Australia strikes EPG deal, but most TV watchers still screwed

Adam Turner
Friday, 06 July 2007 08:28

Opinion and Analysis

Free EPG for everyone? Not quite. When you read the fine print of Free TV Australia's announcement, the EPG data will only be made available to service providers "provided the equipment displaying the EPG complies with some base level requirements designed to protect copyright, protect the integrity of the program information and facilitate collection of ratings information".

What exactly does this mean? Free TV Australia's Julie Flynn was light on technical details, but that's understandable considering the deal has only just been struck. While she couldn't tell me exactly what technology will be required, it's clear some kind of technology will be required and that's where the problem lies.

According to Flynn, Free TV Australia has already begun negotiations with hardware manufacturers on how their equipment can meet the requirements laid down by the television networks. They are working on an over the air solution, rather than just via the internet, so they can reach more people.

"We are going to require encryption to protect the integrity of data and provide adequate protection for copyright," she said.

Flynn conceded that equipment currently on the shelves is very unlikely to meet such requirements - even though most are perfectly capable of handing an EPG. They new system will require manufacturers to alter their equipment for the Australian market. She couldn't point to any overseas deployments of the technology so it looks like once again we're going it on our own, expecting global consumer electronics giants to customise their equipment just for the tiny Australian market.

So if you've already spent hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on a digital video recorder - too bad. Australia's television networks insist you buy a new recorder compatible with their unique protection system to stop people stealing their precious EPG data - even though they're giving the data away for free.

One of the reasons digital television was so slow to take off in Australia was the insistence on broadcasting high definition in the DVB-T format, making Australia unique in the world. This meant set top boxes had to be made specifically for Australia. Of course no-one wanted to make boxes just for the tiny Australian market, so as a result digital set top boxes were expensive and almost impossible to get in the early days. You think we'd learn from such things.

In the long run Free TV Australia's announcement is a win for consumers, but it's also a blow to the hip pocket thanks to paranoid television networks who insist on ridiculous safeguards to protect data they're happily giving away.