Sat. v Cable

Cable digital only has 60 channels, sky has at least 250 i think. I have to admit i agree with you that the sky picture looks better but are you giving the pictures fair comparison, ie are both televisions as good as each other? are both using scart connection?

I don't have cable or satellite coz I'm (a) tight (b)don't want a dish on the front wall (c) don't want a bunch of idiots digging up my drive and garden. However, my sister-in-law has Telewest cable and most of the time there are little white spots all over the screen. Sometimes worse than others but always there.

True, I haven't been able to do a like for like i.e. see SKY on the same model as I have. The SKY sets have been quite modern and, where I could check, were using scart.

As it happens we took delivery of a new set at home yesterday (haven't plugged it in yet, took long enough to build the cabinet and put the 96KG beast on it!!) so I may have a different opinion tomorrow.

[This message has been edited by Slipperman (edited 06 September 2001).]

Keitht. Yes, likewise I wasn't too keen on having the old Wok on the side of the house (So why haven't I taken it down!?!?).. The idiots weren't too bad with the cable, fortunately we didn't have anything significant in the way.

Telewest do also have the advantgage of thier broadband internet service... I/m still trying to justify the £25 a month tho'.

I wish they offered the cable in my area, i'd kill for broadband access.
Bleugh, living in the back of beyond has its disadvantages
And don't sweat the 25/month, i'm paying £40/month for isdn !!!

quote:Originally posted by Moysey:
I wish they offered the cable in my area, i'd kill for broadband access.
Bleugh, living in the back of beyond has its disadvantages
And don't sweat the 25/month, i'm paying £40/month for isdn !!!

Why are you paying so much for ISDN ?? I am looking very closely at Home Highway (2 X 64K + 2 phone lines) This seems to start from £27 per month (and I understand could drop to £20 in the next few months, when BT relaunch with a USB version.

i've had home highway for ages now and that price got me the premium package then so i've just stuck on that, that gets me a dedicated phone line plus the two digital/two analogue line setup. Pretty good it seems to me and the extra phone lines is great for work.

Having moved house recently I considered the options of sky digital or NTL digital. I have seen the picture quality on both and it is very good. I haven't been able to compare the two like for like however. In the end however we opted for NTL because the phone calls were cheaper than with BT and we also were not that keen on have a wok on the back of our house. As for these idiots that come and dig up your garden - they are arriving tomorrow morning so I will let you know. One bonus though was that NTL have faffed around for nearly 6 weeks trying to get us sorted and so they are giving us free connection and 6 months half price as compensation.

As for broadband, it looks cool and I know several people who have got it. At 512K/s it is nice, but I am told it is very bursty. Downloading a web page is great because there are lots of little graphics, which the bursty link is very good at, however if you try to download a large file it is not as good. Yes it is still much better than 56K, but when cable try to sell it by saying "512K, its great, really really fast etc" they hide this little factor. For home users/freelancers etc it is great and 24/7 connection is great so you don't need to worry about the bill, but I personally won't bother because we have an 8Mb pipe out of our building so I will continue to use that and then just take what I want home on zip.

I'm sure I heard somewhere about a package sky offers that uses your phone line for upload, but uses the sky box for download so giving you a meg or so/second?????? Might have miss-heard though.

PS

[This message has been edited by ps (edited 07 September 2001).]

I have discovered that my shop in Northamptonshire is in the NTL cable modem area :)). I called them up and I can have it in 6 days ! It is just a pity that I am stuck here in Germany and cannot use it :-(( But back to the point of this message. Please take great care of the security of your broadband lines as they are little gold mines for hackers who want to a) Access your PC and just destroy files
or
b) Use your pc for denial of service hits against other websites
.
Take a look at this website for a warning www.grc.com
The least you will need is a Software Firewall some of which are freeware. As the victim of a hacker I cannot begin to describe the damage they can do !

cheers

Steve Allen

quote:Originally posted by fisherman:

Why are you paying so much for ISDN ?? I am looking very closely at Home Highway (2 X 64K + 2 phone lines) This seems to start from £27 per month (and I understand could drop to £20 in the next few months, when BT relaunch with a USB version.

Stictly, that's not "2x64K + 2 phone lines", it's "choose any TWO of: 64Kdata, 64Kdata, voice, voice"

and even then you can only have 2 x 64K data if your ISP offers it (unlike Demon - boo!)

The £40 per month gives you unlimited unmetered calls 24/7.

I'd go with cable. Satellite is a bag of shite when it rains, aerial digital is crap when your next door neighbor does the lawn (EMF) and cable does exactly what it says on the tin. Sky have a better selection and there set top boxes have the best software, cables is second and ITV digital is the worse. Given the amount of raining England does, I'd go with cable. I know digital and all this error correction gubbins is supposed to do a fine job, but in heavy weather or the git next door religiously mowing his lawn every 2 days, you're screwed.

