.gov.au the first thing it does is to ask you for your address. I bypassed it for you. The reason for the exact address is to find out the signal strength for that address, the direction the antenna needs to pointed. You also get a signal strength map if you wait for it to be computed.

This website is the most uptodate source of information in this area it has existed for more than 3 years.

I have complained to them that their page of early switchover towns is out of date.

I will be updating the transmitter lists in all of the "Get the best reception" posts in all of the Geographic viewers' forums in the next few days. http://www.dtvforum....showtopic=12495 also describes the VAST satellite system which will give viewers out of range of any transmitter north of Northhampton reception of all 16 programs now.

There is a commercial rollout moving northwards this year as far as Wyndham.

AlanH

Edited by alanh, 05 April 2012 - 08:12 PM.

[David Herbert]

Has anyone managed to get a screen shot of a test pattern ?