Anyone know what will happen to BBC when it goes HD only on the Irish Sky+HD box?

Andy From Sligo

hello all this message is on the BBC channels (in the 800's) on the Irish Sky+ HD Box

It says about going on 101 and if BBC ONE HD is on there then nothing to worry about and you still will receive BBC channels - But 101 over here is RTE1 on the box.

So will the box have to have the BBC ONE HD channel added manually through 'other channels' to carry on watching in Ireland again? - I dont mind that but the other channels wont let you pause/rewind record etc. - or have I missed where BBC ONE HD is in the normal line-up on the normal TV Guide?

Thanks.

icdg

You’re reading too much into the 101 aspect. It will (as far as any of us know) be still available on 141.

Unless you have a really, really, old Sky box you have nothing to worry about. Does your box say “Sky+HD” or just “Sky+”?

Andy From Sligo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121364633#Comment_121364633

Oh yes I have just checked again and 141 is HD , I dont know why but I was convinced it was in SD.

Tonight i wanted to watch the one show and BBC NI was doing that 'Hope Street' thing and not doing EE at 7.30pm so I turned over to BBC one on Ch832 and watched it on there and got that message

muffler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121364808#Comment_121364808

Do what my missus does...watch Eastenders on RTE1 at 7:30

Andy From Sligo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121365048#Comment_121365048

I do that a few times ... and every now and again i get a shock/surprise when the adverts come up and then I go "oh yeah we are watching it on RTE1" LOL

AMKC

Simple. I will stop watching it when that happens not that I watch much on it now anyway. I stopped watching there news. I no longer watch the Graham show on it and watch it on Virgin one the next day instead so as far as I am concerned they might have well have changed already. Stupid decision by them. Awe well by by BBC.

Andy From Sligo

I dont know whether its my eyes , on the fact that its a old 2012 TV (maybe only 720p HD ready and not a full HD TV) or I have not got the sky box picture set up correctly but if I switch from the SD Channels on the box to the HD channels on the box I cannot see one bloody blind bit of difference in the picture quality at all! - they all look alright/good enough/decent quality to me

muffler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121365294#Comment_121365294

Are you using a HDMI cable as opposed to a scart lead? Make sure you are selecting the right source/input.

Andy From Sligo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121365350#Comment_121365350

yep hdmi - and just looked at the sky box settings the resolution is set to 'auto' - nothing is connected by scart at the back of the TV

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121365294#Comment_121365294

There is very little difference that only a small amount of the human population can even notice it but the others get duped into buying what they think is better pictures when what they had was perfect anyway. Its all just a gimic to try and get people to buy more new things.

Never fooled by it myself.

TAFKAlawhec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121365237#Comment_121365237

Not a stupid decision at all. Recent reports in the UK media press suggest that 98% of UK viewers receiving broadcast stations via satellite are using equipment capable of receiving HD broadcasts from the BBC, ITV, Ch4 & Ch5, and that the BBC are bringing forward their SD "nightlight" shutdown forward by 2-3 months as far fewer potentially affected viewers have been contancting them for help on it. There's pretty much no justification for the Beeb to keep SD broadcasts going for a very small amount of viewers whom have been advised well in advance of the upcoming SD closedown.

ITV are also taking the opportunity in the next couple of months to finally start broadcasting the Border Scotland and Channel Isles regions on satellite at the expense of their corresponding SD broadcasts (a short simulcast will exist) which will also see UTV's SD broadcast end on satellite too in January. Outside of STV land, that'll leave just four ITV regions on SD on satellite - in Scotland (outside of the Border Scotland region) the four STV regions will remain in SD for now, only the STV West region is FTA in HD, the other three are FTV.

Aside from these, other SD simulcasts of HD broadcasts have been gradually stopping as fewer viewers are using SD only receiving equipment - quite recently Sky's rebrand of Pick to Sky Mix seen it 'launch' in HD with the SD versions being turned off a few days later (then brought back on again, before being turned off for presumably good), while CNBC has also recently terminated its SD channel on Astra 2, leaving just the HD broadcast in its place.

Anyone who is still relying on old satellite reception equipment for watching FTA broadcasts from the Astra 2 satellites really need to start changing IMO - it's only a matter of time when ITV will go HD only themselves, as will the main Channel 4 & Channel 5 stations themselves (the other channels that they run OTOH are subject to additional factors).

