624 replies to this topic

[wheelz]

pc9, on 27 April 2012 - 08:09 PM, said:

Apologies - I should have added one qualification.  I'm watching SBS HD on VAST (Mpeg4) - picture quality is clean as a whistle.  

You must have a special magic vast box as i havent seen one thing on vast thats better PQ than FTA.

[pc9]

wheelz, on 27 April 2012 - 10:53 PM, said:

You must have a special magic vast box as i havent seen one thing on vast thats better PQ than FTA.

You need to get your eyes tested mate.  Firstly, lets get our facts right. VAST is FTA but delivered by satellite using DVB S2 (MPEG 4).  Just about everything on VAST is better than FTA terrestrial which at the moment is a mess due to compression.

[Ralfi]

Ok so we're not comparing identical FTA sources here. I'm a little less confused now..

Normal Mpeg2 FTA SBS HD isn't better than Foxtel HD.

[davmel]

Ralfi, on 28 April 2012 - 10:11 AM, said:

Normal Mpeg2 FTA SBS HD isn't better than Foxtel HD.

You need to qualify that statement a little more since Foxtel HD has acceptable HD for the Fox Sports HD channels, but channels like Starpics 2 HD are just a blurry low bitrate mess that are worse than any FTA HD channels.

[wheelz]

pc9, on 28 April 2012 - 06:49 AM, said:

You need to get your eyes tested mate.  Firstly, lets get our facts right. VAST is FTA but delivered by satellite using DVB S2 (MPEG 4).
  No sh*t

Just about everything on VAST is better than FTA terrestrial which at the moment is a mess due to compression.
Not my experience,maybe your fta terrestrial tuner isnt very good.The pq from the vast boxes isnt fantastic.

Edited by wheelz, 28 April 2012 - 01:38 PM.

[Ralfi]

davmel, on 28 April 2012 - 11:16 AM, said:

You need to qualify that statement a little more since Foxtel HD has acceptable HD for the Fox Sports HD channels, but channels like Starpics 2 HD are just a blurry low bitrate mess that are worse than any FTA HD channels.

Thanks for clearing it up.

[pc9]

Ralfi, on 28 April 2012 - 02:34 PM, said:

Thanks for clearing it up.

Just looking at tonights HD movie fare on Foxtel and FTA.  The best offering in terms of picture quality seems to be 'Traitor/2008 Guy Pearce, Don Cheedle 2008) on One. (Am watching on VAST but also very good on terrestrial here in Cairns) Absolutely smacks the crap out of anything on Foxtel HD. Pity this scenario is such a rarity but provides some hope for the future.

[BamBBBam]

That must be a local event - MotoGP live here from Spain.

[BigVic]

Watched the Manchester Derby last night and HD was "true" HD, no block-o-vision, just pure 1920x1080i HD taken from the world feed.

[Slattery]

Yes it looked good but it would've only been 8.8 mbps max on mpeg 4

[darockk]

davmel, on 28 April 2012 - 11:16 AM, said:

You need to qualify that statement a little more since Foxtel HD has acceptable HD for the Fox Sports HD channels, but channels like Starpics 2 HD are just a blurry low bitrate mess that are worse than any FTA HD channels.

Ah so you DO pay for foxtel, otherwise how would you know it's a blurry mess?

[davmel]

darockk, on 16 May 2012 - 09:47 AM, said:

Ah so you DO pay for foxtel, otherwise how would you know it's a blurry mess?

Get a clue. As stated previously, you don't need to be ripped off by Foxtel to measure the bitrates used for each channel. Foxtel hasn't got any of my money for a long time now and I've saved thousands of dollars during that time. If I want to be reminded of how bad that low bitrate quality looks like I can always have a laugh at a Foxtel sales kiosk or find some sucker that still pays for it.

[jsmith]

davmel, on 16 May 2012 - 04:35 PM, said:

Get a clue. As stated previously, you don't need to be ripped off by Foxtel to measure the bitrates used for each channel. Foxtel hasn't got any of my money for a long time now and I've saved thousands of dollars during that time. If I want to be reminded of how bad that low bitrate quality looks like I can always have a laugh at a Foxtel sales kiosk or find some sucker that still pays for it.

+ 1

Foxtel can KMA.

