# Lower quality watching via whole home setup?



## Sir Topham Hatt (Nov 8, 2010)

I had DirecTV installed last week, and I have a few questions for you fine folks.

Here is my setup – HR24 upstairs and H24 downstairs connected via the whole-home DVR service. I also have their Internet connection kit connected to my router. The HR 24 is upstairs where we do the majority of our general TV watching (37”LCD) and the H24 is in the home theater (54” plasma). I went back and forth on where the DVR should be - because even though we watch more TV upstairs, I don’t watch any live TV at all in the theater room. More on this in a moment.

The install went quite well – aside from the installer telling me I don’t need to hook up my rooftop antenna – because “antennas don’t work anymore.” But that can be an aside for a different day.

I have a couple questions that I can think of now, maybe more will come later...
My first question is about the quality I should be expecting from watching a recording on the H24 (via the whole home service). In short – the picture quality of the Packer/Cowboy game last night was nowhere near as sharp as it was when viewing from the HR24 directly. I would equate it to watching a show on Hulu as opposed to a OTA HD signal. I was even able to an a/b comparison directly as I have a 50’ HDMI cable running from the HR24 upstairs to the 54” plasma downstairs as well as having the H24 connected via HDMI to the 54” plasma. Picture quality wasn’t even close when watching the recording through the H24. Should this be the case?
Along this same line, the speed of the 30 second skip and fast forward functions were much slower when viewing the recording through the H24 as opposed to the HR24. Is this to be expected?

My other main question is centered on the remotes themselves. I may need to do a little more playing with this, but it seems that either remote will control either box. Is this normal? I have an old remote extender still plugged in, and when I was messing with the TV downstairs my wife yelled down and asked why I was changing the channels upstairs.

Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.


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## bigjoelee (Aug 19, 2008)

I haven't noticed much of a difference watching off the primary DVR vs whole home. If I am being finicky I could tell a difference, but not laying back on the couch. Also I would say that if your show was recorded using an AM21 OTA then that may be the issue. If it was using MPEG-2 HQ then then the whole home doesn't have near the bandwidth to send the signal to the other receiver and has to compress it. If DTV chose a bad algorithm for this or the way your OTA was broadcast-ed was in a bit diff format than "normal" OTA stations do that could be the issue.
Joseph


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## Sir Topham Hatt (Nov 8, 2010)

Sorry. Hulu vs. OTA was a bad example. I was just using that example in terms of general picture quality. Nothing was recorded OTA. I get most of my locals (including NBC) through DirecTV.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Within component tolerances, the PQ should be identical. Any differences are likely related to the performance and or calibration of the display itself.


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## futurerebeldr (Jun 8, 2010)

Do you notice this when you are watching programs recorded off of the mainstream D* channels (i.e. TBS/ESPN/USA)? I have 2 HR24's and 1 H24 and don't notice any degradation in picture quality when watching something recorded on either DVR on the H24.

"You can run a test by pressing the front panel guide and right arrow buttons simultaneously (it can be tricky but I usually hold the right arrow down with one finger and then press the guide button). Select "coax network status". The first screen will show each device and the physical levels, which should all be less than 60.

If you select "Phy Rate Mesh" you will get another screen with a matrix of numbers. All of these should be greater than 215."


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## CuriousMark (May 21, 2008)

Sir Topham Hatt said:


> Along this same line, the speed of the 30 second skip and fast forward functions were much slower when viewing the recording through the H24 as opposed to the HR24. Is this to be expected?


I have a similar setup and see the same delay at the start of any trick play operation when viewing on the H24. I believe this is due to the latency of sending the trick play commands back to the HR24 which is streaming the content to the H24. Once you get past that initial delay the fast forward and skip speeds themselves seem to be comparable.

On your other questions, I didn't A/B but the PQ seemed the same to me from either device. With the remotes, there are ways to set them up so that one remote will be able to control multiple DVRs without interfering with each other, I suggest you do that setup and see if it helps.


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## dhickman (Apr 23, 2010)

To speed up the 30second skip, turn of the preview mode.

This will require that you enable test and advanced features. Check out the cutting edge information section FAQ for more info. 

Note - You do not have do download a test firmware in order to enable the the skip function.


I found that this makes the MRV quite nice.


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## hilmar2k (Mar 18, 2007)

dhickman said:


> To speed up the 30second skip, turn of the preview mode.
> 
> This will require that you enable test and advanced features. Check out the cutting edge information section FAQ for more info.
> 
> ...


Preview mode? You mean going from slip to skip?


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## WestDC (Feb 9, 2008)

Suggest you go to each Receiver and Go to menu-System setup-info & Test-Run the system test from each receiver MRV and post the results.


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## Sir Topham Hatt (Nov 8, 2010)

Thanks for all the responses thus far.

