Though I can’t think of a good introduction to this blog post, I have listed a few things that should happen in regards to digital broadcasts in Australia.

1) National broadcasting of Digital 44 using the Channel A spectrum

This trail program that has been running in Sydney is useful, as it provides a medium for news and general community broadcasting over the digital platform.  A national rollout of this service could encompass a news channel, A-PAC, NITV, the Australian Christian Channel, the local Channel 31 station as well as Teachers TV and Parliament broadcasting.  The Expo Shopping Channel can be scrapped as it is a pointless channel.

2) The reallocation of “Channel B” from Mobile Broadcasting

While the idea is clever, I find it hard to believe that the take up of such a service would be high.  Personally, I would rather that spectrum be allocated to further increase DVB-T broadcasts.

3) The introduction of pay tv over DVB-T

This does sound like a controversial idea, considering that the whole premise of freeview is that you never have to pay monthly fees.  However, this could be beneficial in a number of areas, for both the consumer, broadcasters as a whole, and a company such as Foxtel (which I will use in this example).

An OTA Pay TV service could pave the way for opportunities to experiment with newer broadcasting technologies and methods.  Foxtel could broadcast their encrypted content using the H264 codec and offer subscribers decoders with smartcard holders and H264 support, while being able to offer more channels than if MPEG2 was being used.  Interactive (aka Red Button) and On Demand (similar to the Top Up TV Anytime system in the UK) systems can also be trialled.

The consumers benefit because they have the option of paying a low fee for a few extra channels that may be of interest.  Depending on the codec and bitrate of the channels broadcasted, about 4-7 24 hour channels could possibly be offered.  Possible Channels could include:

• Fox Sports (HD)
• ESPN
• Discovery Channel
• Fox 8
• Showtime
• Sky News/Weather/BBC World
• Nickelodeon

While these are only examples, it serves as a guide to what could be offered.

A non-existing subscriber could expect to pay somewhere between $10 – $15 for this service.  This kind of a service would be extremely popular with people living in apartments and units where it is not possible to have satellite/cable Foxtel installed, but regular over the air TV can be received.  An existing subscriber could pay about $5 on top of their traditional Foxtel monthly bill.  This would eliminate the need for installers to come in and run more pay tv cable around the house.

The company providing the service, such as a Foxtel would benefit as it allows them to reach additional segments of the market that either couldn’t afford the traditional Foxtel service, or couldn’t have the traditional Foxtel service installed due to structural/legal issues.  It is a win-win situation.

4)  Reallocation of LCNs (Logical Channel Numbers)

The following is how it should be done:

1, 10 – 19, 100 – 199: Ten Network, Southern Cross Ten

2, 20 – 29, 200 – 299: ABC

3, 30 – 39, 300 – 349: SBS

4, 40 – 49, 400 – 499: Datacasting

5, 50 – 59, 500 – 599: Channel B (see Foxtel example)

7, 70 – 79, 700 – 799: Seven Network, Prime Television

9, 90 – 99, 900 – 999: Nine Network, WIN & NBN Television

I fail to understand how the regional networks are allocated their own LCNs.  It isn’t as if their transmission areas overlap.

These are just a few ideas that can be explored.  Let me know what you think.

Dropbox is a service in which you are able to upload files to the dropbox “cloud” and sync across all your computers, though I never really had a use for it.

I was introduced to this service by Alan Pope, which I used to upload pre release copies and share to him and a couple of other friends from my podcasting days. Once I stopped recording, the app would sit on the unified osx menu bar doing nothing.

The limitations of my Internet connection (pushing upwards of2GB of data amongst computers over the Internet would use up my monthly quota very quickly) and the fact that I only own one computer prevented me from actually using it regularly. It got to the point where I would get an automatic email from dropbox begging me to come back. What drew me back was their iPhone app.

The ability to view PDFs, word documents, spreadsheets, audio and video among others can be very handy. It could save you from printing something, syncing your iPhone for one odd media file etc.

This app is free and you can sign up on the app or at the dropbox website.. It’s next job will be to play me a Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholar podcast that doesn’t have an associated rss feed…

Screenshots will follow… eventually

Next up will hopefully be an unboxing of the mac mini server…

I can’t believe I haven’t updated this website for almost a month…

Anyway at this stage the podcast has become inactive. I am not sure when we will get it back up again, but I hope we can do it eventually.

