HD Sky is it worth it?

"John Russell" wrote in message
...

It does depend upon the quality of the scaler in your TV. You may find
letting your TV scale SD from a SKY+ box produces a better picture than
letting the SKY HD box scale it. On the other hand with careful set-up you
may find that the SKY HD box does scale SD better and it's worth having
just to be able to watch SD adequately on your HD set. It's all a bit of a
pain when everything worked "out of the box" with SD CRT's.

I have seen this mentioned in other threads about having your TV do the
scaling. How would someone achieve this?

P.S. you can still let your TV scale the RGB output as you did with your
old SKY+ box. There isn't a law against having the Scart RGB and HDMI
connected at the same time.

What result would that give by having two connections?

Beck [email protected] wrote:

: I have seen this mentioned in other threads about having your TV do the
: scaling. How would someone achieve this?

Leave the Sky-HD STB set to "Automatic" HDMI resolution. This will output
SD programmes at "576p" over HDMI and leave the TV to upscale this to its
native resolution.

"Beck" [email protected] wrote in message
anews.com...


P.S. you can still let your TV scale the RGB output as you did with your
old SKY+ box. There isn't a law against having the Scart RGB and HDMI
connected at the same time.

What result would that give by having two connections?


you can use scart for SD and HDMI for HD - if you think scart looks better.



--
Gareth.

That fly... is your magic wand.
http://www.last.fm/user/dsbmusic/

"Brian McIlwrath" wrote in message
...
Beck [email protected] wrote:

: I have seen this mentioned in other threads about having your TV do the
: scaling. How would someone achieve this?

Leave the Sky-HD STB set to "Automatic" HDMI resolution. This will output
SD programmes at "576p" over HDMI and leave the TV to upscale this to its
native resolution.

Unfortunately most "broadcast" Sd is 576i. You can actually create horrid
staircasing trying to deinterlace interlaced material. So you often get a
better picture just scaling the interlaced material and let the brain do
the rest. So 576i should have been an HDMI option as well as 576p. Hence
why 576i via RGb can look better.

John Russell wrote:

: Unfortunately most "broadcast" Sd is 576i. You can actually create horrid
: staircasing trying to deinterlace interlaced material. So you often get a
: better picture just scaling the interlaced material and let the brain do
: the rest. So 576i should have been an HDMI option as well as 576p. Hence
: why 576i via RGb can look better.

But LCD TVs (and presumably Plasma as well) are intrinsically Progressive
Scan devices!!! Thus "something" has to deinterlace! As HDMI is always?
going to go a progressive scan device it would seem sensible for the
Sky-Hd STB to do it.

576i is available on the SCARTS etc.

Mike Henry wrote:
: Thus "something" has to deinterlace!

: Currently yes, and I'd trust my LCD or plasma to do a better job than a
: Sky Digibox...

*However* I (and many other posters in MANY bulletin boards!) have noticed
that SKY SD broadcast picture quality via 576p HDMI (from a Sky-HD STB)
is MUCH better than anything we have ever seen using SCART from other
Sky STBs in the past!!

It's an unexpected advantage of upgrading to a Sky-HD Digibox that I did
not expect!

"Brian McIlwrath" wrote in message
...
Mike Henry wrote:
: Thus "something" has to deinterlace!

: Currently yes, and I'd trust my LCD or plasma to do a better job than a
: Sky Digibox...

*However* I (and many other posters in MANY bulletin boards!) have noticed
that SKY SD broadcast picture quality via 576p HDMI (from a Sky-HD STB)
is MUCH better than anything we have ever seen using SCART from other
Sky STBs in the past!!

It's an unexpected advantage of upgrading to a Sky-HD Digibox that I did
not expect!

Unfortunately it still doesn't match SD on a SD CRT. People are scrambling
to make SD on their HD sets as good as it used to be and will grasp at any
improvement.

Where is the problem in having the option to let the TV deinterlace? MY own
DVD's created from DV are deinterlaced better by the TV's DCDi deinterlacer
and that's possible becuase my DVD player has the option to send out 576i
via HDMI.

People have been brain washed into thinking dinterlacing always improves
things. If the source was film then by all means deinterlace. If not
deinterlacing can create problems if implemented without some form of edge
alignment as the fields where not captured at the same time.

John Russell wrote:

: Unfortunately it still doesn't match SD on a SD CRT. People are scrambling
: to make SD on their HD sets as good as it used to be and will grasp at any
: improvement.

But, given that I now *have* (for better or worse!) an LCD TV, I (and
others!) find that 576p HDMI gives better quality pictures that I have had
(on the same TV - for the last 2 years) than using the TV via RGB SCART
(it's a, then top-end, Panasonic LCD - if that matters!).

It would be interesting to now try feeding the same TV via 576i HDMI but, as
it currently is not, I remain very pleased with the improvement over SCART!

"Brian McIlwrath" wrote in message
...
John Russell wrote:

: Unfortunately it still doesn't match SD on a SD CRT. People are
scrambling
: to make SD on their HD sets as good as it used to be and will grasp at
any
: improvement.

But, given that I now *have* (for better or worse!) an LCD TV, I (and
others!) find that 576p HDMI gives better quality pictures that I have had
(on the same TV - for the last 2 years) than using the TV via RGB SCART
(it's a, then top-end, Panasonic LCD - if that matters!).

It would be interesting to now try feeding the same TV via 576i HDMI but,
as
it currently is not, I remain very pleased with the improvement over
SCART!

It has taken me periodic tweaking over the last year to get to the point I
get the best scaled SD picture using the SKY HD box outputting 1080i. As you
say that has to deinterlaced, and it must be by the TV and it's DCDI
deinterlacer I like so much.

"Mike Henry" wrote in message
...


I say "unfortunate" because I don't like this march towards 25fps motion
when we've had far smoother 50fps motion for many years; it is a
backwards step. People with LCD displays are getting desensitised to it
already. I sigh every time I see that someone has "helpfully"
de-interlaced a torrent of a TV broadcast, throwing away this smoothness
in the process.




but any half decent tv will turn the interlaced picture into a 50p image -
not 25p.
my set at least gives the option to choose in the user options - or the
ability to set it to auto.


--
Gareth.

That fly... is your magic wand.
http://www.last.fm/user/dsbmusic/