Finally! Increased bandwidth for Sky Movies HD2 and Sky One HD

Abstrakt

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The long-awaited move to free up bandwidth for Sky Movies HD2 and Sky One HD appears to have taken place earlier this afternoon. :D

Sky Box Office HD1 was officially moved from 12344 H to 11798 H. So as of today SM HD1, SM HD2 and Sky One HD should all have roughly the same bandwidth available. Keep in mind that all of Sky's transponders employ some pretty advanced stat-muxing; bitrates will always be variable rather than constant. But with only two active channels per transponder, we can reasonably expect around 18 Mbps per channel at all times.

Here is what the updated transponder line-up looks like right now:

11720 H:
Sky Sports HD1
Sky Sports HD2​

11798 H:
Sky Movies HD1 (11 AM - 3 AM) *
Sky Anytime PVOD HD1 (3 AM - 11 AM) *
Sky Box Office HD1​

12324 V:
Discovery HD
Sky Arts HD
Sky Box Office HD2 (9 PM - 8 AM) *
Sky HD Retail Info (8 AM - 9 PM) *
Sky Sports HDX (Occasional) *

12344 H:
Sky Movies HD2 (12 PM - 4 AM) *
Sky Anytime PVOD HD2 (4 AM - 12 PM) *
Sky One HD​

12363 V:
National Geographic HD
The History Channel HD​

An asterisk (*) denotes a time-shared channel, which is a single service reused for multiple purposes. Only one time-shared channel per transponder can be active at any given time.

Another change worth noting: a couple of weeks ago the symbol rate on 11798 H was increased from 28250 KBaud to 29500 KBaud, resulting in slightly more usable bandwidth available on that transponder (around 43.5 Mbps instead of the previous 42 Mbps). I'm guessing they've used that transponder as a test and the others will follow suit eventually.
 
how will this affect us, and where on earth do you find such info...please:lesson:
 
It means Movies HD2 and Sky One HD now have increase bitrate, therefore better PQ.

Yaaay :)


 
Define cheap DVB-S2 card and where from as I really feel the spare feed on my Quad LNB could be put to use providing BBCHD and other free to view channels on my PC :)
 
BBC HD is DVB-S so you only need a dirt cheap card ;) Although I think maybe they said they would do S2 tests at some point, not like the Technotrend is expensive either.

I got mine from DVBShop.
 
This is great news.

High Quality HD Kate Beckensale in PVC on Satruday night :clap: .

Also Revenge of the Sith soon as well :clap:
 
Shame the film are so rubbish on all the Movies channels! It seems the new look Movie channels means fewer channels and a major cut in recent films. Even the Premiere films this week are poor.
 
hurray, i didnt really bother watching movies hd 2 as although the details is better than a good dvd, PQ sufferd.

And Rubish films :eek: today along the great classic Big trouble in little china is on as well as the Truman show and the hudsucker proxy.
 
BBC HD is DVB-S so you only need a dirt cheap card ;) Although I think maybe they said they would do S2 tests at some point

I got mine from DVBShop.

Problem is with the BBC they don't lease that many transponders and to give up one just for a DVB-S2 test is quite unlikely right now.

BBC One Cambridge and Channel Islands would need to be moved elsewhere.
 
And Rubish films :eek: today along the great classic Big trouble in little china is on as well as the Truman show and the hudsucker proxy.




Some will never be pleased yet still pay:)
It's true you can't please everyone but if the SKY premieres are poor then the DVD releases 6-12 months before would also be poor and the theatrical release 6 months before that were poor:)
SKY can not be blamed for the output of the US and UK film industry and it's also a mistake to just view a single week and take that as a general stance. Like footy SKY can not show the no1 rated movies all in one week then have the "dudes" for the other 3 weeks of the month:)


As for the HD channels the same applies, SKY don't have the HD rights for their entire catalogue and they also need to balance the use of new, old and classics in the lineup and for the most part do a good job.

I'll be recording Big Trouble tonight now the bitrate seems to be better on the two programmes I tested this afternoon (SG1 6% and Transporter2 at 10%).
 
Is the new increased bandwidth on HD2 as good as HD1 though?
9% for 2hr film, wasnt it 12% on HD1?

now we need the star wars films repeated on the better bitrate, revenge of sith looked pretty bad in certain scenes particularly the lightsabre duel with gen grevous.
 
Is the new increased bandwidth on HD2 as good as HD1 though?
9% for 2hr film, wasnt it 12% on HD1?




Hard to tell, no sure if I could literally tell the difference between the same movie broadcast at two bitrates within a couple of mbps difference all else being equal, when we get to 5 or 6mbps the difference becomes obvious but even then the content itself determines how bad it looks at low bitrate.
I watched a few movies on SM10HD that looked just fine and others were very poor.
 
I recorded Hotel Rwanda a few weeks back from HD2 and it took up only 6%; recorded it the other night and it took up 10% this time so an improvement there.
 
You can really see the difference from this diagram, on the 21st April the bitrate for Sky movies HD2 was 6 kbits:eek: ( and they call it an HD channel:confused: ) compare that to the 25th April which shows it at 16kbits:smashin: Thats more like it.

http://www.linowsat.com/0282/bitrate/2033/3862.html
 

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Anyone interested on the skyone hd bitrate, here it is

You can see on the 16th April it had a low of 11kbits, yesterday it was at an impressive 19.5 kbits:smashin:
 

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Thanks for those graphs... I was honestly thinking of ditching HD come end of May but if they can maintain that level (or higher) bitrate then I'll stay.
 
With the the launch of Astra 1L at 19.2 east next week i think its due in service at end of May and the move of Astra 2C to 28.2 I wonder which channels are going to move over to 2C I did hear a rumour that there would be two 24hr Sky anytime streams on it so that boxes can download at anytime. I would imagine if FX HD,CNN HD and rumoured music channel laumch they will be on this sat to enable it to offer high bit rate.
 
just recorded the repeat of Return of the Sith on HD2 with the improved bitrate. It took up 13% compared with 7% before the bitrate boost on the channel a week or so ago.

Ive had a flick through and it deffo looks better on my panel, clearer detail, no dot crawl, much less blocking on very fast movement. It looks stunning basically.

lets hope Sky repeat the other 5 SW films now after bitrate upgrade???
 
lets hope Sky repeat the other 5 SW films now after bitrate upgrade???

Also after I get by 1 TB drive fitted as well ;)

Well none of the SW films are on Last Chance to see in May on the skymovies webpage so fingers crossed
 

Thank you :thumbsup:

Hopefully overclockers.co.uk will get by 1TB drive out before the end of May - it would be great to have all 6 in HD on the box until they come out in 6xHD-DVD boxset (or Blue-ray).

Also - where do get that info from? Looks like a useful source.
 

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