Why the inconsistent quality of "retro" TV channels?

[brassplyer]

On these stations that broadcast old shows like THIS tv, MEtv etc. or whatever they have in different areas, I've noticed the quality can vary greatly. Some look okay, some have bad audio and video artifacts. Wondering about the pipeline that these videos come down. Isn't there a standard - i.e. it's supposed to fit the following standards to be delivered..... Or not necessarily?

[jagabo]

They use whatever tapes they have sitting around or can scrounge up.

[orsetto]

You're talking about channels that wouldn't exist at all if not for the recent development of the "subchannel" concept. The retro stations are all either bit-starved barely-functional OTA subchannels (sharing bandwidth of your primary local stations), or they're part of the lowest-rung, we-couldn't-care-less tier of your cable service (again bit-starved and usually on the switched-video subsystem, so you can count on disruptions as well). In my area I can get a couple of these channels via both off-air and cable. There are noticeable differences in the audio and video, usually the OTA is cleaner but often the cable version is as good or better. The biggest advantage of the OTA versions is they never time out: the cable versions inevitably pull that "push any button to keep watching this channel" crap right in the middle of something I've timer recorded.

The source material for much of this "retro" programming is surprisingly high in quality: most of it has been remastered for DVD release or other digital projects. Most of it was produced on film to a very high standard, aside from a few crapfests like "The Honeymooners" lost episodes and whatnot that were shot on primitive video instead of film. The DVD sets of shows like "I Dream Of Jeannie," "That Girl," "Bewitched," "Hazel", "Twilight Zone," "Mission: Impossible," "Hawaii 5-0" etc are excellent quality. And some of the newer "burn on demand" DVD-R series sets from Universal Studio like "Circle Of Fear/Ghost Story" rival anything I've seen on BluRay.

So these stations have good source video, it just gets mangled in the transmission. Digital TV isn't all it was cracked up to be in some respects.

[jman98]

orsetto covered it. Those channels are usually bit starved if your TV provider bothers to carry them at all. AT&T Uverse doesn't for example, which is a real shame. I'm a fan of the old show "Bachelor Father" and I've got most but not all of the episodes personally recorded from (I think) Retro TV. That show has never been released on DVD and I guess probably never will be, but the sources were pretty good for that show as they broadcast it.

orsetto - For what it's worth, I've never had that "push any button to keep watching this channel" nonsense happen if use Uverse's DVR to record the show, but it can happen when watching live or trying to do a timer recording with my Hauppauge Colossus. To avoid it I just started using the DVR to record everything I want to keep and I just play it back in real time later to the Colossus to get it to my PC. Maybe your TV provider works similarly where if you use their DVR you don't get that message.

[the_man_one]

for a small bit of quality gain u can watch the feeds on c-band tv if u have that option

[orsetto]

For what it's worth, I've never had that "push any button to keep watching this channel" nonsense happen if use Uverse's DVR to record the show, but it can happen when watching live or trying to do a timer recording with my Hauppauge Colossus.

Thank you for posting that about Uverse: good to hear that they do NOT do the switched video timeout on DVR. Great news for whoever has Uverse service. Unfortunately, TWC, Cablevision and some other cable providers I've seen DO insist on the stupid timeout even if their own DVR is recording, which renders the DVR practically useless for overnight timer recordings.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I do not understand why they can't offer us the option to choose a dozen favorite channels to NEVER time out. Since they monitor every minute we watch and steer the decoder box/PVR 24/7, they must be employing some sort of per-user control signal to trigger the timeouts, so it should be fairly easy to let us pick a few channels we don't want messed with. It is absolutely ridiculous to have our viewing interrupted every 1-4 hours: we're paying (dearly) for access to these channels! The timeouts are completely random, can occur anywhere from 10 mins to 4 hours after tuning a channel, and infect more and more channels every month. It used to happen only late night on obscure or secondary channels, like the retro stuff, but then it started at all hours on primary channels like TNT, Discovery, even TCM. The only timeout-immune channels on TWC are the major broadcast networks, and the main premium channels of HBO and Showtime (the premium subchannels time out constantly).

