In article ,
Dave Farrance wrote:

I looked up the HDMI versions, and HDMI 1.3 and later support xvYCC
which allows a wider colour gamut to be transmitted. In the unlikely
event that your source and display supported this, then an expensive
new HDMI cable could indeed deliver more realistic colours than a
cheap pre-1.3 one.

Whoa, hold on. The "casual reader" would assume that you're saying that
you might see an improvement in the colours just by plugging in a better
HDMI cable, which of course *is* entirely false.

But if you switch the video source to a mode that support xvYCC, then that
might push up the bitrate to the point that early HDMI cables might
entirely lose the picture, which is what you meant, right?

As far as I know, HDMI doesn't provide any way for the equipment to
interrogate the cable to determine what version it supports. So yes,
that is what I meant.

But on looking more closely, I don't think xvYCC does in fact use any
more bits - it's just that more combinations of the bits are legal
values - and in fact an old cable ought to work. "Deep color" would
have been a better example, as it uses more bits per pixel.

-- Richard

On 01/07/2010 21:18, David WE Roberts wrote:

"Lucky13" wrote in message
...
Total crap.

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produc...SH+FREESAT.htm


It's put me off the Freesat platform a little as well to be honest. I
found the picture worse than Freeview (maybe it was the cheap HDMI
cable versus the built in freeview of my samsung 42 inch plasma).

The menus were horrible, the EPG was god awful.... the remote control
had sharp plastic edging. A horrid experience!

If I went for a recondtioned Humax box would my faith be restored?

Works O.K. for me.
And at £60(ish) is not a bad way to get HD satellite.
Much cheaper than upgrading my TV aerial to get Freeview.

Oh, and you don't say which TV you are watching on.
Presumably not the 42" plasma?

Cheers

Dave R

I was indeed watching it on the 42inch plasma, although now you've given
me a sense of self doubt that I was doing something wrong?

We have an existing sky dish up and we're in direct sight of Winter Hill
- about 25miles away. I guess I was spoilt for choice between Freeview
or Freesat for HD.

I am considering this as an alternative
http://www.humaxdirect.co.uk/product...=10070&cat=stb slightly
pricier but people seem to rave about Humax. I think?

"Jeff Layman" wrote in message
...
"Lucky13" wrote in message
...
Total crap.

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produc...SH+FREESAT.htm

It's put me off the Freesat platform a little as well to be honest. I
found the picture worse than Freeview (maybe it was the cheap HDMI cable
versus the built in freeview of my samsung 42 inch plasma).

The menus were horrible, the EPG was god awful.... the remote control had
sharp plastic edging. A horrid experience!

If I went for a recondtioned Humax box would my faith be restored?

Had a Bush Freesat HD since last October. Very happy with it for the
price. Most of the reviews on the Argos website are pretty positive (they
can't all be Argos employees...), and so are independent reviews. I don't
understand your comment about the remote - mine is not sharp-edged at all.

Some of the early 2009 boxes had problems, but later ones seems much
better.

I agree with you sentiments Jeff, I have also owned one since last October
and have been very pleased with it, regards the remote, I haven't found its
flat top design to be a problem, as for the layout, if anything, it's a cut
above the average, nice and straightforward with large easy to read buttons,
the HD pictures also compare very favourably with those of my Humax Freeview
HD-Fox T2, admittedly the menus aren't as good, however I feel that there is
certainly little to complain about for the £67.00 I paid for it.

"Lucky13" wrote in message
...
On 01/07/2010 21:18, David WE Roberts wrote:

"Lucky13" wrote in message
...
Total crap.

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produc...SH+FREESAT.htm


It's put me off the Freesat platform a little as well to be honest. I
found the picture worse than Freeview (maybe it was the cheap HDMI
cable versus the built in freeview of my samsung 42 inch plasma).

The menus were horrible, the EPG was god awful.... the remote control
had sharp plastic edging. A horrid experience!

If I went for a recondtioned Humax box would my faith be restored?

Works O.K. for me.
And at £60(ish) is not a bad way to get HD satellite.
Much cheaper than upgrading my TV aerial to get Freeview.

