# Disappointed W/ SD! Switch Back To DirecTV?



## MediocreMan (Mar 11, 2007)

After reading over the many discussions, I've finally come to the conclusion that no, I'm not insane, but that Dish SD is just plain lousy. Not SD vs HD lousy, or Serious Malfunction Lousy, but just simply a worse picture than you should have as was pointed out by farleyville in his thread and by eddiwill

This is digital quality? I don't think so! And no, I don't think it's the reverse interlacing of some lines, as has been shown by others. I just think that Dish is compressing and degrading the SD picture so much that when I watch it on my big screen (61") it just emphasizes the artifacting even more. BUT I did not have the same lousy SD on the same big screen when I had Directv! Yes, there was plenty of compression and a bit of artifacting, but nothing like this.

I'm extremely frustrated because I did a ton of research (and ended up spending quite a bit of money) and everyone seemed to indicate that Dish was the best route all the way around, but I can't believe that people are willing to suffer with this quality of SD picture, or at least an SD picture that's worse than DirecTV's. Why isn't this topic discussed more? Is it because on most smaller screen TVs, it's not as noticeable? With a picture like this, what incentive does anyone have for staying with Dish? Yes the HD channels look fantastic (though, TNTHD isn't too much better than SD), but we watch a lot of regular channels, which is almost painful to do now.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

MediocreMan said:


> This is digital quality?


Yes, but perhaps you didn't understand what quality they were talking about. Both cable and satellite offer what they call "digital", but the quality that they're excited about is that property of digital that allows them to pack six channels worth of programming in the bandwidth normally required by one.

Some of the better TVs do a better job of displaying SD content than others. Others make them unwatchable. It has nothing to do with what you paid for the TV or what the name brand is. It is all about how good the TV's processing capability is.

Digital TV exists for two reasons:

1. It opens up more bandwidth for the gummint to sell
2. It opens up more bandwidth for the distributors to sell us even more programming.

Digital <> PQ.

As for finding better PQ at D*, you'll find that their PQ is no better. In fact, many suggest that it is generally not as good.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Like harsh said... "digital quality" is an oxymoron.

The best digital image is not as good as the analog reality it was made from. No digital picture of me could look more real than the actual me, or an analog recording of me.

Reality is analog... digital, by design, tries to capture as much of reality as the eye/ear can process but sacrifice some detail based on algorithms of assumption of data that is "superfluous" and can be discarded so that the digital image can be stored in a smaller space and manipulated via computer more easily.

The marketing folks try to equate automatic digital quality, which simply does not exists except when compared to another digital signal. Compared to analog, it would always be less quality.


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## Yo1 (Feb 1, 2007)

I finally did it.I switched to cable.I finally got so fed up with D* that I'm having a cable installer come over this Tuesday.I purchased a Tivo series 3 HD DVR I can't wait.I believe I'll have no problems compared to the HR20-700.I like what everyone is trying to do on here but I'm going to check this out for a little while.I'm getting Time-Warner out of Milwaukee for my service provider.I''ll let you know how it is.


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## pcstuff (Jan 22, 2007)

Good luck with cable! Just remember that most of the time it is the quality of the display and it's processing hardware that determines how good/bad SD looks on an HD display...

I for one have to say I was truly surprised how good SD looks on my 42" Panny. I expected CRT TV quality or just a tad worse, but to me SD looks much better on our HDTV than it ever did on our old CRT-TV. I guess it all depends on wha you were used to.


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## Mr.72 (Feb 2, 2007)

trust me it's worse on DirecTV ... depending on the channel. The RSNs are definitely worse on DirecTV, and SAT locals are worse on DirecTV, and DirecTV's HR20 is a lot more buggy, not to mention flat-out feature impaired.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

You're an optimist  - the PQ of source signal from satellite/cable providers is your enemy for your HDTV set, it is much worst then bring TV guts into the equatuon.



pcstuff said:


> Good luck with cable! Just remember that most of the time it is the quality of the display and it's processing hardware that determines how good/bad SD looks on an HD display...
> 
> I for one have to say I was truly surprised how good SD looks on my 42" Panny. I expected CRT TV quality or just a tad worse, but to me SD looks much better on our HDTV than it ever did on our old CRT-TV. I guess it all depends on wha you were used to.


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## thefunks67 (Feb 4, 2007)

Being a noob to E* who came from DirecTV I was not going to give my opinion on this "Who has better SD, D* or E*" but after using E* for a month I have an opinion.

For the most part E*' SD is a tad better than D*. There are some channels that are worse but overall E* SD looks better on MY 65" Hitachi. So good in fact, that using the expanded 4:3 mode on the Hitachi is a pleasure to watch.

Perhaps swapping my Series 1 Tivo and S-video with a 622 and component was the difference, I don't know. What I do know is the SD on E* is at least as good as D* and perhaps a bit better on the channels I watch with my equipment.

If D* looks better with your AV equipment than go back and enjoy your TV viewing.

