Due to a crap freeview signal, we’ve bought a freesat box and can now get BBC1 HD – but we can’t see any difference to the normal BBC. Or is it necessary to have one of those tvs that’s the size of a large pantechnicon to see any difference?

pantechnicon |pan?t?kn?k(?)n|

noun Brit.

a large van for transporting furniture.

ORIGIN
mid 19th cent.: from pan-‘all’ + tekhnikon ‘piece of art’, originally the name of a bazaar in London for all kinds of artistic work, later converted into a furniture warehouse.

Huh…the more you know.

Anyway, you should be able to tell the difference. Although, he said treading very carefully, I believe the older one is the less obvious the difference. My mum is nearly 70 and says she cannot tell the difference. That’s on a 37″.

What model is the TV?

If your telly is old enough that it didn’t have a bundled HD freeview receiver, it it an HD telly? If not, then no, you’ll see no difference.

To be fair though, ours is fairly modern, and the difference isn’t exactly earth shattering.

nearly 70

Just cos I know what pantechnicon means, doesn’t mean I’m that old!

The tv is about a year old, is HD, has a freeview receiver but we have a poor signal where we live, therefore we bought a freesat receiver.

For me it is a noticeable but not amazing difference.

Some programmes benefit more than others. And not every programme broadcast on an HD channel is actually filmed in HD

Have you used a high quality hdmi lead with one way deoxygenated copper and gold plated connectors? (or seriously, have you checked the output settings on the box and the settings on the TV). As others have said the difference is more noticeable on some shows than others.

BBC HD looks dramatically different from BBC regular (SD). The difference is discernible on small and large HD TVs. The difference you’ll notice does depend on being close enough to the screen though. Opinions on optimum viewing distance vary but you want to be close enough not to see the individual pixels and not so far you can’t resolve fine detail in the image.

If your single strength is good enough (your freesat box should be able to tell you this) then things to look at include:
connection between FreeSat box and TV is by HDMI cable.
you have your TV set up to show the right HD format (automatic, 720P, or 1080P. Ignore 1080i it is awful)
your FreeSat box is outputting at the correct resolution (automatic, 720P, 1080P) e.g. some boxes default to 576P or 576i which are enhanced definition and standard definition respectively
You are looking at the correct channel (really. I have seen folks complain about pixellated images only to find out they were watching SD and expecting HD)
You have turned off all the dreadful ‘smoothing’ algorithms on the TV (sometimes called ‘sport mode’) these essentially blur the frames into each other.

The difference between SD and HD is like night and day. HD looks like smooth, crisp, moving photographs. SD looks like TV used to.

Any plans to move to 4K?

Have you tried comparing your FreeSat box against e.g. an HD laptop signal or other kind of set top box and e.g. Netflix?

Good luck.

[edit] as folks have pointed out, if a program was not shot in HD no amount of post-processing tricks will make it HD-quality. Gardener’s world is one program where the SD and HD contrast is marked. Especially on the close-ups and extreme close-ups of plants and insects.

When we got our HD box, I had hooked up the HD lead but also had the Scart socket connected and was watching the TV through the Scart input for a good while until I realised to get HD I should watch TV through the HD input.

I see a big difference (1 year old Sony 40in)especially if the content is well produced and the telicine conversion was well done, so BBC usually looks great but anything shot on old CCD video 4:3 usually looks rubbish. If your tv is not true 1080 HD but 720 you will not see a difference.

HD ready tellies you won’t notice much difference anyway also if you have knackered eyes then I’m afraid HD isn’t really noticeable.

I’ve always found it odd that the first programmes to adopt the new technology in tellies is the soaps.

Lady_Gresley – my HD telly is 26″ and has a pretty good pic. Can’t for the life of me understand why folk want monstrosities.

We have a humax free sat receiver and a Sony 32 full HD TV. The difference between SD and HD broadcasts is huge!

The benefits of HD do come into their own on larger screens for sure. On our bedroom 32″ TV (LED backlit LCD) there is very little difference between SD and HD – it’s marginally better. On our old 42″ Plasma the difference is definitely noticeable – but on the main big 65″ TV (Plasma) the difference is very noticeable – the BBC HD quality is so good the picture almost 3D quality about it. Even the quality of HD between the different HD channels is noticeable as not all HD is created equal.

The problem here is that people get hung up on resolution. Actually resolution is a minor element that contributes to overall picture quality. If you’re getting a good picture quality on SD then great. On our big TV watch BBC SD there is a noticeable lack of definition but on BBC HD it’s very clear and well defined – the smaller TV shows nowhere near the same difference and the SD quality is very good.

HD straight off the aforementioned telecine looks amazing. The broadcast chain takes out all the goodness (former telecine designer)

Watch the news in normal then HD. Main difference is the presenters look about 10 years older in HD.

Daft question, but you are watching the hd channels through a hdmi cable on one of your hdmi inputs?

I’ve got a new Sony 49″ telly and the HD picture is noticeably better than the SD equivalent.

720 or 1080 doesn’t actually make much difference if the TV is set up properly.

