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Wait, why is Foxtel still charging extra for HD?

HD is widely available on Free to Air, but Foxtel is still double-dipping with fee that is outdated.

2016-08-01_1505If you’re a Foxtel customer then you well-know you’re being billed an extra $10 a month for HD channels.

That’s despite a monthly fee for the HD-capable IQ2 or IQ3. So if subscribers are already renting a HD set top box, why in 2016 are they still being charged an extra fee to watch channels they are already paying for?

The problem is understood to be linked to satellite fees, and was introduced when Foxtel was ahead of Free to Air channels with its drama, sport & events in HD. But that landscape has changed significantly. HD is now a given, and available for free by Free to Air networks.

In February Foxtel Director of Television Brian Walsh told TV Tonight, “I think that’s a reasonable comment and it’s under review.”

Despite the announcement of a new IQ3.5 box, and an upgrade for existing IQ3 customers, there is no news on dropping the HD fee.

A Foxtel spokesperson said, “It’s been an incredibly exciting and busy first half of 2016, which has seen us add three new additional beIN sports channels at no extra cost to the sports pack. We’ve also massively increased our Anytime on demand programming hours, launched more drama, lifestyle and reality programs as well as number of pop-up movies channels and last month we launched three more sports channels – the English Football Club channels.

“At this stage we don’t have any updates on any HD changes – except to say all of our new sports channels are available in both HD and SD.”

30 Responses

  1. Foxtel must not have enough HD users as their latest scam is to only offer some episodes in a series in HD.
    I have increasingly noticed series trying to record episodes in HD and as I don’t have HD I miss the episode. Thinking this was a fault with the IQ3 I rang support and was told that the supplier did not supply them with the SD version for that episode only the HD episode. Their solution was for me to spend an extra $10 a month which I might do on Netflix instead.

  2. I don’t mind them charging the extra $10 but only if they will broadcast every channel now in HD.I see a lot of talk regarding HD quality if you have a decent TV set you will obviously see a big difference

  3. I was given the HD channels for free for a trial period and I took them off after that. Partially because of the expense, but also because on the iQ2HD they take up much more valuable hard disk space to record. I appreciate that sport (which I do not watch) may be better in HD, but I find that a lot of content is simply not that much enhanced by the format, not enough to justify the cost. The SD on the iQ2 is great (the SD on the iQ3 was far from great).

  4. All content is filmed in HD 1280 x 720P and in 16:9 look on IMDB. Foxtel and the FTA’s down scale it to 720 x 576 which is an old analogue 4:3 format.
    Many years ago a ep of The Good Wife was over 3GB in SD and looked great, now it’s a 1/3 of that.
    Royal Pains on 7 still looks pretty good.
    Everything now is grainy and looks like an old SVCD.

    1. Almost no content is filmed in 1280×720, be it TV shows, feature films or sport. Not sure where on IMDB you read this, but it is simply not the case. Professional sports that broadcast in HD are either using cameras that can record in 1080p @ 50 or 60 hz (obviously the smooth, ultra slow-motion replays have much higher frame-rates, with obvious trade-offs), or have already switched, or begun to switch over to 4K equipment. Medium – big budgets feature films either use film (35mm being the standard) or increasingly 8K digital cameras. 35mm film is roughly equivalent to a bit over 4K.

      Sure, cable and FTA broadcasters often broadcast 720p for sport (though 1080i is also quite common for other types of content, at least in my part of the world), but that is due almost entirely to bandwidth limitations of their broadcast networks that weren’t designed with the type of bitrates needed…

        1. ABC decided to change News24 on Foxtel to SD. It is only HD on digital TV

          the ABC have advised that the reason they are now broadcasting in SD is to ensure that their entire audience can view their content

  5. Good question!

    Another good question would be why are dozens of channels still in SD only?

    Another good question would by why is ABC and 7 not in HD

  6. When I rang up last year to cancel my service (at this stage just basic as we use Hulu and Netflix) they ended up offering us free HD and free Drama pack. So at least until the end of this year we are paying $26 for Basic, Drama, HD.
    They seem very worried about Netflix and have a prepared list of reasons not to rely on it. How the times have changed.

  7. The monthly HD fee is a blatant rip off. Subscribers have to pay hundreds of dollars for an HD compatible IQ box (essentially buying the box at an incredible markup) which you still have to return without refund when you cancel Foxtel. Then they charge you $10 per month just to see HD!

    Even worse, we paid for the terabyte IQ2 box which was malfunctioning from day one. They refused to replace it (apparently it was withdrawn almost immediately after release) and wouldn’t refund the fee when they eventually did replaced it with a non-terabyte model.

  8. Foxtel seem remarkably proud of scrambling to add in the beIN sports and club channels “at no extra cost” when they were simply a desperate response to having the EPL nicked off them. Think there would’ve been an uproar if they had charged extra for them.

    As Rach says, Foxtel HD is a vast improvement over SD when watching sport on a big screen and it’s significantly better than the pseudo-HD that the FTA networks serve up. I don’t see Foxtel dropping the HD fee any time soon.

    1. The FTA’s HD content be it 1920 x 1080,1440 x 1080 or 1280 x 720P is in HD….it’s just the bit rate that is way low due to their other channels using up the bandwidth on the transponders.
      Compare Nines “live in studio” news picture with anything else they show. Thats the difference.

  9. I did read a headline the said between SBS and ABC they pay $6 Million in retransmission fees to Optus the operator of the satellite that carries Foxtel, having worked out how many channels they have I worked out the cost per channel is between $160,000 and $200,000 per year.

  10. Especially sport Foxtel SD picture is so bad they force you onto HD,of course the $10 is a rip off but they have you in a bind,BEIN sports was unwatchable on SD now in HD and pic quality is unbelievable

  11. As a regional viewer the HD sports channels have been worth the extra $10 – because it’s been “real” HD not some crappy SD upscale that the FTA have been providing to us in the regions.

    1. Its compressed to hell HD – that’s not real HD – its a poor bitrate of around 4-9Mb per channel when it should be around 9-15Mb per channel. The ghosting effects (particularly when watching movies) is terrible and reminds me of a bootleg Blu-ray disc

      1. Not quite correct – they use different bitrates depending on the channel, so yes, Fox 8 is ‘compressed to hell’ but Fox Sports is excellent quality – next time an AFL or NRL game is on, compare the HD picture to 7Mate or 9HD, and it’s very noticeable that the Foxtel one is superior. That’s been my experience anyway. But yes, I agree we shouldn’t have to pay an extra $10 a month. What they should do is make HD free and offer 4k for $10 instead!

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