Welcome To Australia's No.1 Media Center Community!
You Are Currently Viewing As A Guest - you'll need to register in order to participate in our community and make this annoying message disappear!
By registering you'll be able to post & reply to questions, set up your own image gallery & blog, communicate privately with other members, create & respond to polls, access downloads and other "members only" features.
Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so why not join our community today - you'll be glad you did!
For any problems with the registration process or your account, please contact support.
This is more an rant/observation..so please feel free to ignore or chip in with any comments.
I should say to begin with..ive been teetering on the edge of going Foxtel Digital service for the last few months now, but my head keeps on bringin up the same problems with the Foxtel service.
My understanding is that:-
Even without HTPC, say you have your nice 42" HD Plasma/LCD screen, the best signal you can feed into the TV set is analogue SVideo or RGB?
The aspet ratio is fixed to 4:3 (useless for the newer 16:9 sets unless you zoom/pan-scan)
So I guess the question is when or if ever will Foxtel provide a HDMI output or equivalent to pass into my nice Plasma display or LCD? or better still..when will I be able to get it into my HTPC??!!!
Discuss....
__________________
AMDX2 4200, Asus AN8-E Premium Motherboard, 2G RAM
Gigabyte 7300GS Graphics
2 x Avermedia A16A (DTV),1 x Hauppage PVR150 (Foxtel)
1 x 500G SATA2 HDD,Silverstone case LC10
A fair question I guess - maybe when they launch their HD channels, it might be something they'll do.. No idea..
I guess it's worth pointing out that the content is all fairly heavilly compressed SD material anyway, so you probably wouldn't notice much in the way of quality improvements using a digital interface to your TV.
__________________ If my post has helped you, please feel free to hit the Thanks button.
This is more an rant/observation..so please feel free to ignore or chip in with any comments.
I should say to begin with..ive been teetering on the edge of going Foxtel Digital service for the last few months now, but my head keeps on bringin up the same problems with the Foxtel service.
My understanding is that:-
Even without HTPC, say you have your nice 42" HD Plasma/LCD screen, the best signal you can feed into the TV set is analogue SVideo or RGB?
The aspet ratio is fixed to 4:3 (useless for the newer 16:9 sets unless you zoom/pan-scan)
So I guess the question is when or if ever will Foxtel provide a HDMI output or equivalent to pass into my nice Plasma display or LCD? or better still..when will I be able to get it into my HTPC??!!!
Discuss....
Man...... apart from the lack of HDMI, your understanding is quite wrong.
Component is available on all cable & most satellite STU's (if they try & stick you with an old STU for satellite, you just kick up a stink & refuse the install until they miraculously "find" a new one in the van).
The 4:3 thing - where did you get that from? You have a number of choices when it comes to aspect ratio & which device (the STU or the TV) controls the switching between widescreen & 4:3. I'm not certain, but I think more than 50% of the channels are now widescreen.
So, while it's true that they don't yet have an HDMI STU, there's really no need for more than component as we're dealing with 576i SD (I can't think of many SD only devices that do have HDMI out). Also, at the moment there aren't any MCE compliant capture cards that do component in, so yes s-video is the best for that connection.
What people that are unhappy with Foxtel or Foxtel's STU fail to realise is that it's based on economies of scale. No company can afford to offer services equivalent to Euro or US pay TV simply because there aren't enough customers to pay for it. A satellite that covers Australia & NZ can reach 25 million people (10 million homes?). The same satellite over North America can reach 300 million + people. More customers means the cost is cheaper per customer & they can offer different STUs with more features because a million customers might take up that particular model & that means cheaper per unit cost. Foxtel has a million customers in total.
So in short, it's not as bad as you thought, but it's not as good as you wanted.
Justin
__________________
VMC32: Asus M3N78-EMH HDMI, 4850e, TMG A2 CPU Cooler, 2x1GB Kingston HyperX 800, 2 x HVR-2200 (4 tuners), 500GB Samsung, NSK2480B. Connected to a Metz 32 inch LCD.
Office/Server: Abit A-N78HD, BE-2350, 2x1GB Kingston HyperX 800, 2 x AverTV Duo (4 tuners), CoolerMaster Centurion 5 Tower.
I was having a vent, as Im frustrated at the somewhat lack of movement in the TV/HTPC world. In Europe and the US they are talking High def and Blu ray/HDDVD and yet we here in Oz just seem to be getting the dregs of the digital age!!.
My DVD player has HDMI out and was wondering why Foxtel hadnt gone along that path too.
As Justin points out though..economy of scale I guess.
Component = RGB/YPbPr doesnt it? Foxtel offer the SCART option which carries (amongst other signals) RGB.
4:3 comment, I heard from a colleague of mine, so I confess I havent had a look at it myself..so my bad.
I disagree with the need for digitial outputs though. ANY digital to analogue (or vice versa) is lossy to a degree. Why if the signal into the STB is digital, convert to analogue to only convert it back to digital within the current crop of LCD and Plasma displays.
If it were digital, we could also feed directly into a digital device directly (PC/TV etc), thus making the need for conversion/extra cards etc etc a thing of the past.
Im not sugesting we get rid of RGB/Composite or Svideo..just add a digital socket so we can plug straight from the foxtel box into the TV with no need for other cables.
