Broadcast resolution query

DeepBlue

Hopefully this is the right forum .

The following are screencaps of what I would see on my tv using a normal tv aerial. The closest transmitter to me broadcasts in UHF.

RTE 1



RTE 2



TG4



The RTE signal seems to be cropped as is indicated by the RTE 2 logo.
Does anyone know why this is and is there anything I can do to get it to display a similar resolution as RTE 1 displays?

swoofer

i would say that this is a transmission glitch and should be resolved by RTE. There is an explanation but a bit long winded, ie SKY are involved.

just checked mine in clare and they are ok. have you tried getting DTT yet but with those aerial pics you wont gain anything.

gb--

DeepBlue

If it's a glitch then it's been one that's being going on a long time .

I'm nearly sure that occasionally the resolution is broadcast as "normal" i.e. the full RTE TWO logo is displayed and it's similar to the RTE 1 and TG4 pics shown in my opening post.
We get our reception from one of RTE's auxillary transmitters that doesn't yet have DTT but is due to get it according to this list whenever it comes on stream.

I'm curious now in relation to the long-winded, Sky-involved explanation .

PyeContinental

I'd say it's along the lines of sky boxes being used to relay the RTE network and RTE haven chosen non-standard widescreen format on Sky which means you have to use manual aspect ratio selection as automatic often interprets it incorrectly. Probably one of those sky boxes lost its picture at some point and then regained it but the auto-aspect ratio selection got it wrong and cropped the picture and no one in RTE has either noticed or cares to fix it if they have.

How embarrassing if that's the case.

DeepBlue

PyeContinental wrote: »

I'd say it's along the lines of sky boxes being used to relay the RTE network and RTE haven chosen non-standard widescreen format on Sky which means you have to use manual aspect ratio selection as automatic often interprets it incorrectly. Probably one of those sky boxes lost its picture at some point and then regained it but the auto-aspect ratio selection got it wrong and cropped the picture and no one in RTE has either noticed or cares to fix it if they have.

I don't have Sky and I'm just getting the signal from a normal "rabbit ears" aerial which is fine as I have line of sight to the nearest auxillary RTE transmitter.
Why then would Sky be in the loop?

PyeContinental

Yes, if you're receiving RTE TV pictures through an aerial, you wouldn't think that Sky should have anything to do with it, but embarrassingly for our national broadcaster, they do. Have a read of this thread:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055741041

DeepBlue

:eek: :eek: :eek:

That's a bit of an eye-opener!!

I see from this that RTE have a callsave number and email contact for transmission queries. I'll give them a buzz tomorrow.
The "cropped" version of RTE 2 has been broadcasting for a minimum of a year now from the local transmitter. You'd think someone would have noticed by now :rolleyes:.

fat-tony

I have analogue (and DTT) reception from a local RTE UHF relay. The analogue reception is not true widescreen - 14:9 would be the nearest appropriate aspect ratio. The right and left edges of the widescreen image are "chopped off", but the channel logos are within the safe area of the picture and are visible. The RTE satellite signals are true 16:9 widescreen where appropriate and I usually find that aspect ratio switching between 16:9 and 4:3 programmes works ok. The RTE 2 image that you have captured looks like a 4:3 image stretched to 16:9. As Pyecontinental has posted, there could be a SKY box involved in the feed to your relay station.
I congratulate you on the image quality, though, if that's what you are getting on a set of "rabbits ears". There's not a trace of ghosting or graininess in the pictures. I'm less than 2k from my local relay and to get an excellent analogue picture I have to use an external UHF aerial mounted on the chimney. I can get stable DTT quality on a simple dipole aerial, though.

offdechain

rtes fault allright

DeepBlue

I got a reply 5 days later from RTE saying the problem was "due to a technical issue" at the local transposer.
I've no idea what that means but the issue was sorted anyways.

DeepBlue

fat-tony wrote: »

I have analogue (and DTT) reception from a local RTE UHF relay. The analogue reception is not true widescreen - 14:9 would be the nearest appropriate aspect ratio. The right and left edges of the widescreen image are "chopped off", but the channel logos are within the safe area of the picture and are visible.

It's probably the same for our area as it's noticeable in programs with hard subtitles when the beginning letter or two and the end couple of letters get snipped off if the subtitle is long enough to stretch the width of the screen.

fat-tony wrote: »

I congratulate you on the image quality, though, if that's what you are getting on a set of "rabbits ears". There's not a trace of ghosting or graininess in the pictures. I'm less than 2k from my local relay and to get an excellent analogue picture I have to use an external UHF aerial mounted on the chimney. I can get stable DTT quality on a simple dipole aerial, though.

Yes, we're lucky with the reception. The local transmitter is about 9km away in direct line of sight with nothing to block it in between.

carveone

DeepBlue wrote: »

Yes, we're lucky with the reception. The local transmitter is about 9km away in direct line of sight with nothing to block it in between.

That really is a good picture all right.

I'll just shove my oar in and say that I was watching tv on a giant Philips plasma yoke the other day at my sister's and the tv was driving me nuts: sometimes when you changed to Rte, it would decide that it would nicely zoom to 16:9 and chop the hell out of the picture. It was easily noticible because the logo was cut in half. Had to manually go back to 4:3 or 14:9. Might be what's happening. Or then again RTE could be screwing up too - they (were) regularly broadcast late programs in widescreen without the 16:9 signal being present. Example: Pushing Daisies was all broadcast in widescreen with no ws signal.

DeepBlue

carveone wrote: »

I'll just shove my oar in and say that I was watching tv on a giant Philips plasma yoke the other day at my sister's and the tv was driving me nuts: sometimes when you changed to Rte, it would decide that it would nicely zoom to 16:9 and chop the hell out of the picture. It was easily noticible because the logo was cut in half. Had to manually go back to 4:3 or 14:9. Might be what's happening.

Yes, that happens as well when the tv is set to automatic resolution. Not all the time but most noticeably during ad breaks. I guess the tv senses something that makes it change aspect. However that's separate to what was happening here as that issue you mention was easily sorted by setting the aspect display to 16:9.

The problem with RTE2 was simply that the local transmitter was displaying it in the wrong format. No fiddling with the tv controls could make a difference as the fault was with the signal. Anyhow they changed it now and it's all sorted.

fat-tony

carveone wrote: »

That really is a good picture all right.

I'll just shove my oar in and say that I was watching tv on a giant Philips plasma yoke the other day at my sister's and the tv was driving me nuts: sometimes when you changed to Rte, it would decide that it would nicely zoom to 16:9 and chop the hell out of the picture. It was easily noticible because the logo was cut in half. Had to manually go back to 4:3 or 14:9. Might be what's happening. Or then again RTE could be screwing up too - they (were) regularly broadcast late programs in widescreen without the 16:9 signal being present. Example: Pushing Daisies was all broadcast in widescreen with no ws signal.

The RTE signal is not widescreen on analogue - only on digital satellite and digital terrestrial. As I posted earlier in the thread, it's more 14:9 than 16:9. If the TV is forcing the picture to 16:9, then you will have problems. I have my Panasonic set to 14:9 on SCART, so it displays RTE on analogue correctly.
On the SKY box, RTE TG4 and TV3 are broadcast properly in widescreen or 4:3. TV3's studio output is 4:3, but they broadcast bought-in programs (or the ads) in proper 16:9 ratio and the TV switches automatically.
On digital terrestrial (at the moment during testing) all RTE and TV3 programmes are flagged as 16:9, which makes the TV3 studio programmes display in "stretchyvision".