The most infuriating aspect of these timeouts is the reverse logic: obviously, if my box is powered on and tuned to a channel I AM VIEWING THAT CHANNEL, and of course if my DVR is timer recording that channel IT NEEDS TO REMAIN ACTIVE. For pity's sake, the boxes are all bidirectional: the cable head end computers KNOW my box timer is set for that channel during a specified time. Why would you interrupt your own timer software? I understand the rationale that many people leave their TV on unattended for many hours per day, and the cableco needs to manage bandwidth by timing out channels that aren't massively popular, but once a channel is actively tuned by an individual box timer the connection should be maintained. At the very least I should have the option to block a handful of favorite channels from timing out.

[vhelp]

what is timeout ?

[brassplyer]

Maybe this timeout thing is an anti-copy ploy? Trying to prevent casual set it and forget it copying.

[jagabo]

what is timeout ?

The cable box warns you that it's going to shut off soon if you don't press a button on the remote.

[brassplyer]

orsetto covered it. Those channels are usually bit starved if your TV provider bothers to carry them at all.

This is from an OTA broadcast. Being "bit starved" doesn't explain why some shows look fine and others don't. The broadcast is coming from a player of some sort, it got to that player somehow.

Is it likely being played at a local broadcast station or being relayed from somewhere?

[jman98]

Is it likely being played at a local broadcast station or being relayed from somewhere?

Probably being relayed from somewhere else.

[budwzr]

Some look okay, some have bad audio and video artifacts.

That's because they've been "digitized", probably run through an automated process. Quality doesn't matter, it's just "old shit" to them, not treasured masterpieces, hahaha.

[orsetto]

orsetto covered it. Those channels are usually bit starved if your TV provider bothers to carry them at all.

This is from an OTA broadcast. Being "bit starved" doesn't explain why some shows look fine and others don't. The broadcast is coming from a player of some sort, it got to that player somehow.

Is it likely being played at a local broadcast station or being relayed from somewhere?

Bit-starvation will turn anything into crap: just because it isn't "obviously" bit starved (blocky) doesn't mean the low bandwidth and crummy re-transmission systems aren't cumulatively making a digital hash out of some of these shows. The artifacts can manifest as blurriness, too much or too little contrast, unwatchable night or dark scenes, etc.

We're all going to be talking in generalized circles, brassplyer, unless you give us the names of a few specific shows whose quality bothers you (and which stations are airing them). Some shows never did look any damn good even during their original run, primarily sitcoms from the early 1970s when the networks began dumping film production for much cruddier videotape. There is tremendous PQ variation among shows beginning approx 1969 and lasting thru the late 1980s, when the fetish for cheap flat crappy video began to ease up and TV production moved back toward film (or far better newer video formats) for newer series. The 16mm syndication prints in circulation for some of the early-70s film-based series are in really bad shape now, but continue to be used after quick-n-dirty digitization (even the DVD sets are awful). What we're seeing on these "retro" stations is the end result of original production quality of the series being preserved or degraded by ensuing archiving methods, bounced off the digital library system used by each "retro" channel and the transmission method used to string together the ad-hoc group of stations under that "network" banner. Each time they re-encode along the way, the quality drops further.

[Seeker47]

I don't have much direct experience with this, but evidently you are not talking about channels like TVLand, Ion (?), or perhaps some of the other more "mainstream" ones ?

Maybe this timeout thing is an anti-copy ploy? Trying to prevent casual set it and forget it copying.

You know, while reading this thread, I was wondering if this might be a distant cousin of the "Your Cables Are Not the Correct Ones, Press ____ to Switch Receiver to SD Mode" bullshit 'Error Message' that became such a blight when attempting to transfer a recording from the DirecTV receiver to a standalone DVDR ? At least I have not seen that forced auto-reboot while recording to the DVDR from the replacement (one model series later) DirecTV receivers. Yet. (Fingers crossed.) That definitely had the hallmarks of hostile action.

It's amazing, some of the abject stupidity they allow to take place. I had thought a premier satellite service might be exempt from this ? An egregious example is the blaring klaxon interruption of "This is a TEST of the EMERGENCY BROADCAST System." Recently, I had one of these right in the middle of a live, primetime speech by Obama. Really ?! You couldn't schedule this crap for the dead of night, during an infomercial ??

[orsetto]

Maybe this timeout thing is an anti-copy ploy? Trying to prevent casual set it and forget it copying.

No, because it happens constantly throughout the day and night on more and more channels as time goes by, whether you use their supplied DVR or not. The timeout nonsense is strictly an asinine, not very well thought out way of fitting an ever-increasing number of worthless channels into the same static pipeline. This wasn't nearly as big an issue until bandwidth-hogging HDTV came along to disrupt everything.

