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The Big Freeview Con


tucker

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Thanks for the info.

 

ETA: only any point if you want them in different rooms (say). Since all Freesat is also on the Skybox.

Interesting. Because Sky Sports News is subscription on Sky but fta on digital. I wonder if you receive the signal via Murdoch is it free or not?

 

There are some channels which are currently FTA on Freeview terrestrial but which are not FTA or FTV on satellite.

 

Sky Sports News requires a Sky subscription on satellite. It does not even work with a sub free Sky card (one off payment or lapsed subscription).

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No but that is not to say it cannot happen. Read Ballaughbikers original post. This is a probable reason for his perceived improvment.

 

No Slim, your point is wrong.

 

Sigh. No there isn't a reason for his perceived improvement. It's digital, like he said, it'll either work at full quality, or it'll not work, or be unreliable. There won't be degradation or improvement in quality based on the cable type. The reason for his perceived improvement is that he swallowed the marketing bullshit and is feebly justifying the extra expense, you see it all the time with audiophile crap.

 

If a 2 quid cable complies to hdmi 1.3 spec, you don't need anything else.

 

Here's some backup:

http://www.audioholics.com/education/cable...tion-conclusion

 

At lengths less than 4 meters you can just about use silly string (OK, not really) and get HDMI to pass at any current resolution.

 

At long lengths (over 10 meters) you really need to pay attention to the manufacturer if you don't want to risk running into potential problems with 1080p and future formats such as Deep Color.

 

Pogo: all of freesat is not on sky, ITV HD for example. Not much in it though.

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Sigh. No there isn't a reason for his perceived improvement. It's digital, like he said, it'll either work at full quality, or it'll not work, or be unreliable. There won't be degradation or improvement in quality based on the cable type. The reason for his perceived improvement is that he swallowed the marketing bullshit and is feebly justifying the extra expense, you see it all the time with audiophile crap.

 

If a 2 quid cable complies to hdmi 1.3 spec, you don't need anything else.

 

Here's some backup:

http://www.audioholics.com/education/cable...tion-conclusion

 

At lengths less than 4 meters you can just about use silly string (OK, not really) and get HDMI to pass at any current resolution.

 

At long lengths (over 10 meters) you really need to pay attention to the manufacturer if you don't want to risk running into potential problems with 1080p and future formats such as Deep Color.

 

 

 

He also mentions sparkles (picture degradation) and one interesting snippet "remember, with HDMI 1.0 source we got nothing at all at 1080P." And that is using expensive cables. Digital video and digital sound are not all or nothing. There is limited error recovery (output of sparkles), otherwiseyou would have no picture half the time.

 

Perhaps you should look at the Bluejeans website. It is more informative and more interesting.

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He also mentions sparkles (picture degradation) and one interesting snippet "remember, with HDMI 1.0 source we got nothing at all at 1080P." And that is using expensive cables. Digital video and digital sound are not all or nothing. There is limited error recovery (output of sparkles), otherwiseyou would have no picture half the time.

 

Perhaps you should look at the Bluejeans website. It is more informative and more interesting.

 

Sparkles because they're doing extreme cable length tests, which has nothing to do with any sort of quality difference if you're going a like for like test on a cheap cable vs a fanny one at a couple of feet.

 

Took a look at Bluejeans website, they sell good cables for long runs, and they sell 3 quid copper plated cables for everything else. They seem to be agreeing with me. Did I miss something?

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I really didn't want to get into the "cable" toss-off, especially as one of the protagonists drops into pathetic name-calling whenever their points are being called, but both types of cable have merit. Standard stuff is cheap, strong, reliable. Gold stuff is naffing expensive, needs routing care to be reliable and if you're just laying cable it's simply not worth it. But the gold stuff can stand an awful lot more twisting, bending and stretching with no ill-effects because it's so much more more malleable hence it tends to be reinforced via shielding. In fact it's so malleable it's excellent for making intricate jewellery as any lady will tell you.

 

As someone has pointed out it's all noughts and ones. So the two crucial factors are internal resistance, which governs cable length, and the speed of the latching driver. Basically the clearest signals are the type that degrade from a logical one state (say, +4 v) to a logical nought state (say +0.4 v) the quickest. Because gold makes the better contact there is less contact resistance. Less physical contact resistance = less heat. Less heat = less ohms. Less ohms = greater run length. But that assumes the latching driver is a perfect piece of kit, which it never is!

 

So unless you're right at the electrical distance limit or connecting to something that vibrates a lot or whatever you don't need gold. So always start on the cheap stuff because the assumption that gold will improve things is entirely that - an assumption. If you're pushing the distance/driver/# of connections switch to gold and you might get away with it.

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Had a visit from a very nice lady from offcom last week doing a survey to find out what people know about the switchover ,problem was she was only speaking to women ,wouldnt talk to this ungruntled grumpy old man <_<

Went to Tescos today and was looking at the topup tv boxes (the isle of man isnt getting topup tv EVER) and was informed by a shopper that Freeview is not digital and wont be available on the island so he signedup to SKY which is great because you dont need a tv licence for satalite :(

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I really didn't want to get into the "cable" toss-off, especially as one of the protagonists drops into pathetic name-calling whenever their points are being called

 

Ironic then that you enter the conversation and are the only one to do the name calling, don't you think?

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The reason for his perceived improvement is that he swallowed the marketing bullshit and is feebly justifying the extra expense, you see it all the time with audiophile crap.

 

There's no need to be be so charming Slim, just tell us straight how it is (or how you think it is....) Actually, the real reason for getting the QED lead was NOT to improve the picture. It was to try to stop the old 1970s Thorens/SME/V15 (still regularly used) from picking up a buzz which started when then Humax HDR was installed and the QED lead cured that for whatever reason. To solve that problem £60 was well spent imo.

 

However, as a by product, I think the picture is sharper, she thinks the picture is better and that's all that matters. If you think differently, hey so what, we're watching it and you aren't! Yes, its all 0s and 1s but life is rarely that simple unless you want it to be to obviate any need to think further.

 

PS No need to get cross, all the above is said with good humour, unlike one or two of your posts. However I would be interested in your opinion of the products on the Russ Andrews website, especially the units that are designed to filter out mains noise. (That's if you are still talking to me :) )

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