Saturn vs Sky - is the picture quality difference worth extra $$

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Saturn vs Sky - is the picture quality difference worth extra $$

osmium

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#19790 1-Mar-2008 16:15

We currently have a triple service package with Telstraclear including Saturn digital TV. We have just purchased a Panasonic TH42PV700 Plasma TV and are going to hang this on the wall. We are intending to move the saturn STB, modem and DVD etc into a cupboard on the other side of the wall. So we will have to pay $70 to Saturn to do this or could get a new installation of Sky for $50. However, Sky will cost an additional $19/month over Saturn.

I have been reading the forums and understand that the picture quality of the Saturn signal is worse than Sky. I guess I want to know how much worse? $19/month worse? Family who have Sky tell me it is substantially better. I've also been told that Sky is likely to go HD much sooner than Saturn, but don't know how reliable this information is. If Saturn is likely to improve I'd obviously prefer to stick with them based on cost alone. However, I don't want to end up in the situation where we regret not moving to Sky when we had a good opportunity.

Nety

2584 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#113966 1-Mar-2008 16:42

Telstra are in the middle of a upgrade which is putting them at close enough to the same level as Sky for quality. You may have noticed that 1 and 2 have improved a lot in the last week. Infact as Telsta are getting their feed direct from TVNZ and Sky cant get theirs direct I would think that they are now supplying a better picture for 1 and 2 then Sky are.

Personaly I think Telstra are finaly starting to deliver a good product of TV.

As far a timing for HD I think Telstra will not be so behind as you have been lead to believe but time will tell on that one.

Media centre PC - Case Silverstone LC16M with 2 X 80mm AcoustiFan DustPROOF, MOBO Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H, CPU AMD X2 240 under volted, RAM 4 Gig DDR3 1033, HDD 120Gig System/512Gig data, Tuners 2 X Hauppauge HVR-3000, 1 X HVR-2200, Video Palit GT 220, Sound Realtek 886A HD (onboard), Optical LiteOn DH-401S Blue-ray using TotalMedia Theatre Power Corsair VX Series, 450W ATX PSU OS Windows 7 x64

ZollyMonsta

3009 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#113968 1-Mar-2008 16:43

If your decision is pegged on quality then hang on to TCL Digital. The picture quality upgrade is currently underway (a major project) and quality is on par with Sky TV (It's kept digital all the way, from the satellite to your TCL digital set top box).

Take a look at Sky Movies 2, Vibe, Crime and Investigation, Sky Sports Highlights and Fox News and you'll get some idea of the quality coming to all channels on TCL Digital InHome TV.

Cheers,
Grant

Check out my LPFM Radio Station at www.thecheese.co.nz - Now on iHeart Radio, TuneIn and Radio Garden

As per the usual std disclaimer.. "All thoughts typed here are my own."

osmium

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#113970 1-Mar-2008 16:53

Thanks. Quality is the issue. The major difference I have noticed recently with Saturn is that it doesn't crash all the time when you select "i" or "EPG". I'll have a good look at the channels you mentioned.

Cheers,
J

ZollyMonsta

3009 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#113978 1-Mar-2008 17:30

Yes, that problem was fixed late last year by seperating the Digital TV traffic from the Cable Internet traffic in both centres.

Cheers,
Grant

osmium:
Thanks. Quality is the issue. The major difference I have noticed recently with Saturn is that it doesn't crash all the time when you select "i" or "EPG". I'll have a good look at the channels you mentioned.

Cheers,
J

Check out my LPFM Radio Station at www.thecheese.co.nz - Now on iHeart Radio, TuneIn and Radio Garden

As per the usual std disclaimer.. "All thoughts typed here are my own."

BarTender

3606 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#113987 1-Mar-2008 18:23

The other thing is that TCL don't supply any STB's that support Component output, so if you do have a widescreen TV then you can't relalise the full PQ improvement if you have a component input on your TV.

Also (and grant correct me here if I am wrong) TCL won't be upgrading all the Sky channels they re-broadcast, only the "popular" ones. For example Playhouse Disney (which is one of the main reasons why I subscribe to Pay TV for my Daughters) isn't going to be upgraded.

Lastly TCL don't offer a PVR solution. However you can purchase off-the-shelf Irdeto compatible equipment (ex-Aussie) that works perfectly with TCL. However due to how Sky encrypt their video no such equipment exists for Sky.

