# Dish HD picture Quality



## smackman (Sep 19, 2006)

I have noticed in the last few months that my HD pictures are not as sharp and clear as they were. 
They are still 100% better than Dish SD.
*I would compare most of my Dish HD Channels to the same Quality as my Toshiba HD player when I am upconverting a Standard DVD to 1080i.*
*My Locals that are in HD look much sharper and clearer than Dish HD.* 
Whats is happening to the Quality of Dish HD transmissions?
I have read where Directv has a much better HD picture than Dish. This might be true now but 6 months ago I would have to see it to believe it.
I have been with Dish for 8+ years. Directv does not offer my locals even in SD but this is becoming a non-issue. I installed a OTA antenna and I pickup all my locals in HD or digital except ABC. They will go full power Digital by Feb. 2009. The Analog on this station is still clearer than most SD programming dish has.

If someone could explain whats going on with the HD Quality on Dish I would appreciate it.
Is there a "repair" for this picture Quality problem in the near future?


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

I can't say for sure, but I suspect it's simply that E* is out of transponder space so they're having to compress the #[email protected]! out of the HD signals to fit them in the transponder space they have.


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## HDlover (Jul 28, 2006)

There might be some more fast motion macroblocking but other than that it looks good to me. Check out Comcast's 3 packing if you want to see bad HD. I'm on the west coast, maybe 129 is better.


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## smackman (Sep 19, 2006)

HDlover said:


> There might be some more fast motion macroblocking but other than that it looks good to me. Check out Comcast's 3 packing if you want to see bad HD. I'm on the west coast, maybe 129 is better.


It looks "good" but it use to look GREAT. I receive my HD off 129. The picture clarity and Quality has fell off big time in the last 6 months IM0. Hopefully this will change when another "Bird" is in the sky.


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## AVJohnnie (Jul 27, 2004)

Agreed – WFN just doesn’t seem quite as “crisp” as Equator (used to be) … :lol:


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

I personally have not notice any drop in the HD channels I have been watching over the last 6 months.


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## rustamust (Feb 22, 2006)

If anything my PQ has gotten better over the last 6 months and I'm on the 129.
OP maybe your TV has lost some of its punch.


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## smackman (Sep 19, 2006)

rustamust said:


> If anything my PQ has gotten better over the last 6 months and I'm on the 129.
> OP maybe your TV has lost some of its punch.


TV is fine; Professionally calibrated by one of the best in the country 6 months ago.(Craig Rounds).
Excellent picture with OTA HD, HDDVD and SD DVD upconverted to 1080i. PQ of Dish HD is good
Maybe its just me and my older eyes.:lol: 
I also receive my HD channels from 129. 
For your PQ to be better, you must have fine tuned your Television.


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

You've told people all they need to know if you rate Dish HD "good" and upconverted 1080i as "excellent."

Most people have never seen how good these channels *can* look, which is why they believe what Dish provides looks great to them.

Sadly, I'm as big a sheep as anyone else and will be getting two 722s on Monday (in _theory_, should the installer show.)


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## hardcase (May 11, 2006)

There is only so much band width in which to sqeeze signals on satellite or cable. The more HD that is added, the more compressed the signals get. OTA digital broadcast signals are almost completely uncompressed. The PQ delivered by a free Off-Air antenna is just plain better.

OK, there's lots of programming to pick from on satellite or cable and a less than perfect program in digital or HD is better than non at all. But sometimes, even with hundreds of channels to pick from, I can't find anything worth watching. Thank God for DVRs.

While cable and satellite program providers will continue to serve the great majority of homes as the primary signal source, missing HD local reception, compression issues, higher costs, billing add-ons, service outages, contact difficulties, in-home service waits and no shows have left many of these subscribers looking to OTA antennas as a good, alternative and Off-Air viewers happy with their free programming and HD PQ.

I dropped NFL from D* beacase after charging me for HD and the NFL package, they wanted to charge me extra to receive the NFL in HD. Does that sound as greedy to you as it did to me?. I now watch the NFL locally free on my Off-Air antenna in beautiful HD and get other games and network programs blacked out locally from two other cities within range.


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## HobbyTalk (Jul 14, 2007)

hardcase said:


> OTA digital broadcast signals are almost completely uncompressed.


That is incorrect. OTA is compressed using MPG2. An uncompressed signal would needs 200+MHz of bandwidth. An ATSC channel has about 19MHz available and most stations use about 9MHz of that for thier HD broadcast. Many also have 2 or 3 SD sub-channels in the remaining 9MHz.


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## HDlover (Jul 28, 2006)

HobbyTalk said:


> That is incorrect. OTA is compressed using MPG2. An uncompressed signal would needs 200+MHz of bandwidth. An ATSC channel has about 19MHz available and most stations use about 9MHz of that for thier HD broadcast. Many also have 2 or 3 SD sub-channels in the remaining 9MHz.


Actually it is 19Mbs, the mhz is 6- frequency bandwidth.


