Cable IPTV disappointing compared to VDSL

[ColinTaylor]

I am confused here: OTA still means Over The Air, right? Surely you can't compare a wired connection with a wifi connection, right? For anything that needs reliable bandwidth, such as streaming or my NAS, i will always opt for wired. I may have misunderstood though. Just looking for clarity.

I think by OTA they're talking about broadcast television transmissions, not streaming video over a computer network.

 

[sfx2000]

I am confused here: OTA still means Over The Air, right?

That's how I see it - Broadcast TV over the air...

 

[ddaenen1]

I think by OTA they're talking about broadcast television transmissions, not streaming video over a computer network.

Oh, i thought this forum was about networking and stuff...my bad

 

[drinkingbird]

I am confused here: OTA still means Over The Air, right? Surely you can't compare a wired connection with a wifi connection, right? For anything that needs reliable bandwidth, such as streaming or my NAS, i will always opt for wired. I may have misunderstood though. Just looking for clarity.

For streaming video you can certainly compare the two. If your wifi can't keep up with a 20 to 30 meg (at worst) stream you need to do some troubleshooting.

 

[drinkingbird]

Oh, i thought this forum was about networking and stuff...my bad

As if we never go off on tangents

 

[coxhaus]

OTA will not match 8K streams as they do not broadcast 8K OTA so your statment is false. There are not many but it cannot match it. I heard 8K streams are around 100 meg stream. I don't have an 8K flat screen yet. I have seen it in the stores.

When I see nice 4K streams they are 30 meg streams. I have never seen an OTA as good as a 4K 30 meg stream. I am not saying there are not broadcast 4K streams but I don't have any around me. I think I am receiving 2K streams OTA.

 

[drinkingbird]

OTA will not match 8K streams as they do not broadcast 8K OTA so your statment is false. There are not many but it cannot match it. I heard 8K streams are around 100 meg stream. I don't have an 8K flat screen yet. I have seen it in the stores.

When I see nice 4K streams they are 30 meg streams. I have never seen an OTA as good as a 4K 30 meg stream. I am not saying there are not broadcast 4K streams but I don't have any around me. I think I am receiving 2K streams OTA.

There will be 8K OTA channels eventually and they will blow your 8k streams away. Uncompressed 8K is in the tens of gigs per second. Obviously with the exception of a blu ray, nothing is going to send that, but OTA channels with good spectrum are able to do much higher bitrate due to the broadcast nature.

What you're seeing in the stores is uncompressed off a digital box out back designed to make those TVs look very good.

In reality if your streaming provider does not have a direct connection into your ISP with lots of bandwidth, you will see very high compression or it will drop down to 4K or 2k.

It is entirely possible a 1080 OTA broadcast will look better than an 8K stream if that stream has to use high compression or scale down the resolution in order to not suffer congestion.

FIOS potentially has the capacity to send some 4k and 8k streams at very high bitrates, right now they have about 1.25 gigs of bandwidth for all channels and they also utilize multicast and switching to make the most of that. At some point they'll start rolling out 10 gig waves and have that much more capacity.

Streaming is what it is and is usually very good quality but unfortunately as you get better and better TVs, you start to notice the limitations more and more.

 

[L&LD]

I'll reiterate the point I've made repeatedly; 'at the same resolution'.

The highest quality OTA is an uncompressed signal. The highest quality streaming is still garbage, comparatively. Only need to see it once to believe it is so.

 

[coxhaus]

There will be 8K OTA channels eventually and they will blow your 8k streams away. Uncompressed 8K is in the tens of gigs per second. Obviously with the exception of a blu ray, nothing is going to send that, but OTA channels with good spectrum are able to do much higher bitrate due to the broadcast nature.

What you're seeing in the stores is uncompressed off a digital box out back designed to make those TVs look very good.

In reality if your streaming provider does not have a direct connection into your ISP with lots of bandwidth, you will see very high compression or it will drop down to 4K or 2k.

It is entirely possible a 1080 OTA broadcast will look better than an 8K stream if that stream has to use high compression or scale down the resolution in order to not suffer congestion.

FIOS potentially has the capacity to send some 4k and 8k streams at very high bitrates, right now they have about 1.25 gigs of bandwidth for all channels and they also utilize multicast and switching to make the most of that. At some point they'll start rolling out 10 gig waves and have that much more capacity.

Streaming is what it is and is usually very good quality but unfortunately as you get better and better TVs, you start to notice the limitations more and more.

I think you are wrong. There are 2 types of compression, destructive and non-destructive. If you broadcast with non-destructive compression, then it looks the same on either end.

Now compression to save bandwidth is different as it is destructive compression.

Analog is dead. I think you are confused.

 

[drinkingbird]

Now compression to save bandwidth is different as it is destructive compression.

Exactly what we are all saying.

Analog is dead. I think you are confused.

Nope, 0% confused. You're massively confused if you're bringing analog into a compression discussion (compression in analog is just passing the frequencies through a bandpass filter basically), and think that reducing multiple gigabits worth of data into 30 megs is not lossy compression.

There are encoding techniques that can save bandwidth with little to no quality loss, but nowhere near that much.

