I have been using digital for a good 10 years. But occasionally one has to revert to analogue.
It seems that analogue signal is absolute crap! Could it evr have been that bad. Surely at its peak it was better than it is now?
I can't help but think a poor quality signal is being sent out to encourage people to buy new digital stuff.
It must be possible to do it. Any comments?
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Analogue v digital TV
Quote by duncanlondon
I have been using digital for a good 10 years. But occasionally one has to revert to analogue.
It seems that analogue signal is absolute crap! Could it evr have been that bad. Surely at its peak it was better than it is now?
I can't help but think a poor quality signal is being sent out to encourage people to buy new digital stuff.
It must be possible to do it. Any comments?
Ofcom would probably blame pirate radio or new buildings between you and the transmitter
Sex God
Quote by duncanlondon
I have been using digital for a good 10 years. But occasionally one has to revert to analogue.
It seems that analogue signal is absolute crap! Could it evr have been that bad. Surely at its peak it was better than it is now?
I can't help but think a poor quality signal is being sent out to encourage people to buy new digital stuff.
It must be possible to do it. Any comments?
Analogue, if working correctly, is actually the better picture, and the signal is far more robust. Digital signal only needs a small amount of impedance, and will begin to fragment. HD actually brings you back, only just very slightly ahead of analogue. The truth is, Digital is better for the broadcaster than it is for the customer.
Sexlightened
As the digital switch-over progresses analogue transmission power is reduced on some transmitters to accommodate digital transmission. When the digital switch-over is complete in your area the analogue signal is switched off completely within 2 weeks. Our switch-over was last October and analogue was switched off in November, our digital signal went from poor to unusable because we were receiving our digital from the Northwest, if we were to turn our aerial round to the Wales transmitter we would be ok but opted for freesat instead.
Sex God
Quote by Kaznkev
I have been using digital for a good 10 years. But occasionally one has to revert to analogue.
It seems that analogue signal is absolute crap! Could it evr have been that bad. Surely at its peak it was better than it is now?
I can't help but think a poor quality signal is being sent out to encourage people to buy new digital stuff.
It must be possible to do it. Any comments?
Analogue, if working correctly, is actually the better picture, and the signal is far more robust. Digital signal only needs a small amount of impedance, and will begin to fragment. HD actually brings you back, only just very slightly ahead of analogue. The truth is, Digital is better for the broadcaster than it is for the customer.
Why is it better for the broadcaster ?,i know its a pain for the customer cos half my village cant get digital depsite the multi million pound transmitter built near by
With digital, the broadcast is transmitted in the language of computers, which takes up less room and allows for more channels, I guess more channels means better choice for the viewer, but the signal is easily disrupted, and the picture is now where near as good as we are told, that is why HD was required. In my humble opinion
Sex God
Quote by Bluefish2009
I have been using digital for a good 10 years. But occasionally one has to revert to analogue.
It seems that analogue signal is absolute crap! Could it evr have been that bad. Surely at its peak it was better than it is now?
I can't help but think a poor quality signal is being sent out to encourage people to buy new digital stuff.
It must be possible to do it. Any comments?
Analogue, if working correctly, is actually the better picture, and the signal is far more robust. Digital signal only needs a small amount of impedance, and will begin to fragment. HD actually brings you back, only just very slightly ahead of analogue. The truth is, Digital is better for the broadcaster than it is for the customer.
Why is it better for the broadcaster ?,i know its a pain for the customer cos half my village cant get digital depsite the multi million pound transmitter built near by
With digital, the broadcast is transmitted in the language of computers, which takes up less room and allows for more channels, I guess more channels means better choice for the viewer, but the signal is easily disrupted, and the picture is now where near as good as we are told, that is why HD was required. In my humble opinion
To be honest I have HD and I have Bluray and I'm fucked if I can see that much of a difference. We get people straining at the screen going "well I think it looks better" Its obviously not that impressive.
Sex God
More thoughts
Analog TVs receive a signal telling the television's electron gun how to "paint" lines on the screen. The problem is that the signal degrades in transmission, affecting the amount of fine detail in the image, possible problems are ghosting etc
Digital sets receive the same information in bit streams, or binary code (lines of data made up of ones and zeroes). The advantage is that these digital signals do not degrade so quickly over distance, no ghosting, so the picture can be much better on a digital set, If you have a good signal. Other advantages are more data can be sent on the signal and there-for more Chanel's and the possibility of interactivity.