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## HDlover (Jul 28, 2006)

kucharsk said:


> You've told people all they need to know if you rate Dish HD "good" and upconverted 1080i as "excellent."
> 
> Most people have never seen how good these channels *can* look, which is why they believe what Dish provides looks great to them.
> 
> Just compare everything to Blu-Ray. It is a standard we all can use. Everything else is either tolerable or not. Dish HD is much better than simply tolerable (the low end being upconverted DVD IMO). BTW my 622 is already converting everything to 1080i, upconverted SD is definitely not excellent, not even close to the HD.


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## HobbyTalk (Jul 14, 2007)

HDlover said:


> Actually it is 19Mbs, the mhz is 6- frequency bandwidth.


Doh... yeah.... hehe.... typing before I think. But the concept is the same. OTA is highly compressed.


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

You're right, Blu-Ray is the standard, and by comparison OTA HD is usually very good (unless your affiliate is broadcasting subchannels, like NBC "Weather Plus") and, frankly, DISH HD looks as poor compared to BD and OTA HD as DISH's SD channels do compared to the way they look coming off the satellite or on a good cable system.

The problem of course is that it's pretty much either choose horrid HD from DISH, horrid HD from D*, or not-so-horrid and pretty limited selection HD from the local cable company for confiscatory rates.

The biggest problem of course, is *us*; we long ago told D* and E* that we prefer more channels with horrible picture to fewer channels with great picture and they're just acting accordingly.

"We don't care if everything that moves is already just a big block of moving rectangles, we want Speed HD!"

Of course DISH claims that future satellite capacity will ease the congestion, but I've had DISH just long enough to know that's what they used to say about SD picture quality, too. 

I personally am thinking about canceling my upcoming 722 install after watching a 622 at the local Radio Shack yesterday and noticing that DISH HD really doesn't look all that much better than an anamorphic DVD on most channels. (TNT HD was the worst, showing a NASCAR race, USA HD seemed to be "not too bad" but still not great.)

I don't know which DISH HD channels are supposed to be much better than tolerable, but the ones I saw certainly weren't, and HBO HD and SHO HD look much, much worse than what's coming directly off the original C-Band feed. 

Personally, I was hoping dropping the Voom channels would have freed up more bandwidth that they'd use to improve PQ; from what I saw yesterday that certainly doesn't appear to be the case.


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## HobbyTalk (Jul 14, 2007)

Comcast in our area has much worse HD PQ then Dish. I understand that it is the same thoughout the Comcast system.


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## HDlover (Jul 28, 2006)

"I personally am thinking about canceling my upcoming 722 install after watching a 622 at the local Radio Shack yesterday and noticing that DISH HD really doesn't look all that much better than an anamorphic DVD on most channels. (TNT HD was the worst, showing a NASCAR race, USA HD seemed to be "not too bad" but still not great.)"

Now we know where the problem is - "watching at Radio Shack".
If you have a 30 day (as I did) or that day "money back", have it installed. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

I can go back and forth between E* and OTA- very little difference. One has to remember the actual resolution of OTA is this- http://archive.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=326565#post326565 Most 1080i is 1440x1080 max from OTA. There may be less macroblocking from OTA if they are not simulcasting.


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

The thing is, it's not just resolution alone - though the resolution on DISH's HD channels appears to be worse than OTA's.

It's the macroblocking, which is horrible, and is arguably worse than the same sources seen over D*, and are certainly worse than what the program providers are uplinking.

Or, DISH HD would be fine if things just wouldn't move. 

(Or, better yet, if they just stopped adding new HD channels and dropped about half of the ones they have now until they can actually get some new satellites into orbit, though stuffing the number of HD channels per transponder DISH does will never mean good HD quality, MP4 or not.

Only two of my local OTA channels broadcast with subchannels with the rest devoting full bandwidth to the HD signal, and when broadcasting a high quality source can look truly amazing. (The best examples I've seen of late are the Saturday night Disney films on ABC.)


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

I have not tested OTA vs my Dish HD locals, but when I did a while back there is a difference of course but I would not say it was huge. There is a lot of factors going in terms of measuring HD quality and once of them is the HD quality varies from channel to channel and program to program just as it does with DVD to DVD. 

I would also expect there to be variances between HD locals across the country just as there are in SD. As for LA locals when I last took a visual test of them about 6 months back I found OTA better ofcourse but the Dish HD locals was definitely acceptable HD quality and it was not night vs. Day. As for D*.. Well don't have D* so Can't compare..

I don't watch a lot of HD on TNT for example and when I have I have to say I was not impressed.

Like I always say. PQ is very subjective and there are a ton of factors that go into it...


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

I agree PQ is subjective, but if anyone knows which HD channels are supposed to be the standouts on DISH I'd be curious to know.

One would think HBO and SHO would be the standouts because you have to pay for them, but as I said, they're noticeably degraded compared to what the two providers make available on the original satellite feed.


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## whatchel1 (Jan 11, 2006)

I really don't see how we can compare BR disc to sat. BRdisc is 1080p w/ near unlimited bandwidth. Sat is at best 1080i w/ definitely limited bandwidth.