The theory behind the timeouts (actually "switched video delivery") is that a great many viewers tend to just leave their TV on as background entertainment and aren't really paying close attention to it. For arguments sake, lets say your cable service can only make 100 channels fully available 24/7 to their entire subscriber base, but they are stupidly offering 800 channels. To make room for these hundreds of pointless channels, something has to give, and that something is uninterrupted availability of less-popular channels. So all the networked decoder boxes continually report user activity back to the cable office, and if the box is tuned to an unpopular channel like "MeTV" for more than half an hour the cable company tells it to blank the signal unless you respond to the onscreen warning "push a button to continue watching."

As each of the boxes blanks out, this opens a tiny bit of bandwidth allowing other subscribers to watch other channels, again for a limited period. Taken in the aggregate, this little trick lets the cable service provide the illusion of nearly limitless channel choices (and offer dozens of on-demand, pay more money options). In theory.

The reality is quite different: the interruptions are incredibly annoying, unpredictable, and spreading to more primary channels as time goes on. The interruptions would be tolerable if they didn't happen during timer recordings we programmed into the decoder box (or PVR). But they do: the switched video apparatus overrides programmed timer settings in most cable systems. While this can be understood and accepted as a tradeoff to get more channels, there really should be some individual subscriber control over personal viewing. The boxes allow all sorts of bidirectional custom settings: it shouldn't be that difficult to give each subscriber an allotment of six to twelve "favorite channels" exempt from the timeout system. If anything, having the boxes report back with these favorites lists should make targeted channel timeouts more efficient and less intrusive: actual usage patterns would emerge almost immediately.

Unfortunately, most cable services are now using incredibly poor in-house software to run their boxes/PVRs, instead of the excellent third-party software that once predominated. They can barely keep the boxes working for more than a day without a reboot, so I guess we can forget any usability improvements. Between the shoddy software and the fact that most subscribers really couldn't care less, those of us who despise these timeouts are a minority they feel comfortable ignoring.

[brassplyer]

Between the shoddy software and the fact that most subscribers really couldn't care less, those of us who despise these timeouts are a minority they feel comfortable ignoring.

Yet another reason for me to remain part of the even smaller minority of folks who ignore cable TV altogether.

[jagabo]

I downloaded an episode of Leave it to Beaver from MeTV. It was full D1, 29.97 fps, interlaced, MPEG 2, about 2100 kbps, 2.0 channel AC3 audio, 192 kbps. Of course, that's what the cable company transmits. There's no way of telling what MeTV transmits to the cable company.

[vhelp]

So all the networked decoder boxes continually report user activity back to the cable office, and if the box is tuned to an unpopular channel like "MeTV" for more than half an hour the cable company tells it to blank the signal unless you respond to the onscreen warning "push a button to continue watching."

that is what directv does too. i mean, after a couple of hours, the dvr goes into sleep mode with sound for a few minutes and if you don't press a button to actuate it, it then goes mute while display a floating "directv" logo at random positions on the screen until you actuate the unit by pressing a button on the remote. i have found a work-around for this problem. every two hours i just press the 'exit' button. why this button ? because its the only one the doesn't interupt the screen in any way. so if i'm analog capturing from the dvr, i never see any such intrusions.

. . .

dvr vs pvr vs capturing for archiving (SD formated) shows

for those poor'er quality broadcast content you will probably do better capturing them losslessly if you are dvd recording them that is..better to analog capture, ivtc and reencode to better final archive format. this assumes content in SD and that most are film, in which case you are better off capturing them--for maximum quality. but if you are conveyorbelting your content, then this may not be practicle.

[blog]also, if only there were a way to sneak in an ivtc type plugin, (source <-ivtc->capture) this would make the ultimate real-time capture "pvr" system. but that is not possible, yet--how to detect the proper pppii telecine to ivtc on the fly during capturing in lossless quality via avi codec or hardware capture device. unless i'm wrong, i don't think it is even possible to detect telecine during analog capturing. otherwise, i would give it a shot in one of my dshow capture projects. after all, i'm still trying to figure out how to write my own capture app for the hdpvr..having trouble getting a preview to show in one app i'm working on but regular (usb) devices capture and preview. but i'll figure it out some day.[/blog]

[Seeker47]

that is what directv does too. i mean, after a couple of hours, the dvr goes into sleep mode with sound for a few minutes and if you don't press a button to actuate it, it then goes mute while display a floating "directv" logo at random positions on the screen until you actuate the unit by pressing a button on the remote.

