Sky Digital Picture

B

Bluenose1878

Guest
Is there anything out there that i could buy or anything that i could do to improve the pictuer on Sky digital? I've bought a Viera Plasma screen and compared to the picture with my dvd player it's like watching channel 5 a couple of years ago-Terible!! I know that the picture will never be as good as a dvd but suerly it can be improved? Thanks for any advice...
 
Bluenose

Depends on what you mean by a better picture!? You can have box updated to output the signal via SDI, there should be some threads on that here, just use the search engine.

There is also a banner ad on here from a company that offers such a service. Maybe worth giving them a call
 
There is nothing wrong with SKY D as a source of digital programming, the problem is that indivdual channels and broadcasters have no legal requirment to offer high quality pictures since there are no regulations in place and as such they choose to save money and that goes for the BBC as well as pure commercial broadcasters as well.

Since there is nothing you can do to get the broadcasters to increase the bitrates, improve the encoding and transcoding you are left trying to maximise the quality of the connections. A RGB scart to VGA convertor has proven to be a worthwhile investment for standard definition programming, if you have the cash then a video processor/scaler/de-interlacer will also improve the image quality.
 
Sky's picture is generally terrible. Others may disagree, but the the picture from Freeview is much better if you ask me. ITV1 is a prime example, although MPEG artifacts are there on Freeview - Sky is noticably worse. Then again this may differ between Freeview boxes. I went through 4 boxes (after getting a Plasma) before I was happy with one (Netgem iPlayer). My only complaint with the Netgem is it's a bit slow switching channels.

Rob.
 
Have you checked the signal strength and quality bargraphs on the service menus? My installer only managed to get about 50% for both. Peaking the dish has now got me about 60% signal strength and 80% quality. The picture is must better just cos there are more bits to play with.
 
The quality of channels on SKY is variable with the terrestrial channels being easily compared with the Dsat equivalent, alas all the terrestrial with the exception of Five seem to begridge giving the Dsat viewers a quality service as it relies on them buying enough capacity from SES and Eutelsat.
DTT of course also suffers from overloading on individual muxes but due to it;s regional nature the load is spread out nationally plus they own or at least control the muxes.

It's also been made evident that high end displays such as Plasma can benefit when being fed RGB from SKY via the VGA inputs, those in the know ( who I believe ) say the difference between plain scart-scart etc and this method is significant.
 
Starburst has made some valid point there. How are you feeding Sky to your plasma? You will find the plasma really shows up poor cabling etc.

Within weeks of getting my display anything that wasn't RGB or component had to go.

I also did numerous tests using different connections to the display and by far the best way to feed RGB was using the VGA input via a JSTech RGB2VGA.

Rob.
 
I think the best way to 'test' the picture is to watch one of the recent releases on sky movies or sky box office. I recently watched Pulp Fiction ( not that recent a release) and the picture was superb - as good as my DVD player via RGB. Some channels are poor but as Starbuck eloquently details it's not the quality of Sky per se.
 
Sky is a variable bit-rate system. The higher the maximum bit-rate that a particular broadcaster pays for, the better the picture will be. The system is capable of good quality pictures, but ITV seem to have a "never mind the quality, feel the width" attitude ! :rolleyes:
 
Thanks to everyone that's replied, like the sound of the RGB scart to VGA convertor might give it a go, has anyone on here used one? Did it make much difference? I'm currently using an Ixos rgb scart for sky with a component rgb lead for my dvd. Thanks again all...
 
I use a JS RGB2VGA with my 42PW5 and would definately say it has given me the picture as yet. I've tried using the RGB input on the display, and although okay it's not as good as using the RGB2VGA, besides the same terminal are used for component on the PW5 and I use them for my DVD player.

Obviously you will need a VGA lead - as with all cables they do differ in quality. I've used a cheapo cable, a Van Damme and a Better Cables Silver Serpant, with the latter being the best. The Van Damme was almost as good. Joe @ TMF can supply Van Damme and Better Cables (and the RGB2VGA).

Rob.
 

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