I have lately had trouble with connecting through to Gmail’s IMAP server. Thunderbird has been giving me a timed out error message.

For those who are having this trouble, please try unblocking port 993 on your firewall. If you are on a different server, find out from the relevant parties what type of encryption is used and what ports are required.

I’ll see you next month lol

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Overview

In this first episode we cover the Android powered Archos 5 Internet tablet, the new login screen for the upcoming Ubuntu 9.10 release, the Lily Allen piracy saga, the GPL court case in Paris and the presentation of the Intel Tru2Way Cable Server.

The Hosts

Show Notes

Archos 5: The Linux Internet tablet for everyone

Karmic Koala’s New Login Screen Revealed

A Brilliant Open Letter Song On Piracy To Lily Alley

Viagra spam brings bulging returns of more than $4,000/day

Big GPL copyright enforcement win in Paris Court of Appeals

Now, I am a fan of digital television, especially HDTV.  When HDTV is done right it is truly a joy to watch (thanks to One and 7HD when they pull their finger out).  However, there are many flaws in the current system, which primarily relate to lack of access and government red tape.  Let it be known that Optus Aurora is no longer an appropriate solution for remote viewers.

Here I will list a few changes that I hope are implemented for the sake of the Australian public (and I hope you are reading this Senator Conroy).

1) Removal of certain conditions in Broadcast Licences

Currently free to air stations have a requirement that states the broadcaster can not broadcast to more than 75% (or something like that) of the population.  I would like to see that requirement removed for two reasons. First, this would eliminate the need to encrypt all Free to Air satellite broadcasts.  This would not only allow the operator of the satellite broadcaster to reduce their costs, this would also enable more people to access such a satellite platform.  Secondly, this would benefit the regional affiliates as they do not need to produce their own  HD channel, they can retransmit the national HD feed of a major broadcaster (which I will talk about next).  If the Government does not want to remove the 75% quota for at least the main SD channel, then they can look at a system such as freesat in the UK where the proprietary EPG only displays the local channel based on a post code that was entered into the set top box.

2) Introduce requirement for national feeds for HD and secondary SD channels

This here makes perfect sense.  Broadcasters would benefit as they could reduce their costs by not producing the same content in each metro and regional centre (ask ABC, they are already doing this.  If anyone in Melbourne pays attention, the ABC HD feed that we receive comes from Sydney), those in regional centres would benefit as they would be able to receive the same broadcasts those in the cities can, and it would use less satellite space as the need to retransmit every local HD affilate under the sun would become non existent.  This way, if you are a massive fan of the SBS TWO programs such as 112 Emergency, Epitafios or the delayed Bundesliga broadcasts on One HD to name a few, you will still be able to watch them no matter where you are.

3) Provide extra channels on the satellite platform

This is another initiative from the freesat folks in the UK.  They put in a stack of news and general entertainment channels on their platform.  I don’t see why such a platform can’t retransmit the likes of BBC World, Deutsche Welle TV, France 24, Euronews and Al Jazeera (all in English), along with A-PAC (which everyone in Australia is supposedly able to access for free), Sky News, Aurora (the community channel) and maybe even the Australian Christian Channel if there is demand.  I don’t think that it would be a bad idea to get Foxtel into the act.  There could be an opportunity for Foxtel to retransmit their HD channels on this platform as a “lite” pay tv service to target those who want but can’t receive Foxtel for whatever reason.  I wouldn’t mind paying a small fee per month for Fox Sports HD and BBC HD.  Setanta Sports Australia could use such a platform to get more subscribers on board.  The possibilities here are endless, but the inclusion of extra channels would help to garner interest in this kind of platform.

4) Stop programs that retransmit DTT in remote/country areas

I fail to understand why the government pushes terrestrial television in these types of areas.  Such a broadcasting medium is useless in places outside of metripolitan and country centres.  Instead the promotion of a satellite platform as hinted several times throughout this article would be better.  Instead of using government and broadcaster funds for installing transmitters, the money could be used for subsidising digital satellite installations and equipment.  With Satellite, in the majority of cases a good signal is guaranteed compared to “Self-Help Transmitters” and the like for terrestrial television.  It makes perfect sense.