With DirecTV, "Power Save Mode" is supposed to be a user-settable option. If you don't deliberately choose that, the box is never supposed to sleep. (I have noticed differences in the behavior of Power Save Mode, as between my prior HR23 and the current HR24 receivers, however.)

Are you talking about something else . . . and if so, something that afflicts certain channels but not others ? (I can't see them daring to do this to HBO or Showtime, for example.)

I have not run into recordings ruined by an unwanted Sleep mode, or by too-narrow-bandwidth games of channel musical chairs, but I have had a couple TCM recordings ruined -- even worse, these were of very rarely screened films -- to those aforementioned tests of the Emergency Broadcast System. Someone ought to be fired for that. They must have some discretion over when those things are scheduled.

[LightWeightProducer]

As each of the boxes blanks out, this opens a tiny bit of bandwidth allowing other subscribers to watch other channels, again for a limited period. Taken in the aggregate, this little trick lets the cable service provide the illusion of nearly limitless channel choices (and offer dozens of on-demand, pay more money options). In theory.

That only makes sense if a unicast transmission system is used, ie each receiver gets its own discrete data stream, or an IP multicast where the broadcast domain is small such as a given cable segment. Is your television service delivered via IP or is it an RF broadcast (a DVB system for example)?

The only other way I can see automatically switching off idle receivers being any help in a broadcast system such as a DVB one, is that the head end (for cable) dynamically muxes the channels that are being requested for a given segment, ie if a channel is being viewed on just one box it is added to the broadcast with all other channels in the particular RF channel taking a hit in bitrate to accommodate it. Technically feasible but a nightmare to manage - dynamic service tables having to be provided everytime a channel lights up (or goes away for that matter).

[MOVIEGEEK]

Dish Network shuts off the DVR if you don't change a channel every two hours, it's very annoying.

As for the thread topic, the OTA signal is bit-starved on the sub-channels but looks fine on cable or satellite.

[olyteddy]

I have 6 channels of SiliconDust HDHomerun tuner with CableCard and like it better than any CableCo PVR. Here in Olympia we don't have the switched network yet but from what I've read about that the HDHR and a tuning adapter isn't subject to the timeout you guys describe. As to the distribution on cable I know the cable company cuts corners. I have at least one cable channel that has 10 SD channels on it, and a couple others that have multiple HD feeds mixed with several SD sub channels. I'm wondering if perhaps the retro channels are distributed by IP instead of satellite to their respective stations.

[orsetto]

Someone above suggested the Retro channels might be distributed between participating stations via IP: that's a really good point, and would definitely explain some of the degradation on their cable versions (which do resemble streaming video on occasion).

Re the timeouts and switched video nonsense plaguing CableVision and Time Warner Cable in USA: it isn't quite the same as the timeouts used in satellite systems like DiSH. The satellite timeouts are usually system wide: they kill the signal and have your box display a floating screensaver image on all channels after a defined period. You may or may not be able to override this "sleep" setting by making changes to the box prefs.

On the cable systems, these timeouts are individually targeted at specific channels at random moments: there is no consistency or predictability aside from the issue being more frequent on low-viewership channels like Retro TV. We have three boxes in our home each connected to a different TV. If I set all three boxes to the same less-popular channel, they will each go to sleep at a different time: some within minutes, others in a couple of hours. If the box preferences are set to default, the box will actually power off during these timeouts. If the boxes are set to "never sleep", they remain powered, but their output is unpredictable. Sometimes they just black out for a moment or two after the timeout trigger, then come back to the channel for a couple of hours before finally throwing up the screensaver (which often crashes the box, requiring a reset). Sometimes they black out the video but the audio remains available. Sometimes they dump immediately to the screen saver.

