I am waiting for my new HR20 and have a question about the local channels that DirecTV feeds. I live near Boston & can get everything on an antenna, but I can also get locals from DirecTV. Will they feed me everything I can get OTA? Is the quality the same? (Compressed on satellite vs. OTA) DirecTV insisted that I don't need an antenna installed. (They're coming on 1/16) I'm not sure if they won't do it or if they just don't want to do it. Is there any advantage to receiving HD from an antenna in terms of quantity and / or quality?
OTA vs. DirecTV Locals
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Welcome to the forums! :welcome_sjmr72 said:
D* will not feed everything you get OTA at least now. You will likely miss PBS and all the subchannels.
Mileage as to PQ varies. Initially at least, MPEG4 via satellite was not as good as OTA here. Other have reported they can't tell a difference and others have reported major improvements by the satellite delivered PQ. We know that Directv is also improving their uplink facilities including new software for the MPEG2 to MPEG4 transcoders.
You will also find that a good OTA is rather weather proof. Wet snow on the dish will cause sat. delivery problems that won't happen with OTA.
And lastly, OTA takes more disk space. On some shows, the difference between OTA and sat. HD won't matter, but space might. Sports shows, which also eat up the most bandwidth, tend to expose the PQ problems.
So, now that I've made this clear as molasses in January, I hope you have some information to make a decision.
(Been baking Christmas cookies.)Happy New Year,
Tom
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In chicago I get something like 41 OTA local channels. DirecTV only gives, 2, 5, 7, 9, 32 as local for the chicago market. Do the mathjmr72 said:
As for quality, the Mpeg4 local HD is so close to OTA (at least for me) that it is not a deal breaker at all.
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Thank you. They were all here Christmas morning and it was the best Christmas of my adult life watching them opening gifts and having fun.jheda said:
May God bless us all with that kind of happiness often,
Tom
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Sign me up as one who just can't tell the difference. I'm in Salt Lake City and tried the antenna before the HR20 came out. The antenna directly into my TV tuner, the antenna through the HR20, and the D* locals seem to make no difference.
I'm curious if Tom notices a difference since it looks like he's in the same market.
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When I had my HR20 as my primary receiver on my TV that only has one HD input, I very much could tell the difference from things that had been recorded OTA on my HR10--but that was late October. Since then, having heard Directv has done some major upgrades in their uplink facilities, I'm very curious.ecdc said:Sign me up as one who just can't tell the difference. I'm in Salt Lake City and tried the antenna before the HR20 came out. The antenna directly into my TV tuner, the antenna through the HR20, and the D* locals seem to make no difference.
I'm curious if Tom notices a difference since it looks like he's in the same market.
This coming week, I hope to do some A/B testing on MPEG4, H20 OTA, HR20 OTA, HR10 OTA, DNS HD, my TVs HD, and HD as delivered to my TV via cable. Alas, I won't be able to test the H20 with serious football action until after CES since it hasn't arrived yet.
And, since that time, our local NBC station has stopped broadcasting an SD subchannel that was starving the HD feed, especially during football games. I'd like to see if that has improved on the MPEG4 feed. (Definitely much better on the OTA version.)
Have a Happy New Year,
Tom
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