On a sunny day (Thu, 26 Jul 2007 23:06:19 +0100) it happened Chris Jones
wrote in :

Well, maybe you do not have digital yet.
Of course there is DVB-T in the UK, that's why we know from personal
experience that it looks worse than the old UK PAL system, that admittedly
does have a wider video bandwidth than what you would have been used to.

Well, tehre are some channels 9I can tell you as ican get all UK stuff here too
via satellite, tha tis ITV1-4 BBC- Parliament (if that is a channel), many more,
and soem of teh FTA Ky.

I have __***NEVER***__ seen 'noise stop', that is actually a sign of your
decoder not keeping up, I have noticed that some Sky channels transmit in
352x288 (the set will scale it to full) so at 1/4 the bandwidth, but you
cannot blame that on the digital system!!!!!! Blame it on Rupert!!!
You are not talking about a f*cking Skybox no?????????????????


And for sure you have not seen the HDTV tests on satellite like those from
France. I am not denying mpeg2 compression has artefacts, but those very
much depend on bandwidth (bitrate), and bitrate is a bit less then 4000
kbps on digital here. (non HD).
Perhaps they have throttled down the bitrate per channel in the UK to less
than they use where you are. I would like to see the numbers.

Exactly, there is, if you have a PCI card, some Linux program that shows
all the bitrates for the various streams in the transponders.
Cannot remember the name of the program, there are hundreds of utilities.


Or just someone who has seen both pictures and then tells the truth.

Sure, I do not question the observation, but I do say you need to compare
GOOD digital with GOOD PAL composite, else comparing makes no sense.

I
suspect that many people who have just spent a couple of grand on a new TV
feel that they have to say it looks better, because otherwise that would
make them stupid - so it's like the emperor's new clothes.

Yes those pople may exist, but normal people would return the set.

I say: Just buy a good digital set :-)
And then buy another one when they switch to MPEG-4, which they have already
proposed doing. Well by then it will have failed from tin whiskers anyhow.

That is why I am using a PC, no matter how they encode it, I will find
some decoder.

The public will keep buying new stuf fevery standard change say maybe even
more often then the lead-free requires.