Hotbird Reception

Wex1

My friend just got complete free to air package, 3 sats, to 2 Sony Bravia LCD's HD. Astra 1 and Astra 2 are quite an acceptable quality - but the Hotbird is totally crap quality, all pixels and worse on the 32 inch than on the 28 inch. Been told that the fact that it's analogue signal on HD TV and that's why the quality is so bad. Anyone come across this? Have I been ripped off?

Tony

Sounds like theres a problem, hotbird should be just as good as Astra 1

Supercell

Maybe there's a large building or tree affecting signal in that direction ?

Tony

Longfield wrote:

Maybe there's a large building or tree affecting signal in that direction ?

If there is that should have been evident to the installer

byte

By analogue signal, I assume it's not Scarted to the TV's but instead using an RF lead?

Is all 3 dishes using the one receiver with a DiSEqC switch, or have you 3 seperate receivers?

Wex1

oK, I'm not too sure about finer details but its not scarted, there are 2 dishes, one with 2 receivers and the other with just the one, coming to the box that's connected to the 32 inch and then it's just connected to the 2nd tv through the standard cable. Can only change the stations on the 32 inch and watch whatever's on this on the other! This whole system cost my friend a fair few quid and he's really not happy with the quality of image. He has an old Sony tv in his old abode that has far better quality on free to air system. Some of the stations from Hotbird are like a really bad low res web video!!! Any advice would be great - or is this really the quality. Installers are blaming it on the TV!!!

Tony

Ok just to be clear is the quality Ok on the 32 inch IE any pixellation?

Wex1

Tony wrote:

Ok just to be clear is the quality Ok on the 32 inch IE any pixellation?

Tony, image quality crap on 32 inch - every bit as bad as 28 inch

Wex1

One other thing - no large trees or big buildings can be blocking, its a detatched bungalow at least 10 - 15 m from any buildings

Tony

OK if its connected via scart as it should be then problem lies with the satellite set up as far as I can tell from what you have described.

Wex1

Do we have any comeback with the installer, have paid them - they said the reason the quality is bad is because of the Bravia. Did they just not do the job properly or could there be any truth in what they say?

And if they didn't do the job right - what the hell can we do now???

Tony

Since I'm in the business myself I dont think it would be right for me to answer either of your questions, maybe somebody else can weigh in.

lifebook

Ok in order to help you will need to know a few things,

If you are using a twin feed LNB?

What is your signal quality AND signal Strength

Your signal to noise ratio or SNR?

Your Bit error Rate BER?

Some of the channels on hotbird are using really congested transponders thus they are heavily compressed Palco is one of these.

My first port of call would be to buy a good lnb 0.3dB or better.

Tony

lifebook wrote:

My first port of call would be to buy a good lnb 0.3dB or better.

My first port of call would be to get the installer back to fix it.

Emerson

I think y'all are barking up the wrong tree.

IMO, many hotbird channels are web resolutions. The satellite is full of amateur and budget channels.

If I'm not mistaken, the guy isn't suffering from breakup, but mereley the pixelation seen with broadcasts encoded at a low bitrate.

Perhaps I'm taking you up wrong, but is there any glitching sounds or periods where the picture completely looses consistancy? If not, it's low res at the broadcasters end.

Some DVB examples:
The Holland channels Canal+ Rood and Canal+Blauw (Astra 1G - 19.2 East), are transmitting in full CCIR 601 resolution with VBR bitrate up to 15000kb/s (!). That is BETTER a standard DVD video.
TMF for Belgium and MTV Italy, both on Eutelsat W2 (16 East) are transmitting in full D1 resolution and bitrates up to 7500kb/s
The MTV/VH1 Channels on Astra 1G, are using 544 X 576.
Viva TV on Astra 1G and Onyx TV on Hotbird 3, are using 480 X 576.
352 X 576 is very common at almost all the Italian Free To Air music channels on Hotbird satellite series.
An example of very low picture resolution, is the Cnes channel (Hotbird 5, 13 east, Freq: 12558, S.R. 27500, F.E.C. 3/4). This channel transmits 352 X 288 with CBR bitrate up to?. 700kb/s!!!).

The known DVB resolutions till today in Europe are: 720 X 576, 704 X 576, 544 X 576, 528 X 576, 480 X 576, 352 X 576 and 352 X 288.

lifebook

emerson you just expanded on what I said, There is lots of congestion on hotbird. They stuff loads of channels on to the one transponder thus forcing these tv channels to use really low bit rates.

Emerson

Yep.. Indeed you did. Cred to you..
A better lnb won't help if it's not the signal of course though

Tony

I see your point but I think the Op is talking about regular channels on hotbird, guess we need to know specifically what channels are affected.

Emerson wrote:

I think y'all are barking up the wrong tree.

IMO, many hotbird channels are web resolutions. The satellite is full of amateur and budget channels.

If I'm not mistaken, the guy isn't suffering from breakup, but mereley the pixelation seen with broadcasts encoded at a low bitrate.

Perhaps I'm taking you up wrong, but is there any glitching sounds or periods where the picture completely looses consistancy? If not, it's low res at the broadcasters end.