scott wrote:
>> I hadn't realised that this could very by channel. I assumed there was 
>> just a standard that says "Digital TV = MPEG2 at X Mbit/sec". I'll 
>> have to investigate. Hmm, I wonder what a DVD looks like?
> 
> No, there is certainly scope for different bit-rates on different channels.

Eeeps! So it's completely possible for the fancy new "digital channels" 
to have far lower quality than the old analogue ones? o_O

By the way, I remember when Sky first starting doing digital TV. Some 
people went on Watchdog complaining about the picture "pixellating" 
while they're trying to watch it. Having played with various codecs, now 
I understand what's happening. Every now and when I do see weird stuff 
happen to my picture... Annoying, but not too bad.

Digital works better than analogue right up to the point where the 
signal gets completely drowned in noise. After that it fails pretty 
spectacularly.

Hmm, I wonder... My gandparents live in an area where the analogue 
reception is little more than coloured snow. You can kind of tell when 
you see a person's head, because there's a large area of pinky snow. But 
it's very hard to watch. And every time a bus goes past on the main 
road, the picture vanishes for a second or two. I wonder if digital 
would work any better? ;-)

>> By the way... Watching the snooker, I could actually see the pattern 
>> of the felt on the table (and the depth of field of the camera)!
> 
> Unfortunately I just got too tired to stay up last night and watch the 
> final few frames.

Yeah, I still don't know who won.

> Just waiting until more stuff goes on free HD (mainly sports like 
> snooker and F1) and then I'll get an HD box, should be able to see more 
> felt pattern then :-)

I wasn't aware that anybody actually broadcasts in HD at all yet. I was 

any millage out of an HD TV. (Yet. I'm sure it'll change over time...)

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