How bad is bad enough ???
 

Hi all,

I've browsed through the notes and I see that there are a few postings about dodgy pictures during sporting events (artficacts, not the Spurs defense).

I'm in Herts (Hertford specifically) with the digital service and a 4001 box. Just upgraded the telly from a previously v. small 15 year old one with no scart to a 28inch one with lovely scarts and RGB.

However it is depressing to see that when watching pretty much any sporting event (especially Eurosport, though the Bayern /RM game last night was pretty bad too) there are terrible artifact problems. Pitches are blocky green as soon as the camera pans, there is often pixelation around the ball and players. On other dodgy sources (eg foreign news pics) there are similar artifact probs.

Now I'm pretty sure that the Telly is OK (dvd is fine) and the leads are all good quality scarts. Is what I describe 'normal' for an NTL digital service or is it worth NTL either swapping the box or checking the signal ? It's kind of depressing.....

Any advice greatfully received - it's always nice to be armed with ideas before the dreaded call to customer services.

cheers.

dt.

Re: How bad is bad enough ???
 

Hi Dtdt, & Welcome to nthw. :)

The symptoms you describe above sounds like a normal ntl DTV picture to me, but it's always worth a call to CS to arrange an engineer just in case there is a fault. :)

Enjoy the site.

Re: How bad is bad enough ???
 

Did you see this thread http://forum.nthellworld.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7720 I started??

There was a real difference in a couple of the six nations rugby games. Consensus was that the BBC/NTL encoding and feeds are OK, but the limitation is in the digital feed that the Beeb get for encoding from the location. Higher speed costs more and may not be available....

Re: How bad is bad enough ???
 

Thanks for the note.

I missed the thread - I was obviously searching badly (though I did find a few old notes on this).

I would say that all of the sport I have seen over the weekend and last night has been a little compromised (even the BBC) but some has been worse than others. The ITV2 Bayern game last night was particularly rubbish.

Do some tellies handle this sort of thing better than others ? Mine is a bog-standard 50hz pana 28inch. When it's getting the RGB feed there don't appear to be any adjustments for AI or sharpness or any of that sort of nonsense. Also, do either the length/quality of cable from the box on the wall to the telly, or the model of STB itself have any obvious impact on this sort of thing ?

Thanks for the feedback and the welcome. (albeit not too encouraging)

dt

Re: How bad is bad enough ???
 

:welcome:

Different channels on the NTL line up have different bandwidth allocations. I don't know where you get the information on this from, but it may well also be that ITV2 does not use as much bandwidth as ITV1 or BBC1 so some of the degredation comes on it being broadcast on that channel.

A good example of this is E4. This uses 2/3 of usual bandwidth and you can see noticable stepping in diagonal lines on the screen.

Check that your TV does not have any image enhancement on it. If it does turn it off. The new pannys have some of the best pictures on the market. Can you get an analogue signal? I know Hertford is pretty pants in the most for them. On the BBC / ITV1 broadcasts can you see a difference between the analogue pass through picure broadcast to C1-4 and the digital image on AV?

Re: How bad is bad enough ???
 

i have noticed on sky digi as well , normal tv is fine but sometimes foreign feeds are rubbish :mad:

Re: How bad is bad enough ???
 

Football is a notorious bad programme on digital TV, on every platform. Shame really.

Re: How bad is bad enough ???
 

Needs to be slower - Try cricket on Channel 4 on a 50" plasma - you can see every blade of grass - apart from where there isn't any, like in that silly bare bit in the middle where they actually play - daft or what !!

Re: How bad is bad enough ???
 

Really every blade through the noise created on a 50in Plasma. Perhaps all the ones Ive been demo'd or seen at work etc are poorly set up, but you can barely see a line between light and dark without noise, shadows dissaperar, film noir is unwatchable. Take a look at the latest Panasonic CRT Tau screens. Thats what you call a picture. Admitedly you can't hang it above the fireplace etc, but for picture quality they can't be beat.

Re: How bad is bad enough ???
 

Its also a normal Sky DTV Picture! If its not snowing!

All Digital TV looks crap on a big TV, DTT, Sky and Cable due to the compression.

Technology aye?

Re: How bad is bad enough ???
 

That is the important thing to note.

It is the same on any platform.

If the quality of the broadcast feed isnt great then its hardly going to improve at the reciever end.

Re: How bad is bad enough ???
 

i must take issue there , the majority of sky digi is fine for me , even on a cheap ( £200 ) 28" ws tv , the only thing i have a problem with is what has said on here :confused:

Re: How bad is bad enough ???
 

I'll agree with you BBC1 Digital looks as good as BBC1 Analogue. Its the cheaper channels that won't spend on bandwidth.

Long live the licence fee.

Re: How bad is bad enough ???
 

The majority of ntl digi is fine for me on a 32 inch w/s tv?!? So i was merely pointing out its the Same on Sky, DTT or ntl! Football is a problem on all platforms.

Re: How bad is bad enough ???
 

Are BBC Broadcast and Outside Broadcast supplied events subject to this problem?

If not it truly is bandwidth.

Re: How bad is bad enough ???
 

I Is what I describe 'normal' for an NTL digital service or is it worth NTL either swapping the box or checking the signal ? It's kind of depressing.....

I have the same problem. I have had at least 5 visits from ntl engineers and when I show them a video of the "premiership" they agree the picture quality is awful.
It is not source as I watch many games down the pub and the sky picture is excellent.

I have had two new boxes - zero effect
I have had a new cable laid in street - zero effect
I have had levels adjusted many times and this causes pictures to freeze or blank if adjusted incorrectly but does not affect the picture quality problem.

My suspicion is that being in an old cable and wireless area may make the problem worse for me than for people in other areas - I cannot get broadband despite living in densely populated Wandsworth in London.

One engineer said ITV was especially bad as it had a low bandwidth channel as people could watch it via their aerials.

At least i get to go to the pub a lot tho :)

Re: How bad is bad enough ???
 

Is it on the Premiereship or other channels as well?
The encoders used for Sky and ntl (and again for exCWC) are different, so theres a difference.
However the same encoder in use for you in London is the same encoder as used to feed people in Manchester and indeed all in exCWC areas.
An increasingly common issue is that people are buying cheaper TV's which are too big for the distance they are viewed from. You should be sitting at least 5 times the diagonal size of the screen away. Many sit too close these days.

Re: How bad is bad enough ???
 

The encoders are different? Never knew that...

I was under the impression that the same basic MPEG streams were used on all platforms (apart from for Sky Sports).

Re: How bad is bad enough ???
 

All channels have it on fast moving pictures to some degree but some are worse than others, it seems to vary fairly randomly according to channel and time. I've watched poor pictures on say BBC (via ntl) and then seen a clip of the same match on sky news (via ntl) which seems much better!

I should make clear that the picture can be AWFUL - totally different scale from the slight pixellation one might notice on sky. When there is a big match (cup final or international etc on any channel) the quality does seem to improve as if they're making an effort!

I also recall an engineer saying the problem is that the "buffers" are filling up because of under capacity. I could certainly believe something along those lines as the street equipment in my area is probably relatively ancient and its unlikely that ntl can afford to spend any money modernising it. Oh, the engineer also said that this might explain why I sometimes get sound and picture annoyingly out of sync.

Um - sitting too close to the screen - err never thought of that :rolleyes: ;)