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John, read your review on the Laser Disc player. I was curious about your ranking of sources. My experience here in Canada (with US stations across the lake, which I can pick up) is that TV off air comes first, satellite comes second. But they can change places depending on the day, quality of broadcast. I use an external antenna with rotor & coax downlead and a Starchoice KU(?) band small dish. The off air signal at its best has depth and life like colour. Satellite seems flatter and overly defined. I was wondering what your experience in PAL vs. NTSC was and why satellite is better in Aus? Thanks for your reply.
Follow Ups:
HiAnother inmate has emailed me with TV off air coming first and satellite coming second so your experience is not uncommon. Our problem is we live in the shadow of a hill which a 45 foot tower only partially overcomes. We still can get VHF via this tower and my trigonometry tells me that the top of this tower has a direct line of sight. However UHF gets a big blank despite efforts using a cherry picker (an unstable platform I do not enjoy using). We finally got a reasonable picture with UHF from a repeater station in the city about 8 miles away but it is low powered so heaps of arial amplification and a very high gain antenna has been necessary. Because of this it is subject to minor interference.
Your point about the quality of broadcast is very valid even on satellite. Given the best material the satellite broadcast here can be as stunning as our best DVD or LD, reflecting your comments on depth and life like colour.
Maybe the satellite signal here is better because it is digital and is not not primarily for consumer use but carries all signals for two national broadcasters (our government run ABC, the equivalent of the BBC, and SBS who broadcast foreign films and items of more interest to Australians of different ethnic origin) to rebroadcast on UHF + feeds to the commercial stations which we cannot see. Consumers in outback Australia use the service as we do. Reception from commercial sources on this satellite are blocked if there is an equivalent local UHF or VHF service.
So we can directly compare the satellite reception to the rebroadcast local one (differs in news broadcasts but otherwise the same).
Regarding the experience of PAL vs. NTSC I must retract claims the PAL has superior whites and colour. A couple of nights ago we looked at a 4:3 formatted laserdisc of "Out of Africa" and the colour, the definition and the whites were the equal of anything ever seen on PAL from any source. We followed this with a PAL DVD and, by comparison, it was no better than UHF with washed out colour and poorly focussed images.
My conclusion is now that it the primary video material was in NTSC (the case with the DVD referred to above) then it is best to buy the NTSC version. Conversely if the original was in PAL, as with BBC and most European productions, then the PAL version is to be preferred. It seems than the commercial transfer of masters from PAL to NTSC or vice versa is not always done carefully. Care or carelessness of transfer probably explains why broadcasts are so variable. Video made by our ABC broadcaster on videotape (using PAL) and broadcast on satellite has brilliant technical quality although the entertainment value is another debate :-(
So, I continue to be highly impressed by the HLD-X9 and what it can do with top LD software and how good the best DVDs are but continue to be irritated by the enormous amount of crappy quality software released due to poor/careless transfer.
Bottom line, given a well produced documentary or movie, home theatre can be unsurpassed for entertainment. It is mind boggling to think one can, at the flick of a switch or two, move from the misery of world news seeing events as they happen, to an engrossing and well acted movie, to the Bolshoi Ballet, to a Cher concert, to Covent Garden for opera, to ...... I am adament top audio is required for maximum enjoyment of all the above but now find audio only pales in significance in this house.
Apologies for the rambling, this hobby horse bolted a bit!!
John
Hi John: Thanks for the explaining your sitaution. Since I have a clear line of sight for both our local Canadian and American stations, picking them up is not much of a problem.I also agree that the quality of transfer vary TREMENDOUSLY, in fact I have seen some videotapes that look better than the laser disk transfer.
I am also lucky to live in an area with a lot of good movie theatres close by. Heck we have the remains of a couple of grand old movie palaces still in Toronto. 70mm film is still the only way to go in my mind! While home theatre is fun, it still does not compete with a full scale movie theatre. However, some salesman is always trying to tell me otherwise.
P.S.--John, a Cher concert!?!? ;-)
... your 70mm movie houses and great reception. However, do they allow you to consume a bottle of wine while viewing?As for Cher - great when feeling a bit depraved :-)) IMHO that lady is also a great actress. An impressive talent, not bad on the eyes if you can look past the costume - something quite easy with some of her "costumes"!
John
At home, yes. At the movies...sadly no. Plus you have to put up with slobs who leave their damn cell phones on and those who want to talk about the movie rather than watching it. The 70mm theatres are getting to be fewer and further between as they are replaced by apartments or multiplexs :-(There is one story I like to relate though. A friend went to one of the older cinemas and say a movie. They loved the picture & sound and then asked the usher where the surround speakers were. They were told there were only 2 (two) and that they were behind the movie screen. She could swear that she heard sounds coming from behind and beside her. My guess, given the age of the movie house is that they still had the original Altec, Klipsch, or JBL speakers and likely a tube amp. Plus it was designed & built before computer acoustic programmes, in the days when people knew how to make a room sound good. A lost art in my mind.
In Toronto we have Roy Thomson Hall which has been a nightmare in terms of sound quality. It was new in the 70s with all the "latest" techniques for "good" sound. It was horrible. Heck even HP commented on how bad it was in the Absolute Sound!! They recently spent millions upgrading the place. I have yet to go to find out if it has improved.
Cher...yes small costumes...But I perfer Denise Richards. Better eye candy. ;-)
I'm also in Canada (southwestern Ontario). How are you connecting the Star Choice receiver to the TV-a good video cable (RCA) will be a dramatic improvement over a straight co-ax termination and going to a decent (without breaking the bank) s-video cable will give you even more improvement. That being said, I would say that the best analogue cable signal will probably be slightly better than the best digital satellite signal, but for sheer consistency, digital is clearly (no pun intended) the winner.
Hi Blake: I am using Ultralink S video from the Star Choice reciever to the TV (a year old JVC 36" D series). Compared to a TVO off air broadcast (Studio 2), the satellite is clearly second. The advantage I have compared to others is the antenna is only 6 or 7 years old and I live outside of Toronto proper. A lighting bolt hit the house and fryed the old antenna. The new setup (rotor, coax, antenna) surprised me. This got me looking at antennas around the neighbourhood and I have noticed that most are blocked by trees, or have broken downleads or antenna elements. I am surprised that these people can get any stations at all!! Star Choice gets me the other stations such as A&E, History and so forth. However, the antenna gets me 49 (Warner), 23 (NBC?), 13 (Kitchner) and late at night, Channel 3 (Barrie!) 8, 10, 15 etc. I wonder what an even taller tower and a higher quality RG-6 would get me.I think that a good external antenna, put up high enough is hard to beat.
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