on 01-02-2024 14:37
I’ve had Virgin Media TV since the days of Telewest Active Digital and loved it.
But Virgins bitrate over the last couple years are going lower and lower (started when they switched to MPEG4) - I have Sky and Virgin (since you can’t have two main Sky boxes) and HD is getting more and more softer - changing the box from 4K to 1080p helped A LITTLE bit definitely not as good as Sky.
E4 HD is so poor that even HD on Channel 4 On Demand is higher! There is a few channels that look great in HD but it’s a handful.
Theres also issues with the encoder at Skys or Virgins end with Sky Comedy HD - half the time having white speckles on screen (static) with audio and picture jumping (doesn’t happen on Sky) and this happens so so often - it will eventually get fixed but then will break again later
Theres other SD channels which I can’t even watch as the picture is so poor (low bitrate/resolution) like Really, Challenge and That’s TV is AWFUL even the audio is low bitrate, as if they’re rebroadcasting already squeezed Freeview. Think there’s only ONE channel that looks better in SD on Virgin and that’s TalkingPictures
Also hate the implementation of “Fast Channels” and think it’s just a marketing gimmick as there’s no TV guide implemented (even Samsung TV Plus can do this) so without clicking, waiting for it to load there’s no real way of knowing the episode or show
A bit of an bitrate increase and better sources (away from terrestrial rebroadcasts) and it could be a great service, but watching the Sky in the other room is just superior.
Hope Virgin will pull their finger out.
This is NOT pixelation and isn’t a signal issue.
on 01-02-2024 15:13
@joebloggs wrote:E4 HD is so poor that even HD on Channel 4 On Demand is higher! There is a few channels that look great in HD but it’s a handful.
How do you find BBC One Scotland HD (862) or 4-Seven HD?
You've alluded to SD channels looking bad, but also mentioned a 4K TV - I'm certainly not surprised that a 480p source looks poor on a 2160 screen.
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on 04-02-2024 16:38
Not very helpful I’m afraid - as I mention I have BOTH Sky and Virgin, different rooms but same tv and setup and Sky looks much sharper even on SD content — hard to tell on the content I checked but BBC One Scotland looked the same as BBC One NE&C and 4Seven was a little better than E4 HD!
Just a shame I can’t order another main Sky Q box rather than just use “minis”. Definitely gonna compare Freeview HD with Virgin HD and I suspect Freeview will win
on 04-02-2024 19:31
The two channels I mentioned, have broadly similar bitrates to E4-HD.
Can you post up some pictures/videos of the difference in picture? Others may have a view on what's going on, and I'm certainly curious.
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