Oh, and you don't say which TV you are watching on.
Presumably not the 42" plasma?

Cheers

Dave R

I was indeed watching it on the 42inch plasma, although now you've given
me a sense of self doubt that I was doing something wrong?

snip

O.K. - I assumed you were using another TV but looking back your TV has
built in Freeview but you don't say it has built in Freesat.

So - and I'm stepping outside my area of detailed knowledge here - what I
think is happening is that a digital signal is being received by the Bush,
and processed in some way to be transmitted (again digitally) on the HDMI
interface.

Unless there is scope for the loss of detailed digital information in the
conversion between satellite input and HDMI output then the Bush is unlikely
to be at fault.
[This is not impossible, I think, because audio conversion to '.mp3'
deliberately throws away some information to reduce file size, as does
compression of some digital pictures and conversion between digital
formats.]

That leaves the way in which the TV converts from HDMI to visual, and the
original signal.

I am lead to believe from other posts here and elsewhere that the Freesat
signal is in general at least as detailed as the Freeview signal - in some
cases being transmitted using more bandwidth and therfore containing more
detail.

That leaves the TV.
It is possible that the rendering of HDMI input is not as good as the
internal rendering from the Freeview decoder.
If so, changing the digital source is unlikely to improve matters.

I haven't run the Bush through HDMI to my 42" Panasonic with Freesat Decoder
to compare HDMI and internal decoding (would need to run an extra cable) so
I can't comment further.

No doubt someone with detailed knowledge will be passing by.

HTH

Dave R
--
No plan survives contact with the enemy.

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

I'd somehow doubt that, actually from folk I talk to, its actually quite
hard to get a bad picture from the sat system, so Bush/Argos must have spent
hours getting it so bad!
Had you considered the box might actually be faulty?
Brian

--
Brian Gaff -
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Lucky13" wrote in message
...
On 01/07/2010 16:28, J G Miller wrote:
On Thursday, July 1st, 2010 at 15:55:33 +0100, Lucky13 pondered:

maybe it was the cheap HDMI cable

What difference would an expensive HDMI cable made?



I thought that maybe the bundled HDMI cable that came with the Bush
freesat box might be resulting in a poor picture?

On 02/07/2010 08:41, Brian Gaff wrote:
I'd somehow doubt that, actually from folk I talk to, its actually quite
hard to get a bad picture from the sat system, so Bush/Argos must have spent
hours getting it so bad!
Had you considered the box might actually be faulty?
Brian


Hi Brian,

I took it back for a refund on this assumption - the seal on the box was
broken when I got it home originally so it may have already been a
customer return that got passed on to me.

"Ivan" wrote in message
...

"Jeff Layman" wrote in message
...
"Lucky13" wrote in message
...
Total crap.

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produc...SH+FREESAT.htm

It's put me off the Freesat platform a little as well to be honest. I
found the picture worse than Freeview (maybe it was the cheap HDMI cable
versus the built in freeview of my samsung 42 inch plasma).

The menus were horrible, the EPG was god awful.... the remote control
had sharp plastic edging. A horrid experience!

If I went for a recondtioned Humax box would my faith be restored?

Had a Bush Freesat HD since last October. Very happy with it for the
price. Most of the reviews on the Argos website are pretty positive (they
can't all be Argos employees...), and so are independent reviews. I
don't understand your comment about the remote - mine is not sharp-edged
at all.

Some of the early 2009 boxes had problems, but later ones seems much
better.

I agree with you sentiments Jeff, I have also owned one since last October
and have been very pleased with it, regards the remote, I haven't found
its flat top design to be a problem, as for the layout, if anything, it's
a cut above the average, nice and straightforward with large easy to read
buttons, the HD pictures also compare very favourably with those of my
Humax Freeview HD-Fox T2, admittedly the menus aren't as good, however I
feel that there is certainly little to complain about for the £67.00 I
paid for it.



Talking of Bush HD boxes, I think my father has fried his by turning it off
during a recent update, any ideas how to reset them?

Lee