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Will DirecTV move to H.265?

11K views 148 replies 26 participants last post by  P Smith 
#1 ·
Hope not. I'd hate to give up my HR20-700 w/ built in OTA.
 
#3 ·
mreposter said:
The standard just received first stage approval by the ITC this week. So I think you're safe for now.
Well, I'm *sure* they will move to it at some point since it uses like 30% the bandwidth of H.264. That would allow for less compression, but I think DTV is more interested in adding channels, not reducing compression ratios.

Too bad, the PQ has really gone down since ~2000... but my bill sure hasn't :).
 
#4 ·
SledgeHammer;3171397 said:
Well, I'm *sure* they will move to it at some point since it uses like 30% the bandwidth of H.264. That would allow for less compression, but I think DTV is more interested in adding channels, not reducing compression ratios.

Too bad, the PQ has really gone down since ~2000... but my bill sure hasn't :).
You mean SD quality, right?

You know there is this new thing called HD? :)
 
#5 ·
If and when it does, you replace it with a newer model with an AM21 attached. Works exactly the same as your aging HR20. I still have one HR20, but only one, my other 2 are newer with AM21's...works exactly the same. Just because the HR20 has built-in OTA is no reason to hang onto it today since they have a newer equivalent.
 
#7 ·
tonyd79 said:
You mean SD quality, right?

You know there is this new thing called HD? :)
No, I mean HD quality. HD quality is not all that great due to the high compression ratios.

Have you ever actually looked at the HD picture from not 15' or whatever away? I know you don't sit 2" from the TV, but look at it that close once. Lots of compression artifacts, pixelation, jaggies, gradiation issues, etc. I sit about 12' away from my 50" TV and I can see compression artifacts, etc. quite often. Not my signal. Everything is all 90+.

Do you have OTA hooked up? Do a side by side of a 1080i program from OTA vs. the same channel from DirecTV. You'll see the OTA version is quite a bit sharper.
 
#9 ·
SledgeHammer;3171507 said:
No, I mean HD quality. HD quality is not all that great due to the high compression ratios.

Have you ever actually looked at the HD picture from not 15' or whatever away? I know you don't sit 2" from the TV, but look at it that close once. Lots of compression artifacts, pixelation, jaggies, gradiation issues, etc. I sit about 12' away from my 50" TV and I can see compression artifacts, etc. quite often. Not my signal. Everything is all 90+.

Do you have OTA hooked up? Do a side by side of a 1080i program from OTA vs. the same channel from DirecTV. You'll see the OTA version is quite a bit sharper.
Considering the HD took a large increase in quality with mpeg4, I disagree.
 
#10 ·
dpeters11 said:
But the reality is we're talking a long time, if it happens and requires new hardware. There's a big difference from when they moved HD from MPEG2 to MPEG4. There are a LOT more receivers that would need replaced.
Exactly. A move to H265 would require a swap out of millions of existing HD boxes. The newest generation Directv just introduced might have chipsets that support the new algorithms, but all the others have much older chips.

As dpeters mentioned, this would be a much bigger project than the MPEG2 to 4 switchout from a couple years ago. And even then there were lots of customer complaints and additional costs involved. And, remember, back then there were only a handful of MPEG2 channels. There are over a 100 MPEG4 channels now that would have to be converted.

I believe 50-60% of Directv customers are now HD subscribers, so they have at least one HD box. That's 10-12 million boxes that might have to be swapped out. Will D* roll out H265? Sure, it'll probably happen eventually, but it isn't going to happen very soon.
 
#11 ·
The fact that they are still on MPEG-2 for their standard definition channels should tell you something about future upgrading.
 
#14 ·
SledgeHammer said:
No, I mean HD quality. HD quality is not all that great due to the high compression ratios.

Have you ever actually looked at the HD picture from not 15' or whatever away? I know you don't sit 2" from the TV, but look at it that close once. Lots of compression artifacts, pixelation, jaggies, gradiation issues, etc. I sit about 12' away from my 50" TV and I can see compression artifacts, etc. quite often. Not my signal. Everything is all 90+.

Do you have OTA hooked up? Do a side by side of a 1080i program from OTA vs. the same channel from DirecTV. You'll see the OTA version is quite a bit sharper.
I did until I decided to upgrade to an HR34 and retired my HR20. I had made extensive tests of OTA vs. DIRECTV® and found no difference in acuity, contrast or saturation. (Even though I was expecting OTA to edge out the satellite transmission!)

I sit 8' from a Samsung 58" plasma that's two years old.

What model and age TV have you?
 
#15 ·
Mike Greer said:
Well -that was a switch from bit-starved over-compressed MPEG2 to MPEG4.

You can't get better than the original MPEG2 the broadcasters use regardless of the type of re-processing compression used.
Who can't? :lol: Mike, seriously, you don't think there could be better codecs than MPEG2? Basis?
 
#16 ·
Laxguy said:
Who can't? :lol: Mike, seriously, you don't think there could be better codecs than MPEG2? Basis?
No one can!

I didn't say any codec was better than another. All I mean is that DirecTV cannot make the MPEG2 they receive from the broadcaster any better no matter what they do to it.

It can only go down from there.

