Couldn't re-order Setanta when I called Telus from my cell in the car yesterday, so I had to wait until 9AM today to call, and even now I have to wait till tomorrow morning for it to kick in. :mad:

However, it's good to see that the picture is getting positive reviews.

"Like the rugby game last night, not the best HD feed I've seen but man it's nice and clear compared to what we are used to".


That's because it was widescreen, not HD. I think the mainstream sports from UK will be HD provided transmitted HD in UK but foreign productions, English Championship etc. probably will be widescreen which is still better than 4:3 SD.
Watched the Leeds game yesterday in HD. The picture was choppy in the first half. When they did a replay they looked like robots. It would not be an issue because of the widescreen format but maybe more of BTV's compression. In the second half the game was shown in 4:3 on HD for a short time. Anyway, very happy.

The White Pele. Could you not order on-line from your reciever. Thats how I did it. Took all of five minutes.

I would've done that if I had a long enough cable to the jack. :(

A Setanta free preview was mentioned earlier for Rogers. If memory serves me at the start of each season they usually have an across the board freebie with Bell and *C (now Shaw Direct) also participating. I don't see any news of this at their website.

One of the Shaw Direct promo channels mentions that Setanta will be on free preview from August 13-22 (also noticed that they claim Global HD airs NHL hockey and NFL football, they really need to update that description).

Setanta HD is up on Rogers channel 569!!

Another call to Shaw today. "I don't think Setanta has the equipment for HD". Told her that Rogers and other systems are already carrying it. "Oh. Well, we have no plans for it right now."

I've emailed SHAW a few times now requesting an update on whether they will carry Setanta HD. Keep getting the usual sausage reply of No Immediate Plans.

Well, I received a call today from SHAW regards Setanta HD, they gave me the same spiel as the email replies etc etc but said as a goodwill offer they'd give me an internet price reduction and free PVR rental for a year.

Seeing as I'm very suspicious, does this seem like a sweetner coz Setanta HD isn't coming, or am I looking into it too much?

I got in touch with Shaw twice regarding the availability of Setanta HD. First time with their online chat service where I was told they didn't have an ETA on Setanta HD. I asked if that meant that it WAS coming but they didn't know when and he said yes. Second time was by email where I got this reply....

"Setanta Sports in HD is currently not available with our services. Several factors are considered prior to a channel being added to our line-up. Technical issues, availability, contracts and mass appeal are a few examples. We have filled out a channel request form on your behalf that goes to our management team."

So I'm hoping the first guy I talked to was correct.

Shaw Direct website confirms Setanta free preview starting tomorrow (Friday August 13) until Sunday August 22. So the Mighty Reds match against Arsenal on Sunday (11am) will be free to all.

What's the channel number for SHAW (I'm in Victoria)?

I have been a subscriber with Setanta with Shaw ever since they started, and while the quality was not great, it has never been this poor. This season's EPL feed looks like they were downloaded from the Internet on a low bandwidth link. Very low frame rate, kind of laggy, and sometimes the feed just goes out randomly for a second or two at a time. Last few years the feed was much more reasonable and very watchable. Is this intentional to make people switch to HD? The switch wasn't needed as I would have done it anyway, if only I could.

Called Shaw a couple of days ago and they knew nothing about whether or when Setanta HD will be available. Anyone has more info? Am I the only one experiencing the dramatic quality decrease this season?

IMO I'd have to say the quality is about the same as I recall from last season which is marginally better than GOLTV for me (I think this is called "damning with faint praise ;) )

Called Shaw again. No words on Sportsnet One or Setanta HD. I asked them about poor Setanta SD quality and they said that "their feed is fine so something must be wrong with your box or cables". They are sending someone to come out on a service call. Probably a waste of time, especially since Setanta SD is the only channel that I have poor quality.

The HD quality is not up to snub either. Can't put my finger on why but something definitely wrong with the picture quality this morning on the Villa - West Ham match. Upconverted??

SA

PS. On Bell TV.

I have been a subscriber with Setanta with Shaw ever since they started, and while the quality was not great, it has never been this poor. This season's EPL feed looks like they were downloaded from the Internet on a low bandwidth link. Very low frame rate, kind of laggy, and sometimes the feed just goes out randomly for a second or two at a time. Last few years the feed was much more reasonable and very watchable. Is this intentional to make people switch to HD? The switch wasn't needed as I would have done it anyway, if only I could.
I noticed it as well, not only for EPL games, but for NRL and an England-Hungary friendly last night. I saw highlights from the HD feed on Sportsnet at halftime of Blackpool-Wigan and honestly it looked like it was downloaded from the internet as well.

I find it amazing that Setanta manages to be the last to the HD party, and still manages to do it worse and for more money than anyone else!

I'm sure the reason that the SD feed looks worse now is simply because it's a cropped and downsized version of the new HD feed. The quality of the HD is simply awful. Still shots look fine, but anything with side to side motion looks choppy and nauseating (really a major issue for a football broadcaster, eh?).

The issue seems to be with the framerate of whatever back-end feed Setanta is using to transmit content to their Canadian service. It's not the channel bandwidth or anything as the promos between matches or any other pre-recorded HD content (except match repeats) looks just fine. It seems like the live content codec that they're using or maybe the change from the 25 fps to 29.97 fps just isn't up to standard.

I was thinking that they weren't using HD for the premier league when I saw the Setanta Ireland pre-match coverage for the 10:00 a.m. match (Setanta Ireland has always been 16:9, but still is not in HD), but they did switch to TWI's HD feed for the game itself... still looked so blurry and had motion problems, so I switched to Wigan/B'Pool on SNET Ontario which looked fine.

After being a subscriber since Setanta's launch, I think this might be my last month... now that there are only 2 EPL matches live on Setanta each weekend (down from 5 last year) and the quality is noticeably worse than either the Sportsnet HD feeds or the TSN (via ESPN2) feeds, I think I'm just going to rely on streaming for anything else that's missing.

Called Shaw again. No words on Sportsnet One or Setanta HD. I asked them about poor Setanta SD quality and they said that "their feed is fine so something must be wrong with your box or cables". They are sending someone to come out on a service call. Probably a waste of time, especially since Setanta SD is the only channel that I have poor quality.
Cancelled my service appointment. There is clearly no problem with my equipment, since the quality of Setanta is just fine during the commercials. What's wrong with Setanta's feed this season?

Hard to belive they would offer a free preview and then have such a crappy picture, not much chance of convincing anyone to spend $15 more a month on that

Could someone else from Winnipeg comment on setanta quality today on shaw because as I've said I don't see any difference from last season in terms of the video.

I know there were some audio problems today (the scroll about apologizing for the audio quality should be run on goltv whenever Ray Hudson is commentating, but that's another issue for another thread :p ).