SKY in 1080P

shaduf

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QVC keep saying that SKY will start broadcasting in 1080P in the next two or three years.
Can anyone confirm this as a fact or is it indeed likely.

Shaduf
 
yeah there will be a way either having 1 and only one HD channel in 1080p and nothing else or having the 13 or so channels now in 1080p but not having any standard def pics as they simply do NOT have the bandwidth with current technology to do so
 
yeah there will be a way either having 1 and only one HD channel in 1080p and nothing else or having the 13 or so channels now in 1080p but not having any standard def pics as they simply do NOT have the bandwidth with current technology to do so
That's so wide of the mark as to be quite funny!
 
QVC keep saying that SKY will start broadcasting in 1080P in the next two or three years.
Can anyone confirm this as a fact or is it indeed likely.

Shaduf

I was having fun talking to the TV the other night when they had their Samsung 1080p set.

The bloke was frankly talking out of his bum. if you 'only' have skyHD then this set might not be for you, because sky only broadcast 1080i. Well yes, but that would deinterlace nicely to 1080p wouldn't it - especially the movie channels?

Yet it'd be ideal for hidef games consoles like PS3 and Xbox 360. but they mostly only output at 720p, so a 768 set would actually be better for it.


Don't watch QVC to be enlightened :)
 
1080p24 video, as used by BD & HD DVD for films, would have a slightly lower bit rate than 1080i50. That might be feasible and worthwhile.

Nick
 
QVC keep saying that SKY will start broadcasting in 1080P in the next two or three years.
Can anyone confirm this as a fact or is it indeed likely.

Shaduf

Out of interest what are the benefits that the average consumer would see form this ?

I doubt it will happen for a long time and even then on a very, very limited bases for sports as the benefit for movies is negligable. The bandwidth required for 1080p/50 is massive (over 103mb per second uncompressed). To put it in perspective Blu-ray does not support video stored at 1080p/50 or 1080p/60.

AVI
 
Good point on the 1080p24 thing - that would be better quality and save bandwidth - nice one! Only trouble is loads of people's TVs wouldn't show it!! :rotfl:
 
For what it's worth, I have a HDV camera that will shoot 1080p at 24/25fps, but I actually prefer the look of 1080i.
 
Progressive is always better then interlaced though.
 
Progressive is always better then interlaced though.

No, its not.

The reason why Martin J prefers 1080i on his HDV camera is probably that 1080p 24 or 25 gives excessive judder on fast pans.

Thats the problem with 25 frames a second. I know people say that movies are 24fps and they are alright, but thats not the whole story.

Cinemas have complex shutter arrangements that trick they eye into thinking the framerate is actually higher than the 24fps it is.
 
CaffeineJunkie has it exactly right. I've shot landscapes and some macros in 25p and they're fine because there is little or no moving content, but it's easy to spot frame stepping on any moving object, even quite slow moving ones. Sport would be completely unacceptable.

If we go 1080p, then it has to be at 50fps.
 
Could sky do an update to the HD box so it could out put 1080P like what MS done to the 360?

Or would we have to buy a new box and TV?
 
1080p24 video, as used by BD & HD DVD for films, would have a slightly lower bit rate than 1080i50. That might be feasible and worthwhile.

Nick

Which is exactly why the codec used by sky is adaptive. technicly the codec detects the signal and encodes only the moving bits interlaced and the rest is encoded progressivly. as a side affect most broadcasts on sky one and movies are 1080p25 like hd dvd and blu-ray and when watching sky hd channels on a PC they are picked up as progressive so no de-interlacing nessasary, only the sky sports channels are picked up as interlaced.

a new sky HD box down the line might output 1080p from these channels.
 
Good point on the 1080p24 thing - that would be better quality and save bandwidth - nice one! Only trouble is loads of people's TVs wouldn't show it!! :rotfl:
If it were possible, I think what the receiver would do is decode the 1080p24 or 25 and frame rate double it up 50Hz, which is more likely to be acceptable.
Progressive is always better then interlaced though.
I wouldn't say it's a simple as that. It depends on what the basis of the comparison is. Are you comparing video with the same horixontal refresh rate, or vertical refresh rate, or pixel rate, or bit rate? I think interlaced has it's place; I have some Blu-ray discs in 1080i60, and they can look fabulous when displayed using suitable video processing. There's something immediate about video that film doesn't have. Not taking sides - they're just different.
Which is exactly why the codec used by sky is adaptive. technicly the codec detects the signal and encodes only the moving bits interlaced and the rest is encoded progressivly. as a side affect most broadcasts on sky one and movies are 1080p25 like hd dvd and blu-ray and when watching sky hd channels on a PC they are picked up as progressive so no de-interlacing nessasary, only the sky sports channels are picked up as interlaced.

a new sky HD box down the line might output 1080p from these channels.
Are you sure about that? The SkyHD box decodes PAL video at 576i50 and de-interlaces it to 576p for HDMI output, but I very much doubt it can do that with 1080i video. That needs expensive, cutting edge hardware.