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## smackman (Sep 19, 2006)

*I went into my Television today and looked at the optical lenses and mirror. The lenses were clean but the Mirror had a "haze" on it when I shined a flashlight on it. I cleaned the Mirror and wiped off the lenses*. 
My picture is now Bright, beautiful and clear. It had only been less than 6 months since I had my Television cleaned and calibrated. Anyway, the Mirror was causing my biggest picture issues.
Also, I will stick to my guns about my HD DVD upconversion of SD DVDs. It is excellent and is very close to several Dish HD Broadcast. Most would not see a difference but I am sure a Videophile would. 
OTA is better but HD DVD is the best.
My biggest issue was my dirty Mirror. I am a satisfied Dish Customer, I am just like most; I am always wanting more and Better.


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

whatchel1 said:


> I really don't see how we can compare BR disc to sat. BRdisc is 1080p w/ near unlimited bandwidth. Sat is at best 1080i w/ definitely limited bandwidth.


We're not debating what satellite *can* provide, but rather what DISH *does* provide.

So for example HBO HD direct from the C-Band link looks noticeably degraded as compared to BD, but HBO HD on DISH often looks little better than a 16:9 version of HBO SD.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Well I have no idea what it looks like compared to C-Band since I don' t have it.. But in my viewing conditions there is no comparison to HBO SD and the HBO HD feed. I can say confidently night and day.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

smackman said:


> *I went into my Television today and looked at the optical lenses and mirror. The lenses were clean but the Mirror had a "haze" on it when I shined a flashlight on it. I cleaned the Mirror and wiped off the lenses*.
> My picture is now Bright, beautiful and clear. It had only been less than 6 months since I had my Television cleaned and calibrated. Anyway, the Mirror was causing my biggest picture issues.


I can second this as something to look at... I had my HDTV in for service a year or so ago, and when they came back and were re-assembling it they also cleaned the mirror. My picture was much clearer and brighter than it had been in a while... so I'm thinking I need to develop a plan to get in there every 6-12 months and check it out rather than letting it go for several years between looking at it.


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## whatchel1 (Jan 11, 2006)

HDMe said:


> I can second this as something to look at... I had my HDTV in for service a year or so ago, and when they came back and were re-assembling it they also cleaned the mirror. My picture was much clearer and brighter than it had been in a while... so I'm thinking I need to develop a plan to get in there every 6-12 months and check it out rather than letting it go for several years between looking at it.


So are these DLP units?


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

Any rear projector can usually benefit from some type of mirror cleaning, but they're generally first surface mirrors (meaning the mirrored surface is on the outside of the mirror) and as such cleaning must be done with *extreme* care to avoid damaging the reflective surface.

Dust can be removed with a can of spray air, but anything else should be done very, *very* carefully.


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## smackman (Sep 19, 2006)

whatchel1 said:


> So are these DLP units?


Rear projection CRT. One big mirror and 3 optical guns that have lenses.


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## smackman (Sep 19, 2006)

kucharsk said:


> Any rear projector can usually benefit from some type of mirror cleaning, but they're generally first surface mirrors (meaning the mirrored surface is on the outside of the mirror) and as such cleaning must be done with *extreme* care to avoid damaging the reflective surface.
> 
> Dust can be removed with a can of spray air, but anything else should be done very, *very* carefully.


I use a non-ammonia cleaner called Hopes perfect cleaner. It does not streak and cleans great. I also use a non lint towel to clean with. I believe this should be done or at least looked at every 6 months. Make sure you do not get any of the boards wet below.
I also use this Hopes perfect cleaner to clean my screen every 2 weeks with a micro fiber towel. I removed the "glare glass" from my Mitsubishi 6 months ago when the professional calibrator showed me the difference with the "glare" screen removed. 
I FOUND THIS CLEANER AT LOWES. ITS ALSO AVAILABLE AT AMAZON. MY WIFE SAYS THIS IS THE BEST WINDOW CLEANER SHE HAS EVER USED.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

whatchel1 said:


> So are these DLP units?


Mine is a CRT rear-projection as well. The mirror, and in the case of CRTs the lenses as well, can probably benefit from at least semi-regular cleaning.

As others have also noted... I wouldn't just go in there with paper towels and a bottle of 409 either, since these are not your average bathroom mirror cleaning situations!  But with some care and proper cleaner/towel use I've definately seen the difference first-hand after a cleaning myself.

If only I didn't have to take all my stuff off the top of the TV before disassembling I'd probably consider doing it more often.


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## Bobby H (Mar 23, 2008)

I've had DishHD for a couple of months (a ViP 722 receiver connected to a Sony Bravia XBR4 52" 120Hz LCD-TV).

To me, it seems like the video quality overall has improved a bit.

The quality of HD on DishHD varies from channel to channel and even from one program to the next on the same channel. There is nothing consistent across the board.

I usually see the best HD quality with movies on premium channels like HBO. Certain "reality TV" shows on the more documentary-oriented channels seem to be the ones riddled with the most macroblocking, banding and other issues.

It's also worth pointing out some shows are filmed to deliberately look a bit degraded.

The channels that look the worst are my SD locals. They're noticeably worse in PQ than any other SD channel. I hope the HD versions aren't degraded quite so badly when they are finally activated.



> OTA digital broadcast signals are almost completely uncompressed.


Uncompressed 1080p HD material usually runs at 1.4 billion bits per second. OTA, cable and satellite simply cannot support bandwidth that massive for a single program.

