Curious motion-effect on Sky Movies

Apologies for the non-technical way I'm about to put this...

Is it my imagination or is there a curiously artificial, almost speeded-up effect sometimes apparent on rapid movement scenes on the Sky movie channels? It's particularly noticeable just at the moment in Tremors III (channel 304).

I'm using a Sky Plus (mk1) box feeding a Panasonic AE100.

Thanks in advance,

Bert
www.bertcoules.co.uk

 

What you are seeing sounds like the standard MPEG artefacts that you get with pretty much all Sky & Freeview signals. It is caused by the limited bandwidth that the broadcasters use in order to squeeze as many channels available in to the limited channel space. Do a search on here or Google for MPEG artefacts and you should get a more detailed explanation.

 

GaryB,

Thanks for the explanation. I had wondered if that's what I was seeing, but was uncertain because as far as I know I've only been catching it over the past week or so. Perhaps it's always been there but I simply hadn't noticed it before.

It was extremely prominent on BBC Three tonight as well. Has the bandwidth and compression on some channels been changed recently for the worse, I wonder?

Bert
www.bertcoules.co.uk