HD Tv from UPC??

Paulw · 26-11-2008 5:07pm #1

Does anyone know if/when NTL/UPC have any plans to use high def? I assume a new decoder would be needed (with HDMI output)?

I'd love to get some high def, without the need to go for Sky HD or such.

Mossy Monk · 26-11-2008 6:45pm

You may be waiting a while if you want HD. If you get a Freesat box then that is BBC and ITV HD for free.

flogen · 26-11-2008 7:53pm

At last check UPC were saying that a HD product would launch sometime between April and June 2009, so it's a fair bit away yet.

Bear in mind that the initial promise was to launch a HD product in early 2008 (or possibly even late 2007), so the vague date above should be taken with a pinch of salt.

barneyeile · 26-11-2008 8:59pm

HD is overrated though. You have to have a massive screen to see any real benefit. Over 40 inches is best and you might go blind with that size tv in a normal sitting room!

Mossy Monk · 27-11-2008 12:46am

For 1080p maybe but for 1080i and 720p a massive screen is not needed. To say HD is over rated is wrong imo.

murpho999 · 27-11-2008 1:51am

Mossy Monk wrote: »

For 1080p maybe but for 1080i and 720p a massive screen is not needed. To say HD is over rated is wrong imo.

Mossy, just wondering if you can expand on that. Hopefully I'll be switching to Sky soon (Can't stick UPC much longer) and I'm not sure whether to get HD or not.

I have a 40" LCD.

I have seen HD in other houses but TBH I really do not see any major difference to normal digital TV.

Do you have much experience of HD, and what benefits do you really get.

As for UPC getting HD, I'm sure they will eventually get it but as usual with UPC previous deadlines have been broken and now there is absolutely no sign of it coming. I assume that on top of network issues that deals must be done to carry HD channels.

watty · 27-11-2008 10:00am

Mossy Monk wrote: »

For 1080p maybe but for 1080i and 720p a massive screen is not needed. To say HD is over rated is wrong imo.

1080p and 1080i is IDENTICAL resolution on a slow moving or static picture. If you see much difference it's down to poor source.

People see less detail as objects move faster. That's the trick interlaced was invented to exploit and use half the transmission bandwidth. Unfortunately 30fps or 25fps is a little low for some people and motion interlace artefacts become visible especially on LCDs. If the display can't natively do interlace, it must de-interlace. Many cheap displays effectively degrade the 1080i to 540p.

Only the best progressive only native displays convert 1080i to 1080p without creating comb artefacts or degrading sharpness. Google Bob, Weave, De-interlacing etc to see the problems with native progressive display devices.

CRTS can have x10 the persistence of LCDs and yet cope well with movement. Unless an LCD backlight is strobed it's poor accentuating 1080i conversion issues.

CRTS can easily do Interlace or Progressive. LCD panels can't. An LCD at design/Manufacture is either Interlaced or Progressive. If an interlaced LCD can do 25fps and 100fps it can perfectly convert 1080p to 1080i at 25fps by normal interlacing or 50fps i / 100 Frames per sec interlaced by frame interpolation.

It's absolutely not possible to convert 1080i to 1080p perfectly. Sadly most LCDs are progressive and thus always degrade 1080i in some fashion.

It depends on your eyesight, quality of 40" LCD (needs to be 1080 line not 768) and viewing distance and your viewing interests as there is little true HD content even on Satellite. We get BBC HD and not yet seen much to want to watch. We have to sit close to a Large Computer CRT to get any advantage as I have not yet bought the 36" to 72" 2:1 zoom projector yet

I have access to a largish (37"?) HD LCD, but it's not great quality. It out performs ordinary LCDs for SD programming, nearly as good as CRT, but as it's 1366 x 768 it's not compelling compared with sitting close to 21" 1920x1200 CRT for HD!

Mossy Monk · 27-11-2008 1:47pm

murpho999 wrote: »

Do you have much experience of HD, and what benefits do you really get.

I use a PS3 to play Bluray movies and the difference between that and normal tv is amazing. I have also watched HD broadcasts at a friends house and also in the pub and there is a big difference.

watty · 27-11-2008 2:13pm

This suggests that many HD broadcasts on TV are upscaled SD or 720p (Sky particularly).

Also the specs of the gear used to watch HD TV may be poorer than your TV / PS3 setup.

I'd be more inclined to belive that an Average TV program in HD isn't compelling compared with a $120M cinema production. The real value at the minute of HD is indeed suitable BD movies and Gaming!

