Picture quality -- rant.

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PhilipPeake

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Oct 23, 2006
47
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Just a gentle rant about picture quality...

A long time ago, my first job out of school involved redistribution of
off-air TV signals. We spent a lot of time and effort getting clean pictures,
and I was trained to look at TV pictures critically, to the point where when
I went to visit relatives and neighbors I either had to spend time putting
their TV pictures right, or just not watch because some of the stuff they
put up with was just plain offensive to me.

I no longer do this stuff for a living, but that early training has stuck,
and I do appreciate good quality pictures.

At one point, I left England to live in France. After a couple of years of
missing UK TV I bought a Ku satellite system. With my trusty (motorized) 1.2m
dish and analog reciver I could find quite a few signals worth watching.
What struck me at the time was how good the (PAL) TV pictures were. Generally
much cleaner than you could expect to get terrestrially off-air. I assume
that this was the start of a TV revolution where everyone would be able to
get studio quality pictures.

Sky TV (and a few others) started transmitting (analog) from the Astra
Satellite, then the put a second satellite in the same spot, giving even more
channels. Things were looking good.

I was particularly pleased to be able to get feeds of stuff like the Olympics
where I could whatch what I wanted, for as long as I wanted, without inane
drivel from commentators, and concentration on national athletes and events
in which they were participating. I even watched a few NTSC feeds -- which were
not up to PAL standards (sorry ... its just true), but were still 100% better
than I had ever seen in the US on my various visits there.

Then came the "digital revolution". The analog transponders went dark, most
of the content was encrypted, and even with digital receivers it was obvious
that the name of the game was cramming too many channels onto each transponder
with consequent reduction in quality -- good enough for Joe Sixpack, who was
apparently happy with "VHS Quality".

I lost interest because of lack of content, and crappy pictures.

Fast forward a few years, and I now live in the US. I still find NTSC quality
quite poor, but considerably better than what I can get delivered by digital
means into my home (Cable, Dish etc).

HD looked like the revival of good quality TV signals ... but no, the mass
distributors re-encode at lower bit rates, and although impressive on
still and slow moving scenes the quality overall leaves a lot to be desired
compared to what the medium is capable of. Joe Sixpack and his nicotine
stained eyeballs apparently still rules.

I recently dug out my 1.2m dish, and bought a DVB receiver to see if there
were any decent TV signals to see. Some hope!!

DVB is just incapable of delivering high quality -- I should have been tipped
off by noticing that some of the networks still use analog feeds, and that
if the move to digital, its 4:2:2, not DVB.

DVB is ok - if you watch it on a 20" CRT, from 10' away, but its really still
in the "VHS Quality" ballpark.

The comments from people on this board who bought cheap analog receivers, and
saw their first NTSC analog feeds prove the point - they were amazed at the
quality of the pictures (believe me when I say that its the same jump again
if you ever see an analog PAL feed).

So what am I to do if I want something better than Dish et. al. seem capable
of delivering? 4DTV might have been the answer, but that seems to be on the
verge of extinction.

Seems that no-one is wanting to deliver genuine high quality TV signals
any more. The measure of quality seems to be "enough that the masses don't
switch off".

Sorry for my rant ... I am just beginning to feel old, and thinking of the
good old days when getting the highest quality pictures delivered to people's
TV was the order of the day.
 
4DTV might have been the answer, but that seems to be on the verge of extinction.
Why would you say this? If you mean Videocipher, I'll agree. But, Digicipher is getting more channels of late. The channels leaving Videicipher are going to Digicipher and they are both 4dtv, so there's no loss, just a change of Format. Most 4dtv channels are better than the Pizza dish channels, with the exception of some (a few) of the newer transfers, which are being re-uplinked and are in the quality category as the Pizza dish.

Al
 
Without going the way of a BUD, I agree that picture quality is more inferior now than during the good ole Analog days , just to make it worse I've watched local OTA transmitting compressed video with some pixelation.

