Digital TV falls into the wrong hands [in Australia]

[mikesbytes]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/digital-tv-falls-into-the-wrong-hands/2005/06/21...321733704.html

Interesting article on the lack of success of Digital TV in Australia.

[BJ_M]

guess your not into watchng this stuff:


Nude Big Brother upsets Australia

The nude antics of contestants on Australia's Big Brother have prompted politicians to demand a review of how much nudity can be shown on TV.

The latest Australian series of Big Brother has featured regular nudity, footage of contestants showering and sexual activity in a hot-tub.

MP Trish Draper said it was pornography shown when children could be watching.

A spokeswoman for broadcaster Ten Network said the show complied with the existing industry code of practice.

Nude photographs

Ms Draper raised her concern with Australian MPs after the latest episode of the programme, classified for viewers 15 years and older, featured contestants taking nude photographs of each other.

"What we basically have is pornography and full frontal nudity on television at a time when children are watching," she said afterwards. "These people have an aspiration to be porn stars."



Ms Draper and other government backbenchers asked Australia's communications minister Helen Coonan to brief MPs and senators on the existing rules for broadcasting nudity and adult material on free-to-air television.

The Big Brother format has become popular throughout the world, with contestants filmed 24 hours a day in a house before being evicted one by one.

Australian contestant Michelle Carew-Gibson, who was voted off the show earlier this month, said viewers should turn off their television if they did not like what they were watching.

"You put 15 sexually active people in the house who obviously enjoy sex and are young, it is going to happen," she said.

"We are bored and we are going to do things."

[painkiller]

Like, they didn't know what was going to come of this.

Kinda sorta.

[celtic_druid]

Doesn't upset me, nor have I heard of anyone else being upset by it. So shouldn't the title be "Nude Big Brother upsets a couple of conservative MP's"? Because I would like to think that most of Australia wouldn't give a rat's arse.

[mbellot]

Doesn't upset me, nor have I heard of anyone else being upset by it. So shouldn't the title be "Nude Big Brother upsets a couple of conservative MP's"? Because I would like to think that most of Australia wouldn't give a rat's arse.

Welcome to the wonderful world of American style politics, where the squeaky (and quite often WRONG) wheel gets the grease.

Offensive (to you) lyrics on CD? Legislate.

Don't like other people smoking within 10 miles of you? Legislate.

Afraid consumers might actually get to practice fair use? Legislate.

Now all you need is some wife killing, child molesting celebritys.

:P

[guns1inger]

Digital TV in Australia has been a joke from day one. The standards set were incredibly low to suit the current free-to-air lords, including HiDef allowing for as low as 576p. Legislation restricting competition means that there are only two extra digital channels, both by public (read government) owned broadcasters. One is a news only channel, showing realtime (and therefore subtitleless) local language news from around the globe, the other repeating old BBC docs, and childrens programs. Our EPG (eletronic program guide) looks at what is showing now, and what is showing next only (and hasn't been working on any station for the past 3 months).

I have made no secret that I am not impressed by LCD or Plasma televisions, nor HiDef CRTs, for that matter, so the studpidly high-cost of HiDef STBs hasn't really phased me. Most of the so called HiDef is either CSI (currently running 5 hours a week on 9) or upsampled stuff. Occasionally a movie pops up in HiDef, but so far nothing really impressive. SD audio is 2 channel AC3 or MP2 (wow)

Digital has two things going for it ; widescreen, and video and audio clarity. I have a digital PVR because my old VHS died and this was convenient. Would I recommend digital too anyone that already has good analogue reception ? No. There is no benefit unless they want to watch CSI in widescreen (except for the early repeats, which are 4:3.

Digital should have been the chance for extra stations, mutli-channel sports broadcasts (as Seven did briefly for the Rugby World Cup) and alternatives to the standard crap served up each night be the networks (BB included - possibly the most degrading and stupid television ever put to air. Sorry, correction to that, the US version of The Office goes to air tonight, so BB is the second stupidest). Instead is ws/is/will remain a farce so long as the agenda is controlled by Packer and Stokes.

Pay television is no better, just more of it. Endless repeats of programs repeated to death on FTA years before, as many ads as FTA TV (but here you pay extra for the privilage), and movies that wouldn't get a guernsey on FTA (OK, not totally true - you can pay even more to see movies that were released over 12 months before on DVD).

[JimJohnD]

Perhaps they would like American style TV where unabashed violence is OK and promoted as “action TV” and a quick flash of Janet Jackson’s boob signals the end of the world.

[RottenFoxBreath]

switch of the tv.
walk to front door.
open door.
step outside.
see the world hasnt changed and fallen into a hell bent destructive murderous age.
step back inside
switch on tv.
GET A ******* LIFE,you complaining twats.

[junkmalle]

...GET A *******...

