Sky Digital (uk) Question

[Master Yoda]

I dont think my sky mini dish is in a correct postion as it points straight into a tree at the back of my garden.In the services section on the set top box the signal strength in nearly a full bar but the signal quality bar is only every half, and when it rains it drops to under half.Now is the signal quality bar meant to be higher than half, im sure it is.Plus the picture quality sometimes looks worse than the arial signal, i.e. when watching the footy on sky sports, some times the pitch is all blocky and around the players is speckally.Plus ive noticed the picture to look blocky or grainy.Im sure the problem is because the disc is pointing into the direction of the tree and its not aligned correct.

What do you guys think.???

I could move the dish myself but i have no idea how to get it aligned correctly... i.e. the direction and angle.

[Nic]

Although, not entirely related, but mostly on Sky Sports the football looks horrid up close (and I get it thru NTL cable). The bitrate they're using is everso low for that content.

So, I dont think an improved signal will help you in that particular area. (if the signal was the problem, you are more likely to get dropouts of macroblock corruption rather than a low quality picture)

Ring Sky and ask them about it. If it is an issue, they should come and sort it out for you.

-Nic

[Mug Funky]

yeah, what you'd be seeing with bad reception would be things like rows of black-purplish blocks that flicker for about half a second, or maybe even large areas of frame going green and being pushed along for similar amounts of time.

if everything's the right colour, then any quality issues are the provider's fault. write to them and request better quality if you want... they wont do anything, but at least they'll be free of the illusion that nobody notices these things.

[Master Yoda]

OK thanks.I was guessing it was a low quality stream but was'nt to sure, colours are fine though.I do think my dish needs to by aligned a bit better as i have lost signal when it rains really hard.Sometimes i lose signal even if its just a light shower.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Yep, I recently captured same live SkyDigital stuff, using a DV camcorder connected between the digibox and my PC. And upon playback, the quality of the captured image was really quite appalling now!

I know it's not the ideal method to generate a test but it has produced pretty good results in the past.

I would be very interested to know the bitrate speed for some of Sky's output. Not to mention the bitrate speed of some of the BBC and ITV's output too!

Not only do we have to put up with an endless number of crappy channels (hogging much of the bandwith) regurgitating an endless number of crappy re-runs. We now have to put up with crap quality images...

If I'm gonna watch crap... I would like to see it properly :p

Cheers