5) Expansion of the Anti-Siphoning list to include Digital only stations

This is another way where the government can get more people onto digital TV.  Sport managed to increase the popularity of Foxtel, so I don’t see how it can’t have the same effect on FTA digital TV.

If we allow networks to screen listed events on their digital channels, that can help increase the intake of digital TV (just like in Mildura with the AFL on a digital only channel).  It would also help to get more FTA broadcasters showing events because they would have more flexibility over what channels they can broadcast the events.

Just a personal request, can all Socceroos matches and one game of the A-League per week please be put on the Anti-Siphoning list?  Myself and many other soccer fans in this country would be very greatful

Conclusion

These are just a few ideas here.  While yes it does heavily involve my preference for an unencrypted FTA satellite platform like the UK’s freesat, some of these ideas if implemented can help to a) improve the uptake of digital television, b) provide extra digital services to all Australians and c) reduce the costs of broadcasters.  If you wish to say anything, please post to the comments section of this post.

Well, it has been two weeks since I have last posted onto this blog.  I really need to get into the habit of posting regularly here.

With my rediscovery of LinuxMCE I have been thinking about how such a system would work for me at home.

The Server would need to be powerful enough to do quick transcodes of existing content, and record/stream digital tv across the house to thin clients which would be connected to big screen tvs to computer monitors and the like.

It has been a while since I have done research into computer parts.  I have not really felt the need to do indepth research since I purchased my iMac in late 2007, but this potential project has got me interested again.

The DVB-T side of things would be easy.  There are a plethora of TV cards that would do the job and a large portion of those which are supported by LinuxMCE and MythTV in particular.

LinuxMCE directly supports the following TV Cards:

SD: Hauppauge PVR-150/250/500/USB2
HD: HDHomeRun (ATSC/QAM)

However, as LinuxMCE employs the MythTV backend to handle TV, a plethora of TV cards can be made to work.  Other popular cards

A popular solution for American users is the HDHomeRun.  This box allows you to stream digital tv over your network to computers where an antenna/cable point on the wall is unavailable.  The solution for me would be useless as at each of my antenna points on the wall there is no ethernet access, keeping in mind that the DVB-T version of the HDHomeRun is not supported by LinuxMCE.  MythTV in its latest versions supports it but there is still a lot of work to be done on it.

While the DVB-T scene is prosperous, one of the more interesting areas is the DVB-S Tuner Cards.  For the uniniated, DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) is the European standard for digital tv that is also employed in Australia, New Zealand and South-South East Asia among other places.  It is somewhat similar to the american ATSC standard, except that in the terrestrial profile DVB supports H264 broadcasts.  While DVB-T is used for terrestrial broadcasts, DVB-S is used for Satellite broadcasts.

The advent of DVB-S tuner cards with CI slots has caught my interest.  This would allow me to watch encrypted satellite channels on my computer.  You may be wondering, what can I actually subscribe to without the need for one of those proprietary set top boxes here in Australia.  There are three services which i can think of off the top of my head: SelecTV (EDIT: As it turns out, I was wrong.  SelecTV have stopped offering smartcard only solutions except to members of the Austech forum…), UBI World TV and Setanta Sports.  SelecTV broadcasts on the satellite that was once known as PAS8 (I think it is now called Intelsat 8), however the latter are found on the Optus D2 satellite.  SelecTV is like a Foxtel Lite without the decent sports coverage and the ability to BYO decoder, UBI World TV would appeal to those who don’t speak English natively and Setanta Sports is literally soccer heaven.

On the Optus D2 satellite there is a plethora of unencrypted satellite channel which range from Greek, Turkish and Arabic (i think) programming to religious channels.  I like the idea of being able to watch Setanta Sports in another part of the house to where our Foxtel box (a little bit on that later) currently resides while watching the English news channel Russia Today free to air

However, what about my poor Foxtel digital cable subscription? Foxtel like the majority of the world’s big pay television providers require users to use their proprietary set top boxes and PVRs, which often are underpowered and small (in terms of hard drive space) compared to our fantastic PC based media centres.  With these companies you are expected to pay for the privilege of posessing a PVR each month, which often people either can’t afford or grudgingly pay. These PVRs are great for those who are not very comfortable with using technology, and that’s about it really.

