16 replies to this topic

[maccy]

Hi all, has anyone got sky HD would like to know how good the picture is and is the sound any better. also what is the difference between a hd ready tv and a 1080 hd tv. thanks richard

[ady]

Hi all, has anyone got sky HD would like to know how good the picture is and is the sound any better. also what is the difference between a hd ready tv and a 1080 hd tv. thanks richard

about £200 a year

Soz mate, couldn't resist...

PS who's the bird?

[lincs1]

who's the bird?

looks abit like dazza looking at those bristols m8 lol

[maccy]

about £200 a year

Soz mate, couldn't resist...

PS who's the bird?

thats the girlfriend. what ever you do don't tell the wife.




her name is Keeley Hazell best boobs on page 3

[ady]

thats the girlfriend. what ever you do dont tell the wife.




her name is Keeley Hazell best boobs on page 3

hahaha nice One Rich.......

To be serious now.....most TV shops (the One in Woodingdean does) will show you a HD TV working alongside a 'standard' One.

Myself i'd hold on mate.....the prices are coming down and down by the Month bud.

[duplu]

The picture from Sky HD is pretty good on normal channels and outstanding on the HD channels. There are only 8 or 9 HD channels, 2 movies channels and the rest are mostly documentary channels. The HD box upscales the normal channels to either 720p or 1080i, depending on your box settings (1080i is default I believe). I found it difficult to watch my HD TV with a normal SKY box. The picture was blocky and sport was just impossible.

A HD ready TV only needs to meet the 720p specification, eg, 1024 x 768 (~750,000 pixels) would do. A 1080p HD TV or True HD is 1920 x 1080 (~ 2,000,000 pixels). For Sky HD either will be fine as they don't transmit a 1080p signal. You only really need 1080p for Blu-Ray disks or HD-DVD disks or some of the PS3 games such as Virtua Tennis 3 can use it.

I have a Sony KDL46W2000U 1080P LCD and the picture from a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD disk is nothing less than amazing.

Sound on Sky HD is no different as I believe it is still Dolby Digital.

[Zoltar]

SKY HD is a waste of money. The image clarity and quality is still less than when SKY first went digital. This is down to the fact that SKY's HD channels are compressed because theres so many channels over a limited number of transponders or frequencies. It wasn't like that when SKY first went digital as there were far fewer channels over this same amount of transponders so the first broadcasts were not compressed, hence better/full quality. You can see the effects of compression when theres lots happening on screen. Like footballers vanishing on screen. Lots of rain and snow on screen and the image turns blocky. Or the lottery. When the machines with the balls are spinning, watch how they go terribly blocky. All as a result of compression. Making the bandwidth smaller so they can add more channels.

Personally, I'd give HD television a wide berth at least until other broadcast formats come in, like Freeview ect... HD, for optimum image quality cannot/must not be compressed. HD DVD though is a different story. Full image bandwidth means full quality outstanding images.

[mrgspot]

SKY HD is a waste of money. The image clarity and quality is still less than when SKY first went digital. This is down to the fact that SKY's HD channels are compressed because theres so many channels over a limited number of transponders or frequencies. It wasn't like that when SKY first went digital as there were far fewer channels over this same amount of transponders so the first broadcasts were not compressed, hence better/full quality. You can see the effects of compression when theres lots happening on screen. Like footballers vanishing on screen. Lots of rain and snow on screen and the image turns blocky. Or the lottery. When the machines with the balls are spinning, watch how they go terribly blocky. All as a result of compression. Making the bandwidth smaller so they can add more channels.

Personally, I'd give HD television a wide berth at least until other broadcast formats come in, like Freeview ect... HD, for optimum image quality cannot/must not be compressed. HD DVD though is a different story. Full image bandwidth means full quality outstanding images.

Sorry compost, dont no what your watching, but I disagree totally. I have had SkyHD for nearlly a year now, I started a post on this months ago. The picture quality is outstanding, the sport is fantastic, and if your into planet earth etc, then there are breathtaking pictures on BBCHD.

However.... its a total fookin rip off, certainly not worth £10 a month. More channels are needed to begin to even warrant this. If your looking for plus points, the extra sky + space is great and picture quality is superb( dont be put off by Tesco demoing HD on a £399 tv), however very pricy at the momment. I totally disagree with your point on image quality, this does really rely on your TV. I have the Phillips 36 PF5612 HD black. retailed at £1600 and was the best phillips on the market.

G

[mrgspot]

Compost, when has the lottery ever been shown in HD, It has never been on BBCHD,

[Jimmy_mac]

Compost, when has the lottery ever been shown in HD, It has never been on BBCHD,

he's not stating that its on BC HD

He's pointing out that the signal even on normal service is degrading and can be seen on the lottery.

He is right though that the compression means that Sky HD is of poor quality, if you have seen HD over in the states or true HD from other sources you can see a noticeable difference between that and Sky HD. Theres no doubting that its better than standard sky but it just doesnt seem to be a worthwhile purchase at the moment

[dtrmad2004]

It doesnt need to be on HD, what hes saying is all channels are compressed so you see the blockiness. I know what hes on about because ive seen it happen so many times.

