Marine Aquarium 2.01 settings Question

[jleslie]

Digital terresterial has only come on much over here in the UK in the last year or two, and it's not DVD quality - they take the standard approach of putting too many channels on each multiplex so the bit-rate goes down and the quality with it.

If you get a program with lots of movement (pop video, say) it can look more like pop art as the datarate just can't handle it. (Though sometimes it is very nice indeed I should say - especially channels on multiplexes with other channels that only transmit occasionally.)
DVDs tend to be in the 6-9.8Mb/s datarates.
Freeview (digital terresterial) runs 1.7-5ish, with a lot of stuff around 3. (Unfortunately MPEG2 doesn't degrate gracefully as the datarate goes down, so it can look quite poor at times - it always amuses me to see the station logo popping around as the datarate can't handle it nicely (typically for news channels which have low datarate, but seen on all). I hate channel on-screen logos anyway, nasty invention - why not have a nice crystal somewhere in the picture with the logo ;-)
Also only about 75% of the stuff on Digital Terresterial is 16:9, rest is 4:3. Is the best thing to have if you have a widescreen TV though, as satellite probably does significantly less at 16:9.
After going to NAB this year (big broadcasters show) I must say I can't wait to get 1080i over here, just looks so amazing, you Americans are very lucky.
Anyway, this is off-topic so I'll change back to the real one.
I do like having a 16:9 tank on my 4:3 LCD a bit more than the 4:3 one and have no problems with the black bars (although others disagree). Perhaps it's the bigger background that looks less artificial or maybe the extra fish. I think a bit of both.

[cjmaddy]

I agree with the above! - but my biggest grouse, particularly with ITV, (though the others are sometimes as bad), is their apparent inability to get their act together when mixing 4x3 and 16x9 on their digital 16x9 transmissions. - The only conclusion you can come to is that they don't know what they are doing .... or they don't care!

Digital terrestrial on a wide screen TV can (when at it's best) look very good, particularly for sports events.
But then we get F1-GP from ITV, invariably in 4x3 stretched to 16x9, - with oval wheels!!!!

[feldon34]

ATSC (the digital version of NTSC) channels are allocated 19.2Mbps of bandwidth. If used for either of the two HDTV formats (1920 x 1080 30fps or 1280 x 720 60fps) with no other subchannels, the picture is fantastic.

But many stations are cramming a live Doppler radar channel, a kids show, and in some cases a re-broadcast of the analog channel if the digital channel bears different programming. This results in horrid picture quality especially when there is a lot of motion. The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City was unbearable to watch off of the local ABC affiliate because of these subchannels. Fortunately, I was able to watch the full 19.2Mbps feed from the national HDNet who actually produced the coverage.

Also, DirectTV satellite service here receives the raw 45Mbps signal from the content providers and has the discretion to compress it down to whatever they want. I believe most of the time they run each channel at a more claustrophobic 15Mbps.