VOTE:no to digital.

[baker]

Now i have never felt more strongly about anything in my life than this (and i ain't kidding!).

Vote no to digital, this article will explain why and you may post any + or - point you have about digital or analouge after you read this.

If anyone here has any sort of digital television (to name but a few:- sky digital, ondigital, ntl, fta aerial braodcasts) they will know that no matter what company, what subscriber the quailty is always shite.MPEG was not meant for this, these broadcasters are using mpeg technology to make their boadcasts smaller so they can put more channels on a band. I have satellite, i once had analouge satellite but the company changed the service to digital. Now due to the extra room there is 100's more channels then there was in analouge. But guess which channells i am watching? The old ones cause they are the only ones with decent programming!!!

this is what they claim digital offrers:

-100's channels
-excellent picture quailty
-easier to use
-loads of new services
- and lots more besides...

now this is what they are really offer:

-100's of bullshit
-xing mpeg encoder picture quailty(that crap for u newbies )
-******* always crashing and breaking down
-loads of new bullshit no body cares about!! WE JUST WANT TO WATCH TV!!
-And buckets more bullshit besides.


some channels are very smart and are now only broadcasting in widescreen which makes picture quailty way better but still not as good as analouge!

Every company is now changing all their services to digital and i say we put a stop to it! they are just doing it for their own benefit so they can moniter us and charge us for stuff we don't even want!!

I agree some digital services like dvd and cd are god but for broadcasting its just a bad idea!

I hopw u will be against it and will vote NO to digishite.

Baker

[Bud]

Not sure about your service provider, but the one I use is extremely good Digital Service, the Digital Box will allow me to set it like a VCr to do the station selection. The picture is great. Again this is based on the past six month of use. I receive over 200 staions some very good Digita music selections. So this is what I receive, your may be different.

Bud

[setagames]

it seems to me that what should really worry you
they starting to make tivo type stuffs that will charg you for everything you watch
record a season of sopranos
watch it 15 times
guess what
you will be billed 15 times for watching it
i just hope the idiot making it changes his stupid mind
before they actually start selling it
whhhyyyyyy!!!!!
sorry to anyone not knowing what i am talking
about
was part of a pc mag at the library
dont remember names

[ember]

I have to agree with the initial post: I have ITV digital (and for how that will last, nobody knows) and the picture - at least once a day - breaks up. The sound is distorted to a high pitch during the intereference resulting in all round seizures and fits. Truly disturbing. Live broadcasts are never broadcast to a high mpeg2 bitrate - so that football matches appear "smudgy" and the player's faces are non-descript (not necessarily bad when watching Man Utd).

[sean madison]

god people, everyone who hates digital broadcast must have a crappy ass company.

I've had it for a year now and the quality is great.

How do u think movie groups put tv ripz online??
Take a guess...
Digital broadcasts.

I have never had any problems with it.

I love it, anologue sucks big time.

When anologue is ran thru a splitter a couple of times it gets to staticy vs pure digital quality.

I have a tv cap card and a digital receiver in my pc.

Nothing looks better than digital tv on tv or pc.

I have been told that it is encoded in mpeg2 up to 21 or 2200 kb\sec.

So i dont know where in the hell u got xing mpeg encoder from baker?!?!

I have never had any bad reception blocks shown.

It either sounds like the people who hates digital either has a crappy service cuz i never heard of those companies or i got the best.

[ember]

Look like it's just us Brits whining again: but then again perhaps we have something to whine about - we only have 1 terrestrial digital broadcaster, and that is, quite frankly, digging it's own sh*thole of a grave.

And those distortions - they are real and many reports have been made by customers. The problem is, the company won't do sh*t about it.

Oh, and the first post is right about WS in the UK. Sky One do not broadcast WS except on one of their movie channels. That's just 1 subscription channel dedicated to WS broadcast. The license payer thankfully gets a better deal with BBC, ITV and Ch4 broadcasting most movies, dramas and sport in WS.

