New Samsung V+ box on its way!

[Icoms07]

Samsung V+ hardware samples have been delivered along with the first official engineering build... Should'nt be long untill everythings Samsung built..

[gadge]

Originally Posted by Icoms07

Samsung V+ hardware samples have been delivered along with the first official engineering build... Should'nt be long untill everythings Samsung built..

Source

[JdNthLdn]

Is it any good

[Itshim]

Originally Posted by Icoms07

Samsung V+ hardware samples have been delivered along with the first official engineering build... Should'nt be long untill everythings Samsung built..

Refer back to my post regarding my talk with a teccy last year saying hold fire dont get V+ yet wait until 2008 . Could this be why ?
if so I guess they will be for" brand new customers only"

[RamJet]

Originally Posted by Itshim

Refer back to my post regarding my talk with a teccy last year saying hold fire dont get V+ yet wait until 2008 . Could this be why ?
if so I guess they will be for" brand new customers only"

maybe the techie was on a wind-up - ive not heard anything anywhere about this mythical samsung new V+ box

also why would they need to change the V+ box - at vast cost in terms of Research and Development charges ? ? ?

my V+ box works fine as it is - what do they need to add - except weblogon set the V+ to record & that would be a software issue

[moroboshi]

Originally Posted by RamJet

maybe the techie was on a wind-up - ive not heard anything anywhere about this mythical samsung new V+ box

also why would they need to change the V+ box - at vast cost in terms of Research and Development charges ? ? ?

my V+ box works fine as it is - what do they need to add - except weblogon set the V+ to record & that would be a software issue

US cable companies have for a while been launching new HD channels in H.264 only, and have launched new PVRs to go with these channels. Existing customers with out-dated MPEG 2 hardware are welcome to stay where they are and watch SD content and older MPEG 2 HD channels, but they will not be able to receive any new channels unless they upgrade their boxes.

As everyone knows, Virgin's V+ is based on out-dated MPEG 2 tech, so a movie to a new H.264 capable box would make sense. Really too bad they've spent so much already on giving customers out-dated hardware though, as it will be a headache for everyone to change over.

I think they could also improve their EPG a lot on more powerful hardware. What they have frankly resembles a BBC Micro circa 1985, with crude low-res white text on a black background. Compare it to a media center PC and the difference is enormous. The difference is big in functionality too, it's just too bad the only way to get at locked networks like Virgin and Sky is through their own approved but technically incredibly basic boxes.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by moroboshi

US cable companies have for a while been launching new HD channels in H.264 only, and have launched new PVRs to go with these channels. Existing customers with out-dated MPEG 2 hardware are welcome to stay where they are and watch SD content and older MPEG 2 HD channels, but they will not be able to receive any new channels unless they upgrade their boxes.

Or, unless the cable operator re-encodes in MPEG2. Seeing as Virgin have bought a lot of hardware to do this, I suspect that's the way they'll go.

As everyone knows, Virgin's V+ is based on out-dated MPEG 2 tech, so a movie to a new H.264 capable box would make sense. Really too bad they've spent so much already on giving customers out-dated hardware though, as it will be a headache for everyone to change over.

Unfortunately, NTL were looking at a newer version of the current Scientific Atlanta box that did offer MPEG 4 as well, but the Telewest management are running VM and cancelled the project.

I think they could also improve their EPG a lot on more powerful hardware. What they have frankly resembles a BBC Micro circa 1985, with crude low-res white text on a black background. Compare it to a media center PC and the difference is enormous. The difference is big in functionality too, it's just too bad the only way to get at locked networks like Virgin and Sky is through their own approved but technically incredibly basic boxes.

Actually, I suspect the current colour scheme was chosen for easy visibility to most people (a lot of people, even though they are not registered disabled, do have trouble percieving certain colours). This is actually something a lot of designers forget.

The current hardware is more than powerful enough to run VM's EPG at a decent speed. Tivo has a far superior user interface and EPG, yet runs on a power PC based computer with 16 meg of RAM and a 50MHz CPU (the V+ also has 16 meg of ram, but uses a CPU with a speed > 100 MHz).

[dilli-theclaw]

I'm hoping any new box will also be able to read out the menus too.

[BenMcr]

This isn't a wind up btw

[moroboshi]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

Or, unless the cable operator re-encodes in MPEG2. Seeing as Virgin have bought a lot of hardware to do this, I suspect that's the way they'll go.

Actually, I suspect the current colour scheme was chosen for easy visibility to most people (a lot of people, even though they are not registered disabled, do have trouble percieving certain colours). This is actually something a lot of designers forget.

The current hardware is more than powerful enough to run VM's EPG at a decent speed. Tivo has a far superior user interface and EPG, yet runs on a power PC based computer with 16 meg of RAM and a 50MHz CPU (the V+ also has 16 meg of ram, but uses a CPU with a speed > 100 MHz).