However, I do agree OTA HD broadcast signals often look better than the HD over satellite or cable. So they must at least be running at higher bit rates/lower compression levels.

Right now, movies on Blu-ray deliver HD at the highest bandwidths and quality levels available to the general public. Blu-ray disc has an overall maximum bandwidth of 54 Mb/sec. Video bit rates alone can exceed 40 Mb/sec. The only materials better than Blu-ray are JPEG2000-based digital cinema movie files for D-cinema equipped theaters (bandwidths up to 250 Mb/sec) and the original uncompressed HD masters.


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## smackman (Sep 19, 2006)

I do not believe Dish video quality has improved. My best HD pictures were VOOM but I watched The Equator Channel very little.
I do not expect Dish HD to be the same Quality as Bluray or HD DVD. I own a A30 HD DVD player and HD DVD Movies. I still rent some HD DVDs from BB. Superb picture at 1080i on my CRT RPTV.
My biggest issue was my Television mirror being hazy. 
I read a article where D* supposedly has better picture Quality than Dish. Does anyone actually have some experience with this or is this a pile of crap?
I plan on being with Dish for many years to come. Would I swap to D* Very doubtful.


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## billmarc (Oct 17, 2002)

I do miss the picture quality of a number of the VOOM channels and I guess my OTA HD locals do look slightly better than any of the other DISH HD channels, but sometimes the quality of the HD depends on what any particular programmer is putting out.
Also, I am sure it is listed somewhere else in one of these threads, but at the risk of sounding somewhat ignorant, where is DISH planning on parking their next satellite?


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## rustamust (Feb 22, 2006)

I do not own a HD or Blue Ray player so I'm not spoiled by "true HD" as all of my viewing is on E* or OTA and I stand by my previous post " I feel PQ has improved over the last year ". I clean my mirror and the three lens about every 6-8 months.


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## kal915 (May 7, 2008)

> I do miss the picture quality of a number of the VOOM


i dont. to me, AC 360 still has way better PQ


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

Bobby H said:


> However, I do agree OTA HD broadcast signals often look better than the HD over satellite or cable. So they must at least be running at higher bit rates/lower compression levels.


Don't forget that DISH also recompresses the HD signals delivered by the program providers to *lower* the resolution we get.


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## HD_Wayne (May 23, 2006)

When I was at Team Summit I asked one of the engineers about PQ and the reply was its cost vs bandwidth. You get what you pay for and to keep the cost down they are skimping on the bandwidth. My favorite quality channel has always been HDNet and HDNMV which come into the E* uplink center as two 19.3 Mbps streams on one transponder from HDNET. E* used to turn that around to sat 110 tp 7 with still only two streams on that one transponder. Now there are four and at the end of the month it will be h.264 encoded which may or may not be an improvement. In fairness to E* some of the HD content is up converted from SD by the provider. Animal Planet is one of those I think. 
I have been so disappointed with the low quality that I down graded my service from everything to 200 figuring that I can rent a BluRay movie when I need to and get a better picture for less money in the process. (I also found myself spending too much time watching movies and falling behind in my other tasks as well)

One of my other businesses is producing HD content for sale. I have some very professional on the shoulder cameras and evaluation monitors. That is the HD I am use to seeing so my opinion may be distorted because I have a very high standard. Seeing content right out of the camera (1.2 Gbps rate) sets an expectation that E* or D* can never meet.

You will find that the picture usually looks quite good till there is any movement then it starts to fall apart where the movement is simply because there is not enough bandwidth to supply enough picture elements at the required rate so it starts to pixelate. One other deficiency I notice is smooth transitions from bright to dark. In some scenes you can see the uneven transition in picture density.

All this being said I can still enjoy my usual channels that I like to watch and find that with an HD signal I can get a real good capture downgraded to SD for archiving on DVD. 

I apologize in advance for the long post.

Wayne


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

That's a great post and of course reinforces what I mentioned earlier - that we, as customers, long ago let D* and E* know we don't care about quality, it's _quantity_ we want.

Give us Speed HD, Fox News HD, and AMC HD, and who cares if the picture looks like an 8-bit video game anytime anything moves on-screen?

Sad, but oh so true.


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## tcatdbs (Jul 10, 2008)

So how does it compare TWC HD? I just switched to Dish and will let you know next Friday.... The only thing I am happy with with TWC is quality. Switched because of cost and available HD content. Almost all HD channels are at least DVD quality (that's an upressed DVD to 1080). Most of the SD channels look almost as good as HD (like USA and Sci-Fi when zoomed to fill screen). I get maybe 1-5 seconds of pixalization during a 3 hour period maybe once a week (unless it's KLRU and just F'ed up). I just hope I don't see a lot of pixalization up on Dish! I was on Dish 8 years ago and was very happy with PQ... from what I'm hearing here it's going downhill...


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

USA and SciFi look good when zoomed to full screen?

Do you not see the shifting blocks in any areas of the screen that are just slightly lighter than full black? It's truly horrible.

After having the chance to look at a fair number of DISH HD programs over the weekend, the PQ really is not all that much better than upconverted DVD.

I've yet to see a truly "wow" picture as I have before on both ATSC HD and when watching an original downlinked HD picture (_e.g._ via C-Band, before DISH downlinks it, lowers the resolution and recompresses it and sends it back out.)