JSmith

[doodlefeatures]

Yep, we're all suckers.  Last night I sat down, turned my TV on and watched Grimm like an idiot when I could have turned on my PC, found a torrent, downloaded it, connected the PC to the TV and watched it.
On Sunday I watched the Rangers win game 7 live and in HD (it looked pretty good too, although I was watching the actual game and not the bitrate of the stream).
Oh, and what sort of sucker would have watched the climax of the Premier League sitting in their lounge chair flicking between the games.

[pc9]

davmel, on 16 May 2012 - 04:35 PM, said:

Get a clue. As stated previously, you don't need to be ripped off by Foxtel to measure the bitrates used for each channel. Foxtel hasn't got any of my money for a long time now and I've saved thousands of dollars during that time. If I want to be reminded of how bad that low bitrate quality looks like I can always have a laugh at a Foxtel sales kiosk or find some sucker that still pays for it.

Was trolling through Lyngsat last night and noticed that the Korean pay TV services on Asiasat 5 were running at 15 HD services per transponder (MPEG 4, ku band). Not sure if there are some other technology variables in place here or the what the PQ is like,  but 15 per transponder must seriously compromise bit rates and makes Foxtels (7 per transponder) look pretty decent (or am I missing something here).

Footnote: there are currently 2 MPEG 4 HD pay services on Palapa D (C band) which have been running FTA for several months (Nat Geo HD and ESPN Asia HD).  These services occupy a single transponder along with about 20 or so standard def channels,

The other night, the US baseball on ESPN on Palapa was running parallel with the same broadcast on Foxtel's version of ESPN HD so I was able to do a comparison.  The result was.............not much difference between the two platforms.   I guess I may not be comparing 'apples with apples' but it seems from these observations, that low bit rate over compression of pay TV services is not confined to Australia.

[DrP]

You'd need to state the capacity (transport rate or MHz+modulation which ever you prefer) of the transponders for it to make more sense.

Edited by DrP, 17 May 2012 - 12:49 PM.

[davmel]

pc9, on 17 May 2012 - 12:46 PM, said:

Was trolling through Lyngsat last night and noticed that the Korean pay TV services on Asiasat 5 were running at 15 HD services per transponder (MPEG 4, ku band). Not sure if there are some other technology variables in place here or the what the PQ is like, but 15 per transponder must seriously compromise bit rates and makes Foxtels (7 per transponder) look pretty decent (or am I missing something here).

You're missing the much wider satellite transponder bandwidth on Asiasat 5. Due to the higher symbol rate allowed my calculation of the total available payload bitrate per transponder is 78.6 Mbps compared to our 51.2 Mbps. Averaging that out with 15 channels leaves 5.24 Mbps each. Yuk. But then I wouldn't expect the Indian's to appreciate HD quality anyway.

[DansDans]

I dont think India is located in Korea

PS - i saw some very sharp high quality HD in Hong Kong though

Edited by DansDans, 17 May 2012 - 04:04 PM.

[davmel]

DansDans, on 17 May 2012 - 03:50 PM, said:

I dont think India is located in Korea

Neither do I. Asiasat 5 Dish TV pay tv offering is broadcast to India on the south Asia Ku band beam:
http://www.lyngsat.c.../dishasia5.html
http://www.asiasat.c...ection=3&lang=0

There are no Korean pay TV services on Asiasat 5, the 15 HD channels etc per transponder the previous poster was referring to was an Indian pay tv service.

[pc9]

davmel, on 17 May 2012 - 01:07 PM, said:

You're missing the much wider satellite transponder bandwidth on Asiasat 5. Due to the higher symbol rate allowed my calculation of the total available payload bitrate per transponder is 78.6 Mbps compared to our 51.2 Mbps. Averaging that out with 15 channels leaves 5.24 Mbps each. Yuk. But then I wouldn't expect the Indian's to appreciate HD quality anyway.

Ok - that makes sense.  I guess C BAND (Palapa D) is different again to our Ku services.

[SLE355]

This sucker thinks the cricket from England looks awesome

Edited by SLE355, 19 May 2012 - 06:02 PM.

[Sambo90]

Well if we all got it for free just imagine how much more advertising they'd have to throw at us. Gotta pay for that content somehow.

[peterca]

Another sucker here that loves watching the cricket and motor sports in glorious HD, something that FTA TV refuses to give us.

[Wags]

The cricket does look pretty good.

[BigVic]

State of Origin tonight looked good in native HD.