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HD quality

34K views 197 replies 50 participants last post by  Freddypop 
#1 ·
Hey just wondering if anyone has herd something on if or when Fiber Op HD quality will be improved... i presently have both Aliant and rogers TV service but i have had to remove everything but basic service off Aliant and switch rogers to my main as compared to rogers HD especially on sports it is pretty bad... i mean i only have rogers for the few channels Aliant doesn't have plus you get Aliant TV dirt cheap in the bundle so i wanted to drop rogers and just get those shows off the net (Netflix ect.) but just can't justify it at the moment as on my 55" Phillips Aliant looks pretty bad... anyone got any info?
 
#5 ·
well for starters im not having any issues with the HDMI, and the picture quality is actually a little better from the hdmi, and i have a toslink going to my home theater which also works fine... L/R analogue audio cables sound like crap... and i never noticed the 5.1 not working but 5.1 is an option in the menu...? all i know is until aliant dedicates more bandwidth to HD it just suck comp to rogers or sat and i am in an apartment so sat is not an option.
 
#6 ·
Agreed, I just got the FibreOp 2.0 hooked up and the HD quality is pretty bad in comparison to Expressvu which I switched from. The guide is amazing but the HD quality is filled with artifacts.
 
#7 ·
Jimmy

How Long has its been,

Give it some time, the 1st day seems like the pixelated pictures and quality are a bit more often since the guide update for more then a week, after a day of running, check again, should have improved a bit, also dont know about other people, but i have my sounds connected trough optical with 5.1 settings, and its working fine
 
#10 ·
The new Mediaroom TV platform will handle HDMI and 5.1 audio. While Aliant may not provide official support, it does work in most cases. However, there may be compatibility issues with certain models of TVs or AVRs. In these situations component video and optical 5.1 audio provides comparable quality.
 
#11 ·
I'm rocking HDMI and 5.1 Optical connected to Samsung equipment. The only oddity I've noticed was no audio when I turned my PVR on. Pausing or changing channels brought sound back. This stopped happening upon a reboot of the box. Picture wise, no issues or quality problems yet.
 
#12 ·
On switching from Rogers to FibreOP 2.0 two weeks ago I did notice that HD picture quality was a bit softer, especially on a 55" screen. However after playing a bit with colour, brightness and sharpness controls on the set I got it to the point where the difference disappeared for all intents and purposes. On a 30" set no changes were required. As to 5.1, with Mediaroom and an optical connection to my receiver the sound is fabulous and all readouts on the receiver's control screen are identical to what I was seeing when viewing comparable programming on Rogers.
 
#15 ·
i just got the fibeop installed a few days ago and after a day i do not know if this can be considered HD. i mean it looks like just a normal SD feed with the HD resolution. i found TSN last night during the hockey game horrible but some stations like golf HD seemed better. i also find the SD channels worse then bell tv sat. the text on CBC news network is barley legible. but i guess the fast Internet and price make up for it

edit: forgot to add i have one 37" TV connected to HDMI and a 50" plasma connected with component and they both have the same quality HD
 
#16 ·
Yeah it's pretty bad. I found I got used to the crappy HD and it doesn't seem so bad to me now. Game of Thrones for example on HBO looked amazing. What I also find with some channels is the color is weird making some channels almost look like some kind of waterpaint overlay setting in photoshop. Almost like if you turned the color up way to high on a tv or something. It's odd and I've never experienced it before on other providers.
 
#19 ·
I find the West Coast CBC HD feed a bit better than the EAst coast for hockey games...

Also I have a 40inch Samsung LCD TV and find HD decent in most cases, however I just picked up a 19 inch Sanyo LCD for the spare room.
To test that the HDMI port worked ok, I put it beside my Samsung, and simply unplugged the HDMI connection from the Samsung, and plugged into the SANYO..oddly enough the picture looked worse on the Sanyo.

(It wasn't noticible for HD cartoons of course, but on TSN Sportscenter, it looked a lot worse up close on the 19inch and much better on the 40 inch)
 
#22 ·
It probably has a lot to do with the scalers in both MediaRoom and the TV. Also, I don't know if the channels being pushed are switched between 1080i or 720p but you are forced to choose one or the other on FibreOp so for my projector which is native 720p, I set the FibreOp box to output 720p. For the LCD in my bedroom which is native 1366 x 768 I tried both FibreOp box set to 720p and 1080i and I found 1080i to look better. The problem is there could be a ton of scaling going on. Examples:
1) CBSHD sends 1080i - FibreOp box pushes out 720p - TV scales to 1366X768 - scaled twice
2) FOXHD sends 720p - FibreOp box pushes out 1080i - TV scales to 1280X720 - scaled twice
So the ideal situation would be either of the two:
1) FOXHD sends 720p - FibreOp box pushes out 720p - TV scales to 1280X720
2) CBSHD sends 1080i - FibreOp box pushes out 1080i - TV scales to 1920X1080

So the quality of this HD in my opinion is poor overall but given the factors above either the FibreOp box scaler or TV scaler being poor could make things even worse.

I believe on other providers each station or network will send the signal out in either 1080i or 720p but I have no idea what happens with FibreOp if everything is converted to one or the other and then sent down the pipe or the FibreOp box scales the stations depending on how you've set it to push it out.
 
#24 ·
JimmyFace Here are the FAQs on upconversion and native TV formats. BTV sends everything at 720P and I believe Bell Alliant does too (I believe they obtain the signals from BTV) but I'm not positive about that.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=87543 On Upconversion

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=73528 Native Formats

I believe, however, that these format changes are relatively minor when compared to the proper optimization of the TV's inputs, covered in the following FAQ. This can also explain the difference some people see between Component Video and HDMI - you cannot really compare them unless both inputs have been properly optimized:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=76161 Optimization

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=71112 HDMI
 
#27 ·
is there a reason you don't have the HDMI hooked up to the larger TV? when you go over 46 inch you usually start to see a difference with HDMI the bigger you go (I have seen a major difference from Sharp, Panasonic & Samsung especially when using HDMI)
not really the tech setup that one. i setup the one with HDMI myself and never got around to switching it to HDMI.
 
#28 ·
Have to add my voice to the poor quality of HD compared with Bell Sat HD. Picture is not only softer but the artefacts are much more pronounced and visible.

To put it in context, it's usually me who notices these things and my wife can't tell the difference. However, first thing she said was that the picture isn't as good after moving over. If Mrs A notices it, it must be poor.
 
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