BBC HD bitrate - BBC reply to complaint

Certainly not

Different standards provide choice

Those who wish to pay for the bandwidth that satellite provides (as well as more channels, some free, some not) can do so and enjoy the better quality

Those who wish to enjoy terrestrial tv with fewer channels and lower picture quality can do so

What is the problem with that?
When the broadcaster has to then work out what they don't do because of the increased costs in managing both (and buying the sat bandwidth) - you might not like what they choose to cut.

Personally I'd like the best of both worlds, but I can see the point Chester is making.
 
I think people are too focused on bandwidth. Yes it can have an impact on picture quality, but not to the extent people make out after a certain level.

For instance, an MKV file encoded from a raw Blu-ray video file can look just as good as the original Blu-ray file, but be a third of the size. This means the effective playback video bit-rate will be a third of the Blu-ray file.

The reason this is possible is due to great encoding (using something like x264) and packing into a good container like MKV.

This is what the BBC are hoping to achieve with their new encoders. To achieve the same quality using less bit-rate/bandwidth.

It is entirely possible to do so.

People can't randomly suggest that poor picture quality on BBC HD is down to a single factor like bit-rate... it's totally unscientific.

There's a whole host of factors it could be, and in the majority of cases, it's poor post-processing or it's just not filmed very well in the first place. Using a 1080p camera does not mean it's going to look great automatically. Look at all the Blu-ray films that have disappointing picture quality... i.e. not reference material. It's down to their production in the vast majority of cases, not because they're bit-starved.

You either need to compare the BBC HD feed to another higher bit-rate channel for exactly the same material, or you need to compare it against a Blu-ray version of the same material. Otherwise you have no frame of reference to compare against.
 
you might not like what they choose to cut.

The BBC is drowning in money. It just doesn't know what to waste it on next

Adverts, so many there's hardly room for the programmes
Expensive lunches
The mega-est web site in the world
Salaries and Pension schemes like no other (except MPs)
The BBC Trust
Jonathan Ross
Staff bonding weekends at luxury locations
The news channel via your mobile
The move to Manchester
The cost of pay off for those who won't go to Manchester
The Jeremy Clarkson contract
and so on...:lease:

Bandwidth on the satellite is but a drop in the bucket
 
Sorry but if that was true, how did Sky poach so many of their best engineers?
 
Haha yeah it doesn't really have much bearing here.

If you want to go that route, we'll start moaning about how much free stuff (free prescriptions, free hospital parking, no university fees etc) you get up there in Scotland that we aren't entitled to but still contribute financially towards... :devil: :smashin:
 
Haha yeah it doesn't really have much bearing here.

If you want to go that route, we'll start moaning about how much free stuff (free prescriptions, free hospital parking, no university fees etc) you get up there in Scotland that we aren't entitled to but still contribute financially towards... :devil: :smashin:

Instead, if you think those things are worth having, why don't you moan to your politicians to get the same valuable benefits where you live?:lease:
 
I am not participating in bickering, so...

It almost seems like we should be offering to work with the BBC HD team in offering real world constructive observations to changes they make to systems, or anything resulting in changes to viewing. Providing objective analysis might result in improvements that we want to see.

I've got to say that I'm personally still happy with the BBC HD service, only wishing for more material (in particular Waking The Dead) to get the Hi Def treatment. I can see that progress is taking us that way, it's just going to take time to educate all of the links in the chain from cameramen to broadcast technicians, and eventually they'll hit a point where no significant improvements can be made. I believe that's a long way off, but if any effort is going to be placed into making improvements, it needs to be directed correctly.

For now, I'm going to sit on the fence and see what pans out in the short term.
 
How is keeping broadcast standards accross all platforms a good thing??? Ive invested heavily in HD gear and dont want to be given a sub standard quality which is what we are getting just because some people cannott afford/wont invest in better platforms.

Its like going to the supermarket in a way. You can pay more and get the higher quality product, or you can pay less for the lower quality brand.

Its a choice the viewers should be able to choose from.

Starving all platforms of bandwith just because of freeview is wrong. Freeview shopuld just concentrate on SD.
 
I think the issue is that viewers pay the same licence fee whether they watch on satellite, cable and freeview, and the BBC is thus committed to being as platform-neutral as possible. In some cases the platform you use is not a choice (Freeview and Cable aren't universally available yet, and some locations preclude the use of dishes)

To make the same service better quality on one platform than another discriminates between delivery systems, and could indirectly benefit commercial platform operators if services are better via one delivery system than another?

Of course this logic isn't universal - DAB audio is lower quality than Freeview/Freesat/iPlayer delivered radio in many cases (precisely because of limited bandwith on DAB), and Press Red has more streams on DSat/DCab than DTT...

In the current scheme of things, if the BBC used much higher bitrates on one platform than another, they would have to justify the extra cost to the licence-fee payer for doing so.
 
Last edited:
I think the issue is that viewers pay the same licence fee whether they watch on satellite, cable and freeview, and the BBC is thus committed to being as platform-neutral as possible.

To make the same service better quality on one platform than another discriminates between delivery systems, and could indirectly benefit commercial platform operators if services are better via one delivery system than another?

Er, doesn't this logic lead to the HD "wick" being turned down until the picture "achieves" parity with SD ?

After all, we can't have "Strictly" on the HD platform channel 143 looking better than the same show on 101 :eek:


Yes, yes, I know. The HD and SD services are not directly comparable. But I think the basic point remains - that we should be allowed to choose which platform we want at a cost we believe is justified by the quality it delivers. Why should the Beeb be allowed to "mess up" the satellite HD platform just because the terrestrial one isn't as good :confused:





Regards
 
But is it not the case that the cost of high bitrates on satellite is peanuts when compared with what the BBC spends elsewhere?

