Itv4 picture quality

Escher303

I'm wondering if this is a regional thing or whether everyone experiences it.

Yesterday the live ITV 4 coverage had quite good picture quality. Nothing to complain about at all. In the evening the highlights were awful. Very blocky, compressed with loads of artefacts. It wasn't far off unwatchable. You could barely see who anyone was when the peloton was moving in close up.

Seen it plenty of times like this on ITV, football especially. But never noticed a difference in times of day before. Is it this bad for you? Is ITV's bandwidth squeezed in the evening meaning loads more compression?

Going to have to see if the next days repeat of the highlights is better and watch those instead.

TheStone

Same problem.
Noticed it on the French Open tennis too.
Other channels seem ok. I've got normal freeview (non HD) on 32" TV.

snoopsmydogg

watched the itv4 highlights after being out all day and dont think i'll watch them again.

back to eurosport for me from now on

gsvbagpuss

It can be sketchy for me down in the South West, often weather dependent. It was fine for the live pictures yesterday; I didnt watch the highlights so no idea how they were.

takethehighroad

No problems for me tonight. In fact I was impressed they looked slightly upscaled

heavymental

Just watched about 10% of the highlights because the rest of the time it was cutting out. Just a reception thing for me. Need to fiddle with my aerial. A real pain though. At least before digital you could still watch stuff. If reception was bad you'd just get a bit of fuzz but at least you could hear the commentary and see a bit of action through the snow. Progress eh.

takethehighroad

Heavymental wrote:

Just watched about 10% of the highlights because the rest of the time it was cutting out. Just a reception thing for me. Need to fiddle with my aerial. A real pain though. At least before digital you could still watch stuff. If reception was bad you'd just get a bit of fuzz but at least you could hear the commentary and see a bit of action through the snow. Progress eh.

[child]
You need to wait until after the watershed to do that
[/child]

pete54

It's crap on my Freeview HD tv, like a blocky internet stream. HD channels work flawlessly, so it's not a reception issue.

Dave_P1

Same problem for me when watching it yesterday

bartolli

I watched the highlights of Stage 1 on ITV4 and thought the quality was appalling.

Today I am away from home in an apartment with Sky HD and it looked awesome on ITV4HD.

Rigga

The live pictures on ES have been pretty crap too, breaking up and going blocky a lot.

alan_sherman

I commented on the other thread about this. The next day stage fly through was particularly bad for me. I thought it looked like the sum of multiple trans codes. Itv 4 does seem bad for picture quality but this is ridiculous!

Free view in London for me. It sounds like sky is the same in standard definition. What about high definition on sky (you lucky people) and virgin cable?

Itv player looks better than the channel! It is on a smaller screen though...

pete54

Maybe ITV are deliberately knobbling the SD version of ITV4 to try and persuade us to take out a Sky subscription to watch the HD version. Apparently they did an exclusive deal with Sky for ITV4 HD.

Maybe someone could email ITV and try and find out what the problem is?

Edit: some discussion of the problem here:

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1671132

surreychris

All wonderful on itv4 HD



(Sorry) :?

juankerr

Same problem in Grandaland on Freeview. The life coverage looks acceptable but the highlights were a mess of blocky artifacts bordering on the unwatchable. Luckily it didn't detract from me playing the Paul & Phil drinking game.

zammmmo

bandwidth is set too low on itv4 and that is made worse by the nature of the programmes i.e. fast moving images, and also the weather possibly(?)

it was the same last year with the tdf...obviously not a big enough (commercial) issue for them to do anything about

fungus_the_muffin_man

I watched yesterdays race last night. I sky + the normal eurosport channel to save drive space and the picture quailty was almost HD like!!! It broke up a few times, but it was a much better quality than non HD usually is :?

dbrooksbank

I'm trying to watch the highlights at this very minute, using freeview channel 24. it's appalling! the bit rate is extremely poor

it's really disappointing as most of the riders are almost unrecognisable. It specifically seems to be ITV4 as most of the other channels have excellent image quality.

Yesterdays highlights were bad as well, so I'm not holding out much hope of it improving anytime soon.

Silly Old Hector

Better quality 1987 Roche video on YouTube last night !

Come on ITV4, this is shocking !

ms_tree

alan sherman wrote:

Free view in London for me. It sounds like sky is the same in standard definition. What about high definition on sky (you lucky people) and virgin cable?

I've got Virgin with a Tivo and today a couple of times the HD lost sound and the screen went black. It righted itself after I clicked onto ordinalry Eurosport and back again.

alan_sherman

Ms tree, how is itv4 on virgin though?

heavymental

Once I get my aerial sorted I don't want to find out that my enjoyment of Quantum Leap is compromised by poor broadcast quality.

beelzebomb

I emailed ITV4 with concerns, here's the reply:

"Occasionally, all digital broadcasters experience slight degradation of
vision especially during "fast action" events which put specific
pressure on the compression systems in use. As you'll appreciate,
bandwidth capacity can be limited on some occasions and picture quality
can be perceived to be lower now that much larger screens are available.
However, please be assured that our engineering teams are investigating
to see if there have been any specific problems during this event. In
addition, they are doing all they can with equipment suppliers to
improve the overall picture quality of our standard definition services
and they have been informed of your concerns."

So on a positive note, it should get sorted.

Monty Zoncolan

I was just going to post that it's more likely a bandwidth issue than a reception issue - I've got Virgin cable and have noticed it with ITV3 and 4.

I didn't even realise there was a HD version of ITV4 (!)

Neil McC

Haven't noticed a problem with the highlights package on ITV4 through a Virgin Tivo box.

alan_sherman

ITV4HD only available on sky at present.

kuota

watched the live coverage in the afternoon and the picture quality is excellent. However watching the highlights programme and the picture is shocking every night.

Pross

I've only watched the highlights and have had no problems with picture quality (through Sky). However, the dubbing has been appalling.

Monty Zoncolan

alan sherman wrote:

ITV4HD only available on sky at present.

Thanks. I scoured the listings and couldn't see it.

Coach H

Terrible tonight.

Not one bit of race footage did not have pixilation.

I have e-mailed ITV to complain

Teddy Westside

alan sherman wrote:

ITV4HD only available on sky at present.

And no doubt they pay a pretty penny for the exclusivity which means us mere mortals on Freeview won't see the Tour on Freeview HD unless it is deemed worth of ITV1 coverage (and it's advertising revenue). I don't know that even Wiggins winning this year would do that or they'd have switched it this year.