622-OTA Signal?

[62Lincoln]

Will the 622 follow Dish's current practice of forcing us to choose a resolution for OTA signal output (720p 0r 1080i)? Is there any hope that they might allow a simple pass through of the OTA signal? I have a fairly stout signal processor that would do a dramatically better job on the OTA signal than the Dish receiver, and it's always bugged me that I have to feed it a doctored signal from the Dish unit.

[James Long]

Sorry. No pass through HD on the ViP models.
If you can do better direct tune the channels!

[Ron Barry]

:welcome_s Lincoln.

I know there has been a number of requested on the 811 and 921 for native pass through. I think we continue to need to ask for this feature and hopefully Dish will eventually add it.

It is top on my list of features I would like to see added with the new VIP line.

Based on the fact the 942 does not have it, I doubt the 622 will roll out with this feature.

[62Lincoln]

James - any suggestions for alternatives?

Ron - Would this feature be an add on via software update, or would it require hardware revision? For the life of me, I can't see why they don't offer this feature, but there you go... :)

[James Long]

Sorry - I thought you had a better option. Re-reading I'd assume your processor takes any HD in and gives the best picture for your HD set but is not an actual tuner? It's E* doing the upconvert from 720P to 1080i (or vice versa) that catches people.

[Ron Barry]

Hard to say if it is a software or hardware change since I am not aware of exactly how this happens. My guess is that it would be a software change and whenever it has been talked about with other receviers it has always been mentioned in terms of a software change.

As to why? my guess is other features have been more important in terms of importance and the type of change might be a big risk type so that could explain why we have not seen it. I know it has been mentioned a lot here. Like I said, I would love to see this feature mainly because TV may do a better upcasting job with SD content than the 622 can.

[Stewart Vernon]

It would seem like the hardware is capable of it, since you can software select in the menus what you want your output to be.... so I would guess it may be possible for a software upgrade to allow the receiver to essentially switch on the fly and not convert it to something else.

What puzzles me mostly is... why is this not an option in the first place? Since many of us do have HDTV monitors that in many cases do much better scaling, stretching, or upconverting than these receivers... why not give us an option in the menu to either specifically force one resolution OR allow the pass-through? That way every scenario is covered.

I too wish they would do pass-through. One because my TV does better stretching of SD than does the receiver... and another reason is because I see problems with my 6000u, for instance, upconverting 720p. SD channels look alright, and 1080i looks alright... but channels like ABC or FOX or ESPNHD have strange graphic glitches in them unless I set my box to output 720p. Something just isn't right with the upconvert in the 6000.

[Rogueone]

you really want to compare a 6000 and it's ability to upconvert with a 622? the hardware in a 6000 is how old? And you expect there to be no improvement during that time in the 622's abilities? That seems a bit shortsighted doesn't it? At least it seems logical there have been hardware improvements since the chips used in the 6000 which would make the newer boxes better at this.

Now, if you had a 942 and were comparing your TV to a 942, I'd say that is a valid comparison and expectation from the 622. But a 6000 seems a bit old to be considered as a valid expectation source for the 622's performance, wouldn't you think?

[62Lincoln]

Sorry - I thought you had a better option. Re-reading I'd assume your processor takes any HD in and gives the best picture for your HD set but is not an actual tuner? It's E* doing the upconvert from 720P to 1080i (or vice versa) that catches people.
James - that's pretty much my story. I run the signal through a Lumagen HD Pro processor, which then feeds a signal to my pj. The Lumagen can process anything thrown its way, and my preference would be to give it native 720p or 1080i, instead of an altered signal from the Dish receiver. It appears I will almost have to go to an additional OTA receiver to get pass through (unless a change is imminent from Dish), but I don't have a good idea for what to consider.

[Stewart Vernon]

you really want to compare a 6000 and it's ability to upconvert with a 622? the hardware in a 6000 is how old? And you expect there to be no improvement during that time in the 622's abilities? That seems a bit shortsighted doesn't it? At least it seems logical there have been hardware improvements since the chips used in the 6000 which would make the newer boxes better at this.

Now, if you had a 942 and were comparing your TV to a 942, I'd say that is a valid comparison and expectation from the 622. But a 6000 seems a bit old to be considered as a valid expectation source for the 622's performance, wouldn't you think?

Any upconvert has the potential to be problematic... especially when it is not necessary if a pass-through option were provided.

I have read in other forums where people have stated that their 811 and 921s output SD better through the S-video than through the component outputs so that seems to be similar to what I see on my 6000. I figure its reasonable to assume its part of the same signal conversion issues.

I don't have any direct comparisons... and perhaps the newer receivers are better... but it still doesn't change the idea that a pass-through should be possible on these receivers and the upconvert/downconvert isn't necessary for all of us who have TVs that can accept different signal types and do the conversions in the TV... so it would be a great feature to have.

[Ron Barry]

Well basically I would expect a 5K+ piece of equipement to do a better job than a 300 dollar piece of equipement in terms of scaling. There are all sorts of options out there to get the best PQ in terms of scaling and the run the gamet in terms of cost.

What I recommended with the 811 feature was to provide both a native option and a customize option to allow the user to configure what output resolution they want for each given input type. That to me would cover the bases. That way in the case that the display does not support 720p, the user can select 1080i for both 720p and 1080i resolutions and pass 480i natively. The customize feature would cover all the different quarks that are in the wild hopefully or at least give the user the best shot at achieving the best PQ possible for their hardware configuration.