DIGITALB Picture Quality

nwill

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Anyone care to comment on what the picture quality is like from the UK on the Digitalb Supersport channels.

I've heard that the picture quality is okay when the weather conditions are good but that it's very poor when there is rain as it causes a lot of pixalation and picture break up.

I've also heard though that a dish size of 60cm in South Wales is sufficient for good DIGITALB reception.

Is this true? I'd be grateful for the comments of DIGITALB users on their experiances of this system.
 

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From what I have read I would suggest you get a 90cm otherwise in wet conditions you could experience problems 60cm would be ample for Hotbird not W2 16East
 

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I have no idea of the transmission quality, but pretty sure that a 60cm in South Wales will not be sufficient, in Berkshire an 80cm dish well aligned is essential.
 

Neophasis

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Hmmm....it seems alot of people come on here complaining about the power levels of W2 16E.

Is this something that has happened recently? the drop in signal i mean?
 

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i have,seen this channels,in house,where a alabanian lives,we must set up a 90 cm dish for him 60 cm,is here also to small,and the pircture quality ,is not good,complitly low resultion,sometimes,it can happens,that the source is a normal dvd player,and you see,the setup of dvd player,on the screen,or the divx logo!
 

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Hi nwill,

May I suggest, since you are looking for good quality sport channels, that the best thing to do would be to ask members about which sport channels they can recommend and how to get it (which satellites, which packages, cost, encryption type, etc.)

There are a lot of sport channels on Hotbird.
Here a list of just few packages (Providers)

Nova (already discussed)
SRG (Switzerland - Excellent quality 720x576)
Slovenia
RAI (Italia)
SKY Italia (Sport and Calcio options)
TPS

You might like to download the Eutelsat channels list, print it and go over all the satellites listed.
Link http://www.eutelsat.com/pdf/the_home/tvlineup.pdf

Doesn't SKY UK provide any sport channels ?

Good Luck
 

nwill

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Thanks again for your comments guys. I currently do have Sky Sports from Sky Digital and the picture quality is excellent but unfortunately they do not offer any live English Premier football games that kick off at 3pm on Saturdays here in the UK.

That is why I am considering either Nova or Digitalb. I know that Digitalb is a lot cheaper but I have heard that Nova provides the better picture quality. If I do go for Nova I can then cancel my Sky Subscription as they offer a good overall sports package.

My ideal scenario would be to keep Sky and just purchase a cheap DIgitalb card for just the 3pm sat games but as I've said in my first post in this thread, I have a lot of doubts that the picture quality is any good in wet conditions even with a 80 cm dish.
 

tele

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i live in swindon england, i have digialb. ihave a 80 cm dish i never loose quality. you should get a tehnomate 1000d. and watch live football on saturday its in english 19 deg east.i hope this has helped.
 

HB13DISH

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nwill said:
Thanks again for your comments guys. I currently do have Sky Sports from Sky Digital and the picture quality is excellent but unfortunately they do not offer any live English Premier football games that kick off at 3pm on Saturdays here in the UK.

That is why I am considering either Nova or Digitalb. I know that Digitalb is a lot cheaper but I have heard that Nova provides the better picture quality. If I do go for Nova I can then cancel my Sky Subscription as they offer a good overall sports package.

My ideal scenario would be to keep Sky and just purchase a cheap DIgitalb card for just the 3pm sat games but as I've said in my first post in this thread, I have a lot of doubts that the picture quality is any good in wet conditions even with a 80 cm dish.

I am not familiar with Sky UK satellite setup (dish size, receiver model, Sky contract conditions, etc.) so please bear with me if what I am suggesting below is not possible for some unforseen reason.

But since you have already a dish pointing at 19.2E ? then perhaps you can use it to watch hotbird if you change the LNB to one which is good for both satellites.
All you need to do is to ask an installer to change the LNB and to run a cable to the receiver, add a Diseq switch so that you can select the correct satellite.
Check if the receiver can allow you to have a Diseq and if you can scan, add and watch other channels from other satellites.

This way you don't need to spend much on equipments and you need only to buy the cheapest Nova card that you can find.

