Question about SKY HD quality

[Womble]

The Transport streams/Mux's aren't really my field...But, If they put one digital stream down an 8mhz channel, you wouldn't need HD, would you?
If that is true, we the punter have been conned....

Originally Posted by Womble

The Transport streams/Mux's aren't really my field...But, If they put one digital stream down an 8mhz channel, you wouldn't need HD, would you?
If that is true, we the punter have been conned....

HD is a much much much better image than even uncompressed SD. The screen has far more detail as there are far more dots making up the image.
Conned? How? There isn't enough room for all the channels people are demanding are made available to them, without using compression.

[Womble]

Originally Posted by Creative

Conned? How? There isn't enough room for all the channels people are demanding are made available to them, without using compression.

Because they dumbed bown the digital image until it had less detail than analogue, thus creating a market for HD
If they didn't compress the digital streams to death, there wouldn't be such a great differance between Digital and HD!!

Hence my view we have been conned

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Creative

HD is a much much much better image than even uncompressed SD. The screen has far more detail as there are far more dots making up the image.
Conned? How? There isn't enough room for all the channels people are demanding are made available to them, without using compression.

Demanding? Funny, I must have missed the petition that went round demanding more shopping channels, more gaming channels and more text-us-and-we'll-gyrate-for-you channels. The digital 'revolution' consists of trillions upon trillions of bits of wasted data.

Originally Posted by Wicked_and_Crazy

You cant compare analogue and digital in terms of bandwidth

No, but to coin an Aussie phrase, even Blind Freddie knows that picture quality on most channels is worse now than it was on analogue, precisely because digital presented the broadcasters with the temptation to compress their content and deliver quantity over quality, something they didn't have the option to do previously. DAB is even worse in this regard, most digital radio stations are noticably lower quality than FM. I don't plan to buy a DAB radio until after analogue switch off for that reason.

I can barely tolerate watching football on any channel other than BBC1. The compression used my most channels - including Sky Sports, which is a disgrace as it's an additional subscription - ensures that when the camera pans even slightly, the pitch looks as uniform and fuzzy as a snooker table.

[TheBlueRaja]

Originally Posted by Chris T

I can barely tolerate watching football on any channel other than BBC1. The compression used my most channels - including Sky Sports, which is a disgrace as it's an additional subscription - ensures that when the camera pans even slightly, the pitch looks as uniform and fuzzy as a snooker table.

You want to try watching Setanta... Lordy...

SkySports 1&2&3 IMO look pretty good though.

Originally Posted by Chris T

Demanding? Funny, I must have missed the petition that went round demanding more shopping channels, more gaming channels and more text-us-and-we'll-gyrate-for-you channels. The digital 'revolution' consists of trillions upon trillions of bits of wasted data.

Funny? No its not.
There may have been petitions, I didn't see them. What I do see is people on this forum, and others asking when does this channel or that channel get launched? Thats a demand for channels which the providers have to weigh up.
Theres also the channels which don't have a demand but which are willing to pay over the odds for carriage. The providers are in the business to make money, so they have to provide the waste of bits channels.
I agree its not the way I want it to be either

---------- Post added at 20:01 ---------- Previous post was at 19:37 ----------

Originally Posted by Womble

Because they dumbed bown the digital image until it had less detail than analogue, thus creating a market for HD
If they didn't compress the digital streams to death, there wouldn't be such a great differance between Digital and HD!!

Hence my view we have been conned

Nobody thought 5 years ago that the bitrates for HD would get low enough to show in the home. They didn't make the HD market by over compressing. The HD market is a result of continuing improvements in compression. Well it is on Sky.