Conroy attuned to new digital TV network

COMMUNICATIONS Minister Stephen Conroy has maintained the momentum for a fourth free-to-air television channel, saying that spectrum freed up by the switch to digital television could be set aside for a new commercial network.

Senator Conroy also revealed that the Rudd Government had estimated the unused spectrum could be worth up to $1 billion.

"In terms of the spectrum and what we could do with it, we've said all along that we are prepared to consider any of the options, including a fourth free-to-air network for the use of the spectrum when we switch it off," Senator Conroy told the ABN Amro Communications Conference in Sydney yesterday.

"We've said that should be on the table for all parties to discuss ... so we're working our way forward on those issues."

The Government aims to have the switch-over to digital television completed by the end of 2013, but Senator Conroy conceded there was "still much work to be done to convert the nearly 60 per cent of Australians who currently do not receive digital free-to-air broadcasts".

"This could well be the most wide-ranging format change on a national scale since we introduced decimal currency," hesaid.

The shift to digital television will free up scarce spectrum that could be used for "new and improved communications services, potentially including wireless internet, mobile telephony and broadcasting".

"The exact value of this spectrum is uncertain, but some estimates say it could be worth up to $1 billion," he said.

"Regardless of its exact worth, the digital dividend is clearly a major benefit of digital switch-over."

Auctions of spectrum licences by the Howard government in 2001 yielded a $1 billion-plus windfall for the commonwealth.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority, which is reviewing spectrum allocations, has recently released several discussion papers about spectrum use in Australia.

Original Story by Kath Hart, The Australian, 30th April '08

Darwin Digital Television

The Sunday Territorian reported yesterday that Darwin Digital Television is set to commence test transmissions next week, in preparation for the station’s full launch at the end of the month.

The station, a joint venture between the incumbent broadcasters Nine Darwin (formerly known as Channel Eight, owned by PBL Media) and Southern Cross Television (owned by Macquarie Southern Cross Media), will carry the Ten Network via a digital signal on UHF channel 33, using call sign DTD.

The station is another in a series of digital joint ventures, with similar Ten affiliated stations operating in Tasmania and Mildura. A similar set-up is expected for regional Western Australia when digital transmissions commence in that state.

Free-to-air ad blitz aims to stall pay TV growth

Free-to-air broadcasters are set to launch a $40 million advertising blitz to whack pay television and attract customers to digital terrestrial TV.

The campaign, to go to air in six weeks, is backed by the three commercial broadcasters, the ABC and SBS, and will have more air time than the former Coalition government's advertising splurge for the GST, which was the single biggest television campaign seen in Australia. Unlike the paid GST ads, the digital TV ads will be run free.

So confident are some of the free-to-air broadcasters about the damage they can inflict on pay TV's - the ad blitz will bundle a line-up of 15 free digital channels available from next year - they say pay TV subscriptions might stall.

In pay TV homes, 40 per cent of viewing is on free-to-air channels. The mid-term goal for the pay TV industry is household penetration of 50 per cent, up from 30 per cent.

"There's no doubt when the consumer has more choice that is free and it is compelling content it's going to hurt pay in some capacity," one TV network executive said this week. "It will slow the rate of growth for pay to a point it may become stagnant in time."

Another TV network executive says the collaboration by broadcasters on the bundle of channels to be called FreeView is unprecedented. It has already resulted in the Seven Network freezing launch plans for its TiVo digital recorder service until at least the middle of this month while it decides whether to proceed, delay or bin the project.

"Free-to-air to this point has sat back and pretended pay TV didn't exist, and now it's in 30 per cent of homes," the broadcast executive says. "Pay TV spends 60 per cent of its marketing funds on [free-to-air] TV. It's their marketing platform. We're going to use it ourselves."

Earlier this week the commercial and public free-to-air broadcasters met to complete a branding joint venture borrowed from Britain also called FreeView. All the free-to-air networks are expected to sign off on a heads of agreement by tomorrow, with one of the sticky issues being board representation - at present each broadcaster is understood to have a seat.

But amid the free-to-air exuberance, the pay TV sector this week produced statistics from Britain it says show Australian broadcasters are deluded in their expectations for curbing pay TV's growth here.

"The arrival of FreeView in the UK did not curb pay TV's growth," says Ian Garland, the commercial director for the Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association.

"Pay TV has continued at the same growth rate. Without a doubt FreeView has grown faster than pay TV since 2002 but even with that growth, cable and satellite pay TV continue to grow at the same pace.

