HD isn't HD on TV

[PhilipD]

I was just watching BBC iplayer on the HD Channel, and I have been thinking for a couple of months about this.

When you think about P2 Cards and their 1 hour of filming in HD comes to 64GB at 60p or 32GB at 30p, yet the programme online comes to 1.2GB, that's quite a big Difference in Quality. Especially when my DVX comes to 5 GB's in AVI

Just thinking that's alll :beer:

 

[Batutta]

I was just watching BBC iplayer on the HD Channel, and I have been thinking for a couple of months about this.

When you think about P2 Cards and their 1 hour of filming in HD comes to 64GB at 60p or 32GB at 30p, yet the programme online comes to 1.2GB, that's quite a big Difference in Quality. Especially when my DVX comes to 5 GB's in AVI

Just thinking that's alll :beer:

It's just heavily compressed, which you can notice quite frequently in sports as the picture often breaks up into ugly chunks on fast movement. The resolution is technically HD, and on an undemanding source you can get a great picture. My movie channels generally produce a great picture with compression artifacts that aren't too visible. Also, shows that were shot digitally, like Spartacus Blood and Sand (shot on RED), look dynamite, as the compressor isn't fighting grain and gate weave and other film artifacts.

 

[PhilipD]

It's just heavily compressed, which you can notice quite frequently in sports as the picture often breaks up into ugly chunks on fast movement. The resolution is technically HD, and on an undemanding source you can get a great picture. My movie channels generally produce a great picture with compression artifacts that aren't too visible. Also, shows that were shot digitally, like Spartacus Blood and Sand (shot on RED), look dynamite, as the compressor isn't fighting grain and gate weave and other film artifacts.

Hopefully when I shoot my own then it should look lovely with plenty of detail Oh I need an HD Cam first, will rent one nearer winter so I can get some good winter shots

 

[Bruce Watson]

Compression is a PITA, true enough. But to do the compression well so it's not a total POS, you have to start out with a lot more information than you end up with. What we get with, for example, a 4:2:2 50 Mbps video, is latitude and head room for the editors, color graders, rotoscopers, sound editors, etc. to work with. Lesser encodings and smaller bit rates can get you banding, reduced gamut, crushed blacks, blown out highlights, thin sound, etc.

Even blu-ray maxes out at 40.0 Mbps. But it looks darn good doing it!

TV using an over the air (OTA) antenna is the best bet, and even that is at the mercy of the broadcaster's chosen bit rate. But some OTA signals are pretty good. Cable companies, OTOH, typically squeeze the signal down to tiny bit rates. The resulting artifacts are too hard for me to look at -- crushed blacks and macroblocking in particular just drive me crazy. I'd rather have fewer channels and better signals for the ones we get, but they've never asked me what I want (amazing as that might seem .

Enough of us (me and "my neighbors" as it were) complained to the local NBC affiliate during the last winter Olympics that they actually shifted some bandwidth from one of their secondary channels to the primary to decrease the macroblocking on fast motion. The resulting signal was really pretty good.