[Merged] Where is HD from NTL? When?

[Mails Crushed]

MPEG-2 quality it much better than MPEG-4.
The purpose of MPEG-4 is to create a watchable image at extremely low bandiwdth....

[jtwn]

Maybe the costs involved in introducing MPEG-4 tech outweigh the costs of increasing bandwidth on the network. Which I doubt.

From personal experience, compressing a 15mbps CBR MPEG-2 sample of BBC content with Mainconcept's h.264 encoder, it was ~half the size and bit rate whilst retaining similar quality to the original. Obviously I'm guessing broadcaster's much more efficient hardware encoders and compressing from an uncompressed source would produce a better result but along the same lines.

For just jamming on MPEG-2 HD, as far as the network goes as it is now, I doubt the entire spectrum of ntl's coax network is being used; all 2gbps of it. It all depends on how much of it is useable, less for the crappy parts and whether the STBs can take it. On face value of official ntl propaganda, there should be oodles of bandwidth left for HD. Otherwise, changing to EuroDOCSIS and varying modulation as far as an operational network will allow are the only upgrade paths I can see.

MPEG-2 quality it much better than MPEG-4.

Mails Crushed, that is not true. I would question if you ever actually have seen an HD MPEG-4 stream.

[Tristan]

Well this is very disappointing news.

Whilst on the one hand I can see why Telewest wanted to get TVDrive out there, it's pretty clear that the future of HD broadcasting is going to be in MPEG4. The current TVDrive box will be fine for HD VOD, but in three years time, it's not going to be able to show you the HD version of BBC1 -- or at least not at the same quality as Sky++.

Let's hope they have a rethink sooner rather than later.

[gooner4life]

Originally Posted by quadplay

Completely wrong, for numerous reasons. Sorry.

Well according to my source the Langley Network and the Telewest network are pretty much twins.

If you have numerous reasons please post them and I will put them to my man @ ntl.

he's a senior network tech for what its worth.

Also Telewest STB's that have been security circumvented work on NTL's network and vice versa.

[Bob]

I am under the impression that the Bromley side of things is much more like Telewest - hence the reason they both have Pace 2000 and 4000 boxes which don't work on Langley

[gooner4life]

Originally Posted by Bob

I am under the impression that the Bromley side of things is much more like Telewest - hence the reason they both have Pace 2000 and 4000 boxes which don't work on Langley

Sorry my mistake, it is the Bromley network he was talking about.

Dont know why I kept going on about Langley, i'm connected to the Bromley network myself.

[Bob]

LOL not to worry

[quadplay]

That's more like it.

Although there's still plenty of differences which would stop the 8300 being rolled out on Bromley as it is - I can't discuss them though, I'm afraid.

[Tristan]

Originally Posted by Bob

I am under the impression that the Bromley side of things is much more like Telewest - hence the reason they both have Pace 2000 and 4000 boxes which don't work on Langley

They also both have the 1000 and 1000+ boxes too (although Telewest call the latter the 1010).

Apparently, with an eye on a future merger/takeover, Telewest hired all the CWC engineers to put together their digital product. NTL, meanwhile, came up with a completely different and incompatible product.

And in the end, of course, it was NTL rather than TW who snapped up CWC, and the next 5 years or so were spent trying to come to terms with all the incompatibilties between the platforms.

I can't help but wonder how different digital cable would be in Britain today if NTL had also adopted the CWC system back in 99/2000....

---------- Post added at 21:54 ---------- Previous post was at 21:50 ----------

Originally Posted by quadplay

That's more like it.

Although there's still plenty of differences which would stop the 8300 being rolled out on Bromley as it is - I can't discuss them though, I'm afraid.

But I can

A semi-educated guess says that the PVR needs different SI/PSI to that which is sent to the standard STBs. And you've got to work out some way of getting the 8-day EPG to the box, if it's not downloaded onto the hard disk via the CM.

Am I close?

[Hom3r]

This whole HD lark is a joke. asian countries have had it for nearly 10 years.

(I saw a programme a few years back and they had a guy in Hong Kong that had a home media centre that that had a several terabyte hard drive that could record 17 channels simultaneously 3 of which could be HD, I reckon that gone up in spec.)

I reckon the way the NON 10 Mb has been rolled out we will still be waiting for HD long after 2012 when the analogue gets turned off.

At this moment I am thingking of ditching NTL TV/BB/Phone and going to sky for TV there EPG/red button works, and I've never heard any of the people I known saying that it falls over. BB thats a different thing will have to think about going back to BT and get ASDL+.
/moan off

[HDFootyMan]

Why is it that NTL shoots itself in the foot again and again?

We get a true return path, but poor interactive content compared to Sky.

We get 10MB broadband which for some people, is slower then 2MB.

Then we get VOD (well, some of us) †“ only to have a very nice MPEG 4 PVR solution replaced by a MPEG 2 box which will double the bandwidth used for HDTV, and double the disk space used by recordings.

I guess theyââ‚ ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢re doing this to get PVR functionality to us ASAP. I canââ‚Âà ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢t blame them in a way. Telewest, Freeview, Sky, and BT Vision/Freebox †“ all have/will have PVR functionality. NTL? Erm, †œComing soonââ‚ ¬Ã‚¦.until then, enjoy your 3-day EPG.ââ‚ ¬Ã‚ÂÂÂ�

But as others have said, I think they would have been better off in the long run going down the MPEG 4 route.

[jtwn]

and double the disk space used by recordings.

Very good point.

It would appear minus the leap backwards, maybe this time ntl won't write the software for the boxes in a language it will crawl and won't have technically crap hardware to write for.

Am I right in saying the epg is fetched and stored in the ram each switch on / updated at 01:10 GMT+1? If so, the harddrive would now be used for storing the EPG data? I think thats along the lines of what the new Sky HD box (not sure if Sky+ already does this) is doing; the new box has another 160gb just reserved for Sky's use as it is.

[chris_mc_1266]

Well i think that ntl need a new software update for starters....use the sky software...this software is fuc*ing rubbish and ntl need a good slap for it lol.. well mby the merge will sort this out. but hey thumbs uf for bb and phone

:P


-

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by david.ewles

This whole HD lark is a joke. asian countries have had it for nearly 10 years.

IIRC the main reason the HD has been held back in this country is that a few years ago (about 1994), when the government started looking at licencing the digital frequencies, they offered the various companies an option to broadcast channels in HD or SD (standard definition). The BBC just went ahead and started installing HD equipment, but the independant TV companies (and in particular, Sky*) said they didn't want it as it was too expensive,

The TV companies in America were more receptive as they can use a lot of the same equipment in film making (most people can't spot the difference between HD video and film even on a large screen), so the cost for them is effectively lower than Standard definition.


*Traditionally, Sky haven't been interested in a technology unless they can use it as a unique selling point. Until a couple of years ago, they didn't broadcast widescreen transmissions on their own channels.

[jtwn]

Well tbh, it isn't like there has been many native 1080i screens around anyway and as it is, LCD and plasma as a solution for HD is really just a stepping stone between CRT and SED, OLED and FLCD displays.

Also do remember that our SD transmissions on the 'main' channels are of a very high quality, so much so that some stateside peeps are fooled into thinking some DVB-S stream rips are actually HD because they just aren't used to it.

Our broadcasts surpass DVD specs, however it looks like the US's broadcasts will fall short of the quality on the new stored mediums.

Personally I think many, if not most of the HD in the US is actually quite ****ty in quality, I don't think its just down to bad transfers as Sin City which was shot in HD on a video, whilst good in quality doesn't match the likes of the demos manufacturers show or the likes of Euro1080i's HD1.