# Dish HD Resolution just 480i?



## mark8arm (Feb 22, 2006)

Hi There,
I've tried doing searches here, but couldn't find any definitive answer to what resolution Dish transmitted HD channels at. So I "chatted" with Dish on their website, and here's part of the transcript:

_Moises:
Thank you for choosing Dish Network, my name is Moises, how may I help you today?

Mark:
Hi, Can you tell me what resolution your HD channels are actually transmitted at?

Moises:
480i_

Is that really correct? Isn't 480i the same as DVD? - doesn't seem very "HD" to me. Does DirecTV do the same thing (or do I need to head over to one of their forums?). Thanks!
-Mark


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## Mikey (Oct 26, 2004)

mark8arm said:


> Hi There,
> I've tried doing searches here, but couldn't find any definitive answer to what resolution Dish transmitted HD channels at. So I "chatted" with Dish on their website, and here's part of the transcript:
> 
> _Moises:
> ...


Hi Mark - :welcome_s

You've discovered what most of us here know, that Dish CS is clueless. The Dish HD channels are broadcast in either 1080i or 720p.


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## ken310 (Feb 25, 2006)

I'm told the hd content is either 720p or 1080i depending on how it's broadcast. 

I wonder if there's a difference between mpeg2 and 4?

looks like we were typing at the same time Mikey.


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## mark8arm (Feb 22, 2006)

Mikey said:


> Hi Mark - :welcome_s
> 
> You've discovered what most of us here know, that Dish CS is clueless. The Dish HD channels are broadcast in either 1080i or 720p.


Maybe 480i is the resolution for their SD channels - does that make more sense?
-Mark


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## tomcrown1 (Jan 16, 2006)

mark8arm said:


> Maybe 480i is the resolution for their SD channels - does that make more sense?
> -Mark


 Dish does upconvert sd to 480I


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## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

SD programming *IS* 480i, HD programming varies by channel and can be either 720p, or 1080i...any decent HDTV should be able to tell you the resolution of the signal it is getting, so its a question easily answered


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## ken310 (Feb 25, 2006)

CCarncross said:


> any decent HDTV should be able to tell you the resolution of the signal it is getting, so its a question easily answered


Where would that be?


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

CCarncross said:


> SD programming *IS* 480i, HD programming varies by channel and can be either 720p, or 1080i...any decent HDTV should be able to tell you the resolution of the signal it is getting, so its a question easily answered


Not exactly... TVs might tell you the signal they are getting from the receiver... but that may or may not be the resolution of the channel!

Since there is no native pass-through option, Dish HD receivers either output 480, 720, or 1080 for all channels on the HD outputs according to your menu setting... so even an SD channel would "appear" to your TV as a 720 or 1080 signal if that is how you configure the receiver to upconvert.

As far as I know there is no way (other than those who have some modified receivers) for the average user to know what Dish is sending down via the satellites.


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## ken310 (Feb 25, 2006)

I was wondering about that since I'd consider my Sony to be a "decent" tv but I don't see anywhere in the menu telling me that info?


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

CCarncross said:


> any decent HDTV should be able to tell you the resolution of the signal it is getting, so its a question easily answered


Unfortunately my HDTV is getting the signal from my E* receiver ... so all it tells me is the OUTPUT of the receiver, not the format that anything is transmitted via satellite.


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## mark8arm (Feb 22, 2006)

CCarncross said:


> SD programming *IS* 480i, HD programming varies by channel and can be either 720p, or 1080i...any decent HDTV should be able to tell you the resolution of the signal it is getting, so its a question easily answered


Easily answered if you have an HDTV and E*. I'm still in research mode though.


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## mitch672 (Feb 28, 2006)

Actually, Dish uses 1080i for very few HD channels, the list is very short..
They use a "hybrid", made up, HD format, many are calling "HD lite", which is 1280 x 1080, 1080i is "supposed" to be 1920 x 1080, 720P is "supposed" to be 1280 x 720, dish is neither, for most of the Voom channels, for example...

See these websites for a detailed discussion:

http://ekb.dbstalk.com/hdchan.htm

http://stophdlite.com/hdlite/hdlite.html

Note 3: from the first link:
The VOOM channels are being broadcast in a reduced resolution "ED+" format of 1280x1080i. One unconfirmed explanation is that there is a temporary bandwidth bottleneck from VOOM to Dish. Another is that Dish is intentionally reducing the quality after seeing that other providers seem to be getting away with doing the same. Whatever the truth may be, Dish has not stated when or if the problem will be fixed while continuing to promote the whole package as HD. Complaints of false advertising may be directed to the FTC at 1-877-382-4357. More details at http://www.stophdlite.com/.

Mitch


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## ken310 (Feb 25, 2006)

mark8arm said:


> Easily answered if you have an HDTV and E*. I'm still in research mode though.


Look at a Sony KD-34XBR960, it's the hdtv cnet and others use as a standard for hdtv's or was up to less then a year ago (lest I step on ?) They use/d it side by side to compare all the hdtv's. It's about a year out now so you can't get it at Sony but use google and you can probably pick on up for 12 to $1,400. Only draw back is it weighs in at 196 lbs so if your planning to move I might not buy one:nono2:


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## Mikey (Oct 26, 2004)

mitch672 said:


> Actually, Dish uses 1080i for very few HD channels, the list is very short..
> They use a "hybrid", made up, HD format, many are calling "HD lite", which is 1280 x 1080, 1080i is "supposed" to be 1920 x 1080, 720P is "supposed" to be 1280 x 720, dish is neither, for most of the Voom channels, for example...
> ...


It's still 1080i or 720p, with the majority at 1080i.


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## mitch672 (Feb 28, 2006)

Mikey said:


> It's still 1080i or 720p, with the majority at 1080i.


Nope Mikey, I have the FULL Voom package on my 622, I had VOOM when they where an independent DBS company. It used to look better... Did you read about HDLite? 1280 X 1024 is NOT 1080i. 1920 x 1080 is 1080i.

Dish simply does not have the bandwidth available to put the HD channels up in their glorius 1080i original format, that is the sad truth.

Mitch


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## ken310 (Feb 25, 2006)

If there's one thing I've learned it's that nothing seems to be pat nor is it standing still. Saying what is today may differ tomorrow and there seems to be few absolutes. Even the techs have different interpretations of the data of the day. It is nice when someone stands in with a definitive answer. 

So mpeg2 Voom is hd lite and the mpeg4 Voom is 1080i or 720p hd ? 
Yet another nail in mpeg2's coffin ?


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## Mikey (Oct 26, 2004)

1280x1080i is HD lite. They save bandwidth by decreasing the horizontal resolution, but it's still interlaced.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

The whole "HD Lite" thing started with a hacker (which is not a derogatory term in this sense since he was not a "pirate" type hacker who steals programming but just a guy who has "peeked under the hood" into how things work). He noticed via his modified equiment that some of the HD streams were not 1920x1080i.

We've been over the issue so many times that it's practially boring. SD channels have consistantly been transmitted via satellite in "less than full resolution" and we don't have cries of "SD Lite". We've even had members post the specs that show 1280x1080i as a VALID HD format for satellite. This isn't some unique hack that E* is doing - they are just following a valid standard for the transmission of HD.

It helps the "HD Lite" crusader's argument that 15 of the 25 national channels on E* are provided by Voom - anything Voom does automatically becomes the majority of E*'s HD. It also helps that crowd that of the 10 remaining channels two are native 720p. The eight remaining channels transmitted in 1920x1080i become a "short list".

Crusaders are hard to make happy anyways. Now excuse me, I have some _SD_ Lite satellite TV to watch.


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## mitch672 (Feb 28, 2006)

James,

Don't get me wrong, the HD channels on Dish are just fine, there just not as good as they could possibly be. They are doing this since most people have 720P sets anyway, and the difference is not that noticable. When 1080i sets become more predominant, it will be more noticable. The OTA HD locals, on the primetime shows are mostly 1080i native, so you might notice the difference comparing one of those OTA channels to a Dish 1280 x 1080 channel.. might being the keyword.

MPEG4 or MPEG2 makes no difference, although the whole idea behind going to MPEG4 is to get more resolution/channels per 45MB transponder. Dish ran tests on 148W a little while ago, and was able to get 2 HD 720P channels and 4 SD channels per transponder, using MPEG4. This is ultimatley the target goal for their conversion of the system to all MPEG4, eventually.

