But when are they going to show what they promoted? They promote the channel with fantastic visuals yet all we are getting is re-runs from Gallery on a 3-hour loop. Not a smart move VOOM. It insults your viewers.

The problem is money, it costs money to produce HD and for how many viewers? By far there are still more SD sets than HDTV sets out there, but as the HDTV sales keep skyrocketing more demand for HD content will drive more funding which will drive more programs. Hey you never know maybe Discovery will be able to produce more of their programs in HD after they start showing HD quality commercials?! I'm surprised Discovery or Voom don't strike a deal with the BBC to convert many of their nature and science specials into HD content for their channels. Personally shows like the recent Blue Planet would be a smash on HD.

But when are they going to show what they promoted? They promote the channel with fantastic visuals yet all we are getting is re-runs from Gallery on a 3-hour loop. Not a smart move VOOM. It insults your viewers.

Right now the only new program for today is : France: Provence (Travel).


I have looked at the programming until the end of June and it will remain the same. It will probably get more programming in July and August.

Just saw France: Provence. It was terrific although many of the scenes looked as if they had been "bumped up" from 480. Hope we get some more travel shows. But a 3 hour loop! Even PBS-HD doesn't do that and it has a lot of repeats.

Right now the only new program for today is : France: Provence (Travel).


I have looked at the programming until the end of June and it will remain the same. It will probably get more programming in July and August.
Yeap. I just found this on the web site:

"COMING IN JULY ...

Elsewhere
Reindeer herding in Finland, Nintendo in the African bush. Visiting one exotic location per month over the course of a year, award-winning documentary filmmaker Nicolas Geyerhalter set out with a high definition camera crew and plan to let people speak for themselves. The result is a stark, revealing and often stunning portrayal of life in our planet's most remote locations "


source: http://www.voom.com/vhdo/equa/index.jsp

the novelty will wear off quick. Anyone going to watch the loop over again?

So is Epic gone?

No it is on 108

No it is on 108

Unfortunately.

Anyone get guide data on Equator yet?

Unfortunately.

Anyone get guide data on Equator yet?
Last night I had the program names but no description, except for one of the programs which simply read "Produced in HD and DD 5.1" (don't remember which one).

Hey Guys,
What do you think of the PQ of this channel so far? It looks superb for me :)

Hey Guys,
What do you think of the PQ of this channel so far? It looks superb for me :)Overall very good. Close ups look great. Some of the edge detail on the buildings looks a little soft in the distant shots. But I think its just the nature of the shot. No break ups, or pixel events. No macro blocking. Some material looks a little grainy at times but again its the camera or film I think.

Boy, it sure would be nice to enjoy this new channel...........0 signal quality and power since Monday night. At least the three hour loop is still new to me :)

You know, so far I haven't seen anything that looks really good. I don't know where people get the "superb PQ" from. For example, most of the "Eye on ______" it is long shot and doesn't look anywhere near as good as the "Over ______ " series on hdnet. I don't mean the scenery (though that has been less than spectacular) but the PQ isn't like wow. More like a nice dvd.

Boy, it sure would be nice to enjoy this new channel...........0 signal quality and power since Monday night. At least the three hour loop is still new to me :)
Wow, what's going on at your place? T-storms, earthquates, tornados or what? Are you sure that you dish is still on the roof :D

You know, so far I haven't seen anything that looks really good. I don't know where people get the "superb PQ" from. For example, most of the "Eye on ______" it is long shot and doesn't look anywhere near as good as the "Over ______ " series on hdnet. I don't mean the scenery (though that has been less than spectacular) but the PQ isn't like wow. More like a nice dvd.
If you don't see any difference between a DVD and this channel (or any other HD channel), I'll say that something must be wrong at your setup. Are you sure that your STB is not at 480p or 480i?

You know, so far I haven't seen anything that looks really good. I don't know where people get the "superb PQ" from. For example, most of the "Eye on ______" it is long shot and doesn't look anywhere near as good as the "Over ______ " series on hdnet. I don't mean the scenery (though that has been less than spectacular) but the PQ isn't like wow. More like a nice dvd.

Barth2k,

again you are comparing HDnet to one of VOOM's channel. That is not a fair comparison. Let me ask you why does ESPN-HD on Dish Network or DirecTv does not look like HDnet (when HDnet used to do baseball)? I am not saying that HDnet does not have excellent quality but if you are measuring every single HD channel out there by HDnet standard, you should start with ESPN-HD, TNT-HD, HBO-HD, SHO-HD and let's demand Dish or DirecTv to put every single channel at 19mbsp; they will probably laugh and walk away.

When HDnet is on VOOM, we all can make the comparison.

Wow, what's going on at your place? T-storms, earthquates, tornados or what? Are you sure that you dish is still on the roof :D
Yeah it's still there. I don't know what's up with it. My ladder is to short, it was a hand me down, to go up and look at the dish so I am waiting 'till the local tech comes out and looks at it. Voom has prorated my account at least. It's so weird, OTA still works through the diplexed line so if it's a loose connection it's between the dish and the diplexor. The little satellite on the STB blinks between red and green, three seconds green and eight seconds red. When I go into the menu to check the signal it stops blinking and stays red!? So, I wait patiently for the tech. :rolleyes:

I see macroblocking on this channel when there is moderate to heavy picture movement. Stills look excellent, but a lot of mosquito noise around text . I really started to notice blocking in a slow dance feature from India I believe, the girls necks would macro block a lot as they moved around.
Equator is obviously over compressed. This reminds me of when our PBS OTA went from 1 to 3 subs. At first they had a beautiful picture, perfect, but then they added subs and compressed the HD to fit the digital SD's in. Equator looks like the result of the latter.

