Freesat (Humax) receiver v/s sky digibox

silkyuk9

in a previous thread i have mentioned swapping back over from freesat using a Humax receiver to sky in a 6 month deal. Anyway, I have a HD ready TV and could only watch HD when i had my Humax plugged up. I only have a basic sky digibox its one of those Pace ones.

Anyway, my question is why is the picture quality better using my Humax rather than the Pace. This is not a HD question, I have BBC1 on at the moment using Sky digibox but there is a significant change in picture quality.

Is there any reason why the quality is better using Humax even though im not watching things on HD.

macman

Interesting comparison, as the satellite feed and TV are the same. I would hazard a guess-because the Foxsat is a much better piece of kit? The Pace boxes are built by the boatload for Sky and no doubt Murdoch screws them into the ground on price.
A lot of the Sky boxes are recons too.
A fairer comparison might be a Sky HD box against the Foxsat.

Pokerlad

I suspect it's to do with the Pace box having no upscaler so your TV is handeling it (badly by the sound of it). The Humax will be doing the upscaling with its internal scaler which sounds better then your TV's built in one.

silkyuk9

macman wrote: »

Interesting comparison, as the satellite feed and TV are the same. I would hazard a guess-because the Foxsat is a much better piece of kit? The Pace boxes are built by the boatload for Sky and no doubt Murdoch screws them into the ground on price.
A lot of the Sky boxes are recons too.
A fairer comparison might be a Sky HD box against the Foxsat.

There is a definate change in picture quality for sure, the picture is more crisp using a Humax

silkyuk9

Pokerlad wrote: »

I suspect it's to do with the Pace box having no upscaler so your TV is handeling it (badly by the sound of it). The Humax will be doing the upscaling with its internal scaler which sounds better then your TV's built in one.

My tv is relitlvely new Its a SHARP LC-32D44E

macman

Pokerlad wrote: »

I suspect it's to do with the Pace box having no upscaler so your TV is handeling it (badly by the sound of it). The Humax will be doing the upscaling with its internal scaler which sounds better then your TV's built in one.

But if the OP is only watching in SD, then surely upscaling does not apply?

silkyuk9

macman wrote: »

But if the OP is only watching in SD, then surely upscaling does not apply?

thats right im not watch in HD now, and only BBC on Humax, however, this was not a HD question.

Pokerlad

Yes signal still needs upscalled. SD resolution is 576i where as the TV is 768p so needs upscaled or you would have a border all round.

I believe the Humax has an 'original picture' mode which turning on means your TV will handle the upscaling. Might be a better comparison.

almillar

Pic is being transmitted over SCART in both cases? Are both boxes using RGB or composite or S-Video? Your TV likely has 1 RGB SCART and 1 that can only do composite, try swapping them round.
Though it sounds like the Humax is Freesat HD. If so, and it's connected via an HDMI cable, that's your answer, along with, to a smaller extent, the scaling capabilites of the Humax and your TV.