It was nice knowing F1, Thanks Bernie you money grabbing back stabber!

[Saloony]

Boy at work has suggested that Btcc will come to bbc in place of F1. Good, proper racing to be watched.

[Stuart]

I think everyone wants to be on the 'other' supplier .
Skys SD picture quality is dire, worse than Freeview. Purely to get the number of +1/2/3/4 channels on there and to try and push you onto the HD stream which imho is no better than it used to be.

[Adam]

I think everyone wants to be on the 'other' supplier .
Skys SD picture quality is dire, worse than Freeview. Purely to get the number of +1/2/3/4 channels on there and to try and push you onto the HD stream which imho is no better than it used to be.

Virgin Media SD picture is worse than Sky on the Tivo and V+ boxes.
Freeview picture quality is better than both on SD signals.

[Mike]

Picture qaulity is just down to RF signal strength (Low, Mid & High freqs) if there all working in harmony you get crystal picture, if the installer is a bodging mofo an is getting really low freq on whats known as a forward path, but hasnt bothered to put an attenuator into a cable feed then you can end up with low/**** qaulity picture.

Its all down to the installer really.

I can garantee you this though, VM are getting very very close to rolling out 500mb internet across there cabled areas of the UK, BT's old **** wiring network cannot physically take that kinda speed what so ever (proven fact aswell )

[Stuart]

Picture qaulity is just down to RF signal strength (Low, Mid & High freqs) if there all working in harmony you get crystal picture, if the installer is a bodging mofo an is getting really low freq on whats known as a forward path, but hasnt bothered to put an attenuator into a cable feed then you can end up with low/**** qaulity picture.

Its all down to the installer really.

I can garantee you this though, VM are getting very very close to rolling out 500mb internet across there cabled areas of the UK, BT's old **** wiring network cannot physically take that kinda speed what so ever (proven fact aswell )

tbh I only 'want'/need 10Meg Using 4.4meg with O2 and its enough to watch iplayer/4od/obtain things fast enough for our needs

[Mike]

tbh I only 'want'/need 10Meg Using 4.4meg with O2 and its enough to watch iplayer/4od/obtain things fast enough for our needs

10meg is more then enough for any normal house, unless your running like 2 XBox Live, iPad + desktop etc all at once. Its all about the RF levels though 0 to -10bdmv with a +/-6.

TiVo has its own 10meg connection for in built apps (Twitter, Faceache, eBay etc).

[Stuart]

computer/pad browsing uses shag all bandwidth unless you are streaming/downloading.

So then most folks would need a max of 20-25meg.... and then no need to throttle that so a 500meg backbone for a street would be all thats needed.

[Lee]

They don't do internet via the dish as it's prohibitively expensive, the speeds are not earth shattering and it's only one way. The 'request' traffic has to go via some other means i.e the phone line, either dial up or some sort of broadband. The latency this introduces means that satellite services suck at web browsing.

2 way satellite internet has existed for years. It may well be expensive upgrading their current network due to it being one way, but not nearly as expensive as losing their business.
As I said in my previous post, as it stands you get most if not all of your TV from a sky dish or a virgin cable, or a freeview digital signal. I assure you in the next 5 to 10 years, it will slowly move towards internet streaming. TV scheduling is already starting to become a thing of the past due to recordable boxes and TV on demand, but give it another decade and a schedule just wont exist. You'll pop onto the net on your internet TV and watch what you want when you want. Period. Its not going to happen overnight, but sky need to seriously start thinking about upgrading their system if they want to stay in the market in the future, because it will be about who has the strongest internet package.

[Stuart]

They have the 'anytime+' crap but given some places have dire internets then it can take upto an hour to get a half hour program in on that

We tend to watch one episode of a TV series on TV at its scheduled time then accidentally find that the USA is 2-3 series ahead and that all the episodes can be watched when we want.... This will be killing TV/advertisers very soon as more and more 'normal' people clock onto it

[phazer]

2 way satellite internet has existed for years. It may well be expensive upgrading their current network due to it being one way, but not nearly as expensive as losing their business.
As I said in my previous post, as it stands you get most if not all of your TV from a sky dish or a virgin cable, or a freeview digital signal. I assure you in the next 5 to 10 years, it will slowly move towards internet streaming. TV scheduling is already starting to become a thing of the past due to recordable boxes and TV on demand, but give it another decade and a schedule just wont exist. You'll pop onto the net on your internet TV and watch what you want when you want. Period. Its not going to happen overnight, but sky need to seriously start thinking about upgrading their system if they want to stay in the market in the future, because it will be about who has the strongest internet package.

That is true, 2 way has been around but again it's much much more expensive than 1 way sat, let alone 'broadband'. That's before you even get to the practical limitations of the the technology. You need a large dish for reliable, high bandwidth applications - can't see mass market appeal here. It was BSB that introduced the smaller consumer dish in the first place. Dish placement has to be precise, and can still be subject to interference from other satellite services. Finally, satellite services as susceptible to rain interference, doesn't cause much in the way of problems for TV but it will if you're using the data element for your TV.

A company targetting the mass market are not going to invest heavily in a technology that only a few (mainly rural folk) would pay for, let alone pay for the support costs of countless users moaning that the data isn't working because the weather is bad again or a pidgeon has moved the dish a mm or two.

I do agree that internet services are the way forward but they won't become 'standard issue' or as highly developed as I'd like to see until even those out in the sticks can get a few meg download speed.

If only BT had been allowed to fibre the country in the 90's when the wanted to...we could all have 100mb+ internet access by now