How low can you go?

Paul D.Smith wrote:
I thought this post was going to be about a mail performance enhancing
pill.

You mean there's a way I can get my post-person to deliver before 3pm?

Paul DS.
Sorry you beat me to it. I missed the opportunity to be a shining wit
again.

Rob.

On Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:16:56 +0100, Paul D.Smith wrote:
Can we get some of the people in charge of Freeview
There is no group of people "in charge of Freeview" since Freeview is
simply a promotional marketing group.

ITV-4 is a commercial station, and so long as the transmission conforms
to the DVB-t standards, they can rent as little as transmission bandwidth
from the multiplex operator to provide a low as quality picture as
they wish in order to maximize their profits.

So, if you want something done, you need to organize a boycott of products
advertised on ITV-4; that is the only way you will bring any pressure to
bear on ITV plc to improve the picture quality.

ITV-4 is a commercial station, and so long as the transmission conforms
to the DVB-t standards, they can rent as little as transmission bandwidth
from the multiplex operator to provide a low as quality picture as
they wish in order to maximize their profits.

So, if you want something done, you need to organize a boycott of products
advertised on ITV-4; that is the only way you will bring any pressure to
bear on ITV plc to improve the picture quality.

If you think market forces will help, perhaps you missed the current banking
crisis ;-).

ITV is licenced in the UK to permit them to transmit. A far more sensible
route is to force the licencing authority to place restrictions on the
quality of transmission. Of course this requires people to lobby their MP
and make their voice heard. Sadly "quality" is not a word much heard around
the "Westminster Gasworks" (as at least on poster refers to it).

Paul DS.

Paul D.Smith wrote:
that's what you get for watching such crap - you'd have been luckier
if you couldn't see it at all.

I sort of realised that people would choose to comment on the program
rather than the medium.

For those who care, I was channel surfing and found myself mesmerized by
the sheer poor quality of the media. As I reached this channel, I
thought my PVR had gone wrong because it was all yellow/brown boxes but
as I watched for a couple of minutes, I realised that it was simply the
incredibly poor bitrate and that as soon as anything moved, back they came.

I commented earlier on the appalling break up during tour de France coverage

BugBear

On Tue, 7 Oct 2008 10:16:56 +0100, Paul D.Smith said...
This is just "pants". I flicked over to "Battlefield Earth" on ITV4 last
night and even on a 28inch set, it was completely unwatchable. The
slightest "action" and the screen disintegrated into an array of coloured
squares.

Can we get some of the people in charge of Freeview and force them to watch
this crap for an evening?

I've been recording Homicide, which is broadcast on ITV4 in the early
hours of the morning, for several months now and the quality is
perfectly acceptable. I can certainly say that I've hardly ever seen any
pixelation, and that's viewing on a 28" WS CRT.

In fact I don't see pixelation on any channel unless someone drives by
on a scooter and I get interference. Though I'll admit that the
rendering of the grass on a football pitch during matches shown on ITV
is very poor, especially compared to the same shown on BBC. But I
wouldn't even call that blocking - the grass looks like a mush and lacks
definition.

Last night I'm afraid that I didn't watch any of Battlefield Earth, it
being a load of rubbish, but I did view some other channels around that
time, including ITV2 and Dave. Both were fine.

My aerial points to Crystal Palace from Essex, just outside the M25, and
it's the same Group A aerial that's been in place for years before
digital TX started. It's not even on the roof, it's on a pole in the
garden. All I've done is replace the cable with CT100. There is no
amplifier or attenuator. My Topfield lists 46-49% signal strength and
97-99% quality, depending on the mux.

I am assuming that your reception is far more marginal than mine, but I
wonder if anyone on the group has a handle on which of us is typical?

--
Mark Myers
usenet at mcm2007 dot plus dot com
I call that a radical interpretation of the text.

Rob Horton wrote:
Paul D.Smith wrote:
This is just "pants". I flicked over to "Battlefield Earth" on ITV4
last night and even on a 28inch set, it was completely unwatchable.
The slightest "action" and the screen disintegrated into an array of
coloured squares.