True though..not as good as I wanted...not as bad as I thought.
__________________
AMDX2 4200, Asus AN8-E Premium Motherboard, 2G RAM
Gigabyte 7300GS Graphics
2 x Avermedia A16A (DTV),1 x Hauppage PVR150 (Foxtel)
1 x 500G SATA2 HDD,Silverstone case LC10
Component = RGB/YPbPr doesnt it? Foxtel offer the SCART option which carries (amongst other signals) RGB.
Component is YPbPr (light/the diff between blue & light/the diff between red & light). RGB (red/blue/green) is different again (never really took off here as it was a European thing), but it's often argued that it's technically superior to component (on an SD CRT, I'd say that it is better, but you rarely get CRTs that support both to compare). Component is actually derived from the RGB signal.
On a scart plug, component "borrows" the RGB pins (because it doesn't have its own ). The Foxtel STU can be set to output either (or composite or s-video) on the TV scart. The VCR scart can only do composite or s-video. There is another composite plug on the back of the standard STU. On an iQ, you have an extra s-video out & an extra set of L+R audio outs.
Quote:
I disagree with the need for digitial outputs though. ANY digital to analogue (or vice versa) is lossy to a degree. Why if the signal into the STB is digital, convert to analogue to only convert it back to digital within the current crop of LCD and Plasma displays.
If it were digital, we could also feed directly into a digital device directly (PC/TV etc), thus making the need for conversion/extra cards etc etc a thing of the past.
Im not sugesting we get rid of RGB/Composite or Svideo..just add a digital socket so we can plug straight from the foxtel box into the TV with no need for other cables.
I totally agree that it would be better.... to the 5% that want/need it (like us). The problem is that while DVI/HDMI inputs on screens should be superior to component, until pretty recently, that often hasn't been the case (new screens seem to have overcome that). The current STUs are hand-me-down designs from the UK models (SkyTV), so the design is probably 4-5 years old (pretty much pre HDMI). I'm prepared to cut them some slack on that, but if the next generation STUs don't have HDMI, then that's not good enough. Time frame? I'd say Foxtel will have an HD STU within 12 months (it's dependant on the Optus D2 satellite being launched - you'll find my rantings on that in other threads).
Anyway, I maintain that the Foxtel STU (the PACE DC420NF/DS420NF/iQ) has as good (if not better) SD picture quality as any SD STB/PVR I've seen. The problem is, as Auldar said, that the source quality of some of the channels isn't great. Things like NRL or rugby games from NZ have much more compression artefacts than the games from within Australia. In Sydney (NSW/QLD/ACT), we get the Friday night AFL game live on Main Event (fed from CH 7) - the compression of that feed is pretty bad, but when you tune in to ch 7 later in the night & see it on there (SD), it looks better. Of course as your screen gets higher in definition & larger in size, the worse it looks.
Justin
__________________
VMC32: Asus M3N78-EMH HDMI, 4850e, TMG A2 CPU Cooler, 2x1GB Kingston HyperX 800, 2 x HVR-2200 (4 tuners), 500GB Samsung, NSK2480B. Connected to a Metz 32 inch LCD.
Office/Server: Abit A-N78HD, BE-2350, 2x1GB Kingston HyperX 800, 2 x AverTV Duo (4 tuners), CoolerMaster Centurion 5 Tower.
or better still..when will I be able to get it into my HTPC??!!!
.
Integration of foxtel on MCE relies on having a Foxtel NDS cam, the Poms Sky paytv service uses NDS and they got a CAM module which works on it but unfortunately the very same CAM seems to not work here.
But If you don't care too much about integration, you can get a satellite tv card+ a phoenix card reader + mytheatre +ndscam+ original foxtel smartcard and watch foxtel on your pc. And I guess that you could try to integrate all that on mce using mymcesat.
I remember Kim Williams (Foxtel CEO) talking about this on Sky News earlier this year - he mentioned that Foxtel would be bringing out a new box (HDIQ) late this year or early next, which will have HDMI.
I have heard that foxtel have also been doing "foxtel over broadband" trials recently specifically for people wanting to view Foxtel on their PC.
Now that is interesting, BigPond need something like this to retain customers, but I wonder if they're offering it as free bandwidth or will they be counting it towards quota! Their new improved more expensive plans with less download quota should get eaten up in 10 minutes and then the excess charges hit so it should be a good little money spinner for them.
And don't think for a moment that your going to be able to be on another ISP and get Foxtel, its SpendBigPond or nothing.
__________________
That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it.
Aristotle
Now that is interesting, BigPond need something like this to retain customers, but I wonder if they're offering it as free bandwidth or will they be counting it towards quota! Their new improved more expensive plans with less download quota should get eaten up in 10 minutes and then the excess charges hit so it should be a good little money spinner for them.
And don't think for a moment that your going to be able to be on another ISP and get Foxtel, its SpendBigPond or nothing.
Well i know that with BigPond movies it does not count towards your quota if your a Bigpond internet subscriber.
). The Foxtel STU can be set to output either (or composite or s-video) on the TV scart. The VCR scart can only do composite or s-video. There is another composite plug on the back of the standard STU. On an iQ, you have an extra s-video out & an extra set of L+R audio outs.
