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Tour De France Highlights ITV4

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  • July 4, 2012 at 6:20 pm #16247
    jamescycling

    I have started a campaign (see C.T.C. forum) to get it through to ITV4 that their picture quality of their highlights show is absolutely awful. Do you agree the quality is so poor it looks like a poor 80’s arcade game?

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Viewing 15 replies - 16 through 30 (of 31 total)
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  • July 5, 2012 at 8:02 pm #689933
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    Raleigh

    It is only a little worse
    It is only a little worse than the Live.

    I’m watching it on SKY though, if that makes a difference.

    In terms of commentary, I hate Sean Kelly’s voice and what he says.

    In the Prologue, he said something like:

    It’s not a fast course today, but there are many fast sections

    I mean, WTF?

    July 5, 2012 at 5:16 pm #689931
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    pjay

    Believe me, you would notice
    Believe me, you would notice the problem if you experienced it. Subtle it is not.

    Is anyone who says the picture is fine watching the ITV4 highlights show on Freeview?

    July 5, 2012 at 3:58 pm #689929
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    cat1commuter

    Picture quality on ITV4
    Picture quality on ITV4 Freeview is dire compared to ITV4 satellite (Freesat, SD; I don’t pay for Sky HD). Not only is ITV4 Freeview low bitrate, its resolution is 544 x 576, whereas on satellite the resolution is 704 x 576 at a highter bitrate. On Satellite I don’t see a difference in quality between the live and highlights shows. I had a look at Freeview highlights the other night, and was shocked how bad it was.

    I think they should get rid of the the +1 channels on Freeview, and use the extra bandwidth to provide decent quality video.

    July 5, 2012 at 3:41 pm #689927
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    Karbon Kev

    The picture quality is not
    The picture quality is not any worse than any other, to improve things they need to get rid of the dreadfully irritating commentary from Legget and Sherwen, waffle on they do …….

    July 5, 2012 at 9:02 am #689925
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    jamescycling

    Sorry, meant to say thanks
    Sorry, meant to say thanks for all the replies so far! Pjay seems to have the same issue – trust me if you are watching via freeview it is awful.

    July 5, 2012 at 8:58 am #689923
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    jamescycling

    Er, Alan D what is your
    Er, Alan D what is your problem? The quality is dire and at points unwatchable, but this does not appear to happen during the live feed so I wonder if there is an issue they could look at. I’m not that technically up to speed on how coverage works, so perhaps from that point of view I do have a live! I’m perfectly entitled to raise an objection as I love watching it and its frustrating that the enjoyment is ruined. And broadcasters will change things or at least provide an explanation if enough people complain. What’s sad about that.

    If you get a decent reception, great, bully for you.

    July 5, 2012 at 7:16 am #689921
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    issacforce

    people moaning about nowt, u
    people moaning about nowt, u get it for free, they could jst drop it then you wud get none, stop whinging anf get a life !!!

    July 5, 2012 at 12:37 am #689919
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    Paul J

    The problem with ITV4
    The problem with ITV4 FreeView looks to be due to insufficient bit-rate to be able to cope with fast-moving images, which the TdF coverage seems to provide lots of. The result is annoying pixellation / macro-blocking – that “ancient cameraphone video” effect.

    The source video from the TdF TV directors to ITV will, undoubtedly, be pristine and high quality. Indeed the feed out from ITV to the Mux operator (Arqiva) is almost certainly also similarly perfect. The quality issues likely are being introduced by the Mux encoding – where Arqiva have to encode together 10 to 20 odd channels onto 1 24Mbs MPEG-2 data-stream, and ITV4 seems to have a particularly low budget for bitrate.

    The reason the quality issues don’t strike during the ITV recorded studio sessions is because those segments have Gary & Chris mostly just standing there. The picture doesn’t change that much, so it doesn’t need much information to describe the changes. The race pictures on the other hand are constantly changing and sweeping, and the encoders sometimes just aren’t able to keep-up, in the bits available. The result being that it has to throw away information, and use large, low-res blocks, instead of giving the finer detail.

    Other channels on the same Mux also having lots of motion at the same time may put pressure on the available bitrate, and so possibly affect the quality of ITV4. That depends on on exactly what the allocation is for ITV4, which is something that ITV or Arqiva apparently won’t give details on.

    July 4, 2012 at 10:18 pm #689917
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    Raleigh

    WE NEED A LIKE BUTTON FOR THE
    WE NEED A LIKE BUTTON FOR THE ABOVE COMMENT BY SAMMYG.

    Gotta love free Eurosport on my grannie’s telly 🙂

    Flicking between the two to avoid two things:

    Adverts

    Sean Kelly 😐

    July 4, 2012 at 9:43 pm #689915
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    spongebob

    Speaking of useless forum
    Speaking of useless forum threads what tyres do you guys use?

    July 4, 2012 at 9:06 pm #689913
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    livestrongnick

    Ahh brilliant yet another
    Ahh brilliant yet another pointless forum thread…….joy oh joy.X(X-(
    Just be thankful that itv has the coverage, i’m dreading the day when Sky wades in with it’s deep pockets and out bids itv and we get appauling commentary from people who know shit all about the sport they are covering! Formula 1 being a prime example!!!
    i’m lucky enough to have Virgin media with Eurosport so can switch between the two and skip adverts B-)

    July 4, 2012 at 8:11 pm #689911
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    giff77

    Why? What is the issue with
    Why? What is the issue with the picture quality? Every feed/highlight you pick up all comes from the same source So no matter which one you watch the quality will all be the same. I’ve no problems with the coverage. I’m just glad that a non subscription channel has picked it up otherwise I would not get to see anything of the tour.

    July 4, 2012 at 8:05 pm #689909
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    pjay

    There is a real issue with
    There is a real issue with the picture quality of ITV4 on Freeview. They use a low bitrate which is not adequate for fast-moving sports coverage apparently. The pixelation is terrible, and, no, it’s not a reception issue.

    July 4, 2012 at 7:39 pm #689907
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    AlanD

    You’ve “started a campaign”
    You’ve “started a campaign” against a 3rd party broadcaster, because, in your opinion, footage taken from a portable camera on a motorbike doing 40mph, uplinked live to a helicopter and then downlinked to a mobile broadcast station for synchronisation with broadcast is a little bit fuzzy?

    Really? Get a life…

    July 4, 2012 at 7:25 pm #689905
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    bigjeff

    As above, but don’t also
    As above, but don’t also forget, we get live coverage 1 hr after it stars, unlike in France, where we see the official start and all….

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