Satellites’ Blu-ray Clarity Claims May Be Dubious

[PaulGo]

Satellites’ Blu-ray Clarity Claims May Be Dubious

By Danny King

U.S. satellite companies’ statements that their so-called “full” high-definition broadcasts are as clear as Blu-ray may be murky, according to at least one analyst, who says Blu-ray growth won’t be hindered by such claims.

As HD disc and disc-player sales gradually pick up in the months since Sony’s Blu-ray emerged as the victor over Toshiba’s competing HD DVD format, leading satellite companies DirecTV and Dish Network have expanded their linear HD channel inventory well past the 100-channel mark. More recently, the satcasters have announced upcoming 1080-pixel broadcasts.

Last month, Dish said it would be the first in the industry to offer full-HD programming and that this month it would offer the Will Smith-starring “I Am Legend” on video-on-demand in 1080p resolution, “same as Blu-ray disc quality.” Larger competitor DirecTV also said in July that it would offer 1080p resolution “later this year,” calling it “the same format used by Blu-ray HD DVDs.”

Not so fast, says David Mercer, U.K.-based principal analyst at consultant Strategy Analytics, in a report this week.

“I don’t believe that DirecTV or Dish will actually be offering programming at the same level of quality of [Blu-ray Disc],” Mercer wrote on his blog this week, adding that the Blu-ray Disc Association called the satcasters’ statements “irresponsible” and “misleading.” “The 1080p story is just another phase in that competitive battle, but it is unlikely to seriously affect Blu-ray’s potential.”

Indeed, the second quarter produced mixed results for satellite companies trying to boost customers with their HD service. DirecTV earlier this month said it increased its subscriber base by 129,000 during the quarter while Dish lost 25,000 subscribers, marking the first quarterly subscriber drop ever for a U.S. satellite television company.

Meanwhile, U.S. Blu-ray disc spending for the first half of the year jumped fourfold to about $200 million and will overtake standard DVDs as the primary form of content software within the next four years, U.K.-based consultant Futuresource said last week.

http://www.tvweek.com/news/2008/08/s...arity_clai.php

[Blu-Jawa]

I agree with that report. I have DirecTv HD and I have found that the audio seams to break down or fall out of sink with the video when there is bad weather. so no mader how good Satellite HD is, Blu-Ray will Allways be the Best HD 1080p Format Around.

[Clark Kent]

The real problem for the satellite companies is they have limited video bandwidth to deliver hundreds of channels. They probably could match Blu-ray image quality...if they were willing to dump 80% of their current channel lineup. But there is no way that will happen given their business models. I think anyone that knows better always realized the claims were dubious at best and probably intentionally misleading.

[Kryptron]

unless they replace there satellites and have plenty of transponders free, they can't squeeze the video/audio bitrate that bluray offers. They claimed dvd/laser disc quality back in the day. Then they added more channels it got worse then VHS quality, the same will happen with these new claims.

[crxvtec]

When my wife and I saw the AD, we were both saying bullshit(She loves blu and totally see's the difference). I am not saying it will not look great but no, it is not going to be as good as blu ray. Even if it is as good as blu in video, it will not be able to do the hd audio area.

Some people use that very argument in saying it will not be the same as blu. I may be wrong here but not EVERY blu movie has a loosless track or some sort of hd audio. This is a loophole that the satellite companies could use if people *****ed about that aspect. They will just say well not even all blu's have better than average audio.

I have Cox cable here in AZ and wish they would add some more hd channels. I want speedTV in HD. I loved when the F1 races were on FOX so i could watch in HD.

[mdabb]

Marketing!!!!!!!!!!! Money, money, money$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[Golgot13]

Hi PaulGo and all,

I don't live in USA but I know well the broadcaster market with my experience
(betatester software and hardware) and many show (NAB, IBC, Ceatec,...).

First, I happy to see that broadcaster and TV channel use only H264 codec
for HDTV channel. Because they know it's the best codec after many true test (not like MS...).
Today, there are much better H264 encoder and mainly multiplexer.
And Harmonic, one of best for H264 encoder (with Ateme in France), introduced
a statistic multiplexer for H264 and MPEG2 at last NAB (a revolution!).