DingDong · 27-11-2008 2:37pm

watty wrote: »

I'd be more inclined to belive that an Average TV program in HD isn't compelling compared with a $120M cinema production. The real value at the minute of HD is indeed suitable BD movies and Gaming!

Spot on Watty. When I was in the US recently most of the channels were HD and to be honest it didn't blow me away it was a little nicer but in no way was it the difference between black and white and colour tv. HD is great on my xbox, games look very nice but I was a bit disappointed with HD TV broadcasts. I wouldn't be willing to pay a premium for what channels are currently on offer to us in Ireland(sat only) maybe if the bulk of channels were HD I would.

d8player · 27-11-2008 2:53pm

So for a 37" TV is there any point buying a 1080p over a 1080i? Will blue ray videos for example look different on them?

Paulw · 27-11-2008 3:52pm

I have a 40" Sony (1080i) and love watching HD on blu-ray discs. Many blu ray films are only 720p anyway, but their quality (sound and picture) is better than SD DVD or TV.

As has been said, you'll do very well to notice the difference between 1080i and 1080p, unless it's a very large screen, you're very close to it, and it has very high speed action.

I'd love to see some HD TV, and don't want a dish, so UPC is my only way for now.

Here's the response I got from UPC -
----
We are in the process of carrying out field tests on the High Definition service but unfortunately we do not have a completion date for this or a date for when this will become available. Should there be any changes we will notify customers in advance.

----

I guess we have to continue to wait for quality high def.

Mossy Monk · 27-11-2008 4:03pm

Paulw wrote: »

Many blu ray films are only 720p anyway

They are?

mjsmyth · 27-11-2008 5:30pm

Just my view on it...

I only have a 32" HD Ready TV. A cheap and cheerful Beko one at that, but I love it (it will be the last TV I buy for the forseeable future unless things pick up jobs wise!!!).

I was sceptical about what HD would look like on it when compared to SD or DVD. Games from my PS3 sure did look good, Transformers looked good, but still I was unimpressed.

I got some HD footage of the MTV Awards, particularly the Christina Aguilera performance and was simply blown away. The sharpness of the picture was incredible. I was sold on HD.

Anyway, even on my 32" tv I can clearly see the difference between HD and SD.

MJ

SteM · 28-11-2008 2:20pm

We've a 32" Sammy in the bedroom. My own opinion is that BBC HD is noticeably different to BBC SD and ITV HD is MUCH better than ITV SD on it.

Charlie-Bravo · 28-11-2008 3:49pm

As a UPC didital MMDS subscriber, I am too interested in when HD will appear. I have a 17" HD ready and 37" Full HD TV. I want to put them to good use. It may be a while longer to get the HD when, that's when I said, they roll out the HD service as I am on the MMDS service.

At the moment UTV is very grainy on the screen however, RTE are much clearer. Not sure if there is some degradation of the picture as it travels from the UK, via whatever satellites, to UPCs distribution centre and whether it is here where the image is somewhat distorted. This is then transferred onto the HD TV.

In the meantime, and sorry for hi-jacking the thread, is there any way of upscaling between the UPC set-top box and the TV as I believe the TVs I have are crap at upscaling.?!!

Irishdudedave · 28-11-2008 3:57pm

I think the chance of them being able to fit HD channels on MMDS is very slim...not enough bandwidth!!

paulm17781 · 28-11-2008 4:35pm

astrofluff wrote: »

In the meantime, and sorry for hi-jacking the thread, is there any way of upscaling between the UPC set-top box and the TV as I believe the TVs I have are crap at upscaling.?!!

Get a decent amp. A friend of mine has a good Onkyo amp, it has a very good upscaler. It cost about 1,400 euro though.

Charlie-Bravo · 28-11-2008 5:04pm

Irishdudedave wrote: »

I think the chance of them being able to fit HD channels on MMDS is very slim...not enough bandwidth!!

Thanks for the info...

So where does that leave UPC customers on MMDS? In terms of Bandwidth, how many standard digital channels is equal to one HD channel?

techdiver · 28-11-2008 5:11pm

Paulw wrote: »

Many blu ray films are only 720p anyway

This is incorrect.

Typically Blu-ray movies are all 1080p encoded either in MPEG-4/AVC or VC-1.

The lowest ratio I've seen is 1080i on some "low budget", blu-ray titles.

Check http://www.blu-ray.com/ for the specifications on all movies such as Resolution, Codec, and Sound.

