Voom subs duped? 1280x1080i???????

[vurbano]

Cuban's Revenge?

Originally posted by Ken H
Ok, here's the most I can say.

Let's say an HD provider was talking with Voom, one that we're all familiar with and is known in general for doing HD right. Let's say the providers engineers went to Voom to verify HD pass through, using test equipment. Let's say the measurements at Voom's head end were what I said they were. Let's say the HD provider was freaking out at the prospect of losing so much horizontal resolution. Let's say that was the end of that.

All true.

 

[Carter]

I don't get what the point would be to bash Voom now that it is closing down. Ken H claims he has Voom...

 

[Sean Mota]

Sure, wasn't charlie who said from the beginning that all V* HD content was "upconvert". Wasn't this rap they were putting to the public? Should I believe anymore these so called "reports". So was the reason that E* never "merged" with V* based on the above speculation "horizontal resolution".

 

[gutter]

This funeral is going to be longer than the Pope's.

 

[Sean Mota]

I don't get what the point would be to bash Voom now that it is closing down. Ken H claims he has Voom...

I believe he had it for only 3-4 months.

 

[vurbano]

Sean,

our friend is trying to sweet talk us in that thread. LMAO


"sateck01
New Member

Registered: Feb 2005
Location:
Posts: 1


sat guys thought they RAN VOOM, scott g is delusional
vurbano and mota , albiet the italian names are a disgrace to the italian lineage!

vicki is a wino and tyork is now about out of work, warned you york!!!

voom, doom, gloom is a turd and you cant polish it, junk from the ground up!!

ken, finally someone telling it right, but, THEY WILL NOT LISTEN!!!!!

voom is DONE

ho ho ho , ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

THE DRAGON"

 

[FunkyBoss]

Why should I care what the V* resolution was when it usually always looked better then my friend's D* and E* HD systems???

Let's stop beating a dead horse!

 

[vurbano]

I care because of what Sean said. It pisses me off. You need measured documented evidence on cheezmos bitrate analyzer to prove anything about D* yet a Mod can say someones engineers said this to me (but I cant say who) and its taken as fact? And will probably end up spreading and ruining the reputation of a great service thats going out of business whether its true or not.

 

[Bruce]

I am told by people at VOOM that Kens numbers are wrong.

I never understood why AVS was always so Anti VOOM, Voom should have been a service that the AVS community embraced. Seems like the only thing they embraced from VOOM was their advertising revenue.

One thing I am proud of that all the VOOM forum members called VOOM like they saw it, they reported the good and bad, and when there were bad times they reported them but did not dog VOOM, instead then knew what VOOM was capable of and VOOM listened and fixed the issues in a timely manner.

Now does Ken H have a grudge against VOOM? I don't know, and my thoughts on this could be all wrong, to me when I read his messages the tone seems negative, and thats one of th ebig problems with text based thoughts, one person can read his comments as positive while someone else can read the same post and think it's negative.

While I first HATED VOOM when I first got it and I thought it was the biggest waste of money, VOOM pulled it all together and it turned into a service I truely loved and still do to this day, and I will probably be watching VOOM when whoever is the last to leave the uplink flips the lightswitch which controls it all. (Yeah yeah I know ita a lot more complicated then that but I was trying to paint a nice picture)

Scott, Ken H has Voom at his home.

 

[James Long]

Scott, Ken H has Voom at his home.

Does Ken have a Voom bitrate and frame size capture device? Otherwise it is just he said he said.

JL

 

[who_the]

marty2112 (a Voom engineer) has made posts here in the past basically (although not explicitly) acknowledging the downrezzing. So this isn't surprising to me.

Since mine (any many) HDTVs only resolve 1280 horizontal pixels, would I even notice the downrez?

Might it come down to who uses the best scaler, and whether they are somehow sacrificing or compromising vertical pixels during the scaling?

EDIT: Mixed up my horiz/vert in the last graf.

 

[Vicki]

I care because of what Sean said. It pisses me off. You need measured documented evidence on cheezmos bitrate analyzer to prove anything about D* yet a Mod can say someones engineers said this to me (but I cant say who) and its taken as fact? And will probably end up spreading and ruining the reputation of a great service thats going out of business whether its true or not.

Vurbano...ditto, ditto, ditto...but then that's just me...analyzing everything to the end, as best I can... Such subjective matters as PQ need objective facts to validate them, or they are of little or NO USE...to anyone.

Don't know nuttin' about nuttin', but I've got a little common sense...Vicki

 

[James Long]

There is a certain math question to how Voom managed to put all of the channels they offer on to 13 transponders. Under E*'s worst compression they would only put 39 HDs on 13 transponders - and have no room for SD there unless they dropped 3 HDs for 12 SDs. There is a physical limit to the MHz granted to each transponder and a physical limit to the number of bits that transponder can deliver to the reciever. After a while, one has to realize that the only way to put more on a transponder is to figure out how to compress it more ... and do it in such a way that it isn't noticable.

Whether they "helped" the process by only sending 1280x1080i frames into the compression or sent 1440x1080i or full 1920x1080i frames in to be compressed, they had to squeeze the picture down to a finite size to be transmitted. (With each transponder mux being a collection of those finite sizes not to exceed the bits available.)