About quality and efficiency of H264, every year H264 broadcast encoder have a new level
of encoding efficiency (by new preprocess filter, by better algo use, ...).
So the quality is good, compare at first (and horrible) H264 broadcast system in 2005-2006 from TandBerg,
and it will better.
Many broadcast encoder use FPGA (like Electra7000 of Harmonic), so broacasters will not need
to buy new expensive system to increase the quality of HDTV channel.

If in USA, your HDTV channel have not same enough quality (same than on BD Title)
it's because there are some restrictions:
- DirectTV use DSS broadcast format, in Europe we use DVB-S2 (more efficient)
- Most of US satellite receiver are limited at H264 Main Profile,
in Europe all receiver have High Profile too (more efficient)
- There are lot of HD channel but there is not lot of program with enough quality
and many program are not adapted at HDTV (No thank you at Sony for HDCAM format).


About quality of BD, to my mind all most BD title have bad quality when we know
the video bitrate is high than 25Mbps (I prefer more lossless audio track).


I can show some H264 HD encoded files from new H264 hardware encoder, so realtime encoding,
with a good quality at 8Mbps (I have a CG video 1920x1080@24P at 6Mbps in CAVLC and not CABAC!!!).
The encoder is in developpment and will introduce on studio authoring use (I hope).


Last, I'm happy because the BD specification accept easilly HD stream record from HDTV channel,
because it's was less restricted about it



Golgot13

[Elandyll]

The ads play on the uneducated consumer, wher ethey used to be 1080i, they now boast to be the same as Blu Ray becasue they are switching to 1080p.
Of course, 1080p is one of many characteristics of Blu Ray video, some actually argue that the difference 1080i/p is minor compared to the quality of data provided by the high bandwidth, quality encoding, and high bitrate multich audio with high bandwidth.

I recently saw Transformers on HD Max Cable (granted it was 1080i), and I thought to myself .. you gotta be f--in me. This is supposed to come close to Blu Ray ?It was HD, yes. But the amount of digital artifacts, noise and in general bad compression was staggering.

[Mr. Hanky]

The satellite outfits got in trouble once, way back when they were claiming "cd quality sound", too! Then they reworked their ads to just call it "crystal clear digital quality sound". Perhaps, they will have to rework their newest claims into something similarly nebulous like "digital disc quality video"?

[PaulGo]

Welcome Golgot13! I have read many of your posts on Doom9 and AVS in support of H264. Unfortunately currently the cable operators along with all US broadcasters in the US still use Mpeg-2 and the cable operators in an attempt to be competitive with satellite are in many instances packing three HD channels in one QAM slot causing further loss in HD picture quality. Cable operators in the US will soon be purchasing cable boxes capable om Mpeg-4 and expanding the available bandwidth up to 1 ghz. It will probably take several years before cable has enough boxes in place to implement Mpeg-4. I hope cable will compete on quality instead of quantity. It is exciting to see many veiwers demanding better picture quality both on blu-ray and broadcasting.

Originally Posted by Golgot13

Hi PaulGo and all,

I don't live in USA but I know well the broadcaster market with my experience
(betatester software and hardware) and many show (NAB, IBC, Ceatec,...).

First, I happy to see that broadcaster and TV channel use only H264 codec
for HDTV channel. Because they know it's the best codec after many true test (not like MS...).
Today, there are much better H264 encoder and mainly multiplexer.
And Harmonic, one of best for H264 encoder (with Ateme in France), introduced
a statistic multiplexer for H264 and MPEG2 at last NAB (a revolution!).

About quality and efficiency of H264, every year H264 broadcast encoder have a new level
of encoding efficiency (by new preprocess filter, by better algo use, ...).
So the quality is good, compare at first (and horrible) H264 broadcast system in 2005-2006 from TandBerg,
and it will better.
Many broadcast encoder use FPGA (like Electra7000 of Harmonic), so broacasters will not need
to buy new expensive system to increase the quality of HDTV channel.

