|
|
HD and SD side-by-side
Having dithered for months about demoting my excellent Panasonic Viera
37in SD plasma TV and perfectly good Sky+ SD subscription (which combination gives me excellent pictures 95% of the time and occasional posterisation on some scenes, night skies, etc) in favour of HD everything, I finally bit part of the bullet this week and bought a Panasonic Viera 42in 1080 HD plasma with built-in FreeSat receiver. I had read so much about the compromises that an HD TV makes when fed SD signals (which are still by far the majority of signals available to view, even with a Sky HD sub), I figured I could set up the new TV to compare the two before biting the rest of the bullet and upgrading to SkyHD. So I took one of my two Sky+ coaxial feeds and plugged it straight into the new TV; and at the same time, out of interest, I connected my Sky box to the new TV via a scart lead. I was somewhat bemused by what I saw. Firstly, I scrambled through the FreeSat menu looking for some HD programmes (at 7pm on Tuesday). There was none. Not quite true because the BBC HD Preview channel was transmitting sample clips of different types of programme in HD and I could see that a couple of real HD broadcasts were scheduled for later in the evening. But there was nothing else HD anywhere to be seen. Perhaps someone would confirm this. But based on my search, there is only disappointment awaiting anyone who buys a FreeSat receiver hoping to see HD programmes on their new HD TV... What I saw of the BBC HD preview clips was stunning. But there was all too little of it. Is FreeSat going to offer more than this? As it stands, it offers no competition at all to SkyHD... assuming that SkyHD matches the quality of the BBC HD previews I was able to watch. I then tried to evaluate the HD TV's handling of SD signals. These channels were variable in quality but they were all a lot less satisfying on an HD TV. They looked like what they we small images digitally magnified to fit the larger space. If my SD TV gave me 95% satisfaction then the HD TV reduced that to 65%. Bad enough to make me put aside the new TV and keep the old one until more HD content is available... or shell out for SkyHD with its significantly greater HD content and leave the TV's built-in FreeSat receiver to die a lonely death. Then finally, I thought I would use PiP to compare the two SD pictures side by side. This reduced the FreeSat SD picture to less than half screen size and as a consequence it became a lot sharper and a lot more pleasing -- and it proved that, as connected, the FreeSat SD picture at that size was a lot more pleasing than the Sky SD picture at the same size. The Sky picture was dull, the whites of the FreeSat image were grey in the Sky image and the Sky video was much softer and fuzzier. I assume that if Sky SD were the only feed, I could compensate for the brightness and contrast deficiencies by adjusting the TV's picture controls. But I was concerned about the fuzziness. Hopefully someone with technical knowledge will explain that the Sky SD picture was bound to be fuzzy in the setup I have described. But if it were the only feed, it would still come in via the same scart cable so I can't figure it out. Meanwhile, my tests so far absolutely rule out the notion that I could happily watch current FreeSat content on an HD TV. It seems that I have two choices: a) Revert to my Sky SD setup and SD TV, putting the HD TV in another, secondary room where it could be used as an occasional FreeSat viewer via another coax feed from my satellite dish b) Pay up for SkyHD and bring the new TV into service in the living room where approx 30% of our viewing would be HD and the balance would hopefully be better than the sample Sky SD feed I saw at PiP size today. I suppose there's always the third option that I could connect up the new TV alongside the old one and continue to watch Sky SD happily on the old screen while switching to the new one for occasional BBC HD transmissions. But that seems a bit untidy to me. Stan |
HD and SD side-by-side
Stan The Man wrote:
Firstly, I scrambled through the FreeSat menu looking for some HD programmes (at 7pm on Tuesday). There was none. Not quite true because the BBC HD Preview channel was transmitting sample clips of different types of programme in HD and I could see that a couple of real HD broadcasts were scheduled for later in the evening. But there was nothing else HD anywhere to be seen. Perhaps someone would confirm this. But based on my search, there is only disappointment awaiting anyone who buys a FreeSat receiver hoping to see HD programmes on their new HD TV... ITV HD broadcasts are as an interactive service. A 'Red Dot' prompt appears on Ch 103 when an ITV-1 programme is available in HD, and pressing Red should take you to the HD version. However, the only regular HD broadcast from ITV is the diabolical Thursday night series, 'Harley Street'. Also be aware that owing to politics between ITV Ltd and STV and UTV, no ITV HD programming is available to Freesat receivers on Scottish or NI postcodes. What I saw of the BBC HD preview clips was stunning. But there was all too little of it. Is FreeSat going to offer more than this? As it stands, it offers no competition at all to SkyHD... assuming that SkyHD matches the quality of the BBC HD previews I was able to watch. From this Friday, for two weeks BBC HD would seem to go 24/7 primarily with Olympic coverage. Whether that momentum will be continued after the games remains to be seen. -- Mark Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply. |
