Digital TV, what's its benefit?

4istic

Can someone tell me what is the difference between digital and anologue. I just bought a new HD Ready LCD TV and was wondering should I change to NTL digital to get a better quality image. Any advice out there?

degsie

You could start your research here

Khannie

NTL digital compress the crap out of their signal. I think it looks worse than decent analogue terrestrial tbh.

8T8

It depends on the hardware as Khannie pointed out it can look really bad in some instances but great on others. Plus LCD HDTV's tend to amplify the flaws in poor sources so it can be a bit of a shock.

As an example Sky's satellite service is DVB-S based and offers great image quality as they have lots of bandwidth to spare.

But Chrous which have a DVB-C setup has questionable picture quality on various channels and compression artifacts (blocks) are clearly viewable. This is compounded by the fact they are using MPEG-2 as the broadcast signal which does not compress well and the cable connection probably only has a certain amount of bandwidth.

I think also but not sure totally on this that Chorus take digital freeview (DVB-T) signal from the UK as certain UK channels look far better than other channels (BBC News 24, E4, More3, BBC3/4) so with the better source material the degradation in picture quality isn't so bad.

4istic

degsie wrote:

You could start your research here

This does not really tell me what i want to know. Is anyone using digital tv having moved from anologue. did you notice any difference?

8T8

4istic wrote:

This does not really tell me what i want to know. Is anyone using digital tv having moved from anologue. did you notice any difference?

I'm not sure you understand what digital TV is;

DVB-T = broadcast digital TV over the air like analogue TV - should offer better quality image however there is no official DVB-T service in Ireland as of yet (there is a trial running in Dublin).

DVB-C = digital TV over cable this is what NTL\Chorus offers image quality can vary considerably as has been pointed out.

DVB-S = digital over satellite offers high quality image.

arch_stanton

In my parent's house they changed last week from Chorus analog to chorus digital and there was a huge improvement in picture quality. The analog signal was always fuzzy and jumpy, now it's crystal clear. Their TV is a 100Mhz standard definition philips.

I didn't have time to compare all the channels and look for digital artifacts but the first impression was very good.

big_moe

if you have an analogue signal that has any interference etc in the image, then yes. digital is a huge benefit for the extra quality and the extra channels.

if you have a crystal clear analogue signal, then the benefit to you is the extra channels and an image improvement.

moe

byte

Digital pictures can be woeful too, depending on how many channels are squeezed into a multiplex. Obviously the higher the compression, the lower the picture quality.

Many channels on satellite have terrible picture quality because of this, primarily the tacky shopping channels etc. Sky One Ireland has been well noted for its poor video quality also.

There is the likelihood that many digital transmissions will convert to MPEG4 in the future, which should improve things.

Sideshow Mark

4istic wrote:

Can someone tell me what is the difference between digital and anologue. I just bought a new HD Ready LCD TV and was wondering should I change to NTL digital to get a better quality image. Any advice out there?

If you have a decent NTL signal now, digital won't improve picture the quality on an LCD screen, if anything it will worsen. To get the best out of a HD screen, you have to have a HD source.

Bluefoam

As far as i am concerned, ntl digital is a pile of poo. Freeview in the UK is far, far superior. The only advantage is that you get some more channels...

no interactivity & if there is something popular on the quality seems to get worse as you are shRING THE CABLE WITH SO MANY OTHERS.

Kali

8T8 wrote:

I'm not sure you understand what digital TV is;

DVB-T = broadcast digital TV over the air like analogue TV - should offer better quality image however there is no official DVB-T service in Ireland as of yet (there is a trial running in Dublin).

DVB-C = digital TV over cable this is what NTL\Chorus offers image quality can vary considerably as has been pointed out.

DVB-S = digital over satellite offers high quality image.

I'm not sure you understand his question.. which wasn't "Can I have a comparison of the range of digital TV transmissions which I could receive?".

Plus DVB-? are standards for transmission and are NOT indicators of source encoding quality (any of the above can support HD for instance, and DVB-T can support MPEG4).

Is anyone using digital tv having moved from anologue. did you notice any difference?

Who is your current TV provider?
Are you just receiving terrestrial/aerial signals? If so, then yes, you'll probably most likely see a drastic improvement... in that there is no dodgy reception, only dodgy quality (which was probably what the above poster was trying to get at)... plus you'll get the added benefits of interactive television (red button etc.) BBCi for one is fantastic during Wimbledon, World Cups etc... being able to choose which match to watch, multiple news feeds, much improved teletext etc.

