Sky is 'silly' to whine about HD for All
Putting technology before content
Comment Satellite broadcaster Sky's public affairs chief, Martin Le Jeune, is correct: HDTV is not a fundamental human right. Neither is standard-definition TV. But that doesn't mean it should be limited to two providers, his own company and cable broadcaster Virgin Media.
That's what he implied when he lambasted the HD for All campaign, which seeks to persuade the UK spectrum authority, Ofcom, to make room for terrestrially broadcast HD transmissions sooner rather than later. He described that request as "genuinely silly".
Le Jeune's problem with HD for All's goal is that he doesn't fancy having to compete with it. That's the "genuinely silly" argument, because the two won't compete.
Sky currently offers HD as a premium service on top of what is already a premium service: the standard Sky package. Why is Sky a premium service? Because it charges consumers above what they already pay - the licence fee, essentially - for all those extra channels and the content they can only view there: sporting fixtures, movies and so on. Virgin Media offers much the same deal via cable.
Freeview, by combining a number of free-to-air TV and radio digital channels widens the choice open to consumers well beyond the BBC 1, BBC 2, ITV, Channel 4 and Five selection available on analogue, but it's still a long way short of the 500-odd channels Sky and Virgin Media offer and lacks the exclusives.
It's a simple choice for the consumer: have a relatively limited selection of free channels, or pay more and get many more channels and exclusive content. That's all there is to it, and in such a market there's room for basic broadcast services and premium offerings alike.
If HD for All gets its way, Freeview will get a number of HD channels, most of them HD versions of programmes that will also be broadcast, for free, in SD. Consumers are unlikely to be offered a wide array of channels and the other content Sky offers to make up its sales proposition. In short, Freeview, even with HD, isn't going to compete seriously with Sky. Viewers are not suddenly going to get episodes of 24 and Tri-Nations rugby just because Freeview's gone HD. 'Extra spectrum' does not equate to 'extra content'.
I don't subscribe to Sky because I don't watch enough TV to warrant paying extra for a whole heap of channels I'm never going to watch. I don't watch a great deal of content on Freeview. But I would like to watch what I do in HD. I will have to a pay a premium for it because I'll need to buy a suitable TV and a new set-top box, but I don't see why I should pay a tenner a month or whatever to Rupert Murdoch just to get HD versions of free-to-air programmes that the hundred quid annual subscription I already pay to the BBC ought already to grant me the right to view.
How many Freeview HD viewers, having had a taste of HD, will opt for Sky's channel-enhanced alternative? Plenty of consumers have made that upgrade for SD content, and they'll do it for HD too.
The problem for Sky is that if they can't maintain that content lead, their offering begins to look less attractive to consumers, and if there's no technical lead either, it may find punters choosing to stick with the free services rather than its premium one.
That Le Jeune chooses to base his argument on his company's technology advantage rather than its lead in content - which is exactly what his beef with HD for All boils down to - suggests he's unsure Sky can win on what it broadcasts, only on how it broadcasts.
That cart-before-the-horse argument is what's "genuinely silly" about this week's HD in the UK debate.
COMMENTS
RE: RE: RE:RE: Download
You seem confused,
sure, "The Thing" has been released.. the first result on google is IMDB...
Yep
most likely the HD-disc release.... your example is 720p , half this resolution..
No, it was broadcast in 1080p, the transport stream was ripped, compared to the 720p version to make sure it wasn't upscaling. The transport stream and an encoded version using x264 have been posted. These people get anal about OAR versions and remux broadcasts with DST sound to create the best result.
I would further check this after download to see how much more compression is used... Divx, xvid, etc may be wonderful, untill you get a very dark scene, and cannot see anything!! (to say nothing about the noise from the cinema audience, or the bad focus and positioning of his camera!)
Well if you want no compression then you are out of luck, all HD video has compression applied you dolt, then you talk about filiming with a video camera in a cinema for some insane reason which has nothing to do with ripping transport streams and encoding them.
Don't believe me, drive to London, pug in a USB digitv device, record the transport stream from BBCHD in 1080p FTA already encoded in h.264 and post it on the internet, then kil yoursefl, please.
just did some calculations...
first a quick lesson on how broadcast TV is done..
http://www.sencore.com/newsletter/Jan02/JanNews/Understanding%20and%20Measuring%20Part%20I.htm
It quotes that for a NTSC horiz. res of 159 bits you would need 3 Mhz for video, needing a bandwidth of 4.2 Mhz.. (hey you look, you may understand better..)
now, taking the res to be 1920 x 1080, 3 colors, etc... adds up to 6,912,000 - and this is repeated 60 times a second!!
so the total number is 414,720,000 bits every second!!
thats about 415 MHz data rate...
NTSC is 525 lines, but this is interlaced, so is actually 262.5 lines, by say 160 wide - 3 colors makes it 126,000 bits, times 60 makes it 7,560,000... 7.5 Mhz data rate...
all you gotta do now, is figure out how to squeeze such a 'large' signal into the limited space as shown here...
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.html
RE: RE: RE: Download
sure, "The Thing" has been released.. the first result on google is IMDB...
most likely the HD-disc release.... your example is 720p , half this resolution..
I would further check this after download to see how much more compression is used... Divx, xvid, etc may be wonderful, untill you get a very dark scene, and cannot see anything!! (to say nothing about the noise from the cinema audience, or the bad focus and positioning of his camera!)
RE: RE: Download
Firstly "The Thing" is a movie and even the first result on google, not a TV show. And the 1080p has been released.
Here's an example of current releases.
Standoff.S*****.720p.HDTV.x264-***
And they are relasing TV shows in whatever is the best available, so in this case take Standoff or Sopranos or Lost or Prison Break or Desperate Housewives or The Nine or Weeds or 100 others. They were all available in this format on the internet 2 hours after air time finished in x264 format in Hi Def
you've all been conned...
TrueHD sets that do 1280 x 1080 natively are costing £2000 or more..
If it is much cheaper than that it is only 1280 x 720 native (with interlacing to fit 1280 into that.. YOU check the specs..)
you do the math - 1280 * 1080 pixels, 50 times a second, PLUS space for sound and sync.. how much is that??
and yes, your '1 gig for 40 mins' is only 1280 x 760 on WMV-HD spec...
so how long does it take you to download a 2hour film (3 gig) on your already congested internet??
the only thing that expensive HD tv is good for is the equally expensive disc player...
