d4v3pum4:
If you get a good quality Freeview picture, I personally don't see the point in Freesat at the moment. There are a lot of low quality (both content and bitrate) channels around.
I have to disagree.
Whereas the SD bit rate isn't quite as high as on Freeview, there's very little difference in the picture. Initially I thought there was, but some programmes really shine eg. Home and Away on Five for instance almost looks HD. In recent episodes you've been able to see detail and blemishes in Lea's and Martha's faces that I've simply never seen before in over 10 years of watching the soap. Also, the detail in Roman's flat and the corridor oustide is amazing - I actually noticed a plant out there for the 1st time ever the other day and you can see the grain in the stone in the walls!
There are other programmes that shine as well. Bottom line is there's good and bad programming quality on both services and the provider can only transmit at the quality thats there.
Freesat has a better long term future for bandwidth period. Freeview has no where to go other than increased compression as the government is selling off the spare frequencies freed up by analogue switch off. Astra 2D might be full on Freesat, but Astra have put another satelite up to take the pressure off 2D so no doubt in the future as some services (maybe Sky) get transferred across, bandwidth will be come available in large amounts. Thats my opinion anyway.
On Freeview vs Freesat, this is a comparison shot I did of a HD Camcorder (Canon HV30) video shot by me - these are 2 screen captures side by side.
One on the left is Freeview compression level ie. 4.5mbs. One on right is Freesat compression level ie. 3.7mbs.
Same clip, different output compression. Can you see any difference in detail because I can't:
http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/9339/compressiontesthj0.jpg
Also videos here - 4.5mbs compression: -
http://vimeo.com/2520884
3.7mbs compression: -
http://vimeo.com/2520891