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to Mike_C
Re: Anyone else notice Bell has Mediaroom now?agreed on B and C
even in a bright room is super grey
Does a firmware push really cost that much money? Isn't the downtime less than 30 minutes? |
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TierX
join:2009-01-20
Canada |
TierX
Member
2011-Nov-3 12:18 am
said by WontonNoodle:agreed on B and C
even in a bright room is super grey
Does a firmware push really cost that much money? Isn't the downtime less than 30 minutes? For the amount of HD encoders that TELUS has deployed, that would need to be upgraded; yes. There is encoder redundancy, so before the encoder is upgraded, the feed would be failed over to another encoder, but keep in mind its employees working on the headend team that would be doing this. It takes man hours. Also, not all firmware upgrades are created equally, depending on the type of upgrade, microcode or the bios on the encoder may need to be changed. There are caveats like this, that limit the amount of firmware upgrades that can be done at once. Sometimes the firmware upgrades can be bulk deployed, but its not a perfect science, and sometimes a network element won't come back up (flash drives on these boxes can sometimes fail). Generally the operational group(s) at TELUS can only afford (both in time and $$$) to do 2-3 firmware upgrades per year on a network device; and sometimes even that is pushing it. |
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 JammerMan79
Premium Member
join:2004-05-13
Prince George, BC |
to TierX
+1 |
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to Mike_C
So if it takes so much man hours and money, then why did Telus push the untested MR2 update which messed everything up when things were mostly fine with MR 1.6. And now they don't want to fix it because they messed up on their part?? Okay... |
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TierX
join:2009-01-20
Canada |
TierX
Member
2011-Nov-3 12:35 pm
said by WontonNoodle:So if it takes so much man hours and money, then why did Telus push the untested MR2 update which messed everything up when things were mostly fine with MR 1.6. And now they don't want to fix it because they messed up on their part?? Okay... Significant testing went into Mediaroom 2.0, the biggest issue identified is the release was slower (Microsoft is aware of that, and working on it). Mediaroom 2.0 and its API changes are required for the new applications coming out on Mediaroom soon. Software is launched with bugs all the time, its the reality of the world we live. Every new release we get, might fix one or two bugs, but then it introduces one or two more. If any company waited for a software release with no bugs at all, they'd never deploy anything. Bugs are sorted based on severity of the bug, major bugs are showstoppers, while minor bugs often aren't. This is nothing specific to TELUS. Don't think Mediaroom is some special custom middleware solution, where TELUS has a lot of control, its basically a turnkey solution from Microsoft. You do what they say, or you don't get support, its really as simple as that. We love Mediaroom (its the best iptv middleware currently available), but we hate it at the same time (because of Microsoft's control). |
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Luk to TierX
Anon
2011-Nov-3 1:06 pm
to TierX
Could you tell us if the encoder upgrades would do anything to address the picture quality/motion artifacts? Or if the new Mediaroom update will improve picture quality any? |
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to TierX
In other words, Telus Optik is not a product targeted at people who have quality high on their priority list.
Another way to say this - Telus Optik's quality is second tier.
Which is exactly what we've been saying, this time coming straight from the horse's mouth. |
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| Arthur Dent |
to Mike_C
My suggestion to Telus would be to look at how good Bell Satellite's current six MPEG4 HD channels are with a bitrate of max 4 Mbps. As a result, instead of patching the firmware for the Tandberg encoders, the obviously better solution would be to buy whatever encoders Bell is using.
All right, all right, I understand - since very few customers have complained, that wouldn't be a justifiable executive decision. |
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Symtex
join:2005-04-06
Burnaby, BC |
to Arthur Dent
said by Arthur Dent:In other words, Telus Optik is not a product targeted at people who have quality high on their priority list.
Another way to say this - Telus Optik's quality is second tier.
Which is exactly what we've been saying, this time coming straight from the horse's mouth.
I don't think you ever work in a complex environment where you have to deploy code. Every single change you make in a production environment can have tremendous impact to other system. TELUS has decided to release less patches a year in order to improve the quality of the patches delivered. I think you are wrong. It because we care about quality. |
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said by Symtex:said by Arthur Dent:In other words, Telus Optik is not a product targeted at people who have quality high on their priority list.
Another way to say this - Telus Optik's quality is second tier.
Which is exactly what we've been saying, this time coming straight from the horse's mouth.
I don't think you ever work in a complex environment where you have to deploy code. Every single change you make in a production environment can have tremendous impact to other system. TELUS has decided to release less patches a year in order to improve the quality of the patches delivered. I think you are wrong. It because we care about quality. As a matter of fact, that's what I work. In case of a critical bug, you don't have the option to leave it without a fix because of the the potential problems that the fix might introduce. But, as we have already established, Telus does not consider video quality problems critical. |
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Symtex
join:2005-04-06
Burnaby, BC |
Symtex
Member
2011-Nov-3 4:08 pm
said by Arthur Dent:said by Symtex:said by Arthur Dent:In other words, Telus Optik is not a product targeted at people who have quality high on their priority list.
Another way to say this - Telus Optik's quality is second tier.
