AE100 and pic quality from Sky

Timh

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As you all know ITV Digital is about to be turned off, I have been a customer of them since the beginning, and have found the picture quality reasonably good.
I am now looking into getting Sky Digital as my kids cannot live without The Cartoon network ;) After having some help from Forum members I have decided I want the Grundig GDS310/02, the /02 meaning it has the s-video socket on the back.
Can the AE100 and Sky owners please comment on the picture quality when it is blown up so big, I use an 80" widescreen and am a bit concerned about the picture quality from Sky at this size, it was acceptable with ITV Digital.

Also, how do I go about getting a perticuler model from Sky?

Thanks for any help
laugh2.gif
 
ITV Digital is going away, but terrstrial DTV will still be broadcast. All the FTA channels at least will continue to be available. What happens beyond that is anyones guess.
 
Tim,

I'm finding that the composite video quality from a Panasonic digibox is perfectly adequate on a 6ft wide screen. In fact (as I've said in another thread) my experiments with an RGB-s-video converter into the AE-100 have so far yielded inferior results - though I suspect that there is a fault somewhere along the line.

I think I'm right in saying that if If you order direct from Sky you don't get a choice of digibox. Go to a local dealer or installer and you should be able to specify the Grundig GDS 310/02.

Bert
http://www.bertcoules.co.uk
 
Tim-Having finally installed my Pana on a permanent basis,I am now feeding everything through it as an alternative to my Sony Widescreen including Sky and ITV Digital.I have been surprised how good Sky is through SVHS,in fact slightly better than ITV Digital.
As regards model selection,go to an independent(Smallworld in Birmingham may be prepared to come to Crewe-Malcolm Titmus there is an excellent installer but I should declare he is a mate as well).
I am using a Pace Sky + which has SVHS and if you do not have TiVo is very much worth considering.Am also feeding TiVo through via Composite until John Sims RGB to Component comes along.Even this is watchable along with a Thomson Multi System VCR which is abit soft in NTSC.
I really must stop buying Gadgets.
Let me know if I can help more.
 
Hellicopter

I have been surprised how good Sky is through SVHS,in fact slightly better than ITV Digital.
Thats good news then, I have just been to Currys and Miller Bro, they both said you get whatever Sky supply you with.
So maybe I need to check out the local dealers, there about 4 I can approach.
I also want to go for a rgb/compoant convertor, I would then use s-video for recording onto my s-vhs vcr and then compoant for live broadcasts, then I will need a new amp for componant switching, :confused: it never ends does it?
This is turning out to be an expensive hobby
pbraids.gif
 
For the switching/amp I would happily recommend Denon.Mine has two monitor outputs which means I can feed both TV and Proj.
 
Yes, I am thinking of going for the Denon 2802 :)
 
TimH. I still use ITV digi box and going slightly OT I've found the image quality variable in the extreem to say the least.
Sky 1 premiership the quality of image is invariably dull,grainy and the action surrounded by large square digital chunking. Whereas with the premiership on ITV, the quality of the main featured matches or say the Champions league games are very high.
In fact on occassions I've experienced better perfomance from the digibox(nokia) than from my Pioneer 717DVD.
I recently went RGB out to Svideo which was an improvement. Funnily enough going from the dvd player rgb to svideo was superior than pure svideo out from the Pioneer. Search me.
Anyhow do people feel that dish produces better images than arial digital?
 
Originally posted by Timh

Can the AE100 and Sky owners please comment on the picture quality when it is blown up so big, I use an 80" widescreen and am a bit concerned about the picture quality from Sky at this size, it was acceptable with ITV Digital.

Also, how do I go about getting a perticuler model from Sky?

Thanks for any help
laugh2.gif

I watch Sky through a composite link into a Sony HS1 and the quality when blown up to a 1.2m wide screen is pretty good. I can see a few composite artifacts (my box doesn't have an s-video out) but on the main channels there is very little to complain about. BBC1&2 are consistenly good quality, as are the Sky movie channels and Sky Sports for the football. ITV and C5 are generally good too.

Some channels though seem to over-compress the datastream quite a bit, or do poor MPEG2 encoding, and they can look pretty ropey. C4 and E4 sometimes suffer from this, channels like Game Network and the other minnows usually look very ropey too.

