Looks Like TVNZ 1&2 are going HD post Olympics

[paulw]

I've noticed over the past few days that both CH1 and 2 are both doing program promos for up coming programs with the tag "In HD where available" so I guess that means both are going to be in HD in a few weeks.. Hope that have some content to justify it..

[Digital]

Fingers crossed, they better not only have 2 HD programmes a week like TV3...

[sub]

Fingers crossed, they better not only have 2 HD programmes a week like TV3...I've heard that will be the case until early next year when their new playout infrastructure is complete. For now it'll just be a scattering of shows.

[grolschie]

Will the upconverted SD picture look significantly better at 720p than it currently does?

[paulw]

Will the upconverted SD picture look significantly better at 720p than it currently does?

That's currently what is happening. The shows are upconverted to 720P..

[grolschie]

That's currently what is happening. The shows are upconverted to 720P..
Ah ok. So does TV ONE look any better presently on DVB-T than DVB-S? I notice on DVB-S that some programs look real good e.g. Coro st.

[allstarnz]

the Olympics look much sharper in HD on Freeview|HD than DVB-S on Freeview. Good for sports like hockey :)

[coolvibe]

Ah ok. So does TV ONE look any better presently on DVB-T than DVB-S? I notice on DVB-S that some programs look real good e.g. Coro st.

I have SKY and can confirm that the Freeview DVB-T and DVB-S signal from tv1 and tv2 is far superior to the broadcast from SKY satellite, even in SD.

The main reason for this is sky use old school mpeg2 it is no where near as good as h.264 (advanced video codec AVC) compression.
Sky is constantly changing compression (data/rate). Look at the HD adds super quality yet the main content of programs at times looks like 1980s vhs quality in comparison to todays real standards.

The trade off is simple more channels=less quality/detail. HD channels on satellite= even less quality for the old sd channels. look at the living channel for a really bad compression ratio.

If all digital transmissions where using h.264(AVC) rather than the old mpeg2 standard, there would be no perceivable difference between skys SD and upscaled SD that we are seeing now on a freeview hd box. Unless sky tweak the bit rate to allow more channels.

Yes Coro st. does look much better it is coming from a good quality source. Sky relay that same signal and look what you end up with. The standard pal terrestrial tv signal does not have the bandwidth to give a high horizontal resolution picture. vertical is fixed at 625 lines of which some are used for teletext and v blanking etc, however it can handle high speed action without artifacts.

Each time you see some one on tv with a vertical pin striped shirt go multicolor thats the limit of the old system. (colour sub carrier frequency)

Freeview SD and HD Good quality
SKY SD Bad quality
I have not seen SKY HD yet and don't intend to upgrade unless we get the sci fi channel in HD.

Dave


PS my system currently is a pc with hauppauge 4000 pvr card that has dvb-t and dvb-s inputs.
still waiting for my visionone box.

[allstarnz]

coolvibe - you forgot that Sky are cheap, and recompress the TVNZ signal down, so they can jam more programming on a transponder.

TVNZ via Sky runs about 3.5-4mb/s, as opposed on the Freeview mux, which is more about 6-6.5mb/s

[coolvibe]

coolvibe - you forgot that Sky are cheap, and recompress the TVNZ signal down, so they can jam more programming on a transponder.

TVNZ via Sky runs about 3.5-4mb/s, as opposed on the Freeview mux, which is more about 6-6.5mb/s

Yes sky are cheap I thought I implied that though:;):
check out the interlace bug on the boxes. You can usually see it at the top or bottom of the screen when text or a logo is present. The effect is a character gets its horizontal lines swapped vertically. You cant really see it for a normal picture but when they use transparency with the logos its stands out a mile. LOL
cheap cheap