BBC iPlayer streaming version

Roderick Stewart wrote:
In article , DAB sounds
worse than FM wrote:
It's not "some people" that use the wrong aspect ratio, or any other
picture adjustment you care to name. In my experience it really does
seem to be most of them.

Nonsense.

How do you know what my experience has led me to observe?


But you're implying that your experience holds across the population as a
whole. Hence my suggestion that it's ********.


Whatever the reason, I have seen with my own eyes many TV sets in
many different situations, and it is quite rare to find one that is
correctly set up.

Define "correctly set up". If you mean "perfectly set up as a
broadcast engineer would set it up" then yeah, you will be right.
But if you mean "it is using the wrong aspect ratio" then it is pure
******** to suggest that it is rare for people to be using the
correct aspect ratio.

I just mean brightness set so that black is displayed as black, not
crushed below black and not grey, and contrast is not so over-driven
as to crush white detail (or cause defocusing if it's a CRT), colour
saturation is set to make face tones look natural (if you can find a
programme that's been shot to look natural these days), and whatever
shape it is, the complete picture is shown without cropping and with
the correct aspect ratio. That's not what I'd call a complete
engineering lineup, just basic adjustment of the main front panel
controls, and I don't see it very often on other people's TV sets.


You actually demonstrate my point for me. The general public doesn't
understand the technical issues. They see the contrast, brightness controls
etc and they don't know how to set them up properly. Does that mean that
these people don't care about picture quality? No, not at all. You see,
that's what's wrong with your argument: the things that you're inferring
from your experience don't logically hold.


Also, it's quite common to see a modern TV set with
SCART inputs being fed with composite signals, or RF through the
aerial socket, from devices that have RGB outputs available, simply
because that is the only arrangement that allows armchair selection
of sources without buying more equipment or cables.

None of the above imply that the people that do this don't care about
picture quality, it just means that they don't understand how to do
things as you or I would and they want things to be as easy as
possible, which is perfectly natural.

Yes, it could just mean that they don't know how to connect and/or
adjust things correctly. I thought I'd said, or at least implied this.


But that basically demolishes your entire argument for the reason I've given
above - the logic doesn't hold.


--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

DVDfever Dom wrote:
On 18 Dec, 10:53, "DAB sounds worse than FM" [email protected] wrote:
Roderick Stewart wrote:
In article , DAB sounds
worse than FM wrote:
Are you still deluding yourself that people won't adopt the HD
formats, Dom?

Not for UK TV output and DVDs, no.

So the 60% of households with an HD-ready display by 2011 will
decide to watch BBC1, ITV1, C4 and Five in SD rather than in HD
even though there's an HD version being transmitted then?

Admittedly, the general public is a strange beast, but surely not
that strange?

You're assuming they care. Most members of the public don't seem to
care about TV picture quality at all. They never have, so why would
yet another technical innovation change this, particularly an
expensive one?

It's not black and white in the way that you're making it out to be.
In reality, there will be a percentage of the general public that
does care about the picture quality of TV.

Just because some people use the wrong aspect ratio, why do you then
jump to the conclusion that "the public" doesn't care about quality?
What about all the people that use the right aspect ratio? Do they
definitely care about quality? No, it doesn't necessarily mean that.

You really should get out and talk to those things walking around
outside. They're called people. They worry about mortgages and school
fees and parking fines. TV is a very low consideration.


The fact that TV picture quality isn't high up in the list of important
things in life doesn't mean that people don't care about it at all, which is
what you're implying.


The punters will only be able to *see* HD if *all* components of
their systems are upgraded, properly matched, and properly connected
together, and since most of them can't get it right for a simple
thing like the shape of the picture,

*Most* can't get the aspect ratio right? What utter ********.

They don't care. One relative I know has Sky in the lounge and an
analogue TV in the kitchen, so as she goes between the two she leaves
the lounge TV on analogue, so the picture's all skewed on a 16:9 TV
and she thinks it looks normal. Switch it on Sky and she complains
because it's out of sync with the kitchen. This will be the same even
if the analogue signal is turned off and a Freeview box is added to
the kitchen TV. In fact, for her, that'll just make it worse.


Sample size of 1 - statistical significance = 0.


or an RGB connection from source
to display, the subtlety of a picture with a bit more fine detail on
some programmes will probably pass most of them by.

