181 replies to this topic

[BamBBBam]

Aussiedude, on 22 March 2012 - 11:09 AM, said:

Wow im shocked its going to be free for all sports subscribers

DansDans, on 22 March 2012 - 02:25 PM, said:

I'm pretty sure us suckers have to pay something...

Just wanted to bold that easily missed point

[DansDans]

BamBBBam, on 22 March 2012 - 09:47 PM, said:

Just wanted to bold that easily missed point

Clearly.. the easily missed point was that we pay for Foxtel. Nothing is for free

[MattWinter]

So good! Would have forked over the cash even if they charged $200 tbh!

I assume this means that they'll be making a big push to get new subscribers for the games, as opposed to using them to get cash from existing subscribers.

[sirhc55]

Good news indeed for those of us paying top dollar for Foxtel

[Aussiedude]

BamBBBam, on 22 March 2012 - 09:47 PM, said:

Just wanted to bold that easily missed point

People have Foxtel for something other than Sport? doesn't everyone have the sport package?

[davmel]

Aussiedude, on 23 March 2012 - 02:45 PM, said:

People have Foxtel for something other than Sport? doesn't everyone have the sport package?

Sport is the only reason a sane person would continue paying for Foxtel. Everyone else that had Foxtel in the past but wasn't interested in sport has already dumped them by now. But there might be strange people lurking around that have more money than brains so they could still have Foxtel without sport active. Foxtel should just make sport mandatory as part of a more expensive package. They wouldn't upset anyone any more.

[davmel]

Junkyard, on 17 March 2012 - 06:50 PM, said:

GEM will look better, 6mbps mpeg4 will look very soft. 13mbps mpeg2 will look much sharper

Well things have now changed for the worse. Channel 94 "Extra" has starved GEM of bandwidth which is now running at 8.5 Mbps video stream bitrate.

So with 6 Mbps H.264 Foxtel Olympics vs 8.5 MPEG-2 GEM, both of them are going to suck and not do the Olympics justice but Foxtel is going to have superior video quality.

It's going to be embarrassing to watch the fast motion opening ceremony with the strobing lights and fireworks descend into a macroblock festival of epic proportion on GEM! What a joke Australian TV has become.

[BribieG]

davmel, on 23 March 2012 - 04:54 PM, said:

Sport is the only reason a sane person would continue paying for Foxtel. Everyone else that had Foxtel in the past but wasn't interested in sport has already dumped them by now. But there might be strange people lurking around that have more money than brains so they could still have Foxtel without sport active. Foxtel should just make sport mandatory as part of a more expensive package. They wouldn't upset anyone any more.

Bull. I don't follow sport apart from the olympics. If every sports ground, oval, stadium, arena, drome, dome whatever suddenly went "poof" and turned into a brewery I'd be delighted. My entire family is like that, and none of my friends and I ever discuss what the latest Pinks versus Greens or Snakes versus Raccoons game is all about. Couldn't care less and I have a full life full of hobbies and club nights of various sorts.

I love my Foxtel and pay $100 with perfect equinamity - History Channel, BBC Knowledge, News, ad free Movies, HD, you name it. I'll be getting the Olympics by subscribing to sport for a month, then out again.

You ought to expand your level of social contacts, davmel .... however as you stated I'm obviously not sane, so stay well clear of my mob

On that topic, I got the Foxtel letter re the Olympics so I take it that I have to get a sports package. Does that mean A sports package or All the sports packages?

[Aussiedude]

BribieG, on 25 March 2012 - 10:16 AM, said:

On that topic, I got the Foxtel letter re the Olympics so I take it that I have to get a sports package. Does that mean A sports package or All the sports packages?

What do you mean all sports packages there is only one sports package.

[BribieG]

Aussiedude, on 25 March 2012 - 10:41 AM, said:

What do you mean all sports packages there is only one sports package.

Shows how much I know about Foxtel Sport, not to mention Sport in general
I thought there was some sort of multi choice thing like the movies channels -
thanks, that makes it simple.

Hey if I go platinum for the month does that give me the MILF movies as well?

[BribieG]

removed, duplicate post due to DTV server outage.

Edited by BribieG, 25 March 2012 - 05:06 PM.

[BigVic]

Got Foxtel + Sports + HD. Loving it and it's the best money ever spent on. No BBC Knowledge or History Channel. Just action such as NBA Basketball, NHL Ice Hockey, AFL (abliet not in HD for some games), EPL Football (Soccer) and NRL/Super 15 Rugby.

Cannot wait for the Olympics and will Foxtel replay Beijing 2008, Athens 2004, Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 on their 8 channels in the lead-up to the Games' Opening Ceremony on 27 July?

[miata]

davmel, on 23 March 2012 - 04:54 PM, said:

Sport is the only reason a sane person would continue paying for Foxtel. Everyone else that had Foxtel in the past but wasn't interested in sport has already dumped them by now. But there might be strange people lurking around that have more money than brains so they could still have Foxtel without sport active. Foxtel should just make sport mandatory as part of a more expensive package. They wouldn't upset anyone any more.

