sky picture quality not as good

Exactly.

And that was my point, if you are only going to get your set out of the box and leave it at default settings why not just buy the cheapest piece of crap you can find.
It really is a case of cutting your nose off.

And then to question people and say you don't believe there are noticeable differences between sources when your display is so out of whack that you won't even notice those differences I just find insulting and extremely ignorant.

And to tell people that your set straight out of the box looks as good as a calibrated set just makes you look a bit silly imho.


Two C750 Samsungs, one reset to factory settings and one with me doing all the adjustments I can in 5 minutes, no calibration discs or anything, just turning off the processing that is designed to give artificial punch and setting the basic controls.
50 people from the forum and they can all judge blind which one gives the better results.
I would bet my house on the outcome of that one.
 
I haven't questioned anyone and I haven't mentioned calibrated sets - at least get your facts right.
 
That was a step on the road towards an answer to my enquiry, so thank you for it.
There's a very long way to go before we get to "far superior" but it's a good start.

I'm not sure why it has to be, 'a very long way to go before we get to "far superior' as there are huge differences in the chipsets/implementations used in different receivers.

Some of the budget decoders are incredibly poorly designed i.e. to a price and are very inadequate at decoding video digital streams. Resulting in poor PQ.

Others receivers are very well designed/implemented and produce video results that are more accurate.

Some areas where better designed receivers excell are in reducing motion blur and improving resolution amongst other aspects.

Compare a poorly designed receiver with a well designed receiver and I'm sure anyone with a discerning eye will agree which is better.

One caveat to all this though is that poorly designed software/drivers can impede an otherwise well designed receiver.

Its all a bit of an artform really.
 
I haven't questioned anyone and I haven't mentioned calibrated sets - at least get your facts right.


You said that your set straight out the box is as good as it needs to be, saying that it needs no calibration, and if it did rather than spend 5 mins making a few basic adjustments you would simply return it as unsuitable.

Then you questioned 'far superior' saying you have never seen the difference.
I returned saying that if you consider leaving your set in dynamic and with everything on full then there is no wonder you would consider differences in source a non issue.


You do get calibration can simply mean setting the black level (brightness) and white level (contrast) correctly, along with saturation, colour temperature and sharpness?
It can of course be taken further with a full isf set up.

You did question people, you were asking for proof that different sources looked different.
I even posted two images of two different Sky HD boxes on my TV to show how different they could be.

Your answer to others replies was..

LOGICEL said:
That was a step on the road towards an answer to my enquiry, so thank you for it.
There's a very long way to go before we get to "far superior" but it's a good start.

All I am saying is if you bothered to get your TV set up to basic standards you would clearly see the differences yourself and wouldn't need others to prove it.
At the moment you are clipping the whites, crushing the blacks and therefore differences are being hidden.

I'm not saying you will enjoy your TV any more, you may even not like it as much, but that is a completely different point. :smashin:
 
I'm not sure why it has to be, 'a very long way to go before we get to "far superior'
Some of the budget decoders are incredibly poorly designed i.e. to a price and are very inadequate at decoding video digital streams. Resulting in poor PQ
What I said was a long way was the distance between the helpful explanation that you quoted to more details that would explain how one machine could be "far superior" to another.
I don't doubt for a moment that some machines are better than others to some extent, and imho the TV adjustments are meant for such situations, but my experience remains the same, that all of my machines have given perfect results without any adjustments being required.

I haven't questioned anyone and I haven't mentioned calibrated sets
I haven't questioned others' experience; I have simply stated my own experience.
You said I had been silly to "tell people that your set straight out of the box looks as good as a calibrated set". As calibrated sets had not been mentioned as such, and as I had said, not that my TV looks as good as anything else, but simply that it looks good, others can decide on the accuracy of your description.
You said that I was "insulting and extremely ignorant" to say that "you don't believe there are noticeable differences between sources". That's not something that I believe, it's something that's a fact, from my sources. While others may well have different experiences with their sources I was not commenting on those, and was therefore not making any personal comments about those others. Again the accuracy of your description is open for discussion.
I didn't ask for "proof that different sources looked different", as I don't doubt that some people find differences.
Yes, I do know about calibration. The TV forum where I also moderate has whole areas dedicated to it.:)
All that I have done is run several test cards, the results have been excellent, and that's quite enough for me.
Shades of white are distinct, shades of black are distinct, without clipping or crushing.
As I've said, I've tried the range of adjustments - and they detracted from, not improved, the picture quality.
 
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I think you must be the luckiest AV person in the world, a TV that has come from the factory perfect, every source in your rack again perfect!! Wow!! That is some going. Congratulations mate. :D

I don't believe you though. :laugh:


Let's agree to disagree? :smashin:
 
It's not such a big deal.:)
Plenty of people see them, agree, and aren't at all surprised.
I could say you're the unlucky one in not having it so easy.
I believe my experience; I believe your experience.
It looks like agreement is reached.:thumbsup:
 
No, not Sky settings - there aren't any - and I agree that in your case the other sources rule out the TV, so it's back to the faults.:)
TVs do have all manner of fancy settings though, which in my case never get touched, but which other people are fanatical about adjusting.