I don't think it's as difficult to get HD-ready displays and HD
set-top boxes to work correctly with each other as you're making out.

Try explaining 21-pin SCART leads to relatives and see what response
you get. One of mine looked at me and said I may as well have been
talking Japanese, when it was a basic explanation on connecting one
up.


I say that people don't understand the technical issues, and this leads them
to set things up incorrectly. Does this mean that they don't care about
picture quality? No, it simply means that they don't understand the
technical aspects.


Even if some do care, they'll probably just assume that "HD-ready"
means what it says,

Ah, right, yeah, that must be it - even those that claim to care are
either too stupid to do things right or they don't really care after
all.

I've told you this already. Joe Punter thinks "HD-Ready" will make
non- HD stuff into HD, like he thought a widescreen TV made all the
programmes widescreen.


Some people will think an HD display will make everything HD, but some -
probably most - won't. Again, whether they do or not still doesn't mean that
they don't care about picture quality.

The only way you can ascertain whether they care about picture quality or
not is by asking them, but they'd virtually all say that they would like
higher picture quality, and who the fk are you to argue with them?


and will be unaware that the physical pixel
structure of the display device has to match the electronic pixel
structure of the signal fed to it for best results, and that it
can't be right for all sources.

How on earth would you expect people who're laymen to understand
this? How good is your understanding of, say, brain surgery?

You've answered your own question about laymen and just proved his
point in the process. Well done, DAB(!)


No, the public's lack of knowledge about the technical issues does not mean
that they don't care about picture quality - it just means that they don't
understand the technical issues, nothing more than that.


--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

wrote:
On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:17:50 GMT, "DAB sounds worse than FM"
[email protected] wrote:

When Joe Punter has an HD-ready display then Joe Punter will start
buying HD format discs once they're cheap enough.

I think that's the key point. They have to become cheaper. A LOT
cheaper.


But they will get cheaper - new technologies always start off expensive and
get cheaper over time, and that includes the discs, because the cost of
manufacturing discs is inverserly proportional to the sales volume, so as
sales volume goes up prices come down.


People don't like the price of DVDs (even though they've
dropped significantly over the last few years) which is why piracy is
considered such a problem, and we have to suffer "Knock Off Nigel" and
unskippable "You wouldn't rape an OAP!" trailers on DVDs. I think
that if Joe Punter has the choice between forking out what he
considers to be too much for the HD DVD down at HMV, or downloading
the DVD quality version as a torrent, he'll go for the latter option.


The music industry was predicting that downloading would kill the entire
industry, but in reality the vast majority of people still buy CDs or pay to
download music, and the same will be the case with DVDs now and it'll be the
same with HD discs as well.


--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

DVDfever Dom wrote:
On 18 Dec, 22:19, wrote:
On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:17:50 GMT, "DAB sounds worse than FM"

[email protected] wrote:
When Joe Punter has an HD-ready display then Joe Punter will start
buying HD format discs once they're cheap enough.

I think that's the key point. They have to become cheaper. A LOT
cheaper.

Which won't happen in terms of it being viable. Since DVD was quite an
innovation on from VHS, the public just sees HD-DVD/Blu-ray as another
form of disc that plays films, and they've already got one. They might
get the idea that it's better but they see the prices and while they
waited long enough for DVD to come down in price before jumping in,
technology moves faster all the time and by the time they might even
think about being ready for an HD version, it'll be long dead in the
water as the lack of viability along the way will kill it off.


An alternative way things will happen is as follows:

* the public is buying HD displays in large numbers - 60% of people will
have one by 2011
* the public has heard lots about HD and it will hear a lot more about it
* the public will see HDTV on their HD display over the next few years
* the public will start buying HD discs instead of DVDs
* the prices of HD discs will fall which will lead to higher sales volumes
and lower prices and so on


The manufacturers can't just keep throwing money as these two formats
in the hope that Joe Punter takes it up within five years as there
isn't time, and by then something better will have come along anyway
so if they need to, they'll go for that.


Why would they go for the one after the current HD formats and they won't go
for the current one? Your argument is full of holes.


I think
that if Joe Punter has the choice between forking out what he
considers to be too much for the HD DVD down at HMV, or downloading
the DVD quality version as a torrent, he'll go for the latter option.

And if he sees new HD DVDs at £15-22 while the regular version is
£10-15, or even cheaper when tied in with various deals at Tesco etc,
he'll go for the latter.


