topic Terrestrial HD in Archive

Terrestrial HD

AUS191 — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 22:05:04 GMT

I'm not technical so not sure what better way to describe this!

If I watch itv Bbc1 it doesn't look like proper HD. I mean it's a good picture but has some noise etc.

It's not as good as if I go in other room and watch itv hd through the aerial on my Sony.

However if I put a sky channel, say a movie, watching angels and demons now in HD it looks like proper full HD.

Am I imagining this or is it not as good?

Re: Terrestrial HD

Joe-Bow — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 00:59:20 GMT

@AUS191 No, you're not imagining it.

BBC is one of the very worst examples of HD you can get. When the BBC HD trial channel was launched around 2006, its quality was superb. Very high bitrates led to a cracking picture.

A few years later, they changed the encoders, saying they could get the same results with lower bitrates, which was of course nonsense as the ensuing outcry proved.

BBC kept defending it despite what the general public said, and what we have here is a direct result of that.

Coincidentally, HD was launching too on Freeview which had much less bandwidth to play with, but with a requirement to run a number of HD channels in that bandwidth.

So the rumour goes (which I'm happy to buy into), they didn't want it to look like a difference between HD on Freeview and the far superior earlier satellite broadcast which could potentially lead to accusations of Freeview being "HD lite"and second rate, so they used these awful encoders to provide encoding that they could use for Freeview and satellite broadcast, and it's dreadful.

I remember the guy in charge of it at the time on the BBC defending it, but I don't believe for one minute he believed it was better, he just had to toe the line and keep trying to convince people of the nonsense that these encoders could give the same image quality in far less bandwidth.

Mindblowing nonsense.

Some background from the time:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1234797/BBC-viewers-quality-HD-channels.html

Re: Terrestrial HD

GD1 — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 04:41:41 GMT

@Joe-Bow Yes they called it platform neutrality where all platforms had the same lower bitrate as you correctly pointed out due to Freeview not being able to get the same high bitrate as satellite.

Re: Terrestrial HD

Jayboy1990 — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 05:47:40 GMT

I did not know this was the case and it's super messed up that this is the actual situation! - where's added value in the licence fee I pay?!

Re: Terrestrial HD

Joe-Bow — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 07:44:27 GMT

@Jayboy1990 Yep. Winners of the HD race to the bottom.

The early BBC and Eurosport HD transmissions were unbelievably good, especially the Tour De France on Eurosport.

I find it difficult to watch anything in the BBC as the bitrate is so bad.