BBC HD V Sky HD

Villain

Well I have watched two games now on BBC HD and many on Sky HD and I have to say BBC seems a lot better imo, the sound is the main difference, the volume on Sky is low and the rear sound from DD just isn't any good plus you have that annoying problem of breakups on Sky every so often. BBC on the other have the quality picture but the sound is much much better.

I just hope Sky improve the service which is costing me €15 a month.

azzeretti

Can't say I notice any picture breakup but I have noticed that the BBC HD service is MUCH better than Sky's. What really annoys me is when Sky broadcast SD on the HD channels - a bit of a rip off.

The live games is where the HD shines, but comparing the two BBC is far better.

Villain

Sorry its Sound breakup not picture breakup.

Whats the story with Sky Movies HD, are the all the movies really HD or upscaled?

The only one I have watched which seemed to be really HD was King Kong which blew me away.

byte

Yeah, some (a lot) of the content on the Sky HD channels are just SD programmes.

Press the i button, and any HD programmes will have HD in the top right of the banner.

Villain

But the movies on Sky Movies HD do have HD in the right corner but I didn't think that that many movies that old had been made in HD?

gipo2

Will Six Nations be on bbc hd?

Villain

Yep it sure will be.

watty

irish1 wrote:

But the movies on Sky Movies HD do have HD in the right corner but I didn't think that that many movies that old had been made in HD?

ANY Film whatsoever can be transferred in HD as long as it is 35mm film at least. Old "filmed for TV" stuff is often on 16mm, so only SD quality.

Obviously very old films may be poor quality anyway. HD is just over 2M pixels. A 35mm still can easily have 6M pixel to 32M pixel quality. A Film frame is across the film rather than the along the film of camera fram, so halve the size roughly:
= 3M pixel to 16M pixel quality.
Then half again because it is not still frames but 24 fps.
= 1.5M pixel to 8M pixel.
Three methods are used for Widescreen on Film:
1) Anamorphic: A panavision lens compresses a wide format onto a normal shape film frame
2) A less high frame that fits more frames per foot at a widescreen ratio
3) Matte: Masking the frame during printing from negative to positive.

All three methods can be used.

So basically any 35mm film since the 1930s is probably possible to transfer to HD. Ideally the negative but the ordinary cinema print can be used, of course some of those can be be scratched and dirty...

70mm is super High Definition. Transfer at 5000 lines is possible. Decent 35mm negatives or prints will allow 2,500 line definition, which is about 5 times the quality of TV HD.

slave1

the sound is the main difference, the volume on Sky is low and the rear sound from DD just isn't any good

note that BBCHD only broadcasts in stereo, its Dolby Digital but only 2.0, it being 2.0 will place a lot of dependance on your audio setup to mash a mono signal to your rear speakers, I cannot comment on whether SkyHD broadcast in 5.1 as I do not have Sports, benefit of 5.1 being the stereo rear signal but most importantly the .1 sub.....

Aquos76

With regards to the audio, there is also a noticable difference between both channels, when showing a live match on SD also.

azzeretti

watty wrote:

ANY Film whatsoever can be transferred in HD as long as it is 35mm film at least. Old "filmed for TV" stuff is often on 16mm, so only SD quality.

Obviously very old films may be poor quality anyway. HD is just over 2M pixels. A 35mm still can easily have 6M pixel to 32M pixel quality. A Film frame is across the film rather than the along the film of camera fram, so halve the size roughly:
= 3M pixel to 16M pixel quality.
Then half again because it is not still frames but 24 fps.
= 1.5M pixel to 8M pixel.
Three methods are used for Widescreen on Film:
1) Anamorphic: A panavision lens compresses a wide format onto a normal shape film frame
2) A less high frame that fits more frames per foot at a widescreen ratio
3) Matte: Masking the frame during printing from negative to positive.

All three methods can be used.

So basically any 35mm film since the 1930s is probably possible to transfer to HD. Ideally the negative but the ordinary cinema print can be used, of course some of those can be be scratched and dirty...

70mm is super High Definition. Transfer at 5000 lines is possible. Decent 35mm negatives or prints will allow 2,500 line definition, which is about 5 times the quality of TV HD.

Whats the problem with Sky Movies HD? Mostly the Movies HD and SD are broadcasting the same show, but the quality looks the same. I noticed yesterday the Fantastic Four where being played in SD and HD and the HD looked brilliant. But then Gross Point Blank was and the quality was crap.