-Funk


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## dclaryjr (Mar 11, 2007)

Yo1 said:


> I finally did it.I switched to cable.I finally got so fed up with D* that I'm having a cable installer come over this Tuesday.I purchased a Tivo series 3 HD DVR I can't wait.I believe I'll have no problems compared to the HR20-700.I like what everyone is trying to do on here but I'm going to check this out for a little while.I'm getting Time-Warner out of Milwaukee for my service provider.I''ll let you know how it is.


I know one thing they won't have--NFL Network. That alone would preclude me from going back to Time-Warner. I'm thoroughly enjoying seeing last years games in HD (no CBS or Fox HD here yet).


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## kenglish (Oct 2, 2004)

pcstuff said:


> Good luck with cable! Just remember that most of the time it is the quality of the display and it's processing hardware that determines how good/bad SD looks on an HD display...
> 
> I for one have to say I was truly surprised how good SD looks on my 42" Panny. I expected CRT TV quality or just a tad worse, but to me SD looks much better on our HDTV than it ever did on our old CRT-TV. I guess it all depends on wha you were used to.


Huh? When video engineers need to look at a picture, for QC purposes, we use a CRT. That's as good as it gets. Everything else does massive amounts of manipulation to get a picture up on the screen.

Maybe you meant to say "on our old analog TV".


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## paulman182 (Aug 4, 2006)

kenglish said:


> Huh? When video engineers need to look at a picture, for QC purposes, we use a CRT. That's as good as it gets. Everything else does massive amounts of manipulation to get a picture up on the screen.
> Maybe you meant to say "on our old analog TV".


Since I got my first LCD TV I have become quite allergic to scan lines. Even the best CRTs I can view (not professional, but the HD Sony CRTs) no longer please me.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

paulman182 said:


> Since I got my first LCD TV I have become quite allergic to scan lines. Even the best CRTs I can view (not professional, but the HD Sony CRTs) no longer please me.


I find that the image produced by my RCA HD CRT is much less objectionable up close than the screen door effect (SDE) of all but the highest resolution LCD TV displays. With LCD, you get both horizontal and vertical voids.


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## ssmith10pn (Jul 6, 2005)

Yo1 said:


> I finally did it.I switched to cable.I finally got so fed up with D* that I'm having a cable installer come over this Tuesday.I purchased a Tivo series 3 HD DVR I can't wait.I believe I'll have no problems compared to the HR20-700.I like what everyone is trying to do on here but I'm going to check this out for a little while.I'm getting Time-Warner out of Milwaukee for my service provider.I''ll let you know how it is.


Not even an option here.

Charter Cable has the 4 networks, Discovery, ESPN, HBO, and Cinimax in HD and that's it! No ESPN2, HDNet, Notta!
They seem to have no incentive to improve their product. 
And their only DVR option is the friggin Moxi box. No thanks.

Some areas but not all have Knology which is a little better.
901 WNCF-DT 32 (ABC) 
902 WAKA-DT 8 (CBS) 
903 WSFA-DT 12 (NBC) 
904 APT-DT (PBS) 
905 WCOV-DT 20 (FOX) 
911 ESPN HD 
912 ESPN2 HD 
913 Discovery HD Theater 
915 TNT in HD 
917 Universal HD 
918 HDNet 
919 HDNet Movies 
921 HBO HD 
926 Starz HDTV

They use the SA8300HD


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## MadScientist (Dec 1, 2004)

I have a Sony 70XBR2 (New less then a week) and the SD and HD that I get from Dish is better then what my old set showed and that was a Sony 32" set.


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## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

Yo1 said:


> I finally did it.I switched to cable.I finally got so fed up with D* that I'm having a cable installer come over this Tuesday.I purchased a Tivo series 3 HD DVR I can't wait.I believe I'll have no problems compared to the HR20-700.I like what everyone is trying to do on here but I'm going to check this out for a little while.I'm getting Time-Warner out of Milwaukee for my service provider.I''ll let you know how it is.


IMHO, I'd have to think real hard about purchasing a Tivo S3 for cable usage, especially with TWC. Has Tivo announced if the box will support switch video since TWC is saying they're going to convert their systems to switched video, to regain bandwidth to allow for more HD channels?


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## paja (Oct 23, 2006)

The DISH SD is really good on my new Mits 46231, the HD, stunning!


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## HDTVFanAtic (Jul 23, 2005)

MediocreMan said:


> (and ended up spending quite a bit of money) and everyone seemed to indicate that Dish was the best route all the way around, but I can't believe that people are willing to suffer with this quality of SD picture, or at least an SD picture that's worse than DirecTV's.


Considering that D* transmits SD in a square 480x480 format compared to E* transmitting a 544x480 format, I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.


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## Mike D-CO5 (Mar 12, 2003)

It still think that Dish looks better than Directv in sd and hd picture quality. I would hope that once Dish goes full mpeg 4 in the future that all picture quality would improve on both sd and hd.


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