ESPN looks weird

[oblio98]

Am I having a problem? I have a 721, and I am watching the Big East Tournament on ESPN, and the graphics at the bottom of the page are fine, but the "game" looks choppy and seems to "strobe"! THe more motion there is, the "blurrier" the picture. It almost looks like a strobe light effect.

When they toss the ball down the court, it is just a blur.

Is this the 721, or is this just a crappy signal?

THANKS

 

:-jon

[jgoggan]

This is likely unrelated and just a coincidence -- but C-band people just started detecting ESPN-HD yesterday from what I've heard. In other words, it is possible that some bird-related things were being changed/tested yesterday...

Then again, ESPN-HD could be on a completely different bird -- I really don't know. Just wanted to mention it "just in case."

- John...

[Scott Greczkowski]

There is an easy way to tell if its the 721 or the signal, rewind it and look again, if it looks the same then its the signal. :) There are no MPEG encoders in the 721 so it does not change the datastream. Infact the only time you will see any difference is if you loose signal and then you will see eaither pausing or blocky pictures for a second or two.

Chances are good that the problem was with the ESPN signal itself from Dish Network. The next question is who was making it look bad, ESPN or Dish? (You might be surprised to know my bets are on ESPN) I subscribe to a couple CableTV Headend Tech mailing lists and there has been a buzz of late of ESPN quality problems like you mention above. :)

[oblio98]

Thanks Scott

[HTguy]

ESPN backhauls are digitally compressed. They look pretty bad compared to the other networks. Really a shame for a sports oriented channel.

[oblio98]

Tonight it looks ok. Very strange, indeed.

Thanks Again to all

:-jon