Oh, and as for the digital box- mine is a Nokia - and it takes about 10 seconds (literally) to change channels. The text service is also very slow.

[twonabomber]

it seems to me that what should really worry you
they starting to make tivo type stuffs that will charg you for everything you watch
record a season of sopranos
watch it 15 times
guess what
you will be billed 15 times for watching it
i just hope the idiot making it changes his stupid mind
before they actually start selling it
whhhyyyyyy!!!!!
sorry to anyone not knowing what i am talking
about
was part of a pc mag at the library
dont remember names

sounds like the DIVX disc machines...that's what happens when too many lawyers get involved...

[sumibas]

hey,


i work for a sattlite company. We never use any software encoder for the Broad CAST are you guys crazy. there is now way you can do a real time software encding for broad castint. the signals are MPEG2 at 3400 KB/sec and they are done via hardware encoding and you can never nead a Good Digital signal with analog. You will not get any grains like you get on anolog signals when you go for big screen tvs or so.

[baker]

Sean i have never liked you and never will mainly cause you normally speak some great shit, don't take it personally i just don't like you and never will...

As for people who say digital broadcasting looks good i can't argue with you i am watching sky-one on a 24" misibishi and have never seen a better picture BUT when i go down stairs and start watching it on a very large phillips with excellent picture quailty the blocks become aparent.

Analouge produces better picture than digital.

Thats just about it, i love mpeg,cd,dvd and all other digital media but digital broadcasting is just a bad idea until we develope the field more.

An anti digital,
baker

[baker]

as for the sattelite company guy,

I know broadcasting is done with hardware!! i aint that stupit.

However visable light claim that software realtime mpeg-2 is possible using cce.

Baker

[Tommy]

Nothing wrong with digital in my neck of the woods.......... Looks great!

8)

[Digifreak]

I think what the original post was getting at is that the digital broadcasters are using the bandwidth for more low resolution broadcasts instead of less high resolution broadcasts. Have any of you watched digital TV on a high definition TV or monitor? It looks no better than current analog given adequate signal strength (which is currently crap). I personally will not subscribe to digital TV until I can be provided with better quality broadcasts. Don't say no to digital TV, say no to low quality digital and demand high-definition.

GIVE ME QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY!

[kwag]

Ok. Here we go!.

I have C band B.U.D ( Big Ugly Dish ) and this is what I have to say.

First of all, the primary signal that ALL small dish companies use, is C band. And I mean Dish Network, DirecTV, etc, etc.

If you have a pure strong analog signal, I mean a S/N of 90 ( talking about a 4DTV receiver, there are no dots/noise/or whatever, and the picture looks better that any digital broadcast. And I'm talking Digicipher digital channels like HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, etc ( on C Band ).

As for the quality of small dishes, well, what most people don't know is that these companies feed from C band, re-compress, and re-transmit on their up-links for these services ( Dish, DirectTV, etc ).

So small dish owners, you are getting what's called a "Third Generation" signal.

As to the original question. If the digital bit rates on satellite streams was as high as the bitrates on DVD's, then the quality would be superior than a pure analog channel. But that is not the case on MPEG-2 digital video broadcasts.

kwag


kwag

[baker]

Digifreak said it all,
QUAILTY NOT QUANITY!!!

My provider has room for about 100 more channels and half the current channels are crap/being closed down so why not a highier bitrate!!!

But i must admit the res aint too bad its probably high res.

Kwag,
your post is correct as well.

I hope people read this post and take it in.

