UPC Digital

Chicken1

Hi All

I have UPC digital not HD and the box is connected by a scart lead, is it possible to get a digital box with a hdmi connection as the picture would be better through it, the picture even digital through the scart lead is terrible. I have heard most of their boxes are scart lead connections.

djimi

I *think* only the HD boxes have HDMI, but I could be wrong about that. HD is only an extra €5 a month so its worth it for the better picture quality on an LCD/Plasma TV and the bigger storage capacity of the recorder (plus you get a small handful of HD channels thrown in as well!).

Chicken1

djimi wrote: »

I *think* only the HD boxes have HDMI, but I could be wrong about that. HD is only an extra €5 a month so its worth it for the better picture quality on an LCD/Plasma TV and the bigger storage capacity of the recorder (plus you get a small handful of HD channels thrown in as well!).

Yes I saw that but their HD pack is very small compared to Sky I think at this stage I will drop them and get Sky, 52 HD Channels.

Beaver1

are you sure you dont have a bad scart, have you tried a new scart in it, even with the normal cable it shouldnt be terrible. or it could be the connection going into the house, if it is bring you box to another upc house and see if its bad there.

djimi

Beaver1 wrote: »

are you sure you dont have a bad scart, have you tried a new scart in it, even with the normal cable it shouldnt be terrible. or it could be the connection going into the house, if it is bring you box to another upc house and see if its bad there.

It depends on the TV but any scart going into a HD TV will look absolutely shockingly bad.

Beaver1

this is the setup I have, I have a hd+ box from upc, now Im no fan of upc, if I could afford sky id be gone to them but I cant afford it. I have the hd box going from the box to my tv via hdmi cable, excellent reception, then I have a video sender plugged into the scart and I have a video receiver going into my tv upstairs, not hd but a very good reception all the same, but to watch the tv upstairs i have to unplug the hdmi cable from the tv down stairs as the single will only come out of either the hdmi or the scart and not both, then were the cable comes into the house I have it split and running into the back of my tv down stairs and to the back of my tv upstairs and I have the normal 18 channels tunes into the tv, the reception is pretty good also, so are you sure its not a dodgy scart or dodgy lead coming into the house thats giving you a bad reception. might be worth checking out, have you tried taking the cable going into the back of your hd box and pluggin it straight into the ariel connection and tune your tv to see what type of reception you get there.

Ken bryan

Dont Bother Getting Upc Hd .
I have . There Is no noticeable difference In Quality
When You change From Stand Def . To a high Def Channel
The Sound / Volume Jumps So much That I have to To turn the vol
on upc remote Down To 1 . Then Do the same with Tv Vol .
Then Gradualy increase the Vol on Upc Remote .
Just to watch a Channel In Hd . With no noticable Picture improvement .

Worst Of all I fear It may Damage the speakers on Tv .
Dont Get it .
Thats my Advice .
Ps It ant My Tv that the Probablem .
Have a Hd Triax . No issues .
So until the Issue Is Fixed . Dont Get It .

The tax man

@ Ken bryan. Check the boxes volume setting under Settings>>TV Settings.
Make sure the bar is full.Make sure you press OK to store setting. You won't get any level difference between SD and HD channels then. I have no problems with sound levels with it set this way.

Keith186

Just to counter Ken bryan''s experience I find UPC HD very good for the price.

The picture on SD channels is a good bit better when using the HDMI connections. I had the SCART connection when I first set it up and it was terrible like yours is now.

The HD channel selection isn't great, you get BBC One, BBC HD a few Nat Geo/Discovery/History channels and ESPN and Setanta HD for the sports ones.

With the few extra HD channels, much better picture through the HDMI compared to SCART and more recording space (I think!) it's definitely worth a fiver a month (especially if you want to watch some HD sports).

There is a problem with the volume being 'stuck' on the HD channels sometimes and not changing volume via the box even if you press it up and down. It's easily dealt with if you just leave the box on full volume all the time and just use your tv to change the volume. That way it never gets really loud.

If you've a crappy HD TV in the first place you mightn't notice as much a difference. If you've a decent size mid/high range Sony/Samsung/LG etc it should make a good difference.

djimi

I have to say I have never seen that issue with the volume on any HD channel on my box.

I have to say I disagree with Ken about the HD picture quality; there is a massive difference between the quality of the SD channels (which can be a bit fuzzy and pixalated through a HD TV) and the HD channels. The quality of the HD channels is simply a world apart from the SD channels.

Ken bryan

Keith186 wrote: »

Just to counter Ken bryan''s experience I find UPC HD very good for the price.

The picture on SD channels is a good bit better when using the HDMI connections. I had the SCART connection when I first set it up and it was terrible like yours is now.

