There Is Hope For HD

[Adam-O]

For sure, absolutely agree. But so what? You still haven't addressed the core issue of what I said! Yes, there are other reasons why Ten look how they do compared to Nine, and as I said, there's one reasonably considerable one that I will post about later on. That said, the thing I have been saying about 1440 vs 1920 is true. I'll say it again... If all else is equal, then 1440 will result in a better picture than 1920 if the source and viewer's display are both limited to 1440 or lower anyway. If you can demonstrate otherwise then do. I may be wrong, but I really don't think so. This is what I believe, based on experience working with MPEG audio codecs (right down to the bit-level -- I've actually written a decoder) and my own experiences with observing the various digital TV HD services and speaking to various industry insiders and reading some online publications such as the one I quoted above.

Adam

[Champion_R]

For sure, absolutely agree. But so what? You still haven't addressed the core issue of what I said! Yes, there are other reasons why Ten look how they do compared to Nine, and as I said, there's one reasonably considerable one that I will post about later on. That said, the thing I have been saying about 1440 vs 1920 is true. I'll say it again... If all else is equal, then 1440 will result in a better picture than 1920 if the source and viewer's display are both limited to 1440 or lower anyway. If you can demonstrate otherwise then do. I may be wrong, but I really don't think so. This is what I believe, based on experience working with MPEG audio codecs (right down to the bit-level -- I've actually written a decoder) and my own experiences with observing the various digital TV HD services and speaking to various industry insiders and reading some online publications such as the one I quoted above.

Adam

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

All the American networks use 1920x1088 except for certain DirectTV channels.

[Adam-O]

Those American networks put out more than a 12.8 Mb/s HD stream!

In addition their source has more chance of being "cleaner" than the source we get here (for American-produced content at least), making this more worthwhile.

Adam

[Santa1503559644]

Whoa - this things going round and round and round...

If all else is equal, then 1440 will result in a better picture than 1920 if the source and viewer's display are both limited to 1440 or lower anyway

Do you mean:

WITH EQUAL SUB-OPTIMAL BITRATE, if all else is equal, then 1440 will result in a better picture than 1920 if the source and viewer's display are both limited to 1440 or lower anyway

Otherwise - no, 1920 will be better if you could give it sufficient bitrate.

[Champion_R]

Those American networks put out more than a 12.8 Mb/s HD stream!

In addition their source has more chance of being "cleaner" than the source we get here (for American-produced content at least), making this more worthwhile.

Adam

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

These bitrates are for Fort Worth. PBS is 14.5mbits @ 1920x1080 and UPN is 15.8mbits @ 1920x1088. Keep in mind they are 30 frames per second instead of 25.

[Adam-O]

Yes but what about NBN, CBS, etc? (I realise ABC do 720p).

Remember that the ATSC system mandates a HD-capable decoder chip in every STB, even budget models, so the US networks, while broadcasting HD, can dedicate all (most) of their bandwidth to the HD stream as they don't have any SD stream to simulcast.

This is how it should have been here.

Adam

[Santa1503559644]

Yes but what about NBN, CBS, etc? (I realise ABC do 720p).

Remember that the ATSC system mandates a HD-capable decoder chip in every STB, even budget models, so the US networks, while broadcasting HD, can dedicate all (most) of their bandwidth to the HD stream as they don't have any SD stream to simulcast.

This is how it should have been here.

Adam

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Amen to that.

However, since we're stuck with a bad case of Alstonitis, the second best thing is the obvious solution!

[Adam-O]

Whoa - this things going round and round and round...

If all else is equal, then 1440 will result in a better picture than 1920 if the source and viewer's display are both limited to 1440 or lower anyway

Do you mean:

WITH EQUAL SUB-OPTIMAL BITRATE, if all else is equal, then 1440 will result in a better picture than 1920 if the source and viewer's display are both limited to 1440 or lower anyway

Otherwise - no, 1920 will be better if you could give it sufficient bitrate.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, here in Brisbane both Nine and Ten are 12.8 Mb/s, which is sub-optimal. Ten HD looks distinctly better. This is one reason why.

