SD Picture Quality / worse since HD?

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Ellwood

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Topic # 103621 12-Jun-2012 11:29
Just watching the euro football this morning and whilst stood alot closer to the TV than normal (that's where my heater is) I realise how bad the picture quality is. It seemed especially obvious on the wide shot with an amazing amount of blur around the players. I don't remember it being this bad (maybe I just never noticed before). I guess it it could be the pictures sky are receiving but I wonder what the chance are Sky are purposely transmitting these pictures at a worse quality to tempt people to upgrade to HD? perhaps other sports as well. And of course now that I've noticed it, I can't seem to stop looking for it.. :-s

Linuxluver

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Reply # 639553 12-Jun-2012 11:33
Ellwood: Just watching the euro football this morning and whilst stood alot closer to the TV than normal (that's where my heater is) I realise how bad the picture quality is. It seemed especially obvious on the wide shot with an amazing amount of blur around the players. I don't remember it being this bad (maybe I just never noticed before). I guess it it could be the pictures sky are receiving but I wonder what the chance are Sky are purposely transmitting these pictures at a worse quality to tempt people to upgrade to HD? perhaps other sports as well. And of course now that I've noticed it, I can't seem to stop looking for it.. :-s Not watching the sports at all is so easy I have no image quality issues. :-) But serioulsy....if they were playing games liek that....not watching it all is the best way to hurt them. You certainly wouldn't reward with your money for playing silly buggers like that.....if they were. If you're not curious, your brain is already dying...if not dead. My blogs: Eyes Wide Open /Android Luver / 3D Luver / Truth Seeker Handhelds: LG Optimus 3D Max / LG Optimus 3D / HTC Sensation / VFNZ 845 / Samsung Galaxy Tab / Lenovo IdeaPad K1 32GB / iPod Touch PCs: Home made Linux boxen from parts mainly from PB Tech.

gehenna

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Reply # 639636 12-Jun-2012 13:06
Watching SD on a HDTV looks terrible. SD is made for SD displays. When you're watching it on a display that has a native resolution of 1920x1080 the SD image has to scale to fit that display, making its imperfections about 4 times more obvious.

sbiddle

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Reply # 639651 12-Jun-2012 13:24
Sky has never cared about picture quality - in part because 90% of the population quite simply don't care. They've got a fair bit of restacking to do in preparation for the Olympics channels, so I suspect there are going to be a number of channels that have the bitrates reduced. *Need help configuring your Linksys ATA or IP Phones for New Zealand? Check my blog post

floydbloke

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Reply # 639659 12-Jun-2012 13:36
I know bugger all about what's involved in transmitting SD, HD, bandwidth requirements, encoding, compression etc. but my uneducated observation is that the Euro Football in HD looks nowhere near as crisp and sharp as the All Blacks test was in HD. Or am I imagining it? Edit: just checked Sky on-line TV guide, doesn't actuall mention Euro2012 being in HD. Is it actually broadcast in HD...I guess that would explain it...d'oh. If not you'd have to question why not though, I pay a premium for the HD ticket and it's the 3rd most watched sporting even in the world I believe.

Jas777

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Reply # 640025 13-Jun-2012 09:28
Sky doesn't always show as being in HD as I think they don't want to get caught out. The Indian Premier League was in HD but wasn't shown as being in HD until later. Probably to see that picture quality was permanently good. HD from overseas (except Australia) never looks as good as local HD, just compare the EPL to Super 15 or South African Super 15 to NZ Super 15. As for the Euro's the last couple of days has been in HD but the Netherlands v Denmark definitely wasn't. The Spain v Italy game cut from HD to SD when there was a technical difficulty and never converted back

floydbloke

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Reply # 640145 13-Jun-2012 11:54
Jas777: Sky doesn't always show as being in HD as I think they don't want to get caught out. The Indian Premier League was in HD but wasn't shown as being in HD until later. Probably to see that picture quality was permanently good. HD from overseas (except Australia) never looks as good as local HD, just compare the EPL to Super 15 or South African Super 15 to NZ Super 15. As for the Euro's the last couple of days has been in HD but the Netherlands v Denmark definitely wasn't. The Spain v Italy game cut from HD to SD when there was a technical difficulty and never converted back Thanks Jas, that explains it. Other than the visual, is there a definitive way to tell whether a broadcast is in SD or HD?

Ellwood

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Reply # 640251 13-Jun-2012 15:21
So is the HD ticket a software switch in the MYSky box? or do Sky actually broadcast a HD and SD version of each program that's available in HD.

tkr001

261 posts

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Reply # 640276 13-Jun-2012 16:13
Ellwood: So is the HD ticket a software switch in the MYSky box? or do Sky actually broadcast a HD and SD version of each program that's available in HD. Yep sky have sd and hd versions of the channels

grant_k

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Reply # 640277 13-Jun-2012 16:15
Ellwood: So is the HD ticket a software switch in the MYSky box? No. It enables access to the HD channels on Sky Sport as well as Sky Movies. Ellwood:or do Sky actually broadcast a HD and SD version of each program that's available in HD. Mostly. Examples are: TV1 & TV1HD / TV2 & TV2HD / TV3 & TV3HD / Soho & SohoHD.