UPC HD?

Fresh Pots

Are any of upc's digital channels broadcast in HD? I recently bought a new telly which is HD ready, if i if i have the picture set to take up the full screen (16:9) that its not always that clear. I have it connected with a scart lead too, should it be connected with a HDMI cable or am i just way off?! any advice would be great thanks.

SteM

There is no HD service from UPC yet. Maybe next/week/month/year - who knows?

Fresh Pots

alright, cool that clears it up then so, whenever it does come in will it work through a scart lead or will i have to buy a different cable?

Mossy Monk

You will need to use a HDMI cable and also use a new HD UPC Set Top Box

zilog_jones

You don't "need" to use HDMI for HDTV - YPbPr is another option (three phono plugs), and VGA and DVI are also capable of the appropriate frequencies. However YPbPr and VGA are analogue, and only HDMI can carry audio (you need separate connections for the others).

Some channels (e.g. all the Discovery channels, Eurosport, all the music channels) do not currently transmit in 16:9, which is why they look shyte on a widescreen TV.

Mountjoy Mugger

For the layman, YPbPr is commonly called component - should you be looking for a cable in a shop.

barnicles

CSC Media Channels are in 16:9:D

SteM

zilog_jones wrote: »

You don't "need" to use HDMI for HDTV - YPbPr is another option (three phono plugs), and VGA and DVI are also capable of the appropriate frequencies. However YPbPr and VGA are analogue, and only HDMI can carry audio (you need separate connections for the others).

Some channels (e.g. all the Discovery channels, Eurosport, all the music channels) do not currently transmit in 16:9, which is why they look shyte on a widescreen TV.

I'd be surprised if UPC ship HD boxes with component output looking at the way the UK market is going.

Have to wait and see I guess.

paulm17781

Surely they have HD boxes in other markets? I'd imagine we'll get what they have.

Homer

Sky are discontinuing component outputs on the next batch of HD boxes and will only have hdmi output to tv.
Probably a copyright issue as hdmi uses hdcp encryption to stop people copying content in high def!

mediacentre.ie

paulm17781 wrote: »

Surely they have HD boxes in other markets? I'd imagine we'll get what they have.

UPC have HD boxes in holland where there are lots of HD channels.

we will get them when ever they can reach an agreement with sky.

currently you can receieve BBC HD in the UK via Virgin Media.

on free sat you can get BBC HD and ITV HD http://www.freesat.co.uk/

I think you will be able to get eurosport HD as well.

Surley UPC can look down this route. I can't see sky giving in any time soon.

paulm17781

Could UPC not add other HD content, perhaps new to these islands? Surely they have access to other markets?

mediacentre.ie

I agree. I can't understand why they aren't offering this service here
http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/?p=3943

they said they would have HD out by Q4 this year but you would think that they would have announced it by now?

Solair

UPC use a rather nice looking Philips HD box in the Netherlands. I'm assuming, given that they appear to standardise their boxes across all markets, they'll go with the same supplier here when the service launches.

I'd say sourcing HD content could be challenging enough. Although, to be quite honest, the HD content on Sky digital's not exactly impressive at the moment. It's very limited and rather unexciting.

I honestly have to say that I haven't been blown away with 1080i on a 40" TV, it's a little better than normal european SD tv, but it's not exactly mind blowing. It's certainly not something that I couldn't live without.

paulm17781

UPC are upgrading their top broadband package to 20Mbps http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055322433

Surely this implies the bandwith to at least start offering HD?

mediacentre.ie

cool they just upgraded me to 12mb and that is amazingly fast. roll on 20mb

GerardKeating

paulm17781 wrote: »

UPC are upgrading their top broadband package to 20Mbps http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055322433

Surely this implies the bandwith to at least start offering HD?

But that other thread is just an unconfirmed rumour from someone who has a "friend" in UPC..

DingDong

GerardKeating wrote: »

But that other thread is just an unconfirmed rumour from someone who has a "friend" in UPC..

http://www.businessworld.ie/livenews.htm?a=2210782;s=rollingnews.htm

Mountjoy Mugger

Nothing on UPC's press release page about it however.

http://www.upc.ie/about/media/

paulm17781

Mountjoy Mugger wrote: »

Nothing on UPC's press release page about it however.

http://www.upc.ie/about/media/

It is at the bottom of http://www.rte.ie/business/2008/0627/eircom.html too.

UPC aren't great with customer information. I think it is from the Chorus / NTL methodology of keeping customers in the dark.

Mountjoy Mugger

Back O.T. In the business supplement of today's Irish Times there's an interview with UPC Ireland's head honcho. HD now slated for next year...dum-didi-dum-dum.

Karmafaerie

The only reason that UPC haven't rolled out HD is that it's not cost effective.

There are only limited channels available, and most of them come through Sky.

