Sky + and 100hz televisions

[martin10]

Can anybody help me ?

I am in the process of replacing an old JVC 32 inch widescreen television and want to buy either the JVC HV 32D40 ( 75hz ?? )or the 37 inch Panasonic Viera ( 50hz ?? ).
I have had Sky + since 1991 when it came out and purchased a 100hz television 2 years ago. The picture quality was poor when I linked up Sky + to it. I contacted JVC who said that the Sky + box will only work on 50hz or 60 hz televisions

Can someone confirm this or tell me if I can get around the 100hz problem with Sky +

Also what do you think about the two televisions above. Any probs with linking Sky + and a DVD player to them both via Scarts ?

Thanks
Martin

[Nick_UK]

Well I've been working with TV's for 40 years, and I've never heard of a 75Hz TV !

Don't worry, both of these TV's will work with Sky+

All you have to decide is whether you want plasma or CRT.

[GaryB]

Originally Posted by Nick_UK

Well I've been working with TV's for 40 years, and I've never heard of a 75Hz TV !

Don't worry, both of these TV's will work with Sky+

All you have to decide is whether you want plasma or CRT.

JVC's DIST televisions are all 75Hz.

Back the original question, the main reason that Sky sometimes don't recommend 100Hz TVs is they they tend to show up the digital artefacts in Sky transmissions more than 50Hz sets.

Gary - You say that Sky sometimes don't recommend 100Hz TVs but presumably the difficulty you have highlighted is a potential problem for all 100Hz TVs all of the time: a 100Hz user is peculiarly at the mercy of the quality of the Sky signal.

Have you any idea of how ubiquitous the problem is? Is it enough of a problem that members would be advised to shy away completely from the 100Hz/Sky combination?

[GaryB]

Originally Posted by bs9292

Gary - You say that Sky sometimes don't recommend 100Hz TVs but presumably the difficulty you have highlighted is a potential problem for all 100Hz TVs all of the time: a 100Hz user is peculiarly at the mercy of the quality of the Sky signal.

Have you any idea of how ubiquitous the problem is? Is it enough of a problem that members would be advised to shy away completely from the 100Hz/Sky combination?

The low bitrate that Sky use can give MPEG arefacts on anything with fast moving picture content. Unless you can pursuade Mr Murdoch to put picture quality ahead of profit (which is unlikely), you can't do much about this.

Virtually all 100Hz TVs have problems with fast moving picture content. This usually shows as smearing on fast moving pictures and pixelisation, among other things. Some people are sensitive to this, some don't notice it. When you use a 100Hz TV with Sky, it tries to process the MPEG artefacts as picture content, which makes things even worse.

Since you can't do much about the first problem, you can try switching off all of the digital trickery to help with the second. If this doesn't work, a 50Hz set may be the only solution.

[chedmaster]

can't you switch 100hz tvs to 50hz?

[GaryB]

Originally Posted by chedmaster

can't you switch 100hz tvs to 50hz?

Some 100Hz sets claim to be able to switch to 50Hz but they still process the information digitally. It is the analogue - digital - analogue conversion process that introduces the nasties with Sky (and Freeview) and this is still active on all the sets I have seen, even in 50Hz mode.

Hi.
Not sure if this is going to be of any help to you regarding the digital artifacts but this was my own experience.
I have a B&O Beovision3 32" and when I first got it home and plumbed in my dvd and freeview(via scart) the digital artifacts that you mention were very prominent,especially on fast moving pictures. Analogue signals were perfect but digital were,shall we say, annoying to say the least.
I did some digging around on B&O forums and discovered that my tv had a 'film mode' in the menu which enhances the digital pictures somehow but also seemed to cause the artifacts. By going into the service menu and turning this feature OFF it elimated 99% of the artifacts immediately.There was no appartant deterioration in picture quality and I also read this does not make the tv 50hz.Please dont ask me to be any more specific on the fine details of how it works, its all a bit techinical for me! I still notice on freeview that some channels are better quality than others, I guess this is down to the band width that is mentioned above.Do you get the problem with dvd?
Maybe your tv has a similar mode hidden in it somewhere? My B&O has a high end phillips tube, not sure who else phillips make tubes for but I guess at least a few other tv brands.
Hope this helps somehow.
S.