Harmonic Encoder Improvements? (Feedback Need it)

[mindstein]

Harmonic encoder

I have refrained from posting for numerous reasons mostly being the depth of responses viewed.As I understand a moving video image is best viewed in its raw state. That most likely is an AVI. That is a large file. To show that in realtime requires bandwidth. In order to conserve the amount of memory used, the industry started using MPEG encoding. As the MPEG# increases, the file size decreases. (kind of like zipping a zip file) Another example is a JPEG, not a bad picture, just keep re saving it and the picture quality decreases. An MPEG4 file or encryption does not have the quality of an MPEG2. So a question comes to my mind, how can the quality of an MPEG4 encrypted video have the same quality of MPEG2? They must be a reason Hollywood is not using MPEG4. It may be ok for low resolution.

 

[JimP]

Good info. I will be at work in a hour or so. I will check into this. Thanks again.

Marty2112,

Many of us ubergeeks would like to hear about how these channels are tweaked at Voom.

If you get a chance, maybe you can write up something on that.

 

[Cliff]

The last couple of days of while viewing various programs both HD and SD I felt like I was looking through a pair of binoculars that I couldn't focus.

 

[marty2112]

MUSIC CHOICE - -

I checked into the Music Choice problem here and found nothing wrong.

I will keep my eyes on it to see if there is anything else going on.

 

[piperut]

check your dpi settings after the update

Hi,

After the Voom update, I had to reset the dpi settings to 1060 or is it 1080 ... it was set on th 720 settings instead. (The middle settings instead of the highest settings.)

So you might want to check and make sure your settings for your TV are correct after the upgrade.

roland

 

[riffjim4069]

MUSIC CHOICE - -

I checked into the Music Choice problem here and found nothing wrong.

I will keep my eyes on it to see if there is anything else going on.

Thanks Marty. Keep up the good work...it's much appreciated!

 

[thxdan]

Hi Marty,

First, thanks for your dedication to making Voom's PQ be as good as possible, and asking for feedback from customers! That's almost unheard of these days! Well done.

When watching Lab HD last night, the encoders seem to be choking on scenes where there is a fade up from black and on dissolves (very difficult scenes for MPEG, traditionally). It's really noticeable during the short segments of Groov. That material is great for testing compression, since it uses bands of solid colors like animation but moving in wild ways (also tricky for MPEG to handle).

So, although LAB HD isn't the most important channel, it has some great test material. In summary: if the bitrate you use looks good on LAB, it's gonna look great on any channel with normal, non-graphics content (it seems MPEG does live motion better than animation at a given bitrate in my experience).

Good luck,
-Dan

 

[Walter L.]

Pixelation during NBA Games last night on TNT-HD

Anybody else noticed it?

 

[riffjim4069]

If bandwidth is an issue due to the upcoming channel expansion, then I say choke LAB and all the SD channel until Rainbow-2 is online. Walter, yep...I too noticed the pix/artifacts on last nights game and they were just as noticible on the game highlights being shown on HD News. The PQ was pretty darn good during low-motion frames, but the fans in the background looked blurry as well.

 

[Wally]

Reviewed all channels again at 2 pm ET Friday - 55" Mits RPTV component

HD is pretty good, maybe some extra softness on some channels, but it is hard to be confident with that because how different programs transfer make more difference with HD.

But it is the SD that is sufferable. A/B switch with cable (which I would love to lose) confirmed my observations that practically ALL the SD channels are not only soft but have extra pixelization. They look pretty bad - as bad as Dish Network SD was when I left them for VOOM.
The detail/crispness is gone. The SD used to be the best in the satellite business.
I can be patient. But I really hope they can fix this. Or make the wait to MPEG4 very short.

 

[19.39]

Looking through the PQ thread, the new pictures seem to be worse sometimes, better other times. I think it may take them a while to get things balenced correctly.

 

[ROLLZROYCE]

That Suns/Pistons game last night looked horrible!

 

[jagouar]

This is SD but SCIFI looks great tonight.... its a nice step-up from past weeks. It might just be tonight but it looks better than I remember.

 

[DarrellP]

This is SD but SCIFI looks great tonight.... its a nice step-up from past weeks. It might just be tonight but it looks better than I remember.

I'll second that. I had a buddy over to watch Enterprise but it wasn't on and he is a Stargate fanatic so we watched both episodes and I was surprised at the PQ as last night all the SD stunk big time.

 

[jorgitog1]

Most of the HD channels I have checked tonight look definitely better than yesterday. Good job on the tweaking VOOM!!!!

 

[george818]

Tonight was generally very good (watched Showtime HD, Equator, and Rave). I recently noticed that fade in and fade outs are not as smooth as they should be. It is almost as if instead of a continous fade it is occuring in steps. The only way I can describe it is as if going down stairs of brightness rather than a continous slide.

Enjoying Voom! thanks

 

[jagouar]

I watched sportscenter tonight and I have always been able to see pixelization on the opening/commercial break CGI intros/exits.... tonight its perfect (no pixelization). Hopefully this is permenant because most of the channels are definately improved.

 

[DarrellP]

I only watched Smart Travels on Voom tonight (equatorhd) and it was soft, pixelated a lot and had skeeter noise (but much smaller than before).

 

[nemisis633]

I watched the devil's advocate tonight and it looked great in HD.. SD still seems to be suffering though.. I'm sure they just fixed the HD first... It's definately highest priority.

 

[RogerD]

No, the PQ is not getting better. I watched a few shows that I had watched before tonight and yesterday night. They were considerably worse in my 50" plasma TV. The color is dull, not as bright or vibrant as before. The picture is not as sharp as before and is blurry at times. Scene changes take some time (half a second maybe) to stabilized. It is not my illusion because when I switch to OTA HD channels, I get back the vibrant HD PQ that I am looking for. I think VOOM needs to respond back and let us know if this PQ degradation is only temporary or not. If this is going to be permanent, there is no point for me to keep VOOM.