Inexpensive tuner for PBS & RTV?

[Phottoman]

Um ... just a dumb idea, but you MIGHT want to introduce your Mom and Dad to Satguys. You can get the ball rolling for them, get their system(s) up and running, and let them see by looking here what else IS possible. That way, when you can't get there within minutes to fix what ever is wrong with their system, they at least have a place to go to ask questions and seek answers.

Give them the same choices you have when it comes to sat receivers and systems, and fixes.

Just my .02

Photto

 

[Dee_Ann]

What is this 4.2.2 stuff I keep seeing mention of?

I don't understand this.

 

[chapelrun]

4:2:2 in Wiki

This may help a bit.

Chroma subsampling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Question_book-new.svg" class="image"><img alt="Question book-new.svg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/99/Question_book-new.svg/50px-Question_book-new.svg.png"@@AMEPARAM@@en/thumb/9/99/Question_book-new.svg/50px-Question_book-new.svg.png

 

[Dee_Ann]

This may help a bit.

Chroma subsampling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So apparently this is video that is degraded in quality?

Why the excitement over that?

It says that people can't tell the difference in the reduction of color.

Um, yes, some of us can. I understand about mpeg lossy compression and I think it's horrible.

When I shoot photos of unimportant things I set my camera (my Canon) to save them in jpg format. My iPhone, I can not control the format or compression level on it..

But if I'm taking important photos, like a wedding or a portrait, I shoot in raw format and bracketed exposures. (I'm an amateur photographer, I would like to be better but I'm in it for the fun.. )

So compression = BAD when it comes to photos or video.

Anyway, so this 4.2.2 thing. Who uses it on TV and why?

Maybe I'm missing something here but to me it looks like is a not good thing. Right?

 

[Dee_Ann]

I do not have any personal experience with this tuner but many folks here have them. Does S2 but not 4:2:2

SatHawk PVR800 USB HD MPEG4 DVB-S2 Satellite Receiver

Can someone who has a SatHawk talk about easy of use and the ability to tune S2.

Ooooo! This might be a good tuner for my folks!



Wait, does this one get the PBS channels on 125??

Thanks!

 

[Mikhel]

Ooooo! This might be a good tuner for my folks!



Wait, does this one get the PBS channels on 125??

Thanks!

Yup, it'll get the LPB, OETA and now the PBS Montana channels from 125ºW.

4:2:2 video is a way of encoding video and it'll give you more crisp and vibrant colours due to chrominance being deleted just in half.

See... 4:4:4 video uses FULL brightness and FULL chrominance (colour resolution, where it is blue-brightness and red-brightness), 4:2:2 video uses FULL brightness (hence the 4) but half the colour resolution because now it has 4 in the colour fields (or 2+2, hence the 2:2), but 4:2:0 which is what its normally used, has FULL brightness but just one fourth of the color resolution (hence the 2:0, where they only use 2 out of 8 possible).

That's why you'll most likely see those 4:2:2 chroma videos on events that require the use of more colour resolution, like sports (baseball, american football, tennis, etcetera), while it's of practically no use to have 4:2:2 to broadcast the news where there are not a lot of different colours in each 'scenario'.

The only way to get 4:2:2 with an OpenBox S9 is to record something to a USB thumbdrive or USB hard disc, and then to watch it on the computer, not very practic for some events, but for others that you know when it begins and when it ends, it's very good (there's just one dealer that has a tool available for his customers to quickly convert the recorded files from an OpenBox to a file easily handled on your computer without using convoluted extra software for its conversion).

In short, more than likely your folks won't need to use 4:2:2.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Yup, it'll get the LPB, OETA and now the PBS Montana channels from 125ºW.

4:2:2 video is a way of encoding video and it'll give you more crisp and vibrant colours due to chrominance being deleted just in half.

See... 4:4:4 video uses FULL brightness and FULL chrominance (colour resolution, where it is blue-brightness and red-brightness), 4:2:2 video uses FULL brightness (hence the 4) but half the colour resolution because now it has 4 in the colour fields (or 2+2, hence the 2:2), but 4:2:0 which is what its normally used, has FULL brightness but just one fourth of the color resolution (hence the 2:0, where they only use 2 out of 8 possible).

