[popper]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

Whether you get any advantage with MPEG 4 (whichever type) depends on the codec used by channel broadcasting. Sky (for instance) buy mostly American TV. A lot of their Hi Def shows are (AFAIK) encoded for the American market. Therefore, the source material Sky transmit from may well be MPEG 2 encoded. They would then have to re-encode this as MPEG 4. As both MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 AVC are lossy codecs, you will lose quality each time you re-encode. If Sky do this, then their quality is actually LOWER than MPEG 2. Of course, if NTL then take the MPEG 4 AVC encoded Sky Feed and re-encode it as MPEG 2, you will lose quality again.

The main advantage of MPEG 4 (all forms) over MPEG 2 is that it can encode higher quality video using a lower bitrate. Therefore, there is room for more channels. However, Cable has a higher bandwidth than Satellite, so is not so much of an advantage on Cable.

Having said all that, I would still prefer MPEG 4 as it gives NTL more room for expansion.

you make some very interesting and informed points there stuart, and its true all this re-coding would indeed degrade the final end user picture.

however AVC by design has the LossLess decode/encode Option that the old Mpeg-2 does not, and hence is designed to produce a far better output
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...856#post777856

stuart already knows this, but the reader might not so,for commercial broadcasting i think its important to stop being so generic (I.e Mpeg-4)regarding the Codec used as it only serves to muddy the waters, the old mpeg-4/ASP (aka divX/Xvid) is not and never will be used as a commercial option (god, i hope not anyway 8 and that includes the Divx with bells on MS VC-1) by NTL:tw and only the old tech Mpeg-2 and AVC (aka Mpeg-4/AVC H.264) need apply.

as per your points, its clear that the best short to medium (2 to 5 years) term options would be to have the ability to take both Codecs and have the STB/PCi/USB decoded eather Codec as the provider wishes, the Sky HD boxs can ofcourse already decode both Mpeg-2 and AVC and are hence ready for direct transmission of HD Mpeg-2 content without the re-Encoding an AVC HD.
http://www.satone.tv/thomsondsi8215.htm

the Mpeg-2 TVdrive however can not decode AVC so its only half way there even if NTL:tw were to get some multi input (Mpeg-2 and AVC) headend Kit such as the latest Tier-1 broadcast quality TANDBERG units, perhaps Creative could comment.

the fact is, from a user perspective it might be said that they dont know or care, but they will care once its clear in the future that they cant get all the options everyone else will be able to provide and yet the users are expected to fund all this
bad judgment in higher fees etc.

As hi definition footage is NOT practical on mobile phones (at least not for the forseeable future), discussion of mobile phones is off topic in a thread about HD TV.

to be fair stuart, i did say "handheld mobile video format, instead of the growing DVB-H" and not "on mobile phones" its perfectly possible to use an existing DVB-H equiped mobile phone as the transmission device by which a DVB video transport stream might be displayed, there is already AVC/H.264 hardware decoders for these devices
http://www.dvb-h.org/products.htm
"Broadcom Corp

BCM2900 tuner: A CMOS DVB-H ZIF tuner supporting UHF and both L-bands. BCM 2722 Mobile Multimedia Processor: Decodes WMV-9 or H.264 video at QVGA 30fps whilst consuming just 100mW."

as the tech currently stands, its all possible right now, and the only drawback is the data rate DVB-H to allow good quality at low bitrate (thats what AVC is good at)HD AVC and a HD capable mobile screen at least if A PREMIUM ON PICTURE QUALITY is the long term goal.
ofcourse theres always the HD laptop as your AVC display and the right DVB-H mobile handset or mobile datacard i suppose and the near future.

We have rules about thread topics for a reason, please respect them.

theres always my http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...856#post777856 i supose if readers want to take it there and cover all interesting related facts etc.