# An apology to those who complained about E* down grading HD channels



## bavaria72 (Jun 10, 2004)

This is an official apology to those folks who were *****ing about E* down rezing the HD channels. I had seen no difference on the long distance HD channels, HBOHD, or ESPNHD. But I’ll be damn tonight my wife and I were watching VOOM Equatorial channel “Eye on Italy; Rome to Sicily” and the down rezing was horrible. I could not believe how bad it was vs. 2 months ago. E* what the hell are you doing??? Pick the channels you are going to down rez. Even my wife noticed the difference. I gotta tell you it was not significantly better than SD. That is a SAD, SAD statement. So what is MPEG4 going to do for us? Not a happy camper.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Art... I happen to be watching that also. have you seen that one before a few months back? I noticed the poor quality, but I have also seen similar on OTA from time to time and it is usually a result of bad source material. What i saw looked very grainy and that to me does not equate down-rez. I would expect a softer picture not grainy, but maybe I am wrong... 

Like I said... looked to me like poor soure material that is why I was asking if you saw the same show two months back.


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## BFG (Jan 23, 2004)

that's because equator has been 1280 since it was added to dish

This whole riot has been escalated over 4 1920 voom channels that dish actually boosted from the rez they were at on voom, down to 1280.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Something occurred to me last night, so I wanted to throw it out and this new thread seems as good as any!

I have a computer monitor that ix LCD... and it has an optimal resolution of 1024x768 or something like that... when I set my computer to display that resolution pictures are sharp! But if I set to 640x480 it is very blocky even on an otherwise good picture when connecting my CRT monitor.

So it got me thinking... about HDTV and CRT projection technology vs people who have LCD, DLP, or Plasma.

LCD, DLP, and Plasma sets have fixed resolutions usually 720p, but some newer DLPs I've seen in the high-end range claim to be 1080i... but I'm willing to bet most folks have the 720p models right now.

So... I wondered if the downconverting that Dish has done recently might not show more adversely on those sets than it does on my CRT rear projection TV. I know that CRT tends to be a smoother display on other things that are not exactly the proper resolution... think about enlarging a photo from the original negative vs scanning a photo and blowing it up electronically. The one from the original negative is much sharper.

All this boils down to me wondering if perhaps people with LCD, DLP, or Plasma are seeing some problems due to their TV technology that us CRT people aren't seeing to the same degree. If true, it could explain why some people have complained more than others.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

BFG said:


> that's because equator has been 1280 since it was added to dish
> 
> This whole riot has been escalated over 4 1920 voom channels that dish actually boosted from the rez they were at on voom, down to 1280.


Well if equator is 1280 and has been since it was added to Dish, there goes the down rez theory leading to Art's apology. Feel free to take it back your apology Art.

Riot??? I just watched a show where our school systems are getting there butts kicked by the rest of the world. I enjoy getting the maximum bandwidth as the next guy, but if we are actually rioting because of resolution reduction on 4 Voom channels we need a reality check. :scratch:


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## bavaria72 (Jun 10, 2004)

OK, now I'm very confused. Perhaps it was just that particular show was not as "good" as they normally are? As the picture was panning over the buildings, the stone steps where visibly "choppy". Just like SD. Hmmm, I guess this will take more invesigation......(Always looking for an excuse to watch more TV!). Thanks Ron. - Art


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## audiomaster (Jun 24, 2004)

A lot of the new monitors are doing 1080P now. Are the new 211/622 going to be able to send this or are they obsolete before shipment?


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## ibglowin (Sep 10, 2002)

Hi guys,

Let me add my $0.02 here. I just happened to be surfing last night and caught Eye Over Italy as well. I agree it sucked big time. It looked like 16x9 SD material. This was one of the first things I watched when I added Voom the first day they were available and I can say without a doubt the first time I saw this program my jaw dropped. The PQ was unbelievable. Crystal clear even when panning. I had it on the 921 for months to show people what HD looks like. Unfortuneately I had to delete it after awhile as my drive was filling up. I wish I still had it to compare.

If this is any indication of the future of Voom and HD on Dish, I am not sure I want any more HD or need a new VIP622. 