It's a shame that we've been duped by Televion Networks in the U.S. that compromise video quality by compressing.

Bring back the old TV standards, you would think that tecnology would improve picture vs. their pocketbooks.
 
you would think that tecnology would improve picture vs. their pocketbooks.

Thats my whole point.
The technology now allows the delivery of pristine, high quality signals to everyone's home.

Unfortunately, they know that the vast majority of people will sit and watch really bad pictures -- 30 years of cable have proved the point. So now, they exploit the technology to cram 20x the numbers of chanels into the same bandwidth, and don't really care about picture quality, other than to ensure that there is no way the average consumer can readily see (compate in their own home) just how degraded their pictures are.

Its really sad...
 
I've never seen NTSC from satellite. I've never seen PAL at all, except when I set my Fortec receiver to PAL with it connected to my pc through s-video using dscaler set to pal, I noticed no flicker compared to ntsc and it looked sharper.
In order of quality: PAL: 720x576 NTSC: 720x480 Dish:576x480 Directv: 480x480

What is the quality difference between ota/cable NTSC and Satellite NTSC? I know ota/cable has 6mhz or frequency and satellite has above 20mhz that is a big difference.
 
Compression is becoming an annoying problem as content providers try to cram more and more programming into the same bandwidth. It seems as though video over the internet has "desensitized" the public to poor quality video. Unfortunately, the masses determine what "looks good", and the cable and pizza dish providers compress till the masses scream. Apparently, they don't scream until the video looks like streamed content on a dial up connection :)

To make matters worse, the problem introduced by compression multiplies as the signal is repeatedly decompressed and recompressed by a variety of signal processing equipment along the signal path.
 
Sure the PAL video 576i was nice when I was in UK, but I can't not stand the 50 Hz flicker i'e 25 FPs refresh rate!:(

U.S. has come a long way that we now have HDTV at 1080i 60 Hz or at 30 FPs and same goes for 720p 60 FPs.

You know what? Europe refused to go 60 Hz but instead stay with awfull 50 Hz, 25 FPs with their HDTV system 1080i.

So that's means we got the best TV system in the world!:)

Now of course it's depend how good the codec bite rates can be that can be send at.

There are some TV DXers can get HDTV feeds on FTA at 25 MBs or better, and I plan on getting the FTA HDTV receiver.

For now I got Directv H20 and also the box can get HDTV on VHF and UHF freqs, even though it's more compressed at 19.4 MBs and heck it's still who lot's better than PAL or SECAM formats!:)

Now of course there are some bad local stations can over compress heck out of it by adding more sub channels.

From what I hear MPEG-4 has mixed bag on sending picture quality 1080i sometime get's bogged down on MPEG-4 on the other hand 720p has no problem with MPEG-4.

I think we are at the stage, still learing to how compress the video properly and it's might take somtime to get the kinks out in the digital world.:)
 
Sure the PAL video 576i was nice when I was in UK, but I can't not stand the 50 Hz flicker i'e 25 FPs refresh rate!:(

Sorry to diagree, but if you really can see the 50 Hz (yes, its 50Hz refresh rate, 25Hz frame rate) then you have somewhat special eyballs and need to ensure that you leave them to medical science when you die.

I suppose you must get terrible problems with the 24fps rate of film at the cinema too?

The reasons for the choice of 50Hz and 60Hz had nothing to do with human eye perception (both are well above the flicker threshold), but simply to do with the AC supply frequency and the hum-bars that would be noticable (poor HT supply smoothing and induced pick-up) if the frame rate didn't match the supply frequency.

If you think you can see any flicker, its purely psychological. Only Americans suffer from this malady, because they have been told to.

Going even further back to the differing choice of AC supply frequency, text books often claim that the US 60Hz standard was chosen because of higher transformer/motor efficiency. There is a little truth to this, although when you do the math its obvious that its more accademic than real world in its effect.

