Sky movies in 5.1?
 

I had VIP a year or so back and the Sky movie channels showed a lot of films in 5.1.

I'm on Triple XL now and just added sky movies pack 2.

I've just sampled a few films that Digiguide are saying are 5.1 and they are in stereo.

Have things changed? Do you just get 5.1 on the HD versions of the channels now or have Digiguide got it wrong?

I know the V+ box is set up for 5.1 as i've just checked a previously recorded programme that was in 5.1 and that works, sound wise.

Thanks.

Re: Sky movies in 5.1?
 

On the NTL side of the franchise sky Movies has never been offered in 5.1 on Cable, there are suggestions that there was a period where they were offered in 5.1 on Telewest. Under VM Sky Movies SD only broadcasts in Stereo.

I do believe that on satellite they do indeed offer a 5.1 track on selected SD movies.

Re: Sky movies in 5.1?
 

All Sky PVR boxes get DD audio for the Sky Movies channels. Often its just DD2.0 but they all carry Dolby Digital.

Re: Sky movies in 5.1?
 

Thanks for the reply.

I am ex telewest and they definitely did broadcast some movies in 5.1. I think it started with the Premier channel and then started to go to the other film channels. It's probably two years ago, when I was on VIP, so it has changed since then.

That's really frustrating, especially for action movies. I wonder if it will be 5.1 on the HD version?

I searched google and there seems to be nothing about them going back to stereo, I'd have thought people would have been annoyed about it at the time.

You put your service provider in with Digiguide, so maybe they aren't aware of virgin's limitation?

Thanks again.

Re: Sky movies in 5.1?
 

So, is it 5.1 on HD?

Re: Sky movies in 5.1?
 

Yes it is.

I posted on the Virgin forums and they confirmed it had beent taken of SD. they did say it may return to SD, but nothing definite.

I really can't why, if it was broadcast in 5.1 previously on SD, why it can't be now, especially as on Sky, the SD channels are in 5.1

Re: Sky movies in 5.1?
 

great!

Re: Sky movies in 5.1?
 

It was unintentional when SkyPrem and Prem+1 carried 5.1 in ex-TW regions. There was no bandwidth allocated for the 5.1 stream, and could have affected picture quality. Remember most SD boxes can't handle 5.1, so the MPEG audio needs to be broadcast too.

It would be considerable engineering work to add the 5.1 streams to the SD Sky channels. It can be done, but right now there are higher priority things to do.

Re: Sky movies in 5.1?
 

Thanks for the info.

Surely if they could broadcast it previously in 5.1, they should be able to do it now. Why would it take so much extra work? It was on other channels besides Sky Premier BTW.

We're told that one of the great things about cable is the bandwidth, and how much would a 5.1 audio stream add to the bandwidth anyway?

The point is Sky offer 5.1, so we are getting an inferior service at a greater cost. Sky movies on Sky is £16; it's 19.50 on Virgin. I take Sky movies 2 pack, which is £8 with Sky and £13.50 with Virgin.

http://www.sky.com/shop/tv/movies/

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html...-channels.html

To say they can't put 5.1 on SD movies, for whatever reason, is, in my view, bit of a cop out and pretty bad to be charging more than Sky for an inferior service.

Re: Sky movies in 5.1?
 

The channels are bundled together into fixed-bandwidth multiplexes. The set of channels in each multiplex is carefully calculated to fit into the bandwidth available If the 5.1 streams were simply added to the channels, the bandwidth of the multiplex would be exceeded, and picture quality would suffer. So instead some channels would have to be moved to other multiplexes. This needs to be configured and tested in each of the 54 headends. A lot of work.

No-one has said it can't be done. It may be in the future, but at the moment things like adding new channels, and TiVo, are higher priority.

Re: Sky movies in 5.1?
 

Thanks again for the more detailed explanation.

I don't think I'll hold my breath for 5.1 on SD versions then :D

For me, the picture quality on the SD version is very good and 5.1 sound brings more of an overall 'experience' improvment than an HD picture. That's not to say the HD picture is not a good improvment, it is. However, if the SD had 5.1, I would think twice about paying the extra £7 a month for HD.

My main concern with HD though is the way it eats up hard disc space; at 8 hours per movie, you're soon runing out of space. For that reason, assuming the TIVO has a bigger hard drive, then putting effort towards that does make good sense.