And is the BBC not spending more to develop Freeview than it's spending on Sat development?

Why do we need to dumb down all the time?
 
At the end of the day Free view HD should be forgotten. Its a waste of money and time. It simply does not have the quality needed to be any good and if it means other platforms suffering then why bother??
 
I still don't see any of you providing evidence that the BBC HD feed is bit-starved. Do you even know what side-effects you would see if the bit-rate was too low?

Not one description from those complaining tallies up with what actually happens when a video signal is compressed too much, or the stream is bit-starved.

If you want to see what that actually looks like... rip a Blu-ray to your hard disk and limit the file size to be under a gigabyte.
 
@eiren, you're clearly an expert, and I'm not. But what I do know is that after 5 Aug my BBC HD picture got worse. That's what I'm complaining about.
 
Fair enough, but based on what?

It's not as sharp?

There's more digital noise in the blacks?


"It doesn't look HD" is not going to win any arguments in favour of increasing the bit-rate.

The BBC know what the problem with a big chunk of their HD broadcasts is... and that is down to production and the way the programmes are shot and edited.

Bit-starved programming does not look like how people have described the problem.
 
With all due respect Eiren the problems people are noticing are exactly bit rate related - things such as artifacts are down to lack of bandwith.

Same programmes with same production methods are looking poorer generally. Nothing to do with production.

A slight increase to around 12-14 mbps would probably make BBC HD stunning again.
 
I agree. The (awful) block artifacting I've seen on BBCHD is a perfect example of too low a bit-rate.
 
That's not what people have been reporting though. All I've seen put in front of the people in charge of BBC HD are things along the lines of '"It doesn't look HD".

As I said earlier, you need compare the same material if possible.

The BBC don't think it's an issue, so you're going to have to prove to them that their encoding is not good enough to be broadcasting at those bit-rates.

As I said earlier, I've got Blu-ray rips on my HTPC which are half the size of the original video files on the discs. These look just as good, and are running at half the bit-rate. This is due to great encoding.

High bit-rate does not equal a great picture.

Personally, my problem with BBC HD is the lack of anything decent to watch on it :suicide:
 
The BBC don't think it's an issue, so you're going to have to prove to them that their encoding is not good enough to be broadcasting at those bit-rates.

High bit-rate does not equal a great picture.

Since we pay the fee, why shouldn't they prove the reverse to us?

So far, it seems to me that high bit rate proves exactly that (Great picture)

Why can't we just rely on the evidence of our own eyes?:confused:
 
At the end of the day Free view HD should be forgotten. Its a waste of money and time. It simply does not have the quality needed to be any good and if it means other platforms suffering then why bother??
It is pretty much bound to become (when DSO is complete and new TVs have a built-in decoder) the principal means by which the majority of the UK population get HD programming - given that it doesn't involve putting up a dish and will come "by default"!

It may well be all the negative things you say - but it cannot be ignored!
 
Where's the evidence to prove that? Surely it's pretty simple to capture a sample of the bit-starved content?

For every 1 person with good eyes and judgment, there's another 20 people saying that Blu-ray is rubbish because they can't tell the difference between a BD disc and a DVD on their 28" Goodmans set.

Presenting the BBC with hard indisputable facts and evidence is going to be the only way you'll get them to respond accordingly.

The fact no-one has any hard evidence leads me to believe most of it is hot air.

Certainly when I've watched Mad Men, or the BBC HD preview recently I've not detected any bit-rate related issues on my projector screen... where flaws are pretty easy to spot.

Cold hard evidence please.
 
Where's the evidence to prove that? Surely it's pretty simple to capture a sample of the bit-starved content?

For every 1 person with good eyes and judgment, there's another 20 people saying that Blu-ray is rubbish because they can't tell the difference between a BD disc and a DVD on their 28" Goodmans set.

Presenting the BBC with hard indisputable facts and evidence is going to be the only way you'll get them to respond accordingly.

The fact no-one has any hard evidence leads me to believe most of it is hot air.

Certainly when I've watched Mad Men, or the BBC HD preview recently I've not detected any bit-rate related issues on my projector screen... where flaws are pretty easy to spot.

Cold hard evidence please.

I have recorded antiques roadshows from before the change. They are startlingly better than the latest Roadshow which looked as good scaled from SD using a faroujda scaler. It's no good capturing a single frame as the problem arises from motion artefacts which are not visible on 1 frame
 
Inadequate bit-rates would mean it's lacking in picture information and it would be very simple to show in a freeze frame shot.

Motion artefacts and macro blocking are MPEG-1 & MPEG-2 artefacts due to heavy compression. I was under the impression that the BBC HD transmit in h264/MPEG-4 format which is not susceptible to the same artefacts.

H.264/MPEG-4 AVC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you can't prove it, they simply are not going to listen.
 
Inadequate bit-rates would mean it's lacking in picture information and it would be very simple to show in a freeze frame shot.

Motion artefacts and macro blocking are MPEG-1 & MPEG-2 artefacts due to heavy compression. I was under the impression that the BBC HD transmit in h264/MPEG-4 format which is not susceptible to the same artefacts.

H.264/MPEG-4 AVC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you can't prove it, they simply are not going to listen.

You keep saying this

I've listened to all this

You've only got to look at the pictures!!!
 
I record Jonathan Ross every week and for whatever crazy reason still have files going back to May this year so can do comparisons.

On the whole the show still looks good with new lower bitrate, but there are clearly motion artifacts and pixel movement (compression artifacts) in the background on the new broadcasts which were not their before. This is visible on both my 24" 1080p LCD and my 720p PJ.
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom