Hdtv

[mickmac]

Now that the Shin corp. has a new "all singing all dancing" satellite launched, will UBC start transmitting HD format programmes? Apparently the new sat. has HD capabilities, and just wondered if anyone has heard if this will be happening in the near future?

[solo siam]

Dunno but UBC have been buying up HD content from the states, so it's most probably likely.

[Firefoxx]

I don't think it's going to be any time soon. No announcements, no hardware support, no whisper of an idea. They're still trying to convert analog cable users to the digital (non-HD) service, so a new rollout of yet another $$$ upgrade is going to be hard to market. The football (soccer) season is just around the corner, so they're going to miss the window of opportunity.

[astral]

The existing service is expensive for what it is.

Do you really want Red Screens in high definition.

[Simmo]

I doubt it will be anytime soon.

I always get a laugh out of people buying huge widescreen TV's then watching Standard 4:3 TV on them. Then they wonder why it looks stretched and fuzzy.

[solo siam]

Amazes me that people think that resolution only applies to high definition cable or satellite. People buy big TV's because a) they can afford it and they want a big TV, its not because they think their 42" Tv is going to make their UBC signal HD.

Besides, you can buy HD DVD players today, Xbox 360's today, PC's today - all of which use High Definition.

I would guess on HDTV over satellite being around 12 months away for Thailand, perhaps a little longer but not much - In teh meantime an upscaling DVD player provides a pretty excellent picture compared to the old analogue DVD players.

[King Dong]

I was in the sony center a week or so ago, lookin @ getting one of those new bravias. The boss there told me to expect HDTV broardcasts in Thailand in about 2 years time

[astral]

Thailand has not even reached the 16:9 widescreen standard.

HDTV is just a pipe dream.

[solo siam]

What are you people talking about, about half the content on UBC is Widescreen (Strangely you have to set it up as 4:3 on the UBC box), as are all DVD's.

Sure the terrestrial channels are all 4:3, but if you've got enough money for a 16:9 screen then you've got enough for cable/satellite.

In regards to the Bravia, its a nice screen but the same as the Samsung (who sell a 46" for like 150k baht), dont bother with the non HDMI one.

[LivinLOS]

Do you mean you can get the box to perform a widescreen output Ben ?? Maybe its me miss understanding your comments or maybe its my older gen box..

There is some letterboxed content broadcast as 4:3 with embedded black bars.. Theres no widescreen output I can get from my box (I can only crop and use the even lower resolution letterboxed area)..

Those Bravias are nice but price wise they dont stack up..

[solo siam]

Do you mean you can get the box to perform a widescreen output Ben ?? Maybe its me miss understanding your comments or maybe its my older gen box..

There is some letterboxed content broadcast as 4:3 with embedded black bars.. Theres no widescreen output I can get from my box (I can only crop and use the even lower resolution letterboxed area)..

Those Bravias are nice but price wise they dont stack up..

They've just come down in price I believe, the 42" starts at 90,000 baht I think.

The Samsungs are better though, 46" for 149,000 Baht.

In terms of widescreen, I dont ever get any black bars but some of the video/channels are obviously squeezed wide but its definitely a 16:9 signal, The same for Astro (Which is cheaper and actually offers a much better picture).

[LivinLOS]

I know astro is loads better than UBC.. Had it for a while during the weak encryption phase..

But I dissagree with you on the widescreen aspect side and think your display is performing stretches crops or funtions for you either without you knowing etc..

Looking at all channel info they are all broadcast in normal PAL-B 576i.. Some channels (discovery / animal planet etc) Have quite a bit of letterboxed content but thats not what I call 'broadcast in widescreen' (I know this is kinda being picky but PAL wide at 1024x576 or even anamorphic wide are a leap higher in quality).. By using letterboxed content your only getting less resolution and data than normal for the (larger) widescreen image..

Another annoyance is as I have to use the UBC box to pipe my TV feed into the (HTPC then) display.. I have to keep playing with aspect ratio as I cannel surf.. A smart box would store per channel settings, which also incedentlaly would solve some of the audio up and down issues..

Anyway its only TV right..

[astral]

Another annoyance is as I have to use the UBC box to pipe my TV feed into the (HTPC then) display.. I have to keep playing with aspect ratio as I cannel surf.. A smart box would store per channel settings, which also incedentlaly would solve some of the audio up and down issues..

Anyway its only TV right..

If it is real 16:9 then the TV should detect it automatically as the info is embedded in the signal!!

[LivinLOS]

Well yes it 'should' be but..

Even if the flag is missing or incorrect you can force AR control depending on the display or processor options..

All I am trying to say is from 'my' UBC box I cant get any true widescreen content.. Theres some letterboxed stuff but pedantic me doesnt consider that properly broadcasting widescreen..

[solo siam]

As far as I Know some content is definitely widescreen, remember when I had the plasma set up it would show 4:3 with black bars at either side (Thai TV etc..) but other channels in 16:9. It was a very old plasma so didnt have any fancy electronics just showed what it got straight through so to speak.

On your UBC box do you have it set-up for 16:9? if so try HBO (movie) or the other movie channel thats just come out. try switching between the 16:9 and 4:3 settings on the UBC box.

[LivinLOS]

No matter what I have done with my box so far it has only ever had 4:3 and letterboxed widescreen.. no 16:9 transmission..

Also lately AXN has gone really awful.. Theres this smeary artifacting all over it.. First noticed a few days ago and actually thought it was some 'dream seaquence' in the show or some other arty type trick.. Its that bad.

