SATELLITE decoder with best up-scaling/de-interlace performance

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bfginger

1268 posts

Uber Geek

#751042 25-Jan-2013 23:31

I was quit happy last week watching the 26" CRT, but since buying a new 40" I can see what I was really looking at.

Freeview Satellite is highly compressed and uses the dated MPEG-2 codec. The quality would be ok for a 40" if not for the compression.

Turning off overscan should improve the picture quality slightly. Sending the TV an upscaled picture without turning off overscan wouldn't make sense.

Apsattv

2389 posts

Uber Geek

#751064 26-Jan-2013 05:15

I have a 9200x Ultraplus fed to a Samsung ES8000 (55inch) using the Freeview satellite service.

It looks ok, but the low bitrate is quite obvious. But you can experiment with the digital noise reduction setting on your tv to see if that will help get rid of some of the artifacts.

The video output can be set at 480i/576i/p 720p 1080i/p through the Ultraplus menus

RunningMan

8955 posts

Uber Geek

#751086 26-Jan-2013 09:24

alton1974:
You are telling me its not the resolution of the frames that's my problem but as much as its the garbage information contained within the frames being displayed.

Yes! Basically there is a finite amount of bandwidth available from the transponders on the satellite used to transmit Freeview (it's determined by satellite capacity, and cost). That bandwidth has to be shared (not equally) between the various channels; in very simple terms it is a trade-off of quality vs quantity.

If you compare the Freeview transmission to a well mastered DVD, particularly something fast moving and detailed like sport, the difference is obvious in terms of finer detail and colour. They are both have the same dimension SD frame, frame rate, and MPEG-2 compression, however the Freeview transmission will be compressed at about 1/3 - 1/4 data rate. As MPEG-2 is a lossy compression (to get the data rate lower, data is disposed of) the colour gets washed out, and the detail is blurred. Both of these things will not make for a good up scaling experience.

To go back to your original question, which upscaler is going to be the best, I suspect that either one will give satisfactory results, but neither may be much better that what your TV can already do. If there is a creative way to instal a UHF antenna (even from a reflected signal), that is going to yield a far better picture long term.

illicit

553 posts

Ultimate Geek

#751089 26-Jan-2013 09:35

What is the TV?

If its a decent model, it likely has a better upscaler than a Freeview box anyway.

alton1974

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#751118 26-Jan-2013 11:27

TV is a Samsung UA40EH-6000 LED, so nothing special, 100Hz panel.
From what I'm hearing, the money is best not spent on the decoder, perhaps some more investigation into Terrestrial.

Thanks.

alasta

6704 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#751152 26-Jan-2013 13:20

I'm on Freeview satellite and I find that it looks absolutely fine with static images but TV3 pixellates dreadfully with movement whereas Prime doesn't seem to be as bad.

alton1974

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#751327 26-Jan-2013 22:05

Thanks everyone for the help. I will re-think Terrestial, otherwise I will buy the S7090 PVR.
There is no point paying for a more expensive decoder on the basis of upgrading an inferior example of SD image.
Hopefully we may see FreeView HD over satellite some day.

Sharesies

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Dkeeper

132 posts

Master Geek

#755349 4-Feb-2013 08:55

So if standard compressed reception with a freeview type stb is limited in quality.. is there an optimal large size for a tv.. ie. 32", 40", 42", or 46" in this environment ?

heyhey

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#758768 9-Feb-2013 20:10

I've very happy with my 9200. It upscales well and is noticable when watching Aurora. It is crap anyway but on the SD box it's worse than the 9200.

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