picture quality

  • Thread starter Thread starter new-oakviller
  • Start date Start date
I don't know about the edge enhancement Markb, but all I can say is that the PQ yesterday was the worst I have seen from BEV, across the board. It wasn't just a few channels that were poor, it was pretty much every HD channel I tuned into, including Mpix HD and TMN Hd which tend to be pretty good.
Also, flipping from one HD station to another was very slow, you would hear the audio come on first with a blank screen and it would take about another 1.5-2 seconds before the piture would come on screen. It was never ilke this until yesterday.... using a 9200 HD PVR.

Did anyone else experience this.

Paul
 
It seem to depend more of the source than the broadcast.
With high quality source, the picture is the best quality that 720P can give; as i have seen on Discovery and Oasis lately.
 
Hi. I am thinking of switching my cable and other services from Rogers to Bell so I can get RDS-HD, so I can watch all Canadiens games in HD. I have heard some reports that the picture quality of this channel with Bell is quite poor. Can anyone confirm how the PQ of the Canadiens broadcasts on RDS-HD on Bell TV compares to their games on TSN-HD or CBC-HD? Thanks.
 
Wow... some of you guys sound like your bashing for the sake of bashing. Any of you work for Rogers or Shaw!! Personally I find the PC quite good, its the macroblocking I have the problem with.
 
Hopefully, the 8PSK will improve the american superstations that is my only major complaint with bell right now, because those channels are just WAY overcompressed.
 
Not quite true. The specific language in 2006-74 is this:

At the time, our friends at Bell said this:


The final ruling was that the program signals of pay and specialty services distributed by a BDU must be of the same quality and in the same format as those received by it, without any degradation.

Back in 2003 when they were crafting the rules for distribution of OTA digital signals, the CBC told the CRTC this:


In the end, the CRTC decided that bit-for-bit transmission rules were too restrictive since newer modulation and compression techniques (like MPEG4) would be ruled out, so they ruled that an over-the-air digital television signal distributed by a BDU to its subscribers should be of the same quality and in the same format as that received by the BDU, without any degradation.

Clearly the CRTC's intent is to ensure that viewers receive digital stations without the BDU degrading their quality - this is good for the viewers as well as the stations; bad for the BDUs that believe in quantity over quality. Unfortunately, repeated complaints to the CRTC by myself and others about Bell's transcoding and over-zealous compression fall on deaf ears.
 
The CBC should stop carrying playoff hockey games until they can show every game in HD. If the CBC can't carry the game in HD they should just simulcast the US HD feed like TSN did with the NJ/Carolina game.
 
HD on Bell is a little bizarre. Sometimes it looks soft and about DVD quality and other times it is very,very good. I recorded the Team Canada Vs. Blue Jays game today off Sportsnet and it is excellent PQ.
I have only been with Bell a month now and generally pleased but I have to say the Starchoice HD seemed to be more "sharp". Maybe with the upcoming 8spk things will improve to where they used to be ( I remember seeing my Boss's Expressvu HD about 3 years ago and it was amazing!)
 
Imagine if there was a sat. provider that had great looking channels? Wouldn't that be crazy? A company that actually cares about quality over quantity??
 
Some people are more sensitive to compression artifacts like macroblocking. Macroblocking has been discussed extensively on this forum, so a search should find several threads on the topic.

Often if the TV is left in the default picture mode, if the sharpness is set very high, and other edge enhancements are left turned on, this can exacerbate macroblocking, or dithering in the shadows (which can be affected by the brightness setting on the TV). I see that you saw less on some TVs/providers, but perhaps it's the way the TV is set up.

Here's a thread on proper TV optimization:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=76161

Edit - also make sure that you've set the BTV STBs to output 720P and have not left them at the default 480P. You can experiment with 1080i, but since BTV sends all signals as 720P, 720P is usually the best setting.
 
No Mark, its not just you....although I don't experience the macroblocking your stating, I do see alot of other compression related issues on my Pioneer 6010 with BEV (9200).
Mine TV has been fully calibrated, so I seriously doubt its the TV. Also, the problem with these Pioneer Kuros (6010) is that, IF THERE IS sOMETHING WRONG WITH THE INPUT SIGnAL THE TV WILL DISPLAY IT!
Having said that BD play back on my Pioneer BPD 51 is flawless.
Conclusion, its the BEV signal that is the problem, not your set (assuming it has been properly set up).

Paul
 
The video on demand either works through the ethernet port or they download the content to your hard drive over a period of time and then you pay to access it. It is not a live feed. That is why they can offer 1080P.

I doubt that we will see 1080P broadcast for quite a few years or at least until they find a better way to compress the signal, both cable and satellite. It just takes up too much bandwidth.
 
In preparation for cancelling my Bell satellite service, I have been offloading from my two 9200s to the PC, in case Bell pulls a cute one and I can't access them later. I have about 45 hours of HD shows, some of them dating back about 5 years. I definitely notice a decrease in PQ. The older shows generally look quite good, but the newer ones are consistently of poorer quality. Fox and WGN are especially bad.

BTW, some of my recordings are 1080i, so it appears that Bell uses or used a combination of 720p and 1080i.

There is no comparison between blu-ray and Bell's HD picture quality. The blu-ray is better in every way (color, resolution, video noise, contrast, macroblocking, breakups, etc.). It is immediately noticeable. I also find blu-ray audio quality to be noticeably better.
 
I totally agree with the poor picture quality...I also have HD from a provider south of us and when I flip back and forth on the same HD channel, there's no comparison...Bell sucks.
 
I have both Bell and Shaw. Some HD channels on Bell do look very good. But CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox HD on Bell look soft compared to the exact same channels with Shaw. Two years ago they were very sharp, now they are much softer looking on Bell.
 
I find RDS-HD to look fairly good... There sometimes is macroblocking, but otherwise I have been very happy with the PQ of this channel.
 
Could be just me but since bell has moved the HD channels to the 1000's it seems that pq has improved on certain stations. Picture is crisper and more colorful. American chopper on TLC as well as Survivor on CBSW ( which is actually simsubbed to Global BC) looks really good.
 
Regarding MPEG-4 I can tell you that I am considering Bell TV for a commercial (hotel) deployment and they have stated that an MPEG-4 decoder will likely be required in the TVs that we purchase. So it is coming. Not sure when, though.
 
Back
Top