Giles

I was watching a DV-R recording of the hi-def airing of The Parent Trap (1961) last night and a friend and I started having a conversation about the differences of the PQ image from varying sources. Now I know that most cable image is compressed and can (and does) display anomalies, and over the air transmissions wields sharper image over cable, but how does satellite look when compared to OTA? and where does bluray fall into the mix?

bunkaroo

I don't have experience with OTA.

Blu-ray is the best and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I had WOW cable for a while, but I have Directv now. I find the video quality of DTV much better than my landline cable.

OldBoy

Blu-ray definitely is superior. I have DirecTV as well and while the picture is fine, it is a little soft, unless I order a movie and then it looks pretty crisp @ 1080p, but regular HD channels look soft to me.

Neil M.

I used OTA for a few months before I got DirecTv. I didn't notice any difference when I made the switch.

JimRochester

Didn't notice much of a difference between DISH or TW cable. I believe many of the HD channels are 720 not 1080, therefore BR would be superior on a decent sized set.

LPMA

Also, is there a difference in picture quality between coaxial cable and fibre optics?

caligulathegod

Even 1080 on cable is 1080i. I believe the satelite 1080p is really just converted. 720p has a resolution of 1280x720 @60hz (either 60 frames per second or 30 frames presented twice per second). Broadcast 1080i is actually 1440x540 @ 60hz, except that the 540 is a frame that is being sent as two separate fields of alternating lines (odd and even), so the 540 technically creates a 1080 frame. Problem is, they don't want pixels that appear on only one line in one field because it flashes or twitters, so they filter each line. This takes away any added detail and makes the picture only slightly better than 540.

Blu-ray is full 1920x1080 @ 24hz.

caligulathegod

Audio goes over coaxial or fibre optic, not picture. And that is about the same, as it is digital.


Edited: Oh, you were talking bandwidth over cable.

PhantomStranger

The proper order is...

Streaming HD < Cable/Satellite < Over The Air HD < Blu-ray < 4K

Bandwidth is so tight on cable systems that their HD quality is often pathetic. FiOS used to have beautiful HD quality until they expanded the number of HD channels they carried, which drove all channels down.

Mr. Cinema

Vudu's HDX is very, very good. I just got a new 55" LG LED and was streaming the original Fly in HDX last week and it looked great. It is easily the best quality of the streaming options. Netflix's 1080p has gotten better as well over the years. Same for Amazon's Instant Video.

The problem, as mentioned, for DirecTV/cable is the compression of the HD signal. You can easily spot compression artifacts. However, my bigger issue with DTV/cable is the premium channels often don't display the movie in its OAR.

Obviously Blu-ray is king, but HDX is a great secondary option if a title isn't on BD.

LPMA

Yeah I don't always use proper terminology.

Josh Z

Each field in a 1080i signal is 1920x540.

caligulathegod

It depends. Most broadcast is 3/4 scaled at 1440 and stretched to 1920.

TheBigDave

+1

HD Streaming usually looks better than HD Cable TV. Especially Vudu's HDX. On some movies, I don't think I could tell the difference between HDX and Blu.

Giles

yeah, I've been noticing this, notably with the recent viewing of the Eric Bana film 'Deadfall' - the HD resolution was striking.

Josh-da-man

Pretty much.

I have DirecTV HD. It looks quite a bit better than the Dish Network HD that some of my friends have, but that could be because my television is calibrated. I'll also note that some HD stuff on DirecTV looks better than others. I'm not sure if they 'throttle' the bw on certain programs/stations or not.

Over the Air HD, from what little I've seen, looks pretty damned good. I haven't watched a lot... it's hard to get a good signal where I live... but from watching a few episodes of Survivor and Heroes (I can only pick up my CBS and NBC affiliates with an antenna, and even then the reception is spotty) it looked pretty close to blu-ray quality.

Blu-ray is the best, hands-down, though.

zyzzle

Absolutely no contest. Good blu-ray encodes typically have 5 or 6 times the video bandwidth (=bitrate) that cable "hd" broadcasts have. It its absolutely pathetic how compressed broadcast and cable signals are! I refuse to pay $80 to $100 a month for a crappy 4 or 5 Mbit signal which is "High Definition!", as the cable companies proudly proclaim.

I guess the one exception was FIOS, but as another poster already states, its bitrates have gone to the dogs since they 'expanded' their channel lineup.

Jay G.