Plus you get the option of Broadband on cable, which is better than ADSL that BT offer as it's based on fiber, not silly old PSTN copper wires. But no doubt we'll be able to teleport down twisted pairs in the near future those mad scientists keep on reinventing the wheel with it.

Tim

All this talk of cable TV being installed by 'a bunch of idiots'!!!

I have recently become involved with one of the contract firms that actually install for the cable companies. I can assure you that they NEVER send a bunch of idiots - they find two, or at the most, three to be sufficient in all cases!!!

Also, they NEVER cut plants etc above ground level as some folk complain but always just below the surface. This way the installers get away in one piece before everything goes brown.

I agree digital cable TV is quite good but it still has some way to go. I still suffer from too frequent pixilation and freezing and am considering reverting to analogue until it gets better.

MB

As promised, my report on having NTL digital installed at the weekend. We didn't have a bunch of idiots. Three young guys from NTL came round and were reasonably on time and were quite quick at getting it all installed. One of them was allergic to our kittens which was a bit unfortunate. They wanted to drill into the house on one side and take the cable all round the lounge rather than go around the outside of the house which I thought was a bit dim, but after some gentle suggestions they took the cable around the outside. They did however use their initiative and bury the cable in a pipe under the ground around the front of the house. 10 points for that one. We only went for the basic package and it all installed quickly and easily. As for the picture all I can say is that my first impressions were a little disappointing. We cannot get nicam sound on ANY of the digital channels, however when tuning the TV into normal 1 - 4 RF then it is nicam. Also the pixelation is awful. For most programs you don't see it, however when it was installed they went through the channels and left it on SMTV:Live. When a popular beat combo was playing on stage, with energic camera movements and lights etc the pixelation was like watching a dodgy, heavily compressed MPEG that you received with an e-mail. I was supprised at this as I have had cable analouge before and that was very good. The installers told us that there is a new PACE box coming out, but we have the older version. Yes the picture freezes sometimes which is irritating. The tips and hints mentions this problem as says there is nothing that can be done about it. I can only assume it is something like the decoders in the PACE box having a hiccup. I guess that they are firing something like MPEG2 down the cable and the box is decoding it. I can only assume that they don't give it much bandwidth which is why in the high bandwidth sections like SMTV the pixelation is such a problem.

Another point to note is that it is also possible to crash the box and have to pull the plug out, which I managed to do within 10 minutes of having it!

I hope it will get better because my first impressions were that although much better than what we had, it still has someway to go.

If anyone has any suggestions on the audio I would be grateful. Also any thoughts on the pixelation would also be grateful, though I have a feeling it is that they have a finite amount of bandwidth and until that increases or compression routines get better then there is not a lot we can do.

PS

quote:Originally posted by ps:
As promised, my report on having NTL digital installed at the weekend. We didn't have a bunch of idiots. Three young guys from NTL came round and were reasonably on time and were quite quick at getting it all installed. One of them was allergic to our kittens which was a bit unfortunate. They wanted to drill into the house on one side and take the cable all round the lounge rather than go around the outside of the house which I thought was a bit dim, but after some gentle suggestions they took the cable around the outside. They did however use their initiative and bury the cable in a pipe under the ground around the front of the house. 10 points for that one. We only went for the basic package and it all installed quickly and easily. As for the picture all I can say is that my first impressions were a little disappointing. We cannot get nicam sound on ANY of the digital channels, however when tuning the TV into normal 1 - 4 RF then it is nicam. Also the pixelation is awful. For most programs you don't see it, however when it was installed they went through the channels and left it on SMTV:Live. When a popular beat combo was playing on stage, with energic camera movements and lights etc the pixelation was like watching a dodgy, heavily compressed MPEG that you received with an e-mail. I was supprised at this as I have had cable analouge before and that was very good. The installers told us that there is a new PACE box coming out, but we have the older version. Yes the picture freezes sometimes which is irritating. The tips and hints mentions this problem as says there is nothing that can be done about it. I can only assume it is something like the decoders in the PACE box having a hiccup. I guess that they are firing something like MPEG2 down the cable and the box is decoding it. I can only assume that they don't give it much bandwidth which is why in the high bandwidth sections like SMTV the pixelation is such a problem.

Another point to note is that it is also possible to crash the box and have to pull the plug out, which I managed to do within 10 minutes of having it!

I hope it will get better because my first impressions were that although much better than what we had, it still has someway to go.

If anyone has any suggestions on the audio I would be grateful. Also any thoughts on the pixelation would also be grateful, though I have a feeling it is that they have a finite amount of bandwidth and until that increases or compression routines get better then there is not a lot we can do.