Mitch


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## ken310 (Feb 25, 2006)

James Long said:


> We've been over the issue so many times that it's practially boring.
> Crusaders are hard to make happy anyways. Now excuse me, I have some _SD_ Lite satellite TV to watch.


If it's boring? Why make it more so by chiming in with useless info?


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Even at 1080i it depends a lot on what kind of set one has (ie: tube vs plasma) and how one has that set adjusted (don't turn the sharpeness 100% on).

E* is doing four OTA HDs per transponder in true MPEG4 in most local markets. (There's another argument that has been beaten to death: Is it MPEG4?) That is two 720p and two 1080i or better (depending on what the local stations are using).

E* is certainly doing better at keeping the quality up with "HD Lite" and MPEG4 locals than they have with certain SD networks and SD locals.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

ken310 said:


> If it's boring?


Practially boring. Not fully boring.


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## ken310 (Feb 25, 2006)

More useless info what happened to that sdtv lite?


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## ken310 (Feb 25, 2006)

Some of us are new to this tech and it's anything but boring except at times :nono2:

Want to see a difference use a hdtv that's capable of 720p, 1080i switch from a 942 to a 510 and look at the difference it's amazing.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Fully boring. Hillary Clinton on CNN. Now bedbugs.


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## ken310 (Feb 25, 2006)

James Long said:


> Fully boring. Hillary Clinton on CNN. Now bedbugs.


Hahahahahah Thanks James I needed that:lol:


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

ken310 said:


> I was wondering about that since I'd consider my Sony to be a "decent" tv but I don't see anywhere in the menu telling me that info?


Oh, I forgot to reply to this part of the discussion...

My TV doesn't have a menu anywhere that tells me what kind of signal it is receiving either... so while I can visually tell some channels are better than others and generally it is easy to spot HD vs SD... it is not always easy to spot 1080i vs 720p differences, depending on what kind of movie/sports/whatever is on at the time.

So while I can generally rank channels and programs in order of how they appear to me... I usually have no real proof as to what resolution is being transmitted via the satellite. I just know I have my receiver set to 1080i output so eventually it is all converted to that.


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## ken310 (Feb 25, 2006)

HDMe what receiver are you using? mpeg2 or 4? If 2 do you get Voom and if we got this far can you see the difference in it and a native 720p channel? Which ever the 2 of them are? discovery or ?


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

IIRC the ESPNs are 720p ... also if you are in a HD locals market ABC would be 720p and MPEG4.

It is hard to compare channels when the programming is not similar. You can count blotches and breakups ... you can look for other video errors. But most of the time it is apples and oranges.


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## Jerry 42 (Feb 25, 2003)

The moderates on this and other sites do a great job so I hate to object to their options. BUT 

James just because you think that HD lite is as good as full rezz HD does not make it so. If HD lite is all you want then good for you. However it is not full HD e.g. the full rezz signal that broadcasters (ex Voom currently) are providing to Dish.

I have stated this before - as a producer when my name is on a film I want people to see it at the full rezz they can get, the whole crew works to get the best PQ we can get on the screen. If some one wants to settle for less PQ it is their right. But for people who have equipment to that can process full rezz they should be able to see it at full rezz from Dish

Okay, you can attack me now.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

ken310 said:


> HDMe what receiver are you using? mpeg2 or 4? If 2 do you get Voom and if we got this far can you see the difference in it and a native 720p channel? Which ever the 2 of them are? discovery or ?


I am using my semi-trusty old 6000u, so I get OTA and most HD... but not any of the new MPEG4 stuff.

If I recall correctly, here is how things are supposed to be:

PBS -> 1080i
CBS -> 1080i
ABC -> 720p
NBC -> 1080i
WB -> 1080i
UPN -> 1080i
FOX -> 720p
TNTHD -> 1080i
Discovery -> 1080i
HDNet/HDNet Movies -> 1080i
ESPNHD/ESPN2HD -> 720p
UniHD -> 1080i
Vooms -> 1080i (but some are 1280x1080 instead of the full 1920x1080 last word from the techies who were checking that stuff)

I can't remember what HBO & SHO HD are supposed to be, but I only have those during free previews anyway.

Having said all that... My local UPN is digital but not HD, but I no longer care since the WB & UPN are imploding to form the new CW next year... and I'm sure my WB will become the CW and I'll have HD for it.

It is difficult, as James just posted, to do direct comparisons as there isn't always programming on that you can compare. Many movies look just fine at 720p and 1080i doesn't make *that* much of a difference.

But where I can compare... football on CBS vs ABC/ESPN... I find CBS to be much sharper and with more detail even though the others aren't anything to sneeze at. Similarly NBA games on TNTHD look sharper than ABC/ESPN to me.

Usually HDNet/HDNet Movies look sharper for a given movie than do the Vooms... but it is tough to directly compare since there is rarely a similar enough movie to compare and flip back and forth.

I have the original 10 Voom that Dish added, just not the newest 5 MPEG4 ones. Unless those new ones are substantially different, I expect again that it is hard to compare directly. Not all movies that have been converted to HD are created equally and sometimes that makes you wonder if the channel is really HD... but it could just be a bad transfer of the movie.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Jerry 42 said:


> The moderates on this and other sites do a great job so I hate to object to their options. BUT
> 
> James just because you think that HD lite is as good as full rezz HD does not make it so. If HD lite is all you want then good for you. However it is not full HD e.g. the full rezz signal that broadcasters (ex Voom currently) are providing to Dish.
> 
> ...


I wouldn't attack you... or put words in James mouth... but from previous posts it seems he and I agree somewhat... It is a shame that we currently have less than full 1080i resolution on some channels... but we do still have HD. Not full resolution, but still way more than SD.

SD channels are often not full 480i resolution either... this has become an unfortunate evil of satellite and some cable systems as well. I would rather have the so-called "lite" than not at all... but I certainly want the full resolution.

The last part of your statement doesn't jive though... because if you are a filmmaker then you must know your film will be shown to people on 1080i channels 720p channels and also 480i channels as well as DVD which is 480p at best for the moment... so are you saying that you'd refuse to let anyone see your movie unless they are at a movie theater or watching on a 1080i channel?

If so, then I could applaud your willingness to stand by that... and willing to cut out a big portion of your audience who doesn't have access to equipment to view that full resolution.

Again, I want the full resolution too... I just understand why they are doing some of it, and supposedly some of it is a temporary problem as well... plus it doesn't end my world yet if they don't.

I don't think I've ever seen James say "lite is great"... I just think he hasn't been on the chicken little sky-is-falling rampage that some folks were a while back either. The truth is somewhere in between.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Jerry 42 said:


> James just because you think that HD lite is as good as full rezz HD does not make it so.


I believe PQ should be judged by watching a properly calibrated TV instead of quoting some esoteric number. Even when playing the numbers games E* is doing better than any other DBS provider.

There is the thought of not seeing the forest for the trees. I feel that the "HD Lite" brigade are not seeing the movies for the pixels. Perhaps instead of counting to 2,073,600 30 times a second one should watch the film.


Jerry 42 said:


> I have stated this before - as a producer when my name is on a film I want people to see it at the full rezz they can get,


If I were a film producer I'd be wanting them to see it at the correct frame rate. 1080p/24 please. The reason why there is a 24 frame rate is to match film. It is less data per second uncompressed than 1080i/30 and easier to compress because one has sequential lines. And it is one of the 18 approved ATSC standards all OTA receivers MUST be able to tune. Yet no broadcaster uses 1080p/24. Four frames of your movie being converted into five ... that has to take a toll.

How about having Voom scan movies at 1080p/24 and encode them on the storage server in MPEG4. That would get past the extra frame inserts as well as the current inefficiencies of real-time MPEG4 encoding. 41,472,000 (current 1280x1080i/30) pixels per second becomes 49,766,400 (1920x1080p/24) pixels per second - a 20% increase in pixels that would easily be made up by using non-real time MPEG4 encoding.

(Of course, the receivers would probably still want to insert the 5th frame and output as 1080i/30. Now we are back to native pass through ...)


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## mark8arm (Feb 22, 2006)

It's amazing how discussions just take on a life of their own! I post a simple question, and look at what happens  Not that I'm complaining though - it doesn't take _too_ long to filter the information from the opinions 

So just to add fuel to the fire, here's the question that I should have asked in the first place: I have neither cable, D* nor E* currently (recently moved house). If I were too pick based on overall picture quality (both SD and HD), which should I go with? Actually, cable isn't had a choice right now, but I've had digital cable (SD) in the past, so that's a data point I can compare against (and I wasn't all that impressed - they really ratcheted down the data rate it seemed).

