[Tristan]

On the majority of channels, the bitrate (in fact, the entire MPEG stream) is identical on cable and satellite. This is because the majority of channels on NTL are taken from satellite.

There are a few exceptions though. The BBC channels (except Parliament and the regional BBC1s) are taken from your local digital terrestrial aerial, as are the ITV channels, C4 adn C5. I beleive that the bitrate is higher on these than satellite, but you'd have to check.

Finally, there are a few channels which are received uncompressed by NTL, who do all the necessary work themselves. Examples of these are most of the Sky branded channels (Sky One, Sky Sports and Sky Movies). These are done this way (in most cases) to give a higher bitrate than satellite.

Of course, picture quality is subjective, and also depends on the quality of the MPEG decoder, the TV, and connecting leads...