I have noticed recently that the current batch of episodes of The Chase airing on Challenge are an awful picture quality and quite blurred.
Just flicked between W and W HD for the Doctor Who episode and it's the same. In HD it's clear as a bell (it is a HD broadcast), yet in SD it's blurry and difficult to watch. I did think it was my eyes to start with but a friend said the same.
The Price is Right, however, on Challenge looks crisp as it did on original broadcast. Not a blur in sight!
The standard channels in SD are also poor at times. BBC Midlands Today on BBC One SD is a bit blurred, and also ITV News Central. But the ITV News Central on ITV HD is clearer.
Is it that we have just got used to watching in HD now compared to SD.
And so you know I'm watching the channels on SkyQ with a Sony 60" HD tv.
I wouldn't say The Chase looks that bad in SD. Earlier episodes of it are different studio-wise compared to how it looks now (primarily they had a pair of pillars floating around at the back of the studio for no apparent reason that soon disappeared) and that big long videoscreen they use in the final chase was changed as well plus I suspect it was a different studio. Early Tipping Point has the same picture "problem" that only rectified itself when they moved studio.
That being said, are you sure you are not upsampling by accident? Many DVD players upsample SD content and make a semi-decent job of it, which is quite often not the case if you leave the TV to do it.
There does come a point where the artefacts in the picture get exposed once a TV goes over a certain size, though I suspect you may be sitting too close to it. Generally it's recommended you sit about 9ft away from a 60" screen where possible.
No it's not upsampling as the feed the Sky box is giving to the TV is SD. It is the earlier shows that are the problem. Same on the Freeview signal via the Now TV Smartbox.
I would say that the SD picture from TV providers would vary in quality. It also depends on people's TV settings as to what is the best SD picture that can be provided for us who are also the viewers of the programmes.
I think that older episodes of The Chase will be inevitably suffering from poor picture mainly because of the way it was filmed in it's earlier series. I see it's older episodes sometimes on ITV HD and the picture there has a noticeable improvement because the picture is in upscaled HD & the sound quality will have some differences as it looks to be in Dolby Digital 2.0 not 5.1. Either that or it could have been upped Stereo sound.
You have the situation where lots of people who are not into HD at all wouldn't know or care about what is best for their needs regarding picture quality. The majority of opinions out there in their view has to be about what is best for them; not from someone else's word of mouth. It feeds down into costs sometimes as well. If someone has not got the money to stump up for a HD subscription namely sports or movies and other things; well they have to stick to SD if that is the best to what they have got to suits their needs.
I wouldn't agree that SD is better than HD because I do notice the difference in picture quality myself when watching channels on Saorview & FTA Satellite. For me; HD Channels are miles better on these platforms in terms of picture & sound. The ITV channels in SD on Satellite are not as bad as the others. The worst offenders of SD channels on Satellite are the BBC, Channel 4 & Channel 5.
I'm watching an documentary about F1 on ITV4 & the picture quality is fine in SD. I will happily that on Satellite rather than Freeview.
Although I see big huge differences in picture quality with the BBC NC & CNN International in SD & HD.
I would say that the SD picture from TV providers would vary in quality. It also depends on people's TV settings as to what is the best SD picture that can be provided for us who are also the viewers of the programmes.
Yes - agreed - TV processing can play a big part in poor quality content looking even worse.
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I think that older episodes of The Chase will be inevitably suffering from poor picture mainly because of the way it was filmed in it's earlier series. I see it's older episodes sometimes on ITV HD and the picture there has a noticeable improvement because the picture is in upscaled HD & the sound quality will have some differences as it looks to be in Dolby Digital 2.0 not 5.1. Either that or it could have been upped Stereo sound.
Not sure what you are saying. ITV don't do any 5.1 content AFAIK - they are permanently 2.0 on DSat AIUI (and The Chase would be an odd candidate for 5.1)
One thing that could make The Chase look bad on a low bitrate SD channel is the LED screens that are in use in the set. They are notorious for hammering MPEG2 and H264 encoders - taking more data than is ideal.
Well Sky's SD will look ropey as its 544x576 except Sky Sports which is 704x576, I think Sky News is similar, the BBC output their SD at 720x576 which is what SD should be set at.
Sky News SD on Freeview is awful. At times very pixilated, especially when switching between VT and the studio as the encoders can't handle it and also seems slightly blurred. Even the SD feed on the NOW TV/Roku box via the Sky News app is better than DTT.
There has to come a time when Sky will consider putting the channel in HD on Freeview, considering it's free on YouTube.
I'm going to be very anoraky now, so bear with me - In my experience, the Sky HD box upscaler could be tweaked, as the Freeview encoder built into my TV set has a slightly less blurry SD image, with identical TV settings. I will point out though that a few years ago it was improved in a box software update, as it had a habit of producing lines, jagginess on graphics and DOGs etc. A lot of the problems are down to low bitrates and resolutions.
On Freeview in 2014 IIRC, the BBC resolution was changed down to 704x576 to free up space on the mux (I am not sure if this always the case, but in the run up to the change the BBC did not actually broadcast any picture, just black, past 704 so had no difference to the picture)
As an aside, I have mentioned to the BBC in recent years that the quality of their SD (archive mainly) programming going out upscaled on HD channels had downgraded quite a bit (it happened more or less overnight in autumn 2014). I can only imagine playout was upgraded or a new upscaler had been deployed (there was a DOG change at the same time). Emails went back and forth and eventually they asked for particular broadcasts so they could review my claims - they said nothing was wrong and assured me nothing had changed when they viewed them. I was quite impressed I got that far actually! I left it at that and these days it is more or less back to normal, thankfully.
I'm just watching The Bill on Drama and the pixelation on fast moving scenes is pretty appalling, that and the fact that they for some reason are putting out episodes from 2006 in 4:3 (not the old 14:9 copies UKTV used, 4:3). Whereas the same programme on W looks a lot better.
