SCI-FI now HD on SKY

IanW · 27-01-2009, 2:05 PM

Sorry if this has already been posted but SCI-FI is now HD on SKY!

Ian.

freeman · 27-01-2009, 7:36 PM

Have you seen it ?
I hope they don't intend running the rest of Medium letterboxed & pillarboxed

Shaun666 · 27-01-2009, 8:01 PM

Big ugly logo as well !

IanW · 27-01-2009, 8:50 PM

One thing that I was quite impressed by was that some of the stuff was in 4:3, rather than stretched. I hate watching stuff on Virgin where everything is stretched to 16:9, and because I use HDMI I cannot change the ratio!

Ian.

branny · 27-01-2009, 11:35 PM

Do they show anything I should give a go?

MrFurious · 28-01-2009, 12:46 AM

im watching the faculty now, it looks good, and i love the film

Kwon · 28-01-2009, 5:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by freeman

Have you seen it ?
I hope they don't intend running the rest of Medium letterboxed & pillarboxed

ill be recording medium off normal sci-fi channel ,cant stand black borders on the side, Shame

yeah i know its the right way but still looks rubbish.
thought angel might be full screen as well.

Starburst · 28-01-2009, 4:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrFurious

im watching the faculty now, it looks good, and i love the film

Recorded it, would never have done so on 4:3 SD scifi channel, good movie but not good enough to have overcome how scifi used to present their content

Silver Serpent · 28-01-2009, 6:19 PM

The quality seems decent of what I saw, i.e. Flash Gordon and the Faculty.

I only watched a few mins of each however.

The Faculty is repeated tomorrow at 9.40pm for anyone interested.

freeman · 28-01-2009, 8:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kwon

ill be recording medium off normal sci-fi channel ,cant stand black borders on the side, Shame

yeah i know its the right way but still looks rubbish.
thought angel might be full screen as well.

It's not the right way ,they added the letterboxing to the 16:9 picture to make it the right shape for 4:3 & then added the pillarboxing to make it 16:9 again very shoddy

If Zone Horror & the Paranormal Channel can show films in the correct aspect ratio why can't the monkeys at Sci-Fi work out how to do it properly ?

TrevorG · 28-01-2009, 8:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IanW

I hate watching stuff on Virgin where everything is stretched to 16:9, and because I use HDMI I cannot change the ratio!

Ian.

Set your V+ to 720 or 1080 output rather than 720 wide or 1080 wide and hey presto, OAR

Trevor

mudstuff · 29-01-2009, 8:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silver Serpent

The quality seems decent of what I saw, i.e. Flash Gordon and the Faculty.

I only watched a few mins of each however.

The Faculty is repeated tomorrow at 9.40pm for anyone interested.

Yeah I thought The Faculty looked ok, didn't really pop but wasn't bad looking. IT was never a pristine film and I think it's meant to be a little grainy and soft. You could see the extra resolution when the character names came up on screen and some shots were decent. The CG stood out a little. I've seen some upscaled DVDs that have looked better but it certainly wasn't bad. The audio was good, however, one of the better 5.1 mixes I've heard on sky and I assumed it was only going to be stereo since the EPG didn't mention audio format.

The letterboxing AND pillarboxing is annoying though. Thankfully The Faculty was displayed correctly. The film on before it (Replicant?) wasn't displayed correctly so I was worried they'd do the same to The Faculty. Luckily it was fine.

Here's hoping for some more movies and for a lot more HD tv content - properly displayed too!

bekko · 02-02-2009, 3:55 PM

The hd i have seen on it looks reasonable but the sd i have seen looks pap compared to sd on the other hd channels.

wednesday83 · 03-02-2009, 11:41 AM

At the moment the channel seems a waste of bandwith and transponder space. Very little HD content and even the SD upscaled is not that good. Why not launch an HD channel when you have mainly HD shows to show???

It seems that sometimes channels are there just for stats about how many "HD channels" there are available. Hopefully HD content will come on a regular basis.

Scapegoat · 03-02-2009, 1:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wednesday83

At the moment the channel seems a waste of bandwith and transponder space. Very little HD content and even the SD upscaled is not that good. Why not launch an HD channel when you have mainly HD shows to show???

It seems that sometimes channels are there just for stats about how many "HD channels" there are available. Hopefully HD content will come on a regular basis.

For me its fine.

I only watch a couple of shows on Sci-fi (Eli Stone and Flash Gordon) and they are both in HD. I'm glad I can see them now in HD, rather than waiting until Sci-Fi have lots of stuff (tricky when they show a lot of old stuff e.g. Angel).

However I find its the same with most HD channels - Lost/24/BSG are the only shows I watch on Sky1; Re-genesis and Dexter on FX; Heroes on BBC; Big Bang Theory (and HD for the GF) on Ch4.

A small amount of HD on a lot of channels = a high proportion of my viewing each week is HD.

wednesday83 · 03-02-2009, 2:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scapegoat

For me its fine.

I only watch a couple of shows on Sci-fi (Eli Stone and Flash Gordon) and they are both in HD. I'm glad I can see them now in HD, rather than waiting until Sci-Fi have lots of stuff (tricky when they show a lot of old stuff e.g. Angel).

However I find its the same with most HD channels - Lost/24/BSG are the only shows I watch on Sky1; Re-genesis and Dexter on FX; Heroes on BBC; Big Bang Theory (and HD for the GF) on Ch4.

A small amount of HD on a lot of channels = a high proportion of my viewing each week is HD.

But Sky 1 shows a far higher ammount of HD than SCI Fi.

The list of shows on SKY 1 HD in HD is far higher than the number on SCI fi at the mo. Id do a list but we could go on all day. yes you may watch a few of the shows on SCI Fi but its not a huge list is it. Surely the best option would have bene just to up the bit rate on SCI FI SD to make it watchable and then create an HD channel when HD content is available. It seems stupid having shows such as Angel on SCI FI hd.

Starburst · 03-02-2009, 4:39 PM

It's been discussed before as to the merits of a simulcast incorporating upscaled and native HD (SKY1HD/CH4HD) or a channel with it's own schedule but all native HD (FXHD, BBCHD).

I personally think the benefits of high res and high bitrate upscales is far more appealing than having HD broadcasts delayed for a day or even a week maybe even longer in some cases compared to the SD broadcast.
The other issue is simply the sheer cost of HD and the limited funds multichannels have, even FXHD which is currently 100% HD is relying on older content produced long before HD became the norm even in the US and doesn't look that impressive compared to more recent TV productions.

In terms of upping the bandwidth of the Scifi SD channel then who is going to pay and given the majority of viewers still have a CRT and any benefit would be wasted so more money no extra revenue is hard to sell to the bean counters. HD on the other hand is partly being financed by SKY and well it offers far more marketing opportunity then anything they can do to the SD channel even going anamorphic.
It's also pretty difficult to secure the extra bandwidth given a channel like Scifi would lease X amount on a transponder and SES/Eutelsat would lease out the rest to other channels.