Also (and I think I may regret bringing this up), but isn't all this discussion of HD formats only looking at part of the picture (pun intended)? A broadcaster can adjust the output data rate of an MPEG2/4 encoder to quite a large extent, so a 1080p broadcast at a low bitrate might well look worse than 720p at a high bitrate. It seems to me that the best metric to judge picture quality might be just to compare data rates (as long as the encoding standard ie MPEG2/4 is the same). In the digital TV that I've seen, the encoding artifacts are much more noticeable than the actual broadcast resolution.

OK. I've said it now. Lets see how many pages of reply that generates.

-Mark


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

mark8arm said:


> Also (and I think I may regret bringing this up), but isn't all this discussion of HD formats only looking at part of the picture (pun intended)? A broadcaster can adjust the output data rate of an MPEG2/4 encoder to quite a large extent, so a 1080p broadcast at a low bitrate might well look worse than 720p at a high bitrate. It seems to me that the best metric to judge picture quality might be just to compare data rates (as long as the encoding standard ie MPEG2/4 is the same). In the digital TV that I've seen, the encoding artifacts are much more noticeable than the actual broadcast resolution.
> -Mark


This is very true. Too many people get caught up on discussions over line resolution when the most important factor to PQ, by far, is the compression levels/bitrate.


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## Rogueone (Jan 29, 2004)

HDMe said:


> ...But where I can compare... football on CBS vs ABC/ESPN... I find CBS to be much sharper and with more detail even though the others aren't anything to sneeze at. Similarly NBA games on TNTHD look sharper than ABC/ESPN to me.


I've noticed the same with CBS football. But it dawned on me a few months ago, when I'm watching Fox or ABC, I'm not seeing their native signal. I'm seeing what the 921 is upconverting to 1080i. So it makes me wonder if I'd still think the CBS feed is better if i had a 720p TV and the 1080i had to be downconverted to 720p 

When I look at this HD lite issue, what I see is the 1280 of 720p and the 1080 of 1080i. Seems to me only half the picture gets jerked with. Lets keep in mind almost none of us has a TV which can watch both 720p and 1080i, so Dish transmits based on this fact. And the box doesn't pass thru, so you'd have to constantly change the output if you wanted native resolutions.

So, keeping this in mind, if I receive a 1280x1080i image, and I'm outputing 1080i to my 1080i TV, does the 921/942/622/x11 only have to convert the 1280 up to 1920? The Veritcal line number needs to increase, but the Horizontal is already correct at 1080 lines, so shouldn't that mean it should look better than a 720p image upconverted to 1080i? (assuming bandwidth is the same). Conversely, if I output 720p to a 720p display, wouldn't the 1280 lines simply be transfered directly to my display as a 30p image, and the 1080i Horizontal be converted to a 720 line progressive signal? Again, wouldn't that cause the picture to be a little better, or at least no worse, than if it were originally a 1080i signal?

The only drawback I see with this hybrid is no one gets full res, so if the original were 1080i, I'm getting no worse than a 720p upconvert signal, and if it were 720p originally, i'm getting no worse than a 1080i downconverted image. Or am I completely missing something in the conversion process? In order to send 1280x1080, did not Dish have to downconvert the 1920 to 1280 before sending, which is exactly what the receiver would have done if it were set to 720p output? Am I crazy here?


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## AdamGott (Nov 30, 2005)

If you don't set it yourself on your hd receiver you may end up with 480i though!

The idiot installer that put my 942 in left it on 480i when he installed it. He looked at the picture and said 'wow, that looks really good.' Must be a programmed response....

As soon as he left I switched it to output 1080i and then said 'wow, that looks really good.'


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## DP1 (Sep 16, 2002)

James Long said:


> I believe PQ should be judged by watching a properly calibrated TV instead of quoting some esoteric number. Even when playing the numbers games E* is doing better than any other DBS provider.
> 
> There is the thought of not seeing the forest for the trees. I feel that the "HD Lite" brigade are not seeing the movies for the pixels. Perhaps instead of counting to 2,073,600 30 times a second one should watch the film.


And of course we can say the same thing about the SD channels too right? Why over the years has anybody ever bothered beefing about the PQ on those?

It doesnt matter if they virtually never looked as good as they could have looked.. just watch the damn show!

The providers skimp on the PQ as far as they can. As long as the PQ on the SD channels looked fine to the masses with their 27" sets from 10' away thats good enough. Didnt matter what it looked like on those viewing 40"+ sets.

Same thing is happening now with HD. The providers (some sooner than others) will figure that as long as it looks "good enough" for the masses that will end up with 42-50" WS HDTV's, it wont matter what it looks like on 65" up through 120" FP setups.

Kinda sad really.. especially to those that have been watching HD a long time. But they better get used to it because they wont have the pull to do anything about it. If for no other reason than as the masses continually start buying in, they wont know the difference cause compromised HD still simply looks better than SD.


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## liferules (Aug 14, 2005)

AdamGott said:


> If you don't set it yourself on your hd receiver you may end up with 480i though!
> 
> The idiot installer that put my 942 in left it on 480i when he installed it. He looked at the picture and said 'wow, that looks really good.' Must be a programmed response....
> 
> As soon as he left I switched it to output 1080i and then said 'wow, that looks really good.'


Same thing happened to me. I was pretty disappointed at first with the PQ, but then went into the menu to tweak all the preferences and found the mistake...


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## Jerry 42 (Feb 25, 2003)

I did not mean to hi-jack this thread so I will stop posting.

HD Me - If you read what I posted I said - if people are happy with HD lite (or for that matter SD) I respect their right to watch in that format. I also understand that some people do not think HD is worth the price, that is also their right. What I said was if better signal is available and a distrbution company is getting it then they should pass on that signal not a downgraded version. 

James - I do infact have my sets calibrated every year by ISF tech Greg L. I would love everyone to see my and others work in 1080p etc but again that's not what I said. I just asked that Dish and all other providers re-transmit the best signal they get from their suppliers. If the best signal provided was 480i than 480i is all I would expect. 

I hope everyone was entertained by the films and programs I worked on before retiring (e.g. 2001, Jaws, ST TNG/NS9, Cheers, MacGyver as examples) in theatres or in 480i. For years I watch in perfectly tuned screening rooms so I am very much into PQ. All I asked is that the best signal provided is re-transmitted.

I have taken too much of everyone's time on this, so I say thanks - "over and out"


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

DP1 said:


> And of course we can say the same thing about the SD channels too right? Why over the years has anybody ever bothered beefing about the PQ on those?


They have ... but the complaints were based on actual viewing not on someone telling viewers that PQ was bad based on a number. That's why I mention "SD Lite" ... which has been the standard for DBS since the beginning.

PQ issues on SD are caused by compression. Some channels are overcompressed when E* receives them - others need tweaking from time to time to make sure they have enough bits available for acceptable PQ. But at least the complaints are based on actual viewing.


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## AcuraCL (Dec 12, 2005)

James Long said:


> Practially boring. Not fully boring.


Like "Boring Lite"?


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## Slordak (Dec 17, 2003)

Once again, James stands up for ridiculous Dish policies.

The other month, it was the "We can only supply Universal HD to MPEG-4 customers, oh wait, we lied, we meant we only WANT to supply it to MPEG-4 customers", and now it's the argument that anything over 480i/480p must be "HD" by definition, so it doesn't matter whether Dish sends full 1080i or not? It matters to me, and presumably to others as well.


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## mitch672 (Feb 28, 2006)

HD sets are getting better, bigger and cheaper. 1080I sets are now comming down to the pricing levels of 720P sets of last year.

The "masses" are going to be getting 1080i sets, in the 50" to 61" range.

At that size and resolution, HDLite will be clearly seen, even by the masses. Especially the ones who are using OTA HD, and have watched many of the primetime shows, that are broadcast in 1080i.

Let's hope in the next few years, as MPEG4 is rolled out, that when Dish can they ratchet up the bandwidth/resolution on the HD channels... Or, they might find lots of people cancelling their subscriptions. That would probably not make Charley Ergen non too happy..