Certainly DISH HD looks better than DISH SD, but it doesn't look all that much better than high quality SD as retrieved from high quality DVDs or C-Band or Ku-band analog signals.

In summary, I wouldn't say that I'm completely unhappy I made the jump to DISH HD channels, but certainly for those who think DISH HD *is* HD, you'll need to provide medical assistance the first time those people see HD as provided by a Blu-Ray disc.


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## smackman (Sep 19, 2006)

kucharsk said:


> USA and SciFi look good when zoomed to full screen?
> 
> Do you not see the shifting blocks in any areas of the screen that are just slightly lighter than full black? It's truly horrible.
> 
> ...




Not a fair comparison IMO. The reasoning has been discussed often. My SD DVDs upconverted to 1080i looks almost HD compared to Dish.
THE DISH HD IS SO MUCH CLEARER THAN DISH SD WHETHER ITS STRETCHO VISION OR NOT. 
On my 55" Television, it is very difficult to watch SD anymore. For instance CNN and CNNHD; CNNHD is 10 times clearer than its SD Counterpart. The bigger your Television the more this is exposed,


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## tcatdbs (Jul 10, 2008)

I assume you meant Dish HD is so much cleaner than Dish SD... how bad is SD? It's still "digital" right? It's not like TWC analog (ch 1-99), right? Are you saying that with DishHD (all HD channels), that the SD content on the HD channel is bad? Or are you saying the SD equivalent channel is bad?

Any yes, I'm still on TWC for another week. I watched In Plain Sight on USA, zoomed to fill screen, and it looks as good as most shows on my HD locals (on a 50" plasma). I assume with Dish USA HD that is "true" HD and looks great.



smackman said:


> [/U][/B]
> THE DISH HD IS SO MUCH CLEARER THAN DISH HD WHETHER ITS STRETCHO VISION OR NOT.
> QUOTE]


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

The ironic thing is the picture quality you're raving about from DISH HD is simply that that would have been provided for a decade now had DISH delivered SD quality equivalent to that of C-Band analog all along.

Instead both D* and E* were developed with the attitude of simply providing something "good enough" that most people wouldn't cancel it because it was too horrible, something made easier by the (at the time) nasty PQ delivered by most cable companies.

The bottom line is DISH HD looks better than DISH SD, but DISH HD doesn't look as good as free OTA HD signals do and instead simply looks little better than high quality _analog_ SD always has.


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## smackman (Sep 19, 2006)

tcatdbs said:


> I assume you meant Dish HD is so much cleaner than Dish SD... how bad is SD?
> *I have corrected my error. SD is BAD compared to HD even if you have to use stretchovision on a HD channel.*
> 
> It's still "digital" right? It's not like TWC analog (ch 1-99), right? Are you saying that with DishHD (all HD channels), that the SD content on the HD channel is bad? Or are you saying the SD equivalent channel is bad?
> ...


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## tcatdbs (Jul 10, 2008)

Unfortunately I can't get OTA from my house... I'm just hoping PQ of Dish HD is as good as TWC HD, I'll be happy. Since I'm getting HD Absolute, SD doesn't matter (other than PBS that isn't HD on Dish yet). So PBS SD is crappy?


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## smackman (Sep 19, 2006)

tcatdbs said:


> Unfortunately I can't get OTA from my house... I'm just hoping PQ of Dish HD is as good as TWC HD, I'll be happy. Since I'm getting HD Absolute, SD doesn't matter (other than PBS that isn't HD on Dish yet). So PBS SD is crappy?


Overall, DISH HD Quality overall is good. Most will be as good as TWC depending on whats showing. 
My SD PBS local with dish is poor PQ compared to my OTA HD PBS.
Like I said, Once you go HD, SD does not compare and its not suppose to.
If you have a Television 37" or smaller, the difference in PQ will not be as noticeable.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Do alot of people here sit 3' from a 72" widescreen?

While I'm impressed with HD, I watch television on my 42" plasma from 7', not expecting anything other than something significantly better than the analog SD from OTA and C-band, that I used to watch 10 years ago on my old 32" tube. And I'm getting that "significantly better" even using "full zoom" on the non-HD shows on SciFi.

I guess it depends on where you started from. Me, it was a snowy picture on a 12½" black and white Hoffman using a 40' antenna with a rotor to bring in distant stations. Take my word for it, things will continue to improve.


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## Redlinetire (Jul 24, 2007)

HobbyTalk said:


> Doh... yeah.... hehe.... typing before I think. But the concept is the same. OTA is highly compressed.


Slightly off topic and sorry for the noob question, but...

Are you saying all ATSC tuners have MPEG decoders in them? How does an OTA signal compressed with MPEG2 get 'decompressed' on the TV end?


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## kal915 (May 7, 2008)

kucharsk said:


> USA and SciFi look good when zoomed to full screen?
> 
> Do you not see the shifting blocks in any areas of the screen that are just slightly lighter than full black? It's truly horrible.
> 
> ...


