Sky picture quality

Charlie

I've Just had sky+ installed after dictching ntl digital. I heard that the sky digital picture would be better than ntl's, but i haven't noticed this and on some channels it seems worse. On RTE 1 the picture quality is really good, but sky sports 1 isn't crisp at all. It looks slighty grainy at times. I was watching king of queens on paramount and I definitley noticed that the picture quality(blocky and pixelated at times) was inferior compared to when I used to watch it on ntl digital. If the picture was inferior across the board on all the channels I'd know there was a problem, but like I said some channels are really crisp and clean (e.g. rte 1 and sky news), whilst others are comparable to analogue quality if not worse. Is this normal or is there something wrong wth my setup. BTW my signal strenght and quality are 80 and 60 % respectively, although I've heard that those readings are to be taken with a pinch of salt. Any feedback or advice would be greatly appreciated.

pH

Different channels use different bitrates, some look better than others.

That said:

American Live TV never looks great on my Sky+ system, must be the NTSC conversion and then MPEG2. For instance the NFL on Sky always seems to look particularly crap.

Normally Sky sports 1 is a high bandwidth channel and has a decent picture. Eurosport never looks great to me.

Charlie

Yeah American programmes have that washed over look alright, but it still wouldn't explain why sky sports was bad. I knew it was high bandwidth so I was expecting a great picture. The Arsenal Chelsea game looked great, but the newcastle bolton match looked terrible on football first.

ixtlan

Actually, I feel somewhat annoyed at the picture quality on Sky these days. I do think it has got worse. I notice this most on the Sky 1 shows like Stargate etc. You can see halos around objects, severe pixelation on fade-ins/outs and fast movements etc etc.

I'm thinking of complaining, but I'm sure I'll just get a form reply. Some cynics have suggested that Sky is deliberately reducing bitrate to make HD more appealing!

I can't comment on the sports but I suspect it's a general trend across channels. Only RTE and BCC appear to have good bitrates.

The only benefit is that Sky+ recordings take up less space. It's funny that on digitalspy many many months ago people laughed at a comment from Sky customer support given to some people that an "upgrade" would double the available space. Now I wonder if there was some truth in it... maybe it was a forewarning that the bitrates were dropping.

Ix.

Charlie

Gotta agree with you, Sky 1 isnt good at all, which is suprising seeing as it is a sky channel. You'd think they'd hog all the bit rate for their own channels. If they are purposely reducing bit rate to push HD on people it could seriously backfire. Ntl/Telewest in the u.k will be launching HD months before sky. Customers could switch to their HD service before sky's because they are sick of the "poor quality" on sky digital. However I would still find it hard to believe that they are reducing bit rate to push HD on people.

Mossy Monk

charlie mchugh wrote:

Ntl/Telewest in the u.k will be launching HD months before sky. Customers could switch to their HD service before sky's because they are sick of the "poor quality" on sky digital

what HD channels will be available for the cable service? agreed that some people may move for the HD service but you must remember that not everyone a) has a HD compatible tv or b) is in a cabled area

it should be made law that there should only be a certain amount of channels allowed per transponder as some transponders are ready to explode from having too much crammed into them

watty

Reasons for poor picture:

* RF feed instead of SCART
* SCART cable has all wires in one screen instead of audios and videos in individual screened cables
* PAL mode instead of RGB mode
* wrong SCART on TV for RGB (some SCARTs don't do RGB, check each on on a multscart TV)
* Bad external SCART switch (most short out pins or wired badly)
* No 16:9 switching or 4:3 crop mode (use 16:89 or 4:3L)
* Poor TVX bit rate
* Blocky picture due to dish alaignment or LNB skew (few installers seem to know about skew).
* Poor TV set!
* LCD or Plasma screen: Unless HD type they can only display ONE of the half dozen or so Satellite resolutions properly and if Ws only properly in WS! Otherwise you get artifacts.

Sparky

the more channels on a transponder the worse the picture gets, take a look at mtvs channels for example, ive had them on a 100inch screen and i might aswell project MP4 video.

Sky sports and sky movies seem to be the best quality of all the channels on sky.

Ive noticed sky one has gone to the dogs as of recent, especially when watching the simpsons, but sure with 3 sky numbered channels its no wonder.

But it wouldnt suprise me either, if the bitrate settings have been turned down a notch to indicate how HD will improve this and hence the gullable folk, saying ah ill get the HD so.

Mossy Monk

RTÉ looked pretty good the last time i saw them on a huge screen

Charlie

Mossy Monk wrote:

RTÉ looked pretty good the last time i saw them on a huge screen

I must concur. I would say that the best quality is rte, sky news, sky movies, in that order.