Watched BBC HD last night and looks good. No blocking or blurring but then I am watching on a TV and not through a computer.
Just for interest Snoods, why do you watch TV through a computer?
Watched BBC HD last night and looks good. No blocking or blurring but then I am watching on a TV and not through a computer.
Just for interest Snoods, why do you watch TV through a computer?
Well it's handy for recording things on and it is linked to a large LCD too via an xbox extender as well, so it's convenient for streaming all sorts of things round the house Boatman.
Oh and i rather like Windows 7 Media Centre too which is of course PC based.
Thanks Snoods. It's just that it seems that those with the most problems are using what I could call "non-standard" systems rather than just doing the lazy thing and switching on a TV.
However, I do appreciate your info on new channels.
Thanks Snoods. It's just that it seems that those with the most problems are using what I could call "non-standard" systems rather than just doing the lazy thing and switching on a TV.
However, I do appreciate your info on new channels.
Yes i agree it's not everyone cup of tea, and it's certainly non standard, but for me, it offers much more versatility than just a receiver and screen.
I wonder if it is a PC issue as like I say I've only watched one programme since the encoder "switch over" and that was Wildest Dreams and it looked great. I noticed an improvement straight away over previous weeks shows.
There's been nothing to watch for a while as football season is over. Long term users have noted big swings in ITV HD quality in films and programmes from fantastic to poor.
However, football is one thing that has struggled on ITV HD. The picture has looked fantastic whilst the camera has been perfectly still but the slightest pan, even at a few millimetres a second and the pitch becomes a total blur. There have been domestic cup matches where the compression's been so high the crowd as well as the grass were blurry and compression blocking could be seen - that was unwatcheable and I switched off!!!!! There was the final (forget which one at Wembley) where they had trouble with the contrast between the sun and shadows. Some blame the sun, personally, I blame the cameras / production although the sun certainly made conditions difficult.
That said, there have also been a few matches where football has been quite good albeit with some grass blur. I can only think ITV have been experimenting.
One thing the new encoders will allow BBC HD to do is vary the bit rate for sport. Potentially if 10mbs works well for normal tv at better than existing quality, they could increase the bit rate back to 16mbs on the new codecs for football thus giving a massive picture boost with a corresponding reduction in artefacts. Although results would have to be seen, such a move has the potential to massively reduce motion blur at the expense of only 90 minutes of higher band width.
Not for me. Latest version of DVBViewer Pro (4.1.1) on XP, latest CoreAVC (1.9.5), and Rick Stein jitters from the start. Rolling titles on the closing credits are unwatchable. Previously it was perfect as was (and still is) ITV HD.
Videolan/VLC 1.0.1 is perfect incidentally, including for the closing credits. So far it is the only player I've found which works with the new bit rate/codec.
Just to correct some misconceptions here...and putting all this into perspective.
That Linowsat page is basically useless for channels which are statmuxed or use constant bitrate with VBV because its sample rate is so low that it doesn't give you a proper picture of the increases/decrease that should occur. It's good to see that this new BBC encoder does proper CBR instead of "constant" CBR.
Better information can be gained from recording a programme and seeing if the bitrate changes as well as the average bitrate.
Sky Sports HD uses 17Mbit/s for matches, which is justified considering the content and the price you pay for the channel. (and is probably sky being very conservative because lowering the bitrate on such an expensive and flagship channel would be dangerous)
Sky Movies on the other hand are a joke sometimes getting statmuxed to 5-6Mbps and looking absolutely awful and I'm suprised people on the Sky HD forum don't write abuse to James Murdoch or whoever like the abuse Andy and the BBC get.*
I haven't checked it for a while but iirc Eurosport HD is 11-12mbit average. Even if it is 20mbit/s now it's only for the time being before the 3dtv channel hits that mux.
You've got to bear in mind here that BBC HD has one of best picture qualities of any HD channel in the world and what's made me laugh a lot is the new encoder at 9Mbit/s PRODUCES A BETTER PICTURE QUALITY and is better than the one Sky/ITV use. (The old BBC encoder did stronger noise reduction, though not as strong as the ITV "sandpaper" encoder)
At the end of the day Andy and Danielle have reached out to the viewing audience and have got hugely disproportionate amounts of abuse about some nitpicking factors.
In an ideal world there are things I'd like to see improved across broadcast as a whole:
e.g.
Broadcast encoder manfacturers selling overpriced and poor hardware encoders (both MPEG-2 contribution and H.264 to the home) --> harass these guys instead. (It's beyond me how you can have blocking at 55Mbps)
AC3 audio in this day and age when you've got a world class video codec but an audio codec that's nearly 20 years old. Ideally it would be AAC/HE-AAC but Dolby have inroads in with their Dolby E codec...
