compression issues dark colors

[winste]

I'm new here and was searching thorugh some threads about poor blacks and dark colors. Many in the "R15" forum mentioned 24 and the compression of the channel as being the culprit.

I never noticed these issues before replacing one of my receivers with the R15. The installer had to put in a new splitter. Now I have horrible dark colors and blacks on most channels like HBO, Sci-fi, Fox, Spike, basically any channel with dark colors on all three receivers. I have a CRT television so I know itis not the tv.

I don't want to upgrade to a HR20 but will if it solves some of the problems. I'd rather install an amplified splitter. Has anyone else done so? If so, has it helped with the picture quality?

Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

[Earl Bonovich]

Splitter?
Where did he put the splitter... what is the splitter for?

DARK colors are some of the most "penalized" due to compression.
The HR20 does generate a better SD picture then pretty much any SD receiver I have ever owned on DirecTV (and I have had a few).

But we are not talking monumental improvements here.


How do you have the R15 connected?

[winste]

Splitter?
Where did he put the splitter... what is the splitter for?

DARK colors are some of the most "penalized" due to compression.
The HR20 does generate a better SD picture then pretty much any SD receiver I have ever owned on DirecTV (and I have had a few).

But we are not talking monumental improvements here.


How do you have the R15 connected?


Thanks for the reply.

The dish is hooked into a 4 way splitter. (2 inputs, 4 outputs)

2 of those leads are hooked into the R15. The other two are hooked into standard RCA receivers. The coax run into the R15 is about 75 feet so I thought that may be the problem until I noticed the same problems on the other receivers. Then I noticed he changed the wiring and now I suspect it may be a poor quality splitter and that may be compounding the problem. I don't want to run an electical feed out to the splitter if it's not going to help.

I'm still in my 90 day period with the R15 and it has minor issues like not recording the entire program, or not being able to play back the entire program so I think I could talk Dtv into replacing with an HR20, for the extra fee.

I'm sorry if I'm not getting my terms right.

I'm also going to be going to an LCD soon and if the SD programming looks bad now, it's going to look really bad after going to LCD.

[Earl Bonovich]

Okay... that is a multiswitch, and will have no effect on the compression artifacts you are seeing.

SD on DirecTV is going to look worse on an LCD...
Why? the LCD is better technology then your CRT, and it will expose the flaws even more.

How is your box connected to the tV?

As for the Issues... well they are spooling out a beta version right now for the R15 (as I type this)... so hopefully soon, it will go national... and improve your R15 experience (at least for the reliability factors)

[winste]

Okay, so is there anyway to lessen or eliminate the compression artifacts? Being a sci-fi lover, it really shows up. I'm using an s-video from the receiver into the TV. Since this is the best the R15 has to offer, is there any way to get a better picture?

I figure I'm going to have to live with it. I'm not ready to upgrade to HD until Directv comes out with the new channels. I can pick up OTA HD pretty easily so that will take care of the major networks. I would just really like to eliminate the artifacts as much as possible on SD channels.

[veryoldschool]

I've got to wonder what your SAT signal levels are?
This sound more like a low signal level.

[Earl Bonovich]

Switch from S-Video to composite (or RF)... as it will "smooth" the image.

[veryoldschool]

Switch from S-Video to composite (or RF)... as it will "smooth" the image.
I don't have one, but: it's this going backwards?

[Earl Bonovich]

I don't have one, but: it's this going backwards?

Since S-Video sends "more" information to the TV... the TV does less corrections to the incomming video... thus shows all the "bad" images.

The RF connections (and composite), has less information... so that blends/smooths the image a bit.

[veryoldschool]

Since S-Video sends "more" information to the TV... the TV does less corrections to the incomming video... thus shows all the "bad" images.

The RF connections (and composite), has less information... so that blends/smooths the image a bit.
"I see" what you're saying.
When I had my SD receivers, I always used S-Video with the best images, next came composite, & last was RF because of the modulation.
I've always thought the "purer" the signal the better.
The color & luminescence signals are separate with S-Video, combined in composite and modulated in RF. Well that's the old analog story...for video.

[litzdog911]

You can probably improve your LCD TV's video quality a bit with optimal adjustment of its video settings. Buy or rent a video calibration DVD, such as Avia or Digital Video Essentials. You especially want to optimize your sharpness, contrast and brightness settings.

[KCPanther]

I had an R15 installed in November 2006, hooked up to an old Magnavox TV with coax only input. In March we upgraded to a 50" Sony SXRD. I noticed a lot of pixelation on black colors on both TVs, neither one being worse than the other. I too am waiting for DirecTV to add more HD channels before getting the HR20. OTA works well for our locals.