EDIT: jim got in there before me




Andy

[Bencrest]

he's not stating that its on BC HD

He's pointing out that the signal even on normal service is degrading and can be seen on the lottery.

He is right though that the compression means that Sky HD is of poor quality, if you have seen HD over in the states or true HD from other sources you can see a noticeable difference between that and Sky HD. Theres no doubting that its better than standard sky but it just doesnt seem to be a worthwhile purchase at the moment

Depends on how much you pay for the HD Box. We paid £100 for ours last year (Staff discount type offer), and you get a MUCH better Sky picture through the HD box - if you have an HD ready TV. Simple reason being :

Rather than your telly trying to upscale a 576i picture (which tellys are shite at doing), your telly is receiving a perfect 720/1080i signal, at native resolution, and doesn't have to perform any (or only minor) scaling.

If you want a pretty generalised example - set your LCD computer screen, which is designed to run at 1280x1024, 1440x900, e.t.c. - at 800x600. Because the monitor is being fed a signal of a poorer resolution, and not it's native resolution, it attempts to 'stretch' a 600 line picture onto say 900 or 1024 lines. It does this by 'guessing' lines, and 'doubling' lines.

Sky HD removes this aspect. Yes, the Sky compression will always be an issue, but I honestly believe it's worth getting the HD box even if you don't subscribe, if you have an HD-Ready TV and don't want to see nasty, distorted, badly upscaled pictures.

If you need an example pic I've got my HD Ready Philips 32" I picked up for under £300 about a year ago, and my SkyHD feeds it through both Scart and HDMI(using an HDMI>DVD-D+RCA adaptor). No comparison.

[mrgspot]

totally agree with you Ben, £100 is not bad for a box which is future proof, stores shite loads of content and as a bonus BBCHD for free.

Apologies for the confusion earlier in my recent posts, about the lottery... God damn wish I learned to read..

[duplu]

He is right though that the compression means that Sky HD is of poor quality, if you have seen HD over in the states or true HD from other sources you can see a noticeable difference between that and Sky HD. Theres no doubting that its better than standard sky but it just doesnt seem to be a worthwhile purchase at the moment

It is important to remember that all HD content is compressed in some way. For a Blu-ray or HD-DVD not to be compressed you would need just under 170Gb per hour for 1080p uncompressed and a double-sided blu-ray disk only stores 50Gb. It is the quality of the compression that is important and I think Sky HD does a pretty good job. I believe the box has an MPEG-4 decoder built in.

...and don't get me started on True-DTS sound or uncompressed audio. We are talking 20Mbps compared to Dolby Digital's 2-3Mbps. I'm just waiting for the Sony STRDA5300ES and my overtime payment to be able to play it!

[duplu]

totally agree with you Ben, £100 is not bad for a box which is future proof, stores shite loads of content and as a bonus BBCHD for free.

Apologies for the confusion earlier in my recent posts, about the lottery... God damn wish I learned to read..

...not forgetting Sky Anytime as well, which is pretty handy. Apparently this is what is stored on the other half of the 300Gb hard drive. Many a time have I found a nice HD program or film on Anytime.

[Zoltar]

Glad my point was eventually picked up on.

One thing that puzzles me is wether HD will become the norm. It's great for games and HD/BluRay DVD's and reasonable on SKY but I don't think theres enough services available to tempt the average TV buff on the street to upgrade to HD. Technically, we have HD tellys but they aren't being supported as they should. Freeview needs to go HD.

If SKY are serious about HD, they too have a dilemma. In order to 'push' the technology, they need to be aiming to have most if not all their services available on HD. And with already too many channels to cope with, how will the system cope with that without even more noticable compression.

Mathematics isn't SKY's strongpoint. The channels to transponder theory works like broadband ratios. The more people sharing your pipe, the more chance you have of slower speeds. Just that with SKY, there isn't an issue of not everyone being online at the same time like with broadband.

No1. The launch of SKY digital.
Less than 100 channels and around 100 transponders. With this average 1 to 1 ratio, compression wasn't needed. Simple full bandwidth streaming gave 100% clarity, hence my point the SKY Digital's launch channels had better quality images than HD does now.

No2. The launch of SKY HD.
We are looking at hundreds of channels now but still have those 100 or so transponders. Lets say SKY have 200 channels. 200 into 100 means a 50% compression. And that would only apply if SKY kept their system 100% full. They have space for other channels so instead of a 2 to 1 ratio with a 50% compression rate, they will be pushing more like a 33% compression rate. I'm under the impression that HD runs at a more than average 50% compression. But this still loses a small amount of fine detail. Stuff that the average eye won't miss but the real technophobe, he'll notice these changes. (Something I recognise on an almost daily basis with CCTV systems).

At the end of the day, the lower this compression rate goes, the more information or fine detail that is lost in the process. Information that cannot be recovered. Theres no way around it short of SKY dumping all their doubled up channels like their +1 stuff. And all the nonsense no one gives a shit about.

[Geddy]

Don't forget just because it is on a HD channel does not automatically mean it is in HD....... gggggrrrrrrrrrr bastards