The real answer is that it made the math easier when dealing with AC formulae (there being an exact number of cycles in one second -- 120PI rads/sec).
 
As for flim's frame rate at 24FPs no problem at it at all except for movment's not as smooth and beside it's the movie producer's perference in name of art.

So to speak there is no flickers at the movie theater.:)

And besides using the computer's control panel for display video frame rates and would not be suprised that majortity would go for 70 or even 85 FPs on a computer CRT, now of course on a LCD moniter it would be meanless, except for gamers will need a 9 Mla seconds or less for the LCD to catch the fast changes pixual movments.

As you may know or not there are market for 100 Hz TV in Europe, however the picture is little degraded but great for people like me can't stand 50 Hz flickers.

Anyways back to TV DXings!!:hatsoff:
 
I notice flicker at 60hz, especially out of the corner of my eye. Never seen 50hz, maybe I can find a way to force my monitor to do that.

Edit: Yep there is a 720x576 50hz option, I tried it. Not for long though, my eyes hurt and my monitor started making a high pitched sound after a few seconds. I do not recommend doing this unless you don't care about your monitor.
50hurtsqm9.jpg


Hmm, now I can notice allot more flicker even at 60hz.
Nvm, that was because I had refresh rate forced at 75hz, so I was actually noticing flicker at 75hz, at 60hz it's like a strobe light, and at 50hz I can actually see the line going down the screen that you normally see with a camcorder, though a very fast line.

This is with a 17" dell crt.
 
Last edited:
I can't stand using computer monitors at 60 Hz. Not even under incandescent lighting, which shouldn't cause a low-frequency interference flicker.
 
I have the same issue. I generally set my computer monitors to an 85Hz refresh rate. Going back to 60Hz is harder on my eyes, and I do see noticeable flickering of the screen at that rate.

I am getting closer to solving this problem with TV screens. I finally acquired a flat panel LCD TV (20 in. for $99 = Black Friday Deal) and it supports both 480i and 480p (progressive scan) component video, and I couldn't believe how noticeably DVD playback was improved in 480p mode.
 
Sorry to diagree, but if you really can see the 50 Hz (yes, its 50Hz refresh rate, 25Hz frame rate) then you have somewhat special eyballs and need to ensure that you leave them to medical science when you die.

I suppose you must get terrible problems with the 24fps rate of film at the cinema too?

A 24Hz flicker would drive probably drive modern audiences right out of the theater.

The perceived smoothness of motion in theatrical film projected at 24 frames per second has long been a standard in the motion picture industry, however the flicker rate created by cycling the projector's shutter 24 times per second was causing terrible problems.

The problem was addressed by doubling the shutter speed to create two flickers per frame - one closure during frame pulldown prevent a blurred image from being projected while the film advanced, and one extra closure while the frame is stationary to create a flicker rate of 48/sec.

Under the viewing conditions created in a theater most viewers see 48/sec. as a steady glow. Some viewers experience a distracting flicker at 48/sec., particularly away from the center of their field of vision (where the human eye is more light sensitive.) This is enough of an issue that some modern projectors are designed to create two additional shutter closures per frame, resulting in a frame rate of 24/sec. and a flicker rate of 72/sec.
 
Just a gentle rant about picture quality...

A long time ago, my first job out of school involved redistribution of
off-air TV signals. We spent a lot of time and effort getting clean pictures,
and I was trained to look at TV pictures critically, to the point where when
I went to visit relatives and neighbors I either had to spend time putting
their TV pictures right, or just not watch because some of the stuff they
put up with was just plain offensive to me.

I no longer do this stuff for a living, but that early training has stuck,
and I do appreciate good quality pictures.