If this wasn't enough I flipped over to Rave and watched some of the Chris Isaak Soundstage. If you have ever watched Soundstage on your PBS HD channel, you know what this program should look like. Again it should make your jaw drop. The Voom version last night was just like the Eye over Italy program. It looked like 16x9 SD material. There was no POP, no eye candy, nothing.

I am now rethinking my planned upgrade to the 622.


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## SHS (Jan 8, 2003)

MPEG-4 tech lee should be better if it contains H.264/AVC which should deliver the same quality as MPEG-2 High data rate but at a third to half the data rate, but as you can see with the SD channel on dish they like to do recompression big time so there good chance there maybe some quality issue.


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## mruk69 (Jul 26, 2003)

If that aint bad I got a 211 and am having to return it for another as it is stuck in a loop trying to update. Funny thing is under message 061 (vital information downloading) it says boot receovery. It takes 10 minutes to complete then restarts and does it all over again, hell I let the sucker stream for 4 hours and still had no luck in getting it going. I couldn't even get it to go into any of the menus.


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## Tom in TX (Jan 22, 2004)

bavaria72 said:


> OK, now I'm very confused. Perhaps it was just that particular show was not as "good" as they normally are? As the picture was panning over the buildings, the stone steps where visibly "choppy". Just like SD. Hmmm, I guess this will take more invesigation......(Always looking for an excuse to watch more TV!). Thanks Ron. - Art


I noticed it also when panning. The tile roofs were real choppy. I was watching on a 1080i CRT rear projection set. I also have a 720 LCD, so I'll try to remember next time it is on, and do a comparison, I can record each, as each set has a 942.
Tom in TX


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## navychop (Jul 13, 2005)

audiomaster:

The 1080p refers to the DISPLAY, not the source material. No one is transmitting 1080p today, nor will they in the foreseeable future. The ATSC standards include 1080 lines at 24 and 30 fps, displayed progressively (p). The former was included for compatibility with film rates. It also includes 1080 interlaced lines displayed at 60 fields per second (in effect, 30 full frames per second). What people would really like to see, and often mean when they say 1080p, is 1080 lines displayed progressively at 60 frames per second. Interlacing introduces artifacts in the image, especially for fast moving images. The microdisplays advertised as 1080p are taking advantage that the display itself is inherently progressive, and conversion of an interlaced image into progressive, if done properly, may improve the picture. All 720 formats are progressive. There are many threads on this, especially at AVSForum.

No one produces 1080 60p material. It could not be broadcast OTA in that format, and would take up huge amounts of bandwidth for cable or sat delivery. No receiver or TV has been made to input 1080 60p because there is no source of such material.

Now to leaven that. Film transfers could be made into 1080 60p with some efforts that would not remove all frame rate artifacts (film is generally recorded at 24 fps and displayed at 48 fps, each frame shown twice). 1080 60p HD video cameras could come into use and produce the material- but then the entire distribution, processing and editing system would have to be rebuilt. There's no incentive for that. BUT- the Sony PS3 reputedly will output video games in that format. And Blu-ray, and maybe HD-DVD, could one day support that. But the stuff isn't here today so there is no reason to increase the cost of your HDTV with such a feature that cannot be used.

The VIP211 is not obsolete. It is unlikely any of us will see sat transmissions of 1080 60p. Maybe one day we'll see it off disk. And if it really looks a whole lot better (on larger TVs, at least) then maybe demand will grow to start production and transmission of such OTA and via cable and satellite. But the rules governing ATSC signals would have to be changed.


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## the_bear (Oct 18, 2004)

audiomaster said:


> A lot of the new monitors are doing 1080P now. Are the new 211/622 going to be able to send this or are they obsolete before shipment?


You will have to switch between 1080i and 720p manually until Dish adds native-resolution-pass-tru in a software upgrade. Getting the most out of your 1080p display is not a hardware issue.


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## AdamGott (Nov 30, 2005)

audiomaster said:


> A lot of the new monitors are doing 1080P now. Are the new 211/622 going to be able to send this or are they obsolete before shipment?


As long as they output 1080i it really should not matter. A 1080p tv should look exactly the same regardless of whether it gets a 1080i signal or a 1080p signal that has been upconverted.