I do not see why there is an absolute need to force us to pay for these PVRs except as a money making exercise.  I wouldn’t know what it is like overseas but in Australia demand for pay per view movies isn’t that high, and not many people really use the active services that Foxtel/Austar provide.  I don’t see it being too mission critical for the majority of those who would want to connect foxtel directly to a DVB-S tuner card.  Hell, they’re not really going to care that much as long as they can tune in.  Besides, it wouldn’t matter too much for those who wish to use Foxtel Box Office as those with a standard set top box (like yours truly) can easily call Foxtel and place an order over the phone.

Here is an idea for Foxtel to investigate.  As Austar encrypts their channels with Irdeto 2 on the Optus C1 satellite, why can’t Foxtel give the opportunity for those who are interested to use their own equipment at the expense of being able to access on-demand/active services.  Offer an Irdeto smartcard for A$5, and don’t offer direct support for the equipment.  If Foxtel so desire, they can at least force the subscriber to keep the standard set top box connected.

That’s all fine for Satellite subscribers, but what about those who are only able to access Foxtel via cable due to their regulations? Foxtel has two options here.  They can either give access to the satellite system or offer TV cards for cable with a CI slot for their NDS Videoguard smartcards.

This would benefit everyone.  The subscribers with MCE systems can integrate Foxtel more tightly, and Foxtel receive more satisfied customers.

I am confident that Foxtel currently are losing subscribers because they are dissatisfied with their service. Offering customers a smartcard only option as an alternative to their $15 to $20 multiroom solution for a second Foxtel set top box may help to get customers back.

Think about it Foxtel, because it might just make you popular with the MCE user community of Australia again

It has taken me quite a while to decide what I wanted to post on my blog this week, but here it is.   I probably should have written this earlier, but the idea came to me after reading an article posted on Stuff.

Recently a story has been brought to my attention from a teenager from New Plymouth, New Zealand, Kyle Wadsworth who I have known from the Outrageous Fortune Fan Forum for a year or so now.  He first mentioned the issue on his blog.

Kyle attends the New Plymouth Boys High School who recently ran a charity event (a ‘mufti-day’) to support a charity called KidsCan as part of a TVNZ Telethon event (much like our Good Friday Appeal).  According to him the school decided to distribute the majority of funds amongst it’s school sport and IT programs rather than to the charity that it promised to give to itself.

The issue has caught the attention of many people, which is mentioned in the news article:

Commenters have joined Kyle’s chorus and he said he had received messages of support from as far away as Australia and from fellow-students to Telstra Clear executives.

The school has responded to this issue rather poorly. A response from the school was mentioned in the news article:

“While it was usual school procedure to give $200 after each fundraising day to a charity, it had been decided to give $500 this time. “The kids know that, they’ve been told that.”

Mr McMenamin said the school council would not be giving more of the money raised to KidsCan as it was “just not an issue”.

To rebut the first point, Kyle claims on his blog that the statement was:

INCORRECT TOTALLY. I’m sitting here in my class, and these guys had no idea! One said “They never tell us that s***, I didn’t know until I read it this morning”. Students had no knowledge at all that not all funds were donated.

Second, it is an issue when the school is going behind the back of contributors who were under the presumption that the money was going to charity.  How did the school even get the right to keep 4/5 of the money raised for themselves? Are they so low on funds that they need to do such a thing? Whatever happened to their allotment of Government Funding? NB: I do not know how much funding the school received from the Government, but based on what happens here in Australia even the elite schools get funding of some sort…

The school has a responsibility to the students involved to give a larger portion of the money to charity.  It is a matter of human decency, which these school directors seem to lack.  I sincerely hope that this issue is resolved for the sake of those involved, and that by me posting this it will increase the exposure of this.

I figured that this video would be interesting to share.  The creator of this video has pulled short videos together from happy Mac users who explain on camera why they bought their Mac in the first place.  Enjoy.

Hello. Anyone who knows me well would know that in late June and early July I travelled to Canberra, Australia and Queenstown, New Zealand. I thought that before I forget to update this blog at all that I might talk about the In Flight Entertainment that was offered on the three various airlines that I flew with during my world wind trip.

