Pixilisation of FreeView Satellite Picture

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281 posts

Ultimate Geek

#220031 31-May-2009 07:19

They seem to be bumping up the bitrate for tv1 news (and possibly other "primetime" stuff??). The news was ok last night, but this morning tv1 & 2 are abysmal again. The kids cartoons on tv2 in the morning can be lteraly unwatchable during movement scenes.

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mruane

420 posts

Ultimate Geek

#220120 31-May-2009 13:25

I have just been reviewing some of the recordings I have made over the last couple of week from Freeview DVB-S TV-One and I must be missing something. None of the those recordings exhibit the pixelation that many of you are referring to. The most recent was the Soccer game last night, I did not see any serious picture degradation. Whilst the overall picture quality is certainly not as good as it used to be (evidenced by the much smaller recording file sizes), there was no serious breakdown of the picture at all even during the fast camera movements that are always present in any sport.

Is this issue then related mainly to STB's? I only use PCI cards i.e. Nova S Plus and HVR-4000 in a TV Server PC and do not have an STB.

Cheers Mike

babygwc

27 posts

Geek

#220125 31-May-2009 13:52

Hi Mike, did you record DARK BLUE last night on TV2(12:15 - 0245) It was practically unwatchable, perhaps TVNZ use the late hours for their "internal" testing.

YOUTUBE is better quality (and Im not kidding about YOUTUBE) these days compared with DVB-S. I also use Nova S Plus (x2). Im guessing for important (primtime) they give more bandwidth to things like NEWS and SPORT(hence OK picture). But late at night they just leave the setting to AUTO.
Brandon

mruane

420 posts

Ultimate Geek

#220141 31-May-2009 15:42

@babygwc: No I did not record that program, however I have just spent a few minutes watching a film on TV2 (Gossip Girl - I think) via DVB-S and that picture quality is quite OK to me. I am using a Media Portal PC client watching LiveTV from a WHS based TV Server on the network and there is no indication of any pixelation at all visible on the client. The picture quality is a little "soft" but no pixelation.

I also reviewed a recording I made on the 28th May at 11:50pm - Bad Lads Army - and that has a clean picture also.

I am located in Wellington and I have good signal strength being reported by TVEngine3 in Media Portal - perhaps that is helping. Anyway I will review this again tonight and see if there is a difference.

Cheers Mike

Biggles69

83 posts

Master Geek

#220296 1-Jun-2009 10:13

Well my daughter was watching TVNZ 6 yesterday and anyone would be mistaken to think it was filmed in Legovision it was so pixelated it wasn't funny!!!!!

"Freeview, Crystal Clear (Pixelated) Digital Quality Television"

I say we should take this to the top - The Broadcasting Minister!!! Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman
email - j.coleman@ministers.govt.nz
We need a Picture Quality standard for satellite digital television in New Zealand (& Digital Terrestial), If we are being forced to switch to digital TV then the free to air service needs to meet a certain standard.
Freeview have always claimed "DVD quality" which for most people this would be about 6mbps.
The Freeview Satellite feed has been sabotaged by TVNZ & Mediaworks trying to force duplicate feeds of TV One & TV3 when there simply isn't enough bandwidth on the feeds for these extra channels without reducing the other channels bitrate & ultimately picture quality.

Come on NZ let our concerns be heard - email our Broadcsting Minister & tell him what you think.

{MOD EDIT : SP : I have hidden the original post as this one has the extra line at the top so I chose to leave this one here. Please do not post the same message content more than once}

Oblivian

7275 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#220757 2-Jun-2009 10:58

Ive been monitoring the threads about these issues for some time...

Utill Sunday night I thought "mm TVNZsport is crap, 1 and 2 seem fine".. that was until I noticed the MySkyHDI message in place of the programming descriptions. Whoops! I've been using the sky TP feed all this time. (and its awesome)

Changed to the other 1+2 that I had on "skip" mode, only to promptly change back to Skys feed. ffuuuggly!

Its going to be sad to see it go :( Suffice to say I am now investigating -T uits.

