SKY HD Question

jamieh

Hey all,

I'm getting SKY HD installed this week.

Obviously there's a big difference between SD & HD, but I'm wondering will the SD be much clearer with the HDMI connection or will it be that same qualtiy as a scart connection?

watty

It depends on your TV set.

Via HDMI, my undserstanding is the the SkyHD box upscales it. (but I may be wrong). Via SCART your TV upscales. it. If it is a CRT based HD set (scarcer than hens teeth, but good ones do exist), then SCART is best.

On a typical LCD or PLASMA that is not even native 1920 x1080i, then SCART will be better as you are only scaling picture once, if the SkyHD DOES scale it on HDMI to 1920 x 1080i, as on HDMI 1920x 1080i your LCD/Plasma probabily rescales to 1366x 768, 1280 x 720, 1024 x 1024 or even 864 x 480 in the case of some brutal 48" Plasmas that nevertheless have HD ready stickers!


See which looks better. Tell us what TV and native resolution and size it is.

If the TV can display 1920x1080i at all, (Has to no matter what internal native screen resolution to get a HD ready sticker), the Sky box MUST be set to 1920x1080i & 16:9 mode.

jamieh

Hey,

Its a Sony KDL-46X2000 46" LCD.

It's cabable of 1080p....does SKY HD support p or is it only 1080i?

byte

HD channels broadcast in 1080i. SkyHD box can switch between 520p, 720p and 1080i, no option for 1080p.

Even though the software does not have a 1080p option, I'm not sure if the HD box is technically capabable of showing 1080p programming.

watty

1080p is for video games. Or USA / Japan DVD playback.

It's unlikely there will ever be 1080p transmission as it uses twice the bandwidth and EVERTHING in the studio/transmission chain would need upgraded. Only fast movement is enhanced by 1080p versus 1080i, a static or ordinary moving picture is exactly the same quality on 1080i.

On HD / Blu DVDs, on "NTSC" TVs (i.e. 30i/60p) the 1080p mode avoids 3:2 pull down artifacts from direct film transfer (Telecine). On "PAL" countries (i.e. 25i/50p) there is no advantage to 1080p as there are no pull down artifacts and the Film is only 24fps progressive.

On fast moving scenes you can't see as much detail, so the 720p is used for some sport. Since horizontally it is less detail the doubling in temporal axis is matched by halfing data rate in 2D image, so overall data rate is identical.

rkeane

That particular Sony HD LCD supports Sky Hd perfectly at 1080i...the picture is amazing! Full specs: http://www.sony.co.uk/view/ShowProduct.action?product=KDL-46X2000&site=odw_en_GB&pageType=TechnicalSpecs&category=TVP+LCD+TV

jamieh

rkeane wrote:

That particular Sony HD LCD supports Sky Hd perfectly at 1080i...the picture is amazing! Full specs: http://www.sony.co.uk/view/ShowProduct.action?product=KDL-46X2000&site=odw_en_GB&pageType=TechnicalSpecs&category=TVP+LCD+TV

It would want to be amazing for the price of the feckin thing!!!

watty

I'd go for one of those if i wasn't saving for a WQXGA DLP projector.