JANUARY 2010
New Year celebrations from Times Square live on IS 5 Adhoc channel pleases those with INTELSAT 5 reception.
Ziln Nz’s First Internet TV provider also screens the Times Square celebrations.
Chinasat 6B lowers power on all CCTV muxes. Up and down like a yoyo this one.
WMN and Sundance Channel International Officially launch on Measat3A
Food Network HD Oficially launched on Measat3A.
Carlaw Park “Auckland Teleport 15.5m dish is being dismantled to make way for a housing development.
A new Satellite Radio Internet programme is launched on the internet with New Zealand and USA connections.
New WiMax services launched in main centers causing havoc with many domestic C band installations receiving China Sat 6 B...
Bloomberg financial TV starts encryption testing on its Asia Sat 3 services. Disappears off thousands of Asian Cable services overnight.OOPS!
"Mildura" satellite trial begins in Australia ; DVBS 2 Mpg4 begins test service. Received easily in New Zealand!
New Optical LNBF’s trialed by Foxtel , Sky TV quickly changes the Quad LNBF’s it was upgrading its Dual D1 + C1 LNBF’s “ Out with coax in with a single four output cable.
FEBRUARY 2010
DirecTV in the U.S adds Australia Network, as an Ethnic channel
The New Zealand Government requests tenders for world wide transmission of its first world wide satellite channel called the” Kiwi Channel” which is intended to Entertain, Inform and promote New Zealand to the world. This channel has been rumoured for years but it seems it will never get off the ground.
New Zealand Government also request individuals from the satellite industry to form a steering committee to advise the minister on how to salvage “Free View’
Telecom NZ announces that its dropping “Tivo” no one wants to shell out nearly $1000 for a HD and IPTV combined STB. TVNZ vows “We’ll go it alone”
GSAT 4 is launched to 82 degrees east
Satellite and Cable TV show held in Auckland. “Gee we’re all looking older”
The Winter Olympics debut on SKY TV and Prime, Sky slammed by public after missing New Zealand win a medal
Feeds spring up on IS5 of the Winter Olympics,
Feeds spring up on NSS9 for the Winter Olympics,
Sales of 90cm dishes for IS5 + Freeview are unprecedented. What a great idea!
Winter Olympics a huge ratings flop on SKY TV.. who really wants to watch Ice Skating in Mid Summer??
Wi Max becomes very unpopular with C band dish owners.
MARCH 2010
Palapa C2 now located at 150.5E east repoints one of its ku beams to cover New Zealand. It points the other one to cover Australia while the Asean plus C band beam connects Australasia with the USA via the Hawaiian Teleport and Europe Via Singapore. Who is doing all this New Zealand’s newest Pay TV OPERATOR? Who is it? all will be revealed during 2010
Some trouble reported with Reception of Optus D2 due to the strong Palapa KU signals at 150.5E. Check your setups folks 1.5 deg spacings is fine.
Mildura Satellite Trial is going great, 16 Channels, the Main ones are in HD and others in standard definition.. Some members of Australian Parliament demand the existing Aurora service is fine and the money should be better spent on new Terrestrial transmission sites.
Indian business men launch a new satellite service on INTELSAT 2 Ku to New Zealand and Australia Yes we know its working in inclined orbit its all part of the master plan.
Mystery surrounds the new home of the EX Carlaw park dish. But Tony Dunnetts neighbours are not amused!. No really where will its new home be? does it have anything to do with Palapa at 150.5E? wasn't he talking about a Russian lite sat in that slot a few years back??? hmmm?
Tru TV launches, on Astro and Truevision. Tru TV on Truevisions causes some confusion in Thailand
Sky TV offer installations for ONE Dollar and the first month free. Not a lot of interest
UKTV From Granada becomes available FTA on AsiaSat 4 Ku. This causes a rush for 90cm dishes through out Australia / NZ
Globecast adds even more religious channels to its D2 offerings!
UBI launch a mainstream package to compete with Select TV.
Internet web TV provider Ziln adds several new channels to its WEB TV Service.
Optus D2 Adhoc channel suddenly shows West African TV, more Nigerian soccer destined for rebroadcast via web TV.
The NZ government announces that the steering committee charged with salvaging Free View is ready to publish their findings and recommendations
APRIL 2010
The findings on the salvaging of Freeview, call for TVNZ to surrender all TV1 channels except one. One half transponders are freed up so that TV1, TV2, TV3 Prime and C4 can be broadcast in MPEG4 HD. The new HD bit rate is set at 6 Mbits. The second half transponder will provide ten SD channels meaning that the current line up except TV1 regional and Kordia / Ligins is maintained Not everyone is happy! a bunch of Home Theatre Snobs launch a Facebook protest over the "low HD video quality".
