Sky RTE compression

stylers

Is it just me or are the irish stations on sky very highly compressed ? I don't have sky meself, but I was setting up a new LCD tv the other day for a friend who has it, and I could not beleive the poor quality and compression artefacts showing up on RTE, TV3 and TNAG. Whats the point in trying to tell them about the difference in scart leads and output settings when the picture you get is rubbish anyway ?. checked the signal level/quality which was perfect. I'd rather have a noisy/poor analogue picture than what sky give..

watty

Must be poor quality signal due to interfence or dish misalignment.

RTE has no visible artifacts on my Sky box. Large TV that does show up NTSc as looking poor and some of the shopping channels/ethnic channels poor.

BBC and RTE are virtually DVD quality, as evidenced by bitrate.

As errors increase on Digital due to interference or weak signal it does pixelate more.

Mossy Monk

RTÉ is perfect on any Sky box I see.

John mac

RTE is perfect on my hd box.

as watty has said it must be poor signal/interference

stylers

Hmm, I'll have to check it again and maybe throw another set of eyes on it, but it was a newish sky plus box and signal level/quality looked perfect (dish recently installed), so couldn't see any other reason for it.. this was using a good quality fully screened scart and RGB output mode.. no noise reduction etc..

amacachi

Absolutely perfect on mine.

watty

Quality is on the "default" transponder. There are 3 or 4 satellites, so it can be OK but some channels bad. "Quality" is the important one.

rlogue

It would be worth comparing RTÉ with any of the ITV 1 channels. The picture quality of ITV on Sky is appalling. RTÉ/TG4 on the other hand generally have excellent pictures in comparison.

slegs

Check the LCD settings. Sometimes the inbuilt "correction" software on the TV can distort an otherwise good picture with artifacts. It took me a good while to figure out the optimal settings on my Sony but now the picture is top class on both Sky SD and DTT SD.

Damien360

slegs wrote: »

Check the LCD settings. Sometimes the inbuilt "correction" software on the TV can distort an otherwise good picture with artifacts. It took me a good while to figure out the optimal settings on my Sony but now the picture is top class on both Sky SD and DTT SD.

+1

My Phillips was the same. I disabled everything and brought each "extra" back one by one before finally settling on a picture I liked.

L1011

The Irish channels are amongst the LEAST compressed out there due to the very low transponder loading (5 TV, 4 radio).

And I also had to turn all the 'intelligence' in my Philips off to get a decent picture...

byte

RTE One bitrate:
http://www.satcodx2.com/0282/tsbitrate.cgi?02820027000000024032-v

UTV Bitrate
http://www.satcodx2.com/0282/tsbitrate.cgi?02820027000000025851-v

RTE generally has a higher bitrate.

John mac

byte wrote: »

RTE One bitrate:
http://www.satcodx2.com/0282/tsbitrate.cgi?02820027000000024032-v

UTV Bitrate
http://www.satcodx2.com/0282/tsbitrate.cgi?02820027000000025851-v

RTE generally has a higher bitrate.

I knew that info was around somewhere but I couldn't find it.

scout353

Have Sky HD box and find the quality of the RTE channels is always excellent and far better than most of the other channels!

derekdt

Slightly off the topic but being not very technical could anyone offer advice as to why I am receiving v. poor reception for sports on RTE , BBC , Setanta through a SKY + box on a new 42PFL7603D Philips lcd TV.

Picture is very 'gariny' when the camera pans to distance (close up is fine). I have had SKY out and they claim connection is fine.

Any advice appreciated.

byte

How is Sky box connected to TV?

Have you RGB enabled on Skybox?

It could be just a simple case that your big screen is showing imperfections of compressed video more (than a standard CRT for example).

Maybe there is some settings in the TV that you can turn on or off that may improve the picture.

derekdt

Thanks for reply.

Sky box is connected via scart from 'TV Scart' on Sky box to the 'RGB cvbs' outlet on the TV.

RGB is enabled on the Sky box and I have tried various options on the TV to try and improve but all to no avail. Watching the rugby yesterday still had a 'grainy' picture quality which at times looked a little like watching a 'playstation' game.

Picture quality is fine for all other viewing -its just sports on all channels!

enfant terrible

derekdt wrote: »

Thanks for reply.

Sky box is connected via scart from 'TV Scart' on Sky box to the 'RGB cvbs' outlet on the TV.

RGB is enabled on the Sky box and I have tried various options on the TV to try and improve but all to no avail. Watching the rugby yesterday still had a 'grainy' picture quality which at times looked a little like watching a 'playstation' game.

Picture quality is fine for all other viewing -its just sports on all channels!

What make and model of TV have you

fat-tony

See earlier post -

Slightly off the topic but being not very technical could anyone offer advice as to why I am receiving v. poor reception for sports on RTE , BBC , Setanta through a SKY + box on a new 42PFL7603D Philips lcd TV.

derekdt

derekdt wrote: »

Slightly off the topic but being not very technical could anyone offer advice as to why I am receiving v. poor reception for sports on RTE , BBC , Setanta through a SKY + box on a new 42PFL7603D Philips lcd TV.

Picture is very 'gariny' when the camera pans to distance (close up is fine). I have had SKY out and they claim connection is fine.

Any advice appreciated.

LCD televisions cannot handle motion as well as CRT or Plasma tv's.

The new models are getting better at it but its never going to be as good at handling motion as a regular tv.Its not a sky problem.

derekdt

Philips 42PFL7603D

fat-tony

Jordyn Spoiled Plantation wrote: »

LCD televisions cannot handle motion as well as CRT or Plasma tv's.

The new models are getting better at it but its never going to be as good at handling motion as a regular tv.Its not a sky problem.

I was going to say this as it was the reason I went for plasma instead of LCD three years ago. I had looked at some Phillips LCD sets at the time and I thought the picture processing on some of the models was so distracting, creating a sort of "fizz" around the edges of moving objects.

I had assumed that things had improved - certainly the particular Phillips model mentioned got good reviews. I still think it's hard to beat the plasma picture quality unless you go for a very high-end LCD.

slegs

Most of the newest mid range to high end LCDs no longer have this motion issue.

derekdt

derekdt wrote: »

Philips 42PFL7603D

Thats a good tv.

You should check in the picture settings on the tv,it should have 100hz processing to help with motion problems or else it might be on and you could try turning it off in the tv menu.Maybe under motion control or something.

Most lcd's no matter what gimmicks in them dont handle moving images as well as plasma etc,Its something you learn to live with.Its a trade off,although yours sounds really bad so I would say its a setting problem.

derekdt

Thanks for all Replies.

I will check settings as mentioned and am contemplating get SKY HD as even though RTE is not in HD I have been told that even by having a HDMI scart from a HD box to the TV I should see a significant improvement.