HD and SD side-by-side
In article ,
Stan The Man wrote: I then tried to evaluate the HD TV's handling of SD signals. These channels were variable in quality but they were all a lot less satisfying on an HD TV. They looked like what they we small images digitally magnified to fit the larger space. If my SD TV gave me 95% satisfaction then the HD TV reduced that to 65%. Bad enough to make me put aside the new TV and keep the old one until more HD content is available... or shell out for SkyHD with its significantly greater HD content and leave the TV's built-in FreeSat receiver to die a lonely death. Sounds like something is making a poor job of upscaling. Ignoring the test broadcasts much of the BBC HD output looks little different to SD on my set. A prime example was Miss Potter on Sunday. It looked fine - but then so does much decent SD. The only thing I've really watched that was *obviously* HD was Wimbledon. Bonekickers also doesn't really do the format justice. -- *I went to school to become a wit, only got halfway through. Dave Plowman London SW To e-mail, change noise into sound. |
HD and SD side-by-side
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
Sounds like something is making a poor job of upscaling. Ignoring the test broadcasts much of the BBC HD output looks little different to SD on my set. A prime example was Miss Potter on Sunday. It looked fine - but then so does much decent SD. The only thing I've really watched that was *obviously* HD was Wimbledon. Bonekickers also doesn't really do the format justice. I agree. A lot of drama on BBC HD suffers the same treatment as on SD. Softened up images, gamma buggered around with, and field skipped. The best HD I've seen so far is good old bog standard 1080 50i sport. It'll be interesting to see the quality of pictures from the Olympics next week. -- Mark Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply. |
HD and SD side-by-side
"Mark Carver" wrote in message ... Dave Plowman (News) wrote: Sounds like something is making a poor job of upscaling. Ignoring the test broadcasts much of the BBC HD output looks little different to SD on my set. A prime example was Miss Potter on Sunday. It looked fine - but then so does much decent SD. The only thing I've really watched that was *obviously* HD was Wimbledon. Bonekickers also doesn't really do the format justice. I agree. A lot of drama on BBC HD suffers the same treatment as on SD. Softened up images, gamma buggered around with, and field skipped. The best HD I've seen so far is good old bog standard 1080 50i sport. It'll be interesting to see the quality of pictures from the Olympics next week. -- Mark Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply. I have previously made side-by-side comparisons using a Panasonic 42" non freesat TV. I think it would be worth Stan checking again by swapping over the left and right screens and noting any changes. My own trials showed that the left hand half pictures always seemed to be of better quality than those on the right. This is presumably the result of unequal processing of the split screen by the TV. I found it difficult to make valid comparisons without making several swap overs and subjectively " averaging" the results. Richard H |
HD and SD side-by-side
On 2008-08-06 00:48:08 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
said: In article , Stan The Man wrote: I then tried to evaluate the HD TV's handling of SD signals. These channels were variable in quality but they were all a lot less satisfying on an HD TV. They looked like what they we small images digitally magnified to fit the larger space. If my SD TV gave me 95% satisfaction then the HD TV reduced that to 65%. Bad enough to make me put aside the new TV and keep the old one until more HD content is available... or shell out for SkyHD with its significantly greater HD content and leave the TV's built-in FreeSat receiver to die a lonely death. Sounds like something is making a poor job of upscaling. Ignoring the test broadcasts much of the BBC HD output looks little different to SD on my set. A prime example was Miss Potter on Sunday. It looked fine - but then so does much decent SD. The only thing I've really watched that was *obviously* HD was Wimbledon. Bonekickers also doesn't really do the format justice. The Wimbledon preview clips I saw last night were astoundingly good and I can't wait to see more sport in HD. Desperate to immerse myself in HD last night , I even sat through an hour of a very old man singing really badly, just so that I could study his face in close-up to look for any signs of the reduced colour palette posterisation which still occasionally ruins a digital SD transmission. There was none. The images were perfect. I watched Bonekickers too which had never appealed before -- but when the pictures are so pure, almost any old rubbish becomes watchable. Stan |