I saw On Digital (as it was at the time) at a mate's house and wasn't impressed. It seemed to suffer a lot more breakup and digital artifacting than Sky. NTL digital cable looked pretty similar to Sky quality, maybe a little 'softer'. Hard to tell since I didn't see them on my own TV/Projector.

If you found ITV digital acceptable, I'm sure you'll be happy with Sky.

Regarding the box, you'll just have to badger your local installer to see if they have any of the model you are looking for. If not - tough luck.


Gav
 
Originally posted by LJT

I recently went RGB out to Svideo which was an improvement. Funnily enough going from the dvd player rgb to svideo was superior than pure svideo out from the Pioneer. Search me.
Anyhow do people feel that dish produces better images than arial digital?


Sounds like your telly doesn't handle RGB too well.

I believe that satellite (Sky) has a lot more bandwidth available to it than terrestrial (ITV) digital. Plus the medium is inherently more resistant to interference than terrestrial.

I wasn't impressed with OnDigital and neither was my friend (who owned a box) who sold it and moved to NTL digital cable, because of the frequent picture breakups and visible artefacting.


Gav
 
ITV Digital are not yet allowed to transmit at optimum power as there may be interference with existing analogue signals. It may change soon. Terrestrial Digital TV won't go away even if ITV Digital does. Rumours today that Bill Gates wants it. ( Windows ITV?).

Premiership Football. ITV Digital take the Sky feed for the Premiership programme. It is crap. Sky compress it too much before onward transmission. It is the same for Footy on BBC1 via NTL. The feed comes from SKY and is pants.
 
Originally posted by chienmort

Premiership Football. ITV Digital take the Sky feed for the Premiership programme. It is crap. Sky compress it too much before onward transmission. It is the same for Footy on BBC1 via NTL. The feed comes from SKY and is pants.

I don't regularly watch the premiership games, but the ones I have watched recently (on a 60" diagonal projection screen) on Sky Digital looked to be really good quality - way better than terrestrial analogue.


Gav
 
Having experimented further using the SVHS output from Sky+.I am most impressed with the picture quality in comparison with the composite output from a TiVo or a bog standard VCR.
For those like me who need to time shift alot and wish to watch TV through the PT AE 100 I would recommend Sky+ as the way to go despite the extra £10 per month.
 
I have that model Grundig Digibox, & yes, it's the only standard digibox with S-video out (Sky+ unavailable to us poor Irish technophobes :D ).

You'll have to talk to the installer about the availability of this. When I installed Sky for 2 weeks (covered for a friend while he was on hols), I installed over 40 of this model, the rest were Panasonics. It depends on what Sky supply at the time.

We shouldn't assume that the picture of Sky digital is far superior to analogue satellite! The reason Sky introduced digital was not to give us a better picture. It was for
1. Carry far more channels on similiar bandwith (more subscription services, Film 4, F1+, Box office etc...)

2. Better security for there system (I've yet to come across any "unofficial" subscription cards - not surprising as there digital encryption system hasn't "yet" been hacked/cracked.

Picture generally on any regular TV is excellent. Blow it up to 92" & things are a bit different.

Motors TV is probably the worst example of the massive compression Sky use. But this is an exception. Most channels are reasonably good, with compression artifacts still obvious but not too bad.

For me, the jump in quality from the direct S-video connection to a HTPC using a Pinnacle TV card & DScaler is awesome. Since upgrading to an Athlon XP1800+ (happily running a XP2100+ speed - but a little hot), I am able to utilise more of the filters & my SKY picture is now totally watchable.

I connected up my Pioneer DV444 (interlaced, multiregion, S-video) to the PC the other night, used DScaler & the results were mind blowing. The resulting picture was, IMO, as good as, if not better than, any progressive component DVD player.

Use an AV receiver with S-video switching & bob's your uncle.

I must upload some pictures in the next few days, but, again they won't do justice to what the eye actually sees!
 
Looks like I got in before the mad rush of ITV digital customers transfering to Sky. Ordered Sky this morning for £1 installed, then pay for the World package for 1 month and then reduce it to the family package :) its being fitted next Thursday, I have been pencilled in for the Grundig, my Mrs will be dealing with it, so if there are no Grundig Box's with s-video out in the Van, I have instructed her to try and get a Pnasonic fitted instead, I just hope the Grindig is available, please please let there be one
lach.gif
 

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