[Merged] Where is HD from NTL? When?

[zaax]

You missed this bit: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds33946.html HD on Freeview

[Bob]

Bromley and Telewest are the most alike

[Neil]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

Actually, I watched a HD demo in Selfridges A/V department in Oxford Street yesterday. TBH, the only channel that appeared to have a massively better picture than we get now was BBC HD. All the Sky ones looked rather fuzzy. Odd, considering they apparently all came from Satellite.

And, yes, I was watching on good equipment (a top of the range 60inch LG plasma) that was wired in with decent quality conections.

It doesn't matter what you were watching it on if the source was poor to begin with.

I'll bet it was the pre recorded DVD that's doing the rounds-what connections were used Stu?

---------- Post added at 18:41 ---------- Previous post was at 18:40 ----------

Originally Posted by zaax

You missed this bit: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds33946.html HD on Freeview

I didn't miss it, I deliberately excluded it as it is only a trial for 450 people in London.

If you want true HD programmes, I'm afraid there's only one supplier to go to.

[crazycamper]

new news good news. (yer right)

[popper]

Originally Posted by crazycamper

new news good news. (yer right)

well not exactly new news or even good news, but it seems the current postal advertising "Look Into The Future,its 24mm across and it's called cable" the one with a hole drilled through it(more cost), states that it is the TVdrive(with old tech mpeg2 instead of AVC) that "It Should Be Available To Everyone By Early 2007".

in other news, it seems Virgin Mobile (aka NTL:tw) are going to use another off the wall standard (for todays and future markets) handheld mobile video format, instead of the growing DVB-H (or its future incarnation DVB-H2) they are going with the failing 'DAB digital radio system'.

http://informitv.com/articles/2006/0...movioprovides/
"
8 September 2006
« Prev | Index | Next »

BT Movio provides platform for Virgin Mobile TV

BT has launched the line-up for its wholesale mobile television offering, BT Movio, which will include the three leading channels in the UK. Virgin Mobile will be the first mobile operator to offer the service.

Delivered using the DAB digital radio system, the BT Movio service combines live television and digital radio with a seven-day programme guide and ‘red button’ interactivity."

and heres the good news, considering all the NTL:tw users are being pushed in to the virgin mobile direction for service and you get a Lobster phone as incentive then you might think you can use that new phone for this as a valued NTL:tw/Virgin user...

errr hange on..., NO YOU CANT ! use that free mobile phone for this mobile video service.........
plus it doesnt seem to be included in the special upgrade phone offers if you follow the official NTL:tw links to the virgin sites, and dont be suprised if you get put on a totally different pricing package with hidden costs as the T&C seems to emply you will be.

"
Virgin Mobile will be the first mobile phone company to offer the service. The mobile operator was recently acquired by cable company NTL Telewest.

Alan Gow, managing director of Virgin Mobile said: “We are really excited to be able to offer our customers the same brands and high quality of programming that they expect on their television at home.”

The service will initially only be available on just one model of phone, the Virgin Mobile Lobster 700TV, manufactured by HTC, which is the first DAB-IP enabled device in the world. A series of other models is being developed to support the service."


and its " the first DAB-IP enabled device in the world" because almost everyone else in the world has already bypassed DAB-IP and moved almost wholesale to the far more standard better speced and supported DVB-H(2) format,another steller move from the board members there it seems.... arrr well.

i guess we wont be seeing any of this http://informitv.com/articles/2006/1...liverscurrent/
“This is a big step in fulfilling Current’s mission of sparking a global conversation among young adults,” said Al Gore, the chairman of the channel and former vice president of the United States. “Bringing our viewer created content model to the UK and Ireland will give millions of young viewers the opportunity to not only watch, but also to create, television programming that is relevant to them.”
interactivity (remember my user video blogging/streaming using faster upstream and even multicasting etc)from the under speced/under powered TVdrive.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by popper

well not exactly new news or even good news, but it seems the current postal advertising "Look Into The Future,its 24mm across and it's called cable" the one with a hole drilled through it(more cost), states that it is the TVdrive(with old tech mpeg2 instead of AVC) that "It Should Be Available To Everyone By Early 2007".

