# FEATURE REQUEST: Dish should SCRAP the current HD/SD system



## djtowle (Feb 2, 2004)

Gui interfaces for computer systems have been out for what 20 years. Dish should scrape the entire HD/SD system that is now in place. !pu****! The average user will NOT ever want to figure it out. :crying: 

What the 921 should do: 

1. Output SD (and any other options that work) on the s-vid, composite, RF if available on the reciever (don't remember if this is on the 921). Output the HD on the DVI/Progressive. All outputs should be active, this will avoid the "why don't I have a picture? problem. It will also allow one to record a program to tape or a DVDr without recableing.:balloons:

2. The FORMAT issue. Very simple solution: press an INFO button, top of screen shows the current channel, what format and ratio the show is being broadcast in Audio format being recieved, and what is being sent to each output on the reciver (and which output is active, though I think they all should be at all times, if not it should be selectable here). Then a set of previews, all on one screen, each showing full frame, unmolested video that is being broadcast, with grey rectangles matting each frame down to show what you will see depending on the display mode you select. grey bars, stretch, stretch zoom (badlly needed) etc. This gives NO guessing as to what your options are, very visual for the home user, and NO trips to a setup menu. There would be a different screen depending on your TV setup 16:9 or 4:3. The way you do it currently you have to switch between modes and Guess at what is being cutoff. And as some stations are broadcasting letterbox in a 4:3 ratio the permutations become daunting. a simple preview screen would solve this for me. :jump3: 

3. kind of an aside to this I would like to see some options or adjustments for the upscaling (or whatever you call it) that the reciever does to get SD on a HD TV. I think my sony tv does a crisper job, though the FUZZY image the 921 puts out seems better on some of the low-res (ie high compression) channels dish puts out.

Discrete remote codes should be available for all of this as well.

my 2 cents worth of gripes.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

1. Not possible - the hardware will not support both SD and HD inputs active, unless in safe mode which will only output 480p via component while outputting 480i via svideo/composite/RF.

2. Interesting idea, although I suspect that once the formatting is fixed (hopefully next release) it won't really be necessary because people won't be switching back and forth between 16x9, and the 4x3 options.

3. What kind of adjustments do you want to see?


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## djtowle (Feb 2, 2004)

2. Interesting idea, although I suspect that once the formatting is fixed (hopefully next release) it won't really be necessary because people won't be switching back and forth between 16x9, and the 4x3 options.[/QUOTE].

Why wouldn't they? There are more and more formats being broadcast everyday. including 16x9 in a 4x3 box. various letterboxed movies etc. Currently you have to scroll through them and never really sure what is being broadcast. Seeing what format the show is broadcast in an un-molested image would be a big help. This would be a lot easier to show the non-techie types in the house: push the info screen, there's whats broadcast in all the little boxes, the grey box shows you what you will see on screen. Select the best one. EASY The screen should also show what the reciever is outputing SD.HD 720p etc. and be selectable. (another difficulty I have with it currently, the reciever makes SO much noise I have it in another room, can't see the HD/SD indicators. ) having this onscreen would definatly help.

3. What kind of adjustments do you want to see?[/QUOTE].

I don't know what they are called but my Sony seems to have several different selections for modualting (don't know if this is the right word) the edges of of the picture. It would seem the 921 is providing a pretty heavy "gaussian blur?" to the edges of SD video it is upping to the DH outputs. I would just like to see some options there for the method used, I'm sure there are several methods of calculating this out there.

4. I would also like to see some gui interface improvements throughout the whole system. What is there now is very menu based, and to me outdated. But if any come to mind I'll be sure to post. One might be the "all tuners in use screen?" might actualy display what the two tuners are showing rather then just the titles. The whole recording, menu thing could have a whole lot more features. A folder system, a way for different people in the house to record different shows and have them grouped, seperate timer listings from the recored show listings, different colors for tv show, movie, HD show, etc. , ways to hide and Pswd protect certain shows in the menu. An easy way to resolve old timers that are no longer record the correct shows do to a moved or canceled showtime. I'm sure there are a lot more good ideas out there for this.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> ...
> 
> 2. Interesting idea, although I suspect that once the formatting is fixed (hopefully next release) it won't really be necessary because people won't be switching back and forth between 16x9, and the 4x3 options.


Beg to differ - I for one will still be sharing the 921 between multiple monitors - the big-screen in the living room, and the computer's 2nd monitor in the office. Someone in another thread said something like "just pay $5 for a second receiver". Sorry, too inconvienent - I've got dozens of hours in the 921 waiting to be watched - I want to watch what I've got, in the room I am in at the moment. 

At the present time, I've got to click the remote a few times. No big deal. Could be easier. Now, I switch to "SD 4:3 normal" if I'm in the office, "HD 16:9 gray bar" if I'm in the theatre. Guess I'll spring for a programmable remote if it doesn't get easier before I get calluses on my remote finger. :hurah:  :lol:


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## tm22721 (Nov 8, 2002)

What are the issues in automating the selection of aspect ratio and resolution.?


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## alipka (Dec 11, 2003)

I have to disagree with Mark about his statement that people won't be switching between 16x9 and 4x3 options. Anyone with an outboard scaler that is better than the 921's scaler will want to use that scaler to scale 4x3. I will also continue to switch between SD 4:3 normal and HD 16:9.

Also, if the scaler in the 921 is better than in the TV, but if the stretch modes of the TV are preferred to those of the 921, this also poses switching scenarios.

What we really need is discrete codes for the various resolutions, AND for the various aspect ratios. Ideally we would have a discrete code for each possible combination, but this would mean 12 codes. I will settle for 7 (1080i, 720p, 480p, 480i, 16x9, 4x3#1, 4x3#2).


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

I don't think you guys are understanding what I'm saying.

