The future of SKY

[petulia]

Whats the chance of sky improving picture quality ( upping the bitrates) of all channels by switching all broadcast to Mpeg 4 instead of just the HD ones. It maybe just a dream as i take it Sky will have to change everyone box and with 10m as a target, how will that cost ££££

[sprattgraham]

Most of the time the bitrates has nothing to do with Sky unless its one of there channel’s.

Channel’s like ITV are so poor because they are try to squeeze all their regions onto as less TP as possible.

But Sky changing all there TP to MPEG4 (SKY Owned Channels) it not going to happen same as Freeview they are using MPEG2 and with all them boxes out there neither stand a chance of people going out and buy new STB.

It would also involve the broadcast buying new encoders

[Starburst]

No chance of SKY switching to mpeg4 for their own SD channels at least in the short term. The would need to replace 8million mpeg2 boxes with mpeg4 boxes (which are far more expensive) just to save a few million a year in transponder costs so it's simply uneconomical not to mention a nightmare to administer
Of course there would be no guarantee that SKY would maintain a similar bitrate for mpeg4 that it does now for mpeg2 and therefore the PQ would remain as it does now, the only reason to go to mpeg4 would be to save money.

Long term it may be possible, SKY after all have totally switched broadcast formats before and that took them two years and they had to give away most of the boxes and it took them 5 years to make a profit!

The majority of channels on Dsat (and other digital platforms) look fine on the average CRT the majority of the public use to watch television, the BBC did tests to determine how much compression they could use before people complained
The simple truth is that people are buying bigger and better displays and the broadcasts are falling behind and for economic reasons they will not be improved just to please a minority. For those that choose larger displays or flat panels (SD or HD) then HD broadcasting is the solution it'll just take time for a large FTA offering to appear so until then PAY HD is the option or stick to pre-recorded SD content which is of higher quality than broadcast.

[TVR_Fan]

Sure you may get more SD channels over HD channels, but I reckon SD is dead as it can be once HD is out. HD is what you should be planning and thinking ahead for on a HDTV.

[bayards]

I think SD will be around for years - just catering for all those shop-a-vision, asian singalong, God slot, gambling and other assorted "entertainment" channels up in the high 200's of the Sky EPG.

Perhaps we may see some filth in HD soon though.....

H

[loz]

Originally Posted by bayards

I think SD will be around for years - just catering for all those shop-a-vision, asian singalong, God slot, gambling and other assorted "entertainment" channels up in the high 200's of the Sky EPG.

Perhaps we may see some filth in HD soon though.....

H

Actually QVC picture quality puts many regular channels to shame.
(damn. now they think I watch QVC....)
On the occasions I have seen my wife watching it that is!

If previous media technology uptake is anything to go by, HD pron is quite likely to drive HD adoption