921 and Discovery HD; steps down Contrast

[anderdea]

Has anyone experienced this problem?
On the Discovery channel, when watching a fairly dark scene, I can detect the brightness stepping down in noticeable steps. I have had a new Sony LCD RPTV for about 4 months and just started noticing the brightness problem on Discovery about 3 weeks ago and I watch a fair amount of Discovery programming. Nothing has changed in my system, at least that I am aware of.

I have a Sony 60" LCD WEGA. I am using the 921's Component output to the Sony at 1080i. This only happens with the Discovery HD channel. All other HD and SDTV channels are OK.

Don

[Mark Lamutt]

Don, as this only affects one channel, I don't see how it could be a 921 problem. So, post is getting moved to the technical talk forum.

[JMikeF]

I see this as well, and I have a 6000 HD reciever.
Each time a scene changes, the brightness will drop, step by step, until the scene changes again. It must be an encoding error. Wierd!

[Slordak]

Remember that Dish recently packed 3 HD channels on a single transponder. Hence, each channel is getting less bandwidth and will be exhibiting more compression artifacts / generally reduced picture quality. It is likely that what you are experiencing has to do with this.

[Mike D-CO5]

Yes, I posted this same thing before . It looks like obvious compression on the Discovery channel. I was watching Trading Spaces and it would go from light to darker several times every few seconds. This takes away from the picture quality and makes the channel unwatchable for me. This what my local channels looked like from Little Rock before I "moved" to Houston. It looks just like the same compression they used on those channels. I called it a pulsation signal back then. Dish said it was my setup but I noticed it only on the Little Rock local channels on any receiver I had. Now it is only on the Discovery Channel. This seemed to happen when they put three hd channels per transponder.

If this keeps up I don't see any reason to keep the hd pack. The whole point in having the hd pack is to get superior picture quality. Leave it to Dish to get it backwards as usual. :mad:

[anderdea]

Yes, I posted this same thing before . It looks like obvious compression on the Discovery channel. I was watching Trading Spaces and it would go from light to darker several times every few seconds. This takes away from the picture quality and makes the channel unwatchable for me. This what my local channels looked like from Little Rock before I "moved" to Houston. It looks just like the same compression they used on those channels. I called it a pulsation signal back then. Dish said it was my setup but I noticed it only on the Little Rock local channels on any receiver I had. Now it is only on the Discovery Channel. This seemed to happen when they put three hd channels per transponder.

If this keeps up I don't see any reason to keep the hd pack. The whole point in having the hd pack is to get superior picture quality. Leave it to Dish to get it backwards as usual. :mad:

Thanks for the verification. Now I know it's not my new Sony LCD RPT. IT IS A SHAME that what use to be the best HD Channel on DN (Discovery) is exhibiting such unsatisfactory performance. If I didn't have so much tied up in DN, I'd consider going back to cable, especially since HD is starting to show up on cable. The cable channel convenience and not having to deal with satellite perturbations is a plus.

Don

Don

[JohnFS]

I get the same thing with my new 921. It is very annoying, and makes some shows unwatchable (those where the contrast ratio is high).

[THX]

I assume you have the new Sony LCD RPTV KDF-60XBR950? Is it not the bomb?

I just got mine last week. I have my Sony connected to the new HD Tivo (HR10-250) connected via the HDMI to DVI cable and I do not see any of the contrast problems that you mention.

[Mike D-CO5]

I had sent an e-mail to Kip Wilcoxson at Dish who works on the locals picture quality and he forwarded my e-mail to Jeff McShooler who is the vice president of engineering.

I received a phone call from Jeff on Wednesday of last week and we discussed the situation with the hd discovery channel. He says that he will watch the channel himself to look for the defects in picture quality. I am supposed to contact him on Monday and see what he has noticed. He agreed with me that adding hd channels in quantity just to have them would hurt the picture quality of the other remaining hd channels. He said if he sees the same thing that they might have to back off of the three hd channels per transponder .

I think the reason why they did the 3 hd channels per transponder was to add the NBC hd feed for the Olympics. By next week when the Olympics are over they will most likely go back down to 2 per transponder.

Either way I will let you know when I talk to him next and what he says. It is nice to know that Dish will respond to these issues so fast. :D I just hope that the hd discovery channel can be resolved .

Unfortunately Dish really doesn't look like they can add any more hd channels on the 110 sat without hurting either the hd picture quality or the sd picture quality or both.:(

[Mike D-CO5]

One other thing I had told Jeff ,that there was a thread about this very problem with the hd discovery channel on this web board. So if you want to convince Dish about this problem ya'll might want to keep posting here about what you see and send e-mails to this website: www.dishquality@echostar.com

The more people complain in emails and on this web board the more Dish will see it is not an isolated complaint.

[SimpleSimon]

Hey Mike - that email like is wrong - no "www". Should be dishquality@echostar.com or maybe dishquality@dishnetwork.com - dunno which, but maybe both are good.

I'm glad that someone at E* is actually concerned about the HD PQ.

[Mike D-CO5]

You 're right I forget and wrote the www before I thought about it. It is dishquality@echostar.com.

[Mike D-CO5]

Well I talked to Jeff McSchooler again today 8/24/04 .

He said it took 6 engineers watching the Discovery hd channel on a 921 in his office, but they did see what I was seeing. He said that the problem is in the signal that is being sent to Dish from the Discovery provider and that what Dish did ,( putting three hd channels to a transponder ), further made the picture worse. They can't do anything this week to change the transponder situation with the Olympics being broadcast , but they have people being flown out from the Discovery provider and they will be looking at what they can do to improve the signal.

When the Olympics are over next week they will most likely be able to free up some of the bandwith to make improvements on this channel. Jeff doesn't know yet what Dish has in mind about the extra bandwith when the Olympics are over. He hopes they will be able to improve the picture quality over all.

He also said that Dish is looking at Mpeg 4 but that there has been no decision made yet since there are two different competing formats for mpeg 4. One is Micorosoft Windows media option 9 and the other one includes all the other companies that don't want Microsoft Windows.

It is nice to know that Dish cares about customer concerns about picture quality and they do respond very quickly to try to eliminate the problems. I have also had good results from Kip Wilcoxson when I have local network picture quality problems. I guess that is why Dish won the Award for best customer service again this year.:D