Can we get some of the people in charge of Freeview and force them to
watch this crap for an evening?

Paul DS.

I thought this post was going to be about a mail performance enhancing
pill.
Doh! male not mail!

On Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:24:59 +0100, Paul D.Smith wrote:
If you think market forces will help, perhaps you missed the current
banking crisis ;-).
Sorry but I do not see the relevance of that point.

If advertisers are made aware that people are not watching ITV-4 by a
boycott, then they will stop buying airtime on ITV-4.

ITV is licenced in the UK to permit them to transmit.
Broadcast in a general sense but not actually transmit. ITV plc does
indirectly have a licence to operate the multiplex on which ITV-4 is
broadcast since they are part owners or Digital 3 and 4 Limited, but the
transmission is still done by Arqiva and NGW.

A far more sensible route is to force the licencing authority to
place restrictions on the quality of transmission.
Since when has it been possible for the average citizen to force a QUANGO
to do anything? The licencing authority is OfCon, and their approach is
to accede to the wishes of ITV on almost every occasion, because their
remit is "the light touch approach and the market which decides".

Go to OfCon and complain and all they will tell you is that
"it is a commercial decision."

I am not arguing that quality standards are not important, but that under
the regulatory system which has been legislated by the Thatcher/Major/
Bliar administrations, thanks to the people who elected these governments,
that the so called "Nanny state" of telling private companies what they
must not do and not do, is consigned to the history books of the 1960s
and 1970s.

And if you vote for the Conservative and Unionist Party, the Liberal
Democratic Party, or even Faux Labour at the next election, you will
be voting for the continuance of these free market principles and their
application to broadcasting.

Those who complain about the poor quality of broadcasting in the UKofGB&NI
today, have only themselves to blame for their lack of opposition to the
Broadcasting Acts of 1990 and 1996 and the Communications Act of 2003.

Why were they not complaining to their elected representative of the
Westminster Parliament when these bills were being debated and passed?

....snip...

My aerial points to Crystal Palace from Essex, just outside the M25, and
it's the same Group A aerial that's been in place for years before
digital TX started. It's not even on the roof, it's on a pole in the
garden. All I've done is replace the cable with CT100. There is no
amplifier or attenuator. My Topfield lists 46-49% signal strength and
97-99% quality, depending on the mux.

I am assuming that your reception is far more marginal than mine, but I
wonder if anyone on the group has a handle on which of us is typical?


I'm in Enfield, N. London and there's nothing marginal about my reception.
I replaced my elderly aerial originally because if was out of band for
Channel 5 analogue but put in a quality aerial and CT100 throughout ready
for Freeview ;-). It wasn't a case of the signal breaking up, rather that
as soon as anything moved fast (the few minutes I watched contained a chase
sequence) then the entire screen was very noticeably blocky. This is very
different from other channels where I sometimes see blocks but normally not.
Once the movement stopped, the screen went back to normal.

Same with me about ITV football though. It's rather like watching a
Subbuteo match because the pitch is so "smooth" and the shirts (especially
dark reds) are so vivid and without any subtlety.

Paul DS.

On 7 Oct, 13:39, J G Miller wrote:
On Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:16:56 +0100, Paul D.Smith wrote:

* * Can we get some of the people in charge of Freeview
There is no group of people "in charge of Freeview" since Freeview is
simply a promotional marketing group.

ITV-4 is a commercial station, and so long as the transmission conforms
to the DVB-t standards, they can rent as little as transmission bandwidth
from the multiplex operator to provide a low as quality picture as
they wish in order to maximize their profits.

So, if you want something done, you need to organize a boycott of products
advertised on ITV-4; that is the only way you will bring any pressure to
bear on ITV plc to improve the picture quality.

I bet the bitrate goes up during the commercial breaks, otherwise
advertisers would complain.

Brian Gaff wrote:
Are you suggesting the scientologists are all blind?

Brian


Only to the blatantly obvious.