Which is exactly what we've been saying, this time coming straight from the horse's mouth.
I don't think you ever work in a complex environment where you have to deploy code. Every single change you make in a production environment can have tremendous impact to other system. TELUS has decided to release less patches a year in order to improve the quality of the patches delivered. I think you are wrong. It because we care about quality. As a matter of fact, that's what I work. In case of a critical bug, you don't have the option to leave it without a fix because of the the potential problems that the fix might introduce. But, as we have already established, Telus does not consider video quality problems critical. When I think critical is where we cannot delivery the service, Black level, although annoying, is not a critical issue. It doesn't mean that TELUS won't fix it. We do have to make priorities. It's the nature of business. |
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l_dub
join:2011-06-20
Edmonton, AB |
l_dub
Member
2011-Nov-21 10:52 am
1st Image | 
2nd Image |
Since this is a discussion about picture quality issues, I'd like to ask the Telus guys about my PQ... There seems to be some people who say their PQ is comparable and even superior to Bell and Shaw. This is NOT the case for me. Is there any difference from one Optik customer to another in terms of Picture Quality? The following pictures are just an example of what I see on a regular basis on my PVR unit connected via component cable. I understand this is a rough approach since I am taking a picture with an external camera, but I think it gives a general idea of the issues I am talking about. The first image is a fairly slow moving scene, and is in my opinion acceptable as an HD image. The second image is a fast moving scene, and lasts approximately 2 seconds. You can see that even the channel labels blur up in this scene. This is from the same show, on the same channel. I just want to know if this is acceptable in terms of HD Picture Quality on the Telus system. |
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Kruisey
join:2006-12-30
Vancouver, BC |
Kruisey
Member
2011-Nov-22 11:30 am
Well my TV was one of the the first Sony HD sets and is now 5 years old.
I have no problem with Optik TV and movement.Could it be your TV.If not, if it was I, would get a Telus Technician to adjust this for you. |
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to Mike_C
It's not the TV's fault. The second picture clearly shows compression artifacts, caused by bad (in this case extremely bad) encoding job of the moving scene on the Telus headend.
Very much in line with my observation about their sloppy encoders.
In fact, the better the TV, the better these movement artifacts will be observed. Some older TVs with slower video processing might blur the moving picture and kind of "mask" the problem with another one. |
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JammerMan79
Premium Member
join:2004-05-13
Prince George, BC |
couldn't it be caused by a bandwidth issue as well? |
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said by JammerMan79:couldn't it be caused by a bandwidth issue as well?
No, the bitrate is constant, not adaptable depending on the bandwidth or connection. If there was a problem with the connection, the artifacts would have been of a very different kind - dropouts, missing parts of the picture, no picture. This is what Telus sends. |
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JammerMan79
Premium Member
join:2004-05-13
Prince George, BC |
hmm... I have very rarely seen this on my service |
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l_dub
join:2011-06-20
Edmonton, AB |
l_dub
Member
2011-Nov-23 12:36 pm
My connection seems pretty stable. I have 3HD feeds. I get about 23 or 24 mbps on my speedtests consistently, so I don't think it has anything to do with my internet connection.
Does Telus use seperate encoders (or firmware versions) for different customers? That's the only thing I can think of why it would be different from one customer to another. |
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pb2k
join:2005-05-30
Calgary, AB |
to l_dub
Don't forget that telus is probably grabbing the OTA feed, which is MPEG2, albeit 19mbps. It's completely possible that the mpeg2 feed had compression artifacts already, and the reencode process amplified that. |
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Symtex
join:2005-04-06
Burnaby, BC |
to Mike_C
As posted in my other thread. We are pushing an update in January including performance enhancement. The patch is ready now but we don't want to impact our customer during the Xmas period. |
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TierX
join:2009-01-20
Canada |
to l_dub
said by l_dub:My connection seems pretty stable. I have 3HD feeds. I get about 23 or 24 mbps on my speedtests consistently, so I don't think it has anything to do with my internet connection.
Does Telus use seperate encoders (or firmware versions) for different customers? That's the only thing I can think of why it would be different from one customer to another. No, they are all Tandberg 8090 HD encoders. |
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| TierX |
to pb2k
said by pb2k:Don't forget that telus is probably grabbing the OTA feed, which is MPEG2, albeit 19mbps. It's completely possible that the mpeg2 feed had compression artifacts already, and the reencode process amplified that. It's a small minority of sources (mainly specialty and foreign channels) that come in MPEG2. Most are transport feeds directly from the provider. If we can get dark fiber, we'll get a baseband feed (HD-SDI) directly over fiber, in locations where that isn't possible, we'll use MPEG4-AVC at over ~20mbps to bring it back to head-end. In both cases, we are obviously limited by the quality of source content. If there is macro-blocking or heavy pixelization in the source, there is little we can do to make it look good. As the saying goes, shit in, shit out. |
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l_dub
join:2011-06-20
Edmonton, AB |
to Symtex
Thanks for the heads up on the update! Crossing my fingers that it solves my picture problems. |
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to Arthur Dent
Whoa. Netflix on the ps3 outputs at a very crisp 1080p.