More important - most 1080p tv's will not presently accept a 1080p signal. That would piss you off more I think.


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## AdamGott (Nov 30, 2005)

the_bear said:


> You will have to switch between 1080i and 720p manually until Dish adds native-resolution-pass-tru in a software upgrade. Getting the most out of your 1080p display is not a hardware issue.


 I guess there is this issue though, I wish Dish would give you an option to let you output whatever the original broadcast was.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

THe native pass through has always been a feature I wish DIsh supported. Hopefully they eventually get around to it. In a number of cases I think it would improve SD PQ with user intervention.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

bavaria72 said:


> OK, now I'm very confused. Perhaps it was just that particular show was not as "good" as they normally are? As the picture was panning over the buildings, the stone steps where visibly "choppy". Just like SD. Hmmm, I guess this will take more invesigation......(Always looking for an excuse to watch more TV!). Thanks Ron. - Art


I watched a decent amount of VOOM over the course of the day yesterday. SOme looked great, some looked bad like the equater. I get the same impression with HDMovies and DiscoveryHD.

THe Italy show, the PQ did not look like a resolution affect. Looked more like an encoding issue to me.


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## BremenHusker (Jan 14, 2006)

Please advise. I have been considering getting my first HDTV and have been thinking about a 1080p DLP. I presently have E* and was going to get the vip622 dvr when available later this spring. With all the talk here and elsewhere about over compression and such, am I wasting my time and possibly my money by getting a 1080p set. OTA is very borderline in my area. Thanks.


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## navychop (Jul 13, 2005)

I get around the lack of native pass thru by connecting my OTA antenna directly to the TV. No need to go thru the sat box.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Native pass through would be good for satellite channels. Let the ones in 1080i pass as 1080i and the ones in 720p pass as 720p. You could even pass SD as 480i. Let the TV set decide how to take the native input and fit it on the display.

What E* is doing now is taking whatever feed they are getting from the satellite and converting it to ONE output standard chosen to match the TV. This lets the E* receiver do all the uprez/downrez work and locks the TV into one mode. Some TVs may do a better job of uprez/downrez than an E* receiver.

That's what 'passing native formats' is all about. Letting the TV do it's job of displaying the resolutions.

JL


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## navychop (Jul 13, 2005)

Ah, I misunderstood.


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## audiomaster (Jun 24, 2004)

navychop said:


> audiomaster:
> 
> The 1080p refers to the DISPLAY, not the source material. >>
> Thanks for the nice tutorial. Should help a lot of folks understand this.
> ...


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Ron Barry said:


> I watched a decent amount of VOOM over the course of the day yesterday. SOme looked great, some looked bad like the equater. I get the same impression with HDMovies and DiscoveryHD.
> 
> THe Italy show, the PQ did not look like a resolution affect. Looked more like an encoding issue to me.


100% agree. I have seen problems that looked more like MPEG2 compression problems than they did lack of resolution. Also not all recorded programs are equal in source material quality.

I would be very interested to see if anyone has done a study on the effective resolution we receive AFTER compression is taken into account. MPEG2 (and even MPEG4) is a lossy compression algorithm.

If you start with 1920x1080 prior to MPEG compression... I know you still keep the 1080 lines, but I have no idea how much of the 1920 horizontal resolution survives. It is VERY possible that we are only getting 1280-1440 effective resolution after compression is taken into account... so the furor of Dish reducing resolutions prior to compression may be a moot point.

IF, for instance... 25% (just a guess) is effectively lost due to MPEG2 lossy compression... A 1920x1080 image would appear the same as a 1440x1080 non-compressed signal for the most part in terms of resolution depth. That's a loss of 480 pixels horizontally.

IF the same transmission was downconverted to 1440x1080 and then compressed, we might get 1080x1080 effectively and that represents 360 lost pixels.

I'm making up numbers entirely here, but the point is that the compression has at least as large an effect as the original resolution prior to compression.

Dish may also find that reducing the resolution and compressing the signal less somehow gains them some bandwidth efficiency but we end up seeing the same thing at the end of the day.

