BBC HD discussed on Points of View today

They would never promote any engineer to channel management, it would be
far too inconvenient.

Brian

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"Alan White" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 8 Nov 2009 18:52:53 -0000, "Jeff Layman"
wrote:

Episode 5.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mysv

This was truly pathetic. I first saw HD demonstrated at Kingswood Warren
in 1988(?) and it was superb. The twenty years since then have been a
complete waste of time and resources and the responsibility rests fairly
and squarely with this woman, She should go and be replaced by somebody
who knows what they're talking about and is prepared to do something
about it.

--
Alan White
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A degree in muddled studies more like it...
Brian

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"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...
"Alan White" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 8 Nov 2009 18:52:53 -0000, "Jeff Layman"
wrote:

Episode 5.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mysv

This was truly pathetic. I first saw HD demonstrated at Kingswood Warren
in 1988(?) and it was superb. The twenty years since then have been a
complete waste of time and resources and the responsibility rests fairly
and squarely with this woman,


Actually, I suspect the responsibility doesn't lie with her, it lies with
her boss, Simon Nelson, who happens to be the person who chose to use low
bit rates for the BBC's radio stations on DAB as well. And he was the
person who pulled a similar stunt on Radio 3 on DAB to the one that's
happened on the HD channel, because in 2006 (IIRC), when he was the
Controller in charge of digital radio, the BBC installed new audio
encoders, and then they reduced the bit rate of Radio 3. They tried to
justify doing this by saying that "internal listening tests" had shown
that the quality was no worse at the lower bit rate with the newer
encoders compared to what it was like at the previous higher bit rate with
the older encoders. But actually the quality was dreadful, and much worse
than beforehand. So there were loads of complaints from Radio 3 listeners,
and in the end the BBC backed down and reverted Radio 3 to its original
bit rate level.


She should go and be replaced by somebody
who knows what they're talking about and is prepared to do something
about it.


I agree with that. I'd imagine she's got a degree in Media Studies...


--
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On Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:04:04 GMT, "Brian Gaff"
wrote:

They would never promote any engineer to channel management, it would be
far too inconvenient.

One of the bigger mistakes the BBC has made in recent years was to
abolish the post of Director of Engineering. The post holder had a seat
on the BBC Board of Management, had international status and was in a
position to ensure that the highest technical standards were maintained
and that those standards were internationally recognised and respected.

Things can only get worse.

--
Alan White
Mozilla Firefox and Forte Agent.
Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, overlooking Lochs Long and Goil in Argyll, Scotland.
Webcam and weather:- http://windycroft.gt-britain.co.uk/weather

"Jeff Layman" wrote in message
...
Episode 5.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mysv

Don't blame the messenger for the message!

She's a ****in dirty LIAR!

Two viewers letters were read saying that after the bitrate was reduced by
40% the picture quality has drastically deteriorated and the pictures were
not recognisable as HD and looked no better than SD and Danielle Nagler says
this "there's no evidence that reducing the bitrate has an impact on picture
quality or that there's an absolute relationship between bitrate and picture
quality". What a downright funking LIE. Apart from the fact that the viewers
letters count as evidence, the mathematical model used for MPEG or any other
from of destructive compression is proof by itself that there is an impact
on picture quality, since unless you change the model itself to a more
efficient one, which the BBC's have not done since they are using the exact
same decoders and processing settings as before, the only way to reduce the
bitrate is to discard more picture information, and doing this has an
absolute relationship to picture quality. The lower the average bitrate the
lower the average picture quality. This will always be the case with any
version of the MPEG sysytem.

MPEG-4 does NOT produce better HD pictures than MPEG-2 and never has done so
since it's creation since at the bitrates requited to produce acceptable
quality they are essentially exactly the same active code and model. Both
codecs require at least 32 mbps to produce HD pictures without noticeable
artefacts, (or 8 mbps for SD) and there is essentially no difference between
them at this bit rate and practically no difference between them down to 20
mbps. At lower bitrates the picture quality and resolution noticeably
degrades with viewing tests showing that MPEG-2 degrades faster than MPEG-4,
thus Nagler's LIES are exposed once again.

The bitrates the BBC are using for HD now are almost exactly those needed
for decent SD therefore the pictures will always look closer to SD quality
on DVD than HD. Anything broadcast at below 20 mbps should be allowed to be
classified as HD. That is the only way to stop the BBC marketing programmes
which look no better than SD as HD.

Now she's saying that people who notice it the difference quality are
hallucinating and that HD is for people who are deaf and blind because she
doesn't believe that people with normal hearing and eyesight watching HD can
tell the difference.

OH MY ****! Now she's saying that she doesn't want HD to have a crisp look
to it. She wants it too look blurred and that is the road the BBC is going
to go down! WHAT ON **** IS THE POINT OF MAKING PROGRAMMES IN HD IF THEY ARE
GOING TO BE MADE TO DELIBERATELY LOOK BLURRED ON THE BBC HD CHANNEL?