PS

you might not get the nicam light to light up when using cable.

nicam is a compression system , stereo is what you are looking for.

how are you feeding the sound from the cable box to the video and the tv ?

i don't think that the stereo is passed out via rf cables.

quote:Originally posted by sepulcre:
you might not get the nicam light to light up when using cable.

nicam is a compression system , stereo is what you are looking for.

how are you feeding the sound from the cable box to the video and the tv ?

i don't think that the stereo is passed out via rf cables.

The TV is connected to the cable box with both RF and SCART. My TV displays the word NICAM when it receives a NICAM signal and the word MONO otherwise. On both SCART and RF it displays the word MONO. There are also audio outputs on the back of the cable box and I connected these to my amp, however the sound from those sounded exactly the same as the MONO signal, i.e. dull with very little top end and only a bit of bottom end.

Could it be that the cable box does not support NICAM????

The NICAM signal must be sent down the RF cable because when watching normal terestrial TV I receive a NICAM signal and so does the VCR

PS

quote :

The NICAM signal must be sent down the RF cable because when watching normal terestrial TV I receive a NICAM signal and so does the VCR

end quote

the signal you are seeing is a continuation of the received signal passing thru the rf in to rf out on the vcr.

but does the nicam light light up on the tv if you play a recorded transmission thru the rf cable to the tv.

it doesn't with any of the tv's/video's we have.

my nicam light does however sometimes light up when i connect using scart ..... but not always .... the signal however is stereo when the original signal is stereo.

I had hoped that when I plugged in the new widescreen telly my telewest picture would improve, but it didn't. Also, it did not seem to be interpreting the Widescreen signal correctly

I went looking in a cable TV discussion group on 'DigitalSpy'. ( http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/index.php ) I found some references to some set up parameters on the set top box. Apparently some engineers leave some things to default. Selecting 'TV Guide' on the remote, there is a 'Screen Settings' option.

Within it there are two other options, one for picture output and one for screen aspect.

The defaults are 'Composite' and '4:3'.

When I changed the settings to 'RGB' and '16:9' I got a crisper picture (less background pixelation, certainly less noticaeable) and a TV that automatically sizes to the input signal. (obviously, I am using Scart to the RGB input on the back of the telly)

I'm a happier bunny now!

(PS for PS. This may also be the case with NTL boxes, as there is some suggestion that they are similar PACE boxes to NTLS)

[This message has been edited by Slipperman (edited 10 September 2001).]

thanks slipperman - I will try that tonight. When I looked through the menu I did see the screen format options, but didn't look in detail - it looked like the only options were 4:3 or 16:9 I didn't see anything about composite or RGB, but the menus are rather slow to come up, so perhaps I moved on before the menu had finished building

PS

PS A bit of extra info. According to this thread http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/showthread.php?s=c93a2ec304af24e3efab866e8392d31d&threadid=10569&highlight=NTL+Screen+settings

your NTL route might be:

Press TV guide on your remote
Select option 4 Options
Select option 4 TV Screen Settings
Select Video output to TV & change from Composite to RGB & then press TV

...but you probably know this

[This message has been edited by Slipperman (edited 10 September 2001).]

Just a small note about the terrible pixilisation of SMTV. All digital broadcasts I've seen do this. I think the quality of picture on hectic fast moving screens is crap, on all digital, it's so disappointing. I think designer have pushed the envelope a litte too far to what the systems can handle, and theyve had to settle for a very poor signal on some broadcasts.

Tim

slipperman & tim

thanks for the info. I tried to change the settings last night and sadly it would only give me a choice between composite and s-video. My TV has a YC input so I now have it set to that. The picture is better, but there is still the pixelation. I figured what tim wrote is true and we will probably just have to wait for either more bandwidth, higher bit rates or better codecs. The guy that installed it said I was getting on the last "older" boxes and NTL are now changing to a newer box, which according to the installation guy is not as good. Perhaps he is telling me porkies so I don't kick up a fuss about getting an older box, I don't know. Fortunately, however I have the mobile number of my contact at NTL so I don't have to deal with their call centre anymore! They are about as effective as farting in a storm!

Overall I am pleased with the improvement of going digital, however I still think that there is some room for improvement at the suppliers end

PS

Just my 2d worth now I'm back.....

Digital TV does not use NICAM - NICAM is only sent with analogue TV. Digital TV uses a different system wich is, in fact, worse than NICAM.

I am on NTL and pay just under £40pm for broadband + cable modem hire + digital TV + phone line as a package.

I will be getting a widescreen TV soon, and will take account of the above comments when setting up - thanks.

John