Anyone using that BT Infinity internet?

[AtW]

BTInfinity will do 10Mb upload and 30+ down - how is cable better?

Cable can be better so long as your local UBR is not oversubscribed.

BT Infinity is cool thing the main issue is that BT was the first major ISP to start limiting traffic, so who says this won't happen on Infinity as well?

Cable also no angel, but it took them (Telewest) much longer to throttle people and still not as bad as BT.

[doodab]

I think the iPlayer and other online streaming stuff on my TV (which is often sub SD resolution but H264) is better quality than the majority of SD digital channels (which are MPEG2), and that can be at quite low bitrates, maybe 1Mb/s judging by the web version. H264 is much much better, and MPEG2 is very old technology. Sky HD channels use about 8Mb/s, and whilst not as good as BluRay is clearly going to be more than good enough for the vast majority of people.

Reducing the resolution (and also reducing frame rate) reduces the required bit rate considerably. With all other things being equal a 320p stream needs 1/4 the bandwidth of SD video. MPEG4 will reduce that by another factor of 2 or so, so in terms of quality a streaming 320p stream at 1mbit ought to be on a par with an 8mbit MPEG2 SD stream.

A lot of the broadcast SD channels are using more like 2 mbit/s in order to squeeze more channels of crap onto the airwaves. Use of H.264 has been suggested for broadcast SD but it doesn't actually seem to be happening. I suspect if it did go ahead the end result would be more shopping channels rather than better quality anyway.

Sky HD is 720p video, 1080p would need about double the bit rate to maintain the same quality. 16mbit it probably the lower limit before you notice serious degradation.

[chef]

Right now I'm currently streaming TV via Slingbox at 720p resolution from the UK on the HTPC, GF Chef is in the other room streaming german tv repeats to her laptop and I decided to run a speedtest from the laptop Im using



officially we have a 50Mb download and 3Mb upload but I'd say that's not bad given what is currently being received. costs 29.90EUR / month

I don't see the need to upgrade to the 100Mb down and 5.12Mb upload but it's nice to know it's available for 20EUR more if I need it