At one point, I left England to live in France. After a couple of years of
missing UK TV I bought a Ku satellite system. With my trusty (motorized) 1.2m
dish and analog reciver I could find quite a few signals worth watching.
What struck me at the time was how good the (PAL) TV pictures were. Generally
much cleaner than you could expect to get terrestrially off-air. I assume
that this was the start of a TV revolution where everyone would be able to
get studio quality pictures.

Sky TV (and a few others) started transmitting (analog) from the Astra
Satellite, then the put a second satellite in the same spot, giving even more
channels. Things were looking good.

I was particularly pleased to be able to get feeds of stuff like the Olympics
where I could whatch what I wanted, for as long as I wanted, without inane
drivel from commentators, and concentration on national athletes and events
in which they were participating. I even watched a few NTSC feeds -- which were
not up to PAL standards (sorry ... its just true), but were still 100% better
than I had ever seen in the US on my various visits there.

Then came the "digital revolution". The analog transponders went dark, most
of the content was encrypted, and even with digital receivers it was obvious
that the name of the game was cramming too many channels onto each transponder
with consequent reduction in quality -- good enough for Joe Sixpack, who was
apparently happy with "VHS Quality".

I lost interest because of lack of content, and crappy pictures.

Fast forward a few years, and I now live in the US. I still find NTSC quality
quite poor, but considerably better than what I can get delivered by digital
means into my home (Cable, Dish etc).

HD looked like the revival of good quality TV signals ... but no, the mass
distributors re-encode at lower bit rates, and although impressive on
still and slow moving scenes the quality overall leaves a lot to be desired
compared to what the medium is capable of. Joe Sixpack and his nicotine
stained eyeballs apparently still rules.

I recently dug out my 1.2m dish, and bought a DVB receiver to see if there
were any decent TV signals to see. Some hope!!

DVB is just incapable of delivering high quality -- I should have been tipped
off by noticing that some of the networks still use analog feeds, and that
if the move to digital, its 4:2:2, not DVB.

DVB is ok - if you watch it on a 20" CRT, from 10' away, but its really still
in the "VHS Quality" ballpark.

The comments from people on this board who bought cheap analog receivers, and
saw their first NTSC analog feeds prove the point - they were amazed at the
quality of the pictures (believe me when I say that its the same jump again
if you ever see an analog PAL feed).

So what am I to do if I want something better than Dish et. al. seem capable
of delivering? 4DTV might have been the answer, but that seems to be on the
verge of extinction.

Seems that no-one is wanting to deliver genuine high quality TV signals
any more. The measure of quality seems to be "enough that the masses don't
switch off".

Sorry for my rant ... I am just beginning to feel old, and thinking of the
good old days when getting the highest quality pictures delivered to people's
TV was the order of the day.


It used to be companies had pride in the quality of the product they delivered, now only the bottom line matters. That is why our stores are filled with cheap junk from China and our SD TV looks worse then before. I have seen analog on my C-band system that looks much better then some of the HD on the Direct TV
channels, I only have Direct TV in the house for the NFL Sunday Ticket or it would be gone. I watch HD movies on 4DTV and they look better but not perfect.
 
On a very similar topic. The Audio Sound quality these days...

I don't know what the technical specs are for 'CD Quality' sound, but these days it seems that a poorly sampled MP3 is the norm. I have noticed the compressed sound even on over-the-air broadcast stations. My XM satellite radio is far from what I would consider CD quality sound, but I am willing to accept (live with) the poor quality sound for better quality programming. I think that the best sound quality I have heard probably has come from a vinyl record on a good quality stereo.
 
DTV is certainly mixed on quality, and yes I have noticed that satellite radio is not as good as it should be. It is hard to watch most of the SD content on a large screen tv.

My Toshiba dlp does the best job at smoothing over crappy pics
 
Satellite and DVD, which both use MPEG-2, can have widely varied picture quality. It all depends on bitrate, and unfortunately, cutting down on bitrate to fit more in (either useless extras on DVDs or more useless subchannels on DTV) seems to be very popular these days :(
 
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