[smackman]

I have noticed in the last few months that my HD pictures are not as sharp and clear as they were.
They are still 100% better than Dish SD.
I would compare most of my Dish HD Channels to the same Quality as my Toshiba HD player when I am upconverting a Standard DVD to 1080i.
My Locals that are in HD look much sharper and clearer than Dish HD.
Whats is happening to the Quality of Dish HD transmissions?
I have read where Directv has a much better HD picture than Dish. This might be true now but 6 months ago I would have to see it to believe it.
I have been with Dish for 8+ years. Directv does not offer my locals even in SD but this is becoming a non-issue. I installed a OTA antenna and I pickup all my locals in HD or digital except ABC. They will go full power Digital by Feb. 2009. The Analog on this station is still clearer than most SD programming dish has.

If someone could explain whats going on with the HD Quality on Dish I would appreciate it.
Is there a "repair" for this picture Quality problem in the near future?

 

[kucharsk]

I can't say for sure, but I suspect it's simply that E* is out of transponder space so they're having to compress the #[email protected]! out of the HD signals to fit them in the transponder space they have.

 

[HDlover]

There might be some more fast motion macroblocking but other than that it looks good to me. Check out Comcast's 3 packing if you want to see bad HD. I'm on the west coast, maybe 129 is better.

 

[smackman]

There might be some more fast motion macroblocking but other than that it looks good to me. Check out Comcast's 3 packing if you want to see bad HD. I'm on the west coast, maybe 129 is better.

It looks "good" but it use to look GREAT. I receive my HD off 129. The picture clarity and Quality has fell off big time in the last 6 months IM0. Hopefully this will change when another "Bird" is in the sky.

 

[AVJohnnie]

Agreed – WFN just doesn’t seem quite as “crisp” as Equator (used to be) … :lol:

 

[Ron Barry]

I personally have not notice any drop in the HD channels I have been watching over the last 6 months.

 

[rustamust]

If anything my PQ has gotten better over the last 6 months and I'm on the 129.
OP maybe your TV has lost some of its punch.

 

[smackman]

If anything my PQ has gotten better over the last 6 months and I'm on the 129.
OP maybe your TV has lost some of its punch.

TV is fine; Professionally calibrated by one of the best in the country 6 months ago.(Craig Rounds).
Excellent picture with OTA HD, HDDVD and SD DVD upconverted to 1080i. PQ of Dish HD is good
Maybe its just me and my older eyes.:lol:
I also receive my HD channels from 129.
For your PQ to be better, you must have fine tuned your Television.

 

[kucharsk]

You've told people all they need to know if you rate Dish HD "good" and upconverted 1080i as "excellent."

Most people have never seen how good these channels can look, which is why they believe what Dish provides looks great to them.

Sadly, I'm as big a sheep as anyone else and will be getting two 722s on Monday (in theory, should the installer show.)

 

[hardcase]

There is only so much band width in which to sqeeze signals on satellite or cable. The more HD that is added, the more compressed the signals get. OTA digital broadcast signals are almost completely uncompressed. The PQ delivered by a free Off-Air antenna is just plain better.

OK, there's lots of programming to pick from on satellite or cable and a less than perfect program in digital or HD is better than non at all. But sometimes, even with hundreds of channels to pick from, I can't find anything worth watching. Thank God for DVRs.

While cable and satellite program providers will continue to serve the great majority of homes as the primary signal source, missing HD local reception, compression issues, higher costs, billing add-ons, service outages, contact difficulties, in-home service waits and no shows have left many of these subscribers looking to OTA antennas as a good, alternative and Off-Air viewers happy with their free programming and HD PQ.

I dropped NFL from D* beacase after charging me for HD and the NFL package, they wanted to charge me extra to receive the NFL in HD. Does that sound as greedy to you as it did to me?. I now watch the NFL locally free on my Off-Air antenna in beautiful HD and get other games and network programs blacked out locally from two other cities within range.

 

[HobbyTalk]

OTA digital broadcast signals are almost completely uncompressed.

That is incorrect. OTA is compressed using MPG2. An uncompressed signal would needs 200+MHz of bandwidth. An ATSC channel has about 19MHz available and most stations use about 9MHz of that for thier HD broadcast. Many also have 2 or 3 SD sub-channels in the remaining 9MHz.

 

[HDlover]

That is incorrect. OTA is compressed using MPG2. An uncompressed signal would needs 200+MHz of bandwidth. An ATSC channel has about 19MHz available and most stations use about 9MHz of that for thier HD broadcast. Many also have 2 or 3 SD sub-channels in the remaining 9MHz.

Actually it is 19Mbs, the mhz is 6- frequency bandwidth.

 

[HDlover]

You've told people all they need to know if you rate Dish HD "good" and upconverted 1080i as "excellent."

