Sky HD

[VectraMan]

http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/ar...80i-for-HD.php

And many others.

Most "HD" TVs out there are only 720 anyway.

[snaw]

Content is improving all the time. What content do you specifically think is missing?

Content you don't have to pay for ...

I get sky sports, that's about it - I don't need the movie channels - so what's left - the free to air stuff I get already, there isn't a whole load of content left to subscribe to from sky for a tenner. Compare it to the US, where there is absolutely tonnes of content, I feel like it's a rip off right now (I had it btw, I cancelled).

[oracleslave]

Content you don't have to pay for ...

I get sky sports, that's about it - I don't need the movie channels - so what's left - the free to air stuff I get already, there isn't a whole load of content left to subscribe to from sky for a tenner. Compare it to the US, where there is absolutely tonnes of content, I feel like it's a rip off right now (I had it btw, I cancelled).

Geez and you call yourself a contractor. I thought it was worth it for the HD sports channel alone.

[snaw]

Geez and you call yourself a contractor. I thought it was worth it for the HD sports channel alone.

I got kids and mortgages ;-)

And nah, that's the main reason I bought it - but to be honest I kept forgetting to use the HD channel, and watching a game I'd stop noticing after the initial couple of minutes of 'isn't this great', and get on with watching the game instead.

[IR35 Avoider]

http://www.ciao.co.uk/SKY_SKY_HD_BOX__Review_5638587

"There are 2 types of HD transmission, the highest being called a 1080 transmission which is of an even higher quality, and again depends on if your TV can reproduce this level of pixels. However at this moment in time there are no programs being broadcast in 1080."

I also finished a stint for Sky a few months ago and up until then they had not touched a 1080 broadcast as the mpeg4 compression/decompression couldn't handle it and keep a stable picture

As far as I can see, that review says nothing about upscaling anywhere. The "no programs being broadcast in 1080" would imply they were transmitting 720p. My own previous research concurs with the link that Vectraman provided. Sky transmit everything in 1080i.

I would guess that the source for tranmitted movies would be the same digital stream that appears on a blu-ray disk, so I doubt they would downscale it to 720p and then back up to 1080i before transmitting it. There may be a difference in quality due to compression, but I think that's a separate issue to resolution.

[Incognito]

My Sky HD box gives me the option of outputing to the TV at 1080i or 720p, whether or not that's the signal being received though who knows.

And Most HD tellies now should at least be 1080i, only the crappy 'HD ready' tellies you get at Aldi and Lidl are 720p.

[ratewhore]

http://www.ciao.co.uk/SKY_SKY_HD_BOX__Review_5638587

Oh I see, an 18 month old review of the Sky HD box.

There's too much evidence out there to the contrary but I can't be bothered posting any...

[BoredBloke]

You can tell the difference between Blu Ray film and movies on Sky HD, but the HD feeds from sky are tons better than the sd feeds.

When is babecast etc going HD?

[Incognito]

You can tell the difference between Blu Ray film and movies on Sky HD, but the HD feeds from sky are tons better than the sd feeds.

When is babecast etc going HD?

You really want to see those ingrowing hairs in HD???

[IR35 Avoider]

All of the following need not be the same

1. The resolution of the original bitstream from the movie encoding or HD camera at a sports event
2. The resolution Sky transmits at
3. The resolution the Sky HD box sends to the TV
4. The resolution the TV displays

For 1., for movies I would expect 1080i, for sports it could be 720p but I have a feeling that Sky did change from their original intention to use 720p and decided to use 1080i.

Sky have said 1080i will always be used for 2. This to me suggests they are using at least 1080i for sports in 1, as there would be no advantage I can see to upscaling 720p.

3. Is user selectable, depends what your TV can handle.

4. Ideally the native resolution of the TV should be 1080 lines, but if not the TV will translate the 576/720/1080 line output of the sky box into however many lines its physical panel contains.

I once read a Times review that said 720p and 1080i were more or less equivalent, and that no-one needed a 1080 line TV because there were no plans to transmit 1080p material. This was nonsense. A flat-panel TV always has to convert an interlaced signal to progressive, and should be able to reconstruct an almost faultless 1080p picture from a 1080i signal that was originally extracted from a 1080p movie encoding. A 720p physical panel is always going to have to throw away resolution from a 1080i signal (that wasn't originally upscalled from 720p)