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Rumblings as ABC viewers lose HD shows

The loss of high definition shows on ABC HD in readiness for ABC News 24 is beginning to be felt.

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The loss of high definition shows on ABC HD in readiness for ABC News 24 is beginning to be felt.

The Northern Territory News reports some viewers are unhappy about losing favourite shows in high definition to make way for the News channel.

Alice Springs ABC viewer Tim Kendrick, 49, said he went away for a week, set his hard drive to record his favourite programs, but got home to find hours of the looped ad recorded.

“It’s now been more than a week of broadcasts of this infernal loop,” he said.

“They’ve cut corners and done the public out of ABC HD.”

ABC1 output had been upconverted to HD for the HD channel, but this is no longer available.

It was the same result when TEN HD made way for ONE HD -drama, entertainment and other programming in HD fell victim to high definition sport.

ABC News 24 will be available on digital Channel 24 and is an HD only service. Viewers will need an HD-compatible set-top box or an HD-compatible digital television in order to access the service.

“A drama program like Spooks sounds much better in HD,” Mr. Kendrick said.

Source: NT News

47 Responses

  1. FreeView has been pushing the idea of masses of HD programming for some time now and Ten and now the ABC have stopped showing their regular programming in HD. ACMA should have more control over this, and deliver us the HD shows as promised. News is pretty much the last thing I need to see in HD.

  3. mc says->Then the analogue will be off, and the ABC can have a second multiplex. Hopefully by then a higher proportion of TVs will have MPEG4 decoding.

    There is No way the analogue switchoff in Sydney will be on target – Yes Mildura (pop 30000) worked (at a Huge cost)… Sydney (pop 4-5 million)… Umm somewhat different story… Even so, even if the government force mpeg4 onto the manufactuers now, it will be at least 10 years before the old non-compatable boxes are out of the market… forget mpeg4 for transmission here in the next decade at least…

    ABC 2012 they have the disabled olympics which originate in HD… Can I watch them in HD ? No!

  5. S wrote: “And what happens in 2 or 3 years when the ABC actually get something people want to watch in HD.? What happens then.?”

    Then the analogue will be off, and the ABC can have a second multiplex. Hopefully by then a higher proportion of TVs will have MPEG4 decoding.

  6. This is why I laugh at the prospects for 3D TV. People have shelled out cash for a flashy new TV but there is so little HD content to watch. Now the electronics and media companies want us to hand out even more cash to buy a 3D TV? Lets get HD up and running first.

  7. The only thing that differentiated abc1 from abcHD, was the greeny coloured water mark in place Of the blue abc1 logo. If you want to continue to watch abcHD, all you need to do is buy a pvr that upscales from sd to HD.

    But really, there’s no reason why they had to get rid of abchd, they easily could have merged abc 2 and 3. seeing as abc 2 is basically a full time preschool aged channel, bar a few hours at night, and abc3 airs school aged cartoons during the day when its target audience is at school- and when they do get home they have toons on abc1 until 6pm.

  10. Yes I discovered too yesterday when I sat down to catch up on my favorite shows and was greeted by the looped news ad (Brisbane here). Nothing important lost though – and there is always Iview. I’m more sad that they’ve wasted a HD channel on news!

  12. couldn’t agree more bob, am sick to death of all these kids shows, why do they need 2 channels full of it?? I also agree with comments that we don’t need to see news in HD, i too would rather see some nature docos in HD than bloody Ian Henderson or Tony Jones’ mug (nothing personal guys)

  13. And all the “content” on this “HD” channel is SD upconverted… What a waste…Thank god for fox sports HD channels…

    And what happens in 2 or 3 years when the ABC actually get something people want to watch in HD.? What happens then.?

  14. @par3182- what guides? we knew that at some date soon the new channel would launch, this date was only announced a few days ago after the loop was going. There was no announcement that there would be a pre-emptive shift to a loop on channel 20. They started the loop with no announcement or warning and unless you happened to flick to channel 20 you got caught out when you went to view your recordings. The EPG still said the programs were airing on 20 once the loop was in full effect so it is no wonder that people got caught out.

  18. No good blaming the ABC,this is a result of government channel allocation years ago.When analogue is completely turned off ABC1 will take over the HD channel and 24 news will convert to SD.

  19. I noticed a promo on ABC for the new BBC series Life with David Attenborough, it’s mean to be fantastic in HD, pitty ABC never had 1080 HD like it matters now they have no HD at all for the main channel.

  20. It’s not much of a loss as ABC HD was only 720p, as opposed to 1080p. ABC HD was only slightly better than ABC with standard definition broadcasts.

  22. Unless there is legislation now to ensure all digital tuners from now on handle MEPG4 (which will allow more HD channels as well as better bit rates and thus less pixelation), we will have the same problems we have now in 10 years time where the broadcasters still have to provide digital signals that older tuners can handle.

    We could be stuck with the current scenario of 1 HD channel only per network for many more years to come.

    Australia is very slow with broadcast technology. FM radio took something like 30 years to eventuate here, didn’t it?

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