Once the display mode on the 921 is fixed, you won't ever have to switch out of 16x9 if you have a 16x9 television, regardless if you are watching 4x3 SD, 4x3 upconverted SD, or 16x9 HD. You may indeed want to switch between HD and SD settings to let your scaler upconvert the SD signals better than the 921 does, but you should NEVER need to switch from 16x9 to 4x3#1 or 4x3#1 when 16x9 is working correctly.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

Man oh man, we sure seem to be beating this topic to death on thread after thread! 

I sure hope they can find a nice way to resolve the issue.

I think simpleSimon made a point that he has multiple monitors hooked up to his TV, I do as well. The 16x9 issue may be solved in that you always treat NTSC signals, ie. S-Video, composite, and RF as 4x3 displays. I'm pretty sure that this solves most issues, but there still might be an edge case for someone where they would want to be able to choose the aspect ratio for both HD and SD signals....


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## djtowle (Feb 2, 2004)

I think things may have drifted off the reason for my suggestion.

Whether watching on a 16x9 screen OR a 4x3 screen is irrelevant. Currently there are 4 viewing modes available, I think, stretch,zoom, normal, grey bars. (how about adding a wide zoom like on the sony's) Depending on what is being broadcast, 4:3, 16:9, 16:9 letterboxed into 4:3, panavision letterboxed to 16:9 OR 4:3. there are a lot of permutations and seemingly more everyday. I would like to see an easy to view VISUAL representation of these four modes overlaid onto what is being broadcast on a particular channel at a particular point in time. Then I can easily pic the crop mode that fits the broadcast best for me. Unless you are saying the 921 is going to pic it for me, then I would say it is not always going to get it right.

m


Mark Lamutt said:


> I don't think you guys are understanding what I'm saying.
> 
> Once the display mode on the 921 is fixed, you won't ever have to switch out of 16x9 if you have a 16x9 television, regardless if you are watching 4x3 SD, 4x3 upconverted SD, or 16x9 HD. You may indeed want to switch between HD and SD settings to let your scaler upconvert the SD signals better than the 921 does, but you should NEVER need to switch from 16x9 to 4x3#1 or 4x3#1 when 16x9 is working correctly.


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## Jim Parker (Aug 12, 2003)

dj

"Then a set of previews, all on one screen, each showing full frame, unmolested video that is being broadcast, with grey rectangles matting each frame down to show what you will see depending on the display mode you select"

I see a potential problem. My TV has 6 aspect ratios, so what I see is also affected by the TV setting. There is no way for the 921 to know what my TV or some other TV is going to do to the image.

If one assumes that the TV is set to match the 921 output, i.e. both set to 16x9 or 4x3, then the preview images are right. But if the 921 is set to 16x9 and the TV is at 4x3, then the preview does not match what the TV will show. The preview screen itself will be out of wack in this case.

I like your idea, so I hope it could be worked out.


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## jcd4878 (Feb 26, 2004)

jsanders said:


> I think simpleSimon made a point that he has multiple monitors hooked up to his TV, I do as well. The 16x9 issue may be solved in that you always treat NTSC signals, ie. S-Video, composite, and RF as 4x3 displays. I'm pretty sure that this solves most issues, but there still might be an edge case for someone where they would want to be able to choose the aspect ratio for both HD and SD signals....


Nope, I require both 4x3 and 16x9 aspect ratios out of my S-Video output because its hooked up to a DVD-Recorder and I want to be able to record anamorphic 480i DVD's from downscaled 16x9 material. I currently do this by setting 480i/16:9/Normal mode and to record SD material I use 480i/4x3#2/Stretch mode. (Why the hell do I have to choose Stretch mode, should be normal mode!)

It's alot of freakin button presses to do this. Also, the 921 is not properly setting the widescreen signalling bit. When outputing 480i/16:9/Normal, the WS bit flag should be set so that my DVD player (hooked up to a 4:3 TV in the bedroom) can auto veritcal squeeze the anamorphic image down to have blackbars. As it is now, some of my older DVD players that do not have a "Force letterbox mode" button doesn't know the image is 16:9 and leaves the video vertically stretched. This is because the WS bit flag was not set by the 921's 480i output! Any 16:9 mode going out the SD outputs needs to set the WS signalling bit for this to work right.

-Jerry


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## lex61564 (Feb 10, 2004)

I always leave my unit on 16x9 1080. It always formats correctly, program content always switches automatically between SD and HD. I never have to lift a finger.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

jcd4878 said:


> It's alot of freakin button presses to do this. Also, the 921 is not properly setting the widescreen signalling bit. When outputing 480i/16:9/Normal, the WS bit flag should be set so that my DVD player (hooked up to a 4:3 TV in the bedroom) can auto veritcal squeeze the anamorphic image down to have blackbars. As it is now, some of my older DVD players that do not have a "Force letterbox mode" button doesn't know the image is 16:9 and leaves the video vertically stretched. This is because the WS bit flag was not set by the 921's 480i output! Any 16:9 mode going out the SD outputs needs to set the WS signalling bit for this to work right.
> 
> -Jerry


I hadn't thought of someone wanting to record anamorphic widescreen in 480i, but it does make sense to do it, although I think it could do a better job for that purpose. Good Idea. I think I recall Mark mentioning this capability once before, not sure.. Anyway, this wide screen flag you are talking about, it doesn't sound like something that would be part of an NTSC standard. Could you elaborate on what you mean by this?

Widescreen DVDs do anamorphic projection, but then to view it, you need to set the DVD player to 16x9, and then tell you TV to stretch the image. Where is the wide screen flag here? The player has a setting to do an anamorphic projection, but it doesn't tell the TV to do the stretch, you have to do that yourself. Maybe I don't get what you mean....


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