Of course Blu-Ray is going to look better than DishHD since Dish is 1080i, and Blu-Ray is 1080p. And i have seen PQ on Dish way better than upconverted SD DVD


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

kal915 said:


> Of course Blu-Ray is going to look better than DishHD since Dish is 1080i, and Blu-Ray is 1080p. And i have seen PQ on Dish way better than upconverted SD DVD


Yes, but let's take 1080p out of it because my TV doesn't handle it anyway.

The bottom line is DISH SD looks nasty. Always has, but it's gotten worse IMHO over the years.

Analog SD from C-Band looks _almost_ as good as DISH HD.

Upconverted SD DVD often looks _as_ good as DISH HD.

HD from C-Band looks *significantly better* than DISH HD.

Blu-Ray looks orders of magnitude better than HD from either, naturally.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

kal915 said:


> Of course Blu-Ray is going to look better than DishHD since Dish is 1080i, and Blu-Ray is 1080p. And i have seen PQ on Dish way better than upconverted SD DVD


I keep swearing I won't do this to myself, but...

1080i vs 1080p is not the issue. Blu ray should look better than Dish HD and even OTA because Blu ray can deliver a higher dedicated bitrate (bits per second) and can hold (at the current dual layer standard) 50GB of data which is more than sufficient for all but the largest of movies perhaps (not sure how something like Ten Commandments or Lord of the Rings Extended editions would do on a single disc).

Some folks are determined to wave the "1080p is better than 1080i" flag but really don't know all the info.

1080p could be 24 frames per second, 30 fps, or 60 fps. ONLY at 60fps would 1080p be better than 1080i. Given that most movies are still 24 fps (even the digital ones are not typically being shot at higher than 24fps, but some are 30fps I believe) there should be NO advantage of 1080p over 1080i at the current time.

All the quality of a Blu ray over DishHD or OTA HD is due to what I said in the beginning + one more thing. Dish and OTA have to compress on the fly, which means sometimes quality is sacrificed to keep compression going in real-time. Blu ray has the advantage that they can set a computer (server, mainframe, whatever) up to do the best quality encode for the Blu ray master, and it doesn't have to happen in real-time.


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## Ressurrector (Jan 1, 2008)

Well Smackman I don't seem to notice quality is any worse and I have had it a good 6 months now.

I think your just worrying about all the cramming there prolly doin and your mind is prolly negatively thinking thats all..................prolly just "placebo" effect man


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## smackman (Sep 19, 2006)

Ressurrector said:


> Well Smackman I don't seem to notice quality is any worse and I have had it a good 6 months now.
> 
> I think your just worrying about all the cramming there prolly doin and your mind is prolly negatively thinking thats all..................prolly just "placebo" effect man


I *prolly* do not give a rats turd what you think.
I have already stated a lot of my problem was my Mirror and lenses on my Television.
Read post #22 on this thread. 
Have a nice day.


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## HobbyTalk (Jul 14, 2007)

C band and DBS are designed for 2 different markets. You shouldn't compare the two (much like comparing BD to C band.... BD is better).


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

HobbyTalk said:


> C band and DBS are designed for 2 different markets. You shouldn't compare the two (much like comparing BD to C band.... BD is better).


I don't think that's really true.

C-Band naturally will be one of the highest quality sources for material because it's that feed that's turned around and rebroadcast by D*, E* and cable companies as well as broadcast stations.

However, there's no reason that DISH SD and HD can't look a *lot* better than they do but for the fact that customers have stated they'd rather have 100 horrible looking HD channels rather than 50 good looking ones or 25 absolute demo quality ones, as sad as that is.

This is not helped by the fact that lots of channels are now "going" HD but have no actual HD content to broadcast - look at the bandwidth wasted for channels like ABC Family HD (great if you want to watch _The 700 Club_ in HD, not really useful otherwise) or Hallmark Movie Channel HD (great if you want to see bright yellow "HMC HD" pillars all day.)

Unfortunately the way the satellite business works is, frankly, to almost "trick" people into subscribing and lock them in with long term contracts, and unfortunately people shop by checklist - "Look, they have Speed HD!" and it's only later they find Discovery HD Theater has the picture quality of high quality SD and DISH SD doesn't look much better than the average YouTube video.

So I don't think it's unreasonable to point out that DISH HD has PQ not much better than what C-Band SD has always provided - if you show people a high quality C-Band SD feed most people will _think_ it's *HD*, it can look jaw-droppingly good. (You'd be surprised to see how badly the signal is stomped on even passing through the equipment at your local network broadcast affiliated - it's *not* subtle.) But as most people have only seen what D*, E* or their cable company provide, they don't know how good things *should* look, but more importantly, often don't care.

In many areas Americans have always preferred quantity over quality, and unfortunately it's no different in the world of TV.

So in summary, I think we do need to hold DISH up and compare its PQ to C-Band, or if you prefer, FIOS, if only to try and keep them honest and remind the powers that be that there is a subset of their customers who *do* care about PQ.

The question is now that DISH is putting more effort into marketing their HD offerings, this is a great opportunity to leverage that and let people know "Turbo HD is neat, but the picture quality isn't that great"; that alone might push E* to reduce the number of HD channels they cram onto one transponder or perhaps to expand just the pay HD channels back out to 1920x1080i.

Or at least I can dream about that.