[Firefoxx]

I think that your old plasma may have just detected the black bars at the top and bottom and had some automatic circuitry to make it full screen. UBC simply doesn't broadcast in 16:9.

For me, AXN has been that way for some time now. You can see severe ghosting, especially on the drama shows with lots of dark scenes like CSI. There are other channels affected, but not to this extent. I've seen the HD version of CSI, so I know that this isn't the way that it's supposed to be.

[solo siam]

AXN looks quite good on my system, but I think they have a nasty habit of switching over resolutions during ads/cut screens within programs etc... I used an upscaling amplifier up until Friday (upscales all sources to 720p) and it would be fine upscaling everything to 720p except AXN which would flicker (indicating a resolution change) on cut-scenes or when switching to adverts or new programs.

Thinking about it, the Plasma I used for a while was so old it wouldnt surprise me if it wasnt a 800x600 resolution which really starts to confuse the 16:9 issue especially using the upscaling Amplifier.

[Thairish]

The only times I have seen true 16:9 anamorphic stuff on UBC are programs bought from the UK. Like that Robot Wars or music videos. As the broadcasters there change the aspect ratio as they broadcast it (14:9 Letterbox), the original source is 16:9 anamorphic.

Edited June 6, 2006 by Thairish

[LivinLOS]

AXN looks quite good on my system, but I think they have a nasty habit of switching over resolutions during ads/cut screens within programs etc... I used an upscaling amplifier up until Friday (upscales all sources to 720p) and it would be fine upscaling everything to 720p except AXN which would flicker (indicating a resolution change) on cut-scenes or when switching to adverts or new programs.

Thinking about it, the Plasma I used for a while was so old it wouldnt surprise me if it wasnt a 800x600 resolution which really starts to confuse the 16:9 issue especially using the upscaling Amplifier.

The output resolution would not be an effect in this as the TV's scaling curcuitry will work to mitigate this anyway..

I suspect the TV was just using a 'crop' mode.. That way the widescreen letterboxed stuff looked right on (eg discovery / NGC / Animal planet) and the 4:3 was cropped to the panel but most 4:3 can suffer a crop without too much visible effect.

I am currently experimenting with 2 different directshow filters.. The first is a filter that performs a non linear stretch eg it shows tv like S--T-RET-C--H making the other edge of frame more distorted and the central section less distorted.. As most things are centered its the best compromise stretch mode I have found but does have the issue where a fixed size item changes shape as it goes to the edge of screen.. A ball can turn a bit egg shaped in this format. I may try to combine this effect with a tiny (eg 5%) crop to lower the distortion some more.. 5% is well within normal TV overscan range..

The second direct show filter is a detect black bars filter (and it can ignore TV logos also) and this should be able to detect black bars encoded on the signal and when detected drop to a letterbox crop display.. So that my channel surfing will automate (and during adverts) between S--T-REC-T--H mode for 4:3 to 16:9 conversion and cropped letterbox when appropriate all on the fly in real time.. This isnt working properly yet but I am close..

Theres loads you can do with the dscaler filters and a HTPC !!

Edited June 7, 2006 by LivinLOS

[LivinLOS]

BTW forgot to say.. Is the flicker you see blue flashes ??

I thought that was a product of using a homebrew videophile grab card modified input filters and capacitors.. I though it was an issue with the caps charging as I see it with white full screens and it made sense as thats a voltage drop on the signal.

[LivinLOS]

The only times I have seen true 16:9 anamorphic stuff on UBC are programs bought from the UK. Like that Robot Wars or music videos. As the broadcasters there change the aspect ratio as they broadcast it (14:9 Letterbox), the original source is 16:9 anamorphic.

I am unsure what your saying here.. I am 99.99% certain they are not outputting any anamorphic content.. Quite simply there would be no way that the installed base of Thai TV's would be able to handle an anamorphic widescreen signal.. My system setup would also throw a fritz and I would see it as I have disable the automatic aspect ratio control so I can over ride pillarboxing 4:3 content and stretch it out of shape.

If you mean they purchased anamorphic widescreen content and then that content was downrezzed at source or even at the box (I suspect the box is capable of 16:9 flagging just not used) to output letterboxed then perhaps.. Would be very hard to tell between anamorphic and downrezzed at output and letterbox from source.. If done right there would be no way to tell..

Just moving to 16:9 anamorphic and using the widescreen flagging and full resolution for the wide content would be a huge leap in signal quality.. Upping the video bandwidth and not being alseep on the compression switch would also help no end.. As much as I am all in favour of HD content (not only for the pixel resolution but color resolution.. Looking at HD is so much more vibrant in many ways other than purely detail) top quality broadcast PAL is much better than NTSC (Never The Same Color) IF its done well !! Of course if your not paying attention its poor..

[solo siam]

BTW forgot to say.. Is the flicker you see blue flashes ??

I thought that was a product of using a homebrew videophile grab card modified input filters and capacitors.. I though it was an issue with the caps charging as I see it with white full screens and it made sense as thats a voltage drop on the signal.

Yes I do believe they where blue, it only happened mainly on Cut Scenes or when rolling to/from adverts and mainly on AXN. Definitely a resolution or format change of some kind.

I watched that new cooking program on BBC Prime the other day, with the Italian guy and the Londoner (both with longish hair) - I could have sworn it was proper widescreen 16:9 with a few letterbox cut-scenes thrown in for good measure. Also I double checked and putting my UBC box to 16:9 makes the native image narrower than it is on the 4:3 setting which I really don't understand unless its for widescreen TV's with 4:3 resolutions??