Foxtel Owners & Discussion Thread

[BribieG]

I'm not a Foxtel subscriber but since acquiring a 37 inch lcd with HD tuner I have become acutely aware of how poor the PQ is on the Foxtel displays at every shopping centre where they have 3 or 4 crap grade plasma 480 panels. It strikes me that (unlike my TV) whenever there is a 4:3 show being broadcast, instead of 'pillar boxing' the screen, the picture is smeared out over the width of the screen, distorting the aspect ratio. Coupled with the generally lousy definition on the sports shows, these obsolete-looking shopping centre displays don't seem like a good way of promoting their product.

I mentioned this to one of the sales staff, and he said that their growth market is the lower end of the socio-economic scale who will be watching on old CRT sets, and to this market the SD plasmas used in the sales displays actually look groovy compared to what they are watching now.

Will Foxtel actually have the bandwidth / infrastructure to do HD in the near future?

Michael Gardner

Caboolture ( a Queensland equivalent of Campbelltown etc.)

[lakeyboy]

Well I guess they distort the 4:3 signal to fit the plasma is to give the illusion that all foxtel channels are 16:9 when in reality only a handful are. And the poor quality is from the plasmas being cheap (because there is heaps of the kiosks in shopping centres everywhere) and they are on all day every day so they would suffer a conscridable amount of burn-in. I reckon when the analog signal is shut down across metro cities in aus, Foxtel will offer HD when a wider range of HD programming is being produced.

[timeshift]

And the poor quality is from the plasmas being cheap

Bzzzzzzt, try again. Poor PQ exists on all plasmas and LCDs when it comes to Foxtel.

[Craigus]

You can configure the foxtel box to display 4:3 in pillar box mode.

Some channels are pretty bad quality due to the poor bit rates.

Some channels, such as movies are not too bad, but the best you'll see if SD from foxtel at the moment. It's also interlaced, so if your plasma/lcd is crap at deinterlacing then the picture will look even worse.

I think foxtel are doing HD next year (I'm guessing for movies and a few key channels). My understanding is that they are waiting for a new optus satelite to go up as they don't have enough bandwidth already on the current sat's they are using.

[Doug1503559538]

I'm not a Foxtel subscriber but since acquiring a 37 inch lcd with HD tuner I have become acutely aware of how poor the PQ is on the Foxtel displays at every shopping centre where they have 3 or 4 crap grade plasma 480 panels. It strikes me that (unlike my TV) whenever there is a 4:3 show being broadcast, instead of 'pillar boxing' the screen, the picture is smeared out over the width of the screen, distorting the aspect ratio. Coupled with the generally lousy definition on the sports shows, these obsolete-looking shopping centre displays don't seem like a good way of promoting their product.

I mentioned this to one of the sales staff, and he said that their growth market is the lower end of the socio-economic scale who will be watching on old CRT sets, and to this market the SD plasmas used in the sales displays actually look groovy compared to what they are watching now.

Will Foxtel actually have the bandwidth / infrastructure to do HD in the near future?

Michael Gardner

Caboolture ( a Queensland equivalent of Campbelltown etc.)

Someone bagging FOXTEL PQ AND THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE FOXTEL IN THEIR HOUSE !!!!!

99% of people are happy with FOXTEL PQ - only problem is a few pessimists and whingers who always seem to frequent places like anonymous forums. Maybe they just can't make friends due to their negativity so they "hang out " here ?

FOXTEL PQ is fine - just enjoy the programming (but of course you can't because you don't even have it !!!!)

[timeshift]

FOXTEL PQ is fine - just enjoy the programming

No, it's not fine. Compare FTA to Foxtel, wow, FTA shits all over it. Foxtel is not crisp and clear. I don't know what you watch it on but obviously not something of decent quality.

enjoy the programming? lol, yeah, that's about all it has going for it.

[DrP]

Foxtel PQ is demonstrably low. Do you care to argue this in a reasonable and factual way, Doug?

FOX8 is going to run Prison Break shortly. I'll post some short clips from 7's broadcast and matching clips from FOX8. Then everyone can decide for themselves which is better.

From watching Foxtel/Austar I'll tell you up front that 7's SD will be superior, with far more picture detail than FOX8. FOX8 will look smoothed and blurred.

At the moment, FOX8 is averaging around 2.5Mbit/sec for most programming. 2.5Mbit/sec! Even an eternal optomist that can see a silver lining for every cloud must accept that this is a very low rate.

Foxtel is about more content, but man it could sure use a few bags of picture quality mixed in.

[thinkingbraindog]

Someone bagging FOXTEL PQ AND THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE FOXTEL IN THEIR HOUSE !!!!!

Well, to be fair, maybe it's because the picture quality is crap?

I don't have Foxtel - never have. I do, however, have friends and relatives with Foxtel / Optus, and after a few times of me saying "geez, that looks like **** - can't you see the macroblocking / blurring / posterisation / over-softened picture?" they start to say "hey, you know - you're right. Bastard! Now I see it all the time!"

OTOH, they're always impressed with the quality of FTA SD on my 76cm WS CRT. Some have even bought the same or similar set (Sony HX/HR series) hoping to get a similarly qood PQ, ignoring my explanation that it's not their set, it's Foxtel's poor source material, sometime lousy encoders, and ridiculously low bitrate on most channels.

When you consider that the ABC's recent slight drop in FTA SD bitrate is noticeable, particularly on things like "Gardening Australia" (moving leaves) and the opening credits on "Doctor Who", is it any wonder that many Foxtel channels compare poorly with just slightly over half the bitrate allocated to them?

99% of people are happy with FOXTEL PQ - only problem is a few pessimists and whingers who always seem to frequent places like anonymous forums.

There's really no answer to this sort of troll. But I will admit that probably 99% - well, a large percentage anyway, excluding my aforementioned family/friends - of people are happy with the PQ of Foxtel. Many people just don't know better, and then there's always the odd psychological / social phenomena whereby people manage to blind themselves to the most egregious of faults in a product purely because they paid more money for it...

Personally, I find the latter type - who overlook the evidence of their eyes in favour of the lightening of their wallet - much more annoying. And, as an interested bystander observing human nature, depressing...

Maybe they just can't make friends due to their negativity so they "hang out " here ?

No, I'm "hanging out" here because there's SFA on FTA at the moment. Notwithstanding my 250G PVR is almost full of unwatched stuff dating back to last year, but I'm waiting for a couple of friends to come over so we can watch some of it together

FOXTEL PQ is fine - just enjoy the programming (but of course you can't because you don't even have it !!!!)

I do enjoy some of the programming. Every month or so I scan the Foxtel magazine, note a few interesting things, and either visit someone with Foxtel who is also interested in seeing it, or someone records it for me. I find the softening effect of the analogue connection between the Foxtel STB & DVD recorder negates the crap picture quality somewhat

[BribieG]

Doug: FYI - I had Optus for a couple of years but moved to a non-cabled area and didn't get round to subscribing again. It looked ok on my old CRT. I'm not anti Foxtel as such, but the point I am making is that if the crap quality displayed in the shopping centre kiosks is typical of the sort of quality I would get at home then I would definitely *not* have it in my house!

As for bagging the picture quality without having Foxtel at home, I am quite capable of doing this because Foxtel themselves have a display set up down the road from me and I am quite capable of looking at it for myself. Perhaps you don't frequent shopping malls and have not seen the display kiosks referred to.

At the risk of thrashing the point completely to death, if , hypothetically Holden tried to sell me a rusty old car with three wheels and told me this was the new Commodore I would be quite entitled to bag the Commodore without being a Commodore driver.

Duh ... hello!

Michael Gardner

Caboolture

[DrP]

I'll post some short clips from 7's broadcast and matching clips from FOX8. Then everyone can decide for themselves which is better.

Still frames admittedly, but a comparison can still be made. The logos have been masked off so let's see who can tell them apart. Any guess as to which one is from FOX8 and which is from Seven?

Image1

Image2

[alcoop1503559994]

She looks uglier in image 2 (more detail) so im guessing image 2 is FTA

[Preemo]

Someone bagging FOXTEL PQ AND THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE FOXTEL IN THEIR HOUSE !!!!!

99% of people are happy with FOXTEL PQ - only problem is a few pessimists and whingers who always seem to frequent places like anonymous forums. Maybe they just can't make friends due to their negativity so they "hang out " here ?

FOXTEL PQ is fine - just enjoy the programming (but of course you can't because you don't even have it !!!!)

Doug, almost everybody who has a close look can see that Foxtel PQ is very poor. I'm an optimist and dissatisfied with the PQ. I have lots of friends and if you want my name, PM me.

The fact that I subscribe tells you that the content (essentially exclusive sport) wins out over the poor PQ but thats not reason to give up on hoping that one day Foxtel's PQ will improve.

Doug, why the aggro?

[Hosko]

Still frames admittedly, but a comparison can still be made. The logos have been masked off so let's see who can tell them apart. Any guess as to which one is from FOX8 and which is from Seven?

Image1

Image2

For someone who whinges so much about picture quality you could atleast make sure that both of these still where in the right aspect ratio.

And yes before someone says it I know all about the anamorphic effect but it still should have been corrected for.

Image 1 has slightly less skin detail to the point that it was difficult to tell the diffference when comparing the two all be it I was viewing them on a monitor I have callibrated. But if it is that much work for 1 frame the point is who cares, the quality level isn't all that much less.

Edit - My monitor is crap I just checked it in my studio and 1 is a lot softer then 2 but as alcoop said 1 looks better. Probably not the best frame to pick for a comparison.

[tonymy01]

Converting them from anamorphic to widescreen would involve scaling (and thus people would complain the comparison can't be fair because he has fiddled with the images to get them in some non-standard resolution other than 720x576), why don't you stretch your monitor to a widescreen resolution instead?

[Hosko]

Converting them from anamorphic to widescreen would involve scaling

I would say it is accepted practice to switch on the correction in photoshop for the reason it will display true and anybody that complains about scaling doesn't know what they are talking about.

[Guest Slobber Chops]

But if it is that much work for 1 frame the point is who cares, the quality level isn't all that much less.

It is if you look at the background rather than the face.

[Hosko]

It is if you look at the background rather than the face.

Edit - My monitor is crap I just checked it in my studio and 1 is a lot softer then 2 but as alcoop said 1 looks better. Probably not the best frame to pick for a comparison.

No it should be very clear looking at face, the fact I couldn't said more about the monitor I used to make the initial assessment

[DrP]

For someone who whinges so much about picture quality you could atleast make sure that both of these still where in the right aspect ratio.

Perhaps for someone that really has nothing but hot air to spurt around, you could think before you post. As someone has already pointed out, AR correction involves image processing. The idea is to involve as little image processing as possible to avoid introducing distortion. As sure as JWH is out to slash working conditions, someone would pop up and say "oh no, that isn't a valid comparison because your resize process was inappropriate". There have been many long and detailed posts on this exact issue. I suggest you make use of the forum search.

The images posted were from an almost no motion section where Foxtel performs best. If I were to post from a section that had motion in it, the degredation is more prounouced. So much so that quite often blocking can be seen. This is on FOX8, one of the 'top of the line channels'. Material shown on say W, suffers a much worse fate than FOX8. Try to not throw back the arguement that still frames can't be used for the comparison. I can provide short clips from both to demonstrate that the difference between the two is just as obvious with video clips. The only way the difference can't be noticed is to be using a monitor fed with composite. If that's what you have, then I won't bother trying to explain the difference to you.

I guess no matter what I post or how many demonstrations I make, you'll never accept that Foxtel's picture quite often is low quality. That everyone else reading this thread can make their own judgement in this matter rather than relying on your rather flawed opinion is rather re-assuring.

Edit - My monitor is crap I just checked it in my studio and 1 is a lot softer then 2 but as alcoop said 1 looks better. Probably not the best frame to pick for a comparison.

Maybe you need to go back and re-read alcoop's post. Clearly he was having a jibe at the person in the picture, not the picture itself. alcoop quite clearly stated that image2 has more detail, ie it is superior to image1.

For the blind people reading this thread on the braille machine, image1 is from FOX8 (as everyone here has correctly indicated). image2 (of which everyone agrees is better) is from Seven.

[Hosko]

Perhaps for someone that really has nothing but hot air to spurt around, you could think before you post. As someone has already pointed out, AR correction involves image processing. The idea is to involve as little image processing as possible to avoid introducing distortion. As sure as JWH is out to slash working conditions, someone would pop up and say "oh no, that isn't a valid comparison because your resize process was inappropriate". There have been many long and detailed posts on this exact issue. I suggest you make use of the forum search.

What the hell are you talking about. The fact is the channel 7 image suffers from a crap load less processing then the foxtel one.

Why??

Because to get the channel 7 image you would have used a didtal capture card so apart from the jpeg conversion (which would produce more artifacts then converting for square pixels) no conversions were done.

The Foxtel picture has to have come from an anolgue source probably y/c but could have even been composite so it has already gone through a d/a conversion then you have to capture it so it has go through an a/d conversion. ITS NOT A TRUE TEST

but then you having a dig at me about saying that to correct for square pixels, your kidding right??

If you cared about image processing you wouldn't have used JPEG

I guess no matter what I post or how many demonstrations I make, you'll never accept that Foxtel's picture quite often is low quality. That everyone else reading this thread can make their own judgement in this matter rather than relying on your rather flawed opinion is rather re-assuring.

Does Foxtel currently use a lower bitrate then the FTA's yes.

But its not as crap as you make it out to be, thats what I and others have been saying.

You say my opinion is flawed but you show an example that in its self is flawed for several reasons.

1. the way the test was done was different for each image. No consistancy.

2. Photographers have known for decades that a softer image of a human looks better. Look at the cover photo of any magazine and its soft as hell. Thats why I said that shot wasn't very good because most people would say the softer shot looked better.

[DrP]

What the hell are you talking about. The fact is the channel 7 image suffers from a crap load less processing then the foxtel one.

Why??

......

The Foxtel picture has to have come from an anolgue source probably y/c but could have even been composite so it has already gone through a d/a conversion then you have to capture it so it has go through an a/d conversion.

Strike 1. If you had been following the seemingly endless posts about Foxtel quality you'd see that the posts I make are sourced from the MPEG/2 video - for both FTA and Foxtel. So sorry, but you are completely, totally and utterly wrong with your statement.

If you cared about image processing you wouldn't have used JPEG

Strike 2. JPEG was not used specifically for the reason of avoiding any additional compression. Lossless PNG was employed. Anyone that bothered looking at the file type would be able to tell that it was a PNG. I can only imagine that your sole purpose for posting is to stir up trouble, otherwise you would have taken note of the file type and encoding used.

But its not as crap as you make it out to be, thats what I and others have been saying.

Seems to be mostly you. As I said previously, I can post samples which are far far worse than the two that I did. Do you want me to? I'm quite happy to you know.

Care to make it 3 strikes and you are out next time?

[Doug1503559538]

Doug, almost everybody who has a close look can see that Foxtel PQ is very poor. I'm an optimist and dissatisfied with the PQ. I have lots of friends and if you want my name, PM me.

The fact that I subscribe tells you that the content (essentially exclusive sport) wins out over the poor PQ but thats not reason to give up on hoping that one day Foxtel's PQ will improve.

Doug, why the aggro?

Probably because the PQ on my FOXTEL is absolutely fine. If people want super high definition BluRay 1,0000p quality then go and buy it.

Foxtel is optional - if people don't like it then don't buy it. I myself think that it is fantastic and gives me access to programming that was never available on FTA's.

and yes, I did once work at FOXTEL many years ago.

[DrP]

I get pay for the extra programming, but I still think the PQ could use a step up. Sure I could get most of the stuff that runs on pay from BT, but I still like to do some things on the level.

[timeshift]

You worked at Foxtel? Well that explains your attitude. We're in the 21st century, and FTA has upgraded to 576i, 720p, and 1080i. Foxtel should follow suit.

The fact you say "high definition BluRay 1,0000p" only goes to show that you are exagerating the point beyond belief to make it appear as though we expect something that shouldn't be expected. The bottom line is that HD is already on offer.

The fact that Foxtel are "planning" HD just goes to disprove you anyway. Foxtel know they need to get HD going, sooner or later.

Probably because the PQ on my FOXTEL is absolutely fine. If people want super high definition BluRay 1,0000p quality then go and buy it.

Foxtel is optional - if people don't like it then don't buy it. I myself think that it is fantastic and gives me access to programming that was never available on FTA's.

and yes, I did once work at FOXTEL many years ago.

[Mark Haynes]

Well I for one, dislike the crap PQ on foxtel...

if it wasnt for the good (mostly except when they delay telecasts) coverage of the Superbikes & MotoGp

I'd cancel my Fox Sports subscription.

UKTV is passable PQ wise but they do have reruns of some of my favourite shows.

I have complained to the reps @ the shopping centre of the ugly 4x3 stretched images on the LG plasmas & they agree with me (but wont do anything about it) & the customer reps on 131999 say they will pass their complaints on.

Sadly from what they said ppl just put up & shut up. PQ complaints are in the minority but that may just show what an apathetic lot we all are.

The movie channels approach DVD quality & Fox Sports can be passable but it certainly isnt as good as SD DTV.

Just my thoughts on this issue...

Cheers Mark

[Preemo]

If foxtel works for you but others are complaining, perhaps there is fire where there is smoke?

I don't need to see screenshots to know that FTA digital is much better PQ than my Foxtel IQ. If the Rugby Union and Cricket was on FTA I would not have Foxtel at all.

BTW - Foxtel probably know that there are thousands of people like me, why else wont they let you subscribe just to Fox Sports 1 and 2.

BTW I love their sports interactive for the cricket. You can catch up on the score and the action you have missed and watch the highlights or the wickets. It is really cool.