Even for you guys in Perth, although your bandwidth is significantly better, it still would be considered sub-optimal by most experts. So yes, if the source is limited to around 1440 anyway, and so is the viewer's display, then 1440 would most likely be superior -- even for Nine Perth. It certainly wouldn't be worse (we're talking about when there's no source resolution above 1440 anyway).

Some may argue that if one had a display that was natively capable of 1920 horizontal pixels (which is outside the scope of what I am saying) then broadcasting at 1920 compared to 1440 would look better, even if the source were still limited to 1440. This may indeed be true -- if the bandwidth used for the broadcast was sufficient -- but the reason why is simply that the 1920 horizontal res would equate to a scaling effort (done by the network's superior equipment), which may look better than 1440 scaled up by the internal display's scaler. Even under this scenario, you still won't "see" any effective resolution above 1440 horizontal pixels -- because MPEG works by only encoding frequencies that are present and not "masked" by set masking thresholds, which are modeled on how our eyes/brain perceive images. Anyway, this is all a moot point, because in Aus we don't have sufficient bitrates for HD.

Adam

[Spoonfed]

But the HD space i would need would be heaps more!

I like my FFDShowed SD (the better SD, which is usually HD source anways). Maybe in a few years the grunt will be there for some FFDShowing of HD

[Champion_R]

Yes, here in Brisbane both Nine and Ten are 12.8 Mb/s, which is sub-optimal. Ten HD looks distinctly better. This is one reason why.

Even for you guys in Perth, although your bandwidth is significantly better, it still would be considered sub-optimal by most experts. So yes, if the source is limited to around 1440 anyway, and so is the viewer's display, then 1440 would most likely be superior -- even for Nine Perth. It certainly wouldn't be worse (we're talking about when there's no source resolution above 1440 anyway).

Some may argue that if one had a display that was natively capable of 1920 horizontal pixels (which is outside the scope of what I am saying) then broadcasting at 1920 compared to 1440 would look better, even if the source were still limited to 1440. This may indeed be true -- if the bandwidth used for the broadcast was sufficient -- but the reason why is simply that the 1920 horizontal res would equate to a scaling effort (done by the network's superior equipment), which may look better than 1440 scaled up by the internal display's scaler. Even under this scenario, you still won't "see" any effective resolution above 1440 horizontal pixels -- because MPEG works by only encoding frequencies that are present and not "masked" by set masking thresholds, which are modeled on how our eyes/brain perceive images. Anyway, this is all a moot point, because in Aus we don't have sufficient bitrates for HD.

Adam

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If you have a problem with Nine HD in your area, I'd suggest you contact the station and complain. If you want to see the page where I got the American bitrates from, here's the address. http://www.widemovies.com/dfwbitrate.html

[Champion_R]

Remember that the ATSC system mandates a HD-capable decoder chip in every STB, even budget models, so the US networks, while broadcasting HD, can dedicate all (most) of their bandwidth to the HD stream as they don't have any SD stream to simulcast.

This is how it should have been here.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

We should of went with a HD only system so we could of had 20mbit+ HD channels as well as 448kbit Dolby. Some American networks use 384kbits for Dolby and we all know that causes the rear channels to massively suffer.

[Adam-O]

If you have a problem with Nine HD in your area, I'd suggest you contact the station and complain. If you want to see the page where I got the American bitrates from, here's the address. http://www.widemovies.com/dfwbitrate.html

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have no problem with Nine HD. I think it looks much better than Nine SD. However, for discussion purposes, I post my experiences when they are relevant to something that's being discussed. In my experience, Ten HD is significantly better than Nine HD, despite the bitrates being identical.

I have just made a post in the video transmission/reception section regarding another possible reason for the difference:

http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=12218

Regards,

Adam