But it's not going to happen...so get over it and find something more worthwhile to complain vociferously about (like DOGs and junk on the screen for example )
*This is what I hate about "social media" - suddenly everyone's misinformed opinion becomes worthwhile and people feed of misinformation like flies. People sitting behind their computer screens posting abuse that they wouldn't have the guts to say face-to-face.
Strong opinions maybe but I haven't seen anything generally on here or the BBC HD forum that could be called abuse. If you can't take constructive feedback, however harsh, you shouldn't be in a public service business. The way forward for everyone is to learn from constructive criticism, make necessary changes and keep everyone happy by doing so including yourself.
You've got to bear in mind here that BBC HD has one of best picture qualities of any HD channel in the world
I'm not sure about that per se but granted some programmes have been very good and personally have always been at the forefront of praising the BBC when they've got it right. There have been some excellent examples amongst the best in the world eg. some of the South Pacific footage and some of the Oceans footage (although a minority of footage in Oceans could have been improved), and some poor ones that probably rate amongst the worst in the world eg. Coast the other night in Devon and Cornwall was dreadful - real blurry images at times. I'd have to describe BBC HD as a mixture but getting there. When its good its generally very good.
and what's made me laugh a lot is the new encoder at 9Mbit/s PRODUCES A BETTER PICTURE QUALITY and is better than the one Sky/ITV use.
Not sure I read that claim above so not sure if that's aimed at my claim of having seen an improvement in Wildest Dreams. Improvement was there full stop and full credit to the BBC for it.
As for the fact that a BBC encoder at 9mbs couldn't possibly produce a better picture than another encoder at a higher bit rate, I have only one thing to say from tv - LUXE HD. They've been proving that encoding can make a real difference for years. When they were at 8mbs they were streaks ahead of the BBC at 16mbs and that wasn't just my opinion but a large number of BBC HD viewers. Again all credit to the BBC for doing something about it.
At the end of the day Andy and Danielle have reached out to the viewing audience and have got hugely disproportionate amounts of abuse about some nitpicking factors.
I doubt many people would call picture quality a nit picking factor.
All credit to Andy and Daniel for listening and making this change.
Again I'm not sure where the abuse factor comes in as all I've seen is strong but fair feedback not abuse.
People sitting behind their computer screens posting abuse that they wouldn't have the guts to say face-to-face.
Can't speak for everyone, but personally I'm not an abusive person (I've still got to see the abuse your talking about) but believe me I won't say anything on here that I won't say to your face.
I doubt many people would call picture quality a nit picking factor.
The only valid picture quality issues are picture quality issues with screenshots and/or clips and where possible bitstream analysis with a program such as elecard streameye to show what the encoder is doing wrong.
Just a quickie here about "other" non-live channels. BBC HD is a "live" channel, that is the images are encoded on-the-fly and (in theory) we could change a programme to feed a live source at anytime. I have said earlier (much to the chagrin of wednesday83, we could do very good HD at 6Mbs but you could walk to Wimbledon, see the match and walk back again long before we had coded it. If you can pre encode you can get stunning images especially if you make programmes that are designed to show off the glories of HD!
The new coders are a great step forward and we are still working on improvements based on the tools we get (not just the blunt instrument of bit rate) - and yes you can see artefacts at 55Mbs!!!
The only valid picture quality issues are picture quality issues with screenshots and/or clips and where possible bitstream analysis with a program such as elecard streameye to show what the encoder is doing wrong.
Most are probably psychological.
I can't agree with you there Kunkie. On Coast the other night (round Newquay etc), the failings were clear to see on tv (no pc analysis needed), the colours were poor and flat and at times the picture was lacking detail and positively blurry. I wondered if they'd mixed SD and HD footage it was so poor in places but as the BBC don't upscale, fault can't lie there.
On Oceans, generally its been excellent but there have been one or two scenes which again looked a little undetailed / un sharp.
That said, credit where credit is due, the BBC do a good job when they get it right. The rest of the Oceans footage has been excellent. South Pacific has been fantastic apart from the cloud scenes in the titles which looked blurry - question whether these were computer generated as the Microsoft HD showcase clip on stormchasers has a research glider flying through fluffy clouds and the detail and sharpness are amazing. (Google Microsoft WMV HD showcase if you dont trust the link: http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/d/d/3ddf1a46-28cd-4b09-9e59-2f111da3545e/Stormchasers_1080.exe).
