Talk:Viewer Access Satellite Television

VAST WA
What is the current state of the VAST rollout in WA, are all stations active? Nbound (talk) 13:37, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, all channels are active. Proof is available by searching [MySwitch] with a remote WA address and seeing the Satellite Eligibility results. -- Smacca | Talk 11:17, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Channel Table accuracy
Not sure where the information for the Channel Table is coming from, but the LCN's for commercial services are slightly incorrect. Rather than making corrections, I'd like to see if the original Zone table can be returned. It was simpler, clearly stated the actual channels available and can be modified to include LCN's. Nbound has done a marvellous job with maintaining this page, so I'd rather discuss this first. A sample of the original Zone Table can be seen below. -- Smacca | Talk 11:58, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I myself actually prefer the current table, as its also more complete (ABC/SBS/Reg News/etc.). I'll update to your LCNs though, I was only going off memory at the time, and I dont do too many of these. Of course Im open to discussions, and I do think my commercial stations section could do with some improvement, if you can think of a way of combining the two simply, or improving the table generally Im all ears. Feel free to make any changes or add anything regarding VAST WA also, Im in RC&E myself (like 2 hrs in from the east coast) and only have a general understanding of the differences.Nbound (talk) 13:12, 5 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I do apologise for taking a long time to reply. I too am in a VAST zone, West to be exact. But I also have access to a South zone box for travelling. After looking at your revised table layouts, I still believe there is a far simpler way to get the information about Zoning and Channels across. I'm thinking along the lines of the Foxtel channel list, and using checks or crosses to denote a channel being in 'All Zones', 'North Zone', 'South Zone' and 'West Zone'. This can include all national, commercial, local news and VAST-specific channels. I'll have a play with it and show you the design here first, of course. -- Smacca | Talk 12:47, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Sample of original Zone Table
Sample of the original Zone table:

New Channel Table Ideas
0020 AEST 6/11/2011 NBOUND TABLE WITH ADDED WEST LCNS - AS UPDATED ON ARTICLE:

Notes:
 * 1. Eastern States Affiliate (subdivided into a "North" and "South" station)
 * 2. Western Australia Affiliate
 * 3. National/Commercial Broadcasters for regions other than where your decoder is registered are given other three digit LCNs. Of these; the interstate ABC/SBS feeds are viewable, while the commercial feeds are not.
 * 4. See Table Below. All regional news feeds are viewable regardless of where your decoder is registered.
 * 5. Broadcast Free-to-View, therefore an activated card is not required to view these stations. They can also be used by an installer to confirm the service is working correctly.

0025 AEST 6/11/2011 IDEA 1:

Notes:
 * 1. Eastern States Affiliate (subdivided into a "North" and "South" station)
 * 2. Western Australia Affiliate (subdivided into a "XXXX", "YYYY", and "ZZZZ" station"  - I beleive the WA commercial stations are subdivided by town/region into 3 or so areas - dont know the details though
 * 3. National/Commercial Broadcasters for regions other than where your decoder is registered are given other three digit LCNs. Of these; the interstate ABC/SBS feeds are viewable, while the commercial feeds are not.
 * 4. See Table Below. All regional news feeds are viewable regardless of where your decoder is registered.  - dont know if viewable in WA, or if these exist there
 * 5. Broadcast Free-to-View, therefore an activated card is not required to view these stations. They can also be used by an installer to confirm the service is working correctly.

1840 AEST 9/11/2011 IDEA 2:

Notes:
 * 1. Eastern Zones commercial broadcasts are subdivided into a North and South station.
 * 2. Western Australian commercial broadcasts are subdivided into a "XXXX", "YYYY", and "ZZZZ" station"  - I beleive the WA commercial stations are subdivided by town/region into 3 or so areas - dont know the details though
 * 3. National/Commercial Broadcasters for regions other than where your decoder is registered are given other three digit LCNs. Of these; the interstate ABC/SBS feeds are viewable, while the commercial feeds are not.
 * 4. See Table Below. All regional news feeds are viewable regardless of where your decoder is registered.  - dont know if viewable in WA, or if these exist there
 * 5. Broadcast Free-to-View, therefore an activated card is not required to view these stations. They can also be used by an installer to confirm the service is working correctly.