"Pay's [British home penetration] is growing at roughly about 2 percentage points a year, which equates to about 500,000 homes. Pay TV in the UK is not growing as fast as FreeView, but that's not the point. By definition FreeView has to be available to everyone by 2012 because that's when the analogue signal switches off," says Garland.
Like others in the pay TV sector, Garland argues FreeView was launched in Britain with a more compelling offer of 30 channels compared with what will be Australia's initial line-up of 15. "Let's not forget, in the end it's all about content, and people will pay to watch diversified and meaningful content. FreeView won't stop pay's growth. People want multiple choice."There have been question marks over the programming the free-to-air broadcasters here will use across their additional channels but one television network executive said that Foxtel and Austar's content partners had already started discussions with terrestrial networks. "We are about to engage with operators who currently provide to Foxtel who want to move exclusively or simultaneously back to a free-to-air environment," the executive says. "We're going to take Foxtel's content."

Original Story by Paul McIntyre SMH Business Day - 3rd April 08

ABC Digital TV Funding Delay

Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy says he recognises that the digital ambitions of the ABC have been constrained by funding.

Speaking at a subscription television conference in Sydney, Senator Conroy said pay TV had led the way in delivering new technology and innovation in digital TV.

The planned April launch of children’s channel ABC3 was put on hold after a Howard government election pledge to fund it was not matched by Labor.

Senator Conroy says the Government will concentrate on honouring its election promises in the May Budget, with the ABC’s three-year funding next up for consideration in 2009.

“The triennial funding for the ABC is in next year’s Budget, so there’ll be negotiations in the next 12 months I would imagine,” he said.

“The ABC will, I’m sure, present a very strong case about why their triennial funding envelope should be increased.”

Original story from The LAMP Watercooler 18th March 2008

Media savvy

WHAT is a media centre, anyway? Sounds more like a newspaper office than something hooked to your television.

In geek talk, a media centre is a device set up in your lounge room for watching videos and playing music through your television and sound system.

With the line between PCs and audio-visual gear now blurry and this product category poorly defined, media servers and Home Theatre PC (or HTPC) are other terms you'll hear during the current convergence phase.

HTPCs generally play multiple roles as a PC, a digital video recorder and audio-video player.

Media centres come in a wide range of flavours, including computers, game consoles, networked surround-sound amplifiers and networked AV receivers.

Unfortunately, the level of IT know-how required to set up and use media centres remains a barrier to widespread adoption. The idea of hooking up a gadget between a PC and TV is too daunting for too many.

A good media centre lets you play videos and music from the widest possible range of sources and formats with little fuss.

These include videos and music downloaded or streamed from the internet as digital files, tuners for receiving standard and high-definition digital television stations and -- in Australia from next January -- digital radio stations.

A media centre also usually has an optical disc player, which generally supports a wide range of CD, VCD and DVD formats.

These days the best and latest also play Blu-ray discs.

At the very least, you should be able to pension off your DVD player or demote its duties to a second TV in a bedroom.

A computer can perform media centre duties on Windows, Linux or Apple operating systems.

Media centres that are primarily computers can usually do everything a good computer does, such as browse the web, check your emails and use applications from Microsoft Office to Adobe CS3.

A good media centre should not limit what you see or hear to particular online pay-for-download music or video sites.

Beware of such DRM (Digital Rights Management) hamstringing use of a device or content.

Before buying a media centre, check it can stream YouTube and QuickTime videos and that all the video and audio formats and codes you commonly use are supported.

These include Xvid and DivX codec videos, plus audio formats such as MP3, WMA, FLAC, RealAudio and Ogg Vorbis.

Support for internet radio is an increasingly popular feature.

A PC-STYLE media centre should also allow you to access emerging internet television (aka IPTV) and video-on-demand services such as Joost, Veoh, Hulu and Babelgum.

A tuner card can enable a media centre to receive standard and high-definition digital TV, then record and timeshift programs similar to set-top recorders such as the TiVo.

Video and audio files can be stored on the media centre's own hard drive -- 1TB is excellent, 500GB is good and 250GB is OK -- or elsewhere on your network.

For ease of use but restricted functions, there's the Apple TV.

The Pinnacle ShowCenter is a good all-rounder to consider.

For the home-theatre receiver option, look at the Yamaha range for top quality and Onkyo for a competitive price.

