Sky HD and television

[elsiegee40]

In a perfect world with limitless cash we would have sky multiroom with a sky box in one of the upstairs bedrooms and an HD sky box in the living room downstairs.

 

At present we have sky downstairs.

 

What we'd like to do, is move the existing sky box upstairs and get a new HD box for downstairs.

 

Cabling issues are not a problem... we know what needs to be done.

 

Our problem is that cash flow may mean that we couldn't afford a new HDTV at the same time as the wiring and the new HD box.

 

Will an HD box work (although not in HD) with an ordinary TV?

[kmount]

I had a quick look on some google results and it seems to suggest that yes it has SCART sockets for stuff like VCR/DVD/etc so it should work fine.

[elsiegee40]

Thanks kmount. I was hoping that was the case. It will be much easier if we can spread the cost of this!

 

(Touches wood hoping the existing TV doesn't decide to blow up when we don't want to pay for a new one!)

[kmount]

Check out here for info.

 

More nicely though is the back of the Thompson box itself.

 

http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/images/skyhd_back.jpg

[andyrite]

SkyHD will work with a normal TV with scart. You can even watch the HD channels(scaled down of course)

[john]

oooh its got Ethernet and e-sata on as well, those are nice features, do they make use of them though, especially the Ethernet which would be good.

[sidewinder]

Yeah will work fine. I'd even hazard a guess plenty of people with HDTV's watch via SCART without realising it isnt actually HD

[RabbieBurns]

i wish the regular sky/sky+ boxes had an optical audio output.

[andyrite]

sky+ boxes have optical out. (well mine did!)

[ZeroHour]

sky+ boxes have optical out. (well mine did!)

 

1 sky+ model did not I believe but its long since gone

[kylewilliamson]

ethernet ports and eSATA are there.. but not in use yet.

[broc]

Before you shell out for a Sky HD box, take a trawl through the WWW and look for users reporting problems with audio being out of synchronisation with the video. There have been a lot of users reporting the problem, sometimes it is worse with particular brands of TVs, and when using home theatre type audio amps & surround sound systems.

 

There is a 55 page discussion thread on http://www.avforums.com/forums/sky-hd/815522-lip-sync-problems-skyhd-channels-55.html

Edited December 2, 2008 by broc

[somabc]

Get the HDTV first. After all the extra money you spend on Sky HD is wasted until you buy an HDTV.

[SteveBentley]

Get the HDTV first. After all the extra money you spend on Sky HD is wasted until you buy an HDTV.

 

Unless you're going from a standard Sky box, as the HD box has Sky+ functionality.

[elsiegee40]

Get the HDTV first. After all the extra money you spend on Sky HD is wasted until you buy an HDTV.

 

 

I agree.. but in this instance, it makes more sense to do it the other way round. Carefully worked out out calculated with the cash flow and other things we have to do around the house!

[MkII]

SkyHD is broadcast @ 720P & not full HD IIRC, with no plans in the foreseeable future to do so either. 720P TV's are a lot cheaper!

[ZeroHour]

Nope sky hd is 1080i.

[MkII]

Nope sky hd is 1080i.

Aren't 720P and 1080i (which 720P panels do usually support) the same thing though?

 

1080P is full HD which is what I was talking about, and what a BlueRay/ True HD input will utilize. Hence possibly wasteful to buy a 1080P if you can get a 720P/1080i a lot cheaper, and all you want to do is watch Sky @ low HD. Plus, as SYSMAN says, SD is better on 720P/ 1080i.

Edited December 2, 2008 by MkII

[somabc]

Why are we getting carried away with 'full' HD?

 

720p

1080i

1080p

 

are all HD and will all look better than SD, which is surely what matters.

 

Sky HD is broadcast in 1080i, the HD box sends the signal to your TV as 720p or 1080i. No TV signal is currently broadcast at 1080p. Games Consoles (PS3 & xbox 360) can output at 720p/1080i/1080p, but games are often rendered at a lower resolution and upscaled to keep the frame rate high. Blu-Ray & HD-DVD are the only things that are native 1080p.

 

HD is a moving target, just now 1080p is the max but 1440p and 2160p are on the way.

 

Image:UHDV.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Aspect_Ratios_and_Resolutions.svg

Edited December 2, 2008 by somabc

[MkII]

I was just pointing out the potential saving meeting the spec somabc

[somabc]

I was just pointing out the potential saving meeting the spec somabc

 

Yeah I was not trying to say anyone was wrong, just that focusing on 1080p as the be all and end all in HD is misguided. Most people cannot tell the difference between resolutions, hell most people don't even know when they are watching HD at all. I wonder how many people have Sky HD, hooked up by SCART because they were told SCART gives the best picture quality 10 years ago. Look at the people who watch 4:3 on their 16:9 screen. Will they understand the difference between broadcast resolution / decoder box output resolution / native resolution of their screen.

 

Lets say you your eyes are in good shape and you can tell the difference, buying a discounted TV from an unbranded manufacturer becuase the specs says 1080p can still give a poor picture.

 

I think differences in the picture quality of individual HDTVs especially at smaller sizes (<40") will make more difference than 720p vs 1080i vs 1080p. How close do you have to be to the screen to see the extra pixels?

 

It's like home cinema setups, you can't always assume the more speakers you have the better, 7.1>6.1>5.1...

 

The manufacturer (eg. Linn vs Alba) and the size of your room will make much more difference to the sound.

Edited December 3, 2008 by somabc

[DSapseid]

ethernet ports and eSATA are there.. but not in use yet.

 

as is the usb port under the front flap with the viewing card. When i saw i was so excited but the engineer said no its not in use i was so disapointed:p