The quality of the MPEG4 equipment will/does determine how much worse the re-encoded MPEG4 or MPEGWHATEVER will be - if any. But it won't be better than the original!
 
#17 ·
tonyd79 said:
Considering the HD took a large increase in quality with mpeg4, I disagree.
I dunno, I'm looking at my TV on "mainstream" HD channels, and I see gradiations, pixelation, jaggies, compression artifacts, etc. Its not a bad picture mind you, but its not a good picture either. I shouldn't see that kind of stuff on the mainstream HD channels like USA, CNN, etc. Ok, I'd expect to see it on the obscure channels like Golf and Fishing channels.
 
#18 ·
mreposter said:
Exactly. A move to H265 would require a swap out of millions of existing HD boxes. The newest generation Directv just introduced might have chipsets that support the new algorithms, but all the others have much older chips.
Well, I'd be surprised if current hardware can do H265. You can't really do it in software as it is MUCH more intensive then H264.

mreposter said:
There are over a 100 MPEG4 channels now that would have to be converted.
Thats irrelevant. One channel = 100 channels. Same difference.

With the MPEG2 -> MPEG4, they also switched from Ka -> Ku, so that was the big expense. If they can do H265 on the Ku band, they won't have to swap out anything except the boxes (even the latest boxes don't have the horsepower to do H265 via software only). With the Ka -> Ku switch, they had to launch new satellites, switch out all LNBs, multi-switches, new STBs, etc.

I was thinking about my original question, and honestly, it doesn't really make financial sense for DTV to switch out to H265 any time soon. Not like there are 100's of HD channels that they need to add.

They can add all the locals they want with spot beaming.

They don't care about compression ratios since they keep upping the bills and people keep paying and they aren't getting enough PQ complaints.
 
#19 ·
Laxguy said:
I did until I decided to upgrade to an HR34 and retired my HR20. I had made extensive tests of OTA vs. DIRECTV® and found no difference in acuity, contrast or saturation. (Even though I was expecting OTA to edge out the satellite transmission!)

I sit 8' from a Samsung 58" plasma that's two years old.

What model and age TV have you?
Panasonic 50" 1080p. Probably 5 to 6 yrs old.
 
#20 ·
Mike Greer said:
No one can!

I didn't say any codec was better than another. All I mean is that DirecTV cannot make the MPEG2 they receive from the broadcaster any better no matter what they do to it.
Not true. They compress it further after they get it from the broadcaster. Same way movies are shot in like 8K resolution and then reprocessed to 1080p.

I can't comment on what compression ratio they are using now since I don't know, but I do remember reading somewhere that they compress certain channels more then others. Like sports they compress less then the news or movies, etc.
 
#21 ·
Mike Greer;3171677 said:
No one can!

I didn't say any codec was better than another. All I mean is that DirecTV cannot make the MPEG2 they receive from the broadcaster any better no matter what they do to it.

It can only go down from there.

The quality of the MPEG4 equipment will/does determine how much worse the re-encoded MPEG4 or MPEGWHATEVER will be - if any. But it won't be better than the original!
...you're behind the times. Many networks are using MPEG-4 for distribution and have been for awhile.
 
#22 ·
SledgeHammer said:
I dunno, I'm looking at my TV on "mainstream" HD channels, and I see gradiations, pixelation, jaggies, compression artifacts, etc. Its not a bad picture mind you, but its not a good picture either. I shouldn't see that kind of stuff on the mainstream HD channels like USA, CNN, etc. Ok, I'd expect to see it on the obscure channels like Golf and Fishing channels.
I think you need to have your setup looked at. I sure don't see what you are describing on my two LCD TV sets or when using my home theater projector. Sure I get digital blocks once in a great while due to atmospheric conditions but that is the worst I have.
 
#23 ·
I see some of those same artifacts on BD disks as well...all digitial video is subject to some of those artifacts. I have not seen better broadcast PQ from any provider, I know some say there are a few. And I can see a slight difference between HD locals and OTA locals.
 
#25 ·
SledgeHammer said:
Not true. They compress it further after they get it from the broadcaster. Same way movies are shot in like 8K resolution and then reprocessed to 1080p.

I can't comment on what compression ratio they are using now since I don't know, but I do remember reading somewhere that they compress certain channels more then others. Like sports they compress less then the news or movies, etc.
I think we are talking about two different things... I'm talking about re-processing will always have some kind of loss of quality in this case. MPEG is not a loss-less compression method.
 
#26 ·
Hoosier205 said:
...you're behind the times. Many networks are using MPEG-4 for distribution and have been for awhile.
Well thank you for dragging me up to present day Mr. Friendly.:rolleyes:

Maybe you could enlighten all of us on which locals are creating any non-mpeg2 content on their own?

Some details would help I guess.

So are they now producing their content in MPEG4 and then re-encoding to MPEG2? Or maybe DirecTV has installed local MPEG2-to-MPEG4 encoding equipment at the broadcasters facitily? Last time I checked the broadcasters had to broadcast MPEG2 if they wanted anyone to be able to actually use their broadcasts.

Seems rather unlikely that my local channels are going to cough up the money to pay for MPEG4 that is only useful to DirecTV and Dish Network. But, what do I know - I'm living in the 80's!:lol:
 
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