Not much fussed about the wedding, but interested to know what the pic quality will be like between BBC HD and ITV HD.
I wonder if the Beeb will increase their bit rate today to make it look better
Lynowsat(if your reading this), I need your help end of day to see what the BBC HD bitrate peeks at.

Try ITV Granada HD or STV HD

Is it on NHK HD by any chance ?

Early indications point to an increased bit rate. The BBC HD channel is displaying a static screen probably to allow for greater headroom should the demand for One HD increase. My guess would be to tune to ITV Granada HD where the better screen res would be more favourable.

I've just put BBC-1 HD on (Freesat) and the live HD pictures are stunningly good! Rather like we used to get before they started fiddling about.

Sky News HD has the best picture quality compared to BBC HD

I can't swap channels because I'm recording - what is BBC HD displaying? I thought they might do that.

Agreed. Sky's HD picture quality is sharper and richer than the BBC's. Pin sharp! Good audio too.

But with 5.1 sound on BBC vs stereo on ITV -there's no competition.... the music is stunning and the pictures are good enough for me! (edit: on Freesat)

Isn't the saving of bandwisth by showing a caption screen on BBC-HD an admission that their 'normal' HD pictures are second-rate?

Not necessarily.... fit for (normal) purpose.... but for an 'exra-ordinary' event perhaps they are allowing BOTH ITV and BBC on Freeview HD to share the extra (stat-muxing identical pictures on two channels is not ideal - both will be demanding more bit-rate at the same moment in time).

Totally I think, they originally had BBC HD programmes scheduled all day, so someone made a concious decision to display a static picture.

Not necessarily, remember ITV1 HD Meridian on the same transponder was showing the same content as BBC One HD so that may have necessitated a change from the norm.

They weren't showing the same content as far as I know - when I swapped around they were all cutting to different shots at different times. Same range of cameras, but they were choosing different shots at different times. Only occassionally were the shots the same - specifically ceiling shots seemed to be pre-planned

A lot of the time they were showing the same shots, I know as I was flicking back and forth too (STV HD/ITV1 HD was slightly ahead of BBC One HD).

Actually I was flicking between Sky and BBC come to think of it, Sky HD had the picture quality edge on the BBC

From a quick check on the screenshots I've taken it shows clearly more detail on STV HD/ITV1 HD Granada @1920x1080 than BBC One HD does @1440x1080. It shows the telltale signs I saw before when I did the Monte Carlo or Bust test, less detail in hair, clothing, facial hair, less brilliant shine on metallic objects.

Glad someone else noticed a colour difference.

I didn't between BBC HD and Sky as I don't have Sky but BBC ONE HD vs SD showed a very noticeable difference in colour saturation.

Similarly there was more detail on people's hair, her dress and tapestry on Sky HD at 1920x1080

Yup, on the medals, jewellery and hats/veils particularly noticeable too, please, BBC drop this denial about the difference between 1440 and 1920 being negligible.

jzee, did you get any screen caps? I only managed to get the 1440 ITV HD feed.

Cheers,
David.

Yes I did, not as good as they could be as I mistakenly set to jpgs instead of pngs but you can still see more detail in the STV HD 1920 version vs BBC One HD @ 1440 (will post later tonight or tomorrow....).

I got bits of the Granada stream, e.g.

http://www.mediafire.com/i/?1xf9bpxiu24b2w5

I'm not sure hardware deinterlacing is working 100% though?

http://www.mediafire.com/i/?rz3u4g15cxaknwv

Judge for yourselves

http://www.4shared.com/photo/Th6m9V0...hlightsm2.html

http://www.4shared.com/photo/pgxzg3h...hlightsm2.html

Untouched bitmaps from the original transmission stream. To view the anamorphic footage from the BBC on a square pixel monitor in it's correct aspect ratio you need a decent photo editor like Photoshop.

One thing for certain the superb 5.1 track on the BBC recording more than made up for any minor differences in picture quality, a totally immersing experience. (assuming of course you have decent audio kit).

OK, here's the BBC One HD comparison of these two:

veil - in your ITV1 HD shot more detail in cassock, beard and jewel.

service - detail in cassock and text is better in your ITV1 HD shot, colours are more saturated in my BBC shot.

Thanks Graham. On this showing the anamorphic BBC wins anyway so there's nothing to make up for. (Rescaled unsing GIMP and Lanczos3 interpolation.) Totally agree on the sound quality--AC 5.1 vs mp2 stereo--no contest.

And it's not surprising if the BBC won--they had bitrate as required up their sleeve to start with, and they originated the pictures so this is just a test of encoders.

Before anyone jumps on comparing stills again, yes, it seems these are from highlights shows which complicates matters, and they are different frames so, assuming the encoders produce identical behaviour when fed the same images, then if they treat different frames differently then the comparison is void anyway.

Still interesting though. But if the topic is 1920 v 1440, a comparison with a 1440 ITV feed would work from a more level playing field.