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daveac

Listed below are comments made by daveac between Friday, 13th November 2009 and Monday, 30th November 2009 (6 Hours Ago) .

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Points of View and HD Picture Quality: a response 00:00am on 30 Nov 2009 Well I've just watch the Pilot episode of 'The Sarah Connor Chronicles' on DVD - this is via a PS3 using HDMI to my Toshiba 42 Z3030 LCD

So this is DVD 'upscaled' by the PS3 - and the picture was as good as current BBC HD TV - easily on a par with and to my eyes actually slightly better than the first episode of 'Paradox'

So there's another paradox for the BBC HD people - a DVD looks as good or better than 'stunning HD' - at least as far as the BBC show it!

Cheers, daveac
Points of View and HD Picture Quality: a response 01:28am on 29 Nov 2009 #378 Bob :-
As an aside, people keep mentioning Dr Who being decent quality. I don't watch it myself, but I did see the swirling end credits the other day and the artifacting on those was terrible.

I think I've read somewhere the the 'Dr Who' openning and closing credits weren't made in HD - so that might explain that.

Cheers, daveac
Points of View and HD Picture Quality: a response 10:24pm on 28 Nov 2009 Well SCD wasn't good tonight. In all honesty the picture was better than the SD one but that is such a low target to reach.

To my mind the BBCHD quality could have been matched on a SD channel using 5 to 6 Mbs Mpeg 2 - instead of the 3 to 4 Mbs they seem to use on SD channels.

I saw 'detail' once! Is was in Tess' room when you saw a closeup of some of the dancers dresses.

I'm sure if SD channels were 6Mbs Mpeg2 and HD channels were 12Mbs Mpeg4 we would be mostly happy.

If I was running a LCD TV company now I'd wonder how to convince people to buy sets bigger than 40in.

I watch BBCHD now not because the picture is good - it isn't - but because the SD picture is worse.

Cheers, daveac
Points of View and HD Picture Quality: a response 11:51pm on 24 Nov 2009 #317 HD_fan428 wrote:

'On a quick viewing, Paradox looked like a clean version of SD'

I agree - the picture was top quality SD - but even slightly soft for DVD

I used to think HD pictures were sometimes like over-sharpened SD - but now most are 'soft' - maybe to 'help' the codecs cope.

Cheers, daveac
Points of View and HD Picture Quality: a response 6:21pm on 20 Nov 2009 Well just a quick comment - I have to say the picture quality for The Sarah Jane Adventures (The Gift Part2) today was fine.

This and the recent Doctor Who 'Waters of Mars' are two shows that have looked good - but they still seem to be the exception rather than the norm.

The both seem to be well 'photographed' and in good light - resulting in a very watchable picture.

Cheers, daveac
Points of View and HD Picture Quality: a response 8:29pm on 17 Nov 2009 #168 rwgladwin

Remember with those images that the BBC HD ones are from the older codec and bitrate.

The I wasn't comparing the SD and DVD images with HD ones - Yes I can see the difference there.

The SD and DVD were posted to view as against 'current' HD (Dr Who being an exception) and the HD pictures posted - like the Toy Story and Torchwood 'Cybergirl' - were included to show that HD was better before in my eyes.

Cheers, daveac
Points of View and HD Picture Quality: a response 5:45pm on 17 Nov 2009 #155. rwgladwin

I don't say it's not much better than SD - I was trying to reply to your earlier post comment:-

'However, I am quite amazed that there are posters on here (posters #132 and 139 above in particular) who are under the misguided belief that they are watching SD when they watch BBCHD'

I was trying to explain (badly obviously :-) ) where those people were coming from.

This comment of mine:-

'Yes, against poor bit-starved SD the HD still looks good - but against a 3 to 4 Mpixel SD or 6 to 7 Mpixel DVD the HD picture doesn't now shine.'

Isn't worded very well but I do think that current BBC HD is little better than DVD. I've been ill this last week and have watched about 20 odd episodes of Smallville Series 7 on DVD and the picture quality is great and
your quote:- 'Secondly, colours as a result of this are far more vibrant and varied - as such, these two things alone make the HD picture on BBCHD vastly superior to DVD or SD.'

The Smallville DVD IS vibrant and sharp - to my eyes not far behind and currently sometimes beating BBC HD as is.

As I say I've not been one of these 'hasrsh' critics - and I too have watched BBC HD for a long time and the 'quality' many of us have seen - we are not seeing now - except on odd occassions.

