Virgin V+ Poor Picture Quality

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Aug 10, 2019
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I run a Samsung LCD TV (46" F8 model) off the Virgin Media service via the Scientific Atlantic V+ Box.

I have notice a significant drop in the resolution of main SD channels (BBC1 BBC2 IVT1 ETC which you would not expect to be compressed) over the past few weeks. Previously, I had intermittantly noticed an occasional drop in resolution of an evening's viewing over the past few months but this seemed to 'clear' the following day with the picture has returning to 'normal' quality.

I had a Virgin Media service engineer at my house this morning who swapped the V+ box and even adjusted/checked the feed DB signal levels at the network NTE (at the end of the street) and everything checked out. NONE of my setting on the TV have changed and I have been enjoying perfectly good image quality on the same screen with the same setting for months.
I've even noticed a slight drop in BBC HD feed quality, far lower then that i've been experiencing for the past few months. The picture is generating a high number of artifacts around images, colours look washed out and the general resolution of the image is something akin to one of the 'none descript' highly compressed channels on SKY.

I am concerned the problem is a fundimental network / bandwidth transmission issue? To me this looks like Virgin are compressing feeds to cope with increased bandwidth demand on the network through either increased users and/or widespread use of the recently launched BBCiplayer. (I wonder if the rollout of 4 > 10Mbupgrade to DSL services is creating this additional load on the network?) The engineer mentioned they were changing the signalling on the platform to a different compression codec for TV over the next few month so maybe Virgin are experimenting with this currently?

I'm now at the point that if it doesn't improve over the next week i'll probably terminate the service in lieu of SKY + SKY HD.

What was a TV quality picture service seems to have deteriorated into a tier 3 quality offering.

At this stage If you are considering the Virgin Service and have anything above a 20" TV then at this stage I would not recommend this platform.
 

Gerrardasnails

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Sep 6, 2007
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[quote user="RichardH"]I run a Samsung LCD TV (46" F8 model) off the Virgin Media service via the Scientific Atlantic V+ Box.

I have notice a significant drop in the resolution of main SD channels (BBC1 BBC2 IVT1 ETC which you would not expect to be compressed) over the past few weeks. Previously, I had intermittantly noticed an occasional drop in resolution of an evening's viewing over the past few months but this seemed to 'clear' the following day with the picture has returning to 'normal' quality.

I had a Virgin Media service engineer at my house this morning who swapped the V+ box and even adjusted/checked the feed DB signal levels at the network NTE (at the end of the street) and everything checked out. NONE of my setting on the TV have changed and I have been enjoying perfectly good image quality on the same screen with the same setting for months.

I've even noticed a slight drop in BBC HD feed quality, far lower then that i've been experiencing for the past few months. The picture is generating a high number of artifacts around images, colours look washed out and the general resolution of the image is something akin to one of the 'none descript' highly compressed channels on SKY.

I am concerned the problem is a fundimental network / bandwidth transmission issue? To me this looks like Virgin are compressing feeds to cope with increased bandwidth demand on the network through either increased users and/or widespread use of the recently launched BBCiplayer. (I wonder if the rollout of 4 > 10Mbupgrade to DSL services is creating this additional load on the network?) The engineer mentioned they were changing the signalling on the platform to a different compression codec for TV over the next few month so maybe Virgin are experimenting with this currently?

I'm now at the point that if it doesn't improve over the next week i'll probably terminate the service in lieu of SKY + SKY HD.

What was a TV quality picture service seems to have deteriorated into a tier 3 quality offering.

At this stage If you are considering the Virgin Service and have anything above a 20" TV then at this stage I would not recommend this platform.[/quote] I was at my Sister yesterday and they have the same tv as me but Virgin + and the picture really is excellent.
 

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