13 April 2008

WIN News - Widescreen

| Hammo
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WIN News in Canberra will be widescreen digital, as of Monday 14 April 2008 (next Monday).

[Ed. This barely passes Riot’s stringent quality controls for news, but as its a slow day….]

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Actually seeing the news for the first time tonight in HD there is a huge difference to the old analogue even on the trusty old tv, makes you wonder how old their old equipment was.. guessing very from the few times i’ve seen the camera crew out and about. Can’t comment on the sound, but it sounded a lot better to me.

CanberraResident1:12 pm 15 Apr 08

Hi JG114, actually that makes a lot of sense. Just called a mate, who told me the same thing – unless your TV is quite big (which mine is not), then the HD will make virtually no difference. With regards to DVD recorders, I bought a LG HD Multi whatever with loads of recording hours. Your comment about “freezing” rings true. I get plenty of freezes – very annoying when recording a program. Good to see others have same problem and it’s not unique to my setup. Anyway, you’ve set my mind at ease about the HD thing – stuff it, don’t need it. Might even bring out the old b/w telly from the garage, you know … the one with the inbuilt stereo at one end circa 1968. Hehe, funny thing is, it still works!

Hi Canberra Resident… don’t panic about the HD! If I strain really hard I can just make out a slightly perceptible difference between the SD and the HD signals on my 1366×768 TV which is classed as high definition. If I had the 1920 x 1080 set at triple the price, I would be able to see a bigger difference of course.

For the forseeable future an SD tuner through a good TV will keep all but the most anal viewers happy, as the pictures are by any definition excellent, and the hardware is a lot cheaper.

I forgot to mention that Sony no longer make their HD HDD PVRs but other brands exist, Topfield seems to be doing quite well in the HD market. In the city DJs, Myer and JB all seem to have a few on sale. There are plenty of good players in the SD HDD PVR market, I bought a Digicrystal one from a reputable supplier on eBay for about $160 with ability to record up to 40 hours of TV, it was a single tuner model but if I was looking now I would make sure I got a twin tuner model.

Stay away from DGTech… their STBs and PVRs are crap. Cheaper but you get unreliability as a result, and there are few things more annoying than setting up a series of programs to record and finding the unit had frozen 5 minutes into the first one on the list!

@caf: You’ve got me scratching my head now. Had never noticed the stereo problem until last night. But then, haven’t really paid much attention to WIN News in quite a while, so it may be something unrelated to the changeover?

ozhair: All of the analogue channels except for SC10 have been stereo in Canberra for years… so does the same problem occur on analogue stereo?

CanberraResident11:26 am 15 Apr 08

thanks Kenneth and el …you know … I don’t consider myself illiterate or a tech dunce, but this new HD TV technology has me baffled, even the high definition website put out by the communications mob didn’t help … anyway, I’ve screen dumped your suggestions above and will show it to the 17 year old next door, he’ll get it going I’m sure, and I’m happy to pay extra for another set-top box if needed … mind you, I won’t be going to ‘you know where’ though … their catalogue is all pooped over so there’s no chance of viewing the specials as I drink my morning brew …

Well, an interesting start to WIN’s widescreen digital news…

They need to rethink the way they mix the audio for the stories. Previously, in the analogue world, a story would be cut with voice over and interview grabs on channel 1, and background sound for the vision on channel 2. Since the end result was mono analogue, it all mixed together naturally.

Last night during the stories, in the new digital stereo world, this resulted in voice over coming through one speaker and background sound through the other. Very noticable when the newsreader was coming through both speakers 🙂

CanberraResident, as el has said, try the SD channels. Your recorder only has a SD tuner in.

Unfortunately no DVD/HDD PVR’s have a HD tuner yet, only the HDD PVR’s.

Aha… CR – have you tried the normal standard definition (not ‘High Definition’) digital channels? I have a standard def set top box which works brilliantly (a Topfield on sale at Hardly Normal for $100), but it won’t handle the HD channels.

CanberraResident10:33 pm 14 Apr 08

Thanks kenneth, my DVD HDD Recorder (LG)has an in-built set-top box, but all my HD channels are showing “no signal” – yes, I have tried re-tuning but it will not work. Upon calling the bad guys, I was told that my TV is not “digital-enabled” (whatever the hell that means), and therefore I need to buy another set-top box because the LG Recorder “can’t do it” – that’s a quote. These fools were the ones who sold me this set up 3 months ago, and went on to tell me that “Canberra won’t be getting digital reception for two years”. These days, when I get the bad guys catalogue in the mail, I chuck it in the budgie cage as poop lining. It makes me feel better and the family gets a laugh out of it.

Thanks for your help – I’ll work it out. I’m sure a 17 year old techno student will work it out in a minute.

