E*8 and better picture quality?

[wrate]

Can anyone explain why is it that Echo 8 will help picture quality?

One could think that Dish will move some channels from 119 to 110 once Echo 8 is operational. But, they could actually do that now since Echo 5 has some space in it now from some locals that have moved to the spotbeams at 119W.

Also, one could think that the Dish will move some of the spots from 119 to 110 once Echo 8 is operational, but that would mean that some of Echo 7 transps. would not be able to work at double power. Right? So this probably won't happen.

I wonder what the plans are for transponder use once Echo 8 is up.

[Mike123abc]

Well 110 has a lot of LIL on it now. They would be moved to E8 spot beams. There are about 15 transponders used on E8 for LIL that will probably move to spot. This means that 15 national transponders will be replace by 5 spot beams. So, 10 National transponders would be freed up (5 spot beam take over 5 National freqencies).

There are also 2 transponders not used on 110 right now (they are where the spots will go).

This will leave 12 free national transponders. They can then spread out some of the national transponder loads to these freed up ones. So, there will be fewer channels per transponder, which will lead to more bits per channel, and that should result in better PQ.

[wrate]

Ok, so the picture quality improvement will only be for channels that are transmitted using transponders on 110 sat, not 119?

[Mike123abc]

Well it depends on how many channels they move from 119 to 110. The can move those from ATA 150 to 110 because they say you have to have dish 500 to get ATA 150. Right now this includes music channels, encore westerns, outdoor channel, etc.

I do not know what else they could move, but it will be clear that there are a lot of transponders on 110 that could get national programming. Dish would probably like everyone to get Dish500 so that they could move channels around like crazy.

It would be nice if they moved E7 to 110 also, and just have 110 do LIL on 10 transponders (E7 does 1,3,5,7,9 and E8 does 2,4,6,8,10). 110 could become the locals and 119 could do nationals.

[zimm0who0net]

Do you really think they're going to use that extra bandwidth to improve picture quality? I suppose it's possible, but my guess is they'll just add more local markets, or perhaps go to 3/4 FEC on the rest of their transponders to reduce rain fade...
I could be wrong... did anyone hear that they WOULD be improving picture quality?

[styxfix]

"I could be wrong... did anyone hear that they WOULD be improving picture quality?"


after the
MergerMergerMergerMergerMergerMergerMe
gerMergerMergerMergerMergerMergerMerger

Every problem DISH has will be sovled instanly after the MERGER.

[TNGTony]

LOL! Styx.... Charlie couldn't have said it any better. :)

See ya
Tony

[andrzejpw]

damn, if the PQ DOESN'T improve. . . I mean, its gotten progressively worse. . . if it doesn't, I might jump. . .

[MikeW]

I already jumped (see other thread). I had expected w/ E*7 things would get better. They have not. I hold no expectation for E*8. Seems they have cities lined up for E8. I wished for better PQ and more DD5.1 on premiums...never happened so off to cable land.

[James]

What is wrong with you picture quality? I am in Indiana and its perfect here. Just wondering. We use 110, 119, and 61.5

[Mike123abc]

Well after doing some calculations, E8 does not hold out much hope of improving PQ a lot. To get quality up they need to get down to about 8 channels per transponder. That would require them to move about 32 channels off of 119 to 110 to get the channel count down. It is very unlikely that they could move that many channels because it would mean that a lot of people still on dish 300 would have to be upgraded to 500.

[xgrep]

It's strange that this hasn't been mentioned, but I've noticed that the PQ on Dish is at least as much a function of the feed from the content provider as the capacity of the satellite.

When I was able to get national PBS on 61.5W, it was clearly superior PQ to TV5 (on Int'l a la carte). Checking around with folks who know, it became clear that, aside from dropouts, which have a very distinctive and transient visual effect, the general PQ is determined by the bandwidth of the feed to the uplink. As long as you've got a lock (and therefore no dropouts), the bandwidth of the downlink doesn't change, and often exceeds what was fed to E*.

Some providers simply deliver a better signal to E* than others, and I am far from happy with the low quality of the poorer ones, but the best are fairly decent (compression artifacts being minimal and relatively unobtrusive). But to reinforce what another person said (DarellP, I think), a good clean analog signal is still superior to anything I've seen on E*, D*, or any digital cable. When we used to get analog Kband in Europe (HotBird and others), the PQ was awesome, and you could replay recordings in slow motion and see beautiful detail. Don't bother trying that with anything you record from E*. I await HD with great anticipation, and will be mightily pissed if any of the material shows the poor quality of many of E*'s sources. That would be utterly inexcusable.

x

[Mike123abc]

It all comes down to a matter of bits. As demonstrated by HDTV, you send enough bits out you get a great picture.

Dish at its worst had 12 channels on every transponder or about 2.5mbit/sec. Right now they are running about 10 channels per transponder on 119 or about 3mb/sec. With 8 channels (they are running some of the transponders down this low) you get 3.8mbit/sec. The ones with 8 channels per transponder have noticably better picture.

I do not think anyone would complain if they got down to 7 channels per transponders. At almost 4.4mbit/sec they would approach DVD quality.

[johnsmith22]

I really don't think there is much wrong with the PQ, but feeds do differ, some are better than others, E* need to concentrate on getting perfect signals at the uplink and that would solve 90 percent of the problem. Also always use s-video to feed your TV, there is a huge difference between that and analogue and if you can't use s-video there is still a big difference between analogue and composite video via the RCA connectors. Really, if you get it right in the installation the PQ is pretty good.