Is the dish a property of SKY or is it yours ?
Maybe this is not such a good idea if Sky doesn't allow any changes to their equipments, as per their contract.
Also, check if the receiver embedded CAM supports IRDETO encryption.
(check also if Conax can be encrypted for the DigitAL:cool:
If all goes well, then all you have to do is to insert the Nova smartcard whenever you want to watch your prefered matches.
Should the Sky smart card be inserted into the box all the time ?
It would help other members to give their opinions about this post if you can give more details about your system

Dish size
Dish position (pointing to which satellite)
Receiver model number and make (attach a pdf manual if you have it or download it from the maker website)
 

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HB13DISH said:
But since you have already a dish pointing at 19.2E ? then perhaps you can use it to watch hotbird if you change the LNB to one which is good for both satellites.

His dish is currently pointing at 28.2 East Sky digital
HB13DISH said:
All you need to do is to ask an installer to change the LNB and to run a cable to the receiver, add a Diseq switch so that you can select the correct satellite.

You will struggle to get another satellite 16 deg further west on a sky dish
HB13DISH said:
Check if the receiver can allow you to have a Diseq and if you can scan, add and watch other channels from other satellites.

Sky digiboxes do not do disecq switching not do they do some very standard SR's and FEC's

HB13DISH said:
This way you don't need to spend much on equipments and you need only to buy the cheapest Nova card that you can find.

My advise is to install a completely separate total system

HB13DISH said:
Also, check if the receiver embedded CAM supports IRDETO encryption.
(check also if Conax can be encrypted for the DigitAL:cool:

No it does not..... sky use videoguard (NDS) encryption
 

nwill

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Thanks for all your comments guys. Okay, let's put the Digitalb picture quality on some kind of points scale.

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being Sky Sports picture quality, how would you rate the quality of your Digitalb picture?
 

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digialb quality same as sky 10-10. i have a 46 inch l c d tv.
 
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Digitalb quality is the same as any other digital package, it also from 2 months is airing in 2 HD sport channels + 4 HD movie, shows etc channels
And ISN'T absolutely true that Digitalb has dvd source or can see dvd or divx logo !!!!!!!!!
 

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I sometimes have problems with heavy rain in the south with digialb and i think the picture quality is not so good anyway. Also i have often found the English sound is out of sync with the picture.. Nova has better picture quality and much stronger signal
 

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Digitalb is broadcast accross 4 transponders at 16.0E.

_http://www.lyngsat.com/packages/digitalb.html

3 of these are half power 72Mhz transponders (B1L, B4L & B4U). These are the ones that require a decent size dish for rain fade margin. The other Digitalb transponder is C12 which is a full power 36Mhz transponder. This is the strongest of the 4 transponders that Digitalb use.


Edit - Apologies, didn't realise this was an old thread dug up from last year.
 

DigitalbHDman

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Nova signal is very bad, i prefer digitalb!, better signal, cheaper but is true that Digitalb has dvd source or can see dvd or divx logo !!!!!!!!! sometimes!

The image quality is same like the SKY!!!
If you give 10 to sky, 10 to Digitalb and NOVA mabye 7 or 8!
 

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hi I live in sw france and I have the digitalb sports package and let me tell you the reception here is very poor I cant get the reception bar to go past 52 in poor weather conditions,I have a motorised system disQUE 1 moteck, 80 cm dish
I am considering a 90cm because its not acceptable with the smaller dish here,
I will be changing my package next year, hotbird seems the place to be these days ie, art package gives you a lot of scope,
whish you well hotkich
 

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hotkich you would be better going from 80cm to 1metre dish

digitalb isn't that good now they don't show the 3pm kick off games any more
 

hotkich

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thankyou Wod for that advice and info,after reading all of the stuff that come from you guys I realise what a complete novice I am,
once again really appreciate it hotkich
 

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nwill said:
Thanks for all your comments guys. Okay, let's put the Digitalb picture quality on some kind of points scale.

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being Sky Sports picture quality, how would you rate the quality of your Digitalb picture?

I've seen some of the replies to your question and I have to disagree with some of these answers.

For Digitalb Supersports the picture is vastly poorer to SKY SPORTS quality. If Sky sports was 10 I'd give Digitalb Supersports 6

Digitalb 90% of the time transmits the picture in 4:3 format where as Sky uses true 16:9

Watching digitalb supersports is like watching a football match taped on a VHS tape.

I have a 1m dish and I'm S.E England and I get good signal strength, its the digitalb transmission quality that is poor and nothing to do with the signal.

The digitalb package is cheap compared to other satellite providers. The old expression you only get what you pay for definitely applies.

You'll get loads of people telling you rubbish as they want you to buy the digitalb cards (and are probably something to do with the *****) website which plugs the digitalb cards.
 
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