Probably basic question, but I can't quite grasp this: I watched a section of POTC 2: DMC on both blu-ray and Sky HD. Both scources were running through a Panny 37PX60 at 1080i. The PS3 seemed much more vivid and sharper than Sky. Sound was more dramatic as well. Why is this? I thought SKY should be as sharp as Blu-ray, or does it lose a slight bit of detail through transmission. They are both HD sources, so why is one better than the other?
SKY HD, whilst being good will never be anywhere as good as as Bluray whilst it is restricted to it's bandwidths, The BBC HD Previews in my opinion are, well at least some of them at higher bandwidths than Sky One HD or HD Movies are transmitted in, but the BBC HD Previews, seem to repeat the same program occasionaly straight after it's self, is this, imo just them trying to work out the lowest bandwidth they can 'get away with'. the Blu-ray route should never be restricted by this...... i think... If you have started with Sky HD and gone to blu-ray i think you 'put up' with Sky HD But if anyone starts with Blu-ray and then gets Sky HD I think they may well feel cheated, if thinking it was going to be anywhere near as good.......
The main difference is compression atrefacts and lower bit rate. These usually manifest themselves in fast moving scenes, dark scenes or scenes with blocks of colour. SkyHD does have the advantage that there is no 3:2 judder that will exist with Blu-ray on your display with material output at 1080i/60. Did you try Sky at 720p into your display ? AVI
Sky HD is a complete rip-off. The picture quality on the Sky channels is rubbish, a lot of the content seems to be upscaled SD. The only channel with good content and picture quality imo is the BBC HD channel which I think is outstanding and getting better and better. Heroes, Mountains, The Way We built Britain, Wimbledon, Planet Earth, the Live Sessions etc have all been brilliant. But the HD channel is included in the licence fee, and I for one resent paying Sky £10 per month to watch it. I won't be renewing my Sky Hd subscription, I will just use my Sky HD box to get the BBC cahnnel for free once my contract is up. I know people who have bought Sky HD boxes on Ebay and then got a Freesat card from Sky and insisted that Sky enable the BBC HD channel at the same time. I wish I had known about this option before I paid out for the Sky HD service. OK, sorry, rant over. The box can do 1080i at 50Hz which is roughly the same amount of information as 1080p at 24Hz, ie I reckon the Sky HD service could deliver the same PQ as Blu-ray. In the case of the higher bandwidth BBC transmissions I think it comes close enough. As the earlier posters have said, most of the channels are just compressing the hell out of the signal to squeeze it into a lower bandwidth, so a lot of the information is lost, hence lower picture quality. I just hope the BBC are allowed to keep using decent bandwidth.
Nail, head, hit! I thought it was my TV at first, but the dark scenes in a Casino Royale Blu-Ray show almost no noise etc. in the background. Some films with dark areas are so bad on Sky HD that it takes your attention away from the primary focus of the scene.