Whats the point of Freeview?
 

Not really. If you previously had good analogue reception, free of
ghosting and interference, then, apart from widescreen which is
certainly a plus, Freeview just isn't as good, and 90% of the reason
for that is over-compression.

I came to the conclusion recently that an awful lot of people haven't
seen just how good an analogue PAL picture can be on a really good set
with a good decoder...

--
Tony Sayer

Whats the point of Freeview?
 

On Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:36:06 +0200, J G Miller
wrote:

On Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:39:55 +0100, Java Jive wrote:
But how many? I for one really wanted stereo radio, I remember
badgering my parents for an FM trannie.
If it was a portable transistor radio, then it certainly would not
have been stereophonic.

Actually, I think you're right about that. Come to think of it,
although I remember badgering, what I got was mono, so perhaps I
badgered for the better quality of FM!

But how many? I really wanted to see the mostly much better
programmes on BBC2.

So just maybe ... shunted off to BBC-4?

And your point, viewed as an answer to my answer to you, is?

No, not at all. The step up in resolution from 405 in B&W
to 625 lines colour was by then clear and unmistakable.

Actually, a lot of people did say that they would wait

Noone I knew. We even had 625 on our portables at uni.

I can't remember who, once said that he feared that HD would simply
just end up being what SD could and should've been.

An SD picture of 720x576 is never going to provide the detail of a 1080i
picture.

But after over-compression it may end up looking not much better than
an SD signal might have looked if compression had not been involved
anywhere in the production chain, which I believe was the point being
made.

If you cannot see the difference in picture detail between the SD
service and HD service of Luxe TV, to use a non Freeview example,
then you need your eyes testing.

If you cannot see the difference between a clear, good analogue signal
and an over compressed digital one then you need your eyes testing.

If you previously had good analogue reception, free of
ghosting and interference

In practice though, even in areas where this was possible, the number
of people who fed a below par analog signal to their television was
probably greater than those who fed what you would call a Grade A
signal.

But why should those who can get a decent analogue picture have to
have a *worse* one when they have to switch to digital, especially as
all the hype has been promising us *better* pictures.

Furthermore, even with a Grade A signal, you can still perceive a
certain level of noise on the picture, whereas with a digital picture
you get a flat, no visible scanning lines image.

One of the ironies about upgrading my aerial so that I could get
better digital reception is that I now get as near perfect analogue
reception as I'm ever likely to get in this area.

So I've just been comparing analogue reception to digital reception
while watching Big Cat Live*. Unfortunately, in the brief time I was
watching, there were no scenes of the type guaranteed to produce an
unacceptable number of compression artifacts, so I wasn't able to make
a full comparison, but, apart from the obvious widescreen differences,
the quality of the picture wasn't that much different.

Yes, the analogue picture was slightly more grainy than the digital,
but certainly the best analogue reception I've had for a long time, if
not ever. If that was what I had been used to before DSO about which
we have been promised so much, and then almost the first thing I saw
was all the compression artifacts in some scenes in my favorite
wildlife documentaries, then I'd be gutted. I'd feel cheated.

Freeview just isn't as good, and 90% of the reason for
that is over-compression.
With that I have no disagreement -- the issue is not the digital
transmission, it is the lack of quality control of picture quality
and "let the market decide to pack as many stations on the multiplex as
possible in order to maximize profits" approach of the UK%GB
administration.

Which is what I said elsewhere in the thread, before you did, so why
are we arguing?


*Rather reluctantly - IMV a program that has been completely ruined
by trying to present it ...

1) Previously in the manner of a badly made soap - trying always to
end it on an emotional cliff-hanger about a baby-elephant, a leopard
cub, or whatever - "Cue the drum beats of the East Enders theme
tune!" ...

2) Now they seem to be confusing it with morning TV - logs around a
fire instead of couches around a table, the same stilted attempts to
make artificial conversation sound natural, complete even with a bimbo
presenter who appears to know SFA about the subject in hand.

Whats the point of Freeview?
 

On Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:45:43 +0100, Jeff Layman wrote:
It will be interesting to see if there are far less complaints about
blocking, etc when analogue goes and the freeview signal strength
increases.

And the FFT parameter is finally changed from the prehistoric 2k and
brought into the modern age of 8k.

Whats the point of Freeview?
 

On Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:11:29 +0100, Roderick Stewart wrote:
it's got to where it is now largely by accident

It may appear to be largely by accident but it is actually the
result of market forces, which has been the modus operandi
mandated by the Major and Bliar administrations and the corresponding
creation of the "light touch regulator" OFcon.

