Reliance digital to provide 250ch with HD LIKE quality

[gobble]

Even if the TV signals come in 480p or 576p Kawaality, it should be better than regular TV and good enough no? :licklips:

--G

 

[adder]

if thats the case then i guess this change happened a few months ago when reliance changed their menu a couple of months ago and thats why there was slight improvement in picture quality

But now they say its going to be 1080p.

 

[adder]

Even if the TV signals come in 480p or 576p Kawaality, it should be better than regular TV and good enough no? :licklips:

--G

If they upscale with compressing the source signal it will be good.
They also claim it will be 16:9 ,i hope they upscale a native 16:9 signal.

 

[prankey]

well their facebook page says 250HD channels not 250 " HD like" channels.

If they dont charge anything then i dont care if they call them 250 3d channels

Both dish and rdtv engineers will be nominated for this years nobel price in physics for this remarkable invention

Hehe let Dish FRAUD HD win the price hands down... Infact they should be termed freedom fighting mortals and we should whole heartedly support their JAIL BHARO ANDOLAN :yahoo:

HD-DVR never had the option of switching the resolution ,so irrespictive of channels native resolution all the channels were upscaled to 1080i by the STB.

Now reliance claims its STB will give them in 1080p ,which i believe requires a software update.

I believe they are talking of their NON DVR HD STB only! Atleast that is what their website suggest..

if thats the case then i guess this change happened a few months ago when reliance changed their menu a couple of months ago and thats why there was slight improvement in picture quality

Haha I doubt about the change you are talking about. All HD STBs in India provides UPSCALED HD 1080i or 720p content for all the SD or HD channels! That is the reason I am pulling my hair since Dish TV launched this SCAM of 30+ "HD" channels. If STB is already doing the job well, they should just provide better quality SD for better user experience. Upscaling SD and recompressing them is ONLY A SCAM at its best!

If they upscale with compressing the source signal it will be good.
They also claim it will be 16:9 ,i hope they upscale a native 16:9 signal.

I disagree with you. Upscaled content will have more pixels to compress and hence the compression will ALWAYS be of lesser quality at the same bitrate. So they should concentrate more on providing lesser compressed SD in h.264 and broadcasted in DVBS2 platform. Its best to leave the upscaling job to STB or TV as they do it rather losslessly and the upscaled output is never recompressed to loose more details... Remember, upscaling will not necessary improve quality of the content but will reduce the artifacts like jagged diagonal lines, blockiness, pixellation, etc. Its best to leave the job of upscaling to STB, AVR or TV and instead provide better quality SD. Ah, hope we do realize this, I could not re-emphasize more on this.

I believe Reliance is NOT doing anything to change their broadcasts and instead introducing 1080p upscaling on their STBs to offer highest resolution available in most of the current HDTVs and marketing it more to educate the customers that Upscaled HD can ONLY be called HD "like" which can happen through the STB itself!

 

[adder]

I disagree with you. Upscaled content will have more pixels to compress and hence the compression will ALWAYS be of lesser quality at the same bitrate. So they should concentrate more on providing lesser compressed SD in h.264 and broadcasted in DVBS2 platform. Its best to leave the upscaling job to STB or TV as they do it rather losslessly and the upscaled output is never recompressed to loose more details... Remember, upscaling will not necessary improve quality of the content but will reduce the artifacts like jagged diagonal lines, blockiness, pixellation, etc. Its best to leave the job of upscaling to STB, AVR or TV and instead provide better quality SD. Ah, hope we do realize this, I could not re-emphasize more on this.

I believe Reliance is NOT doing anything to change their broadcasts and instead introducing 1080p upscaling on their STBs to offer highest resolution available in most of the current HDTVs and marketing it more to educate the customers that Upscaled HD can ONLY be called HD "like" which can happen through the STB itself!

Sorry that was a typo i meant they should upscale it without compressing the source signal,so i hope they are able to upscale a native 16:9 signal.

 

[sanjay0864]

Reliance digital to provide 250ch with HD LIKE quality

what do understand by HD LIKE quality with no extra cost
My question to ppl who wants lawyer
has reliance fooled u or Is it robing u by charging extra ?

i do not understand y on earth ppl do not read carefully & just want to sue other in name sake of freedom to do anything

On the face of it, the Reliance offer does seem to be okay. But that is not the reality. The reality is that their stating "no extra cost" still means that there is "a cost" and thus terming an upscaled SD channel as "HD LIKE", is still very misleading, specially so for the vast majority of consumers who are naive and do not understand the intracacies of SD/Upscaled/HD etc. Bottom line is that the Reliance advertising is only slightly better than what Dish FraudHD is doing. Charging for something, even upscaled SD is nto the problem, it is the misleading terms used to advertise the upscaled SD channels, which is wrong and unethical.

