Community TV switches off analogue
Community TV broadcasters in Sydney and Melbourne are now available only on Digital.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
As of yesterday Community TV broadcasters TVS (sydney) and Channel 31 (Melbourne) have switched off their Analogue and are broadcasting only in Digital.
There was a time when Community broadcasters thought they might be left behind in the big switch, but eventually the Rudd Federal Government funded $2.6m to enable the community sector to meet the costs of commencing digital simulcasts.
TVSÂ now says: “To receive TVS you will need a Digital Television or a Digital Set Top Box to use with your analogue television.
“To receive us simply auto tune your television and it should automatically pick up Digital 44. If not, most televisions have a manual tune option where you can enter our digital frequency; 536.625MH”
Channel 31 Melbourne has also flicked the switch.
“To receive us, simply auto tune your television and it should automatically pick up Digital 44. If not, most televisions have a manual tune option where you can enter our digital frequency: 557.625,” it says.
44 Adelaide made the switch in November, 31 Digital Brisbane began on digital in 2010 and WTV is already on 44.
5 Responses
Agree with A. Digital is all or nothing transmission. You don’t get a snowy, watchable picture, you get nothing if the reception is bad; or at the very least a slideshow of jumbled macroblocks. Sure, digital offers many benefits, but analog had its technological pluses too.
@A – C31 also has a translator station based in South Yarra on UHF Channel 66 (digital) but that’s only for that immediate area I don’t know how far that signal reaches.
You would think most people would have a digital tv by now
A – if you’re not receiving the channel, your antenna system is probably not up to the job. I’m in Geelong and have never had any issue picking up either the analogue or digital C31 signals.
31 Brisbane switched off their analogue transmission May last year. Until then, they were simulcasting on both digital and analogue.
What a disaster because sometimes three days a week we can’t get Channel 31 or 44 digital. Whereas the analogue worked all the time except if they didn’t transmit. I love digital but it’s not reliable. By the way I think Channel 31 in Melbourne has two digital frequencies or they used to because one of them didn’t work for me when it disappeared and I tried to manually find it. I had to wait for better weather and the other frequency.