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.

in other news, it seems Virgin Mobile (aka NTL:tw) are going to use another off the wall standard (for todays and future markets) handheld mobile video format, instead of the growing DVB-H (or its future incarnation DVB-H2) they are going with the failing 'DAB digital radio system'.

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.

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

[Stephen]

Glasgow and Wales should have the NTL TV Drive by november hopefully. Everywhere else early 2007.

[Tristan]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

However, Cable has a higher bandwidth than Satellite, so is not so much of an advantage on Cable.

Actually, the opposite is true. There is far more digital bandwidth available on satellite than on cable. On cable, a massive chunk of the spectrum is still taken up by analogue signals. That's how Sky are able to do things like Sky Movies multistart and 8 "red button" channels for the football.

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

Agreed. As it is, NTL are probably now going to be stuck with MPEG2 forever. If they don't start closing down some analogue channels, this could lead to a major squeeze on bandwidth once the number of HD channels increases*.

[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.

[Chrysalis]

analogue is holding ntl back but they can only ditch it by removing service from some regions or investing in upgrading them?

[monkey2468]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

analogue is holding ntl back but they can only ditch it by removing service from some regions or investing in upgrading them?

That is true, the question is, do they have the time/money to upgrade all analogue only areas before they switch off analogue? I believe they do (except ex-BT areas) but are unwilling to do so on a mass scale because the upgrade process causes a huge amount of disruption and issues for customers while it happens. As an example, they started upgrading Leicester earlier in the year but had to stop because of the issues.

[Chrysalis]

Perhaps they should upgrade my area their is no broadband on ntl here to disrupt so since they cant offer triple play here I bet they have low customer penetration, tons of sky dishes.

[popper]

Originally Posted by Neil

No, what I am saying is that ntl customers in non Telewest areas do not have any choice in what HD content they can get from ntl.

ntl customers in non Telewest areas on the other hand have much more choice.



Not irrelevant at all Bob.

The 3 main TV providers in the UK (Sky/ntl/Telewest) all made a seperate business decision regarding how to proceed with an HD TV product.

Sky went for it & improved on a great product (Sky +), they now have a sound product on offer that offers PVR functionality along with HD programmes.

Telewest went for it (albeit not knowing what HD channels they would be able to offer, but the prioity for TV Drive was a PVR), they now have a product on offer that offers PVR functionality, upscaling of SD channels to 720p/1080i, & the ability (now) to watch all World Cup games in HD.

ntl have neither a PVR out nor an HD service.

Do you see the difference between the 3 companies planning now....?

The fact that ntl & TW are now as one is not relevant.

TW saw the future & embraced it.

Sky saw the future & embraced it.

What have ntl done?

No HD box.

No PVR.

Great planning by ntl....

Neil (you still around?), 5 months down the line now since your above post,and NTl are about to shell out for a new batch of the TVdrives , is it known yet what % of programs that 'upscaling of SD channels to 720p/1080i' is or soon will be?, and are the current readers aware thats what their going to be paying for?.

[spiderplant]

Originally Posted by popper

Neil (you still around?), 5 months down the line now since your above post,and NTl are about to shell out for a new batch of the TVdrives , is it known yet what % of programs that 'upscaling of SD channels to 720p/1080i' is or soon will be?, and are the current readers aware thats what their going to be paying for?.

I think you missed Neil's point. The answer is 100%, because it's the box that does the upscaling of SD channels. (It also rescales HD where necessary)

NTL won't be upscaling anything. Why waste bandwidth and exclude SD-only boxes from receiving the broadcast when the PVR itself is capable of upscaling?

[ntluser]

Originally Posted by spiderplant

I think you missed Neil's point. The answer is 100%, because it's the box that does the upscaling of SD channels. (It also rescales HD where necessary)

NTL won't be upscaling anything. Why waste bandwidth and exclude SD-only boxes from receiving the broadcast when the PVR itself is capable of upscaling?

Do we know when these boxes will be available and what they will cost by way of installation and rental?