Hi all,

New member with a difficult question.

Can anyone supply the audio codecs and bitrates for SD broadcasts in Canberra? I live in Kambah on the south side of Mount Thomas and receive from Tuggeranong Hill. I specifically want to know what ABC2's audio codec and bitrate are - the info I'm looking for would be in the form of 'MPEG-2 256kb/s' or something along those lines.

I've called the ABC's Reception Advice team on 1300 13 9994 but the lady that answered couldn't help me. She says she'll try to find out and call me back but I'm not holding out much hope.

If someone could answer my question (and the same info for ABC1 SD, Prime SD, WIN SD, Southern Cross Ten SD and SBS SD would be great too) could you please also tell me how you found out the info - software or hardware or website?

I use a Panasonic TU-CT20A SD STB.

Many thanks in advance

I'll take a guess...

ABC1 SD - 256k L2 stereo and 448k AC3 stereo (99.9999% of the time)
ABC2 - 256k L2 stereo
SBS SD 192k L2 stereo
WIN SD 384k L2 dual channel
SC10 256k L2 stereo

Prime... no idea

Info revealed long ago by tsreader

Thanks for the info. I'm assuming that 'L2' equates to MPEG-2 ?

I've downloaded TSReader Lite but using it seems redundant because I don't actually have a capture card. My SD STB is connected directly to my PC's soundcard.

MPEG1, layer 2 (hence L2).

Thanks for clearing the L2 thing up.

Do any other readers support the proposition that ABC2 currently broadcasts its audio as MPEG1 Audio Layer II / 256kb/s?

I got a phone call back from the ABC's Reception Advice team but she couldn't supply the information. She said that it's not the kind of info they give out the the public anyway as it's not really something the consumer needs to know in order to receive their broadcasts. I see her point - I'm sure they wouldn't tell me what make or model of any of their electronics are either.

Its either MPEG1 L2 or MPEG2 L2 - with the MPEG2 only being an expansion of the encoding capabilities (different sample rates, different encoder bit rates). In essence, since its 48k sample rate and 256k encoder rate, MPEG1 L2 could describe it quite nicely.


* a quick look just now reveals its tagged as MPEG1 Layer 2.

Spot on.

Prime is 256k L2 Stereo

Thank you both for your replies.