Virgin Blue – Live2Air

I travelled by bus from Melbourne to Canberra, so there isn’t a lot to comment on there; however I flew with Virgin Blue on the return leg to Melbourne.  On all Australian domestic routes on its Boeing 737 aircraft, Virgin Blue offer a service called Live2Air which provides you with access to 24 Foxtel channels in flight via satellite.  Virgin Blue is apparently the first company outside the United States to provide such a service (which was pioneered by JetBlue?).  This is provided via 8in monitors in the back of each seat with an accompanying credit card slot to the right.

Virgn Blue Live2Air monitor. Sourced from Gizmodo Australia.

While it does seem tacky (and I do agree with that), this is to allow you to pay the A$4.90 or A$9.90 (depending on the length of your flight) for the service.  Virgin Blue also provide you with free earphones to listen with which I was pleased with though they weren’t the best earphones in the world (the previous time that I was on Virgin Blue on the Melbourne-Sydney route, you had to pay A$6 or so for a headset to listen to audio channels), but the jack provided to plug in your earphones will work with any pre existing iPod earphones and any other set of headphones you own without the need for adapters.

While this does not apply for customers sitting in the Premium Economy section, this is something that you would come to expect from a budget airline.  My flight only lasted an hour, but with my mini cookies in hand (bought from the in flight menu) I was able to watch a cricket tour match live on Fox Sports 3 which was a memorable experience in itself.

Keeping signal interruptions in mind, the service is very handy especially if you have kids, or if you easily get bored on a long flight.  The channels while limited cover most of the better offerings from Foxtel.  If you can justify the extra cost, then I would recommend this service.

(NB: Virgin Blue.  Why do you not allow hot drinks to be carried on your plane when you don’t offer any on your shorter flights?  Where is the sense in that?)

Air New Zealand

Two days later I flew from Melbourne to Queenstown with Air New Zealand (a fitting choice considering the destination.)  Before I start I would like to comment on the views that you get from the windows on the right hand side of the plane which I manage to capture and upload to YouTube.

Like on Virgin Blue, in each seat there is a monitor, and they do provide you with a headset (a separate jack is provided for your personal headphones); but the service is free and is on demand.  Each monitor acts as a touchscreen to aid in navigating your way through the interface.

There is a vast selection of music, movies, television programs, games and so forth; but there were a few problems with the software. The Red Hat based system was twice reset on my screen because of it’s lack of responsiveness and it freezing while I was trying to play a mini golf game. The Airshow channel did not work at all which I was disappointed with (I was looking forward to seeing the famed moving map…)

During the flight I was able to watch a program on Queenstown (which was crap), several Flight of the Conchords episodes (which was good, especially the “I had sex with an Australian” episode), and a documentary entitled “The 200kg Kid”.

While I did enjoy the variety in programming offered, the interface was slow and problematic. Air New Zealand really need to fix the stability issues with the service before their IFE can really be called top class.

Jetstar

“Let’s fly JetStar!” (Matt trails off cursing in Italian).  I think I would be even more scared when they start flying to Rome and Athens when they receive their Boeing 787 aircraft (whenever that will be…).

I will give credit where it is due, the leather seat provided by Jetstar was quite comfortable in some parts.  The in flight menu was reasonable and very similar to the Virgin Blue menu.  I ordered a sandwich, two cookies and a hot chocolate which barring the latter were very delicious.

However, I am here to talk about IFE systems and this is where Jetstar pails in comparison.

JetStar AirVOD - (CC 2009 'allrite')

I was unable to justify the A$10 or NZ$10 asking price to rent the device above.  To start off with, there was only a small amount of content available, 95% of it geared to kids even though only 5% of it was marked “For Kids”.  Secondly, it is a portable unit which takes up space on your food tray and you have to look down at to watch.  I am aware that Polynesian Blue (a sister airline to Virgin Blue which do the Trans Tasman route) also offer a similar system, but unless the content is worthwhile (which it wasn’t), then it would be a waste of money to rent one of these devices.

If you do decide to go on an airline that offers this service, do check what is on offer before you fly.  If there is nothing that you (or maybe your kids if you are travelling with some) would be interested in, get an iPod touch or classic and fill that with all the video content you would want to watch (which the guy next to me did).

Conclusion

To wrap up, Live2Air is a novel concept which does work well, but barring stability issues Air New Zealand take the cake.  I do not know of what IFE systems on other airlines are like, so I can’t vouch for them  (I heard that the Emirates system is pretty good though..)