Freeview picture quality

i've been a sky digital customer pretty much since the beginning - recently i have had freeview installed into a second room.

if there is one thing i can't believe, it's how much of a mushy blocky mess freeview is a times. i thought sky was pretty bad, but it really is quite appalling. anything fast moving causes the picture to go into a pixellated blur

has it always been like this?

i've never been all that enthusiastic about hi-def, but if the bitrates are so borderline with standard definition then i don't really hold out any hope that hd will be anything like it's been built up to be.

is hi-def on sky actually of a decent quality?

What channels do you notice this on, and is this on a HD LCD/Plasma?

itv 2, 3, bbc 3, are probably the most noticeable. itv2 +1 seems marginally better than youtube.

and yes, it is a hd lcd - but analogue upscales wonderfully.

ITV2 and 3 - not surprised, in order to fit onto Mux 2 it's resolution has been reduced to 544x576 and the bitrate is lower than usual, due to being crammed in. So the 2 channels that are at full resolution (704x576) is ITV1 and Channel 4, their digital sister channels are at 544x576.

BBC3 - Usually has a good bitrate, it's stat-muxed between BBC News Channel and BBC2 (BBC1 has a fixed bitrate due to the way regions opt in)

ITV2+1 - Even though it's stat-muxed, their picture quality looks really strained for some reason compared to other channels on that same Mux.

http://dtt.me.uk/

Always. And worse still, I've only ever been able to get mono audio from my Freeview boxes as well.

I notice Dave has different problems with it's quality. I don't know how to describe it, I'm not sure if it's on everything or only certain programmes too. Watch the titles of certain series of Red Dwarf scroll up the screen and there's something not right there too.

Yep - though on satellite ITV1 and C4 are (or were) also 544x576 - only on Freeview does Ofcom mandate that they are broadcast at full res...

ITV1 on satellite was noticably inferior to Freeview - though recently something may have changed. (I notice ITV1 on DSat was running at around 3.5-3.6Mbs on Saturday and looked a bit better than it has in the past)



In England only. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, BBC One is statmuxed with Two, Three/CBBC and the News Channel.

Selkirk will be different as it is the first region to get 2 x 24Mbs Mux 1 and B rather than 2x18Mbs Mux 1 and B - and Five will be in Mux B AIUI.



And some of the ITV and C4 channels aren't on Mux 2 and instead are on Mux C, D (and A?) at full resolution but still heavily compressed. ITV and C4 have bought slots on the NGW (Arqiva now?) muxes because they couldn't squeeze into Mux 2.

Yep - most of the Sky HD services are pretty decent. They've recently switched from 2 services per transponder to 3, reducing bitrates to increase the number of services (now all the Sky movie channels are simulcast in HD not just three of them) However they've replaced their encoders with new, more efficient versions, so the quality hasn't dropped as much as people feared (though on some occasions it has a slightly softer feel)

Compared to HD in the US and Aus Sky HD (using much older MPEG2 rather than H264 encoding) is streets ahead - though in comparison to other European HD services it is about the same .

BBC HD is not holding up as well in comparison to the Sky encoded channels - although it runs at a higher bit rate. BBC HD runs at a lower resolution (1440x1080 rather than 1920x1080) because the BBC have historically used a lower resolution deliver tape format (HD Cam rather than HD Cam SR) and they use an older first gen encoder... Some shows on BBC HD look cracking (Cranford, current Last of the Summer Wine etc.) whilst others look pretty poor (studio stuff like Jonathan Ross and Strictly)

Hmm - that sounds like a connection fault. I've never seen a Freeview box with mono audio only - even the original ONDigital boxes were stereo.

Of course if you use an Aerial or RF connection you'll only get mono audio (as no consumer kit has a NICAM encoder in it - Sky boxes are no different) - but if you use SCART or Phono connections you should get stereo. (Though the NICAM stereo LED or on-screen Stereo indicator on your TV won't come on)

Some Freeview boxes even have a SPDIF digital output which will connect to an AV Amp.

Glad you've confirmed this. I thought it was my imagination that ITV1 has been looking marginally better recently.

Incidentally, I've noticed that some regions on DSat look better than others. I get Tyne Tees South on 103, but often switch to Yorkshire West (as I'm nearer to Leeds than Newcastle or Middlesbrough). The picture on Yorks W is noticeably sharper than on TT S. This also seems to be the case for other regions on transponder 53.

ITV1 Channel has by far the best picture of all the regions though.

Check that the output of the box is set to RGB, not composite (and that you're watching via the Scart). I've noticed with all 3 platforms, the picture quality is a lot more mushy and blocky when viewed in composite

Shouldn't be blockier in composite - if anything the composite subcarrier (and drop in chroma bandwith) should mask the blocking a bit. It will certainly be fuzzier though - even if you have a very good PAL decoder in your telly (and most don't)