olympic coverage on Freeview

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old3eyes

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#668535 6-Aug-2012 19:27

Jaxson:
grant_k: But there is absolutely nothing wrong with the video quality coming from London! It's even better than last year's RWC so far as I can tell. I've been watching Prime HD most of the time and when I compared it to what most people are seeing on Prime SD, it about made me puke. Prime SD is a blurry, shuddery, grainy mess compared to Prime HD.

On behalf of 'most people' I'd like to say thank you, to you and to Sky/Prime. Thank you very much.

+1 for that..

Regards,

Old3eyes

grant_k

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#668553 6-Aug-2012 20:18

Jaxson: Are you using a VU+ Duo or similar to receive prime in HD off the basic package? I understand that HD TV 1- 3 is available off the base package as well, if your unit can accept a SKY card and has a DVB-S2 tuner.

Yep. Vu+ Duo with my Sky card plugged in.

Just this week, I hooked up a permanent wired network connection to the Vu for the first time. I hadn't gotten around to it until now, but was stoked to discover that I can stream one or more channels via the network in SD, while watching a completely different channel in HD via the HDMI or Component Video outputs. Effectively it gives me two decoders for the price of one!

I did try streaming HD over the network, but the motion wasn't so smooth, therefore it's better to watch it directly from the Vu.

mattwnz: I have found primes coverage pretty good, and they have shown a wide range of sports. Although some of the people they have on it are a bit odd, they seem to have heaps of people over there. There is this one guy who has been on a bit, and stares at the camera smiling the whole time while someone else is interviewed, if you have seen him you will know who I mean. But the quality of the show has been leaps ahead of TVNZ's coverage when they used to do it. But the downside is that the picture quality is poor and too compressed, and it is only on one channel. The Chinese games was in HD on freeview, and was on two different channels (TVNZ and TVNZ sports), so we have gone backwards.

That is a balanced commentary on the state of affairs. Sky are doing a brilliant job of covering the Olympics -- much better than TVNZ have ever done. But they don't give it all away for free as was done previously. It seems that Prime's SD channel is just a teaser, designed to whet your appetite for the premium HD product on their encrypted channels.

It all comes down to whether or not you think a 1-year subscription to the Basic package is worth it or not, once in every 4 years. If I do decide to cancel my sub after the games, I would definitely renew it again in time for the next one in 2016, based upon the enjoyment I've had this time around.

mattwnz

20163 posts

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#668563 6-Aug-2012 20:51

grant_k:
Jaxson: Are you using a VU+ Duo or similar to receive prime in HD off the basic package? I understand that HD TV 1- 3 is available off the base package as well, if your unit can accept a SKY card and has a DVB-S2 tuner.

Yep.? Vu+ Duo with my Sky card plugged in.

Just this week, I hooked up a permanent wired network connection to the Vu for the first time.? I hadn't gotten around to it until now, but was stoked to discover that I can stream one or more channels via the network in SD, while watching a completely different channel in HD via the HDMI or Component Video outputs.? Effectively it gives me two decoders for the price of one!

I did try streaming HD over the network, but the motion wasn't so smooth, therefore it's better to watch it directly from the Vu.

mattwnz: I have found primes coverage pretty good, and they have shown a wide range of sports. Although some of the people they have on it are a bit odd, they seem to have heaps of people over there. There is this one guy who has been on a bit, and stares at the camera smiling the whole time while someone else is interviewed, if you have seen him you will know who I mean. But the quality of the show has been leaps ahead of TVNZ's coverage when they used to do it. But the downside is that the picture quality is poor and too compressed, and it is only on one channel. The Chinese games was in HD on freeview, and was on two different channels (TVNZ and TVNZ sports), so we have gone backwards.

That is a balanced commentary on the state of affairs.? Sky are doing a brilliant job of covering the Olympics -- much better than TVNZ have ever done.? But they don't give it all away for free as was done previously.? It seems that Prime's SD channel is just a teaser, designed to whet your appetite for the premium HD product on their encrypted channels.

