Channel Five Transmission Quality

[Garrett]

I don’t watch much on channel Five but have watched it over 3 night's and found the quality a lot worse than just after the re tune.
On re tuning I saw a lot if pixelization bloom round objects, but over the last 3 days a lot of the pictures have broken up I to tiny squares as though the picture was made up of different coloured tiles.

Has any one else had this problem?

[j0hn]

yes its terrible. I switched over to Sanctury Monday and picture was amazingly improved. (freeview aswell)

Watched some other tv on freeview last night and all those were way better than Five. Monday I thought I was watching a low res camera phone preview on the net! it was shocking! tight wads get ya hand in ya pocket!!!!!

[conan]

I noticed the same thing also. It's not as bad on my main TV (but still very noticabe), but I guess that is because it has some upscaling through the Amp/TV. On my second TV, a 32" LG with direct freeview feed the PQ is terrible, its as though I am struggling to get a full picture, "snow" effect on the screen.

[j0hn]

big squares for me like the OP mentioned. I wonder if they cut back on funding like I joked above or if its a technical hitch? though if it was technical you'd think they'd sort it by now, so personally I think they have tried to get away with as less as possible for as little £££ outlay as possible.

[bosque]

Channel 5 used to broadcast the best SD PQ in the South East, Prison Break season 1 used to look better than a DVD, but as the OP says, lately they have been broadcasting a very poor PQ, especially on their off-shoots 5USA and Fiver.

[brian s]

I don't watch Channel Five at all but I'm noticing these problems a lot more in general since the retune.

Regards
Bri

[Thornastor]

Don't worry it is only temporary. It will be back to the original quality resolution after mid October.

[Starburst]

Originally Posted by Thornastor

Don't worry it is only temporary. It will be back to the original quality resolution after mid October.

Will there be enough bitrate to support a higher resolution though because the mantra seems to be new encoding techniques will always pull the industry out of the fire.

[wednesday83]

I watched CSI miami last night and all the CSI series usually look excellent. CSi miami looked very poor. Also the gaget show looked even worse than usual as well on monday.

Bring back the good old days.

[nwgarratt]

They obviously moved CH5 to a worse multiplex when trying to get more people to be able to watch it. That is not good as it will likely put people off freeview.

[Fen Star]

Originally Posted by Garrett

I don’t watch much on channel Five but have watched it over 3 night's and found the quality a lot worse than just after the re tune.
On re tuning I saw a lot if pixelization bloom round objects, but over the last 3 days a lot of the pictures have broken up I to tiny squares as though the picture was made up of different coloured tiles.

Has any one else had this problem?

Yep me aswell been terrible since the re-tune..

[Garrett]

Originally Posted by wednesday83

I watched CSI miami last night and all the CSI series usually look excellent. CSi miami looked very poor. Also the gaget show looked even worse than usual as well on monday.

Bring back the good old days.

I too watch this and the quality was outstanding of the picture till the change over.

I've been disappointed at Five's treatment of non recent films and put it down to them buying 4:3 versions and not upgrading them although Ch4 as far as I can tell always show films in there right aspect even for very old films.

But on Sunday night Five showed Ghost Rider in 16:9 when the film was made 2.35:1. There no excuse for that only to credit their public with limited intelligence.

[aprout]

Originally Posted by Garrett

But on Sunday night Five showed Ghost Rider in 16:9 when the film was made 2.35:1. There no excuse for that only to credit their public with limited intelligence.

It's a rare occasion that ANY terrestrial/freeview channel (apart from dedicated movie channels like Film4) show a 2.35:1 film in 2.35:1. Channel Four do occasionally, but I put that down to them using Film4's cast-offs.

JoePublic will still complain about 'the black bars' taking up half the picture.

[Thornastor]

Originally Posted by Starburst

Will there be enough bitrate to support a higher resolution though because the mantra seems to be new encoding techniques will always pull the industry out of the fire.

I don't really know but there is a long thread about it here

Five at low bit rate - Freeview - Digital Spy Forums

also the this article FIVE limited resolution in some parts | ukfree.tv - independent digital TV + switchover advice, since 2002

[nwgarratt]

Channel 5 still show some films in 4:3 (esp ones from the 80's and 90's).