Now she's talking ABSOLUTE ********. "What HD quality is about, is about
more picture information and more picture depth. That can manifest itself in
very crisp lines but it can also manifest as a richer more filmic picture."
What kind of films has she been watching, 100th generation copies of films
from the 1930s? What this psychopathic liar is saying is that BBC HD should
be no better than BBC SD, and have DOG **** plastered on it to tell you that
its HD, because that's the only way viewers will be able to tell the
difference since quality wise it will be no different to SD or in some cases
worse.

And if its looks CRAP now, what is it going to look like when it comes to
Freeview at half the ****ty low bitrare they are using now? And SD viewers
have had to lose their interactive channels and have their picture quality
degraded to pay for this rubbish?

She thinks all HD viewers are complete morons who have no idea what channel
they are watching unless it is covered in DOG **** and can't even read the
captions on their screen which come up when they change channel and can't
even remember the decision they made a tenth of a second earlier to switch
to a particular channel and what it was.

This ignorant compulsive liar should either be sacked or made to resign. She
clearly has no idea of how HD works so how can she maintain any acceptable
kind of standard of quality. She's nothing more than a paid apologist, a
serial liar, with no commission power to make programmes and getting rid of
her and her post of apologist will help reduce the burden on the BBC licence
fee payer and pay for the extra bandwidth on satellite needed to broadcast
HD programmes in the quality they should be transmitted at.



--
Jeff

On Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:23:41 +0000, Alan White
wrote:

On Sun, 8 Nov 2009 18:52:53 -0000, "Jeff Layman"
wrote:

Episode 5.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mysv

This was truly pathetic.

...was it that good?? The woman is Head of BBC HD and appears to have
little clue what *high definition* actually means. "More depth" - ha!
Maybe they're going to use smaller lens apertures, maybe she's talking
about fewer digital artifacts of compression or maybe she's just a
gob****e. HD = "richer more filmic picture". So HD means halving the
frame rate?? That's what the BBC has done for years when it wanted
that *film* look.

I first saw HD demonstrated at Kingswood Warren
in 1988(?) and it was superb.

I saw a Sony demo in Basingstoke in the early 90s and it was of a
quality that would, and did, distract passers by. Show the current HD
and nobody would bat an eyelid.

The twenty years since then have been a
complete waste of time and resources and the responsibility rests fairly
and squarely with this woman, She should go and be replaced by somebody
who knows what they're talking about and is prepared to do something
about it.

Fat chance! Bean counters and media types have taken over the asylum.

Meantime, let's test some statements against the BBC's values. Let's
see now..

- Trust is the foundation of the BBC: we are independent, impartial
and honest.

..."there's no evidence that reducing the bit rate has an impact on
picture quality"..apart from the people who have seen it?

- Audiences are at the heart of everything we do.

...including the "There is a group of people who.."?

- We take pride in delivering quality and value for money.

...in that order?..

HD in its current guise is, IMHO, marketing speak. So, people, go and
buy your relatives plenty of HD kit for Christmas..you get "more
picture information" and "more depth" than SD. What could be better?

--
Z

"Zathras" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:23:41 +0000, Alan White
wrote:

On Sun, 8 Nov 2009 18:52:53 -0000, "Jeff Layman"
wrote:

Episode 5.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mysv

This was truly pathetic.

..was it that good?? The woman is Head of BBC HD and appears to have
little clue what *high definition* actually means. "More depth" -
ha!
Maybe they're going to use smaller lens apertures, maybe she's
talking
about fewer digital artifacts of compression or maybe she's just a
gob****e.


Definitely a technically incompetent gob****e.


HD = "richer more filmic picture". So HD means halving the
frame rate?? That's what the BBC has done for years when it wanted
that *film* look.

I first saw HD demonstrated at Kingswood Warren
in 1988(?) and it was superb.

I saw a Sony demo in Basingstoke in the early 90s and it was of a
quality that would, and did, distract passers by. Show the current
HD
and nobody would bat an eyelid.

The twenty years since then have been a
complete waste of time and resources and the responsibility rests
fairly
and squarely with this woman, She should go and be replaced by
somebody
who knows what they're talking about and is prepared to do something
about it.

Fat chance! Bean counters and media types have taken over the
asylum.

Meantime, let's test some statements against the BBC's values. Let's
see now..

- Trust is the foundation of the BBC: we are independent, impartial
and honest.

.."there's no evidence that reducing the bit rate has an impact on
picture quality"..apart from the people who have seen it?


Absolutely.


- Audiences are at the heart of everything we do.

..including the "There is a group of people who.."?

- We take pride in delivering quality and value for money.

..in that order?..


When they refer to "quality" they *only* mean the quality of the
content - they're not bothered *at all* about the technical quality.