Its been a while im updating to the latest here - Nbound (talk) 07:05, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

New combined table
Notes:
 * 1. North/South/West denotes Zone.
 * 2. National/Commercial Broadcasters for regions other than where your decoder is registered are given other three digit LCNs. Of these; the interstate ABC/SBS feeds are viewable, while the commercial feeds are not.
 * 3. Regional News Guide and Feeds are not available to Western Australian viewers.
 * 4. See Regional News Table Below
 * 5. Broadcast Free-to-View, therefore an activated card is not required to view these stations. They can also be used by an installer to confirm the service is working correctly.

--- New Table, also please confirm 7Mate for eastern states LCN (was 70, but shouldnt it be 73) - I dont personally have a VAST box to confirm. Nbound (talk) 09:58, 23 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Looks great! Clear and concise incorporating both designs. I just renamed the 7mate, 7Two and One to what they're actually named on the service. Not sure if making it link directly to the network-owned channel pages is good. Thoughts? Also, 7mate is indeed LCN70, just like other SCTV regions (Tas is on LCN60, IIRC) -- Smacca | Talk 13:46, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

For the multichannels? I thought of creating pages for them but there wouldnt be much info we could put in. Nbound (talk) 09:20, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Major clean-up needed
The page seems to have undergone some changes which has made it a lot worse than it needs to be. There is also some incorrect information surrounding radio and Regional News. The layout of the Regional News section is messy in bullet form - the break-up of LCNs is confusing and stupid (what's 00?). I think overall, the wording and formatting of most of the page below the main TV channel tables is confusing and all over the place. A standard table design for all TV, radio, datacast and Regional News channels needs to be adopted and used throughout the whole article, alongside a lot of detailed paragraphs outlining the restrictions and/or geographical differences, with very minimal small text used to denote differences. I will be working on a new simplified table in the coming days and making the necessary changes. Any input on the matter is encouraged and should be posted here. -- Smacca | Talk 03:47, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I was thinking the whole numbering of channels be scrapped per WP:NOTTVGUIDE. The article should be completely in prose form as tables are only useful when structuring data into readable form.  The Virtual channels article already addresses the numbering used.  I would have scrap the tables from the start, but didn't want to cause a war without a consensus.  Also a note should be made over the ACMA's use of the term datacast channel, as in general a datacast is NOT a AV only service and the 4, 4X and 4XX ranges have long abandoned the original data services that use to be there such as the ABC trial service on 44 in 2003.  The only real datacast that currently exists is the alternative MHEG-5 EPG.Helmboy (talk) 09:53, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I agree with you on both parts. Let's scrap the tables for channels and even the listing of channels in any form, and just stick to paragraphs of well-written, informative text. What do you think of a separate 'List of VAST channels' page though? A digital terrestrial one exists and serves its purpose, but in my opinion VAST is too niche of a service to work into that list. Or maybe I'm wrong? Would like to hear your thoughts on that. As for the datacast terminology, I believe RHC is using an actual datacasting licence to broadcast on VAST. Similarly, ICTV will be using a datacast licence to retransmit on Imparja's terrestrial mux, if or when that actually happens. I'll see if I can pull up some articles around this. I don't think there's any harm in saying what they actually are in the article, but I'd be happy to just stick to the term "Community TV" or something when categorising RHC, ICTV and Westlink. Although ICTV is based in NT and broadcast in CST, and Westlink based in WA/WST, they are still available as national channels to every VAST subscriber. So to me, all three make up for the lack of C31, TVS, etc. Like your work by the way. :) -- Smacca | Talk 15:30, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