If most films can be upscaled howcome HD doesn't always look better? Or is the HD broadcast itself not enough to upscale it?

aidan_walsh

I wouldn't image Sky themselves would be doing the upscaling, and so may not have HD versions from the film's distributors.

po0k

Films would need to be remastered to a HD format. That costs money.
It's economics and perceived consumer demand.

Irish1 what sort of screen are you using.

Is it 1920 x 1080 ? whats the make and model?

I'm thinking of going HD but I don't want to be fooled by all this HD ready nonsense stickers on screens.
It has to be 1080 or nothing.
I'd be of the view that 1366x768 for instance would only slightly enhance picture quality compared to the max you should be getting for going to the effort of being able to receive HD signals.

slave1

I think when you say 1080

It has to be 1080 or nothing

you mean 1080P

Note that Sky broadcast 1080i and 1080P broadcasts are years away, in the US for example all broadcasts are either 720P or 1080i, there are NO 1080P broadcasts

Villain

Tristrame wrote:

Irish1 what sort of screen are you using.

Is it 1920 x 1080 ? whats the make and model?

I'm thinking of going HD but I don't want to be fooled by all this HD ready nonsense stickers on screens.
It has to be 1080 or nothing.
I'd be of the view that 1366x768 for instance would only slightly enhance picture quality compared to the max you should be getting for going to the effort of being able to receive HD signals.

I'm using a Projector to project a 100" screen so I'm probably not the best person to ask while it does have a resolution of 1280 x 720 it has a lot of extra bits of technology to control the lumens etc.

Have a look at my thread:http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055032449

A relation purchased a Hitachi 42PD9700 which has a resolution of 1024 x 1080 and it had an excellent picture but no better than my projector showing the same content i.e. discovery HD or Sky Sports HD then he changed it for a Pioneer PDP 4270XD with a 1024 x 768 due for a failure in his Hitachi and I can honestly say I couldn't see any difference in the picture. He then came out to see my Projector and he walked out of the room simply saying "I want one of them " to his wife.

It depends on your room Tristrame but I wouldn't bother with HD unless your going to have bigger than 42". As was already stated most HD broadcasts are 720p or 1080i, 1080p content is limited and probably will be for some time. If you have any questions give me a pm.

Mossy Monk

gipo2 wrote:

Will Six Nations be on bbc hd?

yes, but only the England, Scotland and Wales home games

watty

There may not be 1080p transmissions inside 20 years in Europe. It uses twice the bandwidth for little or no extra value. It is the same 2D resolution, only the temporal resolution is increased. In USA/Japan it would remove 3:2 pulldown artifacts from 24fps sources, but improved rescaling at broadcast end may remove those anyway for US/Japan.

DVD can make use of 1080p, but in cheat manner of doing 25 fps progressive and showing each frame twice (possibly with temporal interpolation). Cinema film is 24 fps, but each frame is shown twice on projection to reduce flicker. New Digital Cinema uses frame interpolation to get 48fps, 60fps or 50fps.

fat-tony

slave1 wrote:

note that BBCHD only broadcasts in stereo, its Dolby Digital but only 2.0, it being 2.0 will place a lot of dependance on your audio setup to mash a mono signal to your rear speakers, I cannot comment on whether SkyHD broadcast in 5.1 as I do not have Sports, benefit of 5.1 being the stereo rear signal but most importantly the .1 sub.....

Hi Slave,

Quite a lot of the BBCHD programmes have a 5.1 soundtrack - including a number of live music programmes like "The Two of Us" broadcast last week and the Proms during the summer. In fact I'd say well over 60% of the transmitted material is in 5.1 You occasionally get a play or sitcom which was shot in HD but recorded in stereo, but the majority of the music and nature programmes are 5.1 Haven't seen any HD footie on BBC in a while so can't comment about that.

Blaster99

slave1 wrote:

I think when you say 1080

you mean 1080P

Note that Sky broadcast 1080i and 1080P broadcasts are years away, in the US for example all broadcasts are either 720P or 1080i, there are NO 1080P broadcasts

In terms of picture resolution, there's no difference between 1080i and 1080p and the picture doesn't have to be scaled in either case if the set supports Full HD. You ultimately want a screen with the same native resolution as the source, eventhough the 1366 x 768 sets do a reasonable job with the scaling.

watty

Yes, GOOD 1366 x 768 do a good job. Some throw away alternate fields leaving 540 lines and then resample 1920 x 540 --> Native resolution! This saves cost of expensive de-interlacing chip and frame buffer.

Regular TV is up to 720 x 576.

slave1

Hi Slave,

Quite a lot of the BBCHD programmes have a 5.1 soundtrack

Correct, I was specifically referring to thread/match last week which was in stereo