Ziln ties up with all major NZ Internet service providers their content now to be available as FREE traffiic.
Foxtel and Austar price increase
CanalSat Calédonie goes Mpeg-4 DVB-S2 and HD
A mux of "CBS International" branded channels launches in the Asia Pacific Region. Mostly using material from the CBS program vault. Great! another source of MASH Reruns
Warner TV launches to Asia and the Pacific. Asiasat 5 Cband distribution?
A New FTA Channel Cband IS5
BBC World Wide launches several new HD channels. Is BBC World the next to go HD?
Globecast launch another transponder of Ethnic TV on Optus D2
Ad hoc feed springs up on Optus B1 @164E "JX SAT OB1"
MAY 2010
SitiCable authorize subscriptions outside India for its Asiasat 4 C band service for cable networks within the footprint. SitiCable gets 5000 connection requests from "cable operators" in Australia and New Zealand. Sanjay Cooper of Far North Cable gets the NZ distribution rights, the local dialect in the far North has changed from Mandarin to Hindi
Due the popularity of the Panda Channel, Baby Elephant TV launches on Thaicom 5 (Humphrey says, Hey what about a BARE channel?)
SKY NZ turn off their last Analogue UHF transmission. Sky TV then demands that its Analogue frequencies be relicensed as digital frequencies
Al Jazerra English launches an HD service via Asiasat3S.
Discovery Channel trials 3D programing. American Chopper and Dirty jobs look great in 3D
Surprise, surprise, NASA TV is back this time as part of the VOA Mux world wide...!
Regional broadcasters parade through Wellington to the BeeHive objecting to having to re-equip for digital broadcasts.
The new Satellite Radio programme launched in Jan 2010 by JX NZ and Hypermegasat of Michigan proves to be a total success , listenership of over 20,000 are logged on the weekly Satellite infotainment show
A NZ firm offering Small dish Al Manar reception comes under attention from the NZ government. Hey that's Palapa D Cband on a 90cm dish in case you missed it!
JUNE 2010
Strange? quite a few Cband Chinese channels have gone missing? Just routine maintenance according to the Chinese Govt.
The Elephant Channel (Customized Indian feed, and locally sourced Elephant) launches on AsiaSat 4 C band SitiCable service. There is talk of a Holy Cow also starting
Sky NZ put up their prices an extra $3 per month on all packages. New HD channels "coming soon"
The NZ Tab launches a PPV horse racing channel.
TVN Australia merges with Sky Racing Australia.
A mux carrying all the Australian ABC channels appears on Optus D1 Dual beam.
FIFA 2010 Event seen live on CCTV (China) , RCTI (Indonesia), Global TV (Indonesia), Channel One (Russia), RTR (Russia), VTV Vietnam
Aurora finally turns off its iredto one service and half a million TV sets in NZ go blank. Never mind, ABC and SBS are still FTA on Optus D1!!
Terrible Wimax problem's across Eastern Australia
The FTA radio show leaves satellite and is only heard on the internet. The new format of 5 hours of adverts and self promotion is a big turn off.
Apsattv site goes on 3 week mid winter break. Actually Craig's gone holiday to the Philippines to meet a bunch of web cam models that he met at the myfreecams site.
JULY 2010
1rd3t0 two cards sell briskly on Trademe disguised as collectables.
DirectTV launches a 3DHDTV channel.
Freeview NZ hire "Jumbo", a retired circus Elephant, for an advertising campaign (are they gonna paint him white?? and have him trash some old tv's?) Jumbo makes a big mistake and trashes box after box of certified Zinwell set top boxes, who said Elephants werent clever?
A Freeview Digital Cellphone is launched in the U.K. This is not Streaming TV! it has an actual Digital Terrestrial Tuner in it! an HDMI conector take up most of the space on the side.
TV3+1 gets dumped from Freeview NZ, replaced with a sports channel. Please not Sports Extra, don't the broadcasters realize they don't have any decent sports?.
Announcements are made that unused time on Parliament TV , Te reo and Maori TV will be subleased to EZ TV Auckland, who will act as a go between for would be broadcasters wanting to use the downtime on these channels.
A shock report from the USA makes out that terrestrial TV is now gaining popularity and people are turning more to DTT.
Foxtel Announces that 3D TV is just useless gimmick
Sky NZ also announces 3D is not commercially Viable for them. (Well, hey they are still struggling to do a decent HD service!)
AUGUST 2010
New Zealand's Government name the Analogue TV Final shutoff date as April 1st 2013! also announces that smaller towns will now have access to HD via UHF.
The newly launched revamped Free View SD / HD service via satellite is hugely popular. Retailers claim that the sales of HD receivers is unprecedented
TV One and Two go full HD on Freeview DTT.
