Sky, Analog v Digital

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OrangeDrink

51 posts

Master Geek

#10217 10-Nov-2006 16:33

Hello all, I've got MySky at home, just got myself a nice Home Theatre System and have now noticed how appalingly compressed Sky Digital is. The picture is bad enough but ugh the Audio... it's just awful.

Has anyone ever done a side by side comparison between Sky Digital and Sky Analog here? I don't know much about Analog at all, I've emailed Sky about their terrible compression but the only reply I've had back so far was claiming it was because of the low resolution of PAL on big Televisions causes the problem which is utter crap. They don't accept there's a problem with their digital compression and they clearly aren't going to do anything about it anytime soon if ever so I'm wondering if I might find Analog a better option?

Any info? Any opinions?

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51 posts

Master Geek

#51905 10-Nov-2006 17:28

as a follow up, having read on the Sky website it seems very few channels are available on Analog but I'd still be interested to know if anyone's ever done a side by side comparison to see just how much Sky compresses it's Digital Signal. I sent this question to Sky Customer Services:

"Why is the compression on Digital TV here so extraordinarily high? The resulting quality of the picture is on most channels just about watchable and on some horrendously poor quality. I tried running my box on Component through my TV but that just highlighted so many of the compression artefacts I went back to using a COmposite signal as that smooths out some of them. When are you going to get around to addressing what is a fairly major problem?"

I got this reply:

Skys Compression levels are on par with many broadcasters worldwide and I would dispute that they are extraordinarily high

Over the past couple of years we have seen an increase in the size of customers TVs, as a result the limitations of our PAL system do become more obvious, as the TV size increases.

When are you going to get around to addressing what is a fairly major problem? For the majority of Skys customers, this is not a major issue. One way we will be addressing the demand for increased quality is to launch High Definition television

This strikes me as a reply from someone who simply doesn't have any idea what they're talking about!

JohnPorter

187 posts

Master Geek

#51914 10-Nov-2006 18:32

I'm not that fussy about video quality, but even I notice it on my 29" flat screen, so I can well imagine your disappointment. Perhaps lack of bandwidth on their aging satellite forces them to over-compress. If so, the new one which should be online soon may help.

lchiu7

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#51978 11-Nov-2006 12:53

I have never seen Sky Digital on a big screen (> 50") but I can report that TCL digital looks terrible on a large screen. And the analogue is not much better. This is quite annoying given (as I noted in a previous post) what can be achieved with even analogue cable based on my experiences on seeing what Comcast in the San Francisco area provide over analogue cable. And they like TCL are not content originators - they take feeds from the networks, satellite providers etc. and retransmit down the cable.

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sbiddle

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#51997 11-Nov-2006 16:54

OrangeDrink:
I got this reply:

Over the past couple of years we have seen an increase in the size of customers TVs, as a result the limitations of our PAL system do become more obvious, as the TV size increases.

This strikes me as a reply from someone who simply doesn't have any idea what they're talking about!

Exactly. Standard resolution DVD's still use the PAL format and MPEG2 compression - it's just that they don't compress the crap out of their like Sky do!

Frankei

66 posts

Master Geek

#52107 12-Nov-2006 21:44

Digital is better than Analog

Sky NZ use active bit rates... Essentially the channels which are more likely to be watched i.e prime time movie or a major sports event will get a higher bit rate thus a better picture than say a documentary about snails on Animal Planet

On average its -/+2Mbit which is 25% of your average DVD

Simply bandwidth is mega expensive and increasing the per channel bit rate by say 1Mbit will mean 60Mbit across the board...
Which at the end of the day is a sht load
That and the old satellite doesn't have any more capacity

OrangeDrink

51 posts

Master Geek

#52159 13-Nov-2006 13:25

but the new satellite's up and almost running? Are they likelt to increase bandwidth when they have more capacity? Or just increase the number of lame channels that no-one will watch?

Sky make what? $1.5m a day in New Zealand simply from subscriptions? They should be charging an awful lot less for the quality of the output they're currently doing, or perhaps they just don't actually know the best way to do this sort of thing. Or don't care...