If in USA, your HDTV channel have not same enough quality (same than on BD Title)
it's because there are some restrictions:
- DirectTV use DSS broadcast format, in Europe we use DVB-S2 (more efficient)
- Most of US satellite receiver are limited at H264 Main Profile,
in Europe all receiver have High Profile too (more efficient)
- There are lot of HD channel but there is not lot of program with enough quality
and many program are not adapted at HDTV (No thank you at Sony for HDCAM format).


About quality of BD, to my mind all most BD title have bad quality when we know
the video bitrate is high than 25Mbps (I prefer more lossless audio track).


I can show some H264 HD encoded files from new H264 hardware encoder, so realtime encoding,
with a good quality at 8Mbps (I have a CG video 1920x1080@24P at 6Mbps in CAVLC and not CABAC!!!).
The encoder is in developpment and will introduce on studio authoring use (I hope).


Last, I'm happy because the BD specification accept easilly HD stream record from HDTV channel,
because it's was less restricted about it



Golgot13

[ScarredLungs]

Originally Posted by Blu-Jawa

I agree with that report. I have DirecTv HD and I have found that the audio seams to break down or fall out of sink with the video when there is bad weather. so no mader how good Satellite HD is, Blu-Ray will Allways be the Best HD 1080p Format Around.

+1 Very true Go BLU

[Bobby Henderson]

Blu-ray fans can rest easy. No form of television broadcasting, be it over the air, cable or satellite, will ever be able to match the capability of the Blu-ray format even if they can actually broadcast in 1080p.

I'll also say there really isn't much of any competition happening either. Broadcasting and Blu-ray serve different purposes. You sign up for cable or satellite for programming variety -including a lot of live programming in HD. You buy or rent a Blu-ray disc to see a specific movie in the best quality available to the general public.

The bandwidth difference between BD and broadcasting formats is very large. Lots of cable and satellite customers accept many of the flaws in video quality as a trade-off for a wide variety of programming. When you buy or even rent a specific movie on Blu-ray you expect not to see any flaws in the video quality.

The 1080p video Dish Network is offering is only for video on demand movies. The movie has to download to the hard disc in a ViP series MPEG-4 receiver. Once downloaded it will play back in 1080p format (provided there isn't some technical glitch between the receiver and a true 1080p capable television). But it just won't be running at the bit rates usually seen on Blu-ray. No lossless or uncompressed surround audio either.

As for actual broadcast networks, 1080p isn't happening any time soon. The networks are currently enslaved to 60Hz based hardware. That means only 720p and 1080i for the foreseeable future.

I'll also point out DirecTV and Dish Network both deliver local 1080i-based HD network channels in 1440 X 1080 "HD Lite". 720p networks (ABC & FOX) don't seem affected.

[Neo65]

All broadcast systems (other than complete downloads) are based on CBR (constant bit rate). This means that within a constant period (<1sec), their bitrate is constant. This is required because the transports are limited in how many bits they can carry. Usually the cap is about 19.2Mbps since that was what mpeg2 HD broadcast was set at, all TS mux and rate grooming systems are built around in the infrastructure.

In packaged media, a video can peak at much higher bitrates. For example a talking scene can have much lower bitrates than a complex fast panning one with lots of details. It is quite common to have peaks go above 10X as large as the minimum, up to 3x the average bitrate for a dumb constant Qp encode. This peak can be sustained for minutes depending on the requirements of the particular segment. This can be illustrated further if you take jpeg photos of a white wall vs detailed scenery and look at the resulting file sizes -- to the camera, the compression qualiy is perceived to be identical, but the amount of information (entropy) is different and so with lossy compression, the loss in detail is still different. (You can get close to lossless in a white wall, can't with a panoramic view of las vegas downtown strip)

This means that a 19Mbps bitrate video can easily have common low bitrates of 5Mbps for extremely simple scenes for minutes (or 100kbps for black background and text), more than 60Mbps peaks (capped to 40M by Blu-ray spec limits - or 45M depending on the audio used).

