BBC HD - strangely good

Kennedy McEwen wrote:
In article , Mark Carver
writes
Steve Thackery wrote:

3/ Could the 9Mbps codec actually be really good, and the problem is
with the crappy source material they use most of the time?

The codec works very well at 9 Mb/s, the results are surprisingly good,
but it's a shame we can't see them at 15 Mb/s !

Source material plays a big part in this. On Monday, Hustle looked
looked totally crap, grainy and soft. 30 mins later was a well lit OB,
without any artistic video processing, 'The Richard Dimbleby Lecture'.
That looked very good.

Wouldn't you expect a bandwidth starved service to provide better images
with near static programme material than it would with dynamic programme
material?

I agree that the quality of source material is important, but you can't
cite the near static RDL as evidence that the new codecs can perform
well at 9Mbps on general programming.


Absolutely right.


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Mark Carver wrote:
Kennedy McEwen wrote:
In article , Mark Carver

Source material plays a big part in this. On Monday, Hustle looked
looked totally crap, grainy and soft. 30 mins later was a well lit OB,
without any artistic video processing, 'The Richard Dimbleby Lecture'.
That looked very good.

Wouldn't you expect a bandwidth starved service to provide better images
with near static programme material than it would with dynamic programme
material?

I agree that the quality of source material is important, but you can't
cite the near static RDL as evidence that the new codecs can perform
well at 9Mbps on general programming.

No, I don't know whether you saw the programme, but the stage, set, and
room were rather 'busy' with stuff, and close ups of the presenters'
faces were very detailed.


The Richard Dimbleby Lecture is hardly going to be football-level on-screen
motion, is it?



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What you need is a football match in a jungle it appears as a test signal.

grin.

Brian

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"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...
Mark Carver wrote:
Kennedy McEwen wrote:
In article , Mark Carver

Source material plays a big part in this. On Monday, Hustle looked
looked totally crap, grainy and soft. 30 mins later was a well lit OB,
without any artistic video processing, 'The Richard Dimbleby Lecture'.
That looked very good.

Wouldn't you expect a bandwidth starved service to provide better images
with near static programme material than it would with dynamic programme
material?

I agree that the quality of source material is important, but you can't
cite the near static RDL as evidence that the new codecs can perform
well at 9Mbps on general programming.

No, I don't know whether you saw the programme, but the stage, set, and
room were rather 'busy' with stuff, and close ups of the presenters'
faces were very detailed.


The Richard Dimbleby Lecture is hardly going to be football-level
on-screen motion, is it?



--
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 (Usenet username: seani) "How Steve Must Behave on
Usenet
Rulebook (Totally Inapplicable to Other Users Edition)": Tick

DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:


The Richard Dimbleby Lecture is hardly going to be football-level on-screen
motion, is it?

No it's not, but as I said after watching the previous programme, the
difference in quality did jump out. You don't need fast motion to make things
fall apart, The leaves in a shrub that filled the frame, caused BBC HD's
picture to decompose during an edition of Gardeners World. That's not exactly
high octane TV is it !


--
Mark
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Brian Gaff wrote:

What you need is a football match in a jungle

With a cheering crowd throwing confetti, lots of strobe lighting and a
waterfall!

In article , Mark Carver
writes
Kennedy McEwen wrote:
In article , Mark Carver

Source material plays a big part in this. On Monday, Hustle looked
looked totally crap, grainy and soft. 30 mins later was a well lit
OB, without any artistic video processing, 'The Richard Dimbleby
Lecture'. That looked very good.

Wouldn't you expect a bandwidth starved service to provide better
images with near static programme material than it would with dynamic
programme material?
I agree that the quality of source material is important, but you
can't cite the near static RDL as evidence that the new codecs can
perform well at 9Mbps on general programming.

No, I don't know whether you saw the programme,

Yes I did watch it but, unfortunately only in SD on Freeview. Even
there though, the subject matter enabled a better image quality than
Hustle, I suspect for the same reason.
--
Kennedy
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A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's ****ed.
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We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Mark Carver
saying something like:

Source material plays a big part in this. On Monday, Hustle looked looked
totally crap, grainy and soft. 30 mins later was a well lit OB, without any
artistic video processing, 'The Richard Dimbleby Lecture'. That looked very good.

I'm watching Sky/Freesat on a Samsung 32" 720p set now and while I'm not
getting any HD stuff yet, the RGB feed really shows up the crappy source
video on many channels. I was never really aware of the terrible quality
of much of it with the old Grundig and previous CRTs, which while good,
obviously weren't as good as I thought they were.

Kennedy McEwen wrote:

Yes I did watch it but, unfortunately only in SD on Freeview. Even
there though, the subject matter enabled a better image quality than
Hustle, I suspect for the same reason.

Almost certainly. By the way, for those equipped for both SD digital
platforms, has anyone noticed that BBC 1 and 2 on DTT are now significantly
worse than on satellite, or is it just here in BBC South's (pre DSO) patch ?

--
Mark
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Rugby was quite good today...

"Steve Thackery" wrote in message
...
Like many people here, I've been unhappy with the picture quality of BBC
HD recently. I've signed that on-line petition recently, and complained
on the BBC HD boss's blog.

The consensus seems to be that it went wrong when the Beeb introduced a
new 9Mbps codec. The Beeb, on the other hand, argue that the 9M codec
works as well or better than the original 15Mbps(?) codec.

Anyway, did anyone see the HD version of Silent Witness last night? I
thought the picture quality was excellent in every way: pin-sharp, good
colours and brightness/contrast, and no visible compression or motion
artifacts.

So, some questions:

1/ Did you see it and do you agree?

2/ Have the Beeb sneakily done a 'back to 15Mbps' test to see if anyone
noticed?

3/ Could the 9Mbps codec actually be really good, and the problem is with
the crappy source material they use most of the time?

SteveT

In article ,
Mark Carver wrote:
Almost certainly. By the way, for those equipped for both SD digital
platforms, has anyone noticed that BBC 1 and 2 on DTT are now
significantly worse than on satellite, or is it just here in BBC
South's (pre DSO) patch ?

Yes - I made this comment in reference to my DLP set. Which produces
movement artifacts on low data rate pics an LCD doesn't. FreeView is now
nigh on unwatchable. I have to use satellite or analogue.

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