Despite the ideas of some posters here, Sky can't choose to not allow UPC to use them, but they can charge UPC alot.

As soon as more channels become available, UPC'll buy the package off Sky and pass it on to their customers.

In the same way that you can get Sky Sports/Movies on UPC.

The HDTV boxes used accross Europe are nice from what I've heard.

250GB hardrives unlike the 80GB on Sky!

They look pretty too!:p

techdiver

Mountjoy Mugger wrote: »

Back O.T. In the business supplement of today's Irish Times there's an interview with UPC Ireland's head honcho. HD now slated for next year...dum-didi-dum-dum.

We've heard all this before. The least UPC can do is admit they are crap and that they have NO clue when they will roll out HD. They only reason they have a sizable market share is due to the fact that they have a market monopoly on Apartment dwelling apart from a few SKY group schemes.

I for one would dump UPC in the morning if I could get SKY, but I live in a fascist apartment dwelling where my rights to access free media is contravened.

Karmafaerie

techdiver wrote: »

We've heard all this before. The least UPC can do is admit they are crap and that they have NO clue when they will roll out HD. They only reason they have a sizable market share is due to the fact that they have a market monopoly on Apartment dwelling apart from a few SKY group schemes.

I for one would dump UPC in the morning if I could get SKY, but I live in a fascist apartment dwelling where my rights to access free media is contravened.

Have you even seen Sky's HD line up?!
It's crap.

Why would UPC pay millions for a crap package that they can't charge customers a massive subscription for?!

Please explin how that makes sence?

They have the tech, but would loose millins if they brought it out now, as apposed to waiting for a proper package that would be worth paying for!!!

Mossy Monk

Karmafaerie wrote: »

Have you even seen Sky's HD line up?!
It's crap.

In your opinion of course.

com7

so upc have 550000 customers living in apartments i do nt think so ! and plenty of apartments can get sky

watty

HD channels are only recent.
Few people have real HD sets.
HD cable boxes are only just going mass production. They are rationed at present.

BBC HD is only 4hrs a day and ITV HD only started.

Next year is soon enough for UPC to launch HD really. Only a small fraction even in UK have upgraded to Sky HD and with FreeSat HD launch, it may grow faster than Sky HD.

Decent true HD sets (>36" and 1080 or 1200 lines is minimum and 48"+ recommended, other wise less than 20% of people can see any improvement) are still over €1000. Forget the "HD Ready" malarky, that says nothing about quality, only that an HD input will be displayed.


Total UPC customer base is 480k to 550k (depend if you include MMDS I think).

bk

techdiver wrote: »

I for one would dump UPC in the morning if I could get SKY, but I live in a fascist apartment dwelling where my rights to access free media is contravened.

It is funny, but you don't know how lucky you are. In my fascist Apartment Block we get Smart Telecom IPTV service.

Smart make UPC look like gods, try a TV service with no Sky, Discovery and many other channels, try a TV service that suffers from constant pixelation and out of sync audio. And now what I pay for this awful TV service and 4mb BB, you can get a far better TV service, a DVR and 20mb BB. You are very lucky.

Infoanon

In the Irish Times article yesterday it was claimed that UPC HD will be superior to SKY HD!!

Open to correction but if UPC carry HD will the source not be SKY so if anthing the quality shall be slightly inferior ??

The other thing in the article and the additional article on the backpage - no one is mentioning the potential threat of FreeSat - with the economic downturn pennies shall be watched ! and UPC digital may be of those 'luxuries' that may be dropped by many especially if there is a free alternative..

watty

It's not technically possible for UPC HD to be better than Satellite for BBC HD, unless they get a special higher quality fibre feed direct from BBC.

bricks

Karmafaerie wrote: »

The only reason that UPC haven't rolled out HD is that it's not cost effective.

There are only limited channels available, and most of them come through Sky.

Despite the ideas of some posters here, Sky can't choose to not allow UPC to use them, but they can charge UPC alot.

As soon as more channels become available, UPC'll buy the package off Sky and pass it on to their customers.

In the same way that you can get Sky Sports/Movies on UPC.

The HDTV boxes used accross Europe are nice from what I've heard.

250GB hardrives unlike the 80GB on Sky!

They look pretty too!:p

Sky's HD boxes have 320GB hdd's in them with 160GB useable and 160GB reserved for Anytime. Its also posible to upgrade the disk to 500GB.
Also the UPC boxes need more storage bacuse they don't have any space managment to auto-delete old watched content when the box fills up.

zilog_jones

watty wrote: »

It's not technically possible for UPC HD to be better than Satellite for BBC HD, unless they get a special higher quality fibre feed direct from BBC.

Where do they get their current BBC 1 and 2 feeds from? They still have full "analogue" teletext unlike the Sky feeds (IIRC).