[ado]

i was Having a nose around currys the other day and spotted an LG running hidef film it was amazing.

ive tried in the past and after seeing it i had to try again so i read as much info as i could last night about displaying hidef on my panny 42pv500 linked to a pc with a nvidia 6600gt card using powerstrip via the vga port also tried the dvi.

read about screen size - HZ - downloaded alot of hidef shorts and documentaries.

ready to go. took the pc downstairs plugged in to the tv in various ways and screen resolutions - and the picture was rubbish.

tried a dvd played through the pc for comparison - rubbish

nothing compared to playing a dvd with my pioneer 575 player using component leads.

what do these retailers use to get a picture so good and why is it so hard to replicate.

i knew i should have bought that 14" matsui like the misses said.

[TankTopLover]

Originally Posted by dutto225

i was Having a nose around currys the other day and spotted an LG running hidef film it was amazing.

ive tried in the past and after seeing it i had to try again so i read as much info as i could last night about displaying hidef on my panny 42pv500 linked to a pc with a nvidia 6600gt card using powerstrip via the vga port also tried the dvi.

read about screen size - HZ - downloaded alot of hidef shorts and documentaries.

ready to go. took the pc downstairs plugged in to the tv in various ways and screen resolutions - and the picture was rubbish.

tried a dvd played through the pc for comparison - rubbish

nothing compared to playing a dvd with my pioneer 575 player using component leads.

what do these retailers use to get a picture so good and why is it so hard to replicate.

i knew i should have bought that 14" matsui like the misses said.

God knows.I do have a hd demo disk i bought off ebay that has panasonic and LG hd demos,they look incredible but the footage is so boring to watch.

[Attu]

I use a DVI to HDMI converter and set my computer to 1280x720 and the picture looks great, i watched Transporter last night on my Pioneer 436 and was truly amazed at the image, i also watched some Prison break and that wasnt as good, i guess it just shows that not all HD content is as good as it could be.

Andy

[Starburst]

Originally Posted by Attu

i also watched some Prison break and that wasnt as good, i guess it just shows that not all HD content is as good as it could be.

Andy

Prison Break has had good comments on the quality of the HD feed however FOX's affiliates may be reducing the resolution/bitrate to allow them to merge news/weather etc and the caps you are watching may have been taken from those sources.

[Stephen Neal]

Originally Posted by Starburst

Prison Break has had good comments on the quality of the HD feed however FOX's affiliates may be reducing the resolution/bitrate to allow them to merge news/weather etc and the caps you are watching may have been taken from those sources.

This is less likely for Fox than for other networks, as they went HD (720p) far later than the other three (their initial DTV service was 16:9 480/60p for transmission with 480/60i production), and adopted a more "high-tech" (and lower cost) HD broadcast model for their local stations.

Fox distribute at emission rate, not distribution rate, and use their "splicer" technology to allow local bug insertion into the compressed stream (rather than requiring local decoding and recoding), so the network encodes at the rate the viewer sees, NOT the local station, in most cases. In fact the final emission rate is partially determined by the statmuxing between the East and West coast feeds I believe - as they share transponder space. To allow for some multi-casting, the emission rate is capped at a level that guarantees a fixed amount of freespace for other services. However the emission rate should only vary between East and West coasts, and not station to station AIUI.

This is in contrast with CBS, ABC and NBC who distribute a distribution rate feed that is permanently decoded at each local station, processed, and then re-encoded at a rate decided by the local station (allowing multi-casting of weather/news loops etc.)

AIUI Fox doesn't push the quality envelope in HD terms - so if the OP was viewing an off-air MPEG2 capture in 720/60p it may not be as good as a movie capture from a cable box or satellite via Firewire in 1080/60i (containing a 1080/24p transfer)

If the OP was watching a Divx or WMV conversion - then the source quality is less relevant still.

[Miyazaki]

Lost looks mind blowing in HD.

[Starburst]

Originally Posted by Stephen Neal

This is less likely for Fox than for other networks, as they went HD (720p) far later than the other three (their initial DTV service was 16:9 480/60p for transmission with 480/60i production), and adopted a more "high-tech" (and lower cost) HD broadcast model for their local stations.



AIUI Fox doesn't push the quality envelope in HD terms - so if the OP was viewing an off-air MPEG2 capture in 720/60p it may not be as good as a movie capture from a cable box or satellite via Firewire in 1080/60i (containing a 1080/24p transfer)

If the OP was watching a Divx or WMV conversion - then the source quality is less relevant still.

Thanks for the clarification
I was working from forums comments on some of last seasons "24" HD broadcasts in which the bitrate was sub 10mb/s using mpeg2.
There has also been some concerns with DirecTV using the 1280*1080 resolution and other excuses to reduce the bitrate, there really does seem to be quality differences between delivery platforms/services.

I made the assumption that Attu was watching a TS and not a re-encode

[Stephen Neal]

Originally Posted by Starburst

Thanks for the clarification
I was working from forums comments on some of last seasons "24" HD broadcasts in which the bitrate was sub 10mb/s using mpeg2.
There has also been some concerns with DirecTV using the 1280*1080 resolution and other excuses to reduce the bitrate, there really does seem to be quality differences between delivery platforms/services.

I made the assumption that Attu was watching a TS and not a re-encode

Yep - sub 10Mbs isn't unusual for Fox HD apparently. This has been because the single transponder shared for HD (statmuxed) and SD (CBR?) feeds for both coasts has been running at a lower bit rate than it is capable of, because some stations are only just able to receive it at the lower bit rate.

Ironically - the bit rate is/was being limited by the distribution statmuxing...

[satinder]

Originally Posted by dutto225

i was Having a nose around currys the other day and spotted an LG running hidef film it was amazing. .

I agree the pq on LG rear projection screens in Currys are . Shame that theres no convient HD stuff availible to watch at home.

Sat

[Starburst]

Originally Posted by satinder

Shame that theres no convient HD stuff availible to watch at home.

Sat

Depends how you define convient

Using broadband and making the most of a usenet service opens up so many doors, of course that's naughty and can not be recommended if you have a genuine UK service providing viable mainstream HD, which there isn't, so....

[RMCF]

Don't want to sound like a killjoy here, but also seen the Currys demos and although impressed did not think that they lived up to the expectations that I had after reading various magazine articles about HD.

Having said that I do look forward to owning a HD set in a couple of years time.

[mmace]

I've got my PC with Windows Media Center, GeForce 6600 hooked up to my Toshiba HD LCD via DVI to HDMI cable, got loads of movies (Ghostbusters, Spiderman 1 & 2, The Island & loads more), HD demo's (LG, Philips, Panasonic etc), TV shows (smallville, lost etc) all in HD (see the usenet mention above as to how I got them).

Plays perfectly on the TV, mazing picture Quality

I can only think you have something set up wrong for you to not think it's a good picture (replying to the 1st post)

[satinder]

I mean LEGAL HD content not stuff downloaded of the net! But i suppose Sky HD, P3, HD-DVD and BR are round the corner!

Sat

[Goooner]

If you have got an Xbox 360, there are a couple of HD movie trailers availble to download on it, Aeon Flux and Mission Imossible 3, both look great.

[Starburst]

Originally Posted by satinder

I mean LEGAL HD content not stuff downloaded of the net! But i suppose Sky HD, P3, HD-DVD and BR are round the corner!

Sat

Well you can always buy some of the wmv-hd DVD's and play the via a PC to your HD display. Small selection of movies and documentaries can be bought legally for EU retailers and some from the US as well.

I salute your refusal to download HD content