# Does Dish broadcast in 1080 or 720?



## Wienerdog (Mar 31, 2007)

I am looking at buying a satellite or cable system. Does Dish broadcast in 1080 HD?


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

Wienerdog said:


> I am looking at buying a satellite or cable system. Does Dish broadcast in 1080 HD?


Both. It however does use some non-standard for broadcast, but allowed for satellite, pixel ratios.


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## ssmith10pn (Jul 6, 2005)

Wienerdog said:


> I am looking at buying a satellite or cable system. Does Dish broadcast in 1080 HD?


Depends on the Network.
ESPN, ABC are 720p

NBC, Discovery and others are 1080i


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## Wienerdog (Mar 31, 2007)

ssmith10pn said:


> Depends on the Network.
> ESPN, ABC are 720p
> 
> NBC, Discovery and others are 1080i


Thank you both.

I am moving down from Canada and looking forward to US Dish. I have a Canadian version which is made by Echostar which are pretty much the same equipment. I do need to by a new LCD TV down in Sugarland as I had to sell my plasma with the house.

Again thanks.


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## INHUMANITY (Aug 8, 2005)

tnsprin said:


> Both. It however does use some non-standard for broadcast, but allowed for satellite, pixel ratios.


Could you elaborate?

I'm curious as to what technology you're referring to?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

HD-Lite


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## INHUMANITY (Aug 8, 2005)

P Smith said:


> HD-Lite


Gotcha.

Just visited the Stop HD Lite website and read up.


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## William (Oct 28, 2006)

INHUMANITY said:


> Could you elaborate?
> 
> I'm curious as to what technology you're referring to?


Rave, HDNet, and most locals are at 1080x1440 and then scaled to 1080x1920, hence HD-Lite. Also D* uses an even lighter lite at 1080x1280.


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## MadScientist (Dec 1, 2004)

William said:


> Rave, HDNet, and most locals are at 1080x1440 and then scaled to 1080x1920, hence HD-Lite. Also D* uses an even lighter lite at 1080x1280.


How do you know? if it that or this?


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

People who have the equipment to read the streams tell us. (Please note that no signal theft is required to find out that information.)

Some have turned it into a crusade that the picture isn't on the satellite in 1920x1080i ... the note about D* is true that they use a lower resolution (less real signal passed through) scheme than E*. It is the nature of satellite that the signal MUST be compressed to fit multiple channels on one transponder ... the choice of reducing resolution is acceptable under the standards, if not to the crusaders.


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## INHUMANITY (Aug 8, 2005)

MadScientist said:


> How do you know? if it that or this?


I was reading this and came across some information on the technical aspects of "HD Lite":
http://www.stophdlite.com/

Click on the "HD LITE?" link at the top of the page.

I've attached a screen shot from the stophdlite.com website too.


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## INHUMANITY (Aug 8, 2005)

James,

As I continue to get more and more into the technical world of HD, I would be curious to learn more about the diagnostic aspects.

What is the do-dad that you guys use to measure satellite bandwidth?


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## santafeguy (Jan 31, 2007)

For the general public, is the difference that obvious? I am getting DISH installed on the 18th at my new house. I currently have Comcast, which I personally think sucks; but they don't service the town I am moving to anyway.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Well I believe it depends on your TV configuration and how sensitive one is to details. Some will say it is easy to tell, but you can also find numerous threads on this site discussing Picture Quality and there is so much more to the equation that resolution. As for the general public, my guess is that one could not tell the difference in most situations and that how well content is encoded has more to do with perceived picture quality than HD vs. HD-Lite. 

As for the site INHUMANITY posted, well that is what is wonderful about the net. Anyone can put up a site, but that does not make it official. HD-Lite is a lose term that has been coined to mean less than full HD resolution, however, from my experience the term means different things to different folks and i see it as a general term used usually in a derogatory fashion when discussing PQ. It is by no means some officially stated term recognized by the industry last time I checked. 

Bottom line santafeguy, I suggest doing a search on the term here and read the threads. It should give you a good idea if you should be concerned or not.


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## kstuart (Apr 25, 2002)

> *" 1080i ... I don't know what it is - but I want it."*


(Which also may end up being a summary of the year 2009.  )

Some people with a great deal of technical expertise think that 720p is inherently superior to 1080i - interlacing is an obsolete technology only necessary for 20th Century television. See for example:

http://alvyray.com/DigitalTV/default.htm


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

I hate when this completely erroneous information continues to resurface as if it is fact. Drives me nuts that some folks actually believe it and worse that they are spreading the word to others.

But my head hurts from the last argument/discussion, so I'm bowing out this round!


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

kstuart, you did blast from the past  again - the page has been presented a few times in HD-Lite threads;
look at a source of the page :
meta name="description" content="*1/12/05*"


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## kstuart (Apr 25, 2002)

P Smith said:


> kstuart, you did blast from the past  again - the page has been presented a few times in HD-Lite threads;
> look at a source of the page :
> meta name="description" content="*1/12/05*"


Sorry, I wasn't aware that the ATSC had changed the specifications of 720p and 1080i in the last few years ! 

PS Please check out the BIO of the author of the page, in addition to the DATE.

PPS Any links to the older threads you are referring to, would be of interest.


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## whatchel1 (Jan 11, 2006)

kstuart said:


> (Which also may end up being a summary of the year 2009.  )
> 
> Some people with a great deal of technical expertise think that 720p is inherently superior