Just a quickie here about "other" non-live channels. BBC HD is a "live" channel, that is the images are encoded on-the-fly and (in theory) we could change a programme to feed a live source at anytime. I have said earlier (much to the chagrin of wednesday83, we could do very good HD at 6Mbs but you could walk to Wimbledon, see the match and walk back again long before we had coded it. If you can pre encode you can get stunning images especially if you make programmes that are designed to show off the glories of HD!
The new coders are a great step forward and we are still working on improvements based on the tools we get (not just the blunt instrument of bit rate) - and yes you can see artefacts at 55Mbs!!!
Andy
Hi Andy,
Thanks for taking the time to post here, I'm sure everyone appreciates it.
I take the point on pre-encoding and this certainly explains why you can't touch Luxe's current 4mbs bit rate.
I'm glad to see you recognise (even if Kunkie does not) that there's more to encoding than just bit rate. I learnt that a long time ago when encoding video myself. Always used to annoy me when I'd encode a gaming video at the best possible quality only to have someone else come along and post similar footage from the same game at twice the picture quality and half the bit rate!!! The miracle of H.264 or more correctly VC1 has helped a lot here although encoding is still a back art. I now shoot and encode HD video myself although only at amateur level.
I don't know if its a commercial secret or not but what encoders did the BBC get out of interest Ateme or some others?
I have said earlier (much to the chagrin of wednesday83, we could do very good HD at 6Mbs but you could walk to Wimbledon, see the match and walk back again long before we had coded it.
I would go further than that and say 1080p25 can be done live and at less 6mbit and still look better than most of the broadcast encoders out there. Getting it into the broadcast chain is a bit more complicated...
Someone's got to encourage the EBU to use H.264 w/ a good encoder for contribution links...
The miracle of H.264 or more correctly VC1 has helped a lot here although encoding is still a back art.
I don't understand what you're saying here - H.264 is far more advanced than VC-1, it's just that the Sonic and Blu-code encoders are so poor VC-1 ends up looking better.
I'm glad to see you recognise (even if Kunkie does not) that there's more to encoding than just bit rate.
One thing the new encoders will allow BBC HD to do is vary the bit rate for sport. Potentially if 10mbs works well for normal tv at better than existing quality, they could increase the bit rate back to 16mbs on the new codecs for football thus giving a massive picture boost with a corresponding reduction in artefacts. Although results would have to be seen, such a move has the potential to massively reduce motion blur at the expense of only 90 minutes of higher band width.
I think Andy's posted on his blog in the past day that they will not be varying bit rates
*This is what I hate about "social media" - suddenly everyone's misinformed opinion becomes worthwhile and people feed of misinformation like flies. People sitting behind their computer screens posting abuse that they wouldn't have the guts to say face-to-face.
I'd be extremely happy to say it face to face.
I've offered for the BBC to come around to my house , (I'm not far from BBC manchester) to see my picture quality. Appreciate they won't do that though because that might set a precident.
What do you think so far? The pitch is divided into two lightness sections which doesn't make it easier. But for me it looks better than sky sport HD Germany footy at the moment.
Here I am seeing it struggle a bit when a new camera picks in to a different scene, pixelates for a split second, maybe more so when it goes to the different light area of the pitch under the shade. Also on a couple of occasions when I have seen the ball kicked hard at distance, the first few meters the ball flies through the air I have seen a ball behind it also, like a ball trailing behind. Never seen this before when watching HD football. BUT, if being honest, I am slightly surprised over-all at the quality to say its being broadcast at less than 10MB/s. Much better than i expected.
Still, its not in the same league as Sky Sports HD football picture quality, but thats to be expected when they broadcast that at around 15MB/s
It's bloody awful.. It's fine when the cameras aren't panning but as soon as they do it's like a poor SD feed. ITV HD football (when they get it right) is better..
I would say its now on a par with ITV-HD matches in picture quality, the one big advantage this has is that we have sound thats not breaking up every 30s. Unlike ITV-HD matches, where 70% of them I have watched I have had to switch back to ITV1-W Country (SD) so I don't have the annoying silence every 30s.
You know the BBC read these forums, so perhaps a better explanation of the problems you are seeing would be in order so as to help them improve...
mj
I'm not sure how much clearer I can make it. The picture quality falls away when the centreline camera pans across the pitch. Look at the players when a pan happens they just turn to a blur. The encoders aren't up to the job at the current rate.
I can confirm this here also, on anything like fast panning, the definition totally tails away. Also as I said above, it pixelates when moving between camera's or going from light to shade.
I'd worry if I was getting pixellating in shadows - just a change in contrast/brightness for me. Do you get this problem elsewhere ? IS it a coincidence that the two people really having probs are using freesat rather than SKY ?
Comments
Just for interest Snoods, why do you watch TV through a computer?
