New to Dish Network

Dish is super compressing at this time. The Echostar8 satellite is way past due in launching (latest delay was technical problems with satellite when tested on the launchpad). It is supposed to go up next week. When it goes up next week it will free up roughly 20% of dishnetwork's transponders (16 national transponders, 5 used by spots, so 11 net gain in transponders, 11 out of 50 transponders on 119 and 110 is just over 20%).

One hopes at this time they will be able to go from 10-12 channels per transponder down to 8-10 for the national feeds and get a much better picture.

DISH broadcasts at 480x480 (with colour subchannels at 240x240 some say...), as opposed to DirecTVs 720x480. In addition, they seem to use more "filtering" (blurring) before compression. The point in this is to reduce necessary compression to fit in the allocated bandwidth, resulting in a blurrier though less artifacted picture. Personally, I like the way DirecTV does it better (more detail, but more artifacts). But many prefer DISH. It's a matter of personal opinion. One thing that can help I'd suggest is to make sure the sharpness control on your TV is down all the way (sure, it sounds crazy. Sure, it will look bad at first because you're not used to it, but the picture will be better. Sharpness is a filter applied by your TV not unlike the sharpen filter in a photo editor. It adds noise to the picture and reduces REAL detail. You will see more real detail in the picture, and it will seem much better if you turn down the sharpness all the way)

Also turn down brightness, the higher it is the more softer your picture will look and the more artifacts you'll see on dark backgrounds.

Turning the sharpness down on the TV also helps mask the "softness" of Dish's picture. It's counter-intuative, but it definitely works!

See ya
Tony

I tried that, made things worse. So I turned up the sharpness all the way. My TV has settings for brightness, contrast and picture. I turned the picture up all the way and brightness down, contrast down. Picture very sharp on Dish now. Does anyone know if Dish is going to improve their picture quality?

Do you have a DVD player ? If so, get you a copy of either Video Essentials or Avia and set your TV up with that.

I find the picture quality varies greatly on E* today. The Portland locals look stunning. And Toon Disney and Fx look very good. But other channels look quite soft.

Does anyone know if one sat location is more crammed with channels than the other. For example, are the 119 transponders carrying more channels than the 110 location, or vise versa?

The television that you have will also make a huge difference in your picture quality.

I just can not tell you how important the Video Essentials DVD is. If you don't have a DVD player, get one just to view this DVD. After an hour with it, you will be amazed how good your set looks and many of the difficulties associated with DBS (not just Dish) will disappear.

Originally posted by mnassour
I just can not tell you how important the Video Essentials DVD is. If you don't have a DVD player, get one just to view this DVD. After an hour with it, you will be amazed how good your set looks and many of the difficulties associated with DBS (not just Dish) will disappear.

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Thanks, I have a Sony DVD player and will get that DVD tonight after I escape work.

Originally posted by mnassour
I just can not tell you how important the Video Essentials DVD is. ...

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I have seen tv setup screens on some DVDs. I think one of them was Planet of the Apes. Could anyone please comment on how different "Video Essentials DVD" is compared to those DVDs.

Mike

Originally posted by Mike123abc
When it goes up next week it will free up roughly 20% of dishnetwork's transponders (16 national transponders, 5 used by spots, so 11 net gain in transponders, 11 out of 50 transponders on 119 and 110 is just over 20%).

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Of course, it won't do that right away (assuming they'll ever be able to launch that thing - 2 launches postponed already). But in any case, it'll take a few months for them to get it to the right position and thorougly test it before they'll turn all the beams on.

Originally posted by Mike Gavasheli


I have seen tv setup screens on some DVDs. I think one of them was Planet of the Apes. Could anyone please comment on how different "Video Essentials DVD" is compared to those DVDs.

Mike

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If you really care about getting the most from your home theater set-up, no matter how great or humble it is, the Video Essentials is a must-own dvd.

The first part is a detailed walk-through for your sound system. It contains generated tones to each speaker and directions on placement for each speaker. The second part is a step-by-step guide for setting black level/contrast/color/tint/sharpness for your set using basic test patterns, plus a section of more detailed test patterns for advanced set-up situations.

I just got a new DVD player w/component outputs and had to rework the settings on my WEGA (my old player only had S-Video). It makes a big difference when you have a reference disc to use when installing new equipment. Friends who see my picture go "oooo" and "ahhh" over how good it looks