Timeouts, sleep, and other interruptions NEVER occur on the primary local broadcast channels, very popular channels like FX, or the primary premium channels of HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, etc. But they DO affect the network subchannels, most cable channels that aren't massively popular, and premium subchannels like HBO Comedy or Showtime 2. There is clearly some sort of table defining which channels can get interrupted and when, on a household basis, that subscribers have no control over. Not even the cableco's own PVRs are exempt: TWC, Cablevision and Comcast have all been known to put a channel to sleep smack in the middle of timer recordings made by their own directly-linked PVRs.

olyteddy's observation that the timeouts do not afflict his CableCard HTPC systems is something I'd like to learn more about. I'd swap out my decoder boxes in a second for HD Homerun if it would get me away from these interruptions. Perhaps since the CableCards do not have the functionality of a full-sized decoder box, they can skirt these automated blackout signals?

[olyteddy]

olyteddy's observation that the timeouts do not afflict his CableCard HTPC systems is something I'd like to learn more about. I'd swap out my decoder boxes in a second for HD Homerun if it would get me away from these interruptions. Perhaps since the CableCards do not have the functionality of a full-sized decoder box, they can skirt these automated blackout signals?

Here's a link to the SiliconDust forum: http://www.silicondust.com/forum2/index.php ... I also get a lot of info at http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/ and http://www.avsforum.com/f/26/home-theater-computers . I read just about everything I find about the HDHR Prime, CableCards and tuning adapters and can't recall timing out of a station (once tuned) being mentioned.

[jagabo]

We have an HD HomeRun Prime (plus Cablecard and tuning adapter for SDV channels) and a Win7 HTPC acting as a DVR (and a few other Win7 computers around the house that occasionally access the HDHRP). We have no timeout problems.

The HTCP sometimes has problems accessing the tuning adapter -- a message pops up on the screen saying the channel isn't available. But Media Center automatically retries so it never misses a recording.

[Seeker47]

We have an HD HomeRun Prime (plus Cablecard and tuning adapter for SDV channels) and a Win7 HTPC acting as a DVR (and a few other Win7 computers around the house that occasionally access the HDHRP).

What was your choice for an HTPC ? I've been thinking of doing this for some time -- even just as a project, when I have the time -- and I noticed that Shuttle (a brand I like, and of which I have a few) has at least one newer model out that I haven't researched yet. A prior model or two seemed under-equipped. I'm referring to the ones that are approx. half the width of their cube PCs, suitable for going on a shelf or a cabinet, alongside your other standard items like the BR player.

[jagabo]

We have an HD HomeRun Prime (plus Cablecard and tuning adapter for SDV channels) and a Win7 HTPC acting as a DVR (and a few other Win7 computers around the house that occasionally access the HDHRP).

What was your choice for an HTPC ?

I had an Athlon 2 X2 255 and 785G based motherboard sitting around. MCE's Digital Cable Advisor said the onboard graphics weren't good enough but I went ahead and set it up anyway. It could display live HD channels and recorded video just fine -- but when the channel guide was onscreen the video got choppy and the guide was sluggish. So I found a cheap 880G based motherboard and tried that. That's working fine (120 GB SSD boot drive, 1 TB HD for recording, 4 GB DRAM) except every now it wakes up with a graphics glitch which requires it be put to sleep and woken again.

But I'm looking for a little more CPU grunt to run some stuff in the background. I'm waiting to see what the Haswell i3 CPUs bring. Then I will decide on what to upgrade to. If I had to upgrade right now I'd probably go with an i3 3225.

By the way, Silicondust's latest beta drivers for the HD Homerun Prime have a built in DLNA server. It's not working very well yet but there's some promise there. I wish someone would make a cheap box that could access the HDHRP directly and output live TV via HDMI. The Ceton Echo (a media extender) is close but it requires MCE be running on a computer somewhere on the network (it gets services from MCE, not directly from the HDHRP).

[jagabo]

HDHomerun Prime $139 today at NewEgg. Free shipping too.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815345006

[olyteddy]

I've got a couple HTPCs. The one I built as a dedicated one is an IvyBridge i3-3225. The 3225 has Intel HD4000 graphics. It plays just about anything I throw at it:

I also use my main desktop (Sandy Bridge i7-2600, HD2000 Graphics) to watch TV as I surf and to record shows. In the bedroom I use an Acer Revo ION running Win8 with Media Center into a 720p Samsung display. Thinking about using an Xbox 360 as an extender on the 3225 rig instead of the Revo. I have two HDHR Primes for a total of six channels.

[[_chef_]]

In case you are near europe you could check out the transmitted TV stations from Hotbird 13E....hundreds of examples of such channels, especially from italy. :-X