Most TVs have an elaborate range of settings, simple ones like "contrast" and "brightness" through to others with technical names.
There's a whole minor industry called "calibration", which basically consists of adjusting the complex settings, and you'll find the enthusiasts - as I really ought to call them - telling you all about their settings, in our TV forums.

Yes, Dynamic is the first of four options and it's fine for all sources, including HD TV channels from everywhere.

With all due respect, these comments are so wrong that I'm not even sure where to start but I think the best place is here:

http://www.avforums.com/tvsetup/Top10Tips.pdf
 
Steve Withers said:
With all due respect, these comments are so wrong that I'm not even sure where to start but I think the best place is here:

http://www.avforums.com/tvsetup/Top10Tips.pdf

Thank you for clearing that up Steve I'm sure I was going mad at some point during the thread :)

Anyway back on topic I'm still not convinced with this Amstrad 1 tb box so I'm going to test it with the Samsung sometime soon. Can I ask ,if I am proved right, where's the best place to send the Samsung for a hard drive install and what's the max hdd size for it ?
 
Now that I know I am not also going mad can anyone comment on whether the virgin TiVo box is a better pq than the sky 1tb? If so I will be switching very soon.
 
these comments are so wrong
That refers to five sentences from me, that you quoted.
In the first "it's back to the faults", may be wrong.
The next three are entirely factual, and are general.
The fifth states my own experience, and is factual.
That other people do not have such good experience is unfortunate.

I'll be waiting eagerly for accounts of the differences in picture quality between two machines that receive the same source material by different methods, cable and satellite.
 
logiciel said:
I'll be waiting eagerly for accounts of the differences in picture quality between two machines that receive the same source material by different methods, cable and satellite.

There have been hundreds of such accounts on this forum alone - where something as simple as a software upgrade had changed the quality or saturation etc of the picture for the same hardware. The fact you don't see such differences is because your tv defaults are such that subtle changes are hidden.

You also don't seem to have even a basic grasp of DSP and how it affects picture (and sound) quality.
 
The fact you don't see such differences is because your tv defaults are such that subtle changes are hidden.

No, it's because he watches 2D to 3D conversions on his TV, (set to defaults), wearing his funny glasses...........:devil:

(People in glass houses..........:laugh:)
 
Seriously though, one man's meat is another man's poison, and picture quality is highly subjective. What may seem OK to one will be rubbish to another. Personally, having spent many a year working with tv's/monitors, I find that 70% or more of the populace today have their screens set up over saturated and over contrasted.

Back in the good old days of CRT's, (before DSP), it was easy. Turn all controls to minimum; adjust brightness until blacks are just still black, then adjust contrast until whites are white without blooming, and then adjust the saturation for a natural colour. In those days the biggest problem was the stability of the black level clamp!
 
There have been hundreds of such accounts on this forum alone
You also don't seem to have even a basic grasp of DSP
All those accounts of "whether the virgin TiVo box is a better pq than the sky 1tb" seem to have passed me by.
I don't know what "DSP" is.
 
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You also don't seem to have even a basic grasp of DSP and how it affects picture (and sound) quality.

DSP simply stands for Digital Signal Processor and refers to a specialised microprocessor.
In set top box chips such as those used in the Sky HD and Tivo boxes, audio decoding/mixing etc. is carried out by a DSP core with appropriate firmware but video would require an extremely powerful DSP which would be too epxnsive and is implemented in hardware for such functions as deinterlacing, block noise reduction and mosquito noise reduction.
 
:)
We don't get many reports of faulty 890s, but there's a first time for everything, so it would probably be best to let them exchange it for a new one.

My 890 has shown a bit of pixelation on 2-3 occasions, I think they had been tweaking the encoders to try and minimise bandwidth.
 
Thanks both for the expansion of DSP - the details lost me though.:blush:
I've had a touch of pixellation myself but put it down to drenching rain on the dish.:)
 
All those accounts of "whether the virgin TiVo box is a better pq than the sky 1tb" seem to have passed me by.
I don't know what "DSP" is.

Given the picture has changed (at least for those of us with displays capable of showing subtle changes) with updates to the software for a sky box, it ought to be fairly obvious that different boxes produce different results.

Or are you claiming for instance that all Blu Ray players produce identical pictures with the same disc, cable and display.

DSP is digitial signal processing.
 
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You responded to my comment:
I'll be waiting eagerly for accounts of the differences in picture quality between two machines that receive the same source material by different methods, cable and satellite.
I haven't see hundreds of posts about that point, and I don't see the relevance to it of what you've posted since.
 
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I've had a touch of pixellation myself.:)

Not due to the alcahol allergy? ;)
The basic principle is that image processing/picture quality algorithms can be done on a PC, in a DSP or in hardware, it is a matter of tradeoffs in individual cases.
For example, with MPEG2 you get 2D artefacts which show as fringing effects and if you have a software decoder and switch the 2D artefect supression off the picture gets gross.
 
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Isn't jargon wonderful?;)
Me - I just watch TV.:clap:
 
Given the picture has changed (at least for those of us with displays capable of showing subtle changes) with updates to the software for a sky box, it ought to be fairly obvious that different boxes produce different results.

Err.. actually I work for the company that make the main chips used in the Sky HD and Tivo boxes and both have the same video decoder core.
It is most likely an interaction between the video encoder and decoder as I believe Sky and Virgin use different encoders.
 

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