Mitch


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## IowaStateFan (Jan 11, 2006)

Slordak said:


> Once again, James stands up for ridiculous Dish policies.
> 
> The other month, it was the "We can only supply Universal HD to MPEG-4 customers, oh wait, we lied, we meant we only WANT to supply it to MPEG-4 customers", and now it's the argument that anything over 480i/480p must be "HD" by definition, so it doesn't matter whether Dish sends full 1080i or not? It matters to me, and presumably to others as well.


I've accused James of being a Dish apologizer before, but I will defend him here. I don't recall anyone ever saying that Dish could only supply UNI HD in MPEG4. From the beginning it was clear that it was a business decision. They will need the bandwidth as locals go online and they had to cut off MPEG2 somewhere. I also don't recall James supporting that decision, just explaining it. As for HD lite, I think the only thing that Dish is transmitting that way is Voom, and it has been suggested that it is a problem with the signal they are getting from Voom. James has never said, "that anything over 480i/480p must be "HD" by definition, so it doesn't matter whether Dish sends full 1080i or not?" Without putting words in his mouth, I believe what he is saying is that people should use their eyeballs to determine if the PQ is acceptable, not just complaining because the numbers are wrong. There have been many posts here about people seeing a difference where none existed (or vice versa) based on somebody posting that the transmission is "HD lite".


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

mitch672 said:


> Dish has not stated when or if the problem will be fixed while continuing to promote the whole package as HD


I'm not sure I want to see the other side of "fixed" by your definition. I'd rather see an image free of compression artifacts than one is technically "correct" but practically unwatchable.

DirecTV took your "high road" and their HD PQ has been deemed inferior by most who have compared them.

Without something decidedly better to compare it to, I'm satisfied with what I have.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

mitch672 said:


> Or, they might find lots of people cancelling their subscriptions.


What medium do you suppose they will turn to for their programming? From what I can gather, Dish's current offering is among the best available.


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## Rogueone (Jan 29, 2004)

nice little resume of programming there Jerry, grats to you!! I'm all with what you are saying, it would be nice to get the full detail even for 480i stuff on my 65" tv. I'm hopeful these lesser pictures are more temporary as we have to admit, we are still all early adopters. HD still hasn't hit the mainstream, and especially in the satellite game, it's not like it's cheap to add more bandwidth  

It's my hope, probably pathetic hope, that birds like E10 will replace older ones, while the channel numbers hold fairly steady, so the bandwidth can be bumped once newer birds up up with more to spare. While I admit that hasn't been the case between cable/sat, with the phone companies jumping in with FiOS products and IP TV coming, I suspect we'll see full bandwidth offerings from these newer options soon, which will force the older ones to catch up or die off. One can only hope if one isn't in the "room" where the decisions are made, huh


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## Rogueone (Jan 29, 2004)

mitch672 said:


> ...The "masses" are going to be getting 1080i sets, in the 50" to 61" range....


gotta disagree here. 1080i sets are already some of the, if not the, cheapest big sets out there. No one wants to buy 1080i sets.

why? um, they are all crt projection sets  Digital diplays such as LCD don't do interlacing, everything they do is progressive. So, I'm thinking you mean to say, "he "masses" are going to be getting 1080p sets, in the 50" to 61" range" which I would agree with. Over the next 3 years 720p will be relegated to the cheapest, entry level sets while 1080p becomes the norm for "better" quality units.

The big problem with 1080p non projection sets is they still aren't the "big" sets yet. But in the 32-45" range, that should be a nice sweet spot for most people interested in HD. And the digital displays are all 1080p, not i


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## robill (May 13, 2005)

James Long said:


> They have ... but the complaints were based on actual viewing not on someone telling viewers that PQ was bad based on a number. That's why I mention "SD Lite" ... which has been the standard for DBS since the beginning.
> 
> PQ issues on SD are caused by compression. Some channels are overcompressed when E* receives them - others need tweaking from time to time to make sure they have enough bits available for acceptable PQ. But at least the complaints are based on actual viewing.


SD is not marketed by bragging about it's picture quality. The entire reason for developing HD was dramatic picture quality.
My HD-lite complaints are based on actual viewing. The affected VOOM channels have definitely lost their WOW factor.


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## mark8arm (Feb 22, 2006)

Anyone care to help me with my main question? (see below).



mark8arm said:


> So just to add fuel to the fire, here's the question that I should have asked in the first place: I have neither cable, D* nor E* currently (recently moved house). If I were too pick based on overall picture quality (both SD and HD), which should I go with? Actually, cable isn't had a choice right now, but I've had digital cable (SD) in the past, so that's a data point I can compare against (and I wasn't all that impressed - they really ratcheted down the data rate it seemed).
> -Mark


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## IowaStateFan (Jan 11, 2006)

robill said:


> SD is not marketed by bragging about it's picture quality.


It's not??? Tell that to E*. I believe their slogan was something like "100% pure digital quality" a long time before they were doing anything in HD.


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## DP1 (Sep 16, 2002)

If this lowering of the resolution on certain channels stays that way for any length of time.. and it's not just the Voom channels but some of the HD Locals that are interlaced (sending out 1440x1080i instead of 1920), I doubt they'll ever go back.

Oh sure one can dream.. more satellites, better usuage of bandwidth yada yada. But as soon as they find more bandwidth they always find something else to do with it besides increase PQ. Deciding to offer SD Locals across the board. Adding every knitting channel known to man, 25 PPV's, international channels, sports packages, etc.

Now with HD it'll be the same thing. Having to add more and more Local HD markets. Then when they're done with that roll out, going back and adding the other 4 or 5 or more HD Local channels on average that are missing from each market at first in the HD Local package. 

All the while having to add all the HD cable channels that launch one by one along the way.. not to mention the ones that are already fired up that they havent even gotten aroung to adding yet. Starz! HD, Cinemax HD, etc.

Then of course HD PPV... more than the 1 token channel. So when they're done with *all* that and more.. if they then have some bandwidth they still dont know what to do with, then maybe.. just maybe they'd look to increase PQ... look to make sure the PQ is the best it can be.

I wont be holding my breath.


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## mitch672 (Feb 28, 2006)

DP1, I think your missing the main point:

Dish's ultimate goal? Send ALL channels as HD, elliminate SD only version of them, and let the STB's do the "scaling" to the customers resolution.

That is their ultimate goal, and, it may take until 2009 or 2010 to reach it, because, they will need all of the STB's in use to be MPEG4 to achieve that goal.

By elliminating duplicated SD/HD channels, and letting the box scale, they will save some of the duplicated bandwidth, even though the HD channels do take more bandwidth than their SD counterparts.

It will happen, it will just take a very long time...

mitch

P.S. Found this interesting Dish HD chart, that has some of the resolutions and some sample bit rates for some of the Dish HD channels: http://www.satelliteguys.us/bfg/dish-hd.htm



DP1 said:


> If this lowering of the resolution on certain channels stays that way for any length of time.. and it's not just the Voom channels but some of the HD Locals that are interlaced (sending out 1440x1080i instead of 1920), I doubt they'll ever go back.
> 
> Oh sure one can dream.. more satellites, better usuage of bandwidth yada yada. But as soon as they find more bandwidth they always find something else to do with it besides increase PQ. Deciding to offer SD Locals across the board. Adding every knitting channel known to man, 25 PPV's, international channels, sports packages, etc.
> 
> ...


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

The way I look at it is if I spend over $2000 on a TV set that was specifically designed to give me a 'looking through a window' experience and then have to shell out a few hundred bucks for an over priced set to box from a satellite TV company I better get it all full rez. No ED, no HD Lite, I want full 1280 x 720 progressive for Fox and Disney and full 1920 x 1080 interlaced on the rest. Anything else is completely unacceptable.

Since Voom is providing them in a lower resolution shame on them. Shame on DirecTV as well for dumbing down the HD channels on their end. Technical aspects aside, I've looked over channel grids a few times and have never seen anything that sounds remotely interesting, just a bunch of oddball content that's in HD. Personally I'd rather have the 2 INHD channels then the 21 Voom channels. At least INHD 2 shows a bunch of iMax content and it's in real HD to boot. 

BTW- 100% Pure Digital Picture quality means nothing. Go download a 320 x 240 AVI and select Full Screen on your media player, that's also 100% Pure Digital Picture Quality.


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## mitch672 (Feb 28, 2006)

Technology moves on, cable companies have fiber, Verizon has FIOS, competition is good, and, to tell you the truth, I lived with OTA HD only since 1996, until 2004 when I got some Dish HD, and, going back to OTA only is certainly an option for everyone. I can live without the Sopranos in HD, although I would miss Discovery HD.

There is always another provider. Dish is not the be all and end all of providers.

I was quiet happy with Voom DBS, for the 6 months I had it.

mitch



harsh said:


> What medium do you suppose they will turn to for their programming? From what I can gather, Dish's current offering is among the best available.


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## DP1 (Sep 16, 2002)

mitch672 said:


> DP1, I think your missing the main point:
> 
> Dish's ultimate goal? Send ALL channels as HD, elliminate SD only version of them, and let the STB's do the "scaling" to the customers resolution.
> 
> ...


I'm not missing any point. My contention is the same thing will happen with HD as happened with SD. If they can shave a little bit on PQ to help their bottom line in other ways, thats what they'll do. And as luck would have it for them it's only hard core people that will whine. And those dont make up a big percentage of their sub base. The same percentage that ranted every other day about the SD PQ and got nowhere.

Having the PQ be the best it could possibly be was never a main priority when there was "no such thing" as HD and wont be a priority in the future either. Especially when D* and cable will be doing the exact same thing (again as they were in the SD only world).

Time will tell.


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## mitch672 (Feb 28, 2006)

DP1,

you know, a very large option for a LOT of people?

How about NO PROVIDER at all.

Yes, that's correct, OTA HD is very viable, travels further than the analog equivilant, and, you either get a perfect picture, or, no picture at all.

Most people can live without the cable channels, I know I can, and did for many years. If you really need to get the some cable channels, you can usually get basic cable for $10-$12 month (without a set top box) in most locations, to get some SD cable, you won't get a lot, but you will get some basics.

Also, the picture quality on SD and HD OTA channels is superb, with CBS surpassing 30Mbps on some HD broadcasts...

So yeah, lots of people might just put up the old rabbit airs, or resurect their old rooftop antenna (UHF only now needed), and be content with a nice, digital picture from no provider. So let dish keep reducing the bandwidth, if it gets to be unaccaptable, you can always live with OTA HD 

When Dish, DirectTV, Cable Systems and FIOS all find they have to compete with free OTA, superb local HD channels, they can choose to increase their bandwidth, to keep their customers, or perish. The free market is very good at making those decisions...

Mitch


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## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

mark8arm said:


> Anyone care to help me with my main question? (see below).


Since all the others yahoos are too busy fluffing their feathers, I'll give it a shot....

Do everything in your power to be able to get your networks OTA with an antenna...

For other channels, cable quality is based on where you live, both in whats offered by your olocal cable provider, and how good the signal is to your house. The only way to answer that question is to visit a neighbor with a nice setup to evaluate cable offerings in your area...

If you want the most national HD feeds, currently its DISH because of the Voom offerings. They seem to be a little better than Direct for PQ as well currently. I think Direct has the edge for local HD markets...they started first so it makes sense...

Another very important consideration here is the equipment, just like buying a car or new audio equipment, go out and use offerings from all if you can...your interface to your programming is the GUI and the remote in your hand, if they dont agree with you, you'll never be happy...too many people overlook this...

The monthly pricing is pretty close for both DBS providers, if others want to quibble over a few bucks a month, they can knock themselves out...if a few bucks a month is gonna make or break the deal, they probably have no business spending their money on tv programming in the 1st place.....

People spending 2,3,4 k+ dollars on HDTV(s), then they complain to high heaven about a couple of dollars a month for programming(say $36 a year or so), pennywise and pound foolish....


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

robill said:


> My HD-lite complaints are based on actual viewing. The affected VOOM channels have definitely lost their WOW factor.


How can they lose what they never had? Only four of the Voom channels have been carried by E* at a higher resolution than they are transmitted today. If any of the rest have lost their WOW it is because of other factors (including repeat programming and more HD choices).

BTW: Voom DBS was not 1920x1080i when they turned of their system. Fortunately E* does transmit several channels in 1920x1080i (which is better than D*).

One can mope around and say the whole world sucks because Voom cannot deliver 1920x1080i channels to E* or one can be happy that it isn't as bad as the doom and gloom gang lead on. Your choice. I am a happy man.


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## mark8arm (Feb 22, 2006)

CCarncross said:


> Since all the others yahoos are too busy fluffing their feathers, I'll give it a shot....


Ta very much


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## normang (Nov 14, 2002)

mitch672 said:


> Also, the picture quality on SD and HD OTA channels is superb, with CBS surpassing 30Mbps on some HD broadcasts.. Mitch


Highly unlikely since the max HD bandwidth for an ATSC channel is 19mbps per channel..


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## mitch672 (Feb 28, 2006)

I have read of some OTA HD stations peaking at higher bandwidth than 19Mbps.

It's also double what dish sends down for most of their "HD Locals", which are pretty much unviewable on my 622, compared to the same via OTA. I am in Boston, BTW, HD locals are on 61.5, in MPEG4 in theory.

OTA HD has, and continues to be superior to anything sent down via SAT. TIFWIW.

Mitch

ATSC Website: http://www.atsc.org/guide_default.html

http://www.satelliteguys.us/bfg/dish-hd.htm

While bitrate is not the end-all of HD quality, you need sufficient bandwidth to get a decent picture.



normang said:


> Highly unlikely since the max HD bandwidth for an ATSC channel is 19mbps per channel..


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## robill (May 13, 2005)

James Long said:


> How can they lose what they never had? Only four of the Voom channels have been carried by E* at a higher resolution than they are transmitted today. If any of the rest have lost their WOW it is because of other factors (including repeat programming and more HD choices).
> 
> One can mope around and say the whole world sucks because Voom cannot deliver 1920x1080i channels to E* or one can be happy that it isn't as bad as the doom and gloom gang lead on. Your choice. I am a happy man.


I fully realize that not all Voom channels have been down-rezzed. That is why I referred to the "affected" Voom channels. I know what I've seen last year and what I'm not seeing now. It doesn't appear that you would care if all the channels were down-rezzed as you can not see the difference. I can and it has nothing to do with "repeat programming or more HD choice". 
As for "the whole world sucks", those are your words. I'm glad you're so happy.


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## normang (Nov 14, 2002)

mitch672 said:


> I have read of some OTA HD stations peaking at higher bandwidth than 19Mbps.


Since the ATSC Standard max is 19mpbs, I seriously doubt anyone is exceeding it. If I had to guess, whoever said its higher is mis-understanding something or relying on some software or hardware that is giving incorrect information.



mitch672 said:


> It's also double what dish sends down for most of their "HD Locals", which are pretty much unviewable on my 622, compared to the same via OTA. OTA HD has, and continues to be superior to anything send down via SAT. TIFWIW. Mitch


I find it hard to beleive that anything in any level of HD is "unviewable", if that were the case, you could never possibly consider watching anything in SD and DVD's must look archiac..

While OTA may have higher rates on some channels, many multicast, providing an SD version of their channel along with their HD channel, so their bitrate based on my reading is usually somewhere around 12-15mbps.

Never ceases to amaze me that the picture quality of some Dish HD channels, depending on its source and original quality, can some how look crappy because the resolution is being reduced so that you can watch it in the first place with complete disregard for the technical limitations of the medium that is delivering it to you.. IMHO any HD channel any day of the week looks better than any SD channel you've ever watched or will watch..


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## normang (Nov 14, 2002)

robill said:


> I fully realize that not all Voom channels have been down-rezzed. That is why I referred to the "affected" Voom channels. I know what I've seen last year and what I'm not seeing now. It doesn't appear that you would care if all the channels were down-rezzed as you can not see the difference. I can and it has nothing to do with "repeat programming or more HD choice".


If I understood what James said, he indicated that most Voom channels have never had any higher resolution than they do now, and some Voom channels have always had higher resolution.. If this is the case, they really can't look any different than they did before.

The bottomline is that there is only so much bandwidth, there are technical limitations to satellite delivery of signals that you cannot just ignore just because you want better resolution.

If giving you and other people that don't want HD-Lite, means less channels, then your paying money for a _slightly_ better picture and less programming.

I think if there was a way to get a scientific poll, and not some forum based poll, I suspect more people given a choice of a little less resolution and more programming, I think more programming would come out ahead.. I could be wrong.. and we'll probably never really know.


