Low bit rate for HD locals on DirecTV

[ptrubey]

Well, I've watched two weekends of HD golf broadcast on NBC now. On OTA local NBC station (in San Diego), everything looks fine on my HD-Tivo. On my new HR20 recording the MPEG4 compressed DirecTV HD local for NBC, I get lots of compression artifacts on high detail scenes. Medium length shots of the fairway will show one of two regions of horizontal shimming green sections with lots of blocking. In a typical broadcast this might occur every few minutes.

Anyone else notice poor HD MPEG4 local performance versus OTA?

[elaclair]

Well, I've watched two weekends of HD golf broadcast on NBC now. On OTA local NBC station (in San Diego), everything looks fine on my HD-Tivo. On my new HR20 recording the MPEG4 compressed DirecTV HD local for NBC, I get lots of compression artifacts on high detail scenes. Medium length shots of the fairway will show one of two regions of horizontal shimming green sections with lots of blocking. In a typical broadcast this might occur every few minutes.

Anyone else notice poor HD MPEG4 local performance versus OTA?

In this particular case I believe it's the uplink that's the problem. Not to take D* off the hook, but comparing KNSD OTA vs D*'s Mpeg-4, there is a HUGE difference in quality. BUT! Looking at KNBC OTA vs D*'s Mpeg-4 of that channel, there's almost no noticable difference, maybe a few compression artifacts, but nothing like KNSD's.

[ptrubey]

Ah, so is the D* NBC HD local for San Diego the KNBC feed from Los Angeles rather than the San Diego KNSD?

Where do the other D* HD locals in San Diego come from?

[Jim5506]

Err.. they can't import a signal from another DMA, stations would sue.

[elaclair]

Ah, so is the D* NBC HD local for San Diego the KNBC feed from Los Angeles rather than the San Diego KNSD?

Where do the other D* HD locals in San Diego come from?


Sorry, I guess I should have been a little more clear KNSD OTA vs D* MPEG4 KNSD---BIG difference. OTA pretty good, MPEG-4, not so much. KNBC OTA vs D* MPEG4 KNBC ----very little difference. Both the OTA and MPEG-4 are pretty good.

The San Diego HD local feeds come from the San Diego stations.

I have houses in both DMA's so I switch depending on where I'm going to be spending the most time. And I gotta tell ya, our San Diego stations are not doin' so hot. Well, our FOX affiliate is doing great, but that's because they've got Gary Stigall doing their engineering, and they're in Mexico.

[ptrubey]

elaclair - I don't understand what you are saying now. Given that HD KNSD OTA is fine, why the heck does D*'s MPEG4 KNSD suck? I'll go back to my original supposition - it looks like D* is encoding HD KNSD with a low bit rate. How can the "uplink" be the issue - surely D* is grabbing the same high quality OTA HD KNSD signal that we see?