TVNZ says it will announce its Dolby Digital plans next week.

It’s been reported in some forums that the broadcaster already is transmitting in 5.1 audio, as TV3 has been doing since it went HD three years ago.

But a spokeswoman says this is not the case.

“As part of our preparations for launching 5.1 audio, we are currently broadcasting sound on the surround sound stream but it’s not surround sound — it’s stereo.”

She says TVNZ will confirm the launch of its 5.1 service “sometime next week”.

Meanwhile, today TVNZ reported a 164% hike in earnings and re-asserted its support for TiVo.

But the broadcaster also revealed it has “imparied” its investment in the company behind the media device, Hybrid Television Services, and allowed for a one-off “charge” of $17.7 million for its TiVo exposure.

Here’s the official press release:

Television New Zealand today reported underlying earnings of $31.8 million for the financial year ended 30 June 2011, a $19.8 million (164%) increase on the previous financial year.

TVNZ Chief Executive Rick Ellis said today that the company would be paying a dividend to the shareholder of $13.8 million, an uplift on the previous year’s dividend of $4.9 million.

TVNZ reported total revenue of $377.9 million, an increase of $22.6 million (6.4%) on the prior year.

 Advertising revenue was $302.7 million, $18.4 million (6.5%) higher than prior year.  TVNZ increased its share of television advertising revenue to 63% from 61% in the prior year and secured 80.6% of the total market growth for the 12 months ended 30 June 2011.  (Market growth for the 12 months to June 2011 was 5.1%).

 “Our advertising revenue and share growth are a testament to the strength of our programming and our strategy of Inspiring New Zealanders on Every Screen.  19 of the 20 most watched programmes appeared on TVNZ channels.”

 Rick Ellis said the performance of the company had been a significant achievement.

 “The results for the past year confirm the growing strength of television in the modern media mix.

“In addition, TVNZ’s growing portfolio of digital channels and digital media solutions was being embraced by clients and their advertising agency partners,” he said.

During the year the company launched two new channels, free-to-air channel U, and a second pay channel, TVNZ Kidzone 24 on Sky.

 “The company completed the implementation of a new multi-million dollar digital infrastructure, enabling it to reach more New Zealanders in more ways with its leading local and international content.”

 TVNZ earned a number of top industry awards for content, business innovation and creativity.  It won the CAANZ Media Brand of the Year 2011 Award, and was named one of New Zealand’s top three most attractive employers by Randstad.

 “The Christchurch earthquakes and Pike River mine disaster brought home the vital importance of TVNZ’s news service to the country.  I want to pay special tribute to our hardworking staff who delivered unprecedented news coverage that kept New Zealand informed during these difficult times,” said Rick Ellis.

TVNZ reported an after tax profit of $2.1 million, compared with an after tax loss of $26 million for the prior year.

TVNZ has impaired its investment in Hybrid Television Services (ANZ) Pty Ltd, recognised a share of operating losses and made provision for future operating costs of the company.  This has resulted in a one-off charge of $17.7 million being recognised.

 “While the investment in Hybrid has not produced the expected returns, TVNZ is committed to Hybrid’s ongoing support of the TiVo PVR product in Australia and New Zealand.”

Excluding this one-off adjustment, the normalised after tax profit was $19.7 million, a $12.8 million (184%) increase on the normalised after tax profit for the prior year.  This non-cash adjustment was excluded from the results when the Board declared the dividend from this year’s operating results.

Rick Ellis said that although the business environment remains challenging TVNZ is confident about the future.

“As New Zealand’s leading television and digital media company, TVNZ will continue its strategy of transformation and diversification.”

Sky TV will start installations of its 1TB My Sky+ PVR from July 11.

Orders for the uber-box can be taken from July 1.

It will cost $20 a month to rent (plus $99 for installation) but will offer four times as much recording storage as the $15-a-month My Sky HDi.

Alternatively, subscribers can pay a one-off, upfront fee of $649 instead of the monthly option.

My Sky+ won’t provide any functionality beyond My Sky HDi, which Sky will continue to offer for $15 a month.

But it will afford up to 130 hours of HD recordings – although only 640GB of its hard drive space is for personal recordings; the rest is for ondemand downloads.

HDi has been dropped from the model description merely because Sky thought My Sky HDi+ would be too much of a mouthful.

At this stage the only downside to the upgrade appears to be the inability, because of digital rights management issues, to transfer archived recordings from a My Sky HDi to the My Sky +.

So early adopters may need to undergo a catch-up marathon before the swap.

According to Sky’s director of marketing, Michael Watson, “The launch of My Sky has been a phenomenal success.

“The reason it has proven so popular with our customers is because it delivers so many real benefits and has truly changed the way many people watch television.

“Our customer feedback and research told us that a considerable number of My Sky users desired more personal recording capacity. This need is likely to increase with the growing prevalence of high definition shows.

“We developed My Sky+ to deliver that additional recording space, with four times more capacity but still with all the My SKY HDi features users are accustomed to.”

Sky is poised to triple the HD recording storage of its My Sky HDi PVRs.

It’s not known when the new 1TB models will be offered to subscribers – or how Sky will roll out the changeover.

Will it cost more? Will subscribers be able to transfer recordings?

Whatever the logistics, expect Sky to launch its new uber-box around the rugby World Cup, which will see My Sky HDi go into overdrive in many homes, and before the satcaster unveils two more HD channels (which it will promote during the Cup).

Currently, My Sky HDi has about 320GB of storage, which was double that of its SD predecessor, My Sky.

Nearly three years after its launch, it remains the best of the PVRs aligned with a platform.

It may not boast all the gee-whizz functionality of TiVo or the slick interface of T-Box, but it’s the simplest to use and the most responsive – which is why half of Sky’s 230,000-plus HDi subscribers opt for it without the HD package.

However, with TV One, TV2 and TV3 cranking up their HD content, and Sky planning to offer eight exclusive HD channels by Christmas, its usefulness always was going to be limited by its skimpy storage (especially when half of it is reserved for downloads).

Sky is being coy about its new HD channels. Chances are one will be an HD upgrade of an existing service, probably Discovery, and the other will be a new format that Sky will programme in-house.

It would be too much to hope for a Sky NZ version of BSkyB’s Sky Atlantic in the UK, an HD channel dedicated to top US cable dramas, predominantly from HBO.

Yet this is precisely the kind of distinctive and compelling content Sky should be offering when free-to-air TV foregoes this endangered programming species or relegates it to off-peak.

While the popularity of Prime’s Downton Abbey shows there is an appetite for quality drama, today’s best examples of the genre are being made for the likes of HBO, Showtime and AMC.

Some do turn up on FTA in primetime — TV3’s Californication, Nurse Jackie, Sons of Anarchy, The Big C; TV One’s The Pacific, Generation Kill – but others:

• are consigned to the late shift (Prime’s Mad Men and Weeds, TV2’s Curb Your Enthusiasm and Entourage);
• languish in limbo (Justified, Game of Thrones, TV One’s The Tudors, Four’s Breaking Bad);
• are too smart for their dumbed-down environments (The Box’s Dexter);
• go direct to DVD because broadcasters won’t buy them (Treme, Bored to Death).

Just imagine if there was one channel that showcased these series in HD, along with telemovies, documentaries, re-runs of classics like The Sopranos and Deadwood, and hot-off-the-satellite airings of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (neither of which, inexplicably, screen here on Sky’s Comedy Central, even though they’re staples of its US namesake).

Although FTA rights would complicate the availability of some content, most of it should be able to be secured for a pay window, especially in the case of HBO, which isn’t aligned with TVNZ or MediaWorks.

Sky’s growth has outstripped that of other pay operators – it’s now in more than 50% of households.

But if it’s to maintain that momentum, it will need to offer not only more affordable and flexible subscription deals but also a wider range of content beyond sports, movies and SD channels comprising largely FTA re-runs.

Quality and diversity have to become as important as quantity – and not just for subscribers willing to pay extra for services like the Rialto and Arts channels.

Australian media are reporting that the Australasian TiVo service is about to fold.

Channel News quotes a US TiVo executive as believing TiVo in Australia “will not continue trading”.

And The Register reckons “an asset sale for the video-on-demand platform could be on the cards”.

Australian TiVo executives aren’t commenting on speculation about the fate of their service, which Hybrid TV licenses in NZ and Australia.

Hybrid is majority owned by Seven Media Group; TVNZ has a 33% stake.

Despite ambitious plans to tackle Sky in NZ, little has come to past and local media have long speculated TiVo couldn’t survive in a market so dominated by the pay-TV operator, which has about 50% penetration.

Meanwhile, NBR this afternoon reported “botched boxes tipped to cause TVNZ big losses” while a TVNZ spokesperson told ScreenScribe.tv: “The full financials will be reported on when we release our half yearly results in the next few weeks.”

Sony’s HD PVR module for its PlayStation 3, PlayTV, goes on sale today for $200, with some retailers bundling it for free with the $730 320GB console.

While it seems to have been hobbled by critical flaws, PlayTV boasts a clean and elegant electronic programming guide and graphical user interface, as seen from these generic screenshots provided by Sony.

If Sony can get all of the FreeviewHD broadcasters to provide 13-day listings and facilitate features that are standard on other PVRs, like series linking, then PlayTV would be priced competitively enough to make inroads into a market dominated by My Sky HDi.

