CGD wrote:What do you mean by "full HD"? Do some programs actually get broadcast in 1080p over there? The best we get in Australia is 1080i, which can look good, waaay better than SD TV, but still visibly short of 1080p.
Think you already know the answer... we're getting 1080i like everyone else, i think the following explains quite concisely why the BBC output is inferior and the highlighted bit jogged my memory about a BBC techie admitting that bandwidth has been throttled... cutting corners as usual !!!
Quote:Sky and indeed all UK broadcasters transmit 1080i, in other words 50 fields per second of 540 lines each, interlaced to create a total of 1080 lines. Much of the material however is shot in 1080P 25, in other words 1080 lines per field but only 25 fields per second. This is converted to 1080i for transmission by re-ordering the lines, so that each field is shown twice, but made up of different lines from the original frame. Production people think this gives it a 'filmic' quality, but personally I think it often looks naff. Film being shot at 24 frames per second (normally speeded up to 25 f.p.s. for UK TV) inherently results in the same field being shown twice per frame.
When talking about 1080P most people mean 1080P 50, where a full 1080 frame is shown 50 times per second. This looks superb, but uses up twice as much bandwidth as 1080i, so isn't used in practice. In reality 1080P will make no difference whatsoever to transmission of films or anything shot 1080P 25, it really only will make a significant difference to transmissions such as sport with its fast movement.
Sky do not upgrade 576i to 1080i for transmission (except where the material was only shot 576i), 1080i transmissions are actually shot either 1080i or 1080p 25. Sport in particular is shot 1080i.
Freeview HD will be coming to most areas in 2012. It is not as good quality as satellite HD, except on BBC HD where they have recently REDUCED the quality on satellite to match what it will be on Freeview. In fact BBC HD is no longer really High Definition, although it is still transmitted as 1080i. It is better quality than SD, but look at any captions and you will see that they no longer have sharp edges. This is most noticeable on programmes like 'Jules Holland' which no longer looks anything like as good as it used to.
