Using a SKYHD Box Purely as SD TV Upscaler?

[Anonymous]

All these things you mention are I'm sure theoertically possible. Get a box off ebay, don't pay HD subs and therefore don't get the channels and don't by Sky+ subs and don't have the recording functionality.

However, tust me when I tell you this is a complete waste of time. The deinterlacing and upscaling in the Sky HD is frankly abysmal. A very cheap plasma or LCD might see some basic improvements but anything worth its salt will have far better processing in it. We quite often recommend with TVs like the PIoneer or the FUjitsu to actually run component from the Sky HD box. This gives the user 576i for SD (i.e. not scaled, not deinterlaced) and 1080i for HD (again not scaled, not deinterlaced). The TV is far better at doing both of these jobs than the Sky box is.

HDMI on the Sky HD box, with AUTO or 576 modes it will send 576P for SD channels. This means no upscaling, but does still mean for deinterlacing which the box is not that hot at! Jaggies, resolution loss, poor film detection etc are common artefacts from this output.

 

[Anonymous]

I appreciate your comments-Thank you.

You know I have come to my own conclusion about all this HD TV related stuff!

Frankly the technology appears to be a load of rubbish at present and unless you seem to have a a reasonably good TV 37ins or under or can afford to buy something like a Pioneer or Fujitsu you might as well forget about watching decent picture quality at all.

It's all the hype that brainwashes most of us into parting with our money on things like this which we think will do the job but when push comes to shove invariably we're short changed.

Still. I am reasonably fotunate enough to own what I consider is a very decent TV for the price I paid and I continue to be entertained by my new DVD player which isn't Blu Ray but which quite frankly displays a better picture than most of the Blu Ray players out there put together. And...that's really it....so many things are just being put together hurriedly in an attempt to woo the consumer into buying them most of which at the end of the day turn out to be load of rubbish

 

[Anonymous]

A sensible response from SKY this morning:

I can confirm that it is possible to upgrade your existing digibox to an HD box without subscribing to the HD subscription, and you may continue with your chosen package. The installation of the HD box will require an additional cable to be run from the dish to the digibox in order to use the additional features of the box, such as live pause and recording facilities. If this cable is not installed the HD box will simply operate as a standard digibox.

So with that...........think I shall stick to SD for the time being until such tome more HD channels come on.....and prices come down a little more.

If I could be sure that the SKYHD box produced a better picture Upscaled on SD with my TV then I would probably go for it but if it's just going to reproduce the same picture quality as that of my current DIGIBOX where's the point. I think that SKY could have up signed up millions more people by now had they incorporated quality Upscaling in their HD box for the non hd channels which may have made the box more attractive to people like me who don't necessarily want HD at present but could keep their existing package whilst being able to see a better picture quality on the SD channels. Some one though is bound to come out with a cheaper Upscaler soon than Gefen that will be able to just plug into your DIGIBOX, SKY+ Box and other set up boxes which would allow people to dispense with SKY HD and the like altogether depending on the picture quality

 

[Gerrardasnails]

I've not read every reply on this but I have Sky HD and here is my take. The picture from the HD box is better than my old Sky plus box (I assume that's hdmi beats scart hands down). However, the HD channels are FANTASTIC. If the box upscales to 1080i then it would surely match the HD channel's picture (Sky HD is 1080i) which it clearly doesn't. I would suggest buying an HD box to watch only SD channels and without utilising the Sky plus from it is unwise and a waste of time.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Tallyho and Forum members

So that is now two Satellite installation companies and a couple of Sky HD box owners that concur with the man from the Sky Technical Department, that the box does not upscale SD pictures, as I had stated in my previous post. You said you got a written reply from Sky, did you ask Sky directly about the upscaling capability of their HD box?

Regarding picture quality generally. The output from the scart is better than from my previous Panasonic Sky box, which was very good anyway, but that would be expected as the box is about seven years old. There is a significant difference between the HD quality when compared with the same content on SD channel even via a quality scart lead.

I have thought of another possible solution to the problem which may be of interest to everyone.

I understand that the Scart to Recorder output is also RGB enabled. Is it possible to feed the Sky SD output, either by scart or HDMI, through a Hard disk or DVD recorder which does have upscaling capability and then view via the HDD/DVD recorder's HDMI output. You may have to record everything that you want to upscale first and replay via the HDD/DVD recorder's HDMI output. But if it worked and significantly improved the quality it might be worth it.

This may be a topic for another thread.

One other point: There is news that Channel 4 will be launching HD shortly, possibly before Xmas with Channel 5 and possibly ITV, both next spring. This would be great, but they are not part of the Licence fee channels and I have read that you may still need to pay Sky the £10/month (currently) HD fee and or subscribe to a Sky package to get these HD channels.

I note that there has still not been any input from the mag on this subject. This is disappointing because it was this mag that had stated that the Sky HD box could upscale SD content!

Regards

Malwrx

 

[Anonymous]

If i were you i would check with another, well known and very large, forum (not sure if i can post the link here).

This will give you a definitive answer as with my dealings with Sky and other so-called "experts" they sometimes don't know what they're talking about...

There's also apparently talk of Sky scrapping the £10 fee for HD, but i think that's only a rumour, but again, all details can be found on that forum.

IMO the £10 per month is a bit of an annoyance, and really not justified at present, but to be honest, either getting this, or forking out the equivalent 30p a day on The Sun for example, is something i can personally live with.