As a poor man’s TiVo or T-Box, with only a handful of free-to-air HD channels, it’s hard to view PlayTV as a compelling buy.

But if you are in a PS3 household without Sky or FreeviewHD, it’s a cheap and functional console add-on that, with a UHF aerial and an EPG broadband connection:

• allows you to watch, pause and record HD free-to-air TV;
• has twin HD tuners to watch one programme while recording another (you also can record while playing games or watching DVDs and Blu-ray movies but can’t record two channels at once);
• can stream content to PSP, Aino mobile phones via 3G and, if they’ve been released since May 2010, Vaio laptops with Remote Play using Wi-Fi Remote (VPCW21xxx series and VPCM125xxx series not compatible); and
• lets you transfer saved TV shows to an upgraded hard drive by performing a PS3 back up and transfer (or using the ‘easy transfer tool’).

Sony’s claim that its new PlayTV PVR offers more features than other PVRs has been thrown into doubt by a damning NBR online report.

It highlights failings that make PlayTV sound inferior to other PVRs and speculates a rift between Sony and MediaWorks is partly to blame.

Like TiVo, PlayTV’s EPG will be hobbled by its lack of Prime TV listings, because parent company Sky won’t provide them.

But worse is TV3 and C4 listings will only display what’s on air at the time and details of the programme that follows, which all but defeats the value of having a PVR for time shifting – especially when PlayTV can’t even series link (or automatically record every episode in a show’s season).

It’s a slightly rosier picture with TVNZ and Maori TV listings, which can be accessed up to 10 days in advance – better than Sky’s week-ahead listings but no match for TiVo’s two-week benchmark.

NBR’s Chris Keall reckons MediaWorks is “getting its own back” for Sony’s TVNZ Ondemand partnership.

“Mediaworks supports all other Freeview recorders, and is clearly just out to punish Sony.

“That’s childish on Mediaworks’ part.”

Whoever’s at fault, NBR’s depressing checklist makes a mockery of Sony Computer Entertainment NZ chief David Hine’s press statement: “PlayTV delivers all the features other premium PVR devices do and more, at a fraction of the cost.”

Meanwhile, TVNZ Ondemand has dramatically improved the picture quality of its broadband streaming.

It now supports a 1500kbps stream, along with 700kbps and 300kbps options.

“In the past we’ve kept to more modest streaming video bitrates to let as many people as possible watch and enjoy TVNZ Ondemand,” TVNZ’s digital media chief Tom Cotter says.

“But as broadband penetration and data allowances have increased, along with the number of households that have access to high-speed internet in New Zealand, we want to give viewers the option of an improved viewing experience.”

Cotter promises more enhancements to TVNZ Ondemand over the next few months.

TiVo users and subscribers to My Sky HDi and TelstraClear’s T-Box all had their normal service interrupted over the weekend.

On Hallowe’en eve, My Sky HDi viewers lost coverage of a vital rugby game because of a power outage and TiVo was cursed by a glitch that delayed all recordings by two hours.

TiVo fixed the problem the same day but licensee Hybrid TV Services was reluctant to comment on what caused it beyond saying the issue was being investigated.

Meanwhile, over the weekend T-Box users continued to be plagued by a pox that’s been bedevilling them for the past couple of weeks.

As contributors to this site have pointed out, there have been problems with the images freezing or pixelating.

A spokesman told ScreenScribe.tv: “It is something we are aware of and urgent work is underway to provide a fix for it, which we hope to roll out shortly.”

On the Hallowe’en movie front, TV3’s HD presentation of the 2006 re-make of The Omen drew barely half the viewership of TV2’s SD screening of Scary Movie 2 while TV One’s SD double-bill of The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Wolf Creek scared up even fewer viewers.

TV2′s movie got a big boost from its HD lead-in, the premiere of Scared Shrekless and a repeat of Monsters vs Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins From Outer Space.

The former drew 9.4% of TV2′s target audience, 18-39 year-olds, and the latter, 8.9%.

TelstraClear has started installing its first PVR/home media device in the homes of Wellington, Kapiti and Christchurch customers but is the T-Box ready for primetime?

The telco kindly provided me with a unit to appraise during its beta testing phase.

While I’ve had it to play with for several weeks, the following should be seen as first impressions only, as during that time the telco was still fixing teething issues.

However, it’s disappointing not all of these problems had been resolved before this week’s official T-Box launch.

For instance, over the last few days it’s been dogged by a software bug that can stop you accessing menu options and channels while the T-Box is endlessly “updating”.

And when I check the Planner to see how much storage is left, it tells me the hard drive is “100% free”, even though there are more than 30 HD and SD recordings on it.