 * How about re-structuring List of digital television channels in Australia to be more informative and include a VAST column something like List of free-to-air channels in New Zealand. And then just provide a link on the VAST page with some prose on which broadcaster channel groups are on what transponders.  As for ACMA datacast licenses, they are just a special class for channels that don't have their own frequency and share a existing digital transport.Helmboy (talk) 23:36, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Using the NZ layout would be great, but would no doubt cause some heads to turn. Have described my intentions and a sample table on Talk:List of digital television channels in Australia, but maybe making such a drastic change for such a small niche service as VAST isn't the answer? Let me know what you think of the latest changes to this article. About to add citations now. -- Smacca | Talk 10:11, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Regardless, the List of digital television channels in Australia needs to be re-written without the LCNs per WP:NOTTVGUIDE. Also were the receiver details removed from this article as it should mention that only one receiver is available for the locked-down VAST service.  Just as H.264 video coding and 8PSK are used to cram the extra channels into the limit transponder space.  And should the SKy racing channels be mention as they are included in the same transponder network, except they are on D2? Also should it be mentioned that the black-spot areas have increased due to the drop-off of digital signals in fringe receiving areas, which was one of the motivations for the change from Aurora to VAST? Rural New Zealand will be solely reliant on a limited and low quality FTA satellite service after Dec 1st. Helmboy (talk) 20:55, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I removed it because it's not true. There's 5 or 6 VAST certified set-top boxes on the market. The Sky Racing services should have never rated a mention on either the Aurora or VAST article because they are private and not for direct-to-home viewing. No box sees them, and no individual can get authorisation to decrypt them. They're also on D3 not D2. We could mention 8PSK and H.264, but saying they're "crammed" or even hinting H.264 is used to squeeze more services in is misleading. It's the standard they have set. DVB-S MPEG-2 isn't the standard anymore and VAST, being the latest DTV platform to launch in Australia, isn't starved of TP space or desperately trying to squeeze more services than a TP should take. Everything will be H.264 eventually. Need to work it into the article somewhere. 124.168.249.58 (talk) 08:28, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Furthermore, I actually disagree that LCN's or "virtual channels" should not be included in those lists. If we are going to state the names of the channels, their resolution, bitrates, modulation, platforms, broadcast times, etc, then LCN's are ok in my book. WP:NOTTVGUIDE points to a section that merely mentions we shouldn't use Wikipedia as an electronic program guide. LCN's have nothing to do with program guides. They're data. They're as significant as the name of a channel or service and don't pose any threat to anyone. I'm going to work on the Australian list with LCN's for now and see how I go. 124.168.249.58 (talk) 08:36, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
 * According the government web site there is only one receiver, can you cite sources? Both 8PSK and H.264 are used to cram more channels into the same bandwidth.  ATSC was updated to support H.264 to cram extra SD channels into the limited FCC 6 MHz allocation stations use, just as ATSC plans to add H.265 and 64-QAM to cram ultra HD into the same space.  FreeTV AU will have to  change to H.264, if they want to improve the video quality of their limited 7 MHz allocations with likes of Network TEN and Nine being the prime examples of broadcasters overloading their transport bandwidth with shopping channels.  Pay TV operators were the first to use H.264 to cram more channels into the same bandwidth on cable and satellite.  As for channel numbers, a TV guide is a directory primarily linking channel numbers to listings.  Further, channel numbers are less important than the actually tuning and transmission info required to receive the channel.  All LCNs do on official receivers is lock-down the channel order in the digital world.  And I only mentioned Sky Racing because it's on the same Optus transponder tuning network.  ie, general DVB receivers will tune it in on a network search.Helmboy (talk) 22:13, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll agree that H.264 and 8PSK allows broadcasters to put more services on an existing frequency, but I still disagree with the terminology that it's being brought in because there is limited TP space. There are various vacant TP's on C1 and D3 for future use by VAST and Foxtel. Will edit that bit shortly. Good to see information about Humax, but I'm not entirely sure a Phoenix model exists? Where are your sources? I'll create a dedicated section for that as the top section is now way too big and looks very messy. Will also remove the reference to Freeview as it's not accurate. -- Smacca | Talk 06:42, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The VAST TPs like the Aurora ones are basically government subsidized which they get at a discount on C1 due to being half government owned. However I bet they would rather make money from leasing to Foxtel and others, as I don't think any tax payer enjoys government waste and bloat.  