VAST PVRs are forced to use Freeview restrictions

[Tassie Devil]

The restriction that UEC was the only provider of VAST equipment has expired so now other manufacturers are entering the market.

Humax now has a VAST PVR the HDR-1003S, a modification of the terrestrial HDR-7500T.

But Optus has imposed restrictions on manufacturers which have crippled this recorder as the skip functions have been disabled and FF reduced to 16X.  Obviously this smells of Freeview.

I've been actively posting on this issue at http://www.austech.i...ctivated-6.html and just posted up a letter sent to Conroy about it.  Someone suggested we get up a petition but I suggest that anyone as irritated as I am about the situation should support an email I just sent to Conroy.

I'm suggesting that my communication below be copied but headed with "I support this" and send it to minister@dbcde.gov.au.  I also sent virtually the same to Turnbull at Malcolm.Turnbull.MP@aph.gov.au except the last paragraph reads Thank you for your time.  I hope you can find the time to look into this situation and take steps to ensure that VAST users can use digital recorder facilities equal to those available to terrestrial users.

If you are a VAST or potential VAST user and are as annoyed as I am about this draconian situation, then please help bombard the pollies with complaints.  Bellyaching on forums will achieve nix but a heap of emails will make them sit up and take notice.  If mine sits there solo it will be easy to ignore.

Here is the email just sent to Conroy at minister@dbcde.gov.au :

Hon Steven Conroy
Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy

Dear Sir

I am contacting you regarding the current unreasonable situation for those of us in black spots or remote areas using the VAST satellite TV service who cannot reliably use aerials and the terrestrial services.

Theoretically VAST offers the same TV service via satellite but in practice it does not.

In particular, Optus, presumably at the behest of commercial TV interests, has put restrictions on VAST digital recorders that do not apply to terrestrial users.   Specifically these are an insistence, that to get VAST certification, a manufacturer must not have a recorder with more than 30X FF and must NOT have any skip functions. The point of this appears to be to make it harder for someone to bypass any commercials in their recordings.

One might have some sympathy with that if those commercials were relevant to say myself in Tasmania, but I fail to see how viewing ads for services in the North of Australia either helps me or the advertiser. So I am forced, more inconveniently, to FF my new Humax recorder (model HDR-1003S) at 16X FF and cannot skip past the useless advertisements.  This contrasts to a terrestrial viewer who has a similar ($200 less expensive) Humax recorder (model HDR-7500T) with faster FF options and the ability to skip through sections of recordings.  The VAST Humax recorder has had these options disabled for VAST TV recordings and appears to be in line with "FREEVIEW" specifications.  These FREEVIEW specs were introduced on some terrestrial models but as they were avoided by customers retailers are avoiding stocking them.

But those of us forced to use VAST have no option - we HAVE to suffer these FREEVIEW restrictions, something a lot of us feel is discriminatory and unnecessary.

Thank you for your time.  I hope you can find the time to look into this situation and take steps to ensure that VAST users can use digital recorder facilities equal to those available to terrestrial users.

Regards

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[ArthurDent]

And here I was thinking that you'd enjoy the "local" adverts

 

This topic might get more attention if it was in the "TV & Radio - Freeview, PayTV, DAB+" section.

Edited May 30, 2013 by KenTripp