Baker

[droolian01]

I agree with baker and the others, my digital service is inferior to analogue.
I am a uk digital cable user (telewest) and on my tv can quickly swap between av (dig cable) and terestrial. Artefacts can be seen in the digital signal in areas of movement whereas the analogue signal is perfect. I think that most of the people who disagree are not comparing like for like, of course a poor/low sig strength/iteference strewn analogue signal is inferior to digital, but isn't analogue, by definition, raw uncompressed data (therefore superior?).
As for the call for quality not quantity, i agree, but us geeks are in a really small minority compared to the average tv user. Most people are barely aware of the visual diferences between live tv and vhs recordings of the same programmes, this is evidenced by the fact that not one person i know can understand why i would go to such great efforts to digitally capture stuff when i already own a vcr. If you start explaining vertical resolution, limited life of magnetic media on an iron cored planet etc.. there eyes just glaze over "why don't you just video it?"
And these punters are where the cash are, so the digital providers will give them what they want, quantity over quality earns more (i mean itv gets huge viewing figures for the inane pap put out on a saturday evening!) If comerce were concerned with quality we would all have betamax vcrs wouldn't we?

Solutions? petition digital providers for more bandwith and less channels they will tell you to "piss-off and watch bbc four you weirdo"

Direct 'capture' of mpeg2 streams to hd are cool and should give you exactly the same as you watch on digital tv, but are expensive and dificult to do.

In the mean time i wil try to make my supposed 1st generation copies of what in reality are 2nd or third generation compressions as loss-less as possible - and moan about it here!!!

[Digifreak]

Even a "perfect" analog signal on NTSC is still no better than 640x480 resolution. It looks like junk once you've seen what a HDTV broadcast has the capability to be. Wait till you you view your 1st HDTV broadcast(on a high-def monitor of course) and you will see what I mean.

[droolian01]

But a 'perfect' analogue signal on PAL is 768x576 and has no compression artefacts.
Wait till you see your first PAL broadcast (on an ordinary tv of course) and you will see what i mean.
The get a widescreen PAL tv (only about 25% more expensive than a 4:3 one) and watch real quality with 100% coverage!
(sorry u.s. - ntsc is the price you pay for being inovators!!!)

[baker]

Please vote!! The anti analouges are winning!!!

I am really enjoying this post and can't wait to read more posts.

Am i the only one who is noticing that the uk people are the only ones complaining?

Perhaps uk companys are the worse for quailty?

Baker

[khelms]

IMHO, digital is the way of the future. We're in kind of a chicken and the egg situation here in the states, where broadcasters are reluctant to invest in digital hardware until there's a market and consumers are reluctant to buy digital TVs until there's product to watch, but the eventual conversion to digital seems inevitable and is even government mandated (not that we listen to them!).

Most of the big screen TVs sold these days are at least digital "capable" or "ready", meaning they have digital inputs you can connect an external tuner to. I have a progressive scan DVD player hooked to the digital inputs on my TV and the picture is wonderful. I can't wait until HDDVD appears. I haven't bought an analog tape in 5 years and will only keep the VCR until I can replace everything with DVDs.

It may be that most digital signals broadcast will always be lower or "standard" resolution. I don't care if I can count the freckles on the weather channel newsperson. I do think that once people get exposed to high definition movies, they'll never want to go back to analog and a segment of the market catering to videophiles will develop. The new DVHS (digital VHS) is aimed at them.

So, to those who say that 90% of digital broadcast is crap, I'll quote Sturgeon's Law - 90% of EVERYTHING is crap!

[droolian01]

Baker, you are right, it is the uk based people who thinkthe present digital service is crap. And i have a theory based on supposition (logic/common sense) and ignorance (never been to the US).

We are blessed with pal. Not only is our res much better but the colour system itself is more stable (someone once jokingly suggested that ntsc stands for "never the same colour"!). You know that when you resize a rip/cap down you can 'get rid' of all sorts of noise/artefacts (at the price of detail!). So if you view ntsc as a reduced res form of pal (but with less colour stability) its no wonder the US digital users think it is better, as they can't SEE the artefacts that we can.

Thats why UK users aren't so easily conned by these money grabbing and mean (in bit rate terms) digital providers.

