Wollongong HD Test Broadcasts (Australia)

[Keith Walters]

I live in the North-West of Sydney, where VHF TV reception from the Sydney Metropolitan stations is somewhat problematic, and a lot of people find they get better reception from the UHF regional transmitters in Wollongong and other places.

 

Recently I installed a UHF antenna pointed at Wollongong, and I found two interesting HD channels: Southern Cross (the regional version of the 10 network), and WIN (the regional version of the 9 network). They don't appear to be broadcasting HD versions of the SD channels yet, instead they are running continuous "HD Showreels" of travelogue-type shots of Sydney and other places of interest, ocassionally interspersed with similar footage from overseas.

 

The pictures are all very nice but I can't find any information about who shot them or what cameras were used.

 

Does anybody here have any information about this?

[John Brawley]

The pictures are all very nice but I can't find any information about who shot them or what cameras were used.

 

Does anybody here have any information about this?

 

 

Try fellow C.com member Glenn Hanns on cinematographer_@mac.com

 

He's from that part of the world and spent many years working for one of the networks in the *gong*......

 

Oh. And generally most of the stations are using the Sony 750's for HD material...

 

 

jb

[Phil Rhodes]

The most amusing thing about this is "travelogue shots of Sydney" - not because there's anything inherently amusing about that, but because it reminds me vividly of the "travelogue shots of London" you get if you take the Heathrow Express from Paddington.

 

It is possible to take travelogue shots of Sydney.

 

It is not, reasonably, possible to take travelogue shots of London.

 

What you actually get is a sort of study on dank, grim, urban decay.

 

P

[Keith Walters]

The most amusing thing about this is "travelogue shots of Sydney" - not because there's anything inherently amusing about that, but because it reminds me vividly of the "travelogue shots of London" you get if you take the Heathrow Express from Paddington.

 

It is possible to take travelogue shots of Sydney.

 

It is not, reasonably, possible to take travelogue shots of London.

 

What you actually get is a sort of study on dank, grim, urban decay.

 

P

Well, they aren't likely to build a railway line through Buckingham Palace are they?

 

You do tend to get "dank, grim, urban decay" along public transport corridors because nobody with any money to spend on refurbishment excellence tends to want to live along a railway line. It's the same here, and doubtless the same everywhere.

 

The quickest way to put together a (admittedly stereotyped) London Travelogue is to get on one of those open-topped tourist buses and shoot everything from there. That gets your holiday snaps obligations out of the way in typically less than an hour. Leave it to the experts, I say.

 

Personally I thought London was a wonderful place, totally wasted on the Londoners. No wonder so many foreigners want to live there.

 

The most dangerous wildlife I encountered was a single encounter with a possibly rabid hedgehog in St James's Park, but following the excellent advice in the Traveller's Guide to Noxious and Obstreperous British Wildlife (Jose Matsunaga, 1992) kindly suppplied by one of the charming Lufthansa hostesses, I was able to defuse the situation and excape unharmed.

 

On that note, I suppose Jim won't be inviting me to the RED stand at NAB this year, since there isn't actually going to be one. The impossible does take a bit longer it seems.