Anyone tried watching the recent netball games on TVNZsport? Now thats a good one for examples of bad bitrate signals. I truely thought they were piping a dialup/56k stream to me. Sound is like cellphone recording, and video like a youtube as much described.

openmedia

3290 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#220849 2-Jun-2009 13:32

I've sent a TV One sample through to freeview

http://www.openmedia.co.nz/video/5906_20090522202700.mpg

The file contains two fairly typical examples of the macro blocking issues that are being reported with the DTH service. The recording was taken from Mistresses on TV One on 22 May, and I've clipped the show down to a 21Mb sample. No transcoding has been applied so it contains the original MPEG2 video stream.

The overall video quality is poor and rather disappointing. Average bit rate is 2915K, and they appear to have capped the bitrate at under 5200K

Bitrate Histogram

First example is at around 9 seconds where one of the characters is walking towards camera

Macro1

Second example is on a scene change at 29/30 seconds

Macroblock 2

The second issue is a bit more excusable due to the quick scene change, but the first example should have smooth video.

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.

grolschie

911 posts

Ultimate Geek

#221106 2-Jun-2009 21:22

Bitrate stats for the new TV1 regional feeds:
http://www.satcodx5.com/1600/tsbitrate.cgi?16000050000000001954-v
http://www.satcodx5.com/1600/tsbitrate.cgi?16000050000000001955-v
http://www.satcodx5.com/1600/tsbitrate.cgi?16000050000000001956-v

The Auckland TV1 feed:
http://www.satcodx5.com/1600/tsbitrate.cgi?16000050000000000034-v

Biggles69

83 posts

Master Geek

#221140 2-Jun-2009 23:11

grolschie: Bitrate stats for the new TV1 regional feeds:

http://www.satcodx5.com/1600/tsbitrate.cgi?16000050000000001954-v

http://www.satcodx5.com/1600/tsbitrate.cgi?16000050000000001955-v

http://www.satcodx5.com/1600/tsbitrate.cgi?16000050000000001956-v

The Auckland TV1 feed:

http://www.satcodx5.com/1600/tsbitrate.cgi?16000050000000000034-v

That’s something I didn't even consider, now that they have region specific feeds they can allocate more bandwidth to certain regions i.e. Auckland might receive the lion share of the bandwidth because Auckland is the centre of NZ :-P (Not)

I suppose everyone can change there STB's region to Auckland :)

openmedia

3290 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#221142 2-Jun-2009 23:28

My sample images were off the Auckland feed..

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.

Biggles69

83 posts

Master Geek

#221214 3-Jun-2009 10:23

I received a email back from the Minister of Broadcasting's Secretary
--------------------------
Thank you for your email to the Minister of Broadcasting of 31 May, regarding universal standards for digital TV transmission in New Zealand. The Minister will consider the issues you have raised and respond as soon as he is able.

Best regards

Emily Faith
Private Secretary - Broadcasting
---------------------------

So hopefully we might see some progress :)
But I hope every one else takes 5mins to email the Minister themselves, the more people that email him the better the chances are of getting a decent standard set for digital TV (DVB-S & DVB-T) in New Zealand.
It seems right now that TVNZ & Mediaworks can do pretty much anything they like with the Digital feeds & don't care what the viewers think.

Email the Minister of Broadcasting - Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman
j.coleman@ministers.govt.nz

toki91

12 posts

Geek

#221727 4-Jun-2009 17:40

TVNZ really bad at the moment 5:30pm thursday they should be getting complants from lots of people
.9-1mbs

toki91

12 posts

Geek

#221738 4-Jun-2009 18:24

That was really bad, dont know when it started but finished at 6 on the dot.
Grabbed a couple of records,

TVNZ news promo was on Channel 2 : size 4mb http://www.mediafire.com/?tgm4jzu3o1z

Shiprecked 40sec clip : size 6mb http://www.mediafire.com/?m5w2tymnd1j

Send these off to Freeview

openmedia

3290 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#221740 4-Jun-2009 18:25

Just had the following update

---

TVNZ have notified Freeview that the occasional sport channel on Freeview, TVNZ Sport Extra, is now available only on the Freeview | HD platform.

The part-time channel will remain operational on the Freeview | HD service until after Wimbledon in July.

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.

Oblivian

7275 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#221742 4-Jun-2009 18:30

That would explain its absense in my surfing 20mins ago

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