SD is notionally 576 picture lines but it was interlaced so only 288 were refreshed each frame. An HD ready set is capable of 720p – a full 720 lines per frame. Full HD sets are 1080p – 1080 lines per frame – but they only get that from a Bluray disc (or maybe streaming) Broadcast HD is 1080interlaced – 540 lines refreshed per frame. 720p looks better than 1080i with some content

I had one of these until a couple of years back (768 line vertical resolution) and the picture was better than all but the very best ‘full HD’ sets. http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Home/Plasma/PDP-4280HD

Check the TV settings – set the ‘picture’ to ‘cinema’ or ‘normal’ rather than ‘vivid’ (presets might have different names) as over saturated, over sharpened HD pictures can look almost as bad as standard definition.

Look at the background where there’s a lot of detail as HD makes more difference there than on close up/TV studio programmes. Sometimes I can watch an SD programme for some minutes thinking it just looks a bit dull before theres a shot which makes it blindingly clear it’s an SD and not an HD picture.

Lady_Gresley – my HD telly is 26″ and has a pretty good pic. Can’t for the life of me understand why folk want monstrosities.

I know right? It’s like I went to the cinema the other day, and I was like “Dude!, why is the screen so big?!?!” The dude reckoned it was something to do with immersive experience, freedom to choose, picture quality and other nonsense, but I wasn’t having any of it and stormed out. I think I had made my point, as he was silenced enough not to call me back.

I’ve only got freeview so can’t comment on freesat but the difference between SD and HD is huge – our TVs are 32″ and 42″ Sony.

assuming the relevant feeds are of adequate quality (ie not eurosport, whose non-HD stream is shit)

Daft question, but you are watching the hd channels through a hdmi cable on one of your hdmi inputs?

This.

Plus, “is it a HD broadcast?” Not every programme on a HD channel is in HD.

It’s connected via hdmi cable, but looking at that chart, I’m sitting about 12 feet away from our 24″ telly, so maybe I won’t actually be able to see any difference! Doesn’t really matter, I was just wondering what the difference was, very little it seems! And of course, it’s all the same rubbish programmes anyway…

HD looks noticeably better vs SD on both Sky and Freeview across two TVs (Samsung 46 & 65 inch sets).

Sky HD is “better” than Freeview on the same channels.

Aren’t the claims those graphs make inaccurate?

“Simplistic” might be a better word.

Can I be really cheeky with a slight hijack?

Whilst there’s so many knowledgeable peeps in this thread, can anyone say whether my little 26″ telly would benefit from a soundbar? Thank you. 🙂

The old PAL over UHF was better than SD on freeview – they dropped the quality quite a bit when they changed, even though they were both PAL.

I had a 32 inch Sharp TV with only 540 lines but it was brilliant with SD (and also with HD ready stuff).

For PAL it used to chopped a few lines from the top and bottom of the picture and show ‘as is’, no upscaling rubbish to worry about.

For 1080i they mapped the interlaced lines, and 720P required a little downscaling.

can anyone say whether my little 26″ telly would benefit from a soundbar?

does it sound as good as your hifi – no – try a soundbar – yes – leave it.

Even if you get a bigger TV, most have rubbish sound anyway so you woul still use the soundbar in the future.

But you could also buy a nice little hifi and feed the sound into that instead, or use one that you might have now.

Or another option might be a decent bluetooth type speaker (that also has a line in), as they are single units, and then you can take it on holiday or wherever as well.

12 feet away with a 26″ TV you aren’t going to notice much difference to be honest, I could say that without looking at a graph! That’s quite a distance for a relatively small TV. Yes I know we all used to watch 14″ TV’s accross huge rooms back in the day but that’s all we had.

In our last lounge we were about 8 feet from the TV and watched a variety of HD and SD pictures, so when I bought a new TV I went for a better quality 37″ rather than a cheap 42″ as a SD pic on a big TV which is close to you is going to be awful. I now watch mostly HD and am moving to a bigger house so I could ideally buy a much bigger TV. But I won’t for a long time yet.

Speakers in modern flatscreens are notoriously poor as the ever-thinner design restricts space, smaller sets more so.

Would a soundbar improve it? almost definitely. Would a no-brand £30 soundbar be any better than the inbuilt or do you need to throw £100+ on a Yamaha to make any difference, I don’t know.

Drac – Moderator
Aren’t the claims those graphs make inaccurate?

Cougar – Moderator
“Simplistic” might be a better word

Well, they’re founded on a population norm “good” eyesight resolution I think, so a few folk may have better vision and a lot probably worse

A bit like advising on soundbars without checking the user’s hearing status, I’d think 😛

Thanks for helpful suggestions. Not wanting to use the hifi having got my speakers in optimum positioning thanks to some folk on here. Soundbars are huge so will dwarf the telly, any opinions on a separate sub or is that overkill? Have been reading reviews on soundbars but there’s none that specifically refer to a small telly.

A bit like advising on soundbars without checking the user’s hearing status, I’d think

😆 @ scaredy.

get a soundbase ? just look like a 10cm plinth for the telly to stand on

Not wanting to use the hifi having got my speakers in optimum positioning thanks to some folk on here.

I don’t follow you. What difference does that make?

Sorry Cougar, it’s gibberish isn’t it. 😳

My hifi speakers need to be moved outwards for the best sound ie away from a corner. From a pov of laziness and safety wouldn’t want to do the same for telly watching especially as I pick and choose what to watch.

If that doesn’t make sense then please ignore me whilst I continue my senior moment(s). 😀

The difference between SD and HD is like night and day

Absolutely, if you can’t tell the difference then something isn’t right!

So you move your speakers out when listening to music and then put them back again out of the way?

Even so, leaving them in situ is still going to be better than the TV speakers I’d have thought.