HD and SD side-by-side
In article ,
Hawkins wrote: I have previously made side-by-side comparisons using a Panasonic 42" non freesat TV. I think it would be worth Stan checking again by swapping over the left and right screens and noting any changes. My own trials showed that the left hand half pictures always seemed to be of better quality than those on the right. This is presumably the result of unequal processing of the split screen by the TV. I really don't think this will give any sort of valid comparison. For it to do justice to an HD picture even the basics like number of pixels of the display would have to be double what's actually needed. -- *Some people are only alive because it is illegal to kill. Dave Plowman London SW To e-mail, change noise into sound. |
HD and SD side-by-side
In article ,
Mark Carver wrote: Dave Plowman (News) wrote: Sounds like something is making a poor job of upscaling. Ignoring the test broadcasts much of the BBC HD output looks little different to SD on my set. A prime example was Miss Potter on Sunday. It looked fine - but then so does much decent SD. The only thing I've really watched that was *obviously* HD was Wimbledon. Bonekickers also doesn't really do the format justice. I agree. A lot of drama on BBC HD suffers the same treatment as on SD. Softened up images, gamma buggered around with, and field skipped. Yup. It would never do to have 'unmessed' with pictures on drama - the public simply wouldn't accept it. ;-) The best HD I've seen so far is good old bog standard 1080 50i sport. It'll be interesting to see the quality of pictures from the Olympics next week. Sadly I don't much like sport. But I'll be having a look from the technical point of view. -- *What are the pink bits in my tyres? Cyclists & Joggers* Dave Plowman London SW To e-mail, change noise into sound. |
HD and SD side-by-side
"Mark Carver" wrote in message ... Stan The Man wrote: Firstly, I scrambled through the FreeSat menu looking for some HD programmes (at 7pm on Tuesday). There was none. Not quite true because the BBC HD Preview channel was transmitting sample clips of different types of programme in HD and I could see that a couple of real HD broadcasts were scheduled for later in the evening. But there was nothing else HD anywhere to be seen. Perhaps someone would confirm this. But based on my search, there is only disappointment awaiting anyone who buys a FreeSat receiver hoping to see HD programmes on their new HD TV... ITV HD broadcasts are as an interactive service. A 'Red Dot' prompt appears on Ch 103 when an ITV-1 programme is available in HD, and pressing Red should take you to the HD version. However, the only regular HD broadcast from ITV is the diabolical Thursday night series, 'Harley Street'. Also be aware that owing to politics between ITV Ltd and STV and UTV, no ITV HD programming is available to Freesat receivers on Scottish or NI postcodes. One can easily work around that! What I saw of the BBC HD preview clips was stunning. But there was all too little of it. Is FreeSat going to offer more than this? As it stands, it offers no competition at all to SkyHD... assuming that SkyHD matches the quality of the BBC HD previews I was able to watch. From this Friday, for two weeks BBC HD would seem to go 24/7 primarily with Olympic coverage. Whether that momentum will be continued after the games remains to be seen. -- Mark Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply. |
HD and SD side-by-side
"Stan The Man" wrote in message ... Having dithered for months about demoting my excellent Panasonic Viera 37in SD plasma TV and perfectly good Sky+ SD subscription (which combination gives me excellent pictures 95% of the time and occasional posterisation on some scenes, night skies, etc) in favour of HD everything, I finally bit part of the bullet this week and bought a Panasonic Viera 42in 1080 HD plasma with built-in FreeSat receiver. You don't need to have SD and 1080 HD side by side to be able to tell that the latter is vastly superior visually. You can save yourself a lot of time [and money!] by working on the assumption that anything from $ky is a rip off. |
HD and SD side-by-side
On Wed, 6 Aug 2008 08:18:20 +0100, Stan The Man wrote:
On 2008-08-06 00:48:08 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)" said: In article , Stan The Man wrote: I then tried to evaluate the HD TV's handling of SD signals. These channels were variable in quality but they were all a lot less satisfying on an HD TV. They looked like what they we small images digitally magnified to fit the larger space. If my SD TV gave me 95% satisfaction then the HD TV reduced that to 65%. Bad enough to make me put aside the new TV and keep the old one until more HD content is available... or shell out for SkyHD with its significantly greater HD content and leave the TV's built-in FreeSat receiver to die a lonely death. Sounds like something is making a poor job of upscaling. Ignoring the test broadcasts much of the BBC HD output looks little different to SD on my set. A prime example was Miss Potter on Sunday. It