I just added digital cable & now get VH1 Classic. Does anyone know of an easy way to get their complete concert schedule? Their website isn't real user friendly to put it mildly. The best I was able to find is a site called Rock On TV, but it would be nice to see an easier to navigate & longer listing.

Sorry Geff, I've had VH1 Cassic for awhile and i haven't found a schedule. The concerts tend to be on at Fri 9:00 EST and they're usually repeated quite alot. The BBC crown jewels series is pretty good with a 1983 Thin Lizzy show currently floating around.

I've unfortunately noticed that all of my digital channels are going with a low bit rate making the picture quality less then ideal. VH1 is the absolute worst offender. Sound familiar?
I mentioned this to the cable installer & he said "get hd". GRR. Oh well, I'm on a special where it's only $1.75 extra per month for a year.

A couple of months ago I started getting Emails from the station telling me whats going to be on, and when. The strange thing is I don't remember visiting their site and signing up for anything...

Actually, no; does not sound familiar. I have had excellent picture quality from my digital channels, including VH1C (Comcast) for many years, and I really don't have anything special as far as a TV goes. I did require their box, but I've had that forever.

You're neighbors saying the same?

Didn't check with my neighbors, but my eyes show clear evidence of digital compression.

Moderate compression looks like smoothing of features, lines in someone's forehead are less evident, backgrounds are a bit blurry & detail like blades of grass tend to run together. As it gets worse (VH1 Classic) motion starts to become a bit blurred, details get more blurry & motion also appears slightly pixelated like a poor pc file.

I'm hoping someone who's video knowledgeable (like Barry is to audio) could comment on this, I know what my eyes tell me but I haven't studied video quality issues. I have read that many of the stations are only using a small portion of the digital bandwidth they've been assigned so that they can use the rest of it to generate profit with other programing that sideband receivers can pick up. I strongly suspect that somewhere along the line the signal is getting compressed as much as possible to save bandwidth & money. Think 96/24 vs cd vs mp3. I don't see these artifacts in quality dvd's. I do see them in dvd's with low bit rates (usually over 2 hours on a dvd5 or over 4 hours on a dvd9).

I have had VH1 Classic since 2003 and have never seen any sings of compression.
I collect music videos (I have over 30,000 MTV-style videos) and I'm a member of a cool board dedicated to 80s music videos and this channel in particular and nobody has ever mentioned this in 3 years.
I believe you in what you're seeing but I can't help and I'd like to think I know a lot about this channel so I'm drawing a blank. Must be your cable provider. I'd call them and see if you can get a straight answer.
As for the channel itself, it is a shadow of what it once was. The All Request Hour has become a cruel joke and no longer has actual requests (how is it an All Request Hour then? I have no clue).
The BBC Concerts have been great though and a show called "The Vault" airs rarely seen videos from 4-6am Saturday nights (great time slot) although it's only what's rarely seen on VH1 Classic not actually rare videos but it's still good.
Watch "Metal Mania" and you can see the same awful Poison, Bon Jovi and Cinderella videos and off yourself within a week-that show has been a joke for at least 2 or 3 years now.
You will see Billy Joel, Rod Stewart, Elton John and Phil Collins video ad nauseum but the channel is still cool despite how they've truly destroyed it over the years!
I'll ask some people on the board if they know what is happening to you with VH1C.

I don't have much technical to offer in this discussion but VH1 Classic is one of the worst looking channels on my digital. It is faded and slightly blurred. The sound is more one-dimensional too. I'm pretty sure it's not my set (or my eyes for that matter ) because the surrounding channels come in much better

I wonder if different cable providers are compressing differently? I had assumed the compression was happening at the point of broadcast.

As far as programming, I was really surprised to see rap last night. I thought it was supposed to be classic rock............

Rap inevitably crept in but it's still at something of a minimum right now. Yuk.
I've gotten fantastic sound and picture from VH1 Classic but I totally believe you are getting some awful compression.
I've had that problem with other channels now that I think about it when others told me their channels were fine.
You could also post at the VH1 Classic message board and someone is bound to respond. There are some nutjobs there but there are also some helpful people too-I'd try that. You can link to it from VH1's message board.

I hope someone can offer a tech response...I've actually been very surprised by the quality of the pictures/sound of the 'Crown Jewels' for example. The Faces for example really jumps out.

By the way, at least in Chicagoland, I was stumbling around the Comcast OnDemand menu, and under VH1 Classics they have a Joe Jackson concert (until 1-18 I believe)...it was recorded before the release of "I'm a Man", as he introdues a number of the tracks. Awesome show (now its presentation is not the greatest, as compared to the 'Crown Jewels'), but an excellent setlist and high energy performance. My wife thought I was the uber-geek, as I knew every word to every 'Look Sharp' song - which was my ultimate pogoing-air-guitar album back in the day.

I did not notice any additional concerts (other than performance clips).

