Sky HD box quality, pace vs amstrad.

Radiation · 1 Oct 2011 at 17:49

I am considering upgrading my pace tds850nb to an amstrad 890c and as we have multiroom i felt like giving them a comparison, from a distance there's really very little in it, this is on a panasonic g30 plasma, however up close you can see an obvious difference on fine detail, for example thin lines and contrasting edges appear more solid but pixelated on the pace and filtered with some compression blurring on the amstrad.

To me the pace appears to have slightly more detail and more solid edges but the pixel step effect may mean the resolution isn't as good, though perhaps its the amstrad which is not right as its being more filtered, so what's the more correct image between the two?

MissChief · 1 Oct 2011 at 22:00

Personal preference unless you can view the original source on a professionally calibrated display.

The Amstrad does have a bigger Hard Drive than the Pace though.

GTO656 · 1 Oct 2011 at 22:11

yes I have the Amstrad one a lot bigger about over 200Gb

MissChief · 2 Oct 2011 at 01:31

Pace has a 300Gb HDD, Split 50/50 for you and Anytime. Amstrad 890 has 500Gb HDD, also split 50/50.

Radiation · 2 Oct 2011 at 12:45

MissChief said:
Personal preference unless you can view the original source on a professionally calibrated display.

The Amstrad does have a bigger Hard Drive than the Pace though.

I know what you're saying but you don't need a perfectly calibrated screen to see the type of differences im talking about, also this is a G30 in THX mode so it's got quite a good image already.

I was mostly interested in knowing if the more raw pixelated image of the pace was preferable to the smoother but possibly over compressed image of the amstrad.

I did lots of comparisons on still and moving images both sd and hd, colours and contrast are nearly identical, however on still images i noticed a black diagonal line looked more solid on the pace whereas on the amstrad the same line looked filtered and was kind of broke in places where it was over compressed losing some detail im guessing?

When it comes to hard drive space, i read that the pace only uses 140GB for anytime, is that still true if i upgrade it to 500gb?

Here's the pros and cons of each...

Pace

Large box
Sharper image
500GB = 360GB recording space?
Slightly slower menus and boot time

Amstrad

Smaller box
Smoother image
500GB = 250GB recording space
Quicker menus and boot time

MissChief · 2 Oct 2011 at 15:11

Have you thought about a 1TB Amstrad box?

TBH there's not much of a difference. The figures for anytime on older boxes seems to be up for debate but I'm pretty sure it's a half/half split.

Radiation · 2 Oct 2011 at 17:58

I just installed the new drive and compared recordings, i am getting more available space on the pace box than on the amstrad when both are 500gb, i can't believe sky have the cheek to take up 250GB for anytime on the amstrads, seems excessive considering most people don't want half the rubbish shown on anytime.

Nymins · 2 Oct 2011 at 18:06

They should give the option to disable Anytime AND give you the free space. Their system now allows you to disable Anytime, but the space is still unavailable to you!

MissChief · 7 Oct 2011 at 02:19

Nymins said:
They should give the option to disable Anytime AND give you the free space. Their system now allows you to disable Anytime, but the space is still unavailable to you!

But the space never has been available to you and you get the advertised space they quote?

chaparral · 7 Oct 2011 at 04:48

MissChief said:
Have you thought about a 1TB Amstrad box?

The amstrad 1TB has a 1.5TB harddrive in it

MissChief · 8 Oct 2011 at 00:38

Yes, but you get 1TB for your own space, hence the 1TB box.

Radiation · 8 Oct 2011 at 12:29

It doesn't make sense to keep the unused space though, it's not like it's a separate locked partition or something, it's just an unnecessary artificial limitation when the service is switched off, sky like to do stuff like this to feel in control it seems, i have no idea what they gain by it.

It's good to see the thread pop up again as im having doubts about the pace having the better image, can anyone tell me why they act differently while paused, pace seems to show half the interlaced image and amstrad looks smooth and compressed?