This could very well explain Gary's paradox where he posted a while back how he was perplexed at how a recently captures 1280x1080 movie frame seemed to look the same as an older 1920x1080 captured frame.

IF Dish tweaks the downconverting and the MPEG2 compression at the same time, they could find a place where we get about the same quality but they use less bandwidth to do it.

Hopefully no one actually thinks that all of a 1920x1080 or a 1280x720 frame survives 100% the MPEG2 encoding/decoding process without loss of resolution.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

What I am hoping for on the Voom channels is that they will reencode their library into MPEG4 using the non-real time processes that CAN deliver the efficiencies that MPEG4 promised. Then run the whole plant from storage to backhaul to satellite to MPEG4 receiver in MPEG4 ... there's no need to use real time encoding (it isn't live).

Obviously they would have to keep the 10 channels in MPEG2 until new receivers are in place and MPEG2 HD is declared dead, but they might be able to save enough space on the five MPEG4 channels to allow the 10 MPEG2 channels to use more than a third of a transponder each.

Also don't forget that the 1280x1080i issue has been reported to be caused by the backhaul between Rainbow and Echostar, and that the backhaul is slated for upgrade allowing ALL 15 channels to go to 1920x1080i (whether or not that improves the picture).

JL


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## bavaria72 (Jun 10, 2004)

Ron Barry said:


> ...THe Italy show, the PQ did not look like a resolution affect. Looked more like an encoding issue to me.


That would explain a lot. Thanks Ron. - Art


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

I watched Equatorial channel again tonight. Africa show... WOW!!! Not bad for HD-Lite.  Night and day difference between that show and the Italy one for sure from my seat. 

PQ is very subjective. I know there is a lot of stir around the net on HD-Lite and drop in PQ. Lots of angry thread and this thread actually referred the reaction as a riot.  At this point, the jury is still out in my eyes. Healthy conversations are good to have in this area and all opinions should be welcomed. Will be interesting how this plays out over time and if people see differences on same TVs while others do not notice a difference at all. 

There is also a psychological aspect of this issue. I am not saying that this is occuring, but the power of suggestion also plays a roll with these discussions. If someone was to release a software upgrade and put in the release notes "improved picture quality" without doing anything actually to improve it, A percentage of people receiving the update would sware they PQ improved. Same goes in reverse. People expect a certain resolution and if the resolution decreases, they will expect to see a decrease in PQ even if one did not occur on their particular set (example: set is not capable of displaying all the information it receives). 

Will be interesting in how this plays out. By all means let your voice be heard, if you feel your viewing experience has decreased. And if you have not seen a difference voice your experience too. Good to get all thoughts and experiences... I don't believe the equatorial channels resolution has changed and the two shows I watched was night and day... From my vantage point it was obvious content difference or encoding issues was the cause and not transmission resolution.


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## dwcobb (Oct 13, 2005)

audiomaster said:


> A lot of the new monitors are doing 1080P now. Are the new 211/622 going to be able to send this or are they obsolete before shipment?


My own guess is that it will be years (if ever) before TV signal comes in 1080P. HD-DVD or Blu-Ray perhaps, but not signal.

Look how few HD channels there still are at this point and HD has been around for what 10 years? More? Not much less certainly, but the point is, the CURRENT standard of transmission - downrezzed or what have you - is still only being seen by a fraction of TV viewers in this country.

I can't imagine that the people transmitting programming are going to bump up to a higher display standard that will fracture the HD market even further.

720p will be the defacto standard for the foreseeable future.


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## Jon Spackman (Feb 7, 2005)

DWcobb-

What are you talking about? 720p is the "defacto standard"???? since when?

If you look most HD is broadcast in 1080i. your right about 1080p broadcast are very unlikely, but only fox, abc, and espnhd use 1080i. everyone else uses 1080i. So how is 720p defacto?


Jon


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## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

The way I've seen it.....

1080i is seen by some as having a "sharper" picture, however, it sometimes has some blurring problems during rapid action sequences (ie. sports)

720p is seen at being better at handling rapidly changing scenes, which is why ESPN has embraced it (and probably taken ABC with them for hardware sharing purposes).

