BBC HD faces claims of HDLite after slashing bitrate
By Richard Lawler 
posted December 28th 2009 3:33PM
posted December 28th 2009 3:33PM
Even on this side of the Atlantic, we've been hearing complaints about a supposed drop in HD quality from the BBC over the last few months. After installing new encoders in August, the broadcaster slashed its bitrate and viewers have since complained about a variety of PQ issues. Of course the Beeb claims its new hardware is capable of delivering similar quality while saving bandwidth when it went to replace old, out of date technology. In the last few days it's received a bit of a boost, as consumer watchdogs Which? went to the tape, comparing earlier recordings from BBC HD with live broadcasts over Sky and Freesat, claiming any difference between new and old is "tiny, and smaller than the existing differences between any two HD programmes filmed in a studio or on location." Only time will tell if that is enough to calm the commenters on BBC's blogs calling for a return to the old, if your Top Gear and Doctor Who watching has been affected, let us know.
Isn't European cable using H.264 instead of MPEG-2, which should make them need only 20% of the bandwidth for the same quality to begin with?
Here in NYC Time Warner compresses the crap out of everything (and using only MPEG-2) to the point that you could never tell what kind of quality BBC is providing anyways.
It is obvious not only on HD shows but even SD. Like on PBS Kids, some of the shows are filmed in 16:9, but the station is broadcast in 480p, so they add black bars on the top and bottom. Then certain scenes are 4:3 so they make the black bars on the left and right bigger. The effective resolution is 480x360. And even at that resolution the compression artifacts are quite obvious, even without much action.
Usually at least the station logos have HD quality on HD channels, because the logo isn't moving so it doesn't get artifacted as much. But lately, even that has been getting blocky.
@glugglug the UK doesn't have cable the way we do. BBC HD is only available by Freesat (satellite) so far as I know, and yeah it's H.264 (1440x1080i).
@cdheer
Incorrect. BBC HD is available via Sky (satellite), Virgin TV (cable) and any receiver capable of decoding HD. BBC aren't allowed to encrypt the channel, so it's broadcast in the clear.
@(Unverified) Ah yes, but it appears that the re-launch of terrestrial broadcast is fairly recent, at least according to Wikipedia. I don't remember Virgin's service being mentioned back in June when I checked either.
Anyway.
If the BBC has installed new hardware then maybe they do get comparable image quality from a lower bitrate. Encoders are not borne equal and one could be a lot more wasteful than another especially for live TV where there is no multi-pass encoding to optimize everything to its maximum quality.
We just got BBC america HD here in Cincinnati, so any supposed lack of PQ I wouldn't know about it. Besides we have TWC all of their programming lack proper PQ for HD content IMO. I did notice that fast moving images suffered greatly! I just assumed it was TWC compression methods that was causing the goofs.
You can get BBCA in HD here in the states. I hadn't heard that anyone was carrying it, yet, even though their moniker is BBCAHD. Which I take as a tout to providers to pick it up since the view then knew it was available. Last I read no one was carrying it.
Sure would like to see Doctor Who in HD after hearing about it for so long. And the big DW and other premiers that were advertised in HD that no one could get. Come on DISH, step up.
@(Unverified)
Well Doctor Who was being played on SciFi HD but last year the Doctor got signed to BBCA. So the show got pulled from an HD network to an SD network. That's about as stupid as making it so only people in the UK can view trailers and vids on the BBC website. Maybe they just don't get how much of a following their shows have in America.
@protozoider
Dr. Who was never signed to BBCA from the StryFry channel, it has been on the BBC since 1963. I was watching it on BBCA long before the StryFry channel jumped their apron strings, hoping to benefit off their success without having to lay out the money to make a 'REAL" program on their own other then that pathetic GhostHustlers. i.e. dumping SG1 because it was too expensive. SF is cheap. I will be very interested in what happens if Comcast is allowed to buy NBC Universal. SF was also a season behind BBCA and they were not showing it in FSHD. As many rush to think that HD automatically means Full Screen 1080i (of which is standard HD is on a TV, p only in special occasions) 16:9 or Letterboxed 2.35:1. It's not. It's base specification is 4:3 with the picture height of 720p (which some people seem to like as well as 1080i) or 1080i pixels, but making the width 540 or 810 respectively. If it was the 16:9 "shape" it was in the 16:9 mini form as they show many of their "professed" HD programming, which may be HD but not full screen such as Enterprise that can be seen on HDNet in Full Screen 16:9 HD. WHEREAS, they are showing Stargate Atlantis in FS16:3HD. Surprised the frell out of me and I am an avid "rewatcher". It's just too back when a network reruns a series that can not seem to be able to do it in the order that they were shown. It really "blows" the continuity,
I'm still waiting for slow ass Dish Network to have it in HD.
they lowered the bitrate on virgin from 17.8mbps to 15.5mbps too, it uses mpeg2 and they havent updated the mpeg2 encoders just reduced our quality needlessly :(
Why is anyone even using mpeg2 anymore? The costs of moving to mpeg4 surely are bested by the advantages.
When is DirecTV getting BBCA in HD?