I won't have much time to look into it tonight - hopefully tomorrow. I will let you know what I find. 

I'm relieved a few of you have said you don't see a difference between the HDDVR and standard HD box. That is what I was expecting when I signed up.

I feel confident ruling out the display itself since I can easily A/B between a couple HDMI ports on the display. 1 being from the HR24, and 2 being from the H24. 1 looks good, 2 looks bad. Actually my wife even said something about it when she walked down - before I even mentioned anything. If that's not proof of a problem, I don't know what is.


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## dhickman (Apr 23, 2010)

hilmar2k said:


> Preview mode? You mean going from slip to skip?


Yep. That is what I mean.

Slip can be painfully slow at times over mrv, especially since I came from Dish.


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## RobertE (Jun 10, 2006)

*sigh*

Running any of the Coax, Phy rate, or general tests won't tell you or us anything.

Now that we are past that, let me ask the obvious.

How is the H24 connected to your display?
Have you tried swapping the inputs on your display between the H24 & the HR24.
What resolutions do you have selected on the H24? Are they the same as the HR24?
Are you using any of the distortion screen formatting such as stretch or crop on the H24?


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## hilmar2k (Mar 18, 2007)

How about this for a test:

1. Record a show on the DVR
2. Watch that show immediately (while it's recording) on the non-DVR
3. Switch to live (same show) on non-DVR and compare quality.

No need for any fancy multi HDMI cable tests.


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## JosephB (Nov 14, 2005)

MRV is just sending the same bits it recorded to the other receiver. The receivers aren't powerful enough to transcode. Given the same program on the same receiver on the same TV, whether it's watched live or streamed from a remote DVR, it should look the same.


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## jdspencer (Nov 8, 2003)

Sir Topham Hatt said:


> ...
> I feel confident ruling out the display itself since I can easily A/B between a couple HDMI ports on the display. 1 being from the HR24, and 2 being from the H24. 1 looks good, 2 looks bad. Actually my wife even said something about it when she walked down - before I even mentioned anything. If that's not proof of a problem, I don't know what is.


Note that on most new TVs, each input can have different calibration settings. To do a proper A/B comparison, make sure both inputs have the same settings. Especially, brightness, contrast, sharpness and on LCD TVS the backlight setting.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Sir Topham Hatt said:


> [...] My first question is about the quality I should be expecting from watching a recording on the H24 (via the whole home service). In short - the picture quality of the Packer/Cowboy game last night was nowhere near as sharp as it was when viewing from the HR24 directly. I would equate it to watching a show on Hulu as opposed to a OTA HD signal. I was even able to an a/b comparison directly as I have a 50' HDMI cable running from the HR24 upstairs to the 54" plasma downstairs as well as having the H24 connected via HDMI to the 54" plasma. Picture quality wasn't even close when watching the recording through the H24. Should this be the case?[...]


It's the same digital source data whether viewed locally or via MRV. It's possible there's a _subtle_ difference in default brightness and contrast on the HR24 vs. the H24, but it wouldn't explain what you're seeing, based on my experience. *Harsh *is correct when he notes:


> Within component tolerances, the PQ should be identical. Any differences are likely related to the performance and or calibration of the display itself.


Since you're also seeing a difference on the same display, but via different inputs, then *jdspencer's *advice is also right on, IMO:


> Note that on most new TVs, each input can have different calibration settings. To do a proper A/B comparison, make sure both inputs have the same settings. Especially, brightness, contrast, sharpness and on LCD TVS the backlight setting.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

dhickman said:


> Yep. That is what I mean.
> 
> Slip can be painfully slow at times over mrv, especially since I came from Dish.


30skip can be enabled out of the box on any HR2x. The 30skip keyword works on it's own.


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## hilmar2k (Mar 18, 2007)

jdspencer said:


> Note that on most new TVs, each input can have different calibration settings. To do a proper A/B comparison, make sure both inputs have the same settings. Especially, brightness, contrast, sharpness and on LCD TVS the backlight setting.


None of that is necessary to do the test (assuming you feel it is necessary). Just follow the procedure laid out in post #13.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

hilmar2k said:


> None of that is necessary to do the test (assuming you feel it is necessary). Just follow the procedure laid out in post #13.


Missed that post, but that'll work too, and eliminate the 50' HDMI run as a potential difference, tho I don't think the long run would affect picture quality. If it was an issue, it would probably manifest as picture "breakups".


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## hilmar2k (Mar 18, 2007)

Steve said:


> Missed that post, but that'll work too, and eliminate the 50' HDMI run as a potential difference, tho I don't think the long run would effect picture quality. If it was an issue, it would probably manifest as picture "breakups".


