UK - BBC HD and BBC1 HD moving to DVB-S2 on June 6th

[imilne]

Details on the BBC Internet Blog.

Iain

[BigMoose]

That's interesting! Puts to rest any notion that TPs on 2D weren't capable of S2. Also just as I was about to buy an S card cause they are cheaper than S2 to replace my bust 2nd tuner!

[bgowland]

It always amuses me the way companies have to include a caveat for the cerebrally challenged

...or can't currently view HD channels you will not be affected.

[martint123]

Oh bollocks - that has gone and upset me now :mad:

[bgowland]

Without wanting to hijack the thread...is HD really that good? Judging by martin123's post, it suggests it is.

[Clanky]

Without wanting to hijack the thread...is HD really that good? Judging by martin123's post, it suggests it is.

Yes, it really shows the lines, hairs & skin imperfections on faces

I have noticed that Channel 4 HD is better quality than BBC HD.
The football on ITV a couple of weeks ago looked terrible in sd but quite good in hd, so much so that I wondered if ITV had deliberately reduced the bitrate.

This is via Freesat, I don't have Sky.

[imilne]

Without wanting to hijack the thread...is HD really that good? Judging by martin123's post, it suggests it is.

It used to be, but these days UK broadcast HD is more like SD suitable for very large screens (where 'real' SD can look awful at times). It's not a patch on what you can get from a good blu-ray anyway.

[Pob]

Without wanting to hijack the thread...is HD really that good? Judging by martin123's post, it suggests it is.

I don't have a particularly big screen (37"), but HD always looks better and I do find that it affects my viewings habits. as I mostly only watch the HD channels. However all the HD channels do show some SD content that is upscaled and looks hardly any better or no better than the SD channel. The beeb in particular rarely shows films in proper HD, presumably because it would cost more. Channel 4 has a much better method of dealing with this, because they only show the 4HD logo if it is a true HD broadcast, whereas the beeb always has the HD logo on screen regardless.
Occasionaly, if I have not checked in the TV listings and settled down to watch a film on BBC One HD, I can tell within seconds that is upscaled SD and turn it off in disgust!
I think the thing that suprised me most is that if a program is filmed well in HD, it still looks much better than other programs when viewed on a standard SD channel, so at least broadcasters now know that they can't fob viewers off with poor quality cameras and lenses in the hope that we can't tell the difference!

[imilne]

I think the thing that suprised me most is that if a program is filmed well in HD, it still looks much better than other programs when viewed on a standard SD channel

When I first got Blu-ray, I remember grabbing some comparison images between the Blu-ray of Casino Royale and the DVD seeing as I owned both.

It was possible to take the 1920x1080 resolution images and scale them down to whatever res PAL runs at, and they still looked *significantly* better than the shots taken from the DVD - they were cleaner, brighter, more colourful, etc. That was proof (for me) that codecs/bitrate/compression obviously play a far bigger role in final image quality that the resolution does.

Iain

[martint123]

Without wanting to hijack the thread...is HD really that good? Judging by martin123's post, it suggests it is.

To me it is. Whatever forums say about the reduction in the BBC's bit rate, it knocks spots off SD for me. Anything with rapid panning seems much better.
Motor racing (other than the SD car cams) are much improved my HD.

Martin (upset that he is going to have to spend money to upgrade before I had expected to).