I see macroblocking on this channel when there is moderate to heavy picture movement. Stills look excellent, but a lot of mosquito noise around text . I really started to notice blocking in a slow dance feature from India I believe, the girls necks would macro block a lot as they moved around.
Equator is obviously over compressed. This reminds me of when our PBS OTA went from 1 to 3 subs. At first they had a beautiful picture, perfect, but then they added subs and compressed the HD to fit the digital SD's in. Equator looks like the result of the latter.
Over-compression shouldn't be an issue with VOOM. Wilt Hidendrand (at the Yahoo group) has indicated previously that VOOM pre-allocated all channel in all transponders from day-1. In other words they are running at full channel capacity from day-1. Therefore, every time they add a new channel they don't need to mess with compression on the existing ones (like D* does).
I don't see the macro-blocking that you refer to. Anybody else seeing such problem?

Over-compression shouldn't be an issue with VOOM. Wilt Hidendrand (at the Yahoo group) has indicated previously that VOOM pre-allocated all channel in all transponders from day-1. In other words they are running at full channel capacity from day-1. Therefore, every time they add a new channel they don't need to mess with compression on the existing ones (like D* does).
I don't see the macro-blocking that you refer to. Anybody else seeing such problem?
I take what Wilt says with a grain of salt. If you want to put an end to the compression issue then tell us the bitrates.

I take what Wilt says with a grain of salt. If you want to put an end to the compression issue then tell us the bitrates.
I don't know about bit rates (as I don't work for VOOM :D). The only thing I know is that Wilt has demonstrated to be honest A lot of times he had admitted when problem exists and worked toward resolution. I just don't see any PQ problem with this channel.

Over-compression shouldn't be an issue with VOOM. Wilt Hidendrand (at the Yahoo group) has indicated previously that VOOM pre-allocated all channel in all transponders from day-1. In other words they are running at full channel capacity from day-1. Therefore, every time they add a new channel they don't need to mess with compression on the existing ones (like D* does).
I don't see the macro-blocking that you refer to. Anybody else seeing such problem?

but all that means is that they've been overcompressing from the get go. if some channels show more problems than others, it's b/c the content on those channels need more bandwidth.

voom painted themselves into the corner with their "39 hd channels" marketing. now they have to stick to it regardless of any pq issue that may come up, until october when (if) wm9 is deployed.

I realize they have been the same since day one, but I defintitely see this. Again, stills are fine, but when you get enough motion or frame to frame difference, it starts to macro-block.

The only numbers about bitrates I've seen comparing D*, E* and V* are these (compiled by Mike123ABC on DBStalk):

"DirecTV uses the most compression on their HDTV channels of any satellite provider.

DirecTV HDTV is 15.8Mbit, vs 16.9Mbit on Voom. Dish is 19.8, just like the OTA HDTV channels.

(Details compiled by Mike123ABC on DBStalk:

VOOM Runs 8PSK 22msym 5/6 FEC 188/204 RS or 50.69 mbit/sec or 16.9mbit per channel with 3 HDTV channels (minus some because of guide data, etc but not much).

DIRECTV runs QPSK 20msym 6/7 FEC 188/204 RS or 31.6 mbit/sec or 15.8mbit per channel with 2 HDTV channels

Echostar current is 8PSK 21.5msym 2/3 FEC 188/204 RS or 39.6 mbit/sec or 19.8 mbit/channel with 2 HDTV)"

source: http://bbrcs.clanspace.com/forum/remark,8721971~mode=flat~start=20

I haven't seen the motion effects, however I did notice some issues with the roofs of the buildings in Eye over Italy the other evening. When the camera is flying overhead at a distance I see minor defects in the rows of tiles. It seems to disappear when the shot gets closer, however when they pan out they reappear.

I see the same things with the tiles. do you have a 1080i CRT or a 720 panel or something different? The tiles seem to dance around. I though it was due to scaling from 1080 to 720. But it certainly could be the compression. Those panns just have too much information content.

I have a Panny HD plasma and I've seen a few of these shows on InHD in Jan-Feb timeframe. I don't remember seeing the defects on InHD.

Over-compression shouldn't be an issue with VOOM. , every time they add a new channel they don't need to mess with compression on the existing ones (like D* does).


Yeah... and I have some swap land in Florida to sell?

voom painted themselves into the corner with their "39 hd channels" marketing. now they have to stick to it regardless of any pq issue that may come up, until october when (if) wm9 is deployed.

Barth2k. I agree with you 100% but I also hope you are right about about it improving when wm9 is deployed and not just but up more channels and not increase the bitrate. I may be wrong but I thought th Wm9 was going to be for the SD first and the MPEG4 would be added next year for the HD channels. Do I have something goofed up?