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I had my SKY DIGITAL system installed just in time for the Scotland V England game. It has a very nifty menu system and I played around with all the interactive stuff which was quite impressive. You can even send E mails on it, the brochure says. ... has any one tried to send an E mail ? don't bother. Using a TV remote to punch in a message takes forever, and it costs a penny a minute extra to go on line. Not a lot you may think, until you try to use it. A 40 word E mail can take 40 minutes to compose..argggggh. I gave up. please don't send E mails to riks@talk21.com I will probably never answer them. Apparently this problem will soon be partially solved. If you've got £35 to spare , you can buy a proper keyboard to send E mails with and no doubt to buy groceries from Tesco etc.... Is this worth getting? I realise that it's in it's infancy, but unless the whole of the internet can be accessed via the digital system, which I am sure will come soon, and the pricing is reduced to the price of a local phone call (ALL DAY),. then this feature will fall flat on it's back very few will go on-line Via a digital TV system The likes of AOL with their penny a minute all day everyday, and all the Freeservers who will soon be reducing their prices on phone line confection rates, will see off Sky and BT.Talk21s system. But that's not the reason behind me subscribing to Digital TV. I wanted it so that I can get perfect reception and sound watching football on the new interactive football channel Sky Sports Extra. Sky have cunningly switched the games from all the UEFA cup teams onto Digital TV so if you haven't got it , you don't get it. I am sure that is the reason why most people want the system and the "It's Free .... (£40 installation and same price as normal Sky TV for subscribers) as long as you subscribe for a year " isn't such a bad deal.... if it works properly. I couldn't wait to try it out. The opportunity came on Friday night before the big game. Gillingham V ???? can't remember. Any way I followed the on screen instructions and was impressed with the stats, replay and highlights but the angle feature????? It's pants. It really is shite. I was expecting to be able to watch the match from any of 5 or 6 camera angles. Nope it doesn't work like that. You can watch it from behind one of the goals, in a window with the main game next to it. It's bloody awful. What a waste of time, you should be able to full screen one of many different camera views, but you can't. I thought that it may just have been this way for the third division game perhaps they only had two cameras? Nope. The next day the Scotland V England game was on from Hampden park . It was the same. One other angle (behind one of the goals ) can be viewed in a window, oh how exciting, If this is to work there has to be a few cameras to chose from and a full screen option is essential. ..... That though is still not my main complaint with it. I expected perfection. It says in the brochure "Digital Satellite TV is the latest stage in the evolution of TV, giving you not only CRYSTAL CLEAR PICTURES and quality stereo sound. but bla bla bla" CRYSTAL CLEAR PICTURES? yes as long as the camera doesn't move too quickly, for if it does then you get a blur. The is particularly noticeable if you look at the grass while watching a football match. Great when the camera is still but as soon as the camera moves, the grass becomes a green blur and the players well they are little coloured blurs. It really hurts your eyes and gets on your nerves after a few minutes. I want my old system back, it was much better. Alternatively A reduction in the price of Sky Sports. It costs something like £14 a month to get Sky Digital Sports package on top of the £13 a month for the rest of the channels (except film) It's too much for a system that is WORSE than the previous one. Sky should give all their Sky Sports customers some sort of reduction until they can sort it out. We are being ripped off, They promised CRYSTAL CLEAR PICTURE,,, IT ISN'T From A Noid (Sky Digital viewer..)
It's not just Sky DIGITAL though, as my friend Bobby in London points out:- I recall a series of BBC telly adverts telling us that digital tv was gonna be great 'cos analogue waves result in bad pictures, effected by weather, tall buildings etc. Well, how come every single night, without fail, if I watch a digital chann el it blanks out several times (black screen), inexplicably pauses action, and the picture gets distorted with big blocks of green and stuff. The disruption may only last for a second at a time, but after a few hours viewing it occurs 5 or 6 times... sometimes more. AND last night while watching Cockney-Moaners (aka Eastenders...only watch it to confirm my coloured opinions ;-) ) on normal telly, we got a bar of fuzziness across the screen. Annoying but tolerable. Ok, try digital where we would expect a crystal clear reception. Nah. Just black screen. Digital tv? Got a long way to go.
So.... Just what is the problem? If you contact the operators they will suggest that the other equipment is at fault. Nah I don't think so, I have a damn good TV and Video, as does Bobby and the majority of people who are experiencing problems. We asked an Expect. Professor R WAYMAG from Oxford University explains.
I am a freelance techie and have have researched this problem for the BBC, let me enlighten you on the world of digital TV. Firstly, the sky problem and having only 2 camera angles; this is temporary and for this season only. Next season it is planned to have six camera angles however I don't know if it will cover the full screen as Rik suggested. The 2 cameras came about because it is a sort of test as this new interactive tv is still in its infancy. Unfortunately you are guinea pigs. The problem of the black screens and blockiness and blurring is due to the compression techniques used to transmit the signal to satellite (and on digital) (MPEG2). MPEG2 is fine for slow moving pictures such as normal ever day tv, that's why you get crystal clear pictures when the camera is s tatic. However when there is a lot of movement i.e football or a lot of detail i.e grass the MPEG2 predictor gets overloaded and drop out (official term) occurs. This could be solved by allowing more bandwidth for the TV signals and therefore not compressing the signal as much, however this means less tv channels. So what do you want, 200 channels of okay quality tv or 120 channel s of near perfect quality?? Unfortunately Sky chose to pick the 200 option and hence the problems!! Sorry if it got a bit technical!!!
Peter chips in with a question.. Thanks Professor. One Question... Do the deficiencies apply as much to digital via cable? When Cable & Wireless in my area get up to speed, I would consider it, but not if the picture quality for sport was worse. I suppose we could just slow down the Premiership - give them a sodden leather ball and make sure the pitch has more mud than grass. Ahh..those were the days ;-)
"I imagine cable will be much the same as they will still use MPEG2 coders. You may think that cable doesn't offer as much channels as satellite and therefore can use the extra space to solve the problem. However the limitations are because of the physical nature of the cable. Very complicated maths involved I would however get digital cable tv instead of satellite when it is available as the signal path is more reliable and therefore not prone to weather conditions etc such as satellite etc"
So there you have it SKY DIGITAL is Pants. My suggestions to SKY would be. 1 Go for full internet access at the lowest possible phone connection price. 2 . Make the "Angle" feature available in full screen perhaps using the 4 coloured buttons as shortcuts to four different camera's 3. Reduce the amounts of Box office channels. Do they need to have the same film on 10 channels starting at different 15 minute intervals? Doing this could free up more space giving a wider bandwidth and better quality on the Sports channels. (I think) If they don't sort it out, then I and thousands like me, won't be subscribing next year. If you would like to make any Comments, E mail RIK |
