13 replies to this topic

[blacklikesunday]

i have posted a somewhat similar thread in the past but i have to have another little moan.

i'm talking about 'turbo' 'science' 'health' and 'viewers choice' in particular. the quality of picture is unacceptable imo. its total rubbish!
i rarely ever watch anything on those channels anymore because it hurts my eyes. there is absolutely no sharpness in the picture at all.

as for watching a football game on 'viewers choice', what a waste of time. once you enlarge to fullscreen the quality is crap. so obviously i never bother anymore.

no doubt foxtel get so many calls about this type of thing and they wouldn't take any notice of my complaint.
like i said earlier, it is unacceptable.
some may say just don't watch those channels. thats not the point however. they are available for everyone so you'd think they could do something about the quality.

one reason i decided to pay for foxtel was because of the football on it. but as the SD quality is so bad i simply don't try to watch anymore.
i'm surprized that there can't be some improvement at least. in this day and age is this how good it gets?
someone said that what i see on these channels is exactly the same as i used to watch on the old fashioned tellys. i totally disagree.
there was a certain amount of sharpness to the pictures even back then.

[nbound]

Its a tradeoff so they can squeeze more channels into limited space. The only way pix will get better is if they lease more transponders on the satellite (if any are even available), or if they use more efficient encoding (which may require at least a firmware upgrade to consumers boxes, or even a hardware upgrade [nex boxes]).


You may see some improvement when Optus 10 is launched (assuming its to be colocated with C1/D3), or they may just add extra stations.

Edited by nbound, 01 April 2012 - 09:39 AM.

[DrP]

The discovery channels always have been crap quality.  It has more with how the content gets to Foxtel than the bit rate at which Foxtel transmits them.

[cinema mad]

"someone said that what i see on these channels is exactly the same as i used to watch on the old fashioned tellys. i totally disagree.
there was a certain amount of sharpness to the pictures even back then."

I Dont know what the person you were refuring to in the above comment was Smokein to say that,
I can say They must have been blined

[davmel]

nbound, on 01 April 2012 - 09:37 AM, said:

Its a tradeoff so they can squeeze more channels into limited space. The only way pix will get better is if they lease more transponders on the satellite (if any are even available), or if they use more efficient encoding (which may require at least a firmware upgrade to consumers boxes, or even a hardware upgrade [nex boxes]).

There are a large number of unused transponders on Optus D3 but Foxtel are just too tight arse to pay for them. Foxtel cares only about profits, not viewer picture quality. Vote with your wallet people, cancel your Foxtel subscription if you don't like the picture quality. Stop whinging here because the sh*t picture quality is nothing new and Foxtel have no excuse any more other than losing some profit to provide you with better picture quality.
Oh, and you can't add H.264 video decoding capability with a firmware upgrade. You need a substantially more capable new decoding chipset to decode H.264 compared to MPEG-2. Once Foxtel has moved all subscribers over to current generation IQ decoders they can migrate to H.264 broadcasting for SD channels, but that'll only mean Foxtel will lease fewer transponders and save money rather than improve picture quality, because again profits are more important than picture quality.

brent ford, on 01 April 2012 - 03:45 AM, said:

someone said that what i see on these channels is exactly the same as i used to watch on the old fashioned tellys. i totally disagree.
there was a certain amount of sharpness to the pictures even back then.

Yep, you're totally correct, unlike the loon that posted something above about "Smokein".
Good quality clean analogue TV from the metro stations had much more sharper detail than has EVER been available with digital SD MPEG-2 broadcasts (even up to 7 Mbps bitrate).
I used to have screen shots that showed the difference between analogue and SD digital broadcasts and you could clearly see all the fine detail like wrinkles etc which is completely missing in MPEG-2 SD broadcasts due to the low pass blur pre-filtering.

DrP, on 01 April 2012 - 12:02 PM, said:

The discovery channels always have been crap quality.  It has more with how the content gets to Foxtel than the bit rate at which Foxtel transmits them.

That's correct. Discovery Asia in Singapore sends some seriously low quality garbage out of their broadcast centre which Foxtel can do nothing about. That's why Foxtel had no choice but to accept the non-widescreen garbage for so long and also match their lower than full D1 resolutions (Discovery Asia only encoded in crappy 480x576i or 544x576i resolution).
As the saying goes, you can't polish a turd, and we have had nothing but sh*t being sent to us down the sewer from Singapore at Discovery Asia.
Frankly, Discovery Asia should piss off and we should be allowed to get our content direct from Discovery HQ in the U.S.. That'll be the only way we'll ever see all the other Discovery HD channels in HD. Or of course you could just dump Foxtel and download all the Discovery shows in HD from the usual unofficial sources.

[cinema mad]

& Back at ya Davmel,
Im A loon Ha ha ha, according to you (mr perfect) anyone who has foxtell is A Dic***
or is it you cant afford it...