Cheers

CanberraResident said :

It’s not as easy as just buying a DVD recorder with inbuilt set-top box (I have a DVD recorder too); the TV needs to be digital compatible too.

Huh?

All you need is a STB or PVR (either a DVD/HDD recorder with SD tuner or a HDD-only recorder with SD or SD/HD Tuner). Other than that, you just need the right connections (usually starting with composite (yellow/red/white)) and then you are set for digital.

Note though that not all DVD recorders (including the Hard Drive/DVD ones), have digital tuners yet.

CanberraResident5:33 pm 14 Apr 08

JD114 said :

Absolutely the best thing since sliced raisin bread for toasting is my Sony HD PVR Hard Drive recorder, which incorporates the set top box and replaces the VCR. Viewing, recording and playing back TV is now both enjoyable and convenient.

It’s not as easy as just buying a DVD recorder with inbuilt set-top box (I have a DVD recorder too); the TV needs to be digital compatible too.

I’m going to get a PVR and add a bit of value to my enforced purchase of a Set Top Box. I hear they’re easier to use than a video recorder (bloody thing). But this nasty habit the commercials have of starting shows late gives me the irrits, if you use the on-line schedules to program your PVR, you’ll miss stuff.

I have crystal-clear TV reception, as my TV is slightly above Black Mountain Tower. It’s very nice. No ghosts!

Be able to watch the excellent Robin Hood in its entirety is a very good reason to get a time-shifting PVR, I reckon. (I didn’t really believe that Guy was going to hang Marion from the neck until she was dead).

harley,

Unfortunately they use a single person ENG crew (ie. the camera operator does the sound recording as well) so there is more chance of getting bad sound (especially with the way they do the mic placement for the shotgun mic., let alone the lack of headphones on some camera ops (ie. just relying on the meters on the camera).

Hopefully they’ll get a decent sound recorder, too.

Since I moved up here last year, I haven’t seen a local report with decent audio – it’s always badly clipped…

Absolutely the best thing since sliced raisin bread for toasting is my Sony HD PVR Hard Drive recorder, which incorporates the set top box and replaces the VCR. Viewing, recording and playing back TV is now both enjoyable and convenient.

One of bestest things is the ability to be watching a program, get a phone call or a knock on the door, hit the red button on the remote, and watch the same program at any time, whether it’s five minutes later after the interruption has ceased, or next week or whenever. For instance last night I was running a bit late for good old Robin Hood, the dinner was not quite ready… as soon as it came on I hit the red button to start recording, leisurely completed my dinner preparations, sat down, pressed play, and watched the entire program 10 minutes later than everyone else.

To get back to the original subject here, yes it will be good to have the local news in clear 16:9 signal, but obviously one wouldn’t purchase a digital setup just for that!

I think your opinion on the usefulness of digital television probably depends on what kind of analogue signal reception you get. I’ve had a cheap-arse Dick Smith standard def set top box for about two years now and love it. No more fuzzy ghosting pics, just crystal clear, widescreen reception. Before, especially on the ABC and Prime, my reception was cr@p.

WIN News being widescreen will also be noticeable on analog due to the way WIN shows analog TV (14:9 all the time, instead of just when 16:9 content is on).

Because it wasn’t needed, didn’t provide anything useful, the bigs and the cable channels ensured multi-channeling didn’t happen, and it was introduced to make everyone buy new stuff. They stuffed up the implementation, luckily, but we’ll all have to spend some money shortly.

why is it a rort?

I don’t have digital. I’m waiting til the last moment til I get a box. What an utter rort it is. As for widescreen, huh. Computer has one, and it’s handy for storing my favourites.

oooooo widescreen!

I guess I only watch WIN news to check out the presenter’s attributes, cause I don’t listen to what is said.

Yay, Win have finally joined the 21st century. Will it make their news any less crap?

CanberraResident7:28 pm 13 Apr 08

yeah, but if you ask the “bad guys, they’ll tell you that digital “isn’t coming to Canberra for another 2 years!”. WHAT ROT!!! They’ll do anything to make a sale on outdated stock, and I fell for it just three months ago. Now it seems, I need more equipment to enable the $2000 set-up I bought to actually work on digital networks. Buyer beware, that’s all I can say, and when it comes to digital, you need to ask a LOT of questions.

Jessica Good on widescreen digital? No thanks. Like I’ve said before, she reads the news like she’s reciting grandma’s pudding recipe.

I haven’t bothered with my digital set top box in months. Last time I watched it was the HD demo 99% of the time… do they offer what would qualify as a real channel nowadsays? I was shocked that Melb/Sydney HD channels actually featured more than just the show on at 8:30pm etc…

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