BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
 

On Mon, 13 Sep 2010 18:34:29 +0100, Alan
wrote:

Most people would agree that the current picture quality of BBC HD is significantly poorer
than the picture quality prior to that reduction in bit-rate.

Frankly, IMHO, there's been far too much hype about 'HD' and far too
much money spent on it by broadcasters and consumers and all have
been, to varying degrees, sucked into it. To the viewer, 'HD' must
appear only marginally better than good SD made from proper HD sources
so the real problem lies in the marketing of it. If it had been called
something more honest (like SD+) then, perhaps, people might have
understood what they were getting into and been less hacked off now.

To add to the list of marketers I'd fire off in the 'B Ark' without
the slightest hesitation are the ones who came up with things like 'HD
Ready'.

Don't get me started on 3D!

--
Z

BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
 

On Tue, 14 Sep 2010 10:14:56 +0100
Zathras wrote:
Frankly, IMHO, there's been far too much hype about 'HD' and far too
much money spent on it by broadcasters and consumers and all have
been, to varying degrees, sucked into it. To the viewer, 'HD' must
appear only marginally better than good SD made from proper HD sources
so the real problem lies in the marketing of it. If it had been called
something more honest (like SD+) then, perhaps, people might have
understood what they were getting into and been less hacked off now.

Given how poor some of the SD quality on freeview is you could argue that
this HD on the cheap is what freeview SD should have been.

B2003

BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
 

On Tue, 14 Sep 2010 10:14:56 +0100, Zathras
wrote:

On Mon, 13 Sep 2010 18:34:29 +0100, Alan
wrote:

Most people would agree that the current picture quality of BBC HD is significantly poorer
than the picture quality prior to that reduction in bit-rate.

Frankly, IMHO, there's been far too much hype about 'HD' and far too
much money spent on it by broadcasters and consumers and all have
been, to varying degrees, sucked into it. To the viewer, 'HD' must
appear only marginally better than good SD made from proper HD sources
so the real problem lies in the marketing of it. If it had been called
something more honest (like SD+) then, perhaps, people might have
understood what they were getting into and been less hacked off now.

Why should HD not look a lot better than SD?

And I wouldn't put it past "them" to deliberately degrade SD in order
to "encourage" us to switch to HD.

To add to the list of marketers I'd fire off in the 'B Ark' without
the slightest hesitation are the ones who came up with things like 'HD
Ready'.

Don't get me started on 3D!

LOL!
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Due to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking some articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.

BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
 

"Mark" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 14 Sep 2010 10:14:56 +0100, Zathras
wrote:

On Mon, 13 Sep 2010 18:34:29 +0100, Alan
wrote:

Most people would agree that the current picture quality of BBC HD is
significantly poorer
than the picture quality prior to that reduction in bit-rate.

Frankly, IMHO, there's been far too much hype about 'HD' and far too
much money spent on it by broadcasters and consumers and all have
been, to varying degrees, sucked into it. To the viewer, 'HD' must
appear only marginally better than good SD made from proper HD sources
so the real problem lies in the marketing of it. If it had been called
something more honest (like SD+) then, perhaps, people might have
understood what they were getting into and been less hacked off now.

Why should HD not look a lot better than SD?

And I wouldn't put it past "them" to deliberately degrade SD in order
to "encourage" us to switch to HD.


Although I have found that a great deal appears to depend on programme
source and even different camera shots, I watched the 'Last Night Of The
Proms' the other evening and switching between both Freesat and Freeview HD,
I'd have to say that the picture quality on both was really excellent,
except for the external links which were very poor.

BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
 

On 14 Sep, 10:14, Zathras
wrote:
On Mon, 13 Sep 2010 18:34:29 +0100, Alan

wrote:
Most people would agree that the current picture quality of BBC HD is significantly poorer
than the picture quality prior to that reduction in bit-rate.

Frankly, IMHO, there's been far too much hype about 'HD' and far too
much money spent on it by broadcasters and consumers and all have
been, to varying degrees, sucked into it. To the viewer, 'HD' must
appear only marginally better than good SD made from proper HD sources
so the real problem lies in the marketing of it. If it had been called
something more honest (like SD+) then, perhaps, people might have
understood what they were getting into and been less hacked off now.

To add to the list of marketers I'd fire off in the 'B Ark' without
the slightest hesitation are the ones who came up with things like 'HD
Ready'.

Don't get me started on 3D!

--
Z

AFAIC, HD seems little better than SD on my Samsung 40 incher *most*
of the time. Ok, you can see more detail but that often doesn't seem
to matter when you are concentrating on the programme content, which I
believe most people do most of the time..

Where HD does score, IMHO, is in lack of artifacts. Watching Strictly
Come Dancing last Saturday with masses of moving detail the HD picture
was largely free of artifacts, but the SD picture was not.

Some of the ITV channels and the +1 channels are dreadful for
artifacts. The shopping channels must have to weld up the camera
dollies to prevent any picture movement - they also seem to ask the
presenters to adopt a statue like attitude, just to prevent MPEG
nasties.

BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
 

On 14/09/2010 13:19, MartinR wrote:

AFAIC, HD seems little better than SD on my Samsung 40 incher *most*
of the time. Ok, you can see more detail but that often doesn't seem
to matter when you are concentrating on the programme content, which I
believe most people do most of the time..

Where HD does score, IMHO, is in lack of artifacts. Watching Strictly
Come Dancing last Saturday with masses of moving detail the HD picture
was largely free of artifacts, but the SD picture was not.

Some of the ITV channels and the +1 channels are dreadful for
artifacts. The shopping channels must have to weld up the camera
dollies to prevent any picture movement - they also seem to ask the
presenters to adopt a statue like attitude, just to prevent MPEG
nasties.




What was it Mark just said?

"And I wouldn't put it past "them" to deliberately degrade SD in order
to "encourage" us to switch to HD."

There's no reason to have more artefacts on SD than HD. In fact as SD
needs so much less bandwidth it ought to be the other way around.

Andy

BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
 

On 14 Sep, 20:56, Andy Champ wrote:
There's no reason to have more artefacts on SD than HD. *In fact as SD
needs so much less bandwidth it ought to be the other way around.

If SD had fewer artefacts than HD, you can be sure they would drop the
SD bit-rate to compensate! Artefacts, on both SD and HD, are at
whatever level the broadcaster considers to be 'just acceptable'. Any
higher than that and the number of complaints becomes too great; any
lower than that and the bandwidth is being wasted (they would say).

Richard.
http://www.rtrussell.co.uk/

BBC NQHD (Not Quite HD) and likely to remain so.
 

On Tue, 14 Sep 2010 10:58:37 +0100, Mark
wrote:

Why should HD not look a lot better than SD?

Because Broadcasters will always squeeze the bandwidth to the minimum
they can get away with even if this minimum generates a substantial
number of complaints (apparently). The main reasons for this will be
to do with getting extra channels in there but, ultimately, cost.

--
Z