And one wonders why the Aussie government didn't save money on VAST and strike a deal with Foxtel to re-use the channels on their TPs.  The same is true of the Freeview sat service in in NZ.  On a side note, you may notice that the extra channels digital FTA/FTV broadcasters offer are basically the same content spread across three channels with a lot more re-runs as filler or the so-called datacast shopping channels or channels that run for leas than twelve hours.  Digital was meant to offer better picture quality, not more sub-par channels with blocky upscaled artifacts. Helmboy (talk) 10:24, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I had an edit open for most of the afternoon and applied the changes without realising you had done most of it. Thanks! The source for Phoenix is good, I swear it's the only place on the internet that links Phoenix with SatKing. I'll go through and add the sources I collaborated to the new Equipment section. Regarding Foxtel's free-to-view offering; they're only for metropolitan broadcasters in three cities. Regardless if they show mostly the same programming as the VAST channels, the revenue from advertising goes directly to the metropolitan broadcasters, not the remote/regional broadcasters. Striking a deal with the individual FTV's on Foxtel would send SCA and Imparja packing, which would never happen as they legally hold the licenses to broadcast in their areas. As for the way things have gone with our 'digital television revolution', it is indeed a sad state of affairs. Quantity trumps quality these days which is a damn shame because we led the way with HD in 2001, and now we would have to be the most backward (ie; key events that millions will watch are kept off HD). I understand what you mean about this need for more channels driving the use of H.264 and better compression tech. Smarter use of space is certainly the case, but when the quality of VAST channels is far superior to the best DVB-T channels in existence, it leaves me wondering if they are actually doing any cramming or squeezing. Looks to me they're reversing the trend and maxing out their bit rates for better quality. One look at Southern Cross Central and you'll be convinced it's the best looking Channel Seven in the country. -- Smacca | Talk 11:24, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * A deal with Foxtel would have to include expanding the metro channels with regional versions and the government could offer one or two TPs on C1 to allow for them. And unlike VAST most Foxtel TPs (like Aurora) are DVB-S QPSK which has less issues with rain fade.  As for VAST being better than terrestrial, that's only because the H.264 deblocking filter compensates for the lower bit-rate used, if you used H.264 on DVB-T then guess which would look better?  PS, having separate looped regional VAST news channels is definitely a waste of space, why can't they inline them as they do with terrestrial!?!Helmboy (talk) 22:59, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Why would they even consult with Foxtel though? VAST is designed to deliver free-to-view television to remote and black spot areas via satellite and to terrestrial retransmission sites across the remote license areas. It's a nice idea to include VAST services as part of the Foxtel FTV offering and vice versa, don't get me wrong. It's just not realistic. Regarding regional news on VAST, if by "inline like terrestrial" you mean "why didn't they just put every regional broadcaster on satellite to begin with", then you have to be pulling my leg surely. Each single regional news channel represents 2 or 3 regional news bulletins from 2 or 3 regional channels. Times that by 20 and you have a ridiculous amount of television channels, to serve whom? ALL of those regional channels which provide bulletins to VAST 1) have adequate terrestrial coverage, 2) don't fall under SCA, Imparja, GWN or WIN license areas and 3) broadcast almost the exact same content between each affiliated channel. I think you need to grasp the true meaning of VAST in that it is NOTHING like Freeview NZ. It's not a nationally available alternative to free-to-air that should match terrestrial services in every area. It is a niche service that provides TV to only a small amount of the population and is designed to not impede with existing satellite (Foxtel FTV) or terrestrial services currently operating. -- Smacca | Talk 13:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)