TV quality with true?

[dragonfly94]

Not just true as cable has been worse, why is the picture quality of broadcast here so poor, is it money or capability? Last night watched Downtown Abbey on Now channel via true and it was barely watchable. The Thai HD channels that 3 and 7 have are not much better than the normal ones. On a trip home to the UK I was amazed at the quality of HD on a good tv these days, so what are Thais doing differently? No surprise they never show Thai broadcasts on TV's for sale in shops, nobody would buy them if they did, it's always specially made very HD material.

Edited January 15, 2015 by dragonfly94

[billphillips]

I think that you may have a problem with your equipment. I use True and the pic and sound quality is excellent. Before I used the sat system and now use True cable, as it became available. HD will only be available if you are using a HDMI cable to the tv. Report a problem and get them round to sort it out.

[kotsak]

Do the local Thai channels actually broadcast in HD via TrueVisions? So far only TNN is HD from what I see. The rest of the Thai channels say HD in their logos but they are a joke. Apparently they think that Digital equals to HD?

[IMHO]

The Thai "HD" channels are indeed poor quality - the only real difference to before is they are now 16:9 rather than 4:3.

Most of the other (overseas) "HD" channels on Truevisions broadcast in 1080i - with exceptions being AXN and RTL/CBS, which seem to both broadcast some of their content in 720P (even though you know it was shot at at least 1080P), and of course some older content which was never HD to begin with.

As for quality, content that is broadcast in 1080i is quite good - definitely better than HD IPTV services (which are nearly all 720P 'HD', and highly compressed), but also definitely not as good a Bluray 1080P.

Edited January 15, 2015 by IMHO

[kotsak]

The Thai "HD" channels are indeed poor quality - the only real difference to before is they are now 16:9 rather than 4:3.

Most of the other (overseas) "HD" channels on Truevisions broadcast in 1080i - with exceptions being AXN and RTL/CBS, which seem to both broadcast some of their content in 720P (even though you know it was shot at at least 1080P), and of course some older content which was never HD to begin with.

As for quality, content that is broadcast in 1080i is quite good - definitely better than HD IPTV services (which are nearly all 720P 'HD', and highly compressed), but also definitely not as good a Bluray 1080P.

Some local channels, which market themselves as being HD have quality bordering VCD Apparently placing a logo saying "HD" makes them look great. Maybe it works for very small TV screeens but even on a 32" screen it's very poor quality.

Of course good luck with getting an answer to this problem. TIT

[Torrens54]

Spare a thought for Aussie Expats who have WETV as a Cable Service.

WETV lost "Australia Plus" again last week, they then started running Religious Programmes 24/7 and yesterday started running Chinese Soaps.

Every time we phone we are told they are fixing the problem. Ask for the Manager "Apple" and she is "in a meeting." ask for her to call back.... NEVER HAPPENS.

Is there any ALTERNATIVE in Chiang Mai?

[NCC1701A]

Thailand is not Japan, Germany or the USA where program image quality must be PERFECT. And their "good enough" work philosophy really shows in the poor image quality.

I worked in broadcast television for 40 years and the last 15 years in HDTV in the USA and I can tell you picture quality is terrible in Thailand.

The satellite compression is terrible, some of the programming looks to be up converted from standard definition video. I am not really sure what they are doing, but I can tell at a glance it is horrible. And until all programming is produced in HD then the IMAGE quality from program to program will be different. Also, they may be cross converting from other older television stands like 525 NTSC and 625 PAL and throw in different frame rates and everything looks like crap. All of this adds to the problem.

even the live news programs look terrible which tells you both the cable and sat feeds are horribly compressed.

a good test would be to take a new HDTV which is setup properly and hook up a television antenna to receive the local television broadcast, not cable or satellite. Broadcast HD television is the best quality image a consumer can have in their home. Then look at the LIVE news broadcast which should be in at least 720p HD.

If you can compare the cable and sat to the live broadcast you may see a big difference.