Is Sky+ SDI to Lumagen vastly superior than RGB into the Lumagen?

damo_in_sale

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As it says on the tin. Oh, and are SDI mods possible on freeview boxes?

Cheers,

Damo
 
I think the term 'vastly' would probably be over stating it. A wee bit maybe, and you'd have to have a pretty big screen to see any real difference. And in Sky's case, all it would probably do is emphasize the low bit rates of many of the channels.

Regards

Mark
 
Unfortunately, modern Freeview boxes can't be SDI modified (at least, I'm not aware of any), as the necessary signals are buried deep inside silicon.

At least one of the very early On-digital boxes could be modified and yes, very slightly better than RGB when looking critically on a grade 1 studio monitor.

Several people on these forums have modified Sky+ boxes.

However, in principle, going Sky+ HD should give a MUCH more dramatic improvement, without the need for a scaler.
 
redpavlos said:
However, in principle, going Sky+ HD should give a MUCH more dramatic improvement, without the need for a scaler.

Yeah, I'm sceptical of this. I imagine SD stuff being deinterlaced by a 10 quid chip from Maplins!
 
damo_in_sale said:
Yeah, I'm sceptical of this. I imagine SD stuff being deinterlaced by a 10 quid chip from Maplins!

I know what you mean!

Completely different story for true HD sources though, when using a good plasma.
 
redpavlos said:
However, in principle, going Sky+ HD should give a MUCH more dramatic improvement, without the need for a scaler.

Sky HD are not going to transmit in 1080i then? :devil:
 
Nic Rhodes said:
Sky HD are not going to transmit in 1080i then? :devil:

Quite likely some channels in 720p, others in 1080i.

And yes, both are capable of delivering superb pictures. :D

The end result will be influenced by the bit-rate and the quality of the sources and film transfers, as well as what happens in the display.
 
redpavlos said:
Quite likely some channels in 720p, others in 1080i.

And yes, both are capable of delivering superb pictures. :D

The end result will be influenced by the bit-rate and the quality of the sources and film transfers, as well as what happens in the display.

I think 1080i is a really stupid format, personally. Most plasmas will only display a bobbed imaged of 540 lines for 1080i.
 
damo_in_sale said:
Most plasmas will only display a bobbed imaged of 540 lines for 1080i.

yes and to those who are interested in quality (indicated by the SDI interest here) will mean a scaler WILL be needed for proper treatment of 1080i if we are wanting to move away from 'bob' like the SD world has. At the very least some motion adaption, inverse telecine etc, pretty much a HD version of what we have with SD now. This is assuming that deinterlaing is all we use from a video processor. The reality of that is very different which a host of other features that have become essential for quality pictures, espcially in 50Hz world. I would think video processors would become more important.
 
redpavlos said:
Completely different story for true HD sources though, when using a good plasma.
One of the potential benefits of the Sky+ box will be the HDMI output, but I think that advantage may be lost if in practice, people just output everything at 720p for example. The Sky box will then be de-interlacing not only 576i, but also 1080i, and that fills me with horror. As always, we pray for native digital video outputs.

Nick
 
I'd be surprised if any de-interlacing was done on board the sky box. I would imagine to reduce the cost of the box the signal will be decrypted and spat out in whatever format it was broadcast. Which can only be a good thing for anybody who's invested in a scaler.

As for the 1080i debate, it has already been said that the only stuff likely to be broadcast in 1080i will be the Artsworld, National Geographic stuff, which is likely to benefit from the added detail allowed by 1080i, slow moving and static images, in which case a very simple de-interlacer will probably suffice. Movies and sport, anything heavy in motion will more than likely be 720p, as it should be.
 
ahin4114 said:
I'd be surprised if any de-interlacing was done on board the sky box. I would imagine to reduce the cost of the box the signal will be decrypted and spat out in whatever format it was broadcast. Which can only be a good thing for anybody who's invested in a scaler.

As for the 1080i debate, it has already been said that the only stuff likely to be broadcast in 1080i will be the Artsworld, National Geographic stuff, which is likely to benefit from the added detail allowed by 1080i, slow moving and static images, in which case a very simple de-interlacer will probably suffice. Movies and sport, anything heavy in motion will more than likely be 720p, as it should be.

I'd be surprised if they output 576i via HDMI.
 
I would be amazed if the output interlaced SD on the HDMI!! I will also be very surprized if they limit 1080i to slow moving high detail stuff, roll on 1080i for football, this is Sky we are talking about guys, not some organisation known for high quality of transmission. I would love to be proved wrong but my Sky predictions haven't let me down in the past ;)
 
The difference between the RGBs and SDI from my Sky+ box to my I-scan HD isn't great; colours are better and the image has greater 'depth'. I actually prefer to watch the lesser channels via analogue as the SDI is a bit 'too' honest.

DVD over SDI is a revelation. Even the wife has commented how good it is:smashin:

I'm waiting to see how the SkyHD boxes perform with SD over HDMI before I consider getting one.
 
damo_in_sale said:
I'd be surprised if they output 576i via HDMI.

In the installer training ppt for SSky HD, Sky tell installers to set the box to 1080i if the display is capable of 1080i AND 720p. There is no mention of SD interlaced from HDMI.
 
Nic Rhodes said:
In the installer training ppt for SSky HD, Sky tell installers to set the box to 1080i if the display is capable of 1080i AND 720p. There is no mention of SD interlaced from HDMI.

I'm not sure what that means mate. Will 1080i be output all of the time in this case?
 
The installer are told to set 1080i when the display is capable of 1080i and 720p.

The installer are told to set 1080i when the display is capable of 1080i only.

The installer are told to set 720p when the display is capable of 720p only.

This will probably mean that the vast majority of screens will be receiving 1080i information as most HD Ready displays are 1080i and 720p aware ;).
 
Nic Rhodes said:
The installer are told to set 1080i when the display is capable of 1080i and 720p.

The installer are told to set 1080i when the display is capable of 1080i only.

The installer are told to set 720p when the display is capable of 720p only.

This will probably mean that the vast majority of screens will be receiving 1080i information as most HD Ready displays are 1080i and 720p aware ;).

That sounds utterly pathetic. I want native and nothing less.
 

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