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Last week i finally bit the bullet and bought SKY HD but to my suprise Las Vegas appeared not to be in HD, just a higher quality standard def feed. Anyone got any information on what sky plan to show in HD? just abit disapointed as the Daytona 500 was advertised as HD but is that the only race?

As far as I know, they always have the option to broadcast in HD. They pick and choose, so finding out what they will broadcast in HD is near-impossible.

are you sure you're own TV & HD box was setup correctly?

but it wouldn't surprise me if they just broadcasted an upscalled SD signal to the HD subscribers.....
(unless you worked in the industry, would you actually know you were looking at a fake HD signal?)

Yeah the box is setup fine, Sky tell you when a program is in HD with the HD on the program listing. You could easily tell it was standard resolution too, the on screen graphics etc and checking between that and the SD channel the only difference was the higher bite rate on the HD channel.

again the race isn't in HD.....

even better, the feed on the HD channel has now changed to the standard channel so now the picture sucks.

To be honest, I think you're wasting your money. Of all the sports that Sky could show in HD, NASCAR is at the bottom of the list. Compared to other sports, the viewing figures are very low, and I was quite surprised when Sky purchased the rights to show the Sprint Cup series.

The introduction of HD has been a huge money maker for TV service providers. I think most people see HD as a novelty thing, and buy it just for the sake of it. Can you really tell the difference when you're sat the other side of the room? We don't have a HD TV, and I've never seen anything in HD, so I don't know.

There's a huge difference between normal TV and HD, not just the video quality but the audio too.

Yeah the difference is huge. The first time I saw it I was amazed. For example in a football match you can pick out people's faces in the crowd and see the individual blades of grass, it's awesome!

How can you comment on it if you've never seen it? :facepalm:

@

ApexBoner - be under no illusion that Sky will show some sports in full HD and some will be upscaled. I've just placed my order for Sky HD and am looking forward to getting it. A mate has had it since the start and therefore I've had a commentary of it's plus points, faults, etc... The football in HD is pretty sweet. Some of the programmes on normal Sky channels and some movies are just upscaled, but are ok none the less. I'm looking forward to seeing BBC HD because of some of the nature programmes they show. I'm interested to see what Nascar is like in HD, even if it is 720i as opposed to 1080i or 1080p.

But thats kinda my point as its not even 720p as its not HD at all its standard just like the non HD channels. The only difference i've noticed is a slight improvement in picture quality but even at Atlanta mid race they switched to the low bite rate. Which is abit of a rip off you ask me considering they have the option to broadcast HD as they clearly get the HD feed and downscale it.

I have seen a few NASCAR races in HD and it's an excellent experience.

YES. I am getting very spoiled by HD now, I almost can't stand to watch something that isn't in HD anymore! Think about the difference in playing a video game in 640x480 resolution compared to 1280x720. That's a huge difference in quality. Not to mention colors are much more accurate and vivid, audio is 5.1 surround and extremely high quality.

Here's a comparison I found through Google Image Search of a baseball game being shown in SD and in HD. Even though the picture was taken with a crappy digital camera, you can STILL see the huge difference.

the difference actually isn't that big when you have a clear anamorphic PAL picture.

..but once we're talking about 1080p stuff, mainly BluRay's for example, then HD ftw!

Sometimes it pays to read a question before answering....





What does this mean? If you own a 42" HDTV and watch a 1080p bluray disc, sit any further away from the screen than around 7 foot and you physically lose the ability to see the additional detail provided by the 1080 resolution, if you sit closer than five and a half foot you can then see scan lines and pixel resolution, this give you sensory overload which after about 15 minutes, has the same effect (your brain will filter out the detail to what you can cope with without you actually knowing it).

So in answer to your question, no, you cannot, and anybody who tells you different is deluding themselves by believing the hype over reality, if you are sitting 15 foot away from your 42" HDTV then you're MDP (Maximum Detail Perception) is no more than watching a SDTV picture.

Now UHD-TV is better, but if you get within 20 foot of that it'll either make you physically sick or kill you because of the sensory overload (well it did to some poor sod in the screen tests a few years back).

I have a 40 inch 1080p screen and sit about 4 / 5 feet away, and for me there is a clear difference between SD and HD.

But I don't sit 15 foot away from my TV (40inch Bravia 1080P), if you can tell me that a standard def image which is only around 640x480 is as good as a 1920x1080 image your talking bollocks. Its not just the increased picture quality its the increase in bandwidth which allows much higher audio quality. Part of the problem is going from CRTs to LCDs, CRT's make a standard def image look good at a living room viewing distance but LCDs on the other hand make a standard def picture look shite.

The imax scenes from Dark Knight look stunning on 1080p with the bonus of awesome audio quality , its not hype As a comparison i think DVD is 6mb a second transfer including audio while dark knight is around 30mb a second.