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ShadowTD

Listed below are comments made by ShadowTD between Friday, 18th July 2008 and Wednesday, 2nd September 2009.

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BBC HD: Picture Quality and Dolby Research 10:24am on 02 Sep 2009 Coast looked excellent last night - clear, sharp and apart from one moment (red curtain sided truck passing right in front of the camera) seemed free of macroblocking and I was watched the sea shots for it like a hawk. The red truck broke up into blocky chunks quite horribly but that was it. 7MC viewed through a 360 extender. Certainly better than things have been of late.
BBC HD: Picture Quality and Dolby Research 11:05am on 10 Aug 2009 Andy, I think the biggest problem so far is that you've steadfastly avoided the question as to *why* the bandwidth has been reduced. I can think of a few answers:

1) It's been reduced as part of some target exercise. In anticipation of DVB-T2, you're using the existing BBC HD viewership to test whether the new encoders are actually good enough at such a low bitrate.
2) There's some financial arrangement that has you on a target to free up bandwidth on the transponder.
3) ?????

Picture quality issues aside, could you please fill us in as to which of the above is closest to the mark?

FWIW, I also appreciate the lines of communication in to the BBC that these blogs give. Don't see Sky's technical staff getting anything like this anytime soon!
BBC HD: Wimbledon and some Top Gear questions 1:59pm on 06 Jul 2009 Just to add to the torrent of comments about Top Gear. We had five people (25-30) round at our house last night. The most technophobic one of the lot (she's only just started buying DVD's) turned to me and said:

"I love this program. It's so pretty. Why don't they do it in HD?"

The rally car practice sequence with May looking like he was about to die would have been amazing on BBC HD.
A Christmas Present from the HD Channel! 1:44pm on 22 Dec 2008 Again Andy, another thankyou. At some point in the new year, I'll have a look to see how my THX calibration results compare with ones from this method.

181 was always referred to by a different name when I was a lampy!
iPlayer Day: Series stacking on Virgin Media 12:48pm on 15 Dec 2008 iPlayer on VM is brilliant. Yes, there are the issues with content rights, but I know how underpowered the boxes are having played with the Liberate SDK several years ago.

Keep up the good work.
BBC HD: Picture Quality and Dolby Research 09:26am on 07 Nov 2008 Again Andy, thankyou very much for your highly detailed and informative posts. Sometimes BBC HD can appear to be a little 'unloved' and it's nice to know about the effort going on.

Without wanting to be rude might I suggest to samuel1984 that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing? Firstly, it's not the BBC's responsibility to upgrade Virgin's network or equipment. Andy can confirm or deny, but I believe the BBC pass an uncompressed fibre feed to VM which they then do with as they please. Also, if you knew as much about this technology as you'd like people to think you do, you'd know that there's more to MPEG4 than a 'software upgrade'.

Secondly, 720p HD cameras have been out for a while. Do you have any idea with an organisation the size of the BBC how much internal procedure slows things down? "No, I'm sorry, cancel all HD programs until every camera is up to some internet bloggers arbitrary standards".

I do think that us Virgin Media users tend to be very demanding because BBC HD is our *only* live HD option (It's referred to as "The Shiny Channel" in our house!). Could you or Danielle enlighten us at some point as to how material gets passed to VM for HD VOD? Like will we every see Spooks: Code 9 (which I liked, even if nobody else did!) or Torchwood in HD:VOD?

Oh, and thanks for the link to Rowan's blog.
BBC HD: DOGs Update 10:46am on 21 Oct 2008 FrankieRoberto: What, and make sure that any HD plasma's they sell ex-display are ruined?

Danielle: It *is* a politician's response, but not a bad one. I'll take it as a step in the right direction and say 'thank you'. What I'd love to see (and I believe many comments on DOGs have said this before) is the research that shows that people want these things, as opposed to the marketing department who thinks they 'must' have them because everyone else does.

And I'd echo the comments about putting the DOG in the bottom right hand corner if its absolutely *got* to stay. I've seen quite a bit of HD material from the states and it's significantly less distracting.

But thanks again for your level of visibility.
The Scourge Of SCART 09:53am on 16 Oct 2008 Yet another entertaining and informative post from Andy. It's fascinating getting this level of detail from the BBC.

The SCART experience echoes a similar tale of mine from a few years ago. Some friends had a large 4:3 set with Sky and they were complaining they were 'missing the sides' of Eastenders and were going to have to invest in a widescreen which they could ill afford to do with a newborn.

2 minutes later setting the Sky box to 'letterbox' and they were happy as larry.

Oh, and a Denon 1909 user who's amp is switching flawlessly betweeb 2.0 and 5.1 with no pops or crackles. V+, connected by HDMI.
BBC HDTV: DOG Level 4:48pm on 04 Aug 2008 I actually think the BBC are doing very well with the amount of content on BBC HD given there has been no specific rise in the licence fee to cope with the additional costs of HD production and infrastructure (I seem to remember there was somewhat of a hike in the early days of digital).

However, given the unique way the BBC is funded, you have no excuse for DOG's. Try all you want with the hogwash that the other channels try to peddle about 'brand identity' it holds no water. There isn't a single licence fee payer out there who wants the things and the viewers wishes are consistently ignored. At least you're scrapping the ECP's.

Keep working on 5.1. One of the main reasons I bought Sky+ in the early days was 5.1 sound on movie channels. I'm more motivated by sound as opposed to picture and on Virgin Media I have no way of knowing whether a BBC HD program is going to be 5.1 or not. Could this be looked in to?
How To Start An HD Channel From Scratch 11:54am on 18 Jul 2008 Just reading back through this after finding your later post.

Very enjoyable reading. Nice to know we aren't above a good old British 'Heath Robinson' lash up if it gets the job done!

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