That's why you'll most likely see those 4:2:2 chroma videos on events that require the use of more colour resolution, like sports (baseball, american football, tennis, etcetera), while it's of practically no use to have 4:2:2 to broadcast the news where there are not a lot of different colours in each 'scenario'.

The only way to get 4:2:2 with an OpenBox S9 is to record something to a USB thumbdrive or USB hard disc, and then to watch it on the computer, not very practic for some events, but for others that you know when it begins and when it ends, it's very good (there's just one dealer that has a tool available for his customers to quickly convert the recorded files from an OpenBox to a file easily handled on your computer without using convoluted extra software for its conversion).

In short, more than likely your folks won't need to use 4:2:2.

Oh, ok. So they are broadcasting crummy color information as a rule of thumb but in some cases they can do it one better?

What a shame it's wasted on sports. Bah..

I'm a tetrachromat so I am very sensitive to color. But my gift is very rare and very few people have this ability to see so many colors.

My mom however is getting macular degeneration and she has a cataract in one eye that the doctors say needs to "ripen" some more before they remove it. So her eyesight is not so good anymore. Dad, is pretty much color blind. I think he can't see much more than the Jr. box of crayons, we've argued over paint colors all my life. Sheesh!

I however, would love to see better TV. When I bought a big flat screen and started watching PBS HD, I was sooooooooo spoiled! And Blu-ray, OMG! Avatar on Blu-ray on my flat screen is just soooo yummy and colorlicious!!

I wish ALL TV could be that nice! I mean, ya know, it IS 2010 ya know...

 

[Mikhel]

Oh, ok. So they are broadcasting crummy color information as a rule of thumb but in some cases they can do it one better?

What a shame it's wasted on sports. Bah..

I'm a tetrachromat so I am very sensitive to color. But my gift is very rare and very few people have this ability to see so many colors.

My mom however is getting macular degeneration and she has a cataract in one eye that the doctors say needs to "ripen" some more before they remove it. So her eyesight is not so good anymore. Dad, is pretty much color blind. I think he can't see much more than the Jr. box of crayons, we've argued over paint colors all my life. Sheesh!

I however, would love to see better TV. When I bought a big flat screen and started watching PBS HD, I was sooooooooo spoiled! And Blu-ray, OMG! Avatar on Blu-ray on my flat screen is just soooo yummy and colorlicious!!

I wish ALL TV could be that nice! I mean, ya know, it IS 2010 ya know...

Hehehe i have a bit of daltonism (thanks grandpa!) but nothing outstanding =P.

Yup, they opt to use 4:2:0 as a rule of thumb because most of the people can't really diferentiate between that and better colour resolutions, at the same time it helps them by cutting down the amount of data they need to send, also 4:2:2 depends heavily on the processor and most receivers are not using top of the line processors, in fact DVB-S and DVB-S2 support full colour resolution at 4:4:4 but it's pretty rare, funny thing is they opt to use 4:2:2 for sports but don't show it at full HD, odd things of the life =P.

Right now there's just a few receivers that can do 4:2:2 and all of them are linux based and are basically a computer, which, with the help of codecs and a good videocard can process effectively the 4:2:2 chroma. But their price makes them prohibitive for the casual FTAer or, in your folks case, for the people who are beginning to 'wet their feet' on the sea that is the FTA world.

I hope you can at least get them the RTV, History/Bio channels until an affordable DVB-S2 receiver comes across, don't know if it's worth it just to watch the PBS channels, sincerely, but then again i speak of it that way because i can get them OTA and the clean feed on C Band (103ºW) which has both a standard definition and a high definition feed (awesome picture on those HD channels of PBS, all of them, really)... well, you're about to get your C Band system, so you'll also be capable of watching those and a few more good channels scattered here and there (Anik has a couple of good channels at 107ºW C band, 99ºW has the PR Mux albeit not a good quality on its picture, that sat also has the LESEA channels with shows from back in the day, 121ºW C has a few channels too, mostly news but they're not bad, and 91ºW C could pretty well be the best of them all with a few premium channels there like fox movies, fox news, natgeo, etcetera).

=)