looked fine - but then so does much decent SD. The only thing I've really watched that was *obviously* HD was Wimbledon. Bonekickers also doesn't really do the format justice. The Wimbledon preview clips I saw last night were astoundingly good and I can't wait to see more sport in HD. Desperate to immerse myself in HD last night , I even sat through an hour of a very old man singing really badly, just so that I could study his face in close-up to look for any signs of the reduced colour palette posterisation which still occasionally ruins a digital SD transmission. There was none. The images were perfect. I watched Bonekickers too which had never appealed before -- but when the pictures are so pure, almost any old rubbish becomes watchable. Stan I have the 50" Freesat Panny, but I knew what to expect from Freesat HD, knowing I could only get BBC HD and occasionally ITV HD (there has been no ITV HD since I bought the telly except for Harley St, but I'm out Thursday nights so that doesn't count). There is also Luxe TV in HD which is available by tuning in 'Other Sat' stations. It's crap, but it is in HD. As fot SD on my telly, it really varies from channel to channel and even programme to programme. SD will look worse on your 42" than your old 37" due to the low bitrates. It's evn worse on my 50" but then I mainly bought it for watching Blu-Ray. Marky P. |
HD and SD side-by-side
Marky P wrote:
I have the 50" Freesat Panny, but I knew what to expect from Freesat HD, knowing I could only get BBC HD and occasionally ITV HD (there has been no ITV HD since I bought the telly except for Harley St, but I'm out Thursday nights so that doesn't count). There is also Luxe TV in HD which is available by tuning in 'Other Sat' stations. It's crap, but it is in HD. As fot SD on my telly, it really varies from channel to channel and even programme to programme. SD will look worse on your 42" than your old 37" due to the low bitrates. It's evn worse on my 50" but then I mainly bought it for watching Blu-Ray. That's the thing. With proper HD broadcasts and BluRay you can sit close to a big screen and marvel at the detail. With SD you need to get so far back for the artefacts to vanish, with that size screen in most homes, it requires going outside and half way up the garden path. -- Mark Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply. |
HD and SD side-by-side
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message ... In article , Mark Carver wrote: Dave Plowman (News) wrote: Sounds like something is making a poor job of upscaling. Ignoring the test broadcasts much of the BBC HD output looks little different to SD on my set. A prime example was Miss Potter on Sunday. It looked fine - but then so does much decent SD. The only thing I've really watched that was *obviously* HD was Wimbledon. Bonekickers also doesn't really do the format justice. I agree. A lot of drama on BBC HD suffers the same treatment as on SD. Softened up images, gamma buggered around with, and field skipped. Yup. It would never do to have 'unmessed' with pictures on drama - the public simply wouldn't accept it. ;-) Yes I sometimes can't help wondering if many of the average transmissions actually stretch the SD system to anywhere near its limits. In the BBC news yesterday there was a short item originating from China, which drew my attention simply because of its impressive picture quality, I couldn't help thinking well that's coming all the way from China so why isn't the picture quality of the home generated stuff equally as good. |
HD and SD side-by-side
"Mark Carver" wrote in message ... That's the thing. With proper HD broadcasts and BluRay you can sit close to a big screen and marvel at the detail. With SD you need to get so far back for the artefacts to vanish, with that size screen in most homes, it requires going outside and half way up the garden path. I recently purchased a 37 inch Philips because I was so impressed by the picture quality in an in store demonstration, however when I was looking around the same store a few weeks later I noticed that a Sharp LCD TV in the same position also had a really impressive picture quality on it, tracing the source back I found it was connected to a Sony BluRay player. All of the other demo models appeared to be connected (presumably by a kind of composite loop) to a standard DVD player (displaying the usual suspect cartoon film) and didn't look anywhere near as good in comparison, I think this might be some kind of ruse they use when they have a large amount of a certain model they wish to shift! However suffice to say that from a viewing distance of around 9 feet and connected to my Humax PVR via RGB SCART (which for some reason appears to give a sharper picture than its own internal Freeview tuner, despite there being no upscaling) I am more than pleased, and that's coming from someone who put off purchasing an LCD simply because of the comparison when viewed against a good CRT, which IMHO still stands, as 'none' of them look all that good displaying SD when being examined from about a foot away! |
HD and SD side-by-side
In article , Ivan wrote:
Yes I sometimes can't help wondering if many of the average transmissions actually stretch the SD system to anywhere near its limits. They don't. Nowhere near. It makes HD seem pointless. HD *can* achieve better performance than what SD *can* achieve, but in reality the best performance of SD has not been achieved for many years. Presumably this also applies to what is currently being broadcast as HD, and for the same reasons, though I haven't seen any recent HD broadcasts so I can only guess. Maybe they're taking a bit more trouble over HD because it's new and they want people to buy it, but when it becomes routine I expect it will go the same way as everything else. We could have an enormous improvement in picture quality - i.e. back to what was normal a couple of decades ago - simply by the proper use of what we've already got. Rod. -- Virtual Access V6.3 free usenet/email software from http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtual-access/ |
HD and SD side-by-side
In article en.co.uk,
Roderick Stewart wrote: In article , Ivan wrote: Yes I sometimes can't help wondering if many of the average transmissions actually stretch the SD system to anywhere near its limits. They don't. Nowhere near. It makes HD seem pointless. HD *can* achieve better performance than what SD *can* achieve, but in reality the best performance of SD has not been achieved for many years. Yup. Presumably this also applies to what is currently being broadcast as HD, and for the same reasons, though I haven't seen any recent HD broadcasts so I can only guess. Maybe they're taking a bit more trouble over HD because it's new and they want people to buy it, but when it becomes routine I expect it will go the same way as everything else. As I said I've not seen that much - but aside from *parts* of the test broadcasts the only thing that impressed this BOF was Wimbledon. Now if I weren't impressed by any of it I could put it down to my DLP set which isn't full HD - or my aging eyes - but the fact that some is stunning and some not means it's down to 'them' as always. We could have an enormous improvement in picture quality - i.e. back to what was normal a couple of decades ago - simply by the proper use of what we've already got. Yup again. Rod. -- *Avoid clichés like the plague. (They're old hat.) * Dave Plowman London SW To e-mail, change noise into sound. |
HD and SD side-by-side
"Mark Carver" wrote in message ... Stan The Man wrote: Firstly, I scrambled through the FreeSat menu looking for some HD programmes (at 7pm on Tuesday). There was none. Not quite true because the BBC HD Preview channel was transmitting sample clips of different types of programme in HD and I could see that a couple of real HD broadcasts were scheduled for later in the evening. But there was nothing else HD anywhere to be seen. Perhaps someone would confirm this. But based on my search, there is only disappointment awaiting anyone who buys a FreeSat receiver hoping to see HD programmes on their new HD TV... ITV HD broadcasts are as an interactive service. A 'Red Dot' prompt appears on Ch 103 when an ITV-1 programme is available in HD, and pressing Red should take you to the HD version. I've heard of "plus 1" services but is "ITV-1" ITV but an hour ahead? |
HD and SD side-by-side
Brian Gaff wrote:
Just as a query, for what reason would they have to stop people with certain postcodes watching hd content? And how would they know you were there anyway, surely you could move about the country and still get the content. Weird. The mapping of the correct BBC and ITV regions to the Freesat EPG relies on the user entering their postcode during the initial set up of the box. (You can change the postcode later at will). However the ITV HD service is provided by ITV Ltd, who are really the resultant company from all the English and Welsh ITV companies merging over the last 15 years. Scotland is now served by STV (who gobbled up Grampian some time ago) and Northern Ireland by UTV. Both STV and UTV are separate companies to ITV. As the red dot invites the viewer to move away from his regular SD ITV channel, to the HD version, this means that STV and UTV viewers would be directed away from their intended advertisements. You can understand that STV and UTV wouldn't be very happy about that. Therefore the red dot prompt does not appear on Scottish and NI postcodes. Some Digital Spy posters have written to STV, and their party line is that it's a branding issue, but IMHO the loss of advertising must be the prime factor. I spoke to a senior engineering chap from ITV last month, and he said the idea of the Freesat system returning you to your ITV 1 SD region during ad breaks was seriously considered as a solution to this, but experiments showed there was an unacceptable level of 'crashing about' as the boxes changed transponder and stream. Of course, for savvy types in STV and UTV land, all they need to do to watch ITV HD is change their postcode setting to an English or Welsh one. -- Mark Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply. |
| All times are GMT +1. The time now is 04:19 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2021, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
HomeCinemaBanter.com