And what about when HD DVDs are £10 - £15 and DVDs are £10 - £15 and the
person has an HD display and a suitable HD player? They WILL go for the HD
version, and that's why your whole argument is wrong.

HD DVDs are a new technology, and that's why the prices are high at the
moment. It's the same with all technologies. Think back to when Freeview
first came out. Freeview set-top boxes cost a minimum of about £80, then
over time as sales volumes increased they've steadily gone down in price and
you can get a Freeview set-top box for about £15 - £20 now. It was the same
with DVD players, and it's the same with any new technology.

Try reading up on economies of scale and mass production. Prices of new
technologies start high because sales volume starts at zero for a brand new
technology. The reason they're so high is that a manufacturer has to set up
a production line for that product and with low sales volumes they only
produce a few thousand of that product, say, and then they have to change
the production line over to a different product. So all the tooling costs
and the time it takes to set up the production line is spread over a small
number of units that have been produced, hence the manufacturing cost is
high. As sales volumes increase the manufacturer can produce more units at a
time, and the tooling already exists (you only design the new tooling once
at the start) and the cost of setting up the production line is spread over
a higher number of units, so the price goes down. Eventually, once sales
volumes are very high these products can have dedicated production lines
running 24/7 and the cost of producing a single unit is tiny compared to
what it was when the technology first came out.

Look at the prices of HD-DVD and Blu Ray players on he

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/1071...criteresn.html

I bet they'll be half those prices by next year, and they'll just keep on
falling as sales go up - fueled by more people owning HD displays and
wanting to watch HD material on them. Within say 3 years you'll have £50 HD
players, at which point people will be replacing their DVD players in large
numbers, and HD discs will probably be about the same price as DVDs are
today, and if someone owns an HD player they're not going to buy the DVD
version.

And you can already buy a Blu Ray player / CD/DVD rewriter for your computer
for £100:

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(19977)...lack-SATA.aspx

Seriously Dom, if you stick with your view that the HD formats will fail,
you will end up being wrong.


--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

Roderick Stewart writes:

I just mean brightness set so that black is displayed as black, not
crushed below black and not grey, and contrast is not so over-driven
as to crush white detail (or cause defocusing if it's a CRT), colour
saturation is set to make face tones look natural (if you can find a
programme that's been shot to look natural these days), and whatever
shape it is, the complete picture is shown without cropping and with
the correct aspect ratio. That's not what I'd call a complete
engineering lineup, just basic adjustment of the main front panel
controls, and I don't see it very often on other people's TV sets.

All of which is not helped by none of the (at least accessible to the
public) TV channels ever broadcasting a testcard for users to (if
they want) have a 'standard' against which to correctly adjust the
brightness, contrast, saturation etc of their set.

In article , DAB sounds worse than
FM wrote:
It's not "some people" that use the wrong aspect ratio, or any other
picture adjustment you care to name. In my experience it really does
seem to be most of them.

Nonsense.

How do you know what my experience has led me to observe?

But you're implying that your experience holds across the population as a*
whole. Hence my suggestion that it's ********.

I didn't imply anything about my experience; I simply stated that it had
included a disappointing number of correctly set up TV sets. For what it's
worth, my experience as someone who became interested in electronics when
young and then followed a career in television broadcasting probably does
include a few more observations of TV sets than that of most people, but I
don't think I implied any such thing in my previous posting.
[...]
I just mean brightness set so that black is displayed as black, not
crushed below black and not grey, and contrast is not so over-driven
as to crush white detail (or cause defocusing if it's a CRT), colour
saturation is set to make face tones look natural (if you can find a
programme that's been shot to look natural these days), and whatever
shape it is, the complete picture is shown without cropping and with
the correct aspect ratio. That's not what I'd call a complete
engineering lineup, just basic adjustment of the main front panel
controls, and I don't see it very often on other people's TV sets.

You actually demonstrate my point for me. The general public doesn't*
understand the technical issues. They see the contrast, brightness controls*
etc and they don't know how to set them up properly. Does that mean that*
these people don't care about picture quality? No, not at all. You see,*
that's what's wrong with your argument: the things that you're inferring*
from your experience don't logically hold.