The HD channel selection isn't great, you get BBC One, BBC HD a few Nat Geo/Discovery/History channels and ESPN and Setanta HD for the sports ones.

With the few extra HD channels, much better picture through the HDMI compared to SCART and more recording space (I think!) it's definitely worth a fiver a month (especially if you want to watch some HD sports).

There is a problem with the volume being 'stuck' on the HD channels sometimes and not changing volume via the box even if you press it up and down. It's easily dealt with if you just leave the box on full volume all the time and just use your tv to change the volume. That way it never gets really loud.

If you've a crappy HD TV in the first place you mightn't notice as much a difference. If you've a decent size mid/high range Sony/Samsung/LG etc it should make a good difference.

I have 2000 Worth Of Tv .
So It aint crappy .

Keith186

I was talking to OP about the TV there. Strange the way it doesn't make much of a difference on yours.

SD with a Scart is really 'pixellated' on my HDTV but when I got the HDMI set up it was way better but still a little pixellated. There is also a big difference with HD over SD, if you don't notice it you might need to visit specsavers

Beaver1

@ ken go into the settings on the upc box and change it to 1080p, they come sat at
720p which is sd. let us know if it works.

stevek93

Beaver1 wrote: »

@ ken go into the settings on the upc box and change it to 1080p, they come sat at
720p which is sd. let us know if it works.

720p is not sd, 480p or 576i what the boxes use is sd

shane.

djimi wrote: »

It depends on the TV but any scart going into a HD TV will look absolutely shockingly bad.

i hace a 32" hd tv with a good quality scart and the picture is excellent,the scart cable upc supply is terrible, ur better off getting a better scart lead and see if that improves it

djimi

shane. wrote: »

i hace a 32" hd tv with a good quality scart and the picture is excellent,the scart cable upc supply is terrible, ur better off getting a better scart lead and see if that improves it

Its nothing to do with the quality of the cable (my UPC box is connected via HDMI); you display 576i on a 1080p TV and even with the best cables in the world it is going to look poor because the TV is not designed for a res that low. Im not saying it unwatchable (unless youre watching football on ITV) but personally Id sooner watch SD channels on my old tube TV than on my HD TV as the quality is better on the old TV.

shane.

djimi wrote: »

Its nothing to do with the quality of the cable (my UPC box is connected via HDMI); you display 576i on a 1080p TV and even with the best cables in the world it is going to look poor because the TV is not designed for a res that low. Im not saying it unwatchable (unless youre watching football on ITV) but personally Id sooner watch SD channels on my old tube TV than on my HD TV as the quality is better on the old TV.

dont see where your going with that!,hdmi is a digital cable and scart is an analog cable, firstly your using hdmi and not scart! secondly quality differences do exist in scart cables, cheaper scart cables such as the one supplied by upc use plain wires resulting in a loss of image quality, using higher quality ribbon cords that are shielded will reduce the ghosting effect that most people complain about, i have tried the upc cable and a higher quality cable on the same tv and the difference is very noticeable

dubdad

yes i have a digital+ upc box.
unfortunately my onzly option is a scart which gives a crap picture . time for upc to upgrade their hw to something less-crap. i am thinking of going to sky now . i have had a lot of issues with upc , dreadfull wireless routers , constantly dropping wireless, now that i have a nice 1080, 1000hz, doesnt seem like much point in paying even a fiver for only 5 hd channels.

even 720p stuff i downloadd and play off a usb is much, much better than any of the upc stations.

Trilla90

We currently have the UPC digital+. One recordable box in the living room and one of the non-recordable boxes upstairs.

Does anyone know if you could then get a digital+ HD box instlalled in a third room and still keep the other two non HD boxes?
And would that just be an extra fiver a month?

djimi

Trilla90 wrote: »

We currently have the UPC digital+. One recordable box in the living room and one of the non-recordable boxes upstairs.

Does anyone know if you could then get a digital+ HD box instlalled in a third room and still keep the other two non HD boxes?
And would that just be an extra fiver a month?

Dont see why that would be a problem. I have the HD box in one room a standard non-DVR box in my other room.

pelluci

Trilla90 wrote: »

We currently have the UPC digital+. One recordable box in the living room and one of the non-recordable boxes upstairs.

Does anyone know if you could then get a digital+ HD box instlalled in a third room and still keep the other two non HD boxes?
And would that just be an extra fiver a month?

I think that'll be a bit more than an extra fiver. The website quotes €5 for a non-recordable box, €8.75 for a recordable and €10 for a HD recordable, but I'm not sure if you also have to pay €5 for the HD pack on top of that.

djimi

Assuming they are already paying €10 for the two extra multiroom boxes then it should only be an extra €5 on top of thag again for the HD. Basically there will be three extra charges: 2 x €5 for the two multiroom boxes and 1 x €5 for the HD.