Will dbs start overcompressing the hell out of HD channels in the future?

[Jack White]

Anyone who's been with DBS for long knows that in early days they basically guaranteed "laserdisc quality picture and cd quality sound" forever to get the early adopters to invest a huge chunk of dough to buy the latest technology.
Then when dbs became more popular among the masses, they dumped the early adopters who got dbs for better picture and sound quality, and I have a suspision that their SNEAKY lawyers may also have gotten them to change the wording in their ads to "digital quality picture and sound" at that time because that really doesn't mean ANYTHING when you think about it.
This WASN'T just my imagination either, here's a EXACT QUOTE from the early days.

http://www.dtvgroup.com/DigVideo/DSS/RCA/dss.htm
"A Powerful Package of Programming and Performance. The RCA DSS® System represents the most advanced picture and sound available, with laserdisc quality picture capability combined with CD-quality sound capabilities.*"

Now I know people think that the dbs companies won't try and pull this same bs with HD viewers because they're more discriminating about picture and sound quality than the (Jerry Springer/WWE watching Beer Drinking "WE WANT ALL OUR LOCALS" no matter how overcompressed all the channels have to become to squeeze in the locals) masses.
That being said, the EARLY ADOPTERS for dbs also cared JUST AS MUCH if not more about picture and sound quality than the HD dbs early adopters do.
So there's NO REASON why history can't repeat itself in the future.
Now that MPEG4 is on the horizon, and there will be more satellites and stuff launched in the future, I see NO REASON what OVERCOMPRESSING THE HELL OUT OF the NATIONAL HD channels to make room for HD locals won't happen in the future.
I'm so busy with work and school that I really don't have much time to watch TV anyway, I just watch like Enterprise, Smallville, and Survivor(when it's on) on the weekends, and I don't even have time to watch shows like "Lost" or "Life as We Know It" even though I'd love to watch them if I had the time.
I don't have enough money to switch to a different source as I still live with my parents and the 800 smakers I made over the 3 week holiday from college will all towards car payments.
That being said, when I have my degree and I'm making some real dough, I'll go to Analog C Band(if it's still around), 4DTV, and good OTA and I'll toss dbs like the overcompressed garbage that it is.
You simply can't overcome the concept of garbage in garbage out no matter how much expensive equipment you have.

[Cyclone]

You can bet on it. They will save bandwidth with MPEG4 and then still plow down the bitrate and PQ the HD channels.

[Soccernut]

You can bet on it. They will save bandwidth with MPEG4 and then still plow down the bitrate and PQ the HD channels.
It's going to be interesting because it will take years before they can mess to much with the HD picture. They need to attract the high paying customer to the high quality channels, and when they do most of these customers will have large screen displays if picture quality on HD channels are not at the least very good, there will be no value to them and they will be dropped and providers could lose big. So we need to wait and see.

[Ron Barry]

It's going to be interesting because it will take years before they can mess to much with the HD picture. They need to attract the high paying customer to the high quality channels, and when they do most of these customers will have large screen displays if picture quality on HD channels are not at the least very good, there will be no value to them and they will be dropped and providers could lose big. So we need to wait and see.

They have already messed with HD PQ. They went from two to Three channels on a transponder. I believe they will always look at ways to squeeze out Bandwidth.

THe one thing I have not heard much talk about is comparing MPEG-4 to MPEG-2. Can you really get the same quality using MPEG-4 at half the bandwidth. My understanding was MPEG-4 was optimized for streaming internet content. THat is a lot different than broadcast media. Will MPEG-4 deliver the same quality at these reduced bandwith?

[Stewart Vernon]

They have already messed with HD PQ. They went from two to Three channels on a transponder. I believe they will always look at ways to squeeze out Bandwidth.

THe one thing I have not heard much talk about is comparing MPEG-4 to MPEG-2. Can you really get the same quality using MPEG-4 at half the bandwidth. My understanding was MPEG-4 was optimized for streaming internet content. THat is a lot different than broadcast media. Will MPEG-4 deliver the same quality at these reduced bandwith?

There are varying degrees of compression within MPEG2, and I suspect the same is true of MPEG4. I don't know much about MPEG4... but say there are 10 levels of compression within each scheme, with 1 being the least and 10 being the most compression...

It *might* be possible that MPEG4 at level 4 is less bandwidth than MPEG2 at level 5, but produces the same quality of picture. Just a guess on my part, but MPEG4 and smaller size "files" doesn't automatically equate to less quality.

[Ron Barry]

There are varying degrees of compression within MPEG2, and I suspect the same is true of MPEG4. I don't know much about MPEG4... but say there are 10 levels of compression within each scheme, with 1 being the least and 10 being the most compression...

It *might* be possible that MPEG4 at level 4 is less bandwidth than MPEG2 at level 5, but produces the same quality of picture. Just a guess on my part, but MPEG4 and smaller size "files" doesn't automatically equate to less quality.


Yes this is my point exactly.. I am curious why I have not seen a lot of discussion on this, yet people got very hot when they wanted to put 3 channels per transponder.

Is there any evidence, besides speculation, that MPEG4 can deliver the same PQ at this Size and Framerate as MPEG-2? Did I miss the obvious? We seem so concerned about our receviers being obsoleted. Hopefully this move will not result in a PQ drop overall.