4istic

Kali wrote:

Who is your current TV provider?
Are you just receiving terrestrial/aerial signals? If so, then yes, you'll probably most likely see a drastic improvement... in that there is no dodgy reception, only dodgy quality (which was probably what the above poster was trying to get at)... plus you'll get the added benefits of interactive television (red button etc.) BBCi for one is fantastic during Wimbledon, World Cups etc... being able to choose which match to watch, multiple news feeds, much improved teletext etc.

NTL is my current provider. Just receiving the basic analogue 18 channels in Dublin. So am I correct in saying that moving to NTL digital is not going to improve my current pic quality? My TV is a new Samsung R88 40" HD LCD.

big_moe

it will improve the image.

all these people that say it wont... jaysus... digital will obviously be an improvement over analogue.

moe

conax

big_moe wrote:

digital will obviously be an improvement over analogue.

great.....when?:)

big_moe

about 6 months ago when i got it.

in dublin, in a relatively new estate. analogue was good for analogue, then digital was an improvement.

moe

8T8

Kali wrote:

I'm not sure you understand his question.. which wasn't "Can I have a comparison of the range of digital TV transmissions which I could receive?".

Plus DVB-? are standards for transmission and are NOT indicators of source encoding quality (any of the above can support HD for instance, and DVB-T can support MPEG4).

That wasn't quite what I was getting at I was trying to break it down for him to understand what digital tv was instead of some catch all term & give a generalized point on the image quality the various services in Ireland offer.

Any DVB transmission can carry a HD signal the codec does not matter it could be in MPEG-2 (bandwidth permitting), MPEG-4 AVC even ASP providing the decoder on the other end can handle it. Because AVC is much better at compression than MPEG-2 if they {such as NTL/Chorus} used it for even SD resolutions picture quality overall would be improved than what it currently is on their current DVB-C network as for Chorus at least some channels look really bad with lots of compression artifacts noticeable on an LCD HDTV.

Freddie59

4istic wrote:

NTL is my current provider. Just receiving the basic analogue 18 channels in Dublin. So am I correct in saying that moving to NTL digital is not going to improve my current pic quality? My TV is a new Samsung R88 40" HD LCD.

I've got NTL Digital on a recently-purchased Toshiba 37". Picture is fine, and the analogue is quite good also (in Waterford). I've found that, when viewing these screens, it helps to see a picture on a normal analogue channel (where they really show any problems) or a simple thing like an EPG, where you can examine things like colour bleed into white writing.

There is an absolutely massive variance in quality across the different brands. Amazingly I thought the best picture quality I've seen is on a Walker LCD (I think they might be Black Diamond rebadged) and they're very, very cheap. I'm sure other will disagree.

The Tosh struggles very little with either analogue or digital. However, one thing to always make sure (just like on a CRT) is that your picture settings are custom adjusted to your eyesight and satisfaction.

I'm very happy with the quality.:)

Freddie59

Bluefoam wrote:

no interactivity & if there is something popular on the quality seems to get worse as you are shRING THE CABLE WITH SO MANY OTHERS.

You're slightly confused my friend. That's broadband you're talking about. The number of people viewing, or connected to a TV signal, is irrelevant.

daedalus2097

It'll have a lot to do with the NTL decoder itself too. I've seen horrible NTL digital pictures, full of compression artifacts so bad you had to change back to analogue to read shirt numbers during a match. However other boxes seemed to manage fine. I have good quality analogue NTL in our apartment block, but got a *cough* non-NTL digital box and the picture quality is absolutely fantastic! So much better than analogue and seems to show very few glitches and visible jaggies where a friend's early NTL digital box struggles.

The Denouncer

I have Chorus, and have the Scart converted into a component output (YUV converter) to a superb Hitachi plasma monitor. Still not a bit happy with it, latest loads of digital breakup and channels like TV3 coming up with a 'not included in subscription' message for a minute, or images freezing. Up close the image is full of crawling pixel effect, from a distance of 10 feet it looks just acceptable. Sometimes I have to switch to analog composite as the digital image is so broken up. If the power goes the digibox loses its settings for 16:9 etc.
Want to upgrade to SKY + but meeting objections from the wife, at the moment.

Sideshow Mark

The Denouncer wrote:

I have Chorus, and have the Scart converted into a component output (YUV converter) to a superb Hitachi plasma monitor. Still not a bit happy with it

I'm not suprised, it's like buying a sports car and filling it with water instead of petrol.

The Denouncer wrote:

Want to upgrade to SKY +

Regular Sky/Sky Plus will be an improvement but it's Sky HD that will work best with your HD television. UPC say that their HD service will be available by the end of the year.