[TelstraClear] Telstra High definition TV is it a myth

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › [TelstraClear] Telstra High definition TV is it a myth

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lchiu7

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#251762 30-Aug-2009 16:50

sbiddle:
lchiu7:
cyril7: It still surprises me that they have not biffed everyone off the analog HFC TV network to give them some space back.

Cyril

I'd be really annoyed if they did that and then made me pay $30 or whatever for the second decoder (digital). Currently I pay $10 (and I think that's too much) for a second analogue decoder in the second room.

TCL have no choice but to start culling analogue channels at some stage because they use far too much bandwidth.

No problem with that if they didn't make me pay extra for it and used the freed bandwidth for something useful - like improve the digital TV which is still pretty pixelated IMHO

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ZollyMonsta

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#251766 30-Aug-2009 17:11

lchiu7:
No problem with that if they didn't make me pay extra for it and used the freed bandwidth for something useful - like improve the digital TV which is still pretty pixelated IMHO

Hi Ichiu7

Have you taken a look at Sky TV lately? Sky channels are passed straight through on TCL Digital TV so any pixelated channels are like that via Sky. Nothing TCL can do about it. If you are seeing pixelated channels and at the same time other people with Sky/TCL that you know aren't seeing them, then it's a signal delivery issue to your house and you should call TCL and book a tech visit for the fault

There's no use complaining here about pixelation on Sky Channels on TCL Cable TV. The broadcast chain is direct pass through and no longer encoded at TCL.

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lchiu7

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#251802 30-Aug-2009 20:29

ZollyMonsta:
lchiu7:
No problem with that if they didn't make me pay extra for it and used the freed bandwidth for something useful - like improve the digital TV which is still pretty pixelated IMHO

Hi Ichiu7

Have you taken a look at Sky TV lately? Sky channels are passed straight through on TCL Digital TV so any pixelated channels are like that via Sky. Nothing TCL can do about it. If you are seeing pixelated channels and at the same time other people with Sky/TCL that you know aren't seeing them, then it's a signal delivery issue to your house and you should call TCL and book a tech visit for the fault

There's no use complaining here about pixelation on Sky Channels on TCL Cable TV. The broadcast chain is direct pass through and no longer encoded at TCL.

The broadcast channels are pretty bad IMHO and they are not from Sky.

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.

DjShadow

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#251808 30-Aug-2009 20:57

ZollyMonsta:
lchiu7:
No problem with that if they didn't make me pay extra for it and used the freed bandwidth for something useful - like improve the digital TV which is still pretty pixelated IMHO

Hi Ichiu7

Have you taken a look at Sky TV lately? Sky channels are passed straight through on TCL Digital TV so any pixelated channels are like that via Sky. Nothing TCL can do about it. If you are seeing pixelated channels and at the same time other people with Sky/TCL that you know aren't seeing them, then it's a signal delivery issue to your house and you should call TCL and book a tech visit for the fault

There's no use complaining here about pixelation on Sky Channels on TCL Cable TV. The broadcast chain is direct pass through and no longer encoded at TCL.

TCL Digital cable now uses NDS?

<edit> sorry I read that wrong, I remember that TCL would convert the digital signal to analogue then back to digital again.

ZollyMonsta

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#251816 30-Aug-2009 22:19

Channel simply has the NDS encryption removed and Irdeto encryption added. Nothing goes to analogue.
It's now Digital from point A (Sky's Platform) to point B (TCL's Platform)

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sbiddle

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#252014 31-Aug-2009 17:57

lchiu7:
ZollyMonsta:
lchiu7:
No problem with that if they didn't make me pay extra for it and used the freed bandwidth for something useful - like improve the digital TV which is still pretty pixelated IMHO

Hi Ichiu7

Have you taken a look at Sky TV lately? Sky channels are passed straight through on TCL Digital TV so any pixelated channels are like that via Sky. Nothing TCL can do about it. If you are seeing pixelated channels and at the same time other people with Sky/TCL that you know aren't seeing them, then it's a signal delivery issue to your house and you should call TCL and book a tech visit for the fault

There's no use complaining here about pixelation on Sky Channels on TCL Cable TV. The broadcast chain is direct pass through and no longer encoded at TCL.

The broadcast channels are pretty bad IMHO and they are not from Sky.

The problem isn't so much the quality of TCL's broadcast, it's the terrible quality boxes.

Watching C4 on TelstraClear via component from my Dreambox and watching it on DVB-T shows very little difference in picture quality. The DVB-T is possibly sharper but C4 on TCL is running at average of 3782 kbps which is pretty good for MPEG2. Both TV1 and TV2 are running at around 6400 kbps which is very very good. TV3 isn't quite so good but it's still around 3900 kbps.