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## mitch672 (Feb 28, 2006)

http://www.atsc.org/standards/a_53d.pdf

Broadcast MAX bitrate 19.4Mbps, Cable MAX bitrate 38.8Mbps (8VSB vs 16VSB encoding)

Considering the audio and picture was breaking up badly, the few times I tried watching the SAT HD Locals, I have given up on them. I have no need for them anyway, since the OTA HD locals look superior. Maybe dish improved it in the new firmware, but it doesn't really matter to me at this point.

In Boston, all of the major networks in primetime don't multicast, except for 1 of them that has a weather rader channel (useless). I am not counting the WB or UPN, I don't consider them major networks.

The local PBS station (WGBH Boston), multicasts, but has a a great HD subchannel, where the picture is always amazing.

Maybe I should have said DTV is superior to Dish SD, I pretty much only watch OTA TV and some Dish HD channels, I don't really bother with the SD channels any longer, I find it very annoying to have to go back and watch SD... Firmware L355 on the 622 now has a setting for "HD only", that makes me very happy 

Mitch


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## robill (May 13, 2005)

normang said:


> If I understood what James said, he indicated that most Voom channels have never had any higher resolution than they do now, and some Voom channels have always had higher resolution.. If this is the case, they really can't look any different than they did before.
> 
> The bottomline is that there is only so much bandwidth, there are technical limitations to satellite delivery of signals that you cannot just ignore just because you want better resolution.
> 
> ...


Originally on Dish some of the Vooms had a higher resolution than they do today. So they can and do look different today.
I understand the more programming vs. resolution argument. That comes down to a personal opinion. My choice would be resolution. To me that is what HD is all about.
We could easily have both considering the absolutely insane number of repeats on all of the HD channels. Fewer channels, same programming, just not repeated to death.


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## normang (Nov 14, 2002)

mitch672 said:


> Broadcast MAX bitrate 19.4Mbps, Cable MAX bitrate 38.8Mbps (8VSB vs 16VSB encoding)


Just because cable provides a higher bitrate capability does not mean the channel coming down the pipe exceeds the established standard for a single channel.



mitch672 said:


> Considering the audio and picture was breaking up badly, the few times I tried watching the SAT HD Locals, I have given up on them. I have no need for them anyway, since the OTA HD locals look superior. Maybe dish improved it in the new firmware, but it doesn't really matter to me at this point.


If your having breaks ups on Dish HD locals, it could be any number of issues, if its not occuring on other HD Channels. It could be the feed from your locals itself. Since this is all relatively new, perhaps there are some kinks to work out. However if you are all OTA and that works fine, looks good for you, great..

There are ATSC DVR's out there, I think Sony has one.. Perhaps thats all you really need..


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## robill (May 13, 2005)

James Long said:


> One can mope around and say the whole world sucks because Voom cannot deliver 1920x1080i channels to E* or one can be happy that it isn't as bad as the doom and gloom gang lead on. Your choice. I am a happy man.


Why does a moderator seem so bent on picking a fight on this topic???
It is a matter of fact that resolution has been degraded on some channels to a certain degree. Some people's eyes and/or Tvs can see it, apparently some can't. 
It is personal opinion whether that presents a problem for an individual subscriber.
It seems more like pot-stirring than moderating.....


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

I just checked, according to page 30 of the hidden diagnostic screens, Time Warner's 'SD Lite' is 328 x 480 for regular channels, premium movie channels are 528 x 480 and all HD content is true HD, unlike other the other options.


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## Rogueone (Jan 29, 2004)

mitch, what is this HS only setting your talking about? what's it for/do?


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## rbyers (Jan 15, 2004)

mitch672 said:


> James,
> 
> ... The OTA HD locals, on the primetime shows are mostly 1080i native, so you might notice the difference comparing one of those OTA channels to a Dish 1280 x 1080 channel.. might being the keyword.
> 
> Mitch


How so? ABC and FOX are 720P. CBS and NBC are 1080i. How is this mostly 1080i?

I've read some comparisons of OTA vs Sat and, for the most part, people didn't see much difference. Many said they "thought" satellite was a little softer. When I've compared CBS-HD Sat with CBS-OTA-HD, I couldn't see a difference. I have, as you can see, a 34" HD CRT. I'd think you'd need a much bigger set to see a difference. And then, what is the difference? Is it something in the set, or in the signal?


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## normang (Nov 14, 2002)

robill said:


> Originally on Dish some of the Vooms had a higher resolution than they do today. So they can and do look different today.
> I understand the more programming vs. resolution argument. That comes down to a personal opinion. My choice would be resolution. To me that is what HD is all about.
> We could easily have both considering the absolutely insane number of repeats on all of the HD channels. Fewer channels, same programming, just not repeated to death.


Well, all I can say is I don't know that. I have read where some think that Voom's resolution is lower than before, but with todays equipment, I don't know how anyone could tell for sure, because just watching a picture is very subjective, there could be other reasons that it doesn't look as sharp as one thought it did..

While there is probably a technical means, I would not rely on what some reciever says as a defintive answer to the resolution issue. If someone has proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that something is different, great. However, Its like so much around the forums that gets passed on and on, whether or not its accurate.

I for one am really bored off the HD purist attitude that its all resolution all the time.. because there are so many elements that can effect what you actually see. Many HD sets that have been bought are 720, not 1080, so slews of people don't even have the hardware to see the full resolution even if it were transmitted to them. And in comparison to SD programming that one has watched for years, any level of HD picture puts an SD program to shame..

This reminds me when CD's first came out and vinyl purists were saying that CD's couldn't be as good as vinyl records, which of course was never true for a number of technical reasons..


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## DP1 (Sep 16, 2002)

normang said:


> I for one am really bored off the HD purist attitude that its all resolution all the time.. because there are so many elements that can effect what you actually see. Many HD sets that have been bought are 720, not 1080, so slews of people don't even have the hardware to see the full resolution even if it were transmitted to them. And in comparison to SD programming that one has watched for years, any level of HD picture puts an SD program to shame..


Well to me it just comes down to principle. Either they're going to send out HD material in full resolution (with adequate bit rate) or they're not. Doesnt matter really what percentage of people have displays that can fully resolve it. Or what percentage of people sit so far away from their displays that they couldnt tell the difference anyway.

I just think it's kinda odd that the HD spec when it comes to interlaced signals was written up as 1920x1080i not 1440 or 1280, yet the DBS co's have taken it upon themselves to in some cases use those other resolutions anyway.

I use the word "odd" and not unbelieveable because as I already said, it's a simple matter of fact that they dont have qualms about skimping on PQ on their system when they believe it's in their best interest to do so.

Besides, theres no question that if you polled the masses they'd much rather have 200 channel universes than pristine PQ. If that werent the case we'd have had pristine SD PQ all along and only about 50 total channels in "AEP".


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## mitch672 (Feb 28, 2006)

on the ViP622, when you press the "Guide" button, several times, one of the settings is "HD Only", which only puts the OTA locals and the HD SAT channels in the guide, so you don't need to be distracted from the rest of dish's "High Quality SD" channels, lol

Mitch



Rogueone said:


> mitch, what is this HS only setting your talking about? what's it for/do?


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## mitch672 (Feb 28, 2006)

maybe because I only watch CBS and NBC 

I don't watch FOX, ABC, the WB, or UPN, except rarely.

Also, I have a 50" plasma... The HD locals from Dish are horrendous right now,
they have audio breakup, video pausing, and are unwatchable. Maybe its a problem they are having because they are new, what I am saying is, I DON'T CARE. My OTA HD locals work just fine, don't need them delivered by SAT anyway.

This has nothing to do with the aim of the dish etc, since the Voom HD channels are on the same sat and have no issues.

Mitch



rbyers said:


> How so? ABC and FOX are 720P. CBS and NBC are 1080i. How is this mostly 1080i?
> 
> I've read some comparisons of OTA vs Sat and, for the most part, people didn't see much difference. Many said they "thought" satellite was a little softer. When I've compared CBS-HD Sat with CBS-OTA-HD, I couldn't see a difference. I have, as you can see, a 34" HD CRT. I'd think you'd need a much bigger set to see a difference. And then, what is the difference? Is it something in the set, or in the signal?


