C5 DTT. They're having a laugh, surely ?

On 10-12-2009, Bigguy wrote:
Mark Carver wrote:
Just taken a look at C5 DTT. The bit rate is so low, that their DOG
actually disintegrates if there's any serious movement in the
picture !
Is it just Hannington, or crap on all transmitters ?

Yes, terrible here.. constant blocking artifacts on scene changes*
and movement.

I'm on Blackhill.

'having a laugh' is a good description of what I'm seeing. Also
someone on one of the web fora calls it 'legovision'. I'm on Winter
Hill, I think. Fortunately it affects adverts too, and adverts tend to
have a lot of quick cuts, so they show it particularly badly. I
suspect that Channel 5 is going to be giving some of its advertisers
their money back.

This is not some restriction imposed by the government or by the DTT
multiplex system. Broadcasters pay for whatever bandwidth they want.
The digitisation software knows what bandwidth is available and tries
to squeeze as much useful information in whatever bits it has. When
Channel 5 first had digital TV it paid a lot of money for very high
bandwidth and had a picture as good as the BBC. Now it is not only
worse than Channel 4, it's as bad as some of those ... erm ... late-
night channels ... erm ... which I obviously have never watched.

Whatever it is they're doing, they're doing it wrong. What I'm
watching seems to be upsampled from a different resolution. Ah:
they're going to fix it:

http://www.ukfree.tv/fullstory.php?storyid=1107051625

They're at 540x576 and they should be at 720x576. What we're seeing is
the result of one stage of digitalisation happening at one resolution,
and another happening at another resolution. Which is exactly how to
get terrible results.

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At 20:18:12 Mon, 12 Oct 2009, Andy Champ wrote:
John Legon wrote:

Then I switched over to BBC Parliament, which was - and still is -
broadcasting the Bournemouth conference with the audio out of phase....

If you've noticed that the politician's lips are not moving at the time
you hear their voices, that isn't necessarily a technical fault.
Remember that all politicians, of all parties, habitually talk out of
their censored

Point taken, but I meant that the left and right channels cancelled out
in mono so all you could hear was the difference. This was on satellite
and Freeview. It's not the sort of thing you'd expect from the BBC,
and I don't think they were trying to give the speech a broader peal...

--
John Legon

Simon Slavin wrote:

'having a laugh' is a good description of what I'm seeing. Also
someone on one of the web fora calls it 'legovision'. I'm on Winter
Hill, I think. Fortunately it affects adverts too, and adverts tend to
have a lot of quick cuts, so they show it particularly badly. I
suspect that Channel 5 is going to be giving some of its advertisers
their money back.

This is not some restriction imposed by the government or by the DTT
multiplex system.

Well, actually it is. C5 have been forced by Ofcom to move from Mux A (or PSB
3 in the post DSO regions) to Mux 2/PSB 2. This is a result of Ofcom's plan to
clear PSB 3 of SD services, and convert it into DVB-T2 for HD services.

In summary the PSB SD services that were spread over three muxes, now have to
be accommodated on two. This is the first step of that process. Don't expect
any improvements, only further impairment of current SD services.

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

www.paras.org.uk

The trouble is these days, no station seems to have anyone who even knows
what bit rate means if you ring and complain, and this of course goes for
radio as well as TV. I gave up long ago complaining about DAB.

Brian

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"Andy Burns" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 12/10/09 13:45, Grumps wrote:

are there any freeview boxes that show what the bitrate is?

Not instantaneously, but going by the recorded sizes from my mythtv box

Gadget Show, 19:58 21st Sep, 67 minutes, 1531979288 bytes
Gadget Show, 19:58 12th Oct, 67 minutes, 1187184092 bytes

Those sizes include the video, main audio, audio description subtitles and
mheg data. I always record 2 minutes before and 5 minutes after published
times.

So (based on a small sample size) they've dropped from 3.05Mbps to
2.36Mbps, a 22% reduction in bitrate.

for historic data see
http://dtt.me.uk/

"Mark Carver" wrote in message
...
Just taken a look at C5 DTT. The bit rate is so low, that their DOG
actually disintegrates if there's any serious movement in the picture !

Is it just Hannington, or crap on all transmitters ?

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

www.paras.org.uk

FYI, Flash Forward from Crystal Palace last night was OK, although there
wasn't a lot of motion.

Paul DS.

On Oct 13, 8:26*am, "Paul D.Smith" wrote:
"Mark Carver" wrote in message

...

Just taken a look at C5 DTT. The bit rate is so low, that their DOG
actually disintegrates if there's any serious movement in the picture !

Is it just Hannington, or crap on all transmitters ?

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

www.paras.org.uk

FYI, Flash Forward from Crystal Palace last night was OK, although there
wasn't a lot of motion.