It all comes down to whether or not you think a 1-year subscription to the Basic package is worth it or not, once in every 4 years.? If I do decide to cancel my sub after the games, I would definitely renew it again in time for the next one in 2016, based upon the enjoyment I've had this time around.

That is true, but I don't think I would want to watch anymore than prime is showing. Primes coverage is a bit like 'Freemium' , or tasters, where they advertise sky for full coverage if you want to watch a full event. I have got it all tivo'd anyway so can scan through stuff too. Most of the good stuff is shown in the early morning.

hdinsider

552 posts

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#668577 6-Aug-2012 21:06

Hockey, right now, last minute of game, link failure, thanks prime. I will never watch you again. You're dead to me.

don't mess with me.... i'm the hd insider....

Jaxson

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#668578 6-Aug-2012 21:08

hdinsider: Hockey, right now, last minute of game, link failure, thanks prime.

It was pretty rough...

hdinsider

552 posts

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#668580 6-Aug-2012 21:10

Maybe I was a bit harsh... But really Sky/Prime, don't blow it now.

don't mess with me.... i'm the hd insider....

hdinsider

552 posts

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#668588 6-Aug-2012 21:22

The reality is that the freeview uhf version of prime is so much better than the SD version of prime on sky as far as picture quality goes, I'm really glad to have freeview. And thankful for the 23hrs of olympics costing me nothing but sleep!

don't mess with me.... i'm the hd insider....

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mattRSK

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#668589 6-Aug-2012 21:23

hdinsider: Hockey, right now, last minute of game, link failure, thanks prime. I will never watch you again. You're dead to me.

Oh that's what the shouting was about from the room next door haha.

grant_k

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#668590 6-Aug-2012 21:24

hdinsider: Maybe I was a bit harsh... But really Sky/Prime, don't blow it now.

To give them credit, Prime did replay the missing final minute about 5 mins later ... and there was nothing to see really, except for the contrasting emotions of the two teams. An awesome gutsy game from our girls!

nullptr64

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#668592 6-Aug-2012 21:25

Actually I reckon Prime is doing a good job covering the Olympics. Even in SD it is better than TVNZ - TVNZ would have yet again dragged out Peter Williams for the 10th (?) Olympics...

hdinsider

552 posts

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#668604 6-Aug-2012 21:40

I think if tvnz had the olympics this time they would definitely have done it in HD and Dolby. Better than Prime, but with breaks for Coro St...

don't mess with me.... i'm the hd insider....

hdinsider

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#668610 6-Aug-2012 21:55

I know prime is HD 5.1 if you have a sky sub and a myskyhdi etc, but it's not HD on freeview, so it doesn't count. Like a triple jumper overstepping onto the plasticine.

don't mess with me.... i'm the hd insider....

old3eyes

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#668696 7-Aug-2012 08:43

hdinsider: The reality is that the freeview uhf version of prime is so much better than the SD version of prime on sky as far as picture quality goes, I'm really glad to have freeview. And thankful for the 23hrs of olympics costing me nothing but sleep!

Have you checked out Prime on CH 444 on Sky for the HD feed??

Regards,

Old3eyes

old3eyes

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#668698 7-Aug-2012 08:47

nullptr64: Actually I reckon Prime is doing a good job covering the Olympics. Even in SD it is better than TVNZ - TVNZ would have yet again dragged out Peter Williams for the 10th (?) Olympics...

Agreed. At least we get to see meddle ceremonies for events that NZ aren't in. TVNZ used to cut away to an ad break and then go back to the studio and yabba yabba when they were on and then back to cover the NZ athlete competing....

Regards,

Old3eyes

Jaxson

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#668714 7-Aug-2012 09:25

old3eyes:

Agreed. At least we get to see meddle ceremonies for events that NZ aren't in.

That doesn't include too many Aussie ones this time anyway.

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