Unifi IPTV gives me a headache. It has really bad interlace flicker problems.

My unifi adventure so far...

Will update every day.

Current status...

Waiting

Go here YouTube speedtest and click on the "Show Test Video"

On my 1.0 Mb connection I'm getting between .02 Mb - .1 Mb while streaming the video.

The throttling on youtube is ridiculous.

If you're going to throttle at least throttle it to something where the users can still use youtube.

You're forcing people to give up on legal sources of video.




Watching a youtube video without waiting should be a minimum standard for a connection even as low as 1.0 Mb


Will post test results when / if my unifi arrives!

This post has been edited by Arlington: Mar 27 2010, 10:32 PM

A 20 mbps connection still needs to buffer and load Youtube videos!!!!!!!!


Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


Our only hope is for Google to setup servers over here.


We should just force TM to sell its internet division to Google. We'd be a lot better off.

Read my blog to find out my experience so far... HERE

I haven't paid anything, but then again, nothing much has actually happened.

This post has been edited by Arlington: Mar 28 2010, 01:21 PM

I love bluehyppo, I go there every day. In fact it is my homepage

After applying for Unifi on Thursday, March 25, they've given me an installation appointment date of Friday, April 2.

So a little over 1 week.

Not too bad, considering how bad the streamyx roll out was.

Is TM actually improving in some capacities?

Don't be silly.
Send your wife to a spa for the day.

And do the cleaning up yourself instead of making her do it.

Can definitely use SD TV, the box has component / composite connections as well as HDMI.

Only 2 channels are HD, but I could only find 1 (luxe) the other day when I was checking it out.

An HDTV would be a waste, the quality of the video codec is really really bad. Everything looks out of focus and interlace flickering gave me a headache very fast.

The IPTV quality is really disappointing.


If you compared a normal download of an SD episode of CSI in Xvid mp4 codec and compared it to the VOD IPTV HD quality, you would definitely conclude that the download has better quality.

An HD download absolutely destroys IPTV HD in terms of quality.



Video Quality

Unifi SD < VCD < Unifi HD < Astro SD < Xvid SD download < DVD < Astro HD < Xvid HD download < Blu-Ray

This post has been edited by Arlington: Mar 29 2010, 01:30 PM

I was happy when TM announced the caps.

At least they were trying to be transparent for once.

I'd prefer straight up caps than getting the mystery throttling we're getting now.


Throttling youtube to below speeds where customers can't stream anymore is absolutely unacceptable for a broadband connection and is a clear sign that TM needs to buy more international bandwidth.

That's true, I just wish that if TM is going to offer HD IPTV I wish they were serious about video quality.

I don't know why the quality is so bad.

8Mbps should be enough bandwidth to stream high quality HD video at 720p.

8Mbps = 1MB / s = 60MB / min = 3.6 GB / hour or 7.2GB / 2 hours

a 2 hour 720p movie is the same size.

So why is unifi HD so bad?


I think it's because they are sending out a 1080px size signal and as a result they have to over compress the file.

I would much rather have a high quality 720px resolution than an over-compressed 1080px resolution.


If they want to send out 1080px signals their bandwidth should be about 12Mbps not 8 Mbps.


I'm sure domestically they can handle the demands on speed, so why did they decide to underpower the IPTV?

Astro B.yond has surround sound...


5.1 audio is typically encoded at around 800kbps
and stereo audio is encoded at around 224kbps

so this would save only about 0.6Mbs


so if you subtract -0.6Mbps from 12Mbps you will still need a bandwidth of above 11Mbps

It's probably just connecting Kuantan to Kuching.



This post has been edited by Arlington: Mar 29 2010, 06:03 PM

Hey that's good news.

Any guesses on which Rapidshare servers will work best with that particular cable?

Maybe American cogent servers will work better now.

It's full SD resolution, but they're either compressing the quality too much, or just have the wrong settings entirely on the encoder.

To my eyes it looks like a really high mp4 compression..... the colours are oversaturated, it looks like they've converted it to progressive format - because there is a shutter / strobing effect, and it's obvious they're blending the fields together because the picture looks soft (out of focus).
They are also having a lot of trouble with interlace flickering - this is flickering you see on horizontal lines / graphics.

At least there's no ghosting effect, so they got 1 thing right.

How they got both progressive artifacts and interlace artifacts at the same time is beyond my understanding.



This post has been edited by Arlington: Mar 29 2010, 07:17 PM

Is there a point?

TM is supposed to be good at telephone service. - They're not
TM is supposed to be good at internet sevice. - They're not
TM is just entering TV service for the first time, I don't even expect them to be good. - By the way.... They're not

At least with triple play the phone line cost is sort of invisible.
I'm just paying for more Internet bandwidth.

If I had an opportunity to take Time or Maxis I would.

The IPTV is just a new gadget to play around with until I get bored. I don't think it will entertain me for long because I can't stand the picture quality.

I heard there might be a National Archives channel. I think that would be interesting to watch, because it literally can't be seen anywhere else.

For everything else, I'd rather watch unblurry, uncensored downloads.

If TM doesn't throttle the iTunes store, I may even purchase the content.

Woo Hoo

HSBB is here.

No need to be pessimistic.

I got bad international speedtest ratings ~3Mbps

But simply using a downloading program / rapidshare account, gets me a full 8Mbps connection on my 10Mbps


IPTV has nasty video compression / boring content - but interestingly enough they've got volume working through the HDMI cable

The phone....

This is the biggest disappointment. I may have to keep the old phone line. The phone works, but it unfortunately has crackling. Distance from the receiver doesn't change anything so I don't think it's a wireless reception problem.

I just downloaded a 1 hour episode of SD television in less than 10 minutes.

Yeah

The default password is 123456

But I have no idea where you can change HDMI from PCM to Pass through - that sounds more like an option on your TV not the IPTV box

Did you get access to advanced functions?

I'd love to know if I can setup a delay on the video so the audio will stay in sync. The audio is about 1-3 frames delayed after going through my system.

Ahhh I see. Interesting stuff.

What will setting HDMI to pass-through do?

Won't changing it to pass-through leave the audio in some sort of mpg encoded state?

Are you trying to record the digital mpg stream of the video / audio without letting it convert to analog and then capture it?


I would definitely like to switch the video setting from full screen to source_size. I actually prefer to have pillar bars for 4:3 material.

TM seems to be completely ignoring surround sound at the moment even on the VOD stuff.

My audio quality is much much better now that I'm using the optical out. Analog was nasty - a lot of interference problems. Even HDMI wasn't very clean.

The thing that's annoying me most now with audio is TV3 / 8TV and TV9 - Their material is sometimes stereo / sometimes mono/left only. No quality control at all at Media Prima.

That's what they told me. It's essentially a free service until Sept according to their CS.

But when I ordered the first time it actually said I had 100,000 points.

Just click VOD then the yellow button for purchase history.

I have a current balance of 99,940 points. I guess that should last me for a while.