If you are in an area where you get a very week signal in analogue, you can still get a half decent picture, but if in the same situation with digital you will get a broken picture or more likely none at all
Wonderful system if you live in London, not so good in many rural areas, Unless you opt for the a satellite system, but not much choice on that front.
Analog TVs receive a signal telling the television's electron gun how to "paint" lines on the screen. The problem is that the signal degrades in transmission, affecting the amount of fine detail in the image, possible problems are ghosting etc
Digital sets receive the same information in bit streams, or binary code (lines of data made up of ones and zeroes). The advantage is that these digital signals do not degrade so quickly over distance, no ghosting, so the picture can be much better on a digital set, If you have a good signal. Other advantages are more data can be sent on the signal and there-for more Chanel's and the possibility of interactivity.
If you are in an area where you get a very week signal in analogue, you can still get a half decent picture, but if in the same situation with digital you will get a broken picture or more likely none at all
Wonderful system if you live in London, not so good in many rural areas, Unless you opt for the a satellite system, but not much choice on that front.
Sex God
Quote by cplintheNE
sorry but can't agree on Anaologue pic ever being as clear or as good as a digital pic, as for more choice it is if u like repeats ffs and they used to call the BBC
cplintheNE
Analogue transmission is vastly superior to digital if you have your aerial set correctly. In theory, digital should be better but they compress it so much to enable more channels to be transmitted that anything with any degree of fine detail just ends up in a mess of compression blocks and coding. You might not notice it but i work in video production and used to quality check programmes prior to transmission, so i'm frequently ranting and shouting at the telly about the shite quality of the picture.
I won't even start on the whole 'HD' subject as my head might explode
Sex God
Quote by meat2pleaseu
sorry but can't agree on Anaologue pic ever being as clear or as good as a digital pic, as for more choice it is if u like repeats ffs and they used to call the BBC
cplintheNE
Analogue transmission is vastly superior to digital if you have your aerial set correctly. In theory, digital should be better but they compress it so much to enable more channels to be transmitted that anything with any degree of fine detail just ends up in a mess of compression blocks and coding. You might not notice it but i work in video production and used to quality check programmes prior to transmission, so i'm frequently ranting and shouting at the telly about the shite quality of the picture.
I won't even start on the whole 'HD' subject as my head might explode
On that note, I notice the Japanese broadcast their HD in analogue
Sex God
Quote by Bluefish2009
On that note, I notice the Japanese broadcast their HD in analogue
they're also looking to trial broadcast 4k soon i believe, and even more amazingly they're working on 8k. we don't even get 1k here with most broadcasters
Digital is better for the broadcasters because of what's called compression and multiplexing. Put simply, in the same area on the old dial that they can broadcast one analogue station they can perhaps broadcast twenty digital stations.
Depending on the bitrate used (the amount of information per second), digital TV can be better than analogue. When the digital signal is good, you can get a great picture. When its so-so you get more disruption than you did with the old analogue picture. Freeview at its best is pretty good, and is often better than analogue. However, a good analogue signal in the UK was in itself quite high quality.
Note also that a mediocre analogue signal might look OK on a traditional CRT Television and look dreadful on an LCD or plasma. They're not built to deal with poor analogue signals, especially the cheaper brands you find at the supermarkets.
As for HD Vs SD (standard def)....the difference is simply stunning, If you're not seeing a difference and you are using Blu-Ray or HD via Sky or Virgin and have your system connected correctly (HDMI cables, SCART's will only handle SD signals)...then something is wrong. Virgin's HD service seems to be better than Sky's, but in either case the difference is VAST compared to SD.
To put it into perspective. OK, I am a techno-geek but my wife is not. She couldn't care less. The instant we upgraded to HD she noticed the difference, and was quick to accept that Blu-Ray was better than DVD. She's the kind of person who isn't really interested. BUT...my system is properly set up. I do find that 'engineers' from Sky (especially) and Virgin don't set up your TV or HD box correctly. Out of the box, flat TVs are usually displaying overblown colours and incorrect contrast. This is so that when shops have them on display, they all look bright and vibrant when sitting next to each other. But actually those settings are pretty awful for home viewing.