Well it's handy for recording things on and it is linked to a large LCD too via an xbox extender as well, so it's convenient for streaming all sorts of things round the house Boatman.
Oh and i rather like Windows 7 Media Centre too which is of course PC based.
However, I do appreciate your info on new channels.
Yes i agree it's not everyone cup of tea, and it's certainly non standard, but for me, it offers much more versatility than just a receiver and screen.
There's been nothing to watch for a while as football season is over. Long term users have noted big swings in ITV HD quality in films and programmes from fantastic to poor.
However, football is one thing that has struggled on ITV HD. The picture has looked fantastic whilst the camera has been perfectly still but the slightest pan, even at a few millimetres a second and the pitch becomes a total blur. There have been domestic cup matches where the compression's been so high the crowd as well as the grass were blurry and compression blocking could be seen - that was unwatcheable and I switched off!!!!! There was the final (forget which one at Wembley) where they had trouble with the contrast between the sun and shadows. Some blame the sun, personally, I blame the cameras / production although the sun certainly made conditions difficult.
That said, there have also been a few matches where football has been quite good albeit with some grass blur. I can only think ITV have been experimenting.
One thing the new encoders will allow BBC HD to do is vary the bit rate for sport. Potentially if 10mbs works well for normal tv at better than existing quality, they could increase the bit rate back to 16mbs on the new codecs for football thus giving a massive picture boost with a corresponding reduction in artefacts. Although results would have to be seen, such a move has the potential to massively reduce motion blur at the expense of only 90 minutes of higher band width.
Not for me. Latest version of DVBViewer Pro (4.1.1) on XP, latest CoreAVC (1.9.5), and Rick Stein jitters from the start. Rolling titles on the closing credits are unwatchable. Previously it was perfect as was (and still is) ITV HD.
Videolan/VLC 1.0.1 is perfect incidentally, including for the closing credits. So far it is the only player I've found which works with the new bit rate/codec.
That Linowsat page is basically useless for channels which are statmuxed or use constant bitrate with VBV because its sample rate is so low that it doesn't give you a proper picture of the increases/decrease that should occur. It's good to see that this new BBC encoder does proper CBR instead of "constant" CBR.
Better information can be gained from recording a programme and seeing if the bitrate changes as well as the average bitrate.
Sky Sports HD uses 17Mbit/s for matches, which is justified considering the content and the price you pay for the channel. (and is probably sky being very conservative because lowering the bitrate on such an expensive and flagship channel would be dangerous)
Sky Movies on the other hand are a joke sometimes getting statmuxed to 5-6Mbps and looking absolutely awful and I'm suprised people on the Sky HD forum don't write abuse to James Murdoch or whoever like the abuse Andy and the BBC get.*
I haven't checked it for a while but iirc Eurosport HD is 11-12mbit average. Even if it is 20mbit/s now it's only for the time being before the 3dtv channel hits that mux.
You've got to bear in mind here that BBC HD has one of best picture qualities of any HD channel in the world and what's made me laugh a lot is the new encoder at 9Mbit/s PRODUCES A BETTER PICTURE QUALITY and is better than the one Sky/ITV use. (The old BBC encoder did stronger noise reduction, though not as strong as the ITV "sandpaper" encoder)
At the end of the day Andy and Danielle have reached out to the viewing audience and have got hugely disproportionate amounts of abuse about some nitpicking factors.
In an ideal world there are things I'd like to see improved across broadcast as a whole:
e.g.
Broadcast encoder manfacturers selling overpriced and poor hardware encoders (both MPEG-2 contribution and H.264 to the home) --> harass these guys instead. (It's beyond me how you can have blocking at 55Mbps)
AC3 audio in this day and age when you've got a world class video codec but an audio codec that's nearly 20 years old. Ideally it would be AAC/HE-AAC but Dolby have inroads in with their Dolby E codec...
But it's not going to happen...so get over it and find something more worthwhile to complain vociferously about (like DOGs and junk on the screen for example
*This is what I hate about "social media" - suddenly everyone's misinformed opinion becomes worthwhile and people feed of misinformation like flies. People sitting behind their computer screens posting abuse that they wouldn't have the guts to say face-to-face.
Strong opinions maybe but I haven't seen anything generally on here or the BBC HD forum that could be called abuse. If you can't take constructive feedback, however harsh, you shouldn't be in a public service business. The way forward for everyone is to learn from constructive criticism, make necessary changes and keep everyone happy by doing so including yourself.
