Improving MySky HDi SD quality

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Kiwiwolf

69 posts

Master Geek

#172433 21-Oct-2008 08:18

I agree re. there being no noticeable difference using the more expensive HDMI cables.

I had the sales guys at Harvey Norman rig up a Full HD Panasonic instore to a Sky HD box with a monster HDMI cable and the result was the same as mine. The Ellen show on TV1 was very very blurry.

The only other thing apart from Sky compressing signals etc that I can think of is the cable coming from the dish to the telly although signal strength looks ok.

sbiddle

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#172438 21-Oct-2008 08:32

I still find the picture quality of American TV shows to be poor, even a lot of their HD stuff that is shot on film and then scanned still doesn't look that great.

IMHO Rove sets the standard for HD content here in NZ and if you watch most of the HD programming in Australia it is of very similair quality. It's certainly a big step up from the American HD content. Rove looks truely sensational on a big screen TV or good quality projector.

bazzer

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#172452 21-Oct-2008 09:27

sbiddle: Rove looks truely sensational on a big screen TV or good quality projector.

He's quite the looker, isn't he?

sbiddle

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#172458 21-Oct-2008 09:39

bazzer:
sbiddle: Rove looks truely sensational on a big screen TV or good quality projector.

He's quite the looker, isn't he?

I certainly wouldn't turn gay for him!

Toi be honest I find the show quite tiring and repetitive these days. I dob't find Rove funny at all and just watch the show for the people who truely are funny like Hamish & Andy!

mightymatt

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#172462 21-Oct-2008 09:54

thanks for your comments however i thend to dis-agree. Like you i think the whole HDMI thing is a bit of a scam however the quality of cables does make a difference. Explain to me that when i plugged the Mysky hd into a cat 5 converter using the sky supplied cable the signal dropped out however when i used a good quality cable the signal was fine. I have also had trouble when i used the sky supplied cable on a dvd player at home running 1080p and once again i was getting drop-outs but when replaced it was fine.

Im not saying that you should go out and buy the most expensive cable you can find. I will only buy hdmi cables that the manafacturer will provide a proper specification sheet for. You should also make sure that they specify that the connections are soldered and not crimped.

also a lot of quality manafacturers are bringing out cables with a locking screw on the top of them which is designed to keep the connection nice and tight to relieve strain on the connector.

Just trying to help like everyone else and i am in touch with a lot of other installers on a weekly basis and all these problems are popping up all the time. I get a lot of feedback from other installers and the cable quality issue is always talked about.

Regards, Matt

lotech

126 posts

Master Geek

#172465 21-Oct-2008 10:27

I would imagine that the reason the American shows, while still very much HD, are softer is because of the framerate conversion and dubbing need to use American TV. Theres an article here regarding why there is still PAL & NTSC in HD.

The american shows will be distributed as 1080i NTSC 29.97, which would need to be transcoded/dubbed to 1080i PAL 25 - this conversion would cause softness to occour as they would need to convert the source to progressive, loose 4.97 frames of every second of footage and then reinterlace. Add to that the fact the shows would get dubbed multiple times before and after the conversion and while you're still keeping the HD - it's no doubt getting softer.

Where as Rove would be shot in 1080i PAL, put to tape and then beemed via Satellite to tape in NZ, then played back as is. So maybe 3rd generation and most importantly shot in the exact same standard as NZ.

Of course add to that the fact it would be compressed again to go from Sky to your TV wouldn't help.

TomAckroyd

95 posts

Master Geek

#172468 21-Oct-2008 10:42

lotech: I would imagine that the reason the American shows, while still very much HD, are softer is because of the framerate conversion and dubbing need to use American TV.

My understanding is that US dramas are all shot on 24fps film or 24p video, and mastered 24p. For US broadcast they will use 3:2 pulldown as has always been the case with feature films.

For sale to PAL territories, the masters are sped up to 25fps with no interpolation (except for occasional appalling aliasing on audio) using special VTRs that record at 24fps. The tapes then playback at 25fps.

I've always been really impressed at the picture quality of US drama on TV here. None of the old-style soft interpolated conversion.

On topic - there's a lot to be said for going through all the settings on your display and turning off all the fancy digital processing, "vivid" settings etc. It's a matter of experiment to figure out whether your source does the better upscaling, or the display. Eg I find the PS3 upsacling of SD DVDs gives better results thean the Bravia doing the same thing. Both Sony products, but there you go.

Tom

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Kiwiwolf

69 posts

Master Geek

#172501 21-Oct-2008 12:34

I did note that even some locally produced programmes were very blurry. For example I happened to be home when the studio based kid show was on TV2 at 4.30 and couldn't watch it as it was so blurry.

The Ellen show on TV1 is the same.

lotech

126 posts

Master Geek

#172506 21-Oct-2008 12:54

Tom - you're no doubt right but as much as anything who knows what happens to them once they're mastered at 24P - broadcaster care about quality but I wouldn't be surprised it if our copies aren't dubbed via some hardware converter of the tapes delivered to networks in USA.

AncestralGeek

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#173426 24-Oct-2008 19:36

Have just finished watching two shows, recorded this morning, using a MySky HDi unit, one from TV1 and the other from TV3. The difference between TV1 and TV3 was, as expected, what should be between a SD and a HD broardcast. However certain sections of TV1's broardcast were obviously superiour to other sections. The difference between the sections was almost as much as between SD and HD. This begs the question of how much of the improvement we see between SD and HD is down to the quality of the original recording and not the transmission medium.

Having said that I still love HD.

richms

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#173634 26-Oct-2008 00:18

Some of the stuff on the breakfast show on 1 looks like its off a webcam even on analog FTA, Lots of content is below even SD quality, you just never noticed it on an interlaced CRT because the interlace lines give the impression of sharpness that is not there in some cases.

I dont know what the situation is with flicker filtering on the sky SD versions of 1 and 2, since I only have dvb-t here at the moment, but the FTA analog 1 and 2 are looking really soft compared to a SD conversion done on a STB from DVB-T - never used to be that way, I think its just to make people more wowed when moving to DVB then they would be otherwise (same as that *&(*&ing 2" letterbox on tv1

Richard rich.ms

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