A cheap and cheerful media centre can even be made by modifying an old Xbox game console, but tinkering under the hood of any kind of electronic device is best left to the experts.

Buy or beg a second-hand Xbox classic and track down a friendly local techie type who knows how to convert it into an open-source Xbox Media Center -- or XBMC for short. Visit: http://xbmc.org and www.promods.com.au.

The XBMC is hooked between your PC and TV to play downloaded videos and music in a huge range of formats. And games.

It's not pretty but it works well, though fan and hard-drive noise can be an issue.

And even with the modification done to order, you'll still need a heavy-duty geek streak to get it up and running properly. Not recommended for newbies.

Original story by Richard Conrad - Herald Sun 19th March

Digital TV set-top box blaze danger

You might not just be saving the planet by unplugging your TV equipment at night – you could be saving your life as well!

In a bizarre but chilling incident last night all the set-top digital TV boxes in one street in Washington, Tyne and Wear, burst into flames after a power surge.

The massive power surge blew up a whole street’s worth of TV digiboxes. As they burst into flames firefighters rushed from house to house yelling at residents to turn off their electrical equipment. Panic ensued.

One horrified resident described the road as being "lit up like Blackpool Pier" – a once-popular holiday destination for people who live that far north.

According to reports, home-owners fled into the street when their set-top TV boxes began to spark and smoke after a power surge.

Mum-of-two Sharon Stubbs, 37, described how she was out helping her neighbour whose sitting room had caught fire when a terrifying blaze started in her own house.

Another neighbour scarred his hand on the blazing hot digital box cables.

A spokesman for Tyne and Wear fire service confirmed that: “It is possible that if the boxes were plugged into the mains electricity and there was a surge something like this could happen."

So should we now unplug all our set-top boxes at night? What about recording late movies or our favourite telly programs when away on holiday? Should we expect to come home to a pile of ashes?

Electricity company, NEDL, sorted the problem out by 11pm and reassured residents that they should claim on their insurance.

Sharon claims her lounge flooring will need replacing and one neighbour’s home will need replastering and redecorating.

And who says the TV licence doesn’t sometimes work out as value for money. Every cloud of smoke has a silver lining…

Original story by Simon Jary in PC Authority UK Blog on 6th March 2008

Sport to spearhead digital TV push

THE Rudd Government will use sport to drive the take-up of free-to-air digital television by allowing TV networks to show big-ticket sporting events on new channels such as ABC2 and the commercial networks' alternative high-definition channels.
Under changes being considered by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, the Government may allow TV networks to broadcast sporting events, which are now protected under anti-siphoning laws, on their free-to-air digital channels.
The sports most likely to be in Labor's sights include soccer, tennis and netball.
The Government plans would help prevent a repeat of the situation before the 2005 Ashes Test cricket series between Australia and England, when the broadcast almost went to a pay TV channel after the free-to-air commercial channels did not take up the rights from the England Cricket Board.
After a national outcry, the series was eventually picked up by SBS, generating record ratings and big advertising revenue. At the time, laws prevented the series being shown on ABC2 and other TV networks' alternative digital channels.
But any move to increase the amount of sport on free-to-air TV using the extra digital channels would infuriate media mogul Rupert Murdoch and other big players in pay TV.
Free-to-air digital TV can be accessed using digital set-top boxes, costing as little as $40. These give viewers extra channels, including ABC2 and additional SBS channels, as well as commercial channels' high-definition broadcasts. Most newmodel TVs have built-in digital tuners.
With analog television broadcasts due to be switched off in 2013, the Government is looking for ways to encourage Australians to take up digital TV, given that only 30% nationally have so far made the switch.
Talk of giving free-to-air networks first opportunity to show major sporting events came as thousands of soccer fans were robbed of the opportunity to watch the Socceroos play Qatar in their World Cup qualifier in Melbourne last night.
Under a seven-year $120 million deal reached by Football Federation of Australia in 2006, FoxSports has the broadcast rights to 90 A-League games a season, six Socceroo games and the rights for Asian tournaments featuring the Socceroos.
Shadow communications spokesman Bruce Billson said the Rudd Government had meekly accepted Socceroos games being shown on pay TV, despite talking tough when in opposition.
Senator Conroy said the Government could not rip up the FFA's contract with Foxtel but would move to put the Socceroos' World Cup qualifying games on the anti-siphoning list in time for the contract's expiry in 2013.

Story by Andrew Probyn and Nick Butterly The Age February 7, 2008