Absinthe (the male half of absinthesangria)
Depending on the bitrate used (the amount of information per second), digital TV can be better than analogue. When the digital signal is good, you can get a great picture. When its so-so you get more disruption than you did with the old analogue picture. Freeview at its best is pretty good, and is often better than analogue. However, a good analogue signal in the UK was in itself quite high quality.
Note also that a mediocre analogue signal might look OK on a traditional CRT Television and look dreadful on an LCD or plasma. They're not built to deal with poor analogue signals, especially the cheaper brands you find at the supermarkets.
As for HD Vs SD (standard def)....the difference is simply stunning, If you're not seeing a difference and you are using Blu-Ray or HD via Sky or Virgin and have your system connected correctly (HDMI cables, SCART's will only handle SD signals)...then something is wrong. Virgin's HD service seems to be better than Sky's, but in either case the difference is VAST compared to SD.
To put it into perspective. OK, I am a techno-geek but my wife is not. She couldn't care less. The instant we upgraded to HD she noticed the difference, and was quick to accept that Blu-Ray was better than DVD. She's the kind of person who isn't really interested. BUT...my system is properly set up. I do find that 'engineers' from Sky (especially) and Virgin don't set up your TV or HD box correctly. Out of the box, flat TVs are usually displaying overblown colours and incorrect contrast. This is so that when shops have them on display, they all look bright and vibrant when sitting next to each other. But actually those settings are pretty awful for home viewing.
Absinthe (the male half of absinthesangria)
Quite frankly, we have to frequently revert to analogue channels from both the freeview and sky boxes if there is even the hint of bad weather. Snow, thunderstorms etc. The picture and sound break up so badly that it makes anything not worth watching.
Digital should be far more robust than it is. IMHO!
Digital should be far more robust than it is. IMHO!
Quote by martin_bg_2000_uk
Quite frankly, we have to frequently revert to analogue channels from both the freeview and sky boxes if there is even the hint of bad weather. Snow, thunderstorms etc. The picture and sound break up so badly that it makes anything not worth watching.
Digital should be far more robust than it is. IMHO!
You can also lose the satellite signal if there's a bad storm at the uplink station, which could be hundreds of miles away from you.
Sex God
Quote by absinthesangria
...............
As for HD Vs SD (standard def)....the difference is simply stunning, If you're not seeing a difference and you are using Blu-Ray or HD via Sky or Virgin and have your system connected correctly (HDMI cables, SCART's will only handle SD signals)...then something is wrong. Virgin's HD service seems to be better than Sky's, but in either case the difference is VAST compared to SD.............
Can't comment on HD broadcasts, but Blu-Ray should be stunning. When we bought the PS3 and Sony 40" HDTV I hooked them up with a HDMI cable, then sat back and watched 'I Am Legend'. The opening scene had both me and my mate sat with our mouths wide open. The detail and clarity was bloody good.
On the signal side of things, when we changed our main transmission signal type and frequency how many of us changed the aerial? It's tuned to be selective about the frequency it receives and has 'roll off' either side of its tuned frequency. Chances are if you didn't replace your 20-year-old aerial you're not getting the maximum gain from it. ;)
Sex God
OK im going to sound a bit sad here but does anyone else find it anyway childishly funny if a word starts with something like anal or is it just me - I giggle at looking back at the annals of history or at the possibility of gaining a qualification in Analogy - OK it is me isn't it. Guess its a collect coat open door and leave moment isn't itOh and even since my earliest memories since learning to read have I ached to grafitti anI into the words TOILET
Sex God
Quote by Lost
OK im going to sound a bit sad here but does anyone else find it anyway childishly funny if a word starts with something like anal or is it just me - I giggle at looking back at the annals of history or at the possibility of gaining a qualification in Analogy - OK it is me isn't it. Guess its a collect coat open door and leave moment isn't it
Oh and even since my earliest memories since learning to read have I ached to grafitti an I into the words TOILET
Losty, i think you need to visit a shrink.....you need a little psycho analysys
Sex God
The only time I ever notice the quality of HD is when I play 360 or PS3 games. Which is a bit fuinny as the games are only in 580 I believe. When I took my 360 from component connection to HDMI the better quality was easy to see it was like another world. However I dont get that same distinction when watching a DVD then quickly putting in a Blu-ray disc. Funny cus most most Blu-ray if not all is in 1080 right?