[xgrep]

Originally posted by Mike123abc
It all comes down to a matter of bits. As demonstrated by HDTV, you send enough bits out you get a great picture.

I agree with you on that, but it's the bandwidth of the feed to E* that makes the difference. If it's a highly compressed feed, it doesn't matter what the bandwidth of the bird to your receiver is.

True, higher capacity on the sat *allows* providers to send more data, but not all will do so. If you have providers sending garbage that is at a lower data rate than what the bird can handle, adding capacity won't get these laggards to improve their feed - until and unless E* charges them less, assuming that figures in at all.

x

[xgrep]

Originally posted by johnsmith22
Also always use s-video to feed your TV, there is a huge difference between that and analogue and if you can't use s-video there is still a big difference between analogue and composite video via the RCA connectors.

I do use the s-video output, and it can't do anything about compression artifacts except make them even more visible. At least there are a few really good providers - usually the PBS stations (though not all). And PPV seems to be pretty good.

x

[dmodemd]

I upgraded to a 46" HDTV monitor so PQ is atrocious at this point.

I WILL jump back to cable if they can offer HD, an HD PVR, and better PQ. But since my cable company is corrupt, bankrupt, under investigation Adelphia, I consider myself lucky its still working.

BTW, I already use cable internet so have to pay for basic cable anyway. Comes in handy during storms to watch for the tornado warnings when I am under rain fade.

[kstuart]

I wished for better PQ and more DD5.1 on premiums...never happened so off to cable land.

AFAIK, Dish has as much DD5.1 on premiums as exists. Are there DD5.1 channels that Dish does not carry in DD?

[thomasmaly]

I am in NW suburbs of Chicago and picture quality is excellent!

[Dmitriy]

I remember that long time ago, before Echo 7 was launched, Charlie said that Echo 7 would NOT improve PQ or signal strength but Echo 8 will improve the signal strength and PQ.

[BobaBird]

Originally posted by kstuart
Are there DD5.1 channels that Dish does not carry in DD? The rest of the Showtime lineup. http://www.sho.com/unlimited/dd51.cfm

[dmodemd]

Charlie has about a 30% accuracy rate on delivering what he promises ;)

[Lyle_JP]

"Encore" and "Starz! Theater" also offer Dolby Digital 5.1 that both E* and D* do not currently pass along.

-Lyle J.P.

[TomCat]

Originally posted by MikeW
...I had expected w/ E*7 things would get better. They have not. I hold no expectation for E*8...

If one steps back and looks at the big picture, one realizes that PQ depends upon bandwidth. That's the bottom line. The bottleneck was that there's limited bandwidth for CONUS sats. Spot beams and physically separated uplink centers (now we know why GIlbert, AZ. facility was important) allow frequency re-use, giving more bandwidth, and widening (but not limiting) the bottleneck. But having just one sat (E7) be partial spot beam could not really help that much due to all of the legacy stuff needed full-CONUS for DISH 500. Having the second sat of that pair be a partial spot beam sat really opens up the options, and I would normally expect it to make a significant difference IF they don't just fill the new bandwidth with more locals and other stuff.

It sounds like Charlie wants all 212 markets, and he'd really like them all from one dish, so getting more bits for existing channels might be a pipe dream after all. Since a merger will do absolutely nothing to physically increase the total bandwidth that can be uplinked to one satellite pair, don't expect that to make one bit of difference. That's Charlie's dirty little secret The only consolidation would be in the transport paths to the uplink centers...the bottleneck in the sky will still be there.

[Mike123abc]

The only way to improve the PQ with dish if they do not get the merger is if they do one of 2 things:

1. Force everyone to Dish500. Right now 119 is simply overloaded because they want to have a single sat option for AT50, AT100, distant markets, PPV, etc. If everyone had dish500 they could split up these packages across both satellites. Dish has more transponders at 110 than they do at 119.

2. Move E7 to 110. This would free up 5 more transponders on 119 and would help quite a bit. The 5 transponders are currently used for spot beams. This would force a few more to DISH 500 if they happened to only use 119 and have the locals there also.

[Mark Holtz]

Slight problem, and someone correct me if I'm wrong...

* 110/119 covers the continential United States
* Hawaii can see 119, and can supposedly see 110, but don't hold me to that. It requires a bigger dish.
* Alaska can see 119 only with a big dish, and can't see 110 at all.
* E*7 is specially configured for the 119 slot because of the spot beams, and can't be moved to 110 without shutting down spot beam coverage. A similar situation exists with E*8.

[Mike123abc]

Actually they changed E8 to use even transponders (2-10) for spots, E7 uses odd transponders (1-9). E8 was changed so it could work with E7 in the same slot. The more national programming on 119, the better for AK and HI. Which is why I think that if the merger goes through, national programming will all move to 119 (yes even directTV people will have to point to 119). E7 will probably move to 110 and work with E8 and E1 to deliver LIL. HI and AK have been very vocal about being left out of DBS (they really complain about DirectTV because they cannot see 101).

[DishAlaska]

Actually most of Alaska can see the 110 slot. I have a 3 satellite system at my store and a 2 satellite system at home. The ploblem is foot print. on E7 I get excellent results with a 1 meter dish. on E5 I was geetting usable results with a 1.2 meter dish E8 looks good on transponders 1-21 but 22 up is pretty spotty and is variable 1 day to the next. I have installed v-sat systems in Fairbanks that are looking at the 91 degree slot so Directtv is in sight just takes too large a dish to compete with Dishnetwork.

Frank
Dish Alaska