Broadcast video can't support this kind of video unless this is a download model. However broadcast video can be supported by storageless set top boxes which can cost as little as $19 to build, and a hdd alone costs much more than that for the box maker. That ability to build extremely cheap set tops at tens of millions of units is a large infrastructure advantage iptv and download models that require large storage can't match today.

[PaulGo]

I believe cable systems using QAM vary the bit rate of the broadcast signal using statistical multiplexing' Using this technique they can get two HD channels or about 12 SD channels into one QAM channel with minimal loss of picture quality (from the original broadcast signal).

Comcast and several other cable companies in order to stay competitive with the number of channels satellite services are offering are trying to put three HD channels into on QAM slot. This has in some cases led to poor HD quality. The solution for cable to get more HD channels is to go to switched video and to migrate to Mpeg-4 along with increasing the available bandwidth available gor chhannles to one Ghz. The new boxes cable will be acquiring will be capable of this.

Non broadcast sources of HD programming are switching from Mpeg-2 to Mpeg-4. As Golgot13 mentioned using the correct methodology this could allow better picture quality.

[Bobby Henderson]

Dish Network is in the process of forcing customers with MPEG2-based HD receivers to upgrade to ViP series receivers compatible with MPEG-4.

E* has sent out notices to the customers that they must upgrade their receivers. The deadline was August 1. Now E* is slowly moving MPEG-2 based HD channels into "hidden" areas on the satellite. Customers who are waiting for an installer to deliver a new MPEG-4 based receiver can get those MPEG-2 HD channels turned back on. Over the next month or so, all the MPEG-2 HD channels are going to disappear. Then the MPEG-2 SD channels will follow suit.

[owa]

Originally Posted by PaulGo

and the cable operators in an attempt to be competitive with satellite are in many instances packing three HD channels in one QAM slot causing further loss in HD picture quality.

I wonder if that is what is going on with Cox in my area. They added more HD channels a while back but now with some of the HD stations, the movies (especially) "hitch" every few seconds. By that I mean, the motion isn't smooth with a slight pause every few seconds. It's so bad I can't even watch it like that.

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

720p networks (ABC & FOX) don't seem affected.

Is Fox still 720p? Just watching a football game on Fox recently, the picture was breaking down more than I'm use to seeing (since I thought Fox use to look the best for sports even though it was 720p) and when checking, the TV said 1080i. A couple of shows I recorded on Fox also say that. I wonder if the DVR or TV is converting it to 1080i. Actually, I guess I can check that since I'm using an antenna on my other set to receive the local HD channels.

[john_1958]

Originally Posted by Mr. Hanky

The satellite outfits got in trouble once, way back when they were claiming "cd quality sound", too! Then they reworked their ads to just call it "crystal clear digital quality sound". Perhaps, they will have to rework their newest claims into something similarly nebulous like "digital disc quality video"?

yeah look what happened to www.voom.tv they went under
wonder if same with http://www.xstreamhd.com/index.html will happen even if they could televised 1080p where will they get bandwidth?

i still perfer blu-ray

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by owa

Is Fox still 720p?

Yes. Fox still broadcasts in 720p.

Some satellite and cable boxes do not perform a native pass through of the signal. Dish Network is guilty of that. You have to manually go into the receiver setup and tell it to output the HD signal in either 720p or 1080i. If you choose 1080i then any 720p signal coming into the box will be converted to 1080i.

[PaulGo]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

Yes. Fox still broadcasts in 720p.

Some satellite and cable boxes do not perform a native pass through of the signal. Dish Network is guilty of that. You have to manually go into the receiver setup and tell it to output the HD signal in either 720p or 1080i. If you choose 1080i then any 720p signal coming into the box will be converted to 1080i.

Same with the Motorola Comcast boxes. Although the new DCH boxes can be changed to a different resolution by pressing a button on the front of the box or by programming a button on the Comcast remote to change the resolution.

[AliceT]

The problem with satellite is they keep adding more channels, but not increasing their bandwidth. So they keep stuffing more onto their "lanes" and we end up with crappier picture. Ive had Directv since they first started, and the picture is not as good as it used to be.