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#52162 13-Nov-2006 13:48

By international standards of both payTV and FTA operators, Skys bit rates are not that bad. So I doubt they will be distributing channels amoungst extra capacity, but adding new channels instead.

Cyril

OrangeDrink

51 posts

Master Geek

#52163 13-Nov-2006 13:57

which makes me wonder if they actually know what they're doing or perhaps their signals are being encoded 3 or 4 times before transmission because in the UK it looks much MUCH better than it does here... or perhaps the UK is one of those countries that uses higher bit rates?

OrangeDrink

51 posts

Master Geek

#52165 13-Nov-2006 14:02

cyril7: By international standards of both payTV and FTA operators, Skys bit rates are not that bad. So I doubt they will be distributing channels amoungst extra capacity, but adding new channels instead.

Cyril

Have to ask, when everyone started switching over to Digital TV signals wasn't it because we were promised much higher quality? How is it that what? 4 or 5 years on and the standard is still well below Analog transmissions?

lchiu7

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#52169 13-Nov-2006 14:47

OrangeDrink: which makes me wonder if they actually know what they're doing or perhaps their signals are being encoded 3 or 4 times before transmission because in the UK it looks much MUCH better than it does here... or perhaps the UK is one of those countries that uses higher bit rates?

Watched a bit of Freeview in the UK recently. Agreed the quality was very good - much better than what I have seen on Sky and also TCL cable. This was on a 42" Plasma so any picture deficiencies would have been obvious

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OrangeDrink

51 posts

Master Geek

#52177 13-Nov-2006 15:52

lchiu7: Watched a bit of Freeview in the UK recently. Agreed the quality was very good - much better than what I have seen on Sky and also TCL cable. This was on a 42" Plasma so any picture deficiencies would have been obvious

Would have to agree, I had freeview back in the UK, even after it'd been on my Tivo it still looked pretty damn good. Gives me some hope that maybe freeview when it comes out here might be a big step up...

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Frankei

66 posts

Master Geek

#52196 13-Nov-2006 18:17

Dude WTF?

Sky Digital is still better than Analog...

Freeview is digital either Terrestrial or Satellite

richms

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#52831 17-Nov-2006 14:31

Comparing prime FTA analog and prime on sky, I would take the analog any day.

The sound on sky is so bad I cant stand to listen to it, everything is all sybalancy and ringing. The movie channels are better, but almost everyone I know with sky has canceled the movies since they are all so old.

Seriuosly, I find the quality on a downloaded xvid american chopper or whatever to be better then what it is when playing on sky. Sure there is some banding of colours on the downloaded one, but on sky there is also 2 giant lines of artifacts about 2cm in from the letterboxing bars, and huge jpeggy artifacts on any text on the screen. If the warez groups can distribute video faster and better then sky, it really makes me question any reason to have it.

Richard rich.ms

OrangeDrink

51 posts

Master Geek

#52834 17-Nov-2006 14:44

richms: Comparing prime FTA analog and prime on sky, I would take the analog any day.

Seriuosly, I find the quality on a downloaded xvid american chopper or whatever to be better then what it is when playing on sky. Sure there is some banding of colours on the downloaded one, but on sky there is also 2 giant lines of artifacts about 2cm in from the letterboxing bars, and huge jpeggy artifacts on any text on the screen. If the warez groups can distribute video faster and better then sky, it really makes me question any reason to have it.

by FTA analog you mean the signal coming in from the aerial socket in the wall? :) must give that comparison a try... TVNZ Channels use their own encoding though yes? It's the reason why those channels look a little better than most of the other Sky Channels? Prime, C4 and the Maori Channel though, I should be able to use them as a good comparison of FTA analog v digital?

I don't even have the movie channels, I've got a MediaGate at home and I'd agree, most of the downloads I've got from US TV look pretty durn good over it... If I could get the Rugby Channel on FTA I'd probably ditch Sky altogether...

lchiu7

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#52857 17-Nov-2006 19:09

I don't have Sky but have TCL cable and can tell you that Prime over the cable in analogue is clearer than the same signal in digital. I don't have an aerial I can connect so can't compare with real OTA quality. The TCL compression I think is pretty agressive

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