We'll see in 1080p can trump both of them over the next few years..... (It SHOULD happen, but bandwidth limitations may slow adoption of that standard)


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## Jerry 42 (Feb 25, 2003)

Ron, if you really not see the difference between 1920 and 1220 then there is nothing anyone can say that will change your mind. But those of us who paid big dollars for high end sets, calibration, and other equipment do see the difference. 

I have one question - have you had your set calibrated by a professional? If not that could account for some the loss of pq. 

If you are enjoying what you see with HD lite that's what counts for you, but just remember that other who can see the difference want Dish to provide what they had been providing - 1920


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## the_bear (Oct 18, 2004)

1920x1080i MPEG2 is completely un-watchable @11Mbs, IMHO. The picture is very pixelated by compression loss. If only 11Mbs are going to be used, I prefer 1280x1080i.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Jerry 42 said:


> Ron, if you really not see the difference between 1920 and 1220 then there is nothing anyone can say that will change your mind. But those of us who paid big dollars for high end sets, calibration, and other equipment do see the difference.
> 
> I have one question - have you had your set calibrated by a professional? If not that could account for some the loss of pq.
> 
> If you are enjoying what you see with HD lite that's what counts for you, but just remember that other who can see the difference want Dish to provide what they had been providing - 1920


No I have not had my Sony GWII LCD 60" TV calibrated. At the time I purchased the unit I checked into calibration and it just did not seem that a lot of people were calibrating LCD RPTVs.

As to paying big dollars... I might not be on the high end of Home Theater purchases but I by no means am on the low end. I did pay what I consider some decent cash for my HT and I do care about PQ. Actually I am very sensitive too it and usually notice a drop in PQ immediately.

You might want to read my post again and maybe some others i have posted on my thoughts. I started the posts referring to two different programs on the same channel with huge PQ difference. Both were on HD-Lite. point being that it is not just resolution that determines PQ. I am sure that a lot of people that are seeing difference really are. I have no reason to doubt their opinions. And there are people that are not and I personally would not equate those people that are not as not having high enough equipement to see it or that they are not professional calibrated. It is my believe that TV Calibration, TV Quality, and TV technology used, lighting, human perception factors, and external influences all can play a part of a users perception to quality. The analogy I would place would be peoples perception of a certain Dish receiver. Lets take the 811. Some thing it is bug free and rocks in PQ others feel it is a POS and should have never been let into the public. Same hardware software and difference experience....

My main point is resolution is not the only factor. I could produce a full resolution image that looks like crap and produce a much better lower rez image that looks much better with the same bandwith as the crappy larger image.

Like I said.. Healthy conversations are good. View points on this matter are good.. I personally don't discount viewpoints regarding this issue and at this point personally I am trying to get a feel for the impact this has. Ofcourse as MPEG-4 rolls out discussions similar to this one will play out here also.


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## Jerry 42 (Feb 25, 2003)

Ron 

As I said to each his own. My statements and people of a like mind are no more valid than yours or people who agree with your point of view. As a retired producer of TV & Movies I just might be more sensitive to PQ than others so please excuse my rantings. 

Just as an aside (I have no vested interest here) I think you would find a professional calibration worth the dollars if you like the very best picture your set can deliver.


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## Ghostwriter (Oct 11, 2005)

BFG said:


> that's because equator has been 1280 since it was added to dish
> 
> This whole riot has been escalated over 4 1920 voom channels that dish actually boosted from the rez they were at on voom, down to 1280.


*Thats incorrect*. Equator was one of the channels that were downrezzed and IMO the one that suffered the most due to its programming. Out of Equator, Monsters, Gallery and Ultra I think they suffered in that order. Before the downrezzing I can honestly say that Equator had some of the best WOW effect of all the HD channels.


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## dsanbo (Nov 25, 2005)

Gotta agree with Ghost on this one.......
Don't know about any particular "order"...but I've definitely noticed a lack of PQ on Equator and Gallery....not that I watch either frequently.....but I will admit the "WOW" factor that I did see when I first started watching these channels has faded....SOMETHING's changed there.....and, IMHO, NOT for the better.....
For my money....It's d*** hard to beat HDNet when they're running a Mavs or Stars game....the term "stunning" seems an understatement....and I'm not even a big sports fan!!


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