# VOD Picture Quality???



## reubenray (Jun 27, 2002)

I finally tried to download some movies and did The 102 Dalmations and No Country for Old Men. Both of these downloaded OK I guess, but the picture quality is very blurry and unwatchable.

Is this the norm for the VOD movies? If not what am I doing wrong.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

reubenray said:


> I finally tried to download some movies and did The 102 Dalmations and No Country for Old Men. Both of these downloaded OK I guess, but the picture quality is very blurry and unwatchable.
> 
> Is this the norm for the VOD movies? If not what am I doing wrong.


 I have no idea what you're doing wrong, but VOD has looked great here.
I have had a "bad download", where the playback was "jumpy/jittery", but it was from the server [bad file].


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## MountainMan10 (Jan 31, 2008)

VOD HD is very good quality. If is not marked HD then it is SD.


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## Mertzen (Dec 8, 2006)

Haven't really noticed a difference in SAT vs VOD.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Mertzen said:


> Haven't really noticed a difference in SAT vs VOD.


Even SD VOD "can look" better. The VOD stream, since it's going to the hard drive, can have better bit-rates [or that they can vary more than the SAT stream can].


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## Hutchinshouse (Sep 28, 2006)

To me, fast moving scenes and pans look slightly better via VOD.

My 2 cents


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## roadrunner1782 (Sep 28, 2008)

I think VOD looks slightly better, atleast in my opinion.


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## reubenray (Jun 27, 2002)

I am using the WGA600 so could it be bad? Everything I have tried so far was to be in HD.


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## Mertzen (Dec 8, 2006)

reubenray said:


> I am using the WGA600 so could it be bad? Everything I have tried so far was to be in HD.


Wouldn't have anything to do with network conditions unless you see macro blocking.


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## barryb (Aug 27, 2007)

Could it be that the OP is watching in real time and he is catching up to what is streaming?


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## reubenray (Jun 27, 2002)

Nope - these shows where recorded days before attempting to watch them.


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## barryb (Aug 27, 2007)

reubenray said:


> Nope - these shows where recorded days before attempting to watch them.


Thanks for the clarification.

I have no problems with picture quality on VOD myself. I would suspect that something with your network would be the problem.

If you are still online right now, hit this link: http://www.dbstalk.com/addonchat.php


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## MLBurks (Dec 16, 2005)

I think I have noticed what is being discussed. Blurry may be the wrong word. _Soft_ may more accurately describe it. I have noticed that movies (SD) that I download from Starz is more soft than most other SD that I have downloaded. Starz /Encore is the only offender for me at least.


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## reubenray (Jun 27, 2002)

Both of these (I believe) was from Encore, but I thought they was from the HD channels. Will check again when I get back home on Monday.


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## MountainMan10 (Jan 31, 2008)

I am pretty sure Encore doesn't have any HD VOD.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

reubenray said:


> I finally tried to download some movies and did The 102 Dalmations and No Country for Old Men. Both of these downloaded OK I guess, but the picture quality is very blurry and unwatchable.
> 
> Is this the norm for the VOD movies? If not what am I doing wrong.


Were these 1080p movies? If so, does your TV support 1080/24p signals? Did you "force" the TV into 1080p mode by using the "info button" trick during the 1080p test? That will cause problems for 1080/60 TVs, because they won't be able to decode the 1080/24p stream correctly.

You can watch 1080/24p movies on ANY TV, but the sat receiver has to be set on a resolution that the TV can understand (1080/60i is usually best for TVs that don't support 1080/24p signals).


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## reubenray (Jun 27, 2002)

No they were not 1080p movies. My projector does support 1080/24p so I was wanting to do a test before I spend some money on a movie that looks like ****.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

reubenray said:


> No they were not 1080p movies. My projector does support 1080/24p so I was wanting to do a test before I spend some money on a movie that looks like ****.


"My best guess" was these were some old movies in SD. Early in VOD, I watched "some crap" that was old [I think from the '70s] and soft, but newer SD hasn't looked so bad and HD looks like HD, and 1080p even looks better.


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## reubenray (Jun 27, 2002)

I checked when I got home and both of these were SD movies. I am running a HD test recording now for Mimic 2 from Showtime.


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## philherz (May 3, 2008)

MLBurks said:


> I think I have noticed what is being discussed. Blurry may be the wrong word. _Soft_ may more accurately describe it. I have noticed that movies (SD) that I download from Starz is more soft than most other SD that I have downloaded. Starz /Encore is the only offender for me at least.


TOTALLY agree! I've definitely noticed that the Starz SD movies that I downloaded on demand are not as crisp as the SAT versions!!!!

HD movies are much better, they just take forever!!!!!!


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