Satellite v Freeview
 

In article , Max Demian
wrote:
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
Stephen Wolstenholme wrote:
On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 12:16:15 +0000, rbel wrote:

From a consumer's perspective does satellite viewing have any
advantages over Freeview other than a wider selection of stations?
Is it less prone to interference/reception problems?

A larger selection of rubbish is about it. The disadvantage is the
dish.

Who cares about a chuffin little dish 18" across? They're everywhere,
haven't you noticed, like windows and doors.

It's 'cause they're new and formerly associated with the lower classes.
If windows and doors were new people would be told to brick them up and
climb in through a hole in the roof.

a\t one time (the whole of the 18th Century), windows were bricked up
because they were taxed.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

Satellite v Freeview
 

On 24 Feb, 14:48, "NY" wrote:
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
..
..
We've got both Freeview and Sky, and my perception is that Freeview provides
a better quality picture, with fewer compression artefacts. This is unusual,
given that satellite bitrates are supposed to be higher than DTTV. I wonder
whether some of it is losses in the (Amstrad) Sky hard disk recorder,
causing recorded programmes to be different to live ones, whereas DTTV
(recorded using Windows 7 Media Centre and a Hauppauge USB DTTV decoder)
seems to give indistinguishable results for live and WTV recording. I'll
have to do some side-by-side comparisons of live and recorded on Sky to see
if there is any degradation.

Satellite HD recordings seem to be bad: the recordings we made of the
opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics showed horrendous low-bitrate
artefacts, plasticky colours and objectionable banding of graduated tones.

Are you sure the default quality setting of the hard disk recorder is
set to normal and not long play?
What you describe is what I get on "LP" on my Daewoo recorder.
--
Dave W

Satellite v Freeview
 

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
David Kennedy wrote:

These days surely unless it's a new build, most houses have an aerial and
all new tvs sold have freeview so get a dish and you've got both. The
only real decision id SD or HD

You jest! No-one is going to spend money on SD these days.

I do

I'm not the slightest bit interested in throwing away 100 quid on a sharper
picture that I can watch from 15 feet away when I never sit further than 4..

(We are talking STB's here btw, I have an HD ready TV)

tim

Satellite v Freeview
 

On 24/02/2013 18:03, Bill Wright wrote:

TV aerials are bigger than dishes.

Depends how you measure it.

A dish is maybe 4 square feet. The Yagi I can see out of my window is an
inch-wide stick 4ft long, with some little fiddly bits on it. The pole
is more visible than the fish-skeleton, and the lot can't be more than 1
square foot... on the other hand if you look at our house from the front
there's a yagi like that, and you can't see the dish at all.

Andy

Satellite v Freeview
 

On 24/02/2013 23:54, Dave W wrote:
Are you sure the default quality setting of the hard disk recorder is
set to normal and not long play?
What you describe is what I get on "LP" on my Daewoo recorder.

Very unlikely. All the hard disk recorders I've ever heard of take the
digital bits for the channel and write them to the disc as they are.

It's not like a DVD recorder (where it has to be transcoded to MPEG2 on
the fly) or your tape recorder (where it has so do some analogue domain
conversion of the signal, and then squeeze it onto a tape so hard the
lines overlap).

I've not watched much digital satellite, but I understand the bitrate is
higher. This means fewer picture artefacts, such as all the ones I'm
trying carefully not to point out to my wife who can't see them.

The classic one is that when the football is on and the camera sits
still you can see every blade of grass. When it pans the grass turns
into a uniform green sheet. This effect can definitely be seen on Sky HD
on pub TVs...

Andy

Satellite v Freeview
 

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 18:21:38 +0000, Mark Carver
wrote:

Stephen Wolstenholme wrote:

Who cares about a chuffin little dish 18" across? They're everywhere,
haven't you noticed, like windows and doors.

IMO they look awful. I admit that I had one on my previous house. I
decided it was a bad idea when it collected a load of leaves.

Where was your previous house, on the Equator ?

Cheshire. The disc was mounted correctly but there was a huge tree
much higher up. When the leaves dropped in autumn it only took one to
stick in the mesh and more leaves would then collect. If the man had
fitted one of the small solid dishes it would not have been a problem
but, IMO, they look even worse.

Steve

--
EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. http://www.easynn.com
SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. http://www.swingnn.com
JustNN. Just Neural Networks. http://www.justnn.com

Satellite v Freeview
 

tim..... wrote:

You jest! No-one is going to spend money on SD these days.

I do

I'm not the slightest bit interested in throwing away 100 quid on a
sharper picture that I can watch from 15 feet away when I never sit
further than 4..

I don't follow you. If you watch from very close you will be more aware
of picture quality, not less.

Bill

Satellite v Freeview
 

Andy Champ wrote:
On 24/02/2013 18:03, Bill Wright wrote:

TV aerials are bigger than dishes.

Depends how you measure it.

A dish is maybe 4 square feet.
A minidish is around 2 sq ft.

The Yagi I can see out of my window is an
inch-wide stick 4ft long, with some little fiddly bits on it. The pole
is more visible than the fish-skeleton, and the lot can't be more than 1
square foot... on the other hand if you look at our house from the front
there's a yagi like that, and you can't see the dish at all.

Aerial masts are occasionally 1" diameter, but more usually 1.25", 1.5"
or 2". A normal mast length is either 6ft, 10ft, or 12ft. An 18 element
aerial is about 6ft long.

The degree of visual intrusion doesn't depend very much on the area of
the object; more on whether or not it cuts the skyline and whether the
shape is harmonious (dishes) or all jaggedy (aerials).

However the degree of perceived visual intrusion depends on
preconceptions as much as anything. The three hundred year old cottage
nestling in the hills looks wonderful whereas the very much smaller
brand new electricity sub-station next door is a blot on the landscape.

Bill

Satellite v Freeview
 

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
tim..... wrote:

You jest! No-one is going to spend money on SD these days.

I do

I'm not the slightest bit interested in throwing away 100 quid on a
sharper picture that I can watch from 15 feet away when I never sit
further than 4..

I don't follow you. If you watch from very close you will be more aware of
picture quality, not less.

Oh, what I meant was on the larger screen that is necessary to watch from 15
feet away.

there's nothing wrong with SD quality on the appropriate screen for watching
from 4 feet away

tim

Satellite v Freeview
 

Jim Lesurf wrote:

It has the disadvantage that you need a separate cable to each tuner.
That isn't much of an issue really. Just do it.

Plus other complications if you want to tune in to different stations on a
number of TVs/recorders.
Well, I dunno. I have customers who are Freesat only, and my own living
room is Freesat only. There doesn't seem to be a problem.

My Freesat-only customers are only vaguely aware that they get
everything from satellite. It just doesn't seem to cause them any
problems. In fact, given they they have all previously endured years of
dreadful terrestrial reception they are pretty cheerful about the
present arrangement.

I look after a 45-flat sheltered complex where terrestrial reception is
provided on the system but is Freeview Lite and is unreliable (it only
takes a motorbike). The tenants have been advised to treat Freesat or
Sky as their main platform and given that many are very elderly there
are very few problems.

A surprising number of people rely entirely on a Sky box for all their
viewing, and don't have an aerial.

Bill