But that's what they don't want you to get!

[guns1inger]

I've been married too long. There is no chance of getting that.

[shelbyGT]

I've been married too long. There is no chance of getting that.

That's hilarious, I did laugh out loud at that one. Only funny because my lady and I have been talking about the "M" word lately.

[smearbrick1]

switch of the tv.
walk to front door.
open door.
step outside.
see the world hasnt changed and fallen into a hell bent destructive murderous age.
step back inside
switch on tv.
GET A ******* LIFE,you complaining twats.

I second that.

[Nilfennasion]

I second that also, but back to the main subject.

Digital TV would have a higher take-up rate if the receivers were somewhat more reliable. Even when you have 80% signal strength and quality, transmissions are likely to drop out and give you a sudden pop or display of MPEG artefacts that are far more distracting than any analogue problem (apart from not being able to watch at all as was the case with my TV, which is why I bought it).

So the solution is pretty simple. Offer a free receiver box with every new television (or a rebate to those who buy the receiver separately). Fix the signal so the clarity promised is not interrupted by dropouts. Shift the emphasis from TVs or VCRs or whatever with digital receivers in them to dedicated set-top receivers, since that seems to be all anyone wants to shell out for, anyway. People don't just take your word for it when they say you need something, you have to demonstrate why. The Australian government made the same mistake Sony has with Beta and MiniDisc, saying "here it is, now buy it".

What is it these days with the human race? As their technology progresses further, their intelligence regresses.

[guns1inger]

Most of the the reliability problems come from the fact that rather than use tried and tested standards from other compatible regions (read UK, parts of Europe) and therefore easily aquire working technology, the FTA war lords coerced the federal government into defining a half-assed hybrid standard that they thought would be cheaper to implement (for them). The result is something not quite standard, and most first a second generation STBs are simply retuned european models that mostly work. It's only now that truely custom "built for local conditions" models are starting to surface - too little too late.

[Nilfennasion]

Australia's big mistake in many markets, from technology to agriculture, has been assuming that the rest of the world is going to give a toss what ten to twenty million people with enough bare land to build a solar power station for the entire world think. Australians can barely get the power infrastructure of a town outside of the major cities right half the time. So it doesn't surprise me when they adopt a system that is an unholy mess, or expect everyone to switch over to it. What does surprise me, though, is that nothing has been done to fix the problem since.

[mikesbytes]

The lack of takeup seems, in part to do with the lack of low cost TV's that have the digital tuner built in. A standard definition TV with a digital tuner should sell for around $50 more than the same one with an analog tuner. But such a TV is nowhere to be seen.

[Nilfennasion]

I think it has a little more than that behind it. DVD-Video was very expensive, relatively speaking, when it first started. Players started at over $500, and yet retailers were able to keep them going out the door at a rate that belied the cost. The reason why is pretty clear when you compare the crisp, detailed definition that the majority of modern feature films achieve on the format with the same material on VHS.

Digital TV has gained a justified reputation in Australia for being unreliable. Australia is not alone in this, either. Many is the time I have seen posts to the effect of "no interference my arse" from viewers in America and the UK, both nations with far better overall infrastructure than Australia. In capital cities, dropouts are expected. In regional areas, they are frequent. It also doesn't help when in the process of trying to download a firmware update so the box will work as it is supposed to, connecting to the box itself via RS232 often becomes half a gamble.

I guess the powers that be just ran the well of good marketing dry with DVD-Video.

[mikesbytes]

The "less interference" tag is a little missleading. The term is beuing used to explain reducition in ghosting etc, however its more about reuse of bandwidth.

Analog channels tend to interfer with each other more than digital, which means that there needs to be more physical separation (ie different parts of the country) for Analog before repeating the same frequency (ie channel or transport steam). When (if) analog goes, there will be more space for new channels than if more analog channels had been added.

Things are usually not done with the public's benifit in mind and digital TV is no exception, by adding Digital TV beside Analog, the spectrum is tied up, preventing a new commerical network being formed.

[guns1inger]

The other issue with interference is that with analogue the picture slowly degrades as the signal deteriorates. Crap signal=crap picture. Digital is good, or it's gone. There is no middle ground (exception - it you have intermittent interference such as a tree blowing or truck passing by). My folks live 80 km from me. They have unreliable dial-up internet at 32kbps (if they are lucky), no possibility of broadband, and pretty average TV reception on the analogue bands. As the crow flies they are only 120km from the centre of Melbourne. Digital holds not interest for them, and absolutely no benefit for at least another 2 years, as the signals wont support it.

[Nilfennasion]

Melbourne has pretty crappy infrastructure already. Put a map of their rail system next to Sydney's and you'll see what I mean. But yeah, I can see where Australia's DTV system has gone wrong in terms of marketing. They believe the only people they have to sell to live in the major cities.