[KingJohn]

Free to air

Well I have a Sony Digital television, here in Coventry there is no signal, well that's what they say, but I pick it up crystal clear. For those locations that the transmitters are under test, you will receive an intermittent signal while tests are made at higher power output.

I don't subscribe to anything, the TV does have a Cam slot in the back if I wanted to, but lets face it the Analogue signals are going to be shut off in 5 years time, so like it or not we have it..

The Free to air channels will be increased slowly, despite ITV digital being in a mess, things will continue as planed, meanwhile I don't have to pay anyone for all these extra channels, and in a poor signal location there is hardly any faults. When the signal is increased then it will be much better. Heck channel 5 is not even transmitted from local repeaters yet, give them time.

So you will be able to buy the set top boxes for £100, no subscription, this is an attempt to get everyone over ready for switch off, I guess those left might get a free box?. But the way forward is having a TV with it built in, this Sony KD-28DX40U Widescreen is the greatest ...

Viva the digital revolution

[CoCoNiPs]

BBC1 or itv on regular "old" analogue showed a football clip from some itv digital game recetnly dont ask me which one i dont care ;p
and the compression artifacts were so obvious the green grass looked like plastic with loads of nasty squares
ive seen mpeg 1 look a 100 times better

I was pretty shocked how obvious the compression was so I can fully understand these guys who r sayign that the mpeg 2 broadcasts do look liek total cr*p compared to analogue
How much longer till the switch?
When we'll have no choice anymore

[Scobo]

I'm a Sky Digital owner from the UK and can't agree more. The picture is shit compared to analogue. Even software encoded VCDs can look better. I think for £16.00+ per month we've a right to expect better than this crap.

[baker]

loook at the votes!! it only adds to 99%

Baker

[droolian01]

That s because it is digitally adding. Analogue adding is uncompressed (100=100 not 99), but will be phased out in 5 years time. But most ordinary punters don't notice anyway so the digital providers don't care . Rather telling analogy, eh?

[KingJohn]

All I can think of, is the method used to pick up these channels. Sky by a dish could be a very week signal, NTL or other cable should be best, but broadband transmissions can also get messed up.

I pick up the channels from the Arial on the roof, yes there are a few problems at times, but I'm not in a location where the signal is being transmitted officially.

However these problems are not often, what I can see now is the best quality picture I have ever seen, crisp and clear and very bright colours. Perhaps these old analogue TV's are not up to scratch, I think this Sony is a 100Hz set, maybe that is your problem.

[homerpez]

I have Digital Cable, and I've experienced the best and worst of it...

On mine, channels 2-70 are Analog anyway, but going through the Digital Cable reciever somehow makes nearly every Analog station come in clear as a bell.

As for the Digital Channels... well...

Most channels are quite good-looking, particularly movie channels and, frankly, the "crap" channels (extra channels of Discovery, Sports, Int'l news I've already heard).

Ultimately, I've found it depends on the channel. Among the worst I've experienced: Toon Disney, and VH1 Classic. They must be using 100k/sec bitrate, including the audio. The minute any movement comes on screen, here come the blocks!

My pet peeve is movie channels, though... while detail quality is usually nice, many seem to be using the wrong colorspace! Many seem to look darker, with heavier "red" tone in everything... anyone else notice?

BTW... on the poll, I had to obstain because I feel both choices don't fit me. Some Digital stations suck eggs. But I remember how some stations come in with Analog-only, and I'm never going back.

[SteveDVD]

It depends on where you live and who your provider is. I have Adelphia Digital and it's great. Way better than the normal analog. Everyone is going to be switching to Digital in the upcoming years so....

[baker]

well looks like they want to close all analouge stations by around 2005, i am glad but wish they would improve their digital servicies before doing anything!!

Baker

[baker]

IS ANYONE CAPTURING FROM DIGITAL?

I was just wondering as i have been trying to get a decent captures using filters and everything and am having no hope!!!

Has anyone any guidelindes?

I am useing digital sattellite and vdub.

Baker