John Dough · 28-11-2008 5:44pm

I bit the bullet and Santa came early with my 40incher Full Hd 1080P LCD with 100hz and to say that blu ray discs are stunning is a understatement even my old dvd collection upscaled to 1080p are terrific.
However downside is the cable channels now look dreadful in comparison so will stick with my FTA sat channels instead as they are much crisper.As for HD from UPC you can forget about it in my opinion as they can not even service the analogue signal properly.

techdiver · 28-11-2008 6:01pm

John Dough wrote: »

As for HD from UPC you can forget about it in my opinion as they can not even service the analogue signal properly.

+1

I recently emailed UPC asking about HD and I received the following response:

Dear Mr *******,
Thank you for your E-Mail.
Apologies for the delay in responding to you.
Unfortunately we have no plans to launch HD TV at present but when it does come available it will be widely advertised.
It has been passed on to the Management team to get this product available as soon as possible.
If you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us on our freephone number 1908 or email us on customer.support@upc.ie
Kind regards,
Catriona
Customer Support Team Chorus ntl

This is on the back of the first initial claim that they will roll out HD in the second half of 2007 - http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single8370 and then claiming the second half of this year - http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2008/02/03/story30112.asp .

It is essentially embarrassing that these claims are consistently made when they have no intention of fulfilling the commitment. These claims are only made to try to hold on to customers who are considering moving to SKY, which is what I would do if I didn't live in an apartment complex with an archaic policy on Satellite dishes.

paulm17781 · 01-12-2008 9:58am

techdiver wrote: »

+1
This is on the back of the first initial claim that they will roll out HD in the second half of 2007 - http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single8370 and then claiming the second half of this year - http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2008/02/03/story30112.asp .

Thanks for the links. Last time I posted that info here (this year) people started complaining that I didn't have sources (as I don't take note of newspaper articles from a year ago). Nice to see I didn't imagine that.

So, they'll have it out by the end of 2007. I can't wait.

Gumbo · 04-12-2008 8:09pm

techdiver wrote: »

+1

I recently emailed UPC asking about HD and I received the following response:

This is on the back of the first initial claim that they will roll out HD in the second half of 2007 - http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single8370 and then claiming the second half of this year - http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2008/02/03/story30112.asp .

It is essentially embarrassing that these claims are consistently made when they have no intention of fulfilling the commitment. These claims are only made to try to hold on to customers who are considering moving to SKY, which is what I would do if I didn't live in an apartment complex with an archaic policy on Satellite dishes.[/QUOTE]

you need to get together with your neighbours and the management company to discuss that option as sky now have a package for apartments. i think its some sort of communial dish, but there would want to be a few intrested to justify it.

techdiver · 04-12-2008 8:33pm

kceire wrote: »

you need to get together with your neighbours and the management company to discuss that option as sky now have a package for apartments. i think its some sort of communial dish, but there would want to be a few intrested to justify it.

Yea, there is a communal dish scheme for apartments, but for 1 install you need at least 4 people within close proximity to each other to avail. Despite the fact that many people will object to dishes being erected, especially when the suggestion comes from me when I'm only a tenant.

We have all been contacted by SKY already to this effect. I expressed my interest, but sadly not enough other people did.

bk · 05-12-2008 2:16am

techdiver wrote: »

Yea, there is a communal dish scheme for apartments, but for 1 install you need at least 4 people within close proximity to each other to avail. Despite the fact that many people will object to dishes being erected, especially when the suggestion comes from me when I'm only a tenant.

We have all been contacted by SKY already to this effect. I expressed my interest, but sadly not enough other people did.

Just FYI, Sky are currently doing this in my apartment building. I never registered my interest, nor do I think most people, yet there has been three Sky Vans at my apartment building on and off for the last three weeks and they have run the satellite cable down to the outside of each and every apartment, even those that haven't signed up for Sky (they don't run the cable into the apartment, just to the outside of the apartment).

The point being it looks like Sky are going to lots of trouble, so they obviously want us to sign up, so keep trying and get onto your management company about it.

mayordenis · 05-12-2008 2:21am

40" Bravia (top end) and sky digital HD (the full works)

Really only watch the odd movie, and documentary. The main reason I have all this is for Sky Sports HD and it is completely ****ing immense for watchin any game they have HD for (all the prem games they show live).

It's sooooo good, the comparison is pointless it's like the difference between reading a book that is brand new from your local bookstore, and trying to read a book that is on fire while being stabbed in the throat.

HD Tv from UPC??

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