As to the OP's initial issue - the caption being broadcast is intended for a domestic UK audience. ROI Sky subscribers watching or listening to BBC broadcasts are watching the same video & audio streams as UK viewers are. Ultimately, viewers in the Republic that are seeing these captions on the main BBC stations in their EPG (excluding those in the 800 range) should contact Sky Ireland as they'll likely need their viewing equipment upgraded.

icdg

There must be very few this affects to be honest, you would need to have very old equipment now for this to be an issue. Sky+ (the non-HD version) hasn’t been the standard box since 2010.

No it’s not a stupid decision at all, and will ultimately save UK license fee payers a significant amount of money. And can we in ROI really complain about that.

andy1249

HDTV has been a continous term and cycle of upgrades that has been going on for a almost a century , the newer system being called HD and the older system being called SD until it becomes obsolete and the newer system gets the SD tag .......

From the wiki .....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_television

" The term high definition once described a series of television systems first announced in 1933[1] and launched starting in August 1936;[5] however, these systems were only high definition when compared to earlier systems that were based on mechanical systems with as few as 30 lines of resolution. The ongoing competition between companies and nations to create true "HDTV" spanned the entire 20th century, as each new system became higher definition than the last. In the early 21st century, this race has continued with 4K, 5K and 8K systems.

The British high-definition TV service started trials in August 1936 and a regular service on 2 November 1936 using both the (mechanical) Baird 240 line sequential scan (later to be inaccurately rechristened 'progressive') and the (electronic) Marconi-EMI 405 line interlaced systems. The Baird system was discontinued in February 1937.[6] In 1938 France followed with its own 441-line system, variants of which were also used by a number of other countries. The US NTSC 525-line system joined in 1941. In 1949 France introduced an even higher-resolution standard at 819 lines, a system that should have been high definition even by today's[when?] standards, but was monochrome only and the technical limitations of the time prevented it from achieving the definition of which it should have been capable."

SD today , something like 720 x 576 ( it varies , some sat channels are lower ) is being phased out as obsolete and the new SD is now 1920 x 1080p , the new HD being 3840 x 2160p

Most new content on streaming services is now 3840 x 2160p with some form of HDR and Surround sound format like atmos.

Figures would suggest that is how most people are watching , streaming in UHD/or 4K .

Watching Planet Earth III in 1080p on BBC is very poor compared to the UHD version available.

Technology marches on , as always ....

The Nal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121365396#Comment_121365396

No difference between HD and SD? Theres a huge difference.

Now between 720p and 1080p, sure. Not a lot.

andy1249

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121365956#Comment_121365956

Agreed , watch pointless on challenge vs pointless on BBC1 HD , and if you cannot see the difference its time for an eye test.

Gerry Wicklow

On smaller screen sizes say 32" or less, it can be hard to see a significant difference. However with many households now using 40" or larger (anecdotally 55" is the norm now) trying to watch SD can be disappointing to say the least. It would need to be a very specific/special interest show to make me watch an SD channel nowadays. Virgin on Saorview are definite non-runners IMO.

andy1249

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121366480#Comment_121366480

Ive got a 22 inch Samsung 1080p LCD TV in the Kitchen , and when watching Saorview , there is a very noticeable drop in quality from RTE 1 &2 in HD to say RTE News and any of the Virgin Channels in SD.

SD channels can vary in quality greatly , compare say , Challenge or Yesterday to Dave ..... big jump in quality there.

On the Subject of Virgin , their HD service is truly brutal , Ive got a 360 box and their Cable Service because there was no price difference between Gigabit broadband with or without TV , so can compare both it and satellite ( VU+ Enigma 2 box running Openvix ) and the quality drop between the same HD channels on both is marked. Virgin is very poor , for what reason I dont know , low bitrate maybe but it is really bad.

So maybe the above posters that cannot see the difference are on Virgin TV.

galtee boy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121365396#Comment_121365396

If you can't see the HUGE difference between SD and HD, you really should consider an eye test. I will admit that the difference between full HD and 4K is nowhere near as great, but sd to hd is the modern day equivalent of black and white to colour.

dxhound2005

AMKC has only 50% vision, post #20 here:

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058271948/bbc-to-close-sd-services-from-next-year-on-freesat-sky/p1

Andy From Sligo

yeah I should have said that I cannot tell the difference between 720p & 1080p/i

Mind you, even still sometimes I cannot tell between 576i / 720p / 1080p/i if the quality is good , only giveaways the letterbox (4:3vs16:9) and light flare if old tv cameras are used with the old tube camera's .

mind you the TV I am watching output on is an old 40" LCD TV so maybe thats it - as you say on a larger TV then I would most probably notice it more (or indeed need to get my eyes tested again)

dxhound2005

There is a lot of old material which can look bad. You can see this when they show old clips on Match of the Day. And news programmes often feature material filmed on mobile phones. This can be of variable quality. Anything filmed in studio quality in HD is much sharper than SD.