The garbage I get from Optik isn't even close. I have an extra strong signal, and the HDTV is simply a joke. Watching something like X Factor shows so much compression garbage, it honestly makes me want to reconsider having TV at all.
Comparing the high quality of Netflix on the PS3 to optik? Not even close. I've seen some fantastic quality on Netflix x-high HD. |
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said by andsoitgoes:Comparing the high quality of Netflix on the PS3 to optik? Not even close. I've seen some fantastic quality on Netflix x-high HD.
Yes. And that quality is achieved at a lower bitrate than Optik's. I don't know who at Telus was shopping for those encoders, but I suspect there might have been a conflict of interest.  |
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pb2k
join:2005-05-30
Calgary, AB |
pb2k
Member
2011-Dec-8 7:54 pm
said by Arthur Dent:said by andsoitgoes:Comparing the high quality of Netflix on the PS3 to optik? Not even close. I've seen some fantastic quality on Netflix x-high HD.
Yes. And that quality is achieved at a lower bitrate than Optik's. I don't know who at Telus was shopping for those encoders, but I suspect there might have been a conflict of interest. You can't compare real time encoders to netflix, which pre encodes before hand and probably uses 2 pass VBR encoding, which can have spikes in bitrate far beyond the CBR of optik TV. |
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said by pb2k:said by Arthur Dent:said by andsoitgoes:Comparing the high quality of Netflix on the PS3 to optik? Not even close. I've seen some fantastic quality on Netflix x-high HD.
Yes. And that quality is achieved at a lower bitrate than Optik's. I don't know who at Telus was shopping for those encoders, but I suspect there might have been a conflict of interest. You can't compare real time encoders to netflix, which pre encodes before hand and probably uses 2 pass VBR encoding, which can have spikes in bitrate far beyond the CBR of optik TV. Fair enough. But I have a few objections. First, the Telus feed is at least 5 seconds delayed compared to other sources, like OTA. Time enough to do some analysis while encoding. Second, Bell TV (satellite) is faced with the same issues, but their MPEG4 channels are lower bitrate and much better quality than Telus. Third, seeing that Netflix's average VBR is below 4 mbps, I am not sure there are any "spikes" in the bitrate of Netflix HD that are higher than the constant 5.6 mbps bitrate of Telus. Netflix just can't afford to go much above a certain bitrate, like Blu-ray does, for example - they need to run reliably through a completely ungauranteed speed pipe (unlike Telus Optik TV). |
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pb2k
join:2005-05-30
Calgary, AB |
pb2k
Member
2011-Dec-11 1:51 pm
said by Arthur Dent:Fair enough. But I have a few objections. First, the Telus feed is at least 5 seconds delayed compared to other sources, like OTA. Time enough to do some analysis while encoding. To what end? Sure, you can potentially get a better picture quality in low motion scenes, but it does nothing for high motion scenes. quote:
Second, Bell TV (satellite) is faced with the same issues, but their MPEG4 channels are lower bitrate and much better quality than Telus.
Telus uses bell when they can't get a feed of their own, so it's virtually impossible to even break even on those channels (although, as TierX indicated, telus seems to be getting a lot of their own feeds now). In regards to channels where telus has their own feed, care to post some comparisons to back up your claims? quote:
Third, seeing that Netflix's average VBR is below 4 mbps, I am not sure there are any "spikes" in the bitrate of Netflix HD that are higher than the constant 5.6 mbps bitrate of Telus. Netflix just can't afford to go much above a certain bitrate, like Blu-ray does, for example - they need to run reliably through a completely ungauranteed speed pipe (unlike Telus Optik TV).
Do you understand 2pass vbr encoding at all? You can have static scenes (opening/closing credits etc) that use a stupidly low bitrate, and high motion scenes that use a extremely high bitrate, while still keeping a low average. The only limitations are proper buffering, and the peak bitrate supported by the customer equipment. |
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TierX
join:2009-01-20
Canada |
to Arthur Dent
said by Arthur Dent:Fair enough. But I have a few objections. First, the Telus feed is at least 5 seconds delayed compared to other sources, like OTA. Time enough to do some analysis while encoding. The delay is due to the Mediaroom architecture itself; Bell, Sasktel, MTS, AT&T and anyone else using Mediaroom will have the same issue. The Tandberg encoders alone only add around 1second of latency (they are tuned for low latency). The multicast streams the encoders output are fed into the A server (add's MS's encryption, rtp encapsulation, and buffers for re-transmission to D server), and a D server (for ICC and R-UDP to Mediaroom clients). This complex and hybrid unicast/multicast design is what allows Mediaroom to have instant channel change, and a highly reliable video signal (the protection period is ~800ms), but the downside is added latency due to the required buffering. |
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to pb2k
said by pb2k:Telus uses bell when they can't get a feed of their own, so it's virtually impossible to even break even on those channels (although, as TierX indicated, telus seems to be getting a lot of their own feeds now).
In regards to channels where telus has their own feed, care to post some comparisons to back up your claims?
For which channels does Telus use their own feed? I would be more than glad to compare. Preferrably something not premium, because I have only basic Telus subscription. |
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