The BBC shows so far have been:
The Faces (1971)
The Police (1979)
Rod Stewart (1976)
Thin Lizzy (1983)
AC/DC (1977)
Neil Young (1972)
Joni Mitchell (?)
Lynyrd Skynyrd (1976)
Elton John (?)
The Kinks (1977)
Joe Jackson Band (1979)
-I think that's it so far. I didn't bother with the Elton and Joni Mitchell ones and those were both only 30 minutes as opposed to an hour for the others.
All have been outstanding, the best being Joe Jackson-simply fantastic! The Faces and AC/DC would be right there as well as my favorite band Thin Lizzy, although that was just a warmup show before the Thunder And Lightning tour and I already had it. Hell, the'yve all been great and I put them all on DVD-R.
Keep looking-they repeat these often but not all of them.
A new one debuted this week, but it was Bonnie Raitt and I don't like her so I'm not sure when it was from.

I checked the sound through my stereo last night.VH1 Classic is a much lower level then the other digital channels. Interesting that several of us are seeing different quality. Either it has something to do with our local cable providers, our differing perceptions, or possibly the size of our televisions (I have both 32" & 27" crt's, while present if I look for it, video degradation isn't as obvious on the 27").

I've seen both the Neil Young & Joe Jackson. The Young is essential, & the Jackson is good.

I've seen both the Neil Young & Joe Jackson. The Young is essential, & the Jackson is good.

Well, IMO the Joe Jackson is outstanding and the Young boring but as always to each his own.
I think that the original Joe Jackson Band was incredible especially Graham Maby who is one of the best bass players I've ever heard-this show proves that.
As for Neil, I'm just not into 70's singer/songwriters but I do like some of his stuff. Just not the folk/country material.

I do like the Jackson show & I'm a big JJ fan. The reason I rated it a bit below excellent is because that's the sloppiest I've ever heard JJ in several live recordings.

There is a Siouxsie & The Banshees show lined up for later in the week

http://tinyurl.com/ydy5ck

No mention what year this is from

I do like the Jackson show & I'm a big JJ fan. The reason I rated it a bit below excellent is because that's the sloppiest I've ever heard JJ in several live recordings.



You're right-the show was very losse-perhaps that's why I dug it so much. I wish the BBC had an electric Neil Young show with Crazy Horse in the vaults-that would rock, but I don't recall if he did one.
The Siouxie show should be great if it's from early in their career then it's the one I remember from somewhere around 1979-1983. But I don't remember!

If anyone happens to record the Jackson show, I'd definitely be interested in either an audio or video copy. Feel free to PM me...

I found an article on line that explains the cause of the artifacts I'm seeing. It's a long article, here's some excerpts that specifically address the 2 issues I mentioned.
The full article can be found here:
http://www.videsignline.com/howto/showA ... 350&pgno=2

Video compression artifacts and MPEG noise reduction

Digital Video Compression Artifacts
The most commonly used method today to compress digital video data is MPEG-2. From current satellite streams and digital cable feeds to off-the-air digital broadcasts, MPEG-2 has now been internationally adopted for a variety of applications.......

However, these savings don’t come free, and because the codec discards some of the original video information, there can be serious side-effects; MPEG-2 is what we call a lossy codec. It discards image information believed to be of lesser visual importance. The more you want to compress, the further away you get from the look of the original image. Image quality and fidelity now depends on the chosen (or often imposed) level of compression. And since that is directly tied to the available bandwidth, we must ask ourselves when is the video simply too compressed?............

Blocking artifacts
Blocking artifacts, as the name suggests, manifest themselves as objectionable and unnatural blocks within an image. Sometimes referred to as macro-blocking, it is a picture distortion characterized by the underlying block encoding structure becoming visible. When pushing the limits of the encoder, the blocks are rather roughly averaged, making them appear as one big pixel. From block to block, the average calculated can vary, and thus creates these well defined borders between blocks.

This effect becomes even more pronounced when there’s some fast motion or quick camera movement. Probably the best example for this is during NFL telecasts, where the player carrying the football can quickly turn into some form of low-res, blocky, pixelated Mario Bros. look-alike from the old Nintendo days.

Pre-Smoothing
Although not part of the compression artifact family, pre-smoothing has worked its way onto this short list of conspicuous digital annoyances.

Broadcasters and content providers alike have become increasingly aware of their distribution system’s shortcomings. Some of them came up with a rather disputable solution to their bandwidth restrictions: pre-smoothing.

By removing high-frequency content in the picture before putting it through their transmission chain, the encoder has a much easier time to do its job, and the resulting images are less subject to blocking artifacts and mosquito noise. On the other hand, this sometimes excessive filtering also gets rid of all the subtle details and textures of the original image. The football player with his 1- week playoff beard is now cleanly shaved (even when he’s not moving) and the Astro-turf turns into a big green mass of Play-doh…

Arguably, one might think that it’s not such a bad trade-off, but pre-smoothing is simply an irreversible process. Once they erase the details, one cannot go about re-creating those details at the other end.

Although not quite as extreme as the article describes, this is what I am experiencing. Maybe that's what Comcast is doing here.

Very interesting. Thanks for posting the article.

VH1 Classic is airing the Crosby & Nash BBC concert starting Thursday 4/19 on their "Crown Jewels" Series. Early 70's, good stuff. David looks VERY stoned.

http://www.vh1.com/artists/rock_on_tv/s ... own+Jewels