To give people here an idea of these sort of pictures I have had in the past from different sources - here are some image links - none taken recently with the newer codecs)

They have not been 'tweeked' other than reduced to 1024x768 in size:-

You may have to click to zoom to 100%

http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x202/dac100/avpictures/?action=view&current=SNV33398.jpg

http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x202/dac100/avpictures/?action=view&current=SNV33397.jpg

http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x202/dac100/avpictures/?action=view&current=more04.jpg

http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x202/dac100/avpictures/?action=view&current=more01.jpg

SD:-

http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x202/dac100/avpictures/?action=view&current=standarddef02.jpg

DVD:-

http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x202/dac100/avpictures/?action=view&current=dvd02.jpg

SD:-

http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x202/dac100/avpictures/?action=view&current=frog3.jpg

Test Card:-

http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x202/dac100/avpictures/?action=view&current=ps3a.jpg

PS3 photo picture:-

http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x202/dac100/avpictures/?action=view&current=rgbonscreen.jpg

SD:-

http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x202/dac100/avpictures/?action=view&current=lizard01.jpg

Earth Blu-ray:-

http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x202/dac100/avpictures/?action=view&current=earth03.jpg

BBC HD

http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x202/dac100/avpictures/?action=view&current=toystory2a.jpg

DVD:-

http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x202/dac100/avpictures/?action=view&current=300d.jpg

Blu-ray:-

http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x202/dac100/avpictures2/?action=view&current=htwww3.jpg

BBC HD
http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x202/dac100/avpictures2/?action=view&current=britainfromabove3.jpg

Luxe:-

http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x202/dac100/avpictures2/?action=view&current=luxemore3.jpg

Cheers, daveac
Points of View and HD Picture Quality: a response 11:07am on 17 Nov 2009 150. rwgladwin

Often the quatity now on BBD HD is more DVD like than HD - and mostly people mean (I think) that the current picture is not significantly better than SD - or how SD pictures can look.

Yes, against poor bit-starved SD the HD still looks good - but against a 3 to 4 Mpixel SD or 6 to 7 Mpixel DVD the HD picture doesn't now shine.

Doctor Who this week looked good and I commented about it (post #101)- but it is also one of the few programmes that actually looks pretty good at SD.

This quality has been talked about before on other forums as being due to the quality of the camera lens used in production. And now no doubt the SD pictures are good as they are taken from the HD product.

There does seem to be some progress on the poor pictures of the last few months but overall the picture quality still falls short as soon as there is any movement - and that's not much use on a general entertainment channel.

Luxe seems to cope mostly but all their content is either static or slow pans and of course none of it is live TV allowing the encoders to optimise the picture for their bitrate.

A 30% cut might have worked with these new codecs but a 50% cut is causing a decernable drop in quality.

The picture is watchable but its no showcase.

Cheers, daveac
Points of View and HD Picture Quality: a response 10:37pm on 15 Nov 2009 Well I will say Dr Who picture was mostly good tonight. The worse bit was the openning credits with the TARDIS flying - not sure if that was because they are not in HD - or the codec couldn't cope

But I was able to just watch and enjoy Dr Who - which was a fantastic episode :-)

Cheers, daveac
Points of View and HD Picture Quality: a response 8:48pm on 13 Nov 2009 Too ill to compose a full reply - recovering from flu (and no not 'man flu') but on logging online to check days of email I read this response.

I'm deliberately writing my reply before I read other peoples post - because I'm basically stunned at it.

I'm deliberately trying not to be personal but to whom does Danielle think shes talking to.

'response' is hardly the right the word for this post.

'There also appear to be some issues around picture "noise" - basically more fuzziness in what should be solid areas of pictures - which we have been seeing a bit more of since the encoder change. As far as we can tell, these are as a result of the "better" pictures now being transmitted to TV sets by the new encoders.'

So the lower bit-rate using the newer codecs give us 'better' better pictures that just look poorer??? What?

These programme will surely be mostly made at 1080p - so this statement:-

'Because the new technology conveys the picture information captured by cameras more comprehensively, for the first time we are seeing information that has been picked up but which was effectively "softened" by the system previously in place'

doesn't make sence - there will be more information in the original production image than can be displayed at 1080i at most bitrates - so to say these codecs are so good they are showing up faults in the original material doesn't make sense.

Neither does the remark that the older codecs were 'softening' the image.

It's the new codec that can't cope with - and lets be correct here - not a 40% reduction BUT a 50% reduction (16 down to under 10)

Maybe a 25% reduction would have allowed the quality to remain but certainly this cut shows you far too often.

'But, with the exceptions I've outlined, in our view the new encoders are as we hoped delivering the same or better picture quality across the majority of programmes, the majority of the time.'

So basicially 'Go jump in a lake'

The only improvement ( and by that I mean getting back someway towards the earlier quality) that I've seen is on the J Ross show which I believe is due to changing the purple blended backdrop behind J Ross to a less demanding blue - plus an improvement on the studio lighting - both factors the help reduce the demands on the codec.

I may write more when I've read other peoples posts - but I'm very disappointed in this blog from Danielle Nagler.

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