After all, if market forces are going to determine the picture quality,
more stations crammed into the bandwidth, so more licence fees, more
advertizing, higher profits, so more tax revenues, you do not need a
regulator to enforce picture quality standards.

You can probably think of more things that could be done with digital
television

Yes, but in the environment of the present Westminster government policy
of free market economics which will remain fundamentall unchanged should
the Conservative and Unionist Party form the next Westminster government,
they will only be done if they are of economic value to the multiplex
operators, namely Arqiva (owned by Macquarie Bank), Digital 3 and 4 (part
owned by ITV plc), and SDN (owned by ITV plc).

Whats the point of Freeview?
 

"Jeff Layman" wrote in message
...
Marcussy wrote:
on a more serious note dear Java Jive

We are talking about MPEG compressed video here, it is not a lossless
compression there will be some "artefacts of compression" or
"blockiness" if you will when compared to a real world image to the
eye. These become much more apparent with the connections /equipment
issues I raised.
If those things are not an issue with their kit then the vast
majority of people the vast majority of the time will not see any
significant blockiness or artefacting. As per, MP3 audio tracks sound
fine to most people most of the time but it "ain't HI-FI" and a
"trained musical ear" will say it does not sound right/the same. As
a musician I can't bear to listen to MP3 tracks compressed below
192K, most people use 128K or 64K compression level it's fine for
their ears.
SO to summarise.

Freeview offers a lot more content delivered via the existing
broadcasting infrastructure, much of it is good programming, a lot of
it is repeats & crap (like all the other TV service suppliers). The
picture quality is OK and better than analogue for much of the
population as you either get a perfect transmission or you get
nothing watchable as there are no issues of ghosting and snowy
pictures etc etc.

I think you may have hit the nail on the head with your "for much of the
population". But there is a problem for those who don't have a
satisfactory
freeview signal. Which would you rather have for the final episode in a
long-running serial you've been waiting for - some snow or ghosting, and
an
infrequent sound buzz, or nothing at all (maybe a few interrupted blocky
pictures with broken sound if you were lucky)? I'd be a bit annoyed with
the
former, but have steam coming out my ears with the latter.

It will be interesting to see if there are far less complaints about
blocking, etc when analogue goes and the freeview signal strength
increases.

--
Jeff
(cut "thetape" to reply)



This is one reason why the freesat spinoff was able to take place..
If you live in a listed building and cant put the dish on the grounds then I
guess you really are stuck ;P

Whats the point of Freeview?
 

On Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:20:02 +0100, Java Jive wrote:
Noone I knew. We even had 625 on our portables at uni.
Color? And did you have a color television receiver licence?

If you cannot see the difference between a clear, good analogue signal
and an over compressed digital one then you need your eyes testing.
I do not dispute that, and if you think ITV-1 is bad on terrestrial
due to lack of bandwidth, you should see how much worse it is on the
even lower bit rate transmissions from SES Astra 2.

And to think that some people are motivated to pay B$kyB to watch
and even worse picture than is available FTA terrestrially.

However, compare a top quality analog picture (with only 312 ???
lines of resolution) with a 720p or 1080i HD picture broadcast
with adequate bit rate and you will not want to go back to analog.

But why should those who can get a decent analogue picture have to
have a *worse* one when they have to switch to digital, especially as
all the hype has been promising us *better* pictures.
Because that is government policy viz "to let the market decide" and in
the bourgeois democracy that is the UKofGB&NI that is what people
effectively voted for at the last election (whether they voted for
Faux Labour or Conservative and Unionist Party).

[Cue discussion of "tyranny of the majority" and Jefferson on
"elective despotism")

One of the ironies about upgrading my aerial so that I could get better
digital reception is that I now get as near perfect analogue reception
as I'm ever likely to get in this area.
Exactly -- many people have been tolerating poor analog pictures all
the time, whereas with the cliff edge of digital, they are forced to
do something about their 1970 contractor antenna which never had a balun
and some of the elements have dropped off, or the reflector is missing
or totally inadequate, etc etc.

so why are we arguing?
We are not arguing -- we are discussing the point that a significant
proportion of people are always going to be resistant to technical
change and argue

"well if people want it, they can have it, but I am sticking with
the old system".

----

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of
good conscience to remain silent."

Thomas Jefferson

Whats the point of Freeview?
 

On Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:11:29 +0100, Roderick Stewart
wrote:

In article 5b101c37-63f4-45e1-a9d6-
, Larkim wrote:

My tuppence:-
- fantastic easy (and capacity) of recording via a DVR (PVR)

Yes, I'd go along with that, now that the Pace Twin's appalling early
bugs have mostly been fixed.

