Two months ago I hooked my HTPC up to dvb-s and decided to remove my analog STB from the equation to see if I could live solely with freeview. I of course moved to dvb-t for the Olympics and finally I have a picture quality that I can be proud of.
The English football season started over the weekend and so I hooked up the STB to my pvr500 again (with composite being the only option from the STB) and sat down to watch the game with my boy, only to be reminded just how bad the picture quality is from Telstra :( I couldnt even watch the whole game it was that bad. The players were all fuzzy, the fans in the distance all blurred into one, it was heart breaking. But in the last two months Id completely forgotten just how bad it is.
Ive refused to move to digital because a couple of friends have done that and were very disappointed with the results, one even insisting that Telstra put him back on analog because he wasnt willing to pay more money for a worse picture. Ive read the last couple of pages of posts on GZ and the responses are quite variable. Some have great signals some dont.
Even the Phoenix game last night was unwatchable and its made even worse by the fact that any games I *acquire* from overseas are better quality even though theyve been recoreded, encoded, sent half way around the world etc. Dont get me started on ESPN !
So in my quest to get the best quality picture am I throwing money away by trying Telstra digital and should I just go straight to Sky ? Sky HDi obviously would be great but my LCD is not HDCP and Im not going to buy another one, and I dont need the PVR capability because thats why I have the HTPC. Is the standard Sky picture likely to be any better than what Telstra can provide ? Or will just getting a new STB from Telstra with s-video make all the difference ?
With a non-techie wife and young kids I need an all in one solution which they have with the HTPC and Mediaportal. I dont mind having another STB, I just want a better picture.
Its been something Ive conisdered for a while now. I currently pay over $250 a month for a phone I dont use, a tv I dont watch and a download speed thats rarely 10Mb. But thats another discussion.
Id be very interested to hear what people think about my options and what their experiences have been.
Cheers
Martyn