Bitterly Dissapointed With Sky+ HD

oHUTCHYo

oHUTCHYo

oHUTCHYo

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Just had it installed about 2 hours ago. Have been using the builtin freeview on my 46" Samsung before then.

The HD channels are excellent, however the SD picture quality is absolutely terrible compared to my freeview. Its akin to an old VHS recording, blurred, pixelated and not sharp at all.

Ive read around google and it seems to be a common complaint. Some seem to think different brand boxes are better (mine is Amstrad), others think its the broadcast quality from Sky.

Im thinking of cancelling now, but whats my rights, Ive just cost them an installation and a HD box!? Its exactly 7 days since I signed up.

Wish I never bothered :(
 
Depends on channel with sd the likes of bbc and ch4 are not too bad at all but others like itv are quite soft/crappy looking and what you say about freeview having better quality is quite true to my eyes imo.
I assume you`ve tried diffrent settings on your tv as i have 2 presets for sky+ hd one for the hd channels and one for standard def,also i find if ive been watching hd stuff then go back to standard def it takes some adjusting to,i have a thomson box if it makes any diffrence?
 
You could try using a scart lead connection for the SD channels, it should appear better.

Also you could try increasing sharpness on your TV when you watch SD channels by a couple of clicks, like Dougsnake mentioned with different settings. You may also find setting the Sky output to RGB and scaling to automatic helps. (Allowing your TV to upscale the picture rather than the Sky box, if connected via HDMI.)
 
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Seems to be one of the disadvantages of the HD box. SCART is said to be better. What resolution have you got the box set to? 720p, 1080i or Auto?

It should never be on 720p, I have mine on 1080i and the SD quality is basically the same as my old Sky+ box. Setting it to 1080i lets the box upscale, whereas setting it to Auto lets you TV upscale.
 
Thanks for the support guys. Ive tried the box set on 1080i, 720p and Auto. That is a common suggestion as apparently it has helped some people in the past. Checked all TV settings, its normally pin sharp on xbox 360, bluray and freeview TV - suprisingly a lot now I realise how bad it can be.

Ive just cancelled via Sky's website after ringing their call centre, apparently I have a 31 day cooling off period. I am however cautious as to how much they'll punish me for cancelling, i.e. charge me for installation or the box etc etc.
 
Must be a bad signal or a dodgy Sly box?

I've got Freesat (from 28.2E - the same satellite as Sly) as-well as Freeview, and the 140 Freesat channels I get (which are exactly the same feeds as someone on Sly) are the same if not better quality as Freeview.

EDIT to add: Receiver is the integrated Freesat in my Panasonic V10 and the dish/cabling was all done by me.
 
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Westyfield2 said:
Must be a bad signal or a dodgy Sly box?

I've got Freesat (from 28.2E - the same satellite as Sly) as-well as Freeview, and the 140 Freesat channels I get (which are exactly the same feeds as someone on Sly) are the same if not better quality as Freeview.
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Can depend entirely on the box that receives the signal. Virgin's V+Box upscales all SD channels and looks brilliant compared to Sky+HD and Freeview/Freesat.
 
woppy101 said:
its better to have iy set on auto because the the tv does the scaling which its better at then the sky box 9 times out of 10
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No, it's not. The picture is a lot better when set to 1080i in 99% of cases.

The reason for this is that all SD material is broadcast at 576i but on auto the box outputs at 576p. That's an issue because while the boxes scaler is not great it's generally on par with most TV sets, the actual problem is that the boxes deinterlacer is crap and your TV will do a much better job. And the only way to force the box to output interlaced goodness at all times is to set it to 1080i.

Plus as an added advantage you don't have to wait for your TV to change resolution every time you change channel, the menu is always in HD and a lot of TV's overscan when not at 1080. The only real downside is that many 4:3 broadcasts will be stretched when set to 1080i.
 
The reason for this is that all SD material is broadcast at 576i but on auto the box outputs at 576p. That's an issue because while the boxes scaler is not great it's generally on par with most TV sets, the actual problem is that the boxes deinterlacer is crap and your TV will do a much better job. And the only way to force the box to output interlaced goodness at all times is to set it to 1080i.
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^^ this. makes a huge difference as most of the boxes have cheap nasty deinterlacing
 
G4ORCE said:
Just had it installed about 2 hours ago. Have been using the builtin freeview on my 46" Samsung before then.

The HD channels are excellent, however the SD picture quality is absolutely terrible compared to my freeview. Its akin to an old VHS recording, blurred, pixelated and not sharp at all.

Ive read around google and it seems to be a common complaint. Some seem to think different brand boxes are better (mine is Amstrad), others think its the broadcast quality from Sky.

Im thinking of cancelling now, but whats my rights, Ive just cost them an installation and a HD box!? Its exactly 7 days since I signed up.

Wish I never bothered :(
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Are you serious? I find that Sky's picture quality is much higher SD quality than freeview terrestrial (obviously freesat is the same). The Scalers in sky boxes arnt very good though, so if your using HDMI (to benifit from the HD side of things), then make sure you have the HDMI output set to AUTO, that way it will send the native broadcast res to your TV, and use the TV's scalers.

With 576 output selected on my horrible slow Thomson SkyHD box, and my Panny plasma, SD quality is great on the high bandwidth channels like Sky1/2/3... its only when you move down to low bitrate channels like hallmark, men and motors etc, that you really see the picture quality failing fast.
 
Corasik said:
Are you serious? I find that Sky's picture quality is much higher SD quality than freeview terrestrial (obviously freesat is the same). The Scalers in sky boxes arnt very good though, so if your using HDMI (to benifit from the HD side of things), then make sure you have the HDMI output set to AUTO, that way it will send the native broadcast res to your TV, and use the TV's scalers.

With 576 output selected on my horrible slow Thomson SkyHD box, and my Panny plasma, SD quality is great on the high bandwidth channels like Sky1/2/3... its only when you move down to low bitrate channels like hallmark, men and motors etc, that you really see the picture quality failing fast.
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As I have just explained earlier in the thread, it's usually (as in 99% of the time) better to have it set to 1080i and not auto.
 
I can assure you that signal strength or quality will not effect the picture quality.

If the signal is too weak it'll simply break up.
 
dbmzk1 said:
As I have just explained earlier in the thread, it's usually (as in 99% of the time) better to have it set to 1080i and not auto.
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I definatly get better picture quality on auto on my TV, but thats probably because I have a 1024x786 plasma panels, so scaling 720x576 pal to 1920x1080i an then back down to 1024x768p is a lot of rescalings and it really kills the picture quality. The same is probably true on 1366x768 LCD panels. On the other hand with a fullHD 1920x1080 panel, then the result might be different.

It could also be that most people consider panasonic scalers to be pretty much as good as anything out there, and by comparison the skybox scalers really are rubbish. But a lot of LCD tv's have pretty poor scalers.. So really its best to try all the options and see what combination works best.

PS, Someone else put forward a very valid point, if you use Scart/RGB for standard def viewing, then the skyHD box is actually outputing 576i PAL/RGB, all scalers and deinterlace are disabled, and the TV's doing all the work!. Sky channels generally have a higher bitrate than their cousins on Freeview, so there really is no reason why the picture should be worse, and on the whole I find that freeview looks considerably softer than Sky's SD channels. Just remember to switch to HDMI before watching an HD channel or the box will scale the 1080i source down to 576i resolutions.
 
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