But in the end, it would be better to see real numbers from a trusted source if someone is going to make the claims made at AVS. But the biggest problem with that is that one must be a hacker with non-standard equipment to do the detailed exposition on what is really going on - or an inside source who still has to protect their future. (NDLs can outlive the service.)

At this point lets just say that however Voom did it, they got a clearer signal to the customer than was apparent on the competition. Or, for those who disagree, say they were just as messed up as the rest of the DBS industry. But don't use numbers to say either unless one can back up your "facts".

JL

 

[TheForce]

JL- If you look at the technology of HDTV as it is implemented at both D* and E*, vintage yr 2000 you will see it rests in the use of D5 and HDCAM tape headend. This equipment is capable of 1920x1080i. In addition HDCAM was implemented at 1440x1080i. BUT new VOOM used server based technology and when they digitized their taped masters from pre compressed HDCAM to server file structure, the bitrate could be pre-established in advance of final mux for upload much in the same way we do it here for cable at Comcast's Seachange server for SD broadcast and even more precompression for server based webcasts. You are on the right track but the secret is in how they set the precompression for the server based HD streams. Most of the older program networks are still using tape to air headends. Newer services are all being designed from the ground up with HD servers and a central tape to server digitizing center. These have far more flexibility to adjust the bandwidth with less compression artifacts than final mux compression. Now, the real secret that is protected by each of the services is the exact procedure they use to effect their excellent quality of signal and also get the squeeze they achieved. If you want the answer to this, just look very closely to the actual image quality with an eye for detail. ALL VOOM's HD channels were restriced in the number of -"update key frames" in the stream as compared to what the competition sends out. In effect they suffered fast motion on most of their channels and still images offered near perfect quality. VOOM suffered with a huge amount of macroblocking in the high motion scenes. When I first saw the Playboy channel I laughed out loud at what I thought was censorship of the high motion scenes using the pixelated region censor tool we often use in the edit suite to censor faces and other stuff we don't have permission to air. But this was just an artifact of the compression algorithm VOOM was using. AS VOOM RF group constanly adjusted the stages of compression the viewers, even those who know compression algorhythms will be confused as to the actual scheme they had in place. One thing we do know is that something always suffers in compression, you just have to decide what is going to suffer and how much. Letting the action suffer on most of the channels, especially in the pre MUX compression stages of digitization seems to offer less artifacts in the final product than the later stages of compression that tape based head ends are forced to use.
An old analog analogy to this we all know is that shooting with an 850 line res camera with a 54db S/Nr spec broadcast camera with 3 - 2/3inch chips produces a far superior final image on a 200 line TV set than does the same scene shot with a consumer grade 3 chip camera with only 350 lines of resolution and 46db S/nr.
Without getting into engineerspeak, this is the best way I can describe what is happening on an overview and, it is still my educated guess as to how they are achieving what they did.
PS- I should add that this would only affect VOOM's own content and not the inbound content like HBO etc. Once I had insider connection to D* and was told that their HBO contract restricted what they could and could not do to the HBO inbound signal. However, what D* did to their own signal was their business, unfortunately they were restricted by their own HD hardware since it was D5 tape based and not server based as were the SD PPV channels. This may have changed in the last 2 years however.

 

[vurbano]

There is a certain math question to how Voom managed to put all of the channels they offer on to 13 transponders.

Statistical mutiplexing

 

[rkr0923]

does it really matter now????
talk about beating a dead horse....gezzzzz

 

[hancox]

And will probably end up spreading and ruining the reputation of a great service thats going out of business whether its true or not.

Cry me a river. :river Trust me, the Dolans will work hard enough on their own to tarnish whatever "reputation" you speak of (keeping in mind I also live in a CVC cable area).

I respect Ken H, he's usually right on, but I believe AVS has also spread the myth that HDNet would pull themselves from a distribution channel before they were downrezzed, and we all now know that's false (from D* and E* alone, not even counting V* as a possibility).

 

[TheForce]

Verbano-

Stat Mux is a simple explanation that barely goes beyond "Compression" as the explanation. If you have ever done compression schemes for TV you'd know the recipe is quite complex and goes from technical know how to an artform in short order. This is why the actual process used is mostly a guarded trade secret by those who do it. I have my way but I know others do it better. If I ask how, they just smile and let you know it is their stock in trade.

PS I understand how you knew my IP in that banner and the ISP, but how did you know I was a PE? It lists all my stats including "Professional Engineer" I know, it is your trade secret.

 

[James Long]

Statistical mutiplexing

Thanks Don for such a well thought out answer. Something has to give to get big things through little pipes.

PS: Vurbano knows nothing - it is danasoft.com that is calling you (and me) a professional engineer.

JL

 

[vurbano]

Thanks Don for such a well thought out answer. Something has to give to get big things through little pipes.

PS: Vurbano knows nothing - it is danasoft.com that is calling you (and me) a professional engineer.

JL

The P.E. was for me sherlock And I think Don is smart enough to figure out the rest since it is signed danasoft.com. Infact he stated that in his response.

PS I understand how you knew my IP in that banner and the ISP,

Read much?