I agree with that, except for 4K, which is just a resolution. Youtube has some videos up in 4K, but the relatively lower bitrates mean that a quality Blu-ray of the same footage could be superior.


In terms of delivering to the home, FIOS allocates 870 MHz of bandwidth to TV. This is actually delivered via coax to the TV from the FIOS box on the premises.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_FiOS

Cable can have a bandwidth as low as 500Mhz, and as high as 1Ghz, depending on where you live. In major cities with more infrastructure, they can squeeze more bandwidth out of the cables. However, cable TV has to share this bandwidth with the internet and phone services the companies provide, while FIOS uses separate bandwidths for phone and internet.
http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_236...al-those-older
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r207...is-your-system

Cable companies are cutting their old analog TV service to free up bandwidth for both more digital channels and other uses. Time Warner Cable is moving forward with eliminating analog TV completely in Manhattan:
http://www.cedmagazine.com/news/2013...akes-manhattan

FIOS never had analog TV service, so all of its TV bandwidth is allocated to digital SD and HD.

To put the Mhz in perspective, QAM carries 38.47 Mbit/s using 256-QAM on a single 6 MHz channel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cable

OTA ATSC can carry about 19.39 Mbit/s on a 6 Mhz channel.

The important thing is how providers split these channels into sub-channels. As soon as you have two or more sub-channels, you know the full bandwidth isn't dedicated to that one channel, but it could be carved up in all manners of ways.

Satellite seems a bit harder to find info on. I found this, which suggests that satellite TV typically uses wider channels to help counter interference:
http://www.clearchannelsatellite.com...lite-bandwidth
And this wikipedia article suggest that DirectTV has about 1Ghz of bandwidth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirecTV-10

However, DirectTV uses MPEG4 for most (all?) of their HD channels, which is a step up from the MPEG2 compression cable and OTA TV uses. Cable will likely move the MPEG4 next, with OTA leading the rear.

Blu-ray has a maximum A/V bitrate of 48 Mbit/s, with up to 40 Mbit/s for video, but that bitrate can be shifted down to fit more content onto a disc, and often is. Blu-ray also benefits from supporting MPEG4 (aka AVC), which most new releases use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Bit_rate

zyzzle

Great technical info there... Thanks.

Rival11

I can't tell the difference between HDX and blu-ray - I just yesterday upgraded my home network to all new equipment (well, basically just a new router and new modem) to be able to enjoy HDX on a regular basis.

I know the blu-ray die-hards will bust out there specs but in all honesty, if people feel the need to do that, then that just shows you how good the HDX quality is.

Seriously love the HDX but I can't stand the feeling of technically not owning what I buy....if VUDU goes out business....there goes all my movies and tv shows I've bought.

mike45

For movies, Blu-ray by a long shot. Audio is superior with Blu-ray.

Alan Smithee

When I first got Vudu I thought it looked very good, but after watching several movies on it I began to notice the flaws. I can even see compression artifacts on some Blu-Rays, which is something that should NEVER happen- the advantage of physical media will always be the ability to have a higher bitrate.

Rival11

Well.....I stand corrected. After watching movies in HDX for a day and a half, I watched those same movies on blu - BIG difference....surprised I didn't pick up on that (seriously, not sure what the hell happened here).

But I guess if you want to see the difference for yourself, that is the best test, watch movies for a day or so only in HDX then watch the same flicks on blu.

And yes as mike45 said, the sound quality cannot be matched on blu.

Actually glad I did this test.

Giles

I rewatched 'Olympus Has Fallen' via Netflix 'Super HD' and 5.1 sound last night, what a joke when compared to the bluray - for starters the AR is cropped to 1.85, and the sound is so compressed and displays little to no dynamic range (that the blu has) or an active rear surround sound field for that matter.

hanshotfirst1138

I'm willing to be a bit more tolerant of audio issues simply because of my limited playback ability. But the age of cropping should've ended with widescreen TVs, it's unacceptable. Having difficulty playing back the film because of connection issues with streaming is one thing, but only showing a portion of the image is simply not OK. I redeemed my UV copy of Drive from Sony and it's cropped from 2.35 (which the Blu-Ray DOES present correctly) to 1.78. I contacted UV, they gave me the "ask your mother ask your father" routine and referred me to Vudu, and they're now "looking into it." If I'd actually payed for this rather than redeemed it from a physical copy, I'd be royally unhappy.