Just moved from Sky and Virgin HD picture quality is terrible!

[sherv]

I've now had the Virgin 360 box for a couple of days and the picture quality is driving me demented! I have a high end LG 4k OLED but compared to Sky all HD channels look shocking especially Sky Cinema. There is pixelization/noise around text and the overall bitrate looks way lower? I've tried 4k and 1080p to change the upscaling but I can't live with this quality. As I'm still in my 14 days cooling period looks like I'll have to cancel 😞

[japitts · Accepted solution]

If you have pixellated pictures on broadcast TV channels, that's a sure-fire sign of a signal fault which VM can rectify if you report it to them. Whatever the problem might be, I very much doubt the TX bitrates are it.

Can you perhaps post some pictures of the problem? It may help others advise further.

[sherv]

Thanks very much. I'll do that. 

[jamesredfern]

You are fefinately correct. I.moved from Sky+HD (not sky Q) around 7 months ago. I had both running in parallel for a time and the Sky HD was a much better picture on HD and SD channels. 

[David_Bn]

Thanks for your post on our Community Forums @sherv, and a very warm welcome to you

Do you have any updates on the issues you're experiencing with the picture?

Have you perhaps got any examples you can share with us?

Kindest regards,

David_Bn

[crypticc]

Way way way back before all the on demand content sky HD on VM looked like HD.

And then as more content was added I swear the bitrate dropped.  Exaggerating only slightly the quality generally is now generally approaching "THAT" episode of Game of Thrones or the episode of  Walking Dead where one the the key protagonist spends the whole episode in a cell.

I think when virgin contracted with Sky for the HD channels they forgot to specify butrare.

It's now so bad that a preview in HD on YouTube in HD is better quality than the actual film on VM also in HD.

I watch most of my stuff online now and TBH only have movies because Virgin make it very difficult to remove movies but keep sport and 1 gig data.

Sorry for your loss.  I mean that

[crypticc]

P.s.this is from when HD started to go bad.

Before 2016 it was okay and a fair selection of HD on demand

Then both content and bandwidth was reduced to create capacity while VM went through a "platform upgrade" ( whatever it is. )

Then the on demand content was added back again - but I noted that it stayed at lower bandwidth.

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Forum-Archive/HD-and-3D-on-demand-missing-or-difficult-to-find/...

Regards, Chris

[sherv]

Thanks very much. Sorry I haven't replied, I've had covid & been in my bed for a wee while. You're right though, comparing the two was like night & day, the bitrate must have been half of what Sky was broadcasting which is strange as the bandwidth via fibre/digital coaxal should be higher than via a satellite signal.

Even my teenage son said dad look at how bad the picture quality is on Sky cinema with Kong Vs Godzilla compared to watching the same film & resolution on Sky. There was no interferance and also all HD channels (especially Channel 5 HD) looked terrible in comparison so before the 14 days cooling off period I phoned them & got the whole TV package (including two multiroom) cancelled & went back to Sky. Still kept the Virgin broadband so now have the 1GB fibre with Sky HD/4k which seems to be the ultimate setup for me. Maybe in the future if Virgin match the bitrate of Sky & also include Sky Atlantic, Netflix package, scrap the 4k Sky cinema charge & kids package & also dramatically improve the TV interface then I'd consider going over to Virgin.

[crypticc]

That just be costing a pretty penny. Which phone service do they make you have?  I have hardwired alarm and connected to the virgin port and cabling hidden under the floorboards... truthfully that's a significant reason for me not moving my phone and broadband at least

[sherv]

It's roughly £106 per month for both. Crazy money I know. You don't need a phone line which I was surprised of.