SD / HD/ Freeview
Discussion
I own a full HD TV and from close up SD looks terrible. But on some material the quality is amazing.
Recently 'Life' looked awesome. Obviously this could not have been more than SD resolution as i only have freeview.
Other stuff is appalling, of particular note was F1 this year, even from distance it still looked awefull. Initially i though this was maybe due to slow response times but this clearly not the case.
So why? Is it simply crap recoding? Or are some programs recorded well below SD quality? Same with the sound, total lack of bass on some stuff and others rattle the foundations.
TBH much TV would struggle to be to VHS standard let alone anything else.
Recently 'Life' looked awesome. Obviously this could not have been more than SD resolution as i only have freeview.
Other stuff is appalling, of particular note was F1 this year, even from distance it still looked awefull. Initially i though this was maybe due to slow response times but this clearly not the case.
So why? Is it simply crap recoding? Or are some programs recorded well below SD quality? Same with the sound, total lack of bass on some stuff and others rattle the foundations.
TBH much TV would struggle to be to VHS standard let alone anything else.
Different channels are broadcast at different bit rates, which affects the quality massively, also the compression used means sporting events (F1, football etc) with lots of movement will look worse (still shots take up less space, so can have greater fidelity) also movement is a double whammy because LCD's don't cope well with it.
SD/Freeview/Sky are not all the same. Freeview and sky have anamorphic widescreen (although I'm not convinced it's done 'properly' on sky, it doesn't look as good as it should to me), while (theoretically) terrestrial analogue has infinite horizontal resolution...which is, of course, no good on an LCD TV! Which gives the greatest resolution depends on what you are watching and how it's been framed for broadcast.
In practice, good freeview looks the best to me, then analogue, with sky SD the worst (could be my decoder of course...)
ETA freeview/Sky use totally different compression routines, terrestrial of course uses nothing at all.
SD/Freeview/Sky are not all the same. Freeview and sky have anamorphic widescreen (although I'm not convinced it's done 'properly' on sky, it doesn't look as good as it should to me), while (theoretically) terrestrial analogue has infinite horizontal resolution...which is, of course, no good on an LCD TV! Which gives the greatest resolution depends on what you are watching and how it's been framed for broadcast.
In practice, good freeview looks the best to me, then analogue, with sky SD the worst (could be my decoder of course...)
ETA freeview/Sky use totally different compression routines, terrestrial of course uses nothing at all.
Edited by varsas on Wednesday 30th December 12:50
Certain shows like Life, Torchwood and, err, Hole In The Wall, are on the BBC HD channel. It might be that the good ones are good because they are filmed in HD, and shown on the HD channel as well as being downsampled for the standard signal. Downsampling from the HD film might give a better quality than a straight up standard feed.
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