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## Rogueone (Jan 29, 2004)

rbyers said:


> How so? ABC and FOX are 720P. CBS and NBC are 1080i. How is this mostly 1080i?
> 
> I've read some comparisons of OTA vs Sat and, for the most part, people didn't see much difference. Many said they "thought" satellite was a little softer. When I've compared CBS-HD Sat with CBS-OTA-HD, I couldn't see a difference. I have, as you can see, a 34" HD CRT. I'd think you'd need a much bigger set to see a difference. And then, what is the difference? Is it something in the set, or in the signal?


you're right rb, for the big 4, it's about even on what's available. I don't know if you counted the hours of HD, which would have the advantage, I'd guess 720p by a little

as to the OTA differences, you are correct, your set is too small to notice the differences unless you know specifically what to look for and where, and get close enough. Those like me with a 65" projection unit will see the imperfections much easier. Simply put, the same image, same number of pixels on your TV have to be on my tv and my tv is 4 times the size of yours (twice as wide, twice as tall) so the pixels either have to be 4 times the size or 4 times further apart on the screen, or some combination of the two. So the bigger the display the farther away one needs to be so the ratio of viewing distance and pixel seperation stay the same.

now, the compressed, or reduced HD images mentioned all over, those would manifest as less than sharp on a TV like mine. For example, watch an SD program on a 20" TV then on your 34" TV. Doesn't the 20" TV have the "sharper" or clearer picture? it's smaller and it's much harder to see the imperfections. Now, take the same image and put it on my 65" TV, yuck. SD looks terrible no matter what, and I just have to live with that so I can get the great HD I do get.

But I will throw out to you, and everyone, that I've often wondered what HBO and Showtime do, because even this HD lite people like to call it is going to be better than DVDp, and when I watch most programs on HBO and Show HD, it sure has the look of DVD upscaled to 1080. there is no way the stuff HBO is broadcasting was recorded in 1080, it's not sharp enough, or there's no way it's being sent to me as 1080. But TNTHD looks crisper, and Discovery, wow, no way to compare the others to Discovery. OTA is much the same. I don't watch a lot of movies via OTA, but when I have, I havent' felt like I was seeing a 1080i or 720p print of the movie. It still seems like it's an upscaled dvd.

thing is, this might be me misunderstanding how film looks in HD  Maybe what I'm perceiving as less crisp is the by product of 24fps shooting on film stock. I just know that for some programming HD just doesn't "look" like HD, but I haven't a clue what I'm really receiving at those times to know if it's a bad compression, upscaled original, or how it's suppose to look


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## normang (Nov 14, 2002)

DP1 said:


> Well to me it just comes down to principle. Either they're going to send out HD material in full resolution (with adequate bit rate) or they're not. Doesnt matter really what percentage of people have displays that can fully resolve it. Or what percentage of people sit so far away from their displays that they couldnt tell the difference anyway.
> 
> I just think it's kinda odd that the HD spec when it comes to interlaced signals was written up as 1920x1080i not 1440 or 1280, yet the DBS co's have taken it upon themselves to in some cases use those other resolutions anyway.
> 
> ...


What principle? If it were your company, you would provide optimal PQ all the time on every channel, and that's great, and in the mean time, your competition would be providing perhaps dozen's of other channels you can't because you don't have the bandwidth needed to provide it unless you make some PQ sacrifices or you spend millions or billions that you cannot afford and would have to be passed on to PQ loving customers that eventually would have to decide, its not worth having pristine PQ, because they cannot afford it.

This means that eventually, you would be 'out of business", forcing all your PQ loving customers to where Voom customers are today... where is the principle in that?


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## DP1 (Sep 16, 2002)

normang said:


> What principle? If it were your company, you would provide optimal PQ all the time on every channel, and that's great, and in the mean time, your competition would be providing perhaps dozen's of other channels you can't because you don't have the bandwidth needed to provide it unless you make some PQ sacrifices or you spend millions or billions that you cannot afford and would have to be passed on to PQ loving customers that eventually would have to decide, its not worth having pristine PQ, because they cannot afford it.
> 
> This means that eventually, you would be 'out of business", forcing all your PQ loving customers to where Voom customers are today... where is the principle in that?


I never said what I would do if I owned a company. I'm just talking about what is being done. HD is a certain standard and they're claiming that their channels are HD when they dont all meet that standard.. simple as that.

If some people wanna believe, from CEO's down to paying subs, that anything above say 480p is close enough to HD simply because it's so much better than say 480i, so be it.

Maybe the HD standard should have just been 1280x1080i and 1024x576p or some such to begin with. Course even if it would have been, they'd have just shaved down from those numbers instead I imagine.


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## DP1 (Sep 16, 2002)

Rogueone said:


> But I will throw out to you, and everyone, that I've often wondered what HBO and Showtime do, because even this HD lite people like to call it is going to be better than DVDp, and when I watch most programs on HBO and Show HD, it sure has the look of DVD upscaled to 1080. there is no way the stuff HBO is broadcasting was recorded in 1080, it's not sharp enough, or there's no way it's being sent to me as 1080. But TNTHD looks crisper, and Discovery, wow, no way to compare the others to Discovery. OTA is much the same. I don't watch a lot of movies via OTA, but when I have, I havent' felt like I was seeing a 1080i or 720p print of the movie. It still seems like it's an upscaled dvd.
> 
> thing is, this might be me misunderstanding how film looks in HD  Maybe what I'm perceiving as less crisp is the by product of 24fps shooting on film stock. I just know that for some programming HD just doesn't "look" like HD, but I haven't a clue what I'm really receiving at those times to know if it's a bad compression, upscaled original, or how it's suppose to look


Well ya theres no question that theres a big diff between film based and video based HD content. For any number of reasons.

I've always been quite sure that if it were up to film based content to carry the load for people to upgrade to the wonders of HD, HD would have never gotten out of the chute. Partly because when it comes to movies theres been middle ground for quite some time.. the wonders of great anamorphic DVD tranfers.

But when it comes to the usual video based fare like football games and nature programming, there isnt much middle ground. It's either crappy looking over compressed/snowy 4x3 480i or 16x9 1080i/720p. World of difference in those 2 choices.


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## normang (Nov 14, 2002)

DP1 said:


> I never said what I would do if I owned a company. I'm just talking about what is being done. HD is a certain standard and they're claiming that their channels are HD when they dont all meet that standard.. simple as that.
> 
> If some people wanna believe, from CEO's down to paying subs, that anything above say 480p is close enough to HD simply because it's so much better than say 480i, so be it.
> 
> Maybe the HD standard should have just been 1280x1080i and 1024x576p or some such to begin with. Course even if it would have been, they'd have just shaved down from those numbers instead I imagine.


Based on how I read your posts, if it were up to you optimal PQ is all you care about, irregardless of the actual business conditions it would take to do that, to perpetuate the discussion of how much bitrate an HD picture should have or needs without considering the business realities is just plain foolish.

You can complain about it all you want, but if you cannot deliver what customers really want and pristine PQ is second in line to programming content, then what are you going to do? Tell them, your getting great PQ, fooey on the rest of those channels??

I don't think anything HD is coming down anywhere near 480P and I think its merely rhetoric by those trying to make some sort of point. The HD "standard" covers alot of ground.. You leave out 720P for some reason, that not good enough either, its 1080 for you or nothing?


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## olgeezer (Dec 5, 2003)

Remember that most television shows are film based. The reason for film not looking good is caused by many things. If the film transfer to video was dirty film the picture doesn't look as good as most of the DVDs in our memory or library. Film is still several times the equivalent resolution as DVD


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## DP1 (Sep 16, 2002)

normang said:


> Based on how I read your posts, if it were up to you optimal PQ is all you care about, irregardless of the actual business conditions it would take to do that, to perpetuate the discussion of how much bitrate an HD picture should have or needs without considering the business realities is just plain foolish.


No more foolish than it is to suggest that someday they'll decide to make PQ a top priority.. which is the whole reason I even started discussing it here. Because some people have this hope that someday they'll completely change their previous 10 year business model once they get "more bandwidth".

I'm sorry if you wanted to automatically include me as some HD PQ zealot based on what I've said. I'm not one. I've had HD in my home 6 years now and been discussing this stuff just as long. I've never once typed the term HD Lite for example. Hell one of the reasons I re-subbed with E* was to check out some of the Voom channels even though I knew they were crippled (regardless of the reasons why). If I were a true zealot you couldnt have paid me to give a crap about those channels the way they're currently being sent out, right?

I'll say it a 3rd time. My only contention is that they never made PQ itself a priority in the SD world and they never will in the HD world.. for all the reasons you mention and then some.