- my kids can access good quality age appropriate TV on demand
(CBeebies in particular), providing I agree to it!

Surely there was decent children's programming before, it wasn't just
on one or two channels?

- expanded BBC interactive services which make watching the Olympics,
Wimbledon etc far more user friendly

Yes the extra channels for the Olympics and Wimbledon are good (but
why Wimbledon and not the US Open?)

- expanded choice of channels, with no requirement for me to subscribe
to anything

Yes, to a certain extent, but it's a sword that cuts pretty
devastatingly both ways.

You can't possibly watch all the hours of TV that are broadcast,
indeed I would guess that like most people you only watch a fraction
of them. So, as far as you're concerned, the huge resources put into
watching the majority of stuff you don't watch could have been spent
on improving what you do watch.

This combination of a rock and a hard place is particularly
devastating when it comes to bandwidth, where the presence of 80+ (TV
and Radio) channels occupies approximately a similar bandwidth to the
former five analogue channels. In a previous post I did the following
estimation (and them someone came along in another thread with actual
figures which I can't now find; but I see just before posting that
Tony Sayer has now supplied some, so I'll leave this in to make the
point, but take a look at his actual figures rather than my
estimates):

When I digitise analogue TV into my PC with a capture card, a process
which uses no compression, the file size is around 14.85MB/sec,
whereas a channel broadcast Free-To-Air from 28.2E and recorded
without alteration by my satellite receiver creates a file size of
around 0.45MB/sec (both figures megabytes per recorded second). Thus,
we have a guesstimate that the compression techniques used in digital
TV broadcasting are reducing the information conveyed to around 3% of
the analogue equivalent!

3% of anything can never be an acceptable substitute for the original
100%!

I can't praise Freeview enough. It may have come about by accident,
and I'm sure some people are bothered about artifacts (I'm not, its a
TV after all - if I want to see wild animals in all their glory, I'll
go to the zoo or on safari),

Well, AFAIAC:
1) I can't handle hot weather. Last time I went only to Spain in
May, despite my plastering on factor for twenty minutes before I even
went to buy a newspaper, after a few days my hostess was able to cause
much laughter by pretending to warm her hands on my red nose!

2) Tourism has huge negative environmental effects, though if it's
helping directly to preserve the animals' environment, I could be
persuaded.

3) I'm getting too old and unhealthy.

but for me its a fantastic service.

Well, it has its pluses, but it also has some very bad minuses, so
'fantastic', no.

I think you're right - it's got to where it is now largely by accident,
and although it's not too bad, there are a lot of things about it that
could have been done so much better if they'd been planned in a
coordinated way, e.g.-

* Really better picture quality, rather than digital artefacts instead
of analogue ones. (If you think Freeview is good, you can't have seen
what can be obtained straight out of a well set up television camera).

* Consistent automatic switching of different screen modes.

* Digital encoding of signing for the deaf so it can be switched
optionally at the receiver, like subtitles, instead of being added
indelibly to selected broadcasts at source.

* Provision for multichannel sound for those that want it.

* Provision for different picture resolutions, as with internet video on
computers (except higher resolutions of course).

* Provision for the data capacity of several channels to be combined to
provide one channel with higher resolution for special occasions when
they would otherwise be wasting resources by carrying the same material.

* Consistent digital flagging of start and finish times and programme
categories, to make it easier to find and record stuff.

You can probably think of more things that could be done with digital
television if it had been designed around computer technology instead of
being locked to one standard by being simply a digital encoding of
existing analogue waveforms.

All the above is very true! All that I would add is: start
(particularly) and end the programs promptly at the scheduled times.

Whats the point of Freeview?
 

tony sayer wrote:

Nothing wrong with digital transmission as such, its just what's done
with it before its delivered;(...

No, that's right, and one way or another there's been at least one digital
iteration in analogue TV since the 1970s. What buggers things up, is the
relatively new process of digital compression.


--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

Whats the point of Freeview?
 

Java Jive wrote:

Yes the extra channels for the Olympics and Wimbledon are good (but
why Wimbledon and not the US Open?)

Wimbledon; because the host broadcaster (good old Auntie Beeb) produces half a
dozen or so international feeds for foreign broadcasters to select, therefore
it's easy-peasy to make all these available here as 'interactive' streams.

The Americans only generate one international feed for the US Open. (The
domestic feed only normally features American players :-) )

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

Whats the point of Freeview?
 

In article , Tony sayer wrote:
I came to the conclusion recently that an awful lot of people haven't
seen just how good an analogue PAL picture can be on a really good set
with a good decoder...

Most of them are probably too young to remember.

(And *much* too young to remember what good HD looks like).

Rod.
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