Australia Network Premieres a special 3D converted episode of Humphrey B Bear. Angry Viewers flood the phone lines after Humphrey B Bear tells children to "reach out and touch me" It was supposed to be converted not Perverted!
The Kiwi Channel is seen testing on AsiaSat 5 , IS5 , Galaxy 19 and Astra.
NZ prisons, in Digital TV upgrade scandal, Freeview installed in each Cell. Inmates Riot after losing their Sky Sports! Well all Britsh prisons have B Sky B and Setanta sports.
BSkyb launch a 3D channel
Rupert Murdoch in hospital after breaking his hip, in a 3DHD viewing related accident. It seems he tripped over a coffee table, blames "Stupid F__ing 3D glasses"
SEPTEMBER 2010
The launch company, Rocket Lab Ltd, Awarded contract to launch NZ's 1st satellite
Foxtel trials several Indian Channels
There is talk of yet another complete overhaul of Foxtel. More channels blah blah blah. Didn't they just do this last year? Very little interest in their internet offerings. Perhaps they should actually purchase some NEW programs for a change. Terrestrial Freeview viewership has increased dramatically
The mux of mpg4 Indian channels leaves Asiasat4 Ku band, just not viable with the amount of FTA Indian channels still available on Cband.
An Australian company design a breakthrough UHF antenna for DTT. It offers guaranteed digital reception to 300 K.M! A trial in Mildura is organized.
Dish HD Asia finally launch their Taiwan "Echostar" HD service. What a waste its just plain old fashioned 2 dimensional HDTV!
Discovery channel's annual "Shark week" replaced by "3D week" Launches with a special movie "Jaws 3D"
OCTOBER 2010
The 3D TV craze is getting out of hand, there is now 5 different incompatible formats including 3 diferent types of glasses and 2 incompatible screen types. Is this going to be Beta vs VHS all over again! and hey didn't NSFW decide the winner in that?
A Taiwan Hava hosting service comes under scrutiny.. some sort of problem involving Echostar Taiwan, perhaps he won't buy a slingbox!!!!!!!!!
A New Zealand company, starts selling a Pal version of the Hava device which will work point to multipoint using a very modified satellite receiver as the reception device.
HBO Australasia HD launches, via Telstar 18
There is talk in the U.S of Playboy Channel launching a 3D version
Finally some new HD channels on SKY NZ, Discovery, ESPN and BBC HD
Cignal DTH in the Philippines announced by Casbaa as Asias Fastest selling new DTH service
NOVEMBER 2010
Aurora changes encryption to *** again thousands of NZ homes lose channel 7 and SBS.(ABC and SBS still FTA via Optus D1)
The part time channels that spring up on the spare capacity on some free view channels are a hit with viewers. EZ TV announces the lease of a full transponder from Optus and a 40 channel service.
exploit down on card sharing network, officials from Foxtel, UBI, VisionAsia visit NZ in an attempt to get a overview of the problem. However all indications are the network is located in Australia
A Big fuss over Nagra 3 and 4 being broken, US and Philippine operators not happy.(Nagra 5 anyone?)
The NZ satellite company NZL SAT announce the launch of their first satellite in 2011
Playboy 3DHD launches on Direct TV, please note Requires "Special F__king" glasses to view
New Zealand FreeView service gains award for the most impressive take up rate in the world.
Australia network launch a second channel called Australia Network 2
DECEMBER 2010
SBS and ABC on Dual beam on Optus D1 forced to move elsewhere after heavy pressure from Freeview NZ
Gaysat returns as a 3DHD Channel!... Humphrey B Bear breaks his hip (Don't ask you don't really want to know!).
Sky TV and Foxtel issue new cards to subscribers, claiming is just an upgrade. But we know otherwise..
NZ Indian satellite network claims 15,000 subscribers and migration to IS8 in the New Year
KA capacity for lease on Optus C1 for NZ
NASA TV shows the latest mission in 3D HD. Mind blowing images
Nagra users launch new counter counter measures against piracy
TiVo NZ finally Dies, out of the ashes comes a new IPTV service. All Tivo units receive a firmware update enabling them to view the new service. Officially approved Freeview units also are able to access the service
A new 3D system is trialed where glasses don't need to be worn; special disposable contact lenses are inserted before beginning to watch.
For the first time ever the Queens annual Christmas message is broadcast in 3D HDTV. All is going well until an unfortunate "accident" by one of the Corgis is caught on cam.
Rupert Murdoch has heart attack and chokes on Turkey drumstick while watching the Queens Message. It must of been the sight of 3D Corgi Crap that did it! Wow who would of thought that crappy Christmas tv would be the end of Rupert