HD in its current guise is, IMHO, marketing speak. So, people, go
and
buy your relatives plenty of HD kit for Christmas..you get "more
picture information" and "more depth" than SD. What could be better?





--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - digital radio news & info

Check that I haven't accused James "pathological liar" Cridland of
being biased towards DAB and biased against Internet radio: Tick
Check that I've deleted all racist and/or homophobic language: Tick
Check that there are no funeral magazines and/or addresses of senior
members of the DAB industry included: Tick
Check that I've observed Sean "My Personal Obsessive Stalker" Inglis's
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"Jeff Layman" wrote in message
...
Episode 5.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mysv

Don't blame the messenger for the message!

--
Jeff





i liked the bit where the woman claimed that altering the bitrate didnt have
any effect on picture quality - in which case why doesn't she turn it down
to 2mbit?
she tried to give the impression that the only people who cared about the
quality were a bit weird.



--
Gareth.

that fly...... is your magic wand....
http://dsbdsb.mybrute.com
you fight better when you have a bear!

"Agamemnon" wrote in message
. uk...

[snip]
The bitrates the BBC are using for HD now are almost exactly those needed
for decent SD therefore the pictures will always look closer to SD quality
on DVD than HD. Anything broadcast at below 20 mbps should be allowed to
be classified as HD. That is the only way to stop the BBC marketing
programmes which look no better than SD as HD.

In your enthusiasm you missed a 'not' out of the sentance beginning
Anything...
ok. sorry, every reader got what you meant.

OH MY ****! Now she's saying that she doesn't want HD to have a crisp look
to it. She wants it too look blurred and that is the road the BBC is going
to go down! WHAT ON **** IS THE POINT OF MAKING PROGRAMMES IN HD IF THEY
ARE GOING TO BE MADE TO DELIBERATELY LOOK BLURRED ON THE BBC HD CHANNEL?

They probably like to call it 'soft'. It sounds a lot better and brings it
nearer to what you can get with iPlayer, so the programme will look the same
on whatever platform it is viewed. They don't want to get into a situation
where one platform becomes widely known as superior quality, or there will
be pressure to raise the others and that would have large cost implications
for the business.

[snip]
from the 1930s? What this psychopathic liar is saying is that BBC HD
should be no better than BBC SD, and have DOG **** plastered on it to tell
you that its HD, because that's the only way viewers will be able to tell
the difference since quality wise it will be no different to SD or in some
cases worse.

There might be something in that.
Newspaper moguls and governments know that by telling the same lies over and
over again people eventually come to believe them. There is also some
psycho thing about self esteem. Many of those who paid a lot of money for
a large HD Tv will assert the picture is better (noticing it says HD on it)
rather than believe their own eyes and concede its little better than SD.

But then they didn't buy it for TV, they bought it for the cinema experience
of blue ray DVD's.

This ignorant compulsive liar should either be sacked or made to resign.

You clearly are not a regular listener to the 'feedback' programme on radio4
where various producers and other BBC heads are called to respond to
listeners criticisms. Quite often there is substantive criticsm of a
programme or content, but when the reponsible person is challenged there is
not one word of regret, or even any recognition that there is an issue.
Instead there is an assertive view that amounts to 'I've got this job and
I'm going to do it my way, I know I'm right, and listeners can like it or
lump it'.

Numerous listeners have written to say that the Feedback programme is a
pointless exercise, simply a BBC public relations and promo spot.

So i don't think anything is going to be changing at the BBC in terms of
broadcasting quality anytime soon.

Roger R

On Mon, 9 Nov 2009 13:39:31 -0000, "DAB sounds worse than FM"
wrote:

"Zathras" wrote in message
.. .
maybe she's just a gob****e.

Definitely a technically incompetent gob****e.

You think these people limit their gob****tery to just technical
matters? Oh well..it's a theory anyway..

- We take pride in delivering quality and value for money.

..in that order?..


When they refer to "quality" they *only* mean the quality of the
content - they're not bothered *at all* about the technical quality.

What you say appears to be the reality but that 'BBC Value' is
sufficiently vague as to not rule out technical quality too. In
particular, it doesn't say '..delivering quality content..'.

Anyway..enough of such wishful thinking and back to unbridled
cynicism..

--
Z

On Mon, 9 Nov 2009 17:03:20 -0000, "The dog from that film you saw"
wrote:

she tried to give the impression that the only people who cared about the
quality were a bit weird.

Aren't they? I know of a guy (from 20 years ago) who refused to watch
VHS tapes as the quality wasn't good enough. Didn't upset me - it
never claimed to be top quality.

At the end of the day I am entertained by content not technical
quality. But, it's when people say I'm receiving high technical
quality and I disagree with them that I get ****ed off. Would be the
same for any product or service I receive though..

--
Z