  I think its time you grow up & act your 30+ years, little man

Edited by cinema mad, 04 April 2012 - 02:38 AM.

[BamBBBam]

davmel, on 03 April 2012 - 03:37 PM, said:

Foxtel cares only about profits,

As opposed to every other company, I presume..

[davmel]

cinema mad, on 04 April 2012 - 02:18 AM, said:

or is it you cant afford it...

No problem there. I choose not to reward people or companies that treat me like crap by feeding them money.

Quote

I think its time you grow up & act your 30+ years, little man

A fool and their money are soon parted regardless of their age.

BamBBBam, on 04 April 2012 - 08:54 AM, said:

As opposed to every other company, I presume..

You might be shocked to discover that some companies listen to what their customers want and improve their service or products to meet the needs of their customers. But of course that rarely happens in monopoly situations (e.g. Foxtel) with exclusive content broadcast rights.

[BamBBBam]

davmel, on 04 April 2012 - 03:01 PM, said:

You might be shocked to discover that some companies listen to what their customers want and improve their service or products to meet the needs of their customers.

They do that to increase current or future profits.. that's all it's ever been about.

[Ralfi]

Why is there a need to personally insult Davmel? I appreciate his technical input - gives me an alternate view to those who just heap praise on Foxtel all the time.....

When I'm thinking of purchasing something, I like to know its negatives more than its positives & Davmel provides them albeit arguably in an overly strong manner on some occasions. Doesn't mean those on Foxtel need to get all touchy & superior thinking others who aren't rushing in to pay Murdoch more money, can't afford the service........

Edited by Ralfi, 05 April 2012 - 12:36 PM.

[pc9]

Ralfi, on 05 April 2012 - 05:43 AM, said:

Why is there a need to personally insult Davmel? I appreciate his technical input - gives me an alternate view to those who just heal praise on Foxtel all the time.....

When I'm thinking of purchasing something, I like to know its negatives more than its positives & Davmel provides them albeit arguably in an overly strong manner on some occasions. Doesn't mean those on Foxtel need to get all touchy & superior thinking others who aren't rushing in to pay Murdoch more money, can't afford the service........

Agree - i subscribe to Foxtel because I refuse to watch 7's attrocioius standard definition AFL broadcasts, but don't get miffed by Davmel's remarks about Foxtel.  He is drawing attention to a very legitimate issue and that is increasing compression which has affected picture quality.  I make an informed decision to subscribe to Foxtel because its high definition services offer a watchable picture of AFL, NRL and other sports. That doesn't mean that I will continue to do so in the event that Foxtel further increase compression or one day, 7 will drage itself into the 21st century and provide high definition coverage of AFL.

[cinema mad]

Ralfi, on 05 April 2012 - 05:43 AM, said:

Why is there a need to personally insult Davmel? I appreciate his technical input - gives me an alternate view to those who just heal praise on Foxtel all the time.....

When I'm thinking of purchasing something, I like to know its negatives more than its positives & Davmel provides them albeit arguably in an overly strong manner on some occasions. Doesn't mean those on Foxtel need to get all touchy & superior thinking others who aren't rushing in to pay Murdoch more money, can't afford the service........

Well maybe because he has A habbit of personally insulting others (members), such as in this very thread ..
Theres no denying Davmel is very knowledgeable thus Appreciated but personal attacks wont be tolerated by most people ..

Edited by cinema mad, 05 April 2012 - 11:51 AM.

[davmel]

cinema mad, on 05 April 2012 - 11:48 AM, said:

Well maybe because he has A habbit of personally insulting others (members), such as in this very thread ..
Theres no denying Davmel is very knowledgeable thus Appreciated but personal attacks wont be tolerated by most people ..

Too many people in society these days are so heavily wrapped up in cotton wool from our nanny state that it seems we can no longer discuss anything in public without offending someone. Pathetic.
Let's all sit around debating with colourful euphemisms whilst the corporations screw every last cent out of us and give us nothing but crap in return. It's not the fault of Foxtel that their quality continues to deteriorate, it's the fault of the customers that continue to pay them to do it!
So sorry if I insult or offend you but if you're still a customer of Foxtel then you're the reason why Foxtel has turned to crap.

[cinema mad]

Davmel while I totally agree with most of your above post (not that my opinion means anything), I just didn't appreciate being called A loon..

I was merely replying in my own sarcastic way to the OP
that" I agree with the OPs post..
":what i see on these channels is exactly the same as i used to watch on the old fashioned tellys. i totally "disagree" ..

Which i replied
(I Dont know what the person you were refuring to in the above comment was Smokein to say that,
I can say They must have been blined )

in other words
Foxtel's SD pic quality is not as good as the old Analog Terrestrial SD format that was used by old fashioned tellys, including DTV back when it was introduced ..