Windowsnut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121365969#Comment_121365969

That difference is not all down to SD vs HD, the Irish advert versions use way lower bit rates than the UK advert versions, case in point Challenge UK vs Challenge Irl.

German Mpeg 2 SD channels via satellite look almost like UK HD channels, compression and over-modulation has a bigger impact on image over SD vs HD.

Some of the UK HD channels can be quite soft, sometimes it is questionable that you are watching HD at all and it seems to be getting worse....

dxhound2005

Unless the broadcasters have changed something to make it worse, then it must be down to the TV. Could be worthwhile looking at the menus. Or going along to a TV shop to see the screens there. It could also be something to do with the eyesight of the viewer. I have not noticed any deterioration on my screen, LG OLED, a few years old.

Andy From Sligo

if i tune in to BBC children in need this year I shall be watching the BBC ONE London version - dont like the NI version . I suppose if 832 has gone (the SD BBC ONE) I will have to manually add the BBC1 London HD to the other channels line up (if it still allows to do that in Ireland)

Heighway61

I'll miss the SD BBC channels. Would switch over around the 9/10pm time slot when the local norn iron programming came on. Much rather Detectorists or Upstart Crow than Barra Goes for a Walk.

Madd002

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121365661#Comment_121365661

It's gonna affect me as we have sky q in living room, sky+HD one of the first boxes in sitting room and and just old silver sky box in bedroom. I'm currently paying 42.50 for basic package on sky q but most of the channels disappeared, the two old boxes I still have all the free to air music channels and 0124 + music channels all the English channels for free. The sky hd+ I can watch bbc on the 800 channels but silver box I'll lose completely but its only night time viewing in bedroom so I can record on sky q if it's something worth watching. Sky guy said hold onto the old sky boxes as they can't be got, he fitted another connection to dish so we could have all three on the go.

andy1249

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121368992#Comment_121368992

Yup , agreed , ITV 2 ,3,4 sometimes very poor indeed , ITV 1 seems to be fine most of the time though. Myself , I cannot stand ads , so if there is something on there I want to watch it gets recorded so I can skip through em.

Otherwise everything I watch is streamed in UHD with HDR , now HDR is something else ..... the jump from 1080p to 2160p would never have flown if HDR hadnt been thrown into the mix.

HDR is something you really do need a good screen for , the cheaper LCDs dont get the benefit of it at all.

I got an LG CX a couple of years ago , now that is jaw dropping with HDR ..... first thing I got was a box set of Planet Earth II and Blue Planet in UHD HDR ....... WOW !! and that was coming from a Panasonic Plasma , which was the best at the time it was bought .... old hat now though.

icdg

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121369209#Comment_121369209

You have the coveted hybrid LNB!

But that type of set up is very unusual in Ireland; Sky won’t typically allow Sky Q and Sky+HD at the same premises, and I presume you’re using the old boxes purely as FTA. You can at relatively cheap cost buy a FTA receiver to replace the non-HD box. Another option is Sky Q multi screen and mini boxes (at a cost of course).

lertsnim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121365396#Comment_121365396

This is incorrect. The difference between HD and SD is stark and anyone that cannot see it either has their equipment setup incorrectly or has eyesight problems.

muffler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121370172#Comment_121370172

Agreed.

Years ago Sky replaced my old SD box with a new HD box and after a month I couldn't see any noticeable difference in picture quality so I rang them to cancel the HD subscription. The guy on the phone asked me to check if I was using the correct input and it turned out the installer had left it at the scart input instead of HDMI. When I changed it there was a massive improvement.

Just goes to show that the so called professional installers don't always get it right so if anyone can't see the difference between SD and HD maybe check your cables/input first.

Madd002

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121370069#Comment_121370069

Don't want to lose all the great channels I have or give sky anymore money..! ah it'll be grand as its only bbc1 can record on sky q if its something important. Only reason I stay with sky is because of record function.