Transcoding to MPEG 2 isn't a smart idea though. Obviously you are flushing a good chunk of that lovely HD quality down the toilet immediately, and also because MPEG 2 is very wasteful on space. Ultimately all channels, or at least the majority of channels will be in HD, so carrying 150-200 MPEG2 1080i streams is not going to be very pleasant.

Windows Media Center has an option for a high visibility white on black colour scheme for those that want it, but it defaults to something far prettier. It doesn't help that the Virgin EPG is in 4:3 SD, and very, very badly upscaled to 1080i. Again compared to Windows Media Center, with it's transparencies and slick scrolling, zooming, and transition effects, the Virgin EPG feels like something from a couple of decades ago.

Personally I with we had cablecards here as they do in the US. That way the consumer can decide which box they want, then just plug the cable card in to decode all the DRM cable channels. Sadly though, as with many things tech related, the UK is way behind other countries. (particularly the US and Japan)

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by moroboshi

Transcoding to MPEG 2 isn't a smart idea though. Obviously you are flushing a good chunk of that lovely HD quality down the toilet immediately, and also because MPEG 2 is very wasteful on space. Ultimately all channels, or at least the majority of channels will be in HD, so carrying 150-200 MPEG2 1080i streams is not going to be very pleasant.

I have to admit, I would prefer H264 support, but Virgin (unless they are really going to surpise a lot of people) seem to be sticking with MPEG2. It's possible that they wish to support both (although they have spent a lot of money on transcoding hardware, I suspect it's a fraction of what it would cost to replace all the current V+ boxes), but it's also possible they wish to stick with MPEG 2..

It's also worth noting that MPEG2, given a high enough bitrate, beats H264 on quality given a similar bitrate. H264 gives a better image quality at low bitrates though.

It's worth noting, however, that (and I know this, part of my day job is helping students with video encoding) transcoding from one lossy codec to another lossy codec is never a good idea, however good they are. Both MPEG2 and H264 are considered lossy codecs.

---------- Post added at 18:44 ---------- Previous post was at 18:41 ----------

Originally Posted by Jefferson T

I'm hoping any new box will also be able to read out the menus too.

TBH, I am suprised this is not a requirement of the Disability Discrimination Act. It would also be fairly easy to implement. After all, all you have to do is record someone reading out the screens, then get the box to play back the relevant recording.

[moroboshi]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

It's also worth noting that MPEG2, given a high enough bitrate, beats H264 on quality given a similar bitrate. H264 gives a better image quality at low bitrates though.

I'm not sure about that. When the DVD Forum were comparing codecs for high bit-rate (30mbits) 1080p HD DVD encoding they compared MPEG 2, H.264, and VC-1. They decided that VC-1 gave the best results, closely followed by H.264/AVC/MPEG 4, then way behind was MPEG 2.

Blu-rays now use H.264 almost exclusively (aside from Warner Bros, who still use VC-1), having moved away from MPEG 2 due to the huge amount of user complaints. Certainly in my own experience with HD DVD and BD, the MPEG 2 stuff is always far inferior to VC-1 and H.264. They're just far more modern codecs and give better results in any situation.

Looking at the quality of BBC HD and Virgin's HD VOD content the quality is pretty mediocre to my eyes. It's a far cry from blu-ray or HD DVD level, but is of course still far superior to the SD content on Virgin.

It's really a shame that the UK, and Virgin of course in particular are so slow in adopting high-def. It's difficult now to buy an SD TV, so they really should be transitioning to HD as quickly as possible. It's amazing and disappointing that we still don't have the core channels from BBC, C4, ITV, and C5 in high-def.

[dilli-theclaw]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

TBH, I am suprised this is not a requirement of the Disability Discrimination Act. It would also be fairly easy to implement. After all, all you have to do is record someone reading out the screens, then get the box to play back the relevant recording.

It would probably be easier to use a small speech synthesis program on the box.

Still it's all money so I doubt it will happen.

---------- Post added at 20:15 ---------- Previous post was at 20:14 ----------

Originally Posted by BenMcr

This isn't a wind up btw

Good, I'm looking forward to seeing one.

[RamJet]

er in summary do the posts above mean

1. is there is a new Sansung box V+ box the way ?

2. when will it arrive

3. will is cost any £ for us the subscribers

4. will I be able to call it up remotely and set it to record a program or 2 ?

5. what color will it be

Originally Posted by BenMcr

This isn't a wind up btw

Lets hope this one is the dogs proverbials before it is released then.
VM seem to get all excited about " outing " a new product before considering reliability issues.


" 4. will I be able to call it up remotely and set it to record a program or 2 ? "

Get yourself a slingbox