Another quirk was in the day or so following changeover to daylight saving, the Series Link function seems to have been confused about which hour to record and so recorded at both the pre- and post-daylight saving times.

During the beta phase, there also was a high incidence of failed recordings but in the last two weeks there was only one.

No doubt Telstra’s technicians soon will have ironed out these niggles but it’s a pity that after such a long and anticipated wait, the T-Box was wanting from day one.

However, it should be remembered that Sky’s HD PVR, My Sky HDi, also had a flaky start but quickly became largely glitch-free.

How does the T-Box compare to MySky HDi? Better in some respects, worse in others.

The menu is stunning, with everything from the Planner, where you can preview or review recordings, to the Settings and TV Guide bursting with colour, clarity and appealing icons.

The interface is far more inviting than My Sky HDi or TiVo’s. Indeed, it’s like comparing Apple’s operating system with Microsoft’s and, after years of Sky’s spartan approach to its EPG, is a feast for the eyes.

The instructions for everything from avoiding a clash of recording times to how many times you want to record a programme are easier to understand and more intuitive than TiVo’s.

But the downside of such intensive graphics is the menu’s more sluggish to operate, with both My Sky HDi and TiVo responding quicker to the push of a remote control key.

It’s also annoying that you can only programme recordings for up to a week ahead, like My Sky HDi, whereas TiVo has a two-week capability.

MySky HDi and TiVo also are more flexible in their recording options. With My Sky HDi, you can extend a programme’s recording time by 20 minutes to avoid it being cut short should the channel run late.

The T-Box will allow “padder buffinh” up to 15 minutes but, annoyingly, it applies to both the start and end of the programme. You can’t just add it to the end of the scheduled recording.

Another drawback is it can’t be told to record only the first airing of programmes that repeat several times a day or week on some channels. For instance, set it to record Media7 at 9.10pm Thursdays on TVNZ7, and it also will record every other screening that week.

TiVo, on the other hand, can be set up to record just the original airing.

The T-Box’s excellent remote control is bulkier than TiVo’s but lighter and smaller, yet no less comprehensive, than My Sky HDi’s. It also can be used to operate a TV and a DVD player or video recorder.

Its layout resembles My Sky HDi’s, with a few subtle changes, the biggest improvement being how easy it is to change the batteries (Sky’s remote control should be bundled with an instruction manual explaining how to flip open the Fort Knox of a battery compartment).

It also can access channels with fewer inputs. TV One, for instance, can be summoned by pressing the ’1′ key rather than the ’0-0-1′ succession of keys you need to press on My Sky HDi.

In most other respects, T-Box’s functionality is the same as My Sky HDi’s, from recording two programmes simultaneously while watching a third to the management of recordings, series linking, and pausing and rewinding live TV.

Indeed, given T-Box passes essentially passes through the same linear content as My Sky HDi, its real test will be whether Telstra can fulfill its promise of delivering exclusive content, either in the form of new channels or IPTV offerings.

Whether it’s worth having installed will depend on if you’re already a Sky customer — in which case, it’s not — or a TelstraClear customer, in which case, it is, given the triple-play package deals the telco can offer.

For Telstra’s response to some of the criticism raised here, see this post; it’s also promising a software update tonight to fix the highlighted bugs.

TelstraClear will start installing its first PVR, the T-Box, into subscribers’ homes from Monday, when ScreenScribe.tv will post a review.

“With T-Box, TelstraClear is proposing to deliver a level of video-on-demand functionality well beyond what is available on cable networks in most other countries, including Australia,” TelstraClear’s head of consumer markets, Steve Jackson, said in a statement.

He acknowledged TelstraClear has collected a huge number of registrations of interest from customers wanting to experience the T-Box since the IPTV-enabled set-top box’s development was announced 15 months ago.

“We know our customers have been waiting for this product as the testing and refining of the T-Box took longer than expected.

“However, now the launch is underway we will be contacting each of these customers, and others, over the coming weeks to confirm their orders and we expect to be installing T-box in homes from September 27.”

Customers can choose between paying a one-off rental fee of $499 or $15 monthly.

T-box users will be able to record two high definition (HD) channels simultaneously while watching a third HD channel either live or as a recording.

It can record up to 50 hours of HD television, up to 180 hours of SD, and will support the future delivery of on-demand video via the Internet.

Jackson said the launch of the T-Box has huge importance for fibre-to-the-home developments in NZ.

It is available to TelstraClear’s InHome customers in Wellington, Kapiti and Christchurch who have access to the company’s hybrid fibre cable (HFC) networks. Customers in other areas will be able to access it as new networks are built as part of the Government’s ultra-fast broadband initiative.