I'm not sure about that per se but granted some programmes have been very good and personally have always been at the forefront of praising the BBC when they've got it right. There have been some excellent examples amongst the best in the world eg. some of the South Pacific footage and some of the Oceans footage (although a minority of footage in Oceans could have been improved), and some poor ones that probably rate amongst the worst in the world eg. Coast the other night in Devon and Cornwall was dreadful - real blurry images at times. I'd have to describe BBC HD as a mixture but getting there. When its good its generally very good.
Not sure I read that claim above so not sure if that's aimed at my claim of having seen an improvement in Wildest Dreams. Improvement was there full stop and full credit to the BBC for it.
As for the fact that a BBC encoder at 9mbs couldn't possibly produce a better picture than another encoder at a higher bit rate, I have only one thing to say from tv - LUXE HD. They've been proving that encoding can make a real difference for years. When they were at 8mbs they were streaks ahead of the BBC at 16mbs and that wasn't just my opinion but a large number of BBC HD viewers. Again all credit to the BBC for doing something about it.
I doubt many people would call picture quality a nit picking factor.
All credit to Andy and Daniel for listening and making this change.
Again I'm not sure where the abuse factor comes in as all I've seen is strong but fair feedback not abuse.
Can't speak for everyone, but personally I'm not an abusive person (I've still got to see the abuse your talking about) but believe me I won't say anything on here that I won't say to your face.
The only valid picture quality issues are picture quality issues with screenshots and/or clips and where possible bitstream analysis with a program such as elecard streameye to show what the encoder is doing wrong.
Most are probably psychological.
The new coders are a great step forward and we are still working on improvements based on the tools we get (not just the blunt instrument of bit rate) - and yes you can see artefacts at 55Mbs!!!
Andy
Yes indeed, some people should remember that you don't have that Luxe-ury!
Multi-pass pre-encoding on carefully selected material can be a wonderful thing.
I can't agree with you there Kunkie. On Coast the other night (round Newquay etc), the failings were clear to see on tv (no pc analysis needed), the colours were poor and flat and at times the picture was lacking detail and positively blurry. I wondered if they'd mixed SD and HD footage it was so poor in places but as the BBC don't upscale, fault can't lie there.
On Oceans, generally its been excellent but there have been one or two scenes which again looked a little undetailed / un sharp.
That said, credit where credit is due, the BBC do a good job when they get it right. The rest of the Oceans footage has been excellent. South Pacific has been fantastic apart from the cloud scenes in the titles which looked blurry - question whether these were computer generated as the Microsoft HD showcase clip on stormchasers has a research glider flying through fluffy clouds and the detail and sharpness are amazing. (Google Microsoft WMV HD showcase if you dont trust the link: http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/d/d/3ddf1a46-28cd-4b09-9e59-2f111da3545e/Stormchasers_1080.exe).
Hi Andy,
Thanks for taking the time to post here, I'm sure everyone appreciates it.
I take the point on pre-encoding and this certainly explains why you can't touch Luxe's current 4mbs bit rate.
I'm glad to see you recognise (even if Kunkie does not) that there's more to encoding than just bit rate. I learnt that a long time ago when encoding video myself. Always used to annoy me when I'd encode a gaming video at the best possible quality only to have someone else come along and post similar footage from the same game at twice the picture quality and half the bit rate!!! The miracle of H.264 or more correctly VC1 has helped a lot here although encoding is still a back art. I now shoot and encode HD video myself although only at amateur level.
I don't know if its a commercial secret or not but what encoders did the BBC get out of interest Ateme or some others?
I would go further than that and say 1080p25 can be done live and at less 6mbit and still look better than most of the broadcast encoders out there. Getting it into the broadcast chain is a bit more complicated...
Someone's got to encourage the EBU to use H.264 w/ a good encoder for contribution links...
I don't understand what you're saying here - H.264 is far more advanced than VC-1, it's just that the Sonic and Blu-code encoders are so poor VC-1 ends up looking better.
Very ironic considering my job...
I think Andy's posted on his blog in the past day that they will not be varying bit rates
I'd be extremely happy to say it face to face.
I've offered for the BBC to come around to my house , (I'm not far from BBC manchester) to see my picture quality. Appreciate they won't do that though because that might set a precident.
Still, its not in the same league as Sky Sports HD football picture quality, but thats to be expected when they broadcast that at around 15MB/s
You know the BBC read these forums, so perhaps a better explanation of the problems you are seeing would be in order so as to help them improve...
mj
Can I suggest people put comments on Andy Questeds BBC blog.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/11/bbc_hd_picture_quality_and_dol.html
I'm not sure how much clearer I can make it. The picture quality falls away when the centreline camera pans across the pitch. Look at the players when a pan happens they just turn to a blur. The encoders aren't up to the job at the current rate.