Just like with music, the bitrate and size determines the quality. MP3 will always have loss, FLAC can encode lossless and save room vs PCM but is far bigger.

Rather than "thinking" everyone else here is wrong, just do some googling. Or watch a blu ray then the same thing streaming, doesn't get much simpler than that to see the proof.

 

[L&LD]

With audio, lossy and non-lossy compression is audibly different, vs the original, non-compressed file. Apple codecs are notoriously non-high fidelity to my ears. The placement of instruments are actually changing compared to the original source files.

I don't care enough about video to research this as thoroughly as I've done on the audio side, but as noted, seeing OTA broadcasts was obviously at another level.

Analog is not dead. Again, on the right equipment, it is on a different (deeper) level. And that goes for both audio and video.

Either someone can't see/hear the difference, or they don't think the difference is that important. But when you want to be transported to the recording venue, analog is still king.

An iPod makes sound.

A quality stereo brings the music to the room.

A music system takes you to the recording venue and timeline when the performance was captured.

The iPod is streaming TV.

The stereo is DVD/Blu-ray.

The music system is 70mm film.

See the 1981 'On Golden Pond' streaming, on DVD/Blu-ray and on the original 70mm film at a theatre on a quality screen.

The digital versions are throwaway.

 

[coxhaus]

Exactly what we are all saying.



Nope, 0% confused. You're massively confused if you're bringing analog into a compression discussion (compression in analog is just passing the frequencies through a bandpass filter basically), and think that reducing multiple gigabits worth of data into 30 megs is not lossy compression.

There are encoding techniques that can save bandwidth with little to no quality loss, but nowhere near that much.

Just like with music, the bitrate and size determines the quality. MP3 will always have loss, FLAC can encode lossless and save room vs PCM but is far bigger.

Rather than "thinking" everyone else here is wrong, just do some googling. Or watch a blu ray then the same thing streaming, doesn't get much simpler than that to see the proof.

Analog is dead for broadcast OTA which is what we were discussing. Yes, vinyl lives.

Your hard drives do compression it is the way it is. And the compression gets higher and higher as they take densities up.

 

[drinkingbird]

Analog is dead for broadcast OTA which is what we were discussing. Yes, vinyl lives.

Your hard drives do compression it is the way it is. And the compression gets higher and higher as they take densities up.

Lol, compression is not what makes larger capacity hard drives hold more data, and nobody disagrees that analog is gone for OTA, has been for a long time, by law.

You're all over the place and still not making any sense

 

[coxhaus]

I see it sorry you don't. OTA cannot match high end streaming. OTA looks better than cable companies TV broadcast that are compressed to save bandwidth.

 

[drinkingbird]

I see it sorry you don't. OTA cannot match high end streaming. OTA looks better than cable companies TV broadcast that are compressed to save bandwidth.

For gods sake your steaming is compressed for the exact same reason.

Sure, in some cases a compressed higher resolution stream may look better than a lower resolution OTA broadcast. But when comparing the same resolution, OTA is going to look better.

 

[coxhaus]

Sure, in some cases a compressed higher resolution stream may look better than a lower resolution OTA broadcast. But when comparing the same resolution, OTA is going to look better.

Your statement sounds nuts. The same resolution is the same. And most TVs now up scale the resolution. My 4K upscales to 4K. I watch OTA all the time and none of the programs look as good as some of the best of what I stream. Some of BlueRay looks pretty good when I stream. Austin City Limits is about as good as it gets on OTA.
I do this every day. You can't convince me otherwise.

Do you even have a large 4K TV? It is hard to tell on a small screen.

 

[L&LD]

I already gave you comparisons for 'same resolution' in post 51, above.

Resolution, on its own is meaningless.

The source is king, and the equipment to play that source faithfully, is almost secondary.

That is why Radio Shack, Sony, and Bose, to name a few, are not music systems. They are merely stereo systems. And some (thankfully) have gone the way of the dinosaurs.

They can all play the same hi-fidelity 'sources', but they end up giving you a headache, instead of a musical experience.

 

[drinkingbird]

Your statement sounds nuts. The same resolution is the same. And most TVs now up scale the resolution. My 4K upscales to 4K. I watch OTA all the time and none of the programs look as good as some of the best of what I stream. Some of BlueRay looks pretty good when I stream. Austin City Limits is about as good as it gets on OTA.
I do this every day. You can't convince me otherwise.

Do you even have a large 4K TV? It is hard to tell on a small screen.

I'm not going to bother. Do some reading.

 

[sfx2000]

Resolution, on its own is meaningless.

The source is king, and the equipment to play that source faithfully, is almost secondary.

Let's all take a deep breath as everyone has good points...

ATSC and DVB-T, they have a lot of options - it really comes down to the receiver for OTA and across the wire for Cable/DTS - and OTT solutions as well...

 

[coxhaus]

I had a theater in my den for a while with some Krell amps and assorted sound processors. And the sound was good, but the power draw was pretty high. I had multiple 20-amp circuits installed to run it. I got tired of it. I switched to 2 channel audio using analog and tubes.