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## whatchel1 (Jan 11, 2006)

kucharsk said:


> I don't think that's really true.
> 
> C-Band naturally will be one of the highest quality sources for material because it's that feed that's turned around and rebroadcast by D*, E* and cable companies as well as broadcast stations.


Not as true as it used to be. A large portion of what E* and D*are getting now comes into their headends via fiber not C-BAND sat. The signal we supply to cable & sat is fibered not C-BAND. In fact a few weeks ago I had to speak with the Gilbert uplink for E*. We found out that they were using our HD signal and downconverting it; then sending it via fiber to them. Although that would be a better picture until 2-17-09 they have to stay with using the analog for the SD signal to supply the LIL.


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## kal915 (May 7, 2008)

> This is not helped by the fact that lots of channels are now "going" HD but have no actual HD content to broadcast - look at the bandwidth wasted for channels like ABC Family HD (great if you want to watch The 700 Club in HD, not really useful otherwise)


No, i want to watch Kyle XY and the Middleman in HD


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## HobbyTalk (Jul 14, 2007)

kucharsk said:


> I don't think that's really true.


Sure it is. C band, by design, is not broadcast for consumer consumption, it is mainly broadcast for retransmission. While consumers can subscribe and receive it, that is not the main purpose for C band broadcasts.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

kucharsk said:


> IHowever, there's no reason that DISH SD and HD can't look a *lot* better than they do but for the fact that customers have stated they'd rather have 100 horrible looking HD channels rather than 50 good looking ones or 25 absolute demo quality ones, as sad as that is.
> 
> This is not helped by the fact that lots of channels are now "going" HD but have no actual HD content to broadcast - look at the bandwidth wasted for channels like ABC Family HD (great if you want to watch _The 700 Club_ in HD, not really useful otherwise) or Hallmark Movie Channel HD (great if you want to see bright yellow "HMC HD" pillars all day.)


Gee, some who have been watching "Middleman" and "The Secret Life of an American Teen" on ABC Family would take issue with you. It might be that my desires wouldn't be the same as yours and what you consider waste, I consider terrific. That 25 super quality channels sounds about right for me, but I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't a few who have different watching habits than mine. My July watching lineup in alphabetical order by network:



> A&E HD	The Cleaner
> AMC SD Mad Men
> BBCA SD	Not Going Out
> FAM HD	The Middleman
> ...


So if Dish lets me have the following in super-duper HD: 1. A&E, 2. ABC Family, 3. BBCA, 4. FX, 5. Lifetime, 6. SciFi, 7. Spike, 8. Sundance, 9. TBS, 10. TNT, 11. USA, 12. CBS , 13. NBC, 14. PBS, 15. HBO, 16. Showtime;

plus what I'll need added this fall: 17. ABC, 18. The CW, 19. Fox, 20. Starz;

plus added for the August Olympics: 21. Universal HD, 22. CNBC, and 23. Oxygen;

then they can let you add any 2 you want. Obviously, if you want the two HDNet channels, the Discovery group, MGMHD, etc. you're out of luck.

Or we can all share the bandwidth and settle for 100 channels that are much better quality than we had 10 years ago.


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

HobbyTalk said:


> Sure it is. C band, by design, is not broadcast for consumer consumption, it is mainly broadcast for retransmission. While consumers can subscribe and receive it, that is not the main purpose for C band broadcasts.


But there's no real excuse why any of those who retransmit it shouldn't be able to pass through the same PQ, or at least very nearly so.

Unfortunately it's the case with cable, D* and E* that they do; OTA broadcast (analog and digital) has always seemed to maintain the highest quality (completely dependent upon the affiliate, obviously.)

I'm sure if people were able to see the fiber feeds they'd also be shocked at the drop in PQ compared to what we receive at home.


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

phrelin said:


> Gee, some who have been watching "Middleman" and "The Secret Life of an American Teen" on ABC Family would take issue with you.


Point taken, though roughly 90% of what ABC Family shows is of course SD, much less than the HD content of many of the other "HD" channels. There's still no excuse for HMC HD. 



phrelin said:


> Or we can all share the bandwidth and settle for 100 channels that are much better quality than we had 10 years ago.


Speak for yourself; as the owner of a C/Ku-band dish, very little E* provides is (at least noticeably) better quality than what I had access to ten years ago.

A wider aspect ratio yes, better quality, I'm not so sure. 

(Technically, the HD channels are all higher resolution than SD, but I wish I had a way to show people how good SD channels, Discovery HD Theatre, and the HD movie channels look coming off the bird compared to how they look after they're reprocessed by, well, _anyone_ - cable, D* or E*&#8230


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## smackman (Sep 19, 2006)

kucharsk said:


> (Technically, the HD channels are all higher resolution than SD, but I wish I had a way to show people how good SD channels, Discovery HD Theatre, and the HD movie channels look coming off the bird compared to how they look after they're reprocessed by, well, _anyone_ - cable, D* or E*&#8230


