Thomson's ViBE encoders enable 50% faster HD channel changing
by Darren Murph 
posted Nov 30th 2008 at 11:33AM
Look, 1.9 seconds to change the channel is way, way too long people -- we all know that. Thankfully, the bright engineers at Thomson realize it too, and that's why they've cranked out some seriously awesome advances to their ViBE encoders. The new "fast zapping solutions" enable 50% faster high-definition channel changing, and the secret is in the fancy simultaneous compression that most users won't even notice. In essence, it allows the STB to "quickly decode and display a low resolution version of the channel and transition to displaying the full HD resolution version without disrupting viewing," and if all goes well, we could see this become the de facto way of channel surfing by 2009. Gnarly, dudes.
Filed under: Industry, Set-top boxes
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Michael @ Nov 30th 2008 12:18PM
Isn't channel surfing a thing of the past what with on screen program guides I never use the channel up and down buttons on a tv with digital cable, so I dont mind when I chose a program from the guide and it takes 1.9 seconds its only noticiable when surfing
ChadT84 @ Nov 30th 2008 10:29PM
I stopped surfing just for that reason. The delay is still there just turning to the exact channel you want. I think this will be great.
Dave @ Nov 30th 2008 2:50PM
Yeah, I agree totally
Buy New and Used Video Games
j_g_puff @ Nov 30th 2008 5:42PM
Thanks for your contribution, Dave.
Brett @ Nov 30th 2008 4:57PM
I am a habitual channel surfer and I applaud the engineers at Thompson for their hard work in speeding up changing digital channels. I will definitely wait to buy a HDTV with this feature.
Jeremey @ Dec 1st 2008 10:39AM
More than likely this is not going to be a feature of TVs themselves, but the TV provider be it satellite, cable, FIOS, etc.
cinnamon @ Dec 3rd 2008 4:23AM
Folks, get real. Digital TV transmission standards (MPEG based - so ATSC or DVB or others), irrespective of SD or HD, have "carousels" transmitting "program data" with a certain "repetition rate". A STB or digital TV needs to collect a number of packets of these data by hooking up to the starting point of the carousel. After a minimum amount of data has been collected (minimum implies enough info to be able to locate the audio/video packets in the stream), it is time to actually decode and present the content on the screen. These Thomson guys (or any other box maker), cannot unilaterally reduce the time it takes to get this minimum data - yes, you could get a bit faster if you show *something* on the screen ASAP and then replace it by the *real* thing. But how much will this actually save ? Darren, blissfully doesn't bother to quantify. I'd expect zap times to continue to be upwards of 1.5 seconds even with this "geek goody". Add to that the effect of SD to HD changeover, in parallel with automatic aspect ratio adaptations and you've not got a lot to write home about.
I'd agree with the previous posts - use the EPG to zap. And you wont notice the slowness. The P+/P- is for when you are boozed out (and then you wouldn't complain about zapping times anyway).