And while I'm not ready to jump off a bridge over that notion, maybe I just happen to think it's a shame more than some other people do.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

DP1 said:


> Maybe the HD standard should have just been 1280x1080i and 1024x576p or some such to begin with. Course even if it would have been, they'd have just shaved down from those numbers instead I imagine.


ATSC Direct-to-Home Satellite Broadcast Standard A-81.
http://www.atsc.org/standards/a81.html

On page 17 there is a chart of compression formats that includes 1280x1080i/30 .


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## olgeezer (Dec 5, 2003)

James Long said:


> ATSC Direct-to-Home Satellite Broadcast Standard A-81.
> http://www.atsc.org/standards/a81.html
> 
> On page 17 there is a chart of compression formats that includes 1280x1080i/30 .


Yes, but that is a complaint of many users, it is NOT a part of the original 18 Digital formats or the 6 HD formats. 1280x1080 does not equal 16X9 aspect. It is also about 700k pixels short of 1920x1280 pixels. The HD lite formats, I believe were approved in 2003. We call them lites, I'm sure the providers think they're great. It's ironic at the time of the addition of the lites, it was done for the manufacturers, not the sat/cablecasters convenience.


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## olgeezer (Dec 5, 2003)

This is from ATSC's website:
"SMPTE 274M (1998): Standard for Television—1920  1080 Scanning and Analog and Parallel Digital Interfaces for Multiple Picture Rates, Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, White Plains, N.Y.

SMPTE 293M (1996): Standard for Television—720  483 Active Line at 59.94-Hz Progressive Scan Production, Digital Representation, Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, White Plains, N.Y.

SMPTE 296M (2001): Standard for Television—1280  720 Progressive Image Sample Structure, Analog and Digital Representation and Analog Interface, Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, White Plains, N.Y." 

The original idea of the manufacturers was 1920x1080 period
This is what happens when you ask for gubment help.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

olgeezer said:


> Yes, but that is a complaint of many users, it is NOT a part of the original 18 Digital formats or the 6 HD formats.


Satellite is not restricted in any way to the "18 formats". The FCC requires OTA broacasters to use one (or more) of the magic 18 formats and requires tuners to be able to tune all 18 formats (even if they cannot pass or display all 18 in full resolution those 18 must be tunable) but those restrictions ONLY apply to OTA transmissions and receivers.


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## olgeezer (Dec 5, 2003)

I believe the display requirement was that the display must be able to accept and display all 18 formats. In some cases this meant digital conversion. The only requirement for displays (in 1998) was that to be called High Definition they had to display either 1920x1080 or 1280x720 in 16X9 aspect. For a broadcaster to call a signal HD had the same requirements. These have changed.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

olgeezer said:


> The only requirement for displays (in 1998) was that to be called High Definition they had to display either 1920x1080 or 1280x720 in 16X9 aspect.


A HDTV display is 810i in 16:9 viewable area or 540p in 16:9 viewable area.


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## olgeezer (Dec 5, 2003)

James Long said:


> A HDTV display is 810i in 16:9 viewable area or 540p in 16:9 viewable area.


Where didi 810i and 540p come from? Something new too me. Doesn't that equate too 1440x810 and 960x540?
Or do those formats use octagonal pixels? Maybe trapezoidal?


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## olgeezer (Dec 5, 2003)

Now I remember. RCA complained in 1999 about some of the 4X3 sets not displaying a full 1080i resolution. For 1 year Sony called these high 'resolution' sets. Again a change was offered as a Minimum resolution of a set to be called HDTV (the 810 and 540). I'm not aware of any current sets that are at those minimums. While the HD lite was added in 2003, this minimum did not change what the full HDTV signal was to be, which is 1920X1080 or 1280x720 progressive. What displays are "HDlite" Many front projection TVs and plasma displays are basically 4:3 image devices that are 1024X768 (the shape of a 4:3 display). In plasma it is difficult to make pixels below a certain size and many are 1024x768. There are also several LCD 4:3 computer displays that are XGA. When a consumer calls a display or a signal "HD lite" they are not referring to the current standard, they are referring to full blown honest to god 1920X1080 and 1280X720, as the original standards were set. When the president of Voom gets on a sat-caster program and says we broadcast a full 1920X1080, that is what he means. I am not trying to denigrate either sat-caster or cable companies. I'm trying to enlighten them. I've had HD for a little over 2 years. I've been involved with HD for close to 10 years. An amazing transformation has occurred in the last 2 years of my viewing experience. Between 1995 and 2004 95% of my prime time/weekend viewing were satellite channels. Today over 50% of my prime time/weekend viewing (with 23 HD satellite channels) is OTA uncompressed 1920x1080i HDTV broadcast channels. To me, that is compelling.


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## spykedvodka (Jan 31, 2006)

Well I have a question then...

When I watch a movie on the voom channels sometimes the quality is ok. Not great, but ok, but overall better then SD. 

What about the Promos for Voom on the Voom channels? They look awesome have have to be true HD and not "HD Lite".

Is that the case or am I seeing things?


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## ken310 (Feb 25, 2006)

spykedvodka said:


> Well I have a question then...
> 
> When I watch a movie on the voom channels sometimes the quality is ok. Not great, but ok, but overall better then SD.
> 
> ...


I just had Voom mpeg2 turned on today and some of the content looks Lite! sucks!


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Something to keep in mind... on the Voom movie channels, they are often showing old movies. Not all old movies have been preserved properly and they don't always do the scan & convert process the best they possibly can... so your mileage will vary on the picture definition/quality.

The graphics in between movies on Voom and their in-house produced stuff tend to more accurately reflect the resolution they are transmitting.


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## DP1 (Sep 16, 2002)

spykedvodka said:


> Well I have a question then...
> 
> When I watch a movie on the voom channels sometimes the quality is ok. Not great, but ok, but overall better then SD.
> 
> ...


Well here again in addition to what HDMe said, you're comparing film based content vs video based content (presuming those poromos you're talkin about are like sports/nature material primarily as opposed to alot of other movie clips).

Whether you're talking full throttle HD or what Voom currently is, either way, as long as the resolution is being transmitted the same for both types of content.. video and film.. video based content will always tend to give a person more of that wow factor than film based stuff will.


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## dsanbo (Nov 25, 2005)

HDMe said:


> Something to keep in mind... on the Voom movie channels, they are often showing old movies. Not all old movies have been preserved properly and they don't always do the scan & convert process the best they possibly can... so your mileage will vary on the picture definition/quality.
> 
> The graphics in between movies on Voom and their in-house produced stuff tend to more accurately reflect the resolution they are transmitting.


Agreed.....I watched "Madman" on MonstersHD last (Wed.) night....you could see all kinds of scratches/blemishes on the frames...not a good clean-up job at all, but then...we're also not talking Academy Award presentations here, either....
OTOH...I HAVE seen some very good transfers here...It all boils down to "GIGO"....


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## Larry Caldwell (Apr 4, 2005)

mark8arm said:


> Also (and I think I may regret bringing this up), but isn't all this discussion of HD formats only looking at part of the picture (pun intended)? A broadcaster can adjust the output data rate of an MPEG2/4 encoder to quite a large extent, so a 1080p broadcast at a low bitrate might well look worse than 720p at a high bitrate. It seems to me that the best metric to judge picture quality might be just to compare data rates (as long as the encoding standard ie MPEG2/4 is the same). In the digital TV that I've seen, the encoding artifacts are much more noticeable than the actual broadcast resolution.
> 
> OK. I've said it now. Lets see how many pages of reply that generates.
> 
> -Mark


My front projector is only 1280 x 720p, but I keep my Dish receiver set at 1080i output. That gives a perceptibly better picture with both SD and HD programming. What you actually see not only depends on how the broadcaster handles the signal, but also on how you handle the signal on your end.


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## Larry Caldwell (Apr 4, 2005)

olgeezer said:


> Where didi 810i and 540p come from? Something new too me. Doesn't that equate too 1440x810 and 960x540?
> Or do those formats use octagonal pixels? Maybe trapezoidal?


I think the European PAL broadcast standard is 540i, so 540p would come from that the same way 480p came from the American SD broadcast 480i.

810 = 540 + (540/2)


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## airpolgas (Aug 13, 2002)

I hope we did not scare away mark8arm.

Go with Dish, mark8arm, and add on an OTA on top of that... and then watch Ghost Whisperer in "their" HD glory.


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