I was C-BAND until I also had Dish Installed in 2000. I continued to use C/KU BAND for the Raw feeds and I also maintaned a small pkg. I just had trouble letting such History go.(25 years C-BAND; 6 years I had the abilily to receive K-BAND programming also(4DTV). Then lighting struck!
*I will say that the C/KUBAND picture were Outstanding on my 55" Television. I would compare the picture to a good upconvert DVD Player(such as a HDDVD A30 and close to a HDDVD XA2) *
*I never had a chance to compare Dish HD with C/KUBAND Transmission but Dish SD is not even in the Ball park.*
I would have probably continued with my 4DTV Reception but all the talk was this type of Frequency was gonna be extinct sooner than later. I do not even know where this "world" is now and I had a 10 foot Dish from 1980 till lighting in early 2006.
When I finally decided to get the Dish 622 to replace my Dish 4700 it made my Television expeirence great again with HD pictures.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

kucharsk said:


> Speak for yourself; as the owner of a C/Ku-band dish, very little E* provides is (at least noticeably) better quality than what I had access to ten years ago.
> 
> A wider aspect ratio yes, better quality, I'm not so sure.


As a former C/Ku-band dish owner, I understand what you're saying. Even in 1988 I was startled by the difference between my satellite network feeds and OTA (I had just moved). But I don't regret changing when my last big-dish Echostar box died. There's only one large dish left in our neighborhood. And I know it's not really an option for my more urban friends. And I recognize that since my "home theater" really can't accommodate a screen much larger than a 42", I'll never be examining pixel detail or seeing the differences you see. With that said....

My pet peeve is the broadcast networks. Just look at the satellite bandwidth wasted on providing HD locals. If NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, PBS, etc. offered two HD satellite feeds for network programming (like HBO and others), we would have bandwidth galore. Regional sports channels could handle HD local sports feeds. "Locals" programming could still be provided in SD on satellite.

The locals can still compete in the new digital TV era offering 4 OTA digital feeds _locally_ also carried by local cable. Those few in the large urban areas that offer meaningful local programming could attempt to create enough demand that satellite companies would carry them as superstations.

Instead we're being subjected to regulations designed to protect a 1958 concept - local analog broadcast stations. Despite all the protections, it appears locals nationwide are engaged in significant budget cutting in the one area of programming they potentially have anything to offer - locally created programming like news.

In my area Comcast provides the locals and 8 other channels in HD which means that Dish and Direct have no competition in HD except each other. But as the cable companies start catching up even in rural areas over the next five years, then my bet is we'll start seeing satellite companies using bandwidth to offer better quality, perhaps something in 1080p from HDNet Movies or HBO. I really don't see the need to be made aware of network TV series actors (or reality show participants) skin blemishes in any sharper quality.


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

smackman said:


> I would have probably continued with my 4DTV Reception but all the talk was this type of Frequency was gonna be extinct sooner than later. I do not even know where this "world" is now and I had a 10 foot Dish from 1980 till lighting in early 2006.


Most all SD channels have since gone digital, the exceptions being TWC and the Turner channels (CNN/CNNHN/TBS and TNT) and one or two pay channel feeds, notably HBO E/W. Many of the religious and shopping channels remain analog as well, though TBN just went digital earlier this year.

With the HDD 200 you can receive HBO HD, SHO HD, Starz! HD and Discovery HD Theater along with Nebraska Public Television's HD channel, and to bring this thread back to its original topic, each looks an order of magnitude better as compared to what they do coming out of my 722.


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## SteveRS (Feb 8, 2004)

All I know is that HDNet 4 or 5 years ago on Dish had stellar PQ.
Now it is reduced in PQ with motion artifacts.


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

SteveRS said:


> All I know is that HDNet 4 or 5 years ago on Dish had stellar PQ.
> Now it is reduced in PQ with motion artifacts.


I also suspect it was 1920x1080i then as well.


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## HDlover (Jul 28, 2006)

I suspect hardware for anyone who doesn't say any Dish HD is not obviously better than upconverted DVD. There is more to a picture than bandwidth and Dish HD has it all over upconverted DVD in color rendition, contrast ratio and resolution to site just a few examples. Now it could use some more bandwidth but would it make a lot of difference.? Could it be better? Yes, but it isn't bad. BR goes up to 48mbs, no provider comes anywhere near that. If you want to see bad, get Comcast.


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## HDlover (Jul 28, 2006)

SteveRS said:


> All I know is that HDNet 4 or 5 years ago on Dish had stellar PQ.
> Now it is reduced in PQ with motion artifacts.


It will be MPEG-4 soon, should help. Hopefully more bandwidth is coming soon with the new satelite.


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## kucharsk (Sep 20, 2006)

HDlover said:


> I suspect hardware for anyone who doesn't say any Dish HD is not obviously better than upconverted DVD.


In the past few weeks I've seen very good upconverted DVD (the _Mad Men_ DVDs) and a lot of mediocre HD (I swear Universal HD at times uses an upconverted DVD as a source.)

Alas, they at times can look virtually indistinguishable from one another.

Without access to the original sources, I can't say whether Universal HD or MGM HD *could* look better, but I can say HBO HD, SHO HD, Starz! HD and Discovery HD Theatre certainly look softer than they *could*, depriving them of some of the "wow" factor that they have at the source.


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## HDlover (Jul 28, 2006)

Yes, your PQ problem may be upconverted SD programs. Those are obvious also.


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