News Sky rolls out HD on May 22

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/05/05/sky_hd_may_22/

 

Because 1080i uses less bandwidth than 720p

It's another marketing thing they fail to inform you of.

 

Either "Return of the Sith" is a joke or plain wrong

Revenge of the Sith
or
Return of the Jedi

Make a choice damnit! Im just picky when it comes to Star Wars titles.

 

400,000 on day one?? According to the Beeb they've only got 40,000 pre-orders, and I'm sure they won't be filling all of those on day one!! More like a few thousand every weekday until the world cup starts.

 

My box is being installed on the 24th... So not day one. But I'm not complaining!

 

Think my mate's getting it in time for the world cup, it's soon anyway, to go with his 92" projector - can't wait!

 

I refuse to pay another £10 for the HD service, I dont mind forking out for the box.

How many HD channels are they going to launch with?

I'm already unhappy with sky that I they have the longest advert breaks, sometimes I even forget what show I'm watching and go and do something else

 

think skys bad for ads...channel 4 and the second series of Lost is a joke! jesus there was an add every 5 minutes! i knew i shoulda just torrented them months ago..sigh

 

1080i uses more bandwidth than 720p.

1920 x 540(1080i) = 1,036,800 pixels per frame
1280 x 720 (720p) = 921,600 pixels per frame

In addition, due to the transmission method its not really 1080i, as mpeg 2/4 broadcast only the updates to the previous frame, not a wholly new frame, so a 1080p frame is essentially avaliable to the box.

You do have to wonder if the bandwidth is good enough for such images though, as if its not,compression artifacts will hinder the image far more than the theoretical increase would advance it.

The traditional logic that 1080i isn't suitable for sports , and that you need a progressive feed also seems a little odd, considering most people are fine with 576i as we currently have.

 

1080i = 1036800 @ 30fps = 31104000
720p = 921600 @ 60fps = 55296000

= 1.78x more data per second needs to be transferred for 720p over 1080i.

I thought it was only divx/xvid (mpeg 4) that updates the frame, because you need keyframes not mpeg2 which is "whole", hence you can compress a DVD into 2 CDs and not have that much quality loss.

I wouldnt say most people are fine, I'd say most people dont know any better, or their TVs are too crap to allow any difference.

 

1080i is also 60fps, giving 30 full frames per second, but the value I calculated was the single refresh (half full frame) so that value is directly comparable to a full 720p frame. 1080i uses more bandwidth than 720p.

 

Yea it's 60 half frames so that doesnt really count as a complete frame, which makes it 30.

It doesnt, because in the same amount of time, 720p transmits more. If you're only getting half a 1080 frame, at 60fps, then you're only getting 518400 pixels, which is 0.5625 as much as a complete 720 frame in the same time.

 

no, a full 1080p frame is 1920x1080, I calculated the pixel count of the 1920x540 half frame, which is what is displayed sixty times a second.

so 1080i is either:
1920 x 1080 x 30
or
1920 x 540 x 60

That gives 62,208,000 pixels per second.

720p is 1280 x 720 x 60 which is 55,296,000 pixels per second.

 

Finally, it was supposed to be released in March the last I heard. £300 for a box? Im going to wait a bit but I will get it by the end of the year and hopefully by then the price will have dropped a bit. It also means I need an 8 way dish since the HD box is a plus box. (already have a + and two normal boxes in the house).

Can't wait tbh, now I can really put my HDTV to use.

And bindi is correct, 1080i uses 30fps, or so that what is says in my tv manual, even though it doesn't support that mode!

 

As I have said it is 60 half frames a second, or 30 full frames. Thats why the 1080i/60 mark is the prevalent one.

My JVC DIST CRT does 1080i/60, which is what most american HD broadcasts are.

Sky may be using 50hz rather than 60hz over here, so it would be 720p/50 and 1080i/50.

1080i/60 has the same percieved detail levels as 1080p, as well as the motion smoothness of a 60hz frame. A 1080p/30 frame would look less smooth, yet would have the same bandwidth requirements.

The bandwidth that bindi calculated was for a non existant 1080i/30. It is either 1080i/60 or 1080p/30 that sky uses, wheras Blu'ray + hd-dvd will use 1080p/60 which has twice the bandwidth.

 

Not arguing with that, but all channels are governed by OFCOM, and have to abide by the same rules - maximum 12 mins per hour, as long as the channel does not exceed 9mins of commercials on average per hour over a 24 hour period.

 

we've only jus picked up sky plus

its awesome, never gonna miss a show ever again. were not getting HD tv jus yet, not that we cant afford it, its just i recommended to my dad that he hold off for abit, wait for SKY HD to get going (ie enough channels to make it worth while) and wait for other things like HD-DVD/Blu Ray players to get out, mature and drop in price along with HDTV's.

i think its better value if you dont jump on the bandwagon first. like he said the most popular HD res is 720p, most of the TV sets sold are 720p. maybes by christmas you can pick up a 1080p tv for the same money a 720p cost when it first came out. who knows.

 

thats a load of ********

or atleast for channels that are not C4 or ITV (C3)

sky has 5 minuite adverts for every 10 minuites of program

EG, program starts at 7:00
First adverts at 7:10 - 7:15
Secodn part of program 7:15-7:25
More ads 7:25-7:30

if its an hour program, it is then 4 sections, and they then somtimes make part 1 & 4 shorter, and 2&3 longer

anyway, all that means, in 1 hour, sky channels (or any channel thats not C4/C3) has 20 minuites of adverts in a 1 hour program slot

Edit
Also, C4/C3 show 3 minuites of adverts inbetween sectiosn of programs, making for 12 minuites of adverts per hour
So that average thing would appear to be wrong ... but the 12 min limit still applies

Edit 2
Lol forgot to actually comment on sky

Sky is rediculously expensive for what it is, plus £10/mo for SKY+ (unless u fork out for 3 premium packages)
and now they want another £10/mo for HD, which only seems to have like 5-10 channels at the most

 

I'm trying to persuade my dad to get a HD box to go with the 720p projector we have.
I think we'll have to get a new dish, as we already have a sky+ box on it.
The new box is pretty snazzy looking, too.

 

Looks like it has a SATA port, and a USB and a ethernet port on it

i wonder if we will be able to use these .....

Otherwise, it seems to have component, plus a HDMI connector (Which ive never seen) and the normal RF and scart

and the box needs 2 inputs from your sky dish to be able to record and play at the same time

Huh .... whats the point in that ....

Edit
http://www.bargainspy.co.uk/sky-hd

And @ the register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/07/geek_tv_sky_tv_here/