Sex God
Quote by tweeky
The only time I ever notice the quality of HD is when I play 360 or PS3 games. Which is a bit fuinny as the games are only in 580 I believe. When I took my 360 from component connection to HDMI the better quality was easy to see it was like another world. However I dont get that same distinction when watching a DVD then quickly putting in a Blu-ray disc. Funny cus most most Blu-ray if not all is in 1080 right?
And to the people of earth tweeky said "iugt;itt/#;#jhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh/gg/ "
So thats cleared up that then
Ignoring the problems you get with digital....which would be because the signal you used to receive in anal was much higher signal strength than digital....the reason for the change-over was to accommodate more "channels".
The sandy Heath transmitter complex has analogue transmitters that have a total effective radiated power of over four million watts. The digital transmitters operate, currently, at twenty kilowatts per multiplex, which will be increased to two-hundred kilowatts (per multiplex) at digital switch-over.
With analogue you get five channels....with digital you get hundreds in the same bandwidth (sorta).
More to the point...with digital you can have loads of station operating "locally" and broadcasting material for that area...and have local community channels...and radio channels as well.
Get used to it...it isn't going to go back to five channels. The spectrum used for broadcasting is valuable, too valuable to allocate five channels when you can have a hundred.
And the un-used uhf spectrum can be sold to other operators.
You can check your local situation
The sandy Heath transmitter complex has analogue transmitters that have a total effective radiated power of over four million watts. The digital transmitters operate, currently, at twenty kilowatts per multiplex, which will be increased to two-hundred kilowatts (per multiplex) at digital switch-over.
With analogue you get five channels....with digital you get hundreds in the same bandwidth (sorta).
More to the point...with digital you can have loads of station operating "locally" and broadcasting material for that area...and have local community channels...and radio channels as well.
Get used to it...it isn't going to go back to five channels. The spectrum used for broadcasting is valuable, too valuable to allocate five channels when you can have a hundred.
And the un-used uhf spectrum can be sold to other operators.
You can check your local situation
Sex God
Quote by tweeky
The only time I ever notice the quality of HD is when I play 360 or PS3 games. Which is a bit fuinny as the games are only in 580 I believe. When I took my 360 from component connection to HDMI the better quality was easy to see it was like another world. However I dont get that same distinction when watching a DVD then quickly putting in a Blu-ray disc. Funny cus most most Blu-ray if not all is in 1080 right?
have you checked your player is set to play back in 1080 and not 720 and through the HDMI port, also are you sure you have a 1080 capable TV? (remember the rant i didn't have about 'HD'?......)
Sex God
Quote by Kaznkev
And did you check the wind direction and ensure you slaughterd a blackbird at full moon, as i an assurred that is vital?
I think you're confusing HD with SECAM.....those dirty Frenchies
Orgasminator
Our part of the country was the first to take part in the digital switchover, and I wish we hadn't, and would prefer analogue.
A lot of people that had perfectly good tv, now suffer from signal breakdown during a programme, or no signal at all.
If you live on the Devon coast facing Wales, you ended up with Welsh programmes, instead of your local ones.
So I think Digital is pants
A lot of people that had perfectly good tv, now suffer from signal breakdown during a programme, or no signal at all.
If you live on the Devon coast facing Wales, you ended up with Welsh programmes, instead of your local ones.
So I think Digital is pants
Sex God
Quote by meat2pleaseu
The only time I ever notice the quality of HD is when I play 360 or PS3 games. Which is a bit fuinny as the games are only in 580 I believe. When I took my 360 from component connection to HDMI the better quality was easy to see it was like another world. However I dont get that same distinction when watching a DVD then quickly putting in a Blu-ray disc. Funny cus most most Blu-ray if not all is in 1080 right?
have you checked your player is set to play back in 1080 and not 720 and through the HDMI port, also are you sure you have a 1080 capable TV? (remember the rant i didn't have about 'HD'?......)
Its a PS3 I dont actually have a Blu-ray stand alone player. Its connected by HDMI and the TV flash's up 1080 when the discs load so guess its compatible.
Sex God
I'm less worried by the quality/type of the signal than I am of the programing...one more variation of pickaboxboywithanarseforafacerealcopsincasualty and I shall turn the fucking thing off
Sex God
Quote by Staggerlee_BB
I'm less worried by the quality/type of the signal than I am of the programing...one more variation of pickaboxboywithanarseforafacerealcopsincasualty and I shall turn the fucking thing off
I think you make a most valid point
