Sky Tv quality

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Jazsaxman

51 posts

Master Geek

#20555 30-Mar-2008 13:08

Hi all, is it my imagination or has Sky bumped up the bandwidth on some channels, particularly the sports just recently? They seem easier to view in the last week or two...

Cheers Steve

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allstarnz

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#119707 30-Mar-2008 16:51

Had a look at SS2 and the Rugby Channel. Seems they're both broadcasting at an average bitrate still about 3.5-4mb/s, so if it's been raised, it wouldn't be by much. Live NRL and Sevens on respective channels, so I guess if they'd pump it up, it'd be for that. Still pales to the 6mb/s or so that Freeview run at.

Jazsaxman

51 posts

Master Geek

#119712 30-Mar-2008 17:55

My impressions were that the league was looking better than usual, less smearing and pixellation? I did think that the Sevens had a pretty bad quality from source? Very grainy.

openmedia

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#119718 30-Mar-2008 18:28

Sky might have installed a newer generation of decoder which would provide a noticable difference in picture quality.

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

allstarnz

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#119865 31-Mar-2008 12:20

Jazsaxman: My impressions were that the league was looking better than usual, less smearing and pixellation? I did think that the Sevens had a pretty bad quality from source? Very grainy.

perhaps that is the case, purely in terms of bitrates, not much has changed.

Agreed about the Sevens, it looked rubbish on TVNZ (DVB-T and DVB-S) and Sky (Rugby Channel and SS1)

cyril7

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#119920 31-Mar-2008 14:09

Sky might have installed a newer generation of decoder which would provide a noticable difference in picture quality.

Decoder, or Encoder, if its Encoders, Sky upgraded all their encoders about 18-24months ago to the lattest Tanberg E5770 encoders, I seem to remember they got 80 encoders and payed around US$4m for them. So doubt they would be upgrading hardware, maybe firmware or general encoding bitrate changes.

They could be cleaning things up as they move to their new digital production/presentation suites as part of Mt Wellingtons major upgrade.

Cyril

manaia

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#120119 1-Apr-2008 09:47

It's a bit too early to see picture improvements from the transmission chain upgrades at SKY and there haven't been any significant changes (to my knowledge) to the encoders or bitrates. I was told that the quality of League material brought in from Australia has improved recently due to equipment upgrades there. Poor quality material or material dirtied-up in processing is a real problem as, not only does it look bad, but it sucks bandwidth from other channels to encode its noise.

M