The general public may not know the technicalities, but they have plenty of
opportunities to look at pictures and to compare them with real life, or with
other pictures. A little experiment with brightness, contrast, saturation and
aspect ratio, just four external controls on most TV sets, is hardly rocket
science. Anyone can see a black object that is depicted as grey, or a vehicle
depicted with oval wheels, for instance, because their TV is set up wrongly.
Presumably most people are aware that vehicles don't have oval wheels and
therefore the picture is wrong, but some people will attempt to do something
about it and some people won't. The button that makes the wheels circular
isn't hard to find, and its effect is unmistakeable when put right, so it's
difficult to interpret this as anything other than a difference in the amount
of care some people have that these things are done properly.

Rod.

In article [email protected], Kimble wrote:
Ah, but you've overlooked the fact that the button that gets rid of*
those nasty black bars messes up the setting of the button that makes*
wheels circular

My experience is that most users' interest in aspect ratio adjustment*
goes as far as making the picture fill the screen (after all, they spent*
lots of money on those nice wide screen inches), and not much further.

I'm sure you're right, but it still means the punters have made a
deliberate choice, in this case in favour of filling the screen at the
expense of objects being the wrong shape, so we can only conclude that they
find oval wheels in some way acceptable. It's inconceivable that they don't
know the wheels look wrong, because everybody knows what shape wheels are.

Rod.

On Tue, 18 Dec 2007 22:19:00 +0000, wrote:

On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:17:50 GMT, "DAB sounds worse than FM"
[email protected] wrote:

When Joe Punter has an HD-ready display then Joe Punter will start buying HD
format discs once they're cheap enough.

I think that's the key point. They have to become cheaper. A LOT
cheaper. People don't like the price of DVDs (even though they've
dropped significantly over the last few years) which is why piracy is
considered such a problem, and we have to suffer "Knock Off Nigel" and
unskippable "You wouldn't rape an OAP!" trailers on DVDs.

"You wouldn't shoot a policeman, and then steal his helmet. You
wouldn't go to the toilet in his helmet, and then send it to the
policeman's grieving widow, AND THEN STEAL IT AGAIN!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0hkIDoSj0c

Jerry Brown
--
A cat may look at a king
(but probably won't bother)

http://www.jwbrown.co.uk

In article , [email protected] says...
Dom Robinson wrote:
In article , [email protected]
says...
Dom Robinson wrote:
In article , [email protected]
says...
Dom Robinson wrote:
In article ,
[email protected] says...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/

Is it working for other people? It worked for me okay yesterday
with only a little bit of buffering going on, but today it seems
to be buffering for 30 seconds, plays for 3 or 4 seconds and goes
back to buffering again. It then stops altogether saying
"Something went wrong ... please try again."

Is it in HD? Did it make you cum?

No, not enough pixels for that.

Are you still deluding yourself that people won't adopt the HD
formats, Dom?

Not for UK TV output and DVDs, no.

So the 60% of households with an HD-ready display by 2011 will
decide to watch BBC1, ITV1, C4 and Five in SD rather than in HD even
though there's an HD version being transmitted then?

That's four years away. You think it'll still be happening by then?

HD will be massive in 4 years.

Dream on, mate.

Admittedly, the general public is a strange beast, but surely not
that strange?


What was it, you thought they'd distribute films loaded onto USB
keyfobs and downloads would make HD discs unnecessary?

No, I never said that.


Yes you did:

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk....78a9d648ca01c6

"if it happens at all as cheap hard drives and downloaded films
(paid-for or otherwise) running from those hard drives to the TV
will negate the need for a disc-based format. Either way,
HDDVD and Bluray are doomed."

No, I said nothing about USB keyfobs. Where did you make that up from?

Hahahahahehehehehehohohohohohahahahahahahehehehehe .

You feeling alright?

which is a format that'll eventually
be made obsolete by the HD formats?

It won't. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will go the way of DCC and DAT. I've
covered this before.

You will be proved wrong on this.

And I'm sure the manufacturers of DCC and DAT said the same thing at
the time. A guy at my local VCR rental store in the early-mid 90s
said, "Anyone thinking of buying a CD player should seriously
consider buying a CDi player".

Yeah, and they really took off, didn't they(!)

Just because you tell the public to want something doesn't mean they
want it.


HD is going to take over. End of.

Keep reaching for that rainbow...

DVDs are discounted to 3 for £20 within about 3 months, whereas the
HD equivalents (where available) are still expensive. Joe Punter
doesn't have the money or inclination to buy the HD formats when
he's got bigger problems paying his mortgage.