Most people have never seen how good these channels can look, which is why they believe what Dish provides looks great to them.

Just compare everything to Blu-Ray. It is a standard we all can use. Everything else is either tolerable or not. Dish HD is much better than simply tolerable (the low end being upconverted DVD IMO). BTW my 622 is already converting everything to 1080i, upconverted SD is definitely not excellent, not even close to the HD.

 

[HobbyTalk]

Actually it is 19Mbs, the mhz is 6- frequency bandwidth.

Doh... yeah.... hehe.... typing before I think. But the concept is the same. OTA is highly compressed.

 

[kucharsk]

You're right, Blu-Ray is the standard, and by comparison OTA HD is usually very good (unless your affiliate is broadcasting subchannels, like NBC "Weather Plus") and, frankly, DISH HD looks as poor compared to BD and OTA HD as DISH's SD channels do compared to the way they look coming off the satellite or on a good cable system.

The problem of course is that it's pretty much either choose horrid HD from DISH, horrid HD from D*, or not-so-horrid and pretty limited selection HD from the local cable company for confiscatory rates.

The biggest problem of course, is us; we long ago told D* and E* that we prefer more channels with horrible picture to fewer channels with great picture and they're just acting accordingly.

"We don't care if everything that moves is already just a big block of moving rectangles, we want Speed HD!"

Of course DISH claims that future satellite capacity will ease the congestion, but I've had DISH just long enough to know that's what they used to say about SD picture quality, too.

I personally am thinking about canceling my upcoming 722 install after watching a 622 at the local Radio Shack yesterday and noticing that DISH HD really doesn't look all that much better than an anamorphic DVD on most channels. (TNT HD was the worst, showing a NASCAR race, USA HD seemed to be "not too bad" but still not great.)

I don't know which DISH HD channels are supposed to be much better than tolerable, but the ones I saw certainly weren't, and HBO HD and SHO HD look much, much worse than what's coming directly off the original C-Band feed.

Personally, I was hoping dropping the Voom channels would have freed up more bandwidth that they'd use to improve PQ; from what I saw yesterday that certainly doesn't appear to be the case.

 

[HobbyTalk]

Comcast in our area has much worse HD PQ then Dish. I understand that it is the same thoughout the Comcast system.

 

[HDlover]

"I personally am thinking about canceling my upcoming 722 install after watching a 622 at the local Radio Shack yesterday and noticing that DISH HD really doesn't look all that much better than an anamorphic DVD on most channels. (TNT HD was the worst, showing a NASCAR race, USA HD seemed to be "not too bad" but still not great.)"

Now we know where the problem is - "watching at Radio Shack".
If you have a 30 day (as I did) or that day "money back", have it installed. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

I can go back and forth between E* and OTA- very little difference. One has to remember the actual resolution of OTA is this- http://archive.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=326565#post326565 Most 1080i is 1440x1080 max from OTA. There may be less macroblocking from OTA if they are not simulcasting.

 

[kucharsk]

The thing is, it's not just resolution alone - though the resolution on DISH's HD channels appears to be worse than OTA's.

It's the macroblocking, which is horrible, and is arguably worse than the same sources seen over D*, and are certainly worse than what the program providers are uplinking.

Or, DISH HD would be fine if things just wouldn't move.

(Or, better yet, if they just stopped adding new HD channels and dropped about half of the ones they have now until they can actually get some new satellites into orbit, though stuffing the number of HD channels per transponder DISH does will never mean good HD quality, MP4 or not.

Only two of my local OTA channels broadcast with subchannels with the rest devoting full bandwidth to the HD signal, and when broadcasting a high quality source can look truly amazing. (The best examples I've seen of late are the Saturday night Disney films on ABC.)

 

[Ron Barry]

I have not tested OTA vs my Dish HD locals, but when I did a while back there is a difference of course but I would not say it was huge. There is a lot of factors going in terms of measuring HD quality and once of them is the HD quality varies from channel to channel and program to program just as it does with DVD to DVD.

I would also expect there to be variances between HD locals across the country just as there are in SD. As for LA locals when I last took a visual test of them about 6 months back I found OTA better ofcourse but the Dish HD locals was definitely acceptable HD quality and it was not night vs. Day. As for D*.. Well don't have D* so Can't compare..

I don't watch a lot of HD on TNT for example and when I have I have to say I was not impressed.

Like I always say. PQ is very subjective and there are a ton of factors that go into it...

 

[kucharsk]

I agree PQ is subjective, but if anyone knows which HD channels are supposed to be the standouts on DISH I'd be curious to know.

One would think HBO and SHO would be the standouts because you have to pay for them, but as I said, they're noticeably degraded compared to what the two providers make available on the original satellite feed.