What it truly eliminates is any difference in input calibrations. It really is the best way to compare MRV PQ to local PQ (though I am not one who thinks there is, or even could be, a difference).


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

hilmar2k said:


> What it truly eliminates is any difference in input calibrations.


Exactly.



> It really is the best way to compare MRV PQ to local PQ (though I am not one who thinks there is, or even could be, a difference).


Only time I saw a difference is when I swapped my HR20 to an HR24. There was a subtle difference in brightness and contrast that I was able to easily tweak away by bumping those settings on my Panny plasma up or down a point or two.


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## Doug Brott (Jul 12, 2006)

If there are drastic differences in the picture quality between local and remote systems, something else is wrong. When I use MRV, it looks pretty much the same as if I were sitting in front of the DVR that recorded it.

There is some slight sluggishness with Trick Play functions (starting, skipping, etc.) via MRV but it can be measured in milliseconds. It's not something that should be a detriment to usability.


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## Sir Topham Hatt (Nov 8, 2010)

Thanks for all the replies. I'm glad to know picture quality shouldn't suffer via MRV. I didn't think it should, but I thought I would ask for sure. I should have some time tonight to troubleshoot what the problem is. Hopefully I will post back later tonight with what I find.


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## Richierich (Jan 10, 2008)

Doug Brott said:


> When I use MRV, it looks pretty much the same as if I were sitting in front of the DVR that recorded it.


I can't tell it it is a Local DVR Recording or from another DVR.


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## CuriousMark (May 21, 2008)

Doug Brott said:


> There is some slight sluggishness with Trick Play functions (starting, skipping, etc.) via MRV but it can be measured in milliseconds. It's not something that should be a detriment to usability.


About 700 milliseconds is my best estimate, I can press FF three times before the delay expires. I agree it is not really detrimental.


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## Sir Topham Hatt (Nov 8, 2010)

I just figured it out. Not sure I understand why this was happening, but here is the deal...

It wasn't just a problem while watching a recording, any HD show on the H24 was not as sharp as the same show on the HR24 - this was confirmed with an A/B comparison between two HDMI inputs on my Panny 54" plasma. I was using the NFL Network to look at the text at the bottom of the screen. TV settings were identical. Outut resolutions were identical on both boxes - only 1080i and 1080p were checked. This is where I think it gets odd...

The output resolution on the front panel of the H24 showed 480i, even though a double check in the menu confirmed only that 1080i and 1080p were checked. I had already turned "Native" to off.

I pressed the resolution button on the front panel of the H24 a few times for it the light to move over to 1080i and now every thing looks great. The H24 picture now looks identical to the HR24, as it should. "Native" is still off in the menu.

Any thoughts as to why the H24 stayed on 480i even though it wasn't checked in the menu?


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## RobertE (Jun 10, 2006)

Sir Topham Hatt said:


> I just figured it out. Not sure I understand why this was happening, but here is the deal...
> 
> It wasn't just a problem while watching a recording, any HD show on the H24 was not as sharp as the same show on the HR24 - this was confirmed with an A/B comparison between two HDMI inputs on my Panny 54" plasma. I was using the NFL Network to look at the text at the bottom of the screen. TV settings were identical. Outut resolutions were identical on both boxes - only 1080i and 1080p were checked. This is where I think it gets odd...
> 
> ...


If the box was never changed from it's default of 480i, regardless of whats checked, it will stay in 480i until changed.


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## Sir Topham Hatt (Nov 8, 2010)

RobertE said:


> If the box was never changed from it's default of 480i, regardless of whats checked, it will stay in 480i until changed.


Oh, ok. Is that something the installer should have done? He must have done it on the HR24 as I have never touched the front panel on that one. (It says 1080i)


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Sir Topham Hatt said:


> Oh, ok. Is that something the installer should have done? He must have done it on the HR24 as I have never touched the front panel on that one. (It says 1080i)


The HR's used to prompt you to hit the FORMAT button, when you're connected HDMI and watching HD at 480i/p. Maybe the H24 doesn't? :scratchin Anyone know for sure?


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## Garry (Jul 4, 2006)

Steve said:


> The HR's used to prompt you to hit the FORMAT button, when you're connected HDMI and watching HD at 480i/p. Maybe the H24 doesn't? :scratchin Anyone know for sure?


I noticed that when I recently set up my HR24 that Directv sent me, it also stayed on 480, but I changed the setting and now it does switch.


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

I have two HR series boxes connected to the same TV through the same 5x1 hdmi switch (Monoprice). I can't see any difference whatever playing MRV of a show either way, i.e., watching the original recording or via mrv with either the HR20-700 as the server or HR21-100 as the server, or vice versa. 

The TV is a 60" Samsung LED/LCD so if there were significant differences, I think they would show up.


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