Nick
 
if i remember rightly 1080p50/60 doesnt actually use twice the space as two 1080i50/60 channels. its the way the mpeg codec works which makes it more effiecient with progressive than interlaced

so if it was a tossup between two sky sports hd channels at 1080i50 or one sky sport channel at 1080p50 with a bit of extra headroom id deffinately go for the latter

althought the americans decided to say that 60i looks better than 60p as the latter makes things look fake.... pity we didnt get chance to vote on that so now we are stuck with I instead of P!
 
If it were possible, I think what the receiver would do is decode the 1080p24 or 25 and frame rate double it up 50Hz, which is more likely to be acceptable. I wouldn't say it's a simple as that. It depends on what the basis of the comparison is. Are you comparing video with the same horixontal refresh rate, or vertical refresh rate, or pixel rate, or bit rate? I think interlaced has it's place; I have some Blu-ray discs in 1080i60, and they can look fabulous when displayed using suitable video processing. There's something immediate about video that film doesn't have. Not taking sides - they're just different.
Are you sure about that? The SkyHD box decodes PAL video at 576i50 and de-interlaces it to 576p for HDMI output, but I very much doubt it can do that with 1080i video. That needs expensive, cutting edge hardware.

Nick

The Sky box doesn't do that silly, SKY's h.264 encoders do. Filmic materal which in my case when watch it through my PC rather than the SKY HD is always progressive, no de-interlacing filters needed and significantly less CPU useage compaired to say a sky sports 1080i broadcast. hence sky do at times broadcast 1080p25, but you wouln't know that unless you watched sky hd through non sky box or PC.

Mbaff H.264 encoders are cutting egde, in interladed mode it only encodes the moving parts of the picture in interlaced mode because encoding the non movig parts progressivly saves space. and when it detects film it automaticly encodes progressivly at 25frames per second.

Like you say sky boxes are not upto the encoding like that. but no problem decoding and it's easy enough to send an 1080i signal from a 1080p source.

I'm just saying that down the line it should be quite possable for future sky hd boxes to output 1080p25( or frame double that to 1080p50 for compatability sake) like blu-ray or hd dvd would 1080p24.
 
I'm sure your all aware that in Settings on the Sky HD box you can change the picture settings between 720p up to 1080i yes? Well I only had my HD fitted last week, (very impressed with it too), and the guy went through the instructions etc. When he got to the picture settings I said I have a tele that can produce 1080p and he said if I can't change the Sky HD settings to 1080p by next week I should phone Sky and ask them why not. Seemed like a decent enough explanation at the time but after reading this forum i'm not so sure now. I take it 1080p on HD box is a no-no then?
 
I'm sure your all aware that in Settings on the Sky HD box you can change the picture settings between 720p up to 1080i yes? Well I only had my HD fitted last week, (very impressed with it too), and the guy went through the instructions etc. When he got to the picture settings I said I have a tele that can produce 1080p and he said if I can't change the Sky HD settings to 1080p by next week I should phone Sky and ask them why not. Seemed like a decent enough explanation at the time but after reading this forum i'm not so sure now. I take it 1080p on HD box is a no-no then?

You're right,engineers is wrong.
720P or 1080i is your only choice on a SKY box.
People often ask my advice about LCD's and I just ask them their viewing priorities.
99% of the people I know don't want gaming or HD-DVD.
They want SKY HD.
So I tell them to forget about 1080P sets and go for 720P.
They can then upgrade if/when SKY go 1080P (years away).
 
You're right,engineers is wrong.
720P or 1080i is your only choice on a SKY box.
People often ask my advice about LCD's and I just ask them their viewing priorities.
99% of the people I know don't want gaming or HD-DVD.
They want SKY HD.
So I tell them to forget about 1080P sets and go for 720P.
They can then upgrade if/when SKY go 1080P (years away).

Cheers for your reply. I have a PS3, which is why I went for the 1080p set. I have my HD box and TV working at 1080i, would 720p be better then?
 
would 720p be better then?

That would be a big no.
Leave the sky box set to either auto or 1080i.
Setting the Sky box to 720P means that it is altering the source material and possibly inducing artefacts.
Also 720 means your display would then have to rescale the image to match its own resolution thus also possibly degrading the source image further still.

Running the Sky box at 1080i means the display only has to deinterlace the picture.
My personal choice wouild be to set the Sky box to Auto unless your display has trouble changing the resolution in which case I would set it to 1080i, but be prepared to have to put up with some programming in stretchy vision.
 
You're right,engineers is wrong.
720P or 1080i is your only choice on a SKY box.
People often ask my advice about LCD's and I just ask them their viewing priorities.
99% of the people I know don't want gaming or HD-DVD.
They want SKY HD.
So I tell them to forget about 1080P sets and go for 720P.
They can then upgrade if/when SKY go 1080P (years away).
What?!?

You don't need Sky to broadcast 1080p to get the most out of 1080p displays. If 1080i is de-interlaced well (big "if") you can get the full motion and spatial resolution of 1080p video from feature films, and television can look very good too. Both can be far better than feeding 1080i from a Sky box into a 720/768p display.

Unfortunately, I know that many people never see the benefit, as their displays process 1080i film material as video, and lose the resolution. The information is all there right now. Yes, progressive encoding does help with compression, and BD & HD take advantage of that and 24 fps. Unfortunately, I suspect that there are hardware limititations in the Sky box that will prevent it from ever outputting 1080p50. 720p is no work-around.

Nick :)
 

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