Yesterday, I bought a new Samsung LCD television. When watching Sky, the picture quality is amazing. Much sharper than anything I've seen before. However, I have noticed that the ITV channels on Sky do not appear as crystal clear as the BBC ones. They seem to be a bit blurred in comparison. Can anyone tell me if ITV broadcast at a lesser quality on Sky than the BBC, and if so, why?
Aside from the bitrate, I think I read somewhere that ITV broadcasts at only 540x576, instead of the full 720x576. It was a while ago though, so things may have changed.
I think the dimensions is what's causing the blurryness, some ITV channels broadcast in smallish dimensions like the post above me suggested, which causes it to upscale on TV.
Ah that would explain it then. I don't get pixelation (which, I think, would suggest a low bitrate) but instead it is just blurred, which would be typical of upscaling. Trust ITV to be the broadcaster that doesn't broadcast at the correct resolution!
I think the dimensions is what's causing the blurryness, some ITV channels broadcast in smallish dimensions like the post above more suggested, which causes it to upscale on TV.
Well, 720 has to be upscaled to fit an LCD too (or converted to analogue for CRT), but obviously the more pixels you've got to start with, the better. Unfortunately ITV1 has a load of regions to cram in so they've compromised on bitrate AND resolution, by the sound of things.
I remember catching the start of Saturday Night Takeaway on ITV1 (full of whip pans, hell on MPEG2) and the quality was awful. When it was repeated the next day on ITV2, it looked a lot nicer - would that be because ITV2 has a higher bitrate than the regions, or because it wasn't being broadcast live and had had time to be encoded nicely? Or is everything always re-encoded on the fly for broadcast?
ITV still uses 540x576 instead of the full 720x576, despite having more transponders now (which they have used for fitting in more subregions and +1 channels instead). Also, they use dynamic bitrates, which on slow action (such as dramas) means there are no artifacts, but sports and shows such as Saturday Night Takeaway are very prone to pixelations as a result of lower bitrates.
The news on ITV seems particularly blurry, looking far better on analogue.
That's because they stupidly crop a 4:3 picture to 14:9 (in 16:9 frame) on digital.
Why is it that ITV News refuse to go widescreen? It can't be an ITN thing, as Channel 4 News has now gone widescreen. Many people have widescreen televisions nowadays (and even if they don't, they can choose to watch in 4:3 regardless - it is people with widescreen sets who have to suffer currently). The current 14:9 on Sky/Freeview is absolutely ridiculous. The picture quality is terrible at the moment. It is very blurred, so much so that it seems as though there is a film on the TV screen! If only ITV would go widescreen for their news output, everything would be better.
Kind of off-topic but why is it with LCD IDTVs, the Freeview picture looks very good but with Sky, or something along the lines of, the picture is way too sharp? It happens with both our main TVs (Samsung 26" and Toshiba 37")...