Paul DS.

Watched FF From Hannington last night, definite periods of blocking
(not caused by interference), also noticeable in a couple of the ad
breaks. Strangely the blocking appeared in a couple of scenes where
there was very little movement and disappeared before the scene
change. All in all quite distracting and not something I'd noticed on
C5 before the MUX change......

In message
,
Simon writes
On Oct 13, 8:26*am, "Paul D.Smith" wrote:
"Mark Carver" wrote in message

...

Just taken a look at C5 DTT. The bit rate is so low, that their DOG
actually disintegrates if there's any serious movement in the picture !

Is it just Hannington, or crap on all transmitters ?

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

www.paras.org.uk

FYI, Flash Forward from Crystal Palace last night was OK, although there
wasn't a lot of motion.

Paul DS.

Watched FF From Hannington last night, definite periods of blocking
(not caused by interference), also noticeable in a couple of the ad
breaks. Strangely the blocking appeared in a couple of scenes where
there was very little movement and disappeared before the scene
change. All in all quite distracting and not something I'd noticed on
C5 before the MUX change......

Same from Mendip, and the blocks occurred during a conversation
between two people, so no fast motion.

As I type Five is very pixelated.
--
Ian

"Simon" wrote in message
...


Watched FF From Hannington last night, definite periods of blocking
(not caused by interference), also noticeable in a couple of the ad
breaks. Strangely the blocking appeared in a couple of scenes where
there was very little movement and disappeared before the scene
change. All in all quite distracting and not something I'd noticed on
C5 before the MUX change......




glad i just downloaded it in HD and watched it that way then - it's the
future!



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you fight better when you have a bear!

"Kay Robinson" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:01:21 -0700 (PDT), Anthony Cunningham
sharpened a new quill and scratched:

On Oct 11, 8:02 pm, Mark Carver wrote:
Just taken a look at C5 DTT. The bit rate is so low, that their DOG
actually
disintegrates if there's any serious movement in the picture !

Is it just Hannington, or crap on all transmitters ?

****-poor last night in Edinburgh. I thought it was my Toppy playing
up but all the other channels were fine.

C5 really seem to be intent on driving viewers away. If it's not an
animated trailer poping up in the middle of the programme it's the
endless stream of "Flashforward" trailers and now this.

If my wife wasn't addicted to CSI I'd give up on it completely.

Tony


I've been having the same problems with C5 as well, in the Granada
region. I'm also pig sick of these ads for future or coming next that
invade my viewing space, Virgin started doing it as well. Flashforward
is pretty good, watched nearly half of the first series back in the
early 90s so will probably catch up and hope it doesn't descend into
the mess that Lost did.

Flashforward was about in the early 90's?

Z

Kay Robinson wrote:
On Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:21:51 +0100, "Zimmy" sharpened a new
quill and scratched:


"Kay Robinson" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:01:21 -0700 (PDT), Anthony Cunningham
sharpened a new quill and
scratched:

On Oct 11, 8:02 pm, Mark Carver
wrote:
Just taken a look at C5 DTT. The bit rate is so low, that their
DOG actually
disintegrates if there's any serious movement in the picture !

Is it just Hannington, or crap on all transmitters ?

****-poor last night in Edinburgh. I thought it was my Toppy
playing up but all the other channels were fine.

C5 really seem to be intent on driving viewers away. If it's not an
animated trailer poping up in the middle of the programme it's the
endless stream of "Flashforward" trailers and now this.

If my wife wasn't addicted to CSI I'd give up on it completely.

Tony


I've been having the same problems with C5 as well, in the Granada
region. I'm also pig sick of these ads for future or coming next
that invade my viewing space, Virgin started doing it as well.
Flashforward is pretty good, watched nearly half of the first
series back in the early 90s so will probably catch up and hope it
doesn't descend into the mess that Lost did.

Flashforward was about in the early 90's?

Z


Yes, most of the popular US series take about 15 years to get over
here. I retired 1991 and visited friends in the US after then, so
1992/3 was the time it started, even remember the 'countdown ads for
it, just like those on C5 today. A year or two later I watched
'Fatherhood' with Patrick Swayze at the cinema in Manchester and
mentioned the program it to a friend when I saw a scene where the kids
were watching the TV and the ad for it came on. 'Fatherhood' was
released 1993/4. Was a big fan of PS around that time.

Kay

It looks like you are having a senior moment, the Flash Forward currently
being shown on five and fiver is a brand new 2009 production, there a TV
series in the US in 1996 called Flash Forward which was a comedy so nothing
like the current series and the scene you mentioned couldn't have appeared
in Father Hood which was released 3 years earlier.
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