Obviously it's hard to directly compare 1,2 and 3 since they're all HD but C4 and Prime are virtually impossible to tell apart.

lchiu7

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#252030 31-Aug-2009 19:04

sbiddle:

The problem isn't so much the quality of TCL's broadcast, it's the terrible quality boxes.

Watching C4 on TelstraClear via component from my Dreambox and watching it on DVB-T shows very little difference in picture quality. The DVB-T is possibly sharper but C4 on TCL is running at average of 3782 kbps which is pretty good for MPEG2. Both TV1 and TV2 are running at around 6400 kbps which is very very good. TV3 isn't quite so good but it's still around 3900 kbps.

Obviously it's hard to directly compare 1,2 and 3 since they're all HD but C4 and Prime are virtually impossible to tell apart.

You could be right. When I was testing a Dreambox the PQ was better but I had other problems with it so gave it back to Bartender.

I guess what I find interesting is comparing the quality of Sky Sports directly and when showsn as extracts on TV1/3 on FreeviewHD. All they are doing is upscaling but the picture if completely free of blockiness and other artifacts and really quite good.

Hopefully the new TCL box with PVR will be much better but until then I guess we just have to put up with the crappy STB's unless like you , you get a Dreambox.

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Robz

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#252040 31-Aug-2009 19:46

Hopefully it will improve the picture quality. But back on topic - the PVR is taking soo long to get here. Feel like we have been waiting for a year or so since they first announced it.

ralphski

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#254522 9-Sep-2009 20:31

KiwiNZ: An agent for Telstra has told me that it will late 2010 at the earliest . This is crazy.

That agent doesn't know much then... Current anticipated realease date is 1st quarter of 2010

Any opinions expressed on Geekzone are my own and not those of my employer.

bcourtney

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#254532 9-Sep-2009 20:58

ralphski:
KiwiNZ: An agent for Telstra has told me that it will late 2010 at the earliest . This is crazy.

That agent doesn't know much then... Current anticipated realease date is 1st quarter of 2010

Anticipated launch dates from TelstraClear are about as accurate and reliable as Russian made cars. I was told by Telstra mid-last year that their PVR STB would be in place prior to Christmas 2008. At that point, the date seemed too far away for me so I jumped to the MySky HDi. More than 12 months later and there is no chance that it will be out prior to Christmas this year!

It's all well and good making assumptions that the final product will be a pretty good one, but the fact remains that they've dropped the ball big time. I know they've had a number of clients switch over to Sky and with Tivo launching prior to their own STB I'm sure they'll lose a few more.

There doesn't appear to be a great deal of urgency put on the upgrade of the Telstra services here in NZ - the end user doesn't care about what's going on behind the scenes.

Surely if you announce "anticipated" launch dates for products, then the simple rules of customer retention should dictate that you pull finger and get that launch to either happen bang on time or very close to it. TBH, I'm not sure whether Telstra came out and announced any anticipated launch dates to the masses themselves, but I spoke to at least 2 CSRs that used these dates as key points to stop me from moving away to Sky 12 months ago.

jpollock

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#254644 10-Sep-2009 07:44

I've gotten rid of my cable TV subscription, and gone with a VPN account in the US and Boxee + Hulu/TED/Open Courseware instead. I'll probably be adding a Ziln plugin if I get bored. :)

The quality of the video is good enough (better than TCL analog), it's all on demand, and for anything HD, I've got Freeview, which is miles ahead of TCL.

Finally, for the amount of TV I watch, it's even cheaper than TCL/Sky! Easily cheaper than a torrent.

The price/features model of the existing subscription TV providers is completely broken.

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cyril7

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#254652 10-Sep-2009 08:28

Anticipated launch dates from TelstraClear are about as accurate and reliable as Russian made cars

Thats grossly unfair toward the lovely Lada and the even more endearing Volga.

Cyril

bcourtney

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#254681 10-Sep-2009 09:57

cyril7:
Anticipated launch dates from TelstraClear are about as accurate and reliable as Russian made cars

Thats grossly unfair toward the lovely Lada and the even more endearing Volga.

Cyril

You're dead right. Apologies, I retract that statement. I had a wonderful relationship with a bright lime green lada 1500 during the late '90s from which I have very fond memories :)

mrmartin

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#262513 8-Oct-2009 19:57

Sky's reduced $49 MYSKY HDi installation deal is now looking much much much more appealing!!!

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