The ONLY sports I watch are motor racing and very occasionally golf, the motor racing is mostly on ONE (Formula 1 and MotoGP), I use most of the channels available except for the religious one (if it's still there) and the shopping channel. I'm watching less and less FTA as time goes on.

Very much looking forward to the Olympics though.

Edited by miata, 25 March 2012 - 06:52 PM.

[davmel]

BigVic, on 25 March 2012 - 05:35 PM, said:

Cannot wait for the Olympics and will Foxtel replay Beijing 2008, Athens 2004, Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 on their 8 channels in the lead-up to the Games' Opening Ceremony on 27 July?

Foxtel can't replay the previous games as they don't have the rights to them. The rights are owned by Seven network and they aren't going to hand them over to Foxtel.

[DansDans]

davmel, on 23 March 2012 - 04:54 PM, said:

Sport is the only reason a sane person would continue paying for Foxtel. Everyone else that had Foxtel in the past but wasn't interested in sport has already dumped them by now. But there might be strange people lurking around that have more money than brains so they could still have Foxtel without sport active. Foxtel should just make sport mandatory as part of a more expensive package. They wouldn't upset anyone any more.

Interesting on your assumption there

When I worked for Foxtel, a very well known FTA Sports Commentator who resides in SA did not have the sports channels in his Foxtel package. Considering who he was, I thought it was strange - it seems he was actually insane!

[davmel]

DansDans, on 26 March 2012 - 08:39 AM, said:

When I worked for Foxtel, a very well known FTA Sports Commentator who resides in SA did not have the sports channels in his Foxtel package. Considering who he was, I thought it was strange - it seems he was actually insane!

All FTA sports commentators are eccentric insane freaks. They wouldn't get the job otherwise! If they used an IQ2 STB as a hat I wouldn't look twice.

[DansDans]

davmel, on 26 March 2012 - 09:22 AM, said:

All FTA sports commentators are eccentric insane freaks. They wouldn't get the job otherwise! If they used an IQ2 STB as a hat I wouldn't look twice.

And I think you know which special person I am talking about!

[laurie]

DansDans, on 26 March 2012 - 10:13 AM, said:

And I think you know which special person I am talking about!

It wouldn't happen to be Brucey DD  

cheers laurie

[DansDans]

laurie, on 26 March 2012 - 10:22 AM, said:

It wouldn't happen to be Brucey DD cheers laurie

That answer was "centimeter perfect" Laurie!

caveat: this was back in 2006

Edited by DansDans, 26 March 2012 - 10:44 AM.

[Junkyard]

davmel, on 25 March 2012 - 01:21 AM, said:

Well things have now changed for the worse. Channel 94 "Extra" has starved GEM of bandwidth which is now running at 8.5 Mbps video stream bitrate.

So with 6 Mbps H.264 Foxtel Olympics vs 8.5 MPEG-2 GEM, both of them are going to suck and not do the Olympics justice but Foxtel is going to have superior video quality.

It's going to be embarrassing to watch the fast motion opening ceremony with the strobing lights and fireworks descend into a macroblock festival of epic proportion on GEM! What a joke Australian TV has become.

great! ARGGGGH its a race to the F******* bottom in this country!

[Ooh Me Plums!]

davmel, on 16 March 2012 - 05:30 PM, said:

Just noticed in the latest Foxtel TDT manual that Foxtel has reserved two new transponders on the Optus D3 sat for the upcoming London Olympics:
11886V @ 27800kBps symbol rate (obviously for the 8 SD olympics channels plus one more channel they'll almost certainly have for the mosaic tile channel)
11969V @ 29455kBps symbol rate (for 8 HD olympics channels).

Neither of those transponders have any active DVB transmission as yet.

All I can say is that squeezing 8 HD sports channels (with rapid motion) on a single transponder is going to look F*CKING AWFUL. High definition my ass. Look at how much people have been complaining about the quality with 7 HD channels per transponder, now Foxtel will push an all new low in HD quality.
Good luck to all you suckers that will pay a good deal of money only to be served up with pseudo HD olympics coverage!

Can't they put some of the HD channels on the 'SD' transponder? I don't know what rate they use for SD (can't be more than 3Mbps given the usual PQ); wouldn't there be leftover space for a couple of the HD channels on 11886?

[davmel]

Ooh Me Plums!, on 26 March 2012 - 04:20 PM, said:

Can't they put some of the HD channels on the 'SD' transponder? I don't know what rate they use for SD (can't be more than 3Mbps given the usual PQ); wouldn't there be leftover space for a couple of the HD channels on 11886?

No. They need much more than 3 Mbps for SD sports channels (if they don't want to make them look like crap). They could squeeze one HD channel onto the SD transponder but it would substantially deteriorate the quality of the SD channels for minimal improvement for the HD channels.

[Sambo90]

Should just be HD only, that'd solve the problem.

[peterca]

I see Foxtel has channel 500,  London 2012 Olympic Games Preview up and running now.

[Knowfirst]

peterca, on 01 July 2012 - 09:55 AM, said:

I see Foxtel has channel 500,  London 2012 Olympic Games Preview up and running now.

140/200/500 and 611 IIRC... overkill!

The 8 SD/HD Channels will be viewable from July 21 according to the spiel.