When Joe Punter has an HD-ready display then Joe Punter will start
buying HD format discs once they're cheap enough. DVDs will have
been through exactly the same process of being expensive and people
like you doubting them, then sales volume goes up and prices come
down and they enter the mainstream and start to nudge DVDs out. It's
bound to happen.

It won't. DVDs were enough to tempt Joe Punter away from VHS as a
film format because was ready for them. HD discs aren't different
enough and have come too soon.

"Once they're cheap enough" won't happen because they won't be viable
by then.

You're wrong, but you refuse to believe me, so there's no point in knocking
my head against a brick wall telling you how wrong you are.

No, keep trying. I'm waiting to see if you draw blood. I'll even give you the
warfarin.

To give you some idea about this person. Joe Punter:

1. watches a 4:3 or 14:9 analogue image stretched across his 16:9 TV
and thinks it looks normal.
2. believes what the Currys salesdroid tells him when he hears,
"Look at that television. Now, imagine it with cellophane on...
THAT'S analogue. Remove the cellophane... THAT's digital! See?"
3. thinks the cinema broadcasts films in NICAM stereo.
4. buys a HDTV and thinks it makes everything HD (just like he did
for widescreen TV).

Now, DAB, I can understand and comprehend all the HD jargon you
speak - and if there's anything I'm unsure of I'll ask or look it
up, but to the average Joe Punter he just thinks you're speaking
Japanese and he has about as much interest in watching a spot-on HD
picture as I have in watching football.

Here's how it'll go: Sales of HD discs will steadily increase over
time as more people have an HD display and more people have the
ability to playback HD discs, and as sales increase the price of HD
discs will fall due to economies of scale, which will lead to even
lower prices, which will lead to higher sales due to price
elasticity of demand, and you then have a "virtuous circle" where
prices continue to fall and sales volume continues to increase and
they reinforce one another, and over time one of the HD formats will
win out and people will stop buying new films on DVD and they'll buy
HD versions instead and over time DVD will stop being sold in the
shops.

It's too soon after DVD.

It's not.

How many people do you know who are telling you they must buy an HD-DVD or
Blu-Ray player?

Suffice it to say though that
I will be saving your amusing quotes to my hard drive so I can quote
them back to you in future.

Glad to hear that I'm your hobby. All I do with your posts is read
them, laugh, reply back and hit 'send'.

Snap.

I can see that isn't the case.
--

Dom Robinson Gamertag: DVDfever email: dom at dvdfever dot co dot uk
/* http://DVDfever.co.uk (editor)
/* 1136 DVDs, 362 games, 338 CDs, 110 cinema films, 51 concerts, videos & news
/* half life 2 episode 2, beatles: help, spiderman x360, russell brand, kylie
New music charts - http://dvdfever.co.uk/music.shtml
Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=DVDdom

In article , [email protected] says...
Dom Robinson wrote:
In article , [email protected]
says...
Dom Robinson wrote:
In article , [email protected]
says...
Dom Robinson wrote:
In article ,
says...
Was thinking about this the other day, like most people I have a
dvd collection but I reckon 95% of the disks I'll never watch
again.

Now I've got a blu-ray PS3, but I can't see me replacing my
collection, I did that with my laserdiscs when DVDs came out.


Joe Punter just isn't ready for HD yet, and by the time he is
(about 10 years away, in terms of making it viable over here),
they'll be onto Super-HD or whatever's next and the current HD
equipment won't be up to the job. Joe Punter just cannot afford
that rate of change.


Typical Dom - makes oh so certain statements backed up by market
research from DomStats.com with a sample size of 1 for each survey.

Hear that sound? It's you throwing in the towel.


Hear that sound? It's me chuckling at Dom reckoning that he
understands how new technologies are taken up. Hehehehe. There I go
again, you see, chuckling away.

It beats any understanding you have, as you prove on a regular basis.


In your dreams fat boy.

Ah, there comes the insult, proving you've already lost the argument.
--

Dom Robinson Gamertag: DVDfever email: dom at dvdfever dot co dot uk
/* http://DVDfever.co.uk (editor)
/* 1136 DVDs, 362 games, 338 CDs, 110 cinema films, 51 concerts, videos & news
/* half life 2 episode 2, beatles: help, spiderman x360, russell brand, kylie
New music charts - http://dvdfever.co.uk/music.shtml
Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=DVDdom