I personally love TCL PayTV. I am not using the TCL supplied box (which IMHO is rubbish) and using a Dreambox DM600PVR, which all up costed me ~$550 for box + Cable Tuner + 250GB disk. However I own the box (not Sky if I went for My Sky) and I can record anything, playback, extract digital copies of content I have recorded. Plus I have put all our DVD's are ISO images sitting on the HD, bye bye dvd player from our AV set.... and the box is tiny, the size of 3 DVD cases ontop of each other. (and it does Component, not that I have a component TV)

osmium

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#113993 1-Mar-2008 19:08

BarTender:
Also (and grant correct me here if I am wrong) TCL won't be upgrading all the Sky channels they re-broadcast, only the "popular" ones. For example Playhouse Disney (which is one of the main reasons why I subscribe to Pay TV for my Daughters) isn't going to be upgraded.

Will Sky be upgrading more channels then? I must admit Playhouse Disney is a big reason we have Pay TV too. Although, my daughters aren't too fussy about the picture quality.

I hadn't realised you could own your own STB and incorporate PVR into this system. We have a standard HD DVD recorder which I use and love. Your system sounds excellent and better value. Does it have a slot for the saturn card etc and you just tune it in? I should have found this excellent website before I made that decision last year!

BarTender

3606 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#114003 1-Mar-2008 20:23

osmium: Will Sky be upgrading more channels then? I must admit Playhouse Disney is a big reason we have Pay TV too. Although, my daughters aren't too fussy about the picture quality.

Yeah, but I have watched Playhouse at my Mother in laws via sky and the PQ is better, just being picky on that one, like to have my little einstein's recordings the best quality I can get 'em.

osmium: I hadn't realised you could own your own STB and incorporate PVR into this system. We have a standard HD DVD recorder which I use and love. Your system sounds excellent and better value. Does it have a slot for the saturn card etc and you just tune it in? I should have found this excellent website before I made that decision last year!

Well it's against TCL's T&C's to connect anything other than TCL supplied hardware to their network. That being said I know of a number of people that run all sorts of different configurations not using the TCL supplied box, if TCL was coming around to your house to fix up something it would pay to not have the Dreambox around ;). As for the smartcard, I took the smartcard out of the TCL box, put it into my box, and I was away (after a bit of fiddling).

I have built a customised Dreambox DM500C (the one that doesn't take a Harddisk) that I am happy to give to anyone who goes to the effort to bring a DM500C in from Aus. There are guys on Austech and eBay in Aus selling the DM500C's which are clone boxes from China. They will set you back ~$150AUS or so.. perhaps up to ~$200 aus including shipping etc. You can also buy a legal DM600PVR box (this one takes a 2.5" IDE harddisk, and is what I have at home) from the official Dreambox supplier in Aus for $550 including shipping and a cable tuner card (they come standard with a Satellite tuner, and this way you have both, and for an extra $60Aus for the Cable tuner). Or you can buy a clone of the same box for $250US from the chinese. I bought my DM600 from china, and it's a clone, then I bought my Cable tuner from the Dreambox reseller in Aus for $100NZ including shipping. The only downside to my chinese box is it didn't include the "rear faceplate" for the Cable tuner... so the back of the box is "open" not a huge issue as the box itself is well outside of my kids arms reach, but it does look a bit of a dogs breakfast. If you bought the official box from Aus then they would include the faceplate for the cable tuner.

The dreamboxes themselves are a steep learning curve as they run Linux and are really cusomisable, but I have blogged already about most of the pitfalls that owners fall into. The TCL cable side you need 3 config files to get it all going, which I am happy to e-mail / PM offline if you purchase the box.

As they say "has provided me hours of frustration, and equally hours of joy (now!)". My wife dislikes the Dreambox due to the hours I have spent on it, but she is slowly coming around now, especially after I loaded all the kids DVD's in our collection onto the internal HD. No more scratched DVD's, plus when we go away we have a media centre box that plugs into any TV, has all the shows for the kids we want and the box is tiny. :)

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

lchiu7

6478 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#114052 2-Mar-2008 09:11

I have given up on the PQ of TCL with the TCL box. The Dreambox looks quite interersting but with the limited amount of recording I do, probably not worth the hassle and cost. What keeps me there is the cable Internet. I can't bear the thought of having cable Internet and then having to use Sky for TV. Just way too many providers.

When HD DVB-T comes along I will go for that and that will be the end of upgrades to TV reception capability for me.

Larry

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.