Digispy

My VOD picture has been awful since Thursday. The picture starts off ok, but then every few seconds, it pixelates horribly, freezes and then suddenly goes back to normal. It’s then ok again for a few seconds but then just repeats the problem over and over again. It does it both on my V+ and V box so i know it’s not the boxes (i did reboot both just in case).

Not sure if it’s a local problem (i’m in the North East, DL3 Darlington area). I rang VM yesterday to report it but they said they couldn’t do anything about it until monday coz they are updating their billing system or something.

Anyone else had/having the same problem?

On SKY Box Office’s last two PPV’s ive had bad pixelation.

At times the bit rate is so low it’s just an absolute bloody joke.

When i pay £15 i expect a solid Sky Sports quality picture throughout.

At times the picture is worse than ITV 4’s though, ffs.

I can’t be the only person who has had this issue on the last two SKY Box Office boxing PPV’s.

If they want to lower the bit rate and not give me a perfect picture like i get with Sky Sports, then they need to lower the price!

Anyone else able to watch Picture Box films without yet subscribing to the service?

More and more I’m noticing on Virgin on Demand a blocky digital picture. I also have sky an it’s totally fine.Is anybody else getting this.Is there a better way I could connect than via the standard cables that might improve the picture quality?

Anyone tried to record iether hd or sd movies on the new service?

Has anyone noticed that the picture quality on this channel is not nearly as good as that of Sky News and Sky Travel?

Colour saturation is lower and the picture is softer, less crisp.

Have to say that the picture quality of Sky News is very good indeed. And Sky Travel is also very good.

So why is SSN noticeably poorer?

HELP!!!!

I have an old ITVD box (Phillips) which the picture keeps seizing. This seems more evident when jumping a considerable number of channels (e.g. from 40 down to 1). I seem to be able to cure it by switching up(or down) one channel then back again.
The signal strength meter thing in the set up menu shows a green line hovering just over the half way mark. I have a loft ariel and one booster.

Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on this.

I was reminded last night while watching ITV, of how poorly ITV seem to treat football compared to other programming.

I started off by watching Return of Jedi, which was a great example of what a DTT Widescreen picture should be like and it looked absolutely superb on my 36 inch Telly. Then I watched Frank Skinner and again pretty decent picture. But when Worthington Cup coverage starts the picture starts off poor but watchable, then decends into unwatchable pixellation as soon as there is any fast moving action.

I’m at the stage now that whenever I watch football/rugby on ITV I switch from the DTT channel to the analogue ITV as the picture is much better.

I believe the problem is probably due to ITV either not allocating a high enough bit rate or poor MPEG2 Encoding of the analogue source signal which is something they should be able to rectify. I have never noticed any problems with sports coverage on BBC DTT, so if they can manage it why can’t ITV.

I don’t believe it is anything to do with ITV using QAM64, as my understanding of Signal Theory means QAM16 only improves picture quality when there is poor reception as it makes the signal more robust and less prone to interference. But this is not a reception problem as other programming is ok.

While problems like this persist, I can’t see how the broadcaster’s will ever convince the majority of people to switch to Digital. I think it is ridiculous that to get a decent picture with sport on ITV I have to switch back to analogue.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Receiving DTT from Rowridge on a Band A aerial at present and hence not getting the mux on channel 52 yet. Other muxes though are fine with good signal strength.
The problem is that BBC2 and CH5 have picture but no sound. Is this because the sound channel is up on mux 52??
Are picture and sound transmitted separately?
The DTT box (Pace) works fine when tried somewhere else and tuned to whitehawk – so the Pace box is ok.
Any ideas welcome.
Thank you.
Tim Ecott.

Can anyone comment on the picture quality via Digital Terrestrial. Is it as good as or better than SKY?