 

[sanjay0864]

In reference to this whole upscaling business, does no one here understand the very basics of current flat panel tvs? All Plasma and LCD TVs are 'fixed resolution' TVs. What that menas is that all flat panel TVs can only display ONE and only one resolution. Thus all Flat panel HD TVs have to either upscale or downscale a signal to match it's native resolution before being able to display the picture. In short, a 1080p Flat panel (plasma or LCD) HD TV can only display a 1080p signal and therefore it automatically has to upscale all signals to 1080p to be able to display it. Given this fact, the technically correct way of providing the best picture to the consumer is as follows:
1. Broadcast in MPEG4 using the best compression equipment at a high bit rate without any upscaling nonsense.
2. Providse set-top boxes that will output the native broadcast resolution with any upscaling or downscaling. This way any upscaling if required is left to the inbuilt scaler of the TV, which presumable would be of a better quality than a cheapo STB provided by the DTH companies.

Alternately an even better solution is to:
1. Upscale the original SD channel to a higher resolution, but very importantly still maintain the original aspect ratio of the picture and then compress the upscaled SD channel using MPEG4 and broadcast it at a high bit rate.
2. Let the STB pass the signal to the TV as is, that is without any kind of scaling.
But, if this alternate is used, then the DTH company should very clearly advertise that these are simply upscaled SD channels. Ofcourse, this should only be a temporary solution and in the meantime the DTH companies and the original channel producers should be working to switch all their channels to genuine TRUE HD channels.

 

[adroit_91]

While we wait for the "real" HD channels to arrive in India, here's food for thought: In the fight for higher resolution, the marketers and consumers alike have forsaken the fact that it is higher frames per second that is more pleasing to our eyes and provides more life-like images to our brains! I hope the 1080p signals don't arrive with Youtube type frame rates of 10-15fps!

 

[just4kix]

There are very few 1080p channels in the world. Even in USA, the only 1080p channels are the "pay per view" channels and most of these are via IPTV/Braoadband only. The bandwidth required for 1080p is too high. So all true HD channels will be 1080i for the near future at least.

 

[dillihifi]

@ sanjay bhai

Just a little confused. The LCDs display the resolution whenever we switch sources. Is this the information that is being displayed the input resolution of the material ?

 

[askii2]

There are very few 1080p channels in the world. Even in USA, the only 1080p channels are the "pay per view" channels and most of these are via IPTV/Braoadband only. The bandwidth required for 1080p is too high. So all true HD channels will be 1080i for the near future at least.

I have a few 1080p Blu-rays which have an 18Mbps bitrate! 1080i broadcasts I have observed for Indian broadcasters range between 1.5Mbps to 2Mbps. It's obviously at the cost of PQ. Satellite bandwidth is ranted on a linear scale, so double bandwidth will cost double the amount.

 

[prankey]

In reference to this whole upscaling business, does no one here understand the very basics of current flat panel tvs? All Plasma and LCD TVs are 'fixed resolution' TVs. What that menas is that all flat panel TVs can only display ONE and only one resolution. Thus all Flat panel HD TVs have to either upscale or downscale a signal to match it's native resolution before being able to display the picture. In short, a 1080p Flat panel (plasma or LCD) HD TV can only display a 1080p signal and therefore it automatically has to upscale all signals to 1080p to be able to display it. Given this fact, the technically correct way of providing the best picture to the consumer is as follows:
1. Broadcast in MPEG4 using the best compression equipment at a high bit rate without any upscaling nonsense.
2. Providse set-top boxes that will output the native broadcast resolution with any upscaling or downscaling. This way any upscaling if required is left to the inbuilt scaler of the TV, which presumable would be of a better quality than a cheapo STB provided by the DTH companies.

Alternately an even better solution is to:
1. Upscale the original SD channel to a higher resolution, but very importantly still maintain the original aspect ratio of the picture and then compress the upscaled SD channel using MPEG4 and broadcast it at a high bit rate.
2. Let the STB pass the signal to the TV as is, that is without any kind of scaling.
But, if this alternate is used, then the DTH company should very clearly advertise that these are simply upscaled SD channels. Ofcourse, this should only be a temporary solution and in the meantime the DTH companies and the original channel producers should be working to switch all their channels to genuine TRUE HD channels.

I completely agree with you. We should always have the option to get the original 576i or 1080i without any scaling from the STB. This upscaling SCAM is worth NOTHING!

While we wait for the "real" HD channels to arrive in India, here's food for thought: In the fight for higher resolution, the marketers and consumers alike have forsaken the fact that it is higher frames per second that is more pleasing to our eyes and provides more life-like images to our brains! I hope the 1080p signals don't arrive with Youtube type frame rates of 10-15fps!

You would always get a fixed 25fps in whatever signals you get including 1080p in India!

There are very few 1080p channels in the world. Even in USA, the only 1080p channels are the "pay per view" channels and most of these are via IPTV/Braoadband only. The bandwidth required for 1080p is too high. So all true HD channels will be 1080i for the near future at least.

I dont believe there will be much difference in the bandwidth requirement between 1080p @ 24fps to 30fps and 1080i @ 50Hz to 60Hz. Obviously we are not asking for 1080p @ 60Hz signals here. 1080i has more to do with compatibility across HDTVs than bandwidth.

@ sanjay bhai

Just a little confused. The LCDs display the resolution whenever we switch sources. Is this the information that is being displayed the input resolution of the material ?

Its always source resolution. Internally all gets converted to Panel's native resolution.

I have a few 1080p Blu-rays which have an 18Mbps bitrate! 1080i broadcasts I have observed for Indian broadcasters range between 1.5Mbps to 2Mbps. It's obviously at the cost of PQ. Satellite bandwidth is ranted on a linear scale, so double bandwidth will cost double the amount.

Lets not compare BR bandwidth with Satellite TV as they may not match in the near future, however we could still try for 1080p at a similar bandwidth DTH operators reserve for 1080i at double frequency... I don't think it will be too much of difference... Although 1080i may still remain the resolution of choice for them mainly due to compatibility and PQ comparable to 1080p on static images..

 

[sanjay0864]

@ sanjay bhai

Just a little confused. The LCDs display the resolution whenever we switch sources. Is this the information that is being displayed the input resolution of the material ?

Yes, the resolution information displayed, is the input resolution. As stated previously the displayed resolution is always the same, ie. the native resolution of the flat panel TV.

 

[BLASTO]

In reference to this whole upscaling business, does no one here understand the very basics of current flat panel tvs? All Plasma and LCD TVs are 'fixed resolution' TVs. What that menas is that all flat panel TVs can only display ONE and only one resolution. Thus all Flat panel HD TVs have to either upscale or downscale a signal to match it's native resolution before being able to display the picture. In short, a 1080p Flat panel (plasma or LCD) HD TV can only display a 1080p signal and therefore it automatically has to upscale all signals to 1080p to be able to display it. Given this fact, the technically correct way of providing the best picture to the consumer is as follows:
1. Broadcast in MPEG4 using the best compression equipment at a high bit rate without any upscaling nonsense.
2. Providse set-top boxes that will output the native broadcast resolution with any upscaling or downscaling. This way any upscaling if required is left to the inbuilt scaler of the TV, which presumable would be of a better quality than a cheapo STB provided by the DTH companies.

Alternately an even better solution is to:
1. Upscale the original SD channel to a higher resolution, but very importantly still maintain the original aspect ratio of the picture and then compress the upscaled SD channel using MPEG4 and broadcast it at a high bit rate.
2. Let the STB pass the signal to the TV as is, that is without any kind of scaling.
But, if this alternate is used, then the DTH company should very clearly advertise that these are simply upscaled SD channels. Ofcourse, this should only be a temporary solution and in the meantime the DTH companies and the original channel producers should be working to switch all their channels to genuine TRUE HD channels.

Better thing to do is just remove any compression at all an transmit the uncompressed signal without upscaling.

There are very very good high end upscalers available though. They could procure one and can theoritically transmit much better quality by telecasting with higher bit rates.

 

[adder]

Better thing to do is just remove any compression at all an transmit the uncompressed signal without upscaling.

There are very very good high end upscalers available though. They could procure one and can theoritically transmit much better quality by telecasting with higher bit rates.

Yep its better for them to send it without upscaling but without compression.
But the STB don't show them in their native resolution .

 

[prankey]

Yep its better for them to send it without upscaling but without compression.
But the STB don't show them in their native resolution .

It may not be practically possible for the broadcasters who keep struggling with bandwidth issues to broadcast uncompressed video. I hope you meant ORIGINAL COMPRESSED bitstream instead of uncompressed video which may not be available even through the original content providers. I completely agree that they should send UNPROCESSED VIDEO AND AUDIO to avoid looses due to recompression and thats the best they should do instead of this upscaling drama.

I also agree that all the HD STBs I have seen in India do not transmit the original 576i signals without scaling. Infact my Samsung HDTV do not even support 576i thru HDMI!

 

[sanjay0864]

It is actually technically 'almost' impossible to provide a totally uncompressed digital video signal via DTH. The bandwith and thruput requirements even for a standard definition uncompressed digtal video signal is way beyond the 'practical' limits of DTH technology. Ofcourse it goes without saying that for digital HD video this cannot even be thought of at the moment. What is possible and what the DTH companies ought to do, if only they were not trying to save every paisa by cutting as many corners as possible, is to provide the originally broadcast compressed video signal, without any further re-compression. Actually what would be even better, is that they take the original signal and upscale it using professional grade upscalers, which by the way are far superior to the scalers in our TVs and cheapo STBs, but they must retain the original aspect ratio of the SD video instead of horizontally stretching the picture to fill a 16:9 frame.

 

[prankey]

but they must retain the original aspect ratio of the SD video instead of horizontally stretching the picture to fill a 16:9 frame.

Your statement is misleading. SD usually have an aspect ratio of 4.3 which will always look stretched if retained that way.

I believe you are trying to tell to extract original 16:9 or higher aspect content from those stream and use it for upscaling. I agree that it would add more value to upscale that way, however unless the upscaling is exceptionally better then what we see in the TV or STB or an AVR, I feel its an utter waste of bandwidth and the SD video will look much better without upscaling but utilizing the same bandwidth MPEG4 h.264 compression on the original signals. While compressing, its always BEST to use the original signals instead of upconverting them as it will unnecessarily give more info than originally is to be compressed resulting in more losses...

 

[sanjay0864]

Your statement is misleading. SD usually have an aspect ratio of 4.3 which will always look stretched if retained that way.

I believe you are trying to tell to extract original 16:9 or higher aspect content from those stream and use it for upscaling. I agree that it would add more value to upscale that way, however unless the upscaling is exceptionally better then what we see in the TV or STB or an AVR, I feel its an utter waste of bandwidth and the SD video will look much better without upscaling but utilizing the same bandwidth MPEG4 h.264 compression on the original signals. While compressing, its always BEST to use the original signals instead of upconverting them as it will unnecessarily give more info than originally is to be compressed resulting in more losses...

Nothing misleading about my statement, since it is quite simple to maintain the 4:3 aspect ratio by putting black bars on the sides. That is how the rest of the broadcasting world maintains the 4:3 aspect ratio on a 16:9 display. It's not really rocket science as the INdian DTH companies are making it out to be.

As for the upscaling issue, without doubt the professional grade upscalers will do a far superior job to any inbuilt scaler in your TV or STB.

 

[prankey]

Nothing misleading about my statement, since it is quite simple to maintain the 4:3 aspect ratio by putting black bars on the sides. That is how the rest of the broadcasting world maintains the 4:3 aspect ratio on a 16:9 display. It's not really rocket science as the INdian DTH companies are making it out to be.

As for the upscaling issue, without doubt the professional grade upscalers will do a far superior job to any inbuilt scaler in your TV or STB.

I agree about the upscalers, however after upscaling, they would have to recompress which may result in worse looking video than without upscaling... Best to get the original compressed video and audio. This issue wont come if the upscaling is handled (even when its worse then those professional upscalers) as the output by STB, AVR or TV will always be uncompressed...

I personally prefer 4:3 without the black bars on the side as it would waste the pixels on the sides.. Its better to manually switch the aspect ratio to 4:3 rather than having those black bars added on the side. Switching to 4:3 will maintain the pixel density which can be better processed by the picture processor of the TV. However, I agree this issue is subjective.. Also, the method suggested by you will most severely affect wide screen content in the 4:3 video as we will not even be able to use the zoom function to properly crop the black bars to get 16:9 by the TV (though with reduced resolution which gets lost in those black bars).