How Do You Receive Television?

[freezkat]

For $40-$140 month half of America gets their TV from a package bundled together by a retail cable or satellite provider.

Many of us due to unemployment have turned off these subscribed services. The free (no surtax) "OTA Over The Air TV switching to digital a few years ago has improved from 5 local stations to 20.

Ku Band Free to Air TV in the states is comprised of Spanish and Muslim programming with several English religious channels and only a few channels that are "everyday" English entertainment/info channels. Those retail providers mentioned above, get chippy about programmers giving away for free what they are paying to resell.

C-Band has many more options... due to the inconvenient, hulking size of the dishes, package providers aren't so worried about these systems.

I get my TV from the free OTA, Internet and a motorized Ku FTA dish.

I have read that Europe has good system of FTA TV but there is an annual TV surtax. Does Australia have the same thing? How interesting is the programming? Do you have the same TV Tax?

 

[Wolfy]

Most Australian TV is watched on one of the 5 major free to air channels; 3 commercial, a government channel and a multicultural channel.
Most all of the channels can be received almost anywhere in the country, sometimes under different names and often showing local content/news.
In major cities there is often a 'community' channel or two also available.

With the change to digital (which has started but is not yet compulsory, the old analog is still available) each of those stations has spawned 3 or 4 other channels (sometimes they show the same content as the first channel, but most often not).

There is no TV-tax like in the UK, free to air TV is exactly that free (but you put up with the advertisements, usually 10-15 mins of an hour long broadcast) the governement and multicultural channel have minimal advertisements during programs.

Foxtel is an Australian pay television company it operates via cable, direct broadcast satellite television and IPTV services and is most like American pay-TV, with dedicated movie, sport and similar channels.

The vast majority of the content shown on Australian TV (excluding local news, current affairs, live sport, lifestyle programs, reality-type-shows or special interest programs) are made in the USA or the UK - often shown here, weeks, months or even years after they are broadcast overseas.

TV Guide here so you can get an idea of what is on offer: http://www.yourtv.com.au/

 

[Lecterfan]

Most Ozzies clear their mind (ready for transmission), set up the lounge room (ready for transmission), drop their strides and bend over (ready for transmission).


The cumulative amount of considered debate (on any issue) in this country is evidence enough of my contention...

 

[bum]

How do I receive TV?

Under duress from SWMBO (who hasn't the patience to try all that often).

 

[petesbrew]

free to air TV is exactly that free (but you put up with the advertisements, usually 10-15 mins of an hour long broadcast) the governement and multicultural channel have minimal advertisements during programs.

Seen a fair bit of advertising on paytv as well (whether it's for products or their other shows I can't remember, I just know it's a lot of ads).
My parents spend a bomb on it, and considering what they watch it's a waste IMO.

Free to air tv has improved with the introduction of digital set top boxes, more channels playing repeats of Macguyver, kids channels and so on.

 

[WarmBeer]

Books are nice. I prefer books.

 

[petesbrew]

 

[freezkat]

Books are nice. I prefer books.

They are very nice but the latency is annoying.



We have public non-commercial channels as well. PBS is public and government grant supported. That's where we get our East Enders, Downton Abbey, Monty Python. Oddly we have to pay for BBC America

 

[Bribie G]

Free to air TV now consists of about 15 channels and you can use a TIVO device like you have in the States to record and pause shows etc.

I'm a Foxtel subscriber via satellite dish and it's basically the only TV I watch nowadays - a lot of the movie and documentary channels are High Definition (1080i) with eight HD channels coming up covering the London Olympics.

Apart from that (which I'll subscribe to for the games) I have no interest in sport at all. I mostly watch BBC Knowledge, Discovery Channels - several dealing with different genres - National Geographic Channels, History Channel and the movie channels. New release movies go to pay tv shortly after they are released to Blu-Ray and DVD. For example Avatar was shown last year and it's only now going to FTA.
SWMBO likes Crime Investigation channel as well, especially Serial Killer Sunday :huh:

My home antenna doesn't work but many of the FTA channels are rebroadcast by Foxtel if I ever need to be reminded how abysmal FTA is in Australia nowadays.

Edit: we get your PBS on a national radio news channel along with the likes of BBC world service. I enjoy listening to PBS morning news on my way home from work at 10.30 PM

 

[komodo]

Due to a great honkin' tree I dont get free to air since the change to digital. I can get the analogue stations but they are fuzzy.

I pay about $260 a month for 50gig of bigpond ADSL2+, Foxtel Platinum package, basic home phone and my partners mobile phone plan (mines paid through business). I reckon thats pretty good.

I have the Foxtel STB in the family room and I run component out of the foxtel box into a wallplate and I send the picture and sound to the 42" LED LCD in the bedroom and IR signals back (was a bit of a **** around trying to work out how to get the IR back because of foxtels wack IR code settings) over 2 runs of cat5e - doing it today I'd have used HDMI+IR over cat5e/6 but the old TV didnt have HDMI input.

HDMI from the foxtel box goes into a 4in1out HDMI switch and I take an opitcal signal out of this into the Logitech z5500s I use as surround sound. Coupled with a logitech harmony one it works well.

I recieve my Pay TV via 60cm satellite dish even though I have opticfiber in the street (actually I have the optus vision cable to the facia board) but because I bundled with Telstra not optus they wont use the cable even though they show the exact same content. Work that out.
The big 3 PayTV providers are Optus Vision, Foxtel and Austar. They all sell the same channels and Foxtel has just bought Austar.

Pay TV is more than just TV. Theres some great "radio" stations available. A massive movie database for VOD and PayPerView has some good new release stuff as well as sports events etc if your so inclined.

Friends tell me I'm an idiot for paying for tv when theres so many great FTA stations - yet when I go to their place I always seem to struggle to find something to watch. Or they can download movies etc. Yet all the movies and TV shows they download they either do via fileshare (illegal) or they pay for them so I dont really get it. Theres also still a fair amount of cardsharing going on but it is a lot harder these days than it was before they changed the encription. I looked at doing an internal cardshare so I could watch different programming on the two different TVs but in the end i threw all the gear I'd bought out because the EPG was crap and theres no point having a metric **** load of stations if you cant navigate using a decent EPG.

Yes FTA programming has come a long way but PayTV is miles in front. AFAIK these days all foxtel subscriptions come with a PVR. I know my IQ2 comes with a PVR which allows me to record two programs whilst watching a 3rd. With the PVR and all the available content there is rarely a time when I dont have anything to watch. I'll often sit down on a friday flick through the movie channels and set some movies to record when we are getting a bit low on content. I hardly ever pay for the OnDemand content.

On another note - anyone noticed how fast the newer bluray players are. My old BDplayer took ages to load likewise my PS3. When I bought the new 42" for the bedroom I bought a panasonic bluray for $70 the picture IMO is better than my PS3 and the $500 panasonic bluray I bought a few years prior and its speed is unbelieveable on both Bluray and DVD

 

[seamad]

This how I do it.
Receiving method indicative of tv/foxtel content.

 

[Bribie G]

Another enhancement is a really good home theatre surround sound system. The speakers on modern TVs are pretty good and you get lulled into a false sense of security - however a mate just sent me a USB stick with Avatar rendered as anaglyph (red cyan) 3D

I have a few red cyan anaglyph glasses so popped a pair on and played the movie on my desktop. I have a nice 1:2 stereo with a subwoofer attached to the computer, and apart from all that 3d goodness, the sound just blew me away compared to watching the Blu Ray on the 50 inch pana in the lounge room.

Gotta get out and get an up to date sound system

 

[bum]

That's sorta one of my biggest bugbears about people's home cinema set-ups - poorly set up 7.1. They always sound wrong. Always.

But you smile and say "Oh yes, very nice!" because they spent a bit and are pretty chuffed with themselves so that's not what they want to hear but nine times out of ten the TV speakers would have provided better balance. That's probably not gonna impress any bogans though.

 

[petesbrew]

The sound on our 32 LED is pretty f'ing woeful. Kinda like the equivalent of 4 inch speakers, or a set of passive pc speakers.
Sounds good going through the aux input to the stereo though.

 

[Bribie G]

Yup the whole TV Blu-ray sound system etc setup seems to be really a step back in time.

Decades ago all the components of your entertainment devices were completely separate, usually poorly compatible and you had to be a geek with a soldering iron to get them to work together.
I remember as a kid my Dad swearing because his Amstrad amplifier was a bugger to connect to his Wharfedale turntable and run off to the speakers. Then these hit the market:




You just took it home and plugged it in - came with a couple of speakers of course. Later you could put a CD player in the stack. It seemed inevitable that eventually you could get a screen and hang that on your wall and plug that into something in the stack as well. Hey Jetsons here we come.

Didn't happen. Now it's all gone back to individual components although of course you can buy a home media computer (even ALDI have them on sale sometimes) and use that for everything but the concept is just too hard for most punters.

Would be nice just to get an out of the box solution you just plug in for the 95% of homes who just want to watch Biggest Loser or Harry Potter on Blu-ray or listen to the morning crews.

 

[petesbrew]

Yup the whole TV Blu-ray sound system etc setup seems to be really a step back in time.

Decades ago all the components of your entertainment devices were completely separate, usually poorly compatible and you had to be a geek with a soldering iron to get them to work together.
I remember as a kid my Dad swearing because his Amstrad amplifier was a bugger to connect to his Wharfedale turntable and run off to the speakers. Then these hit the market:


View attachment 53877

You just took it home and plugged it in - came with a couple of speakers of course. Later you could put a CD player in the stack. It seemed inevitable that eventually you could get a screen and hang that on your wall and plug that into something in the stack as well. Hey Jetsons here we come.

Didn't happen. Now it's all gone back to individual components although of course you can buy a home media computer (even ALDI have them on sale sometimes) and use that for everything but the concept is just too hard for most punters.

Would be nice just to get an out of the box solution you just plug in for the 95% of homes who just want to watch Biggest Loser or Harry Potter on Blu-ray or listen to the morning crews.

The audio outputs from my telly are headphone jack, and optical audio.
FFS. Surely they could've thrown in the RCA outs as well? It just sucks.
Annoying that they don't make things backward compatible these days.
.... still we got the telly as a freebie, so beggars can't be choosers.

 

[bum]

The sound on our 32 LED is pretty f'ing woeful. Kinda like the equivalent of 4 inch speakers, or a set of passive pc speakers.
Sounds good going through the aux input to the stereo though.

Oh yeah. Fair call that.

Was meaning more about people dropping a tonne on their gear. My TV speakers aren't amazing either but they do sound better than I would have expected seeing that I couldn't even see where they live when I was taking the unit out of the box.

 

[d3vour3r]

the money you spend on pay tv should be spent on really good internet. You can download movies and tv shows in fullHD with dolby digital and DTS surround sound, then play them back on a modern TV via home network or a cheap (<100) media player.

This is just what i've have heard anyway...

 

[bum]

Yup the whole TV Blu-ray sound system etc setup seems to be really a step back in time.

Decades ago all the components of your entertainment devices were completely separate, usually poorly compatible and you had to be a geek with a soldering iron to get them to work together.
I remember as a kid my Dad swearing because his Amstrad amplifier was a bugger to connect to his Wharfedale turntable and run off to the speakers. Then these hit the market:


View attachment 53877

You just took it home and plugged it in - came with a couple of speakers of course. Later you could put a CD player in the stack. It seemed inevitable that eventually you could get a screen and hang that on your wall and plug that into something in the stack as well. Hey Jetsons here we come.

Didn't happen. Now it's all gone back to individual components although of course you can buy a home media computer (even ALDI have them on sale sometimes) and use that for everything but the concept is just too hard for most punters.

Would be nice just to get an out of the box solution you just plug in for the 95% of homes who just want to watch Biggest Loser or Harry Potter on Blu-ray or listen to the morning crews.

In all honesty, I often wonder if you and I even live on the same planet. Stereos have gone back to individual components - what? It is very common for new TVs to be able to stream content directly. Hardware (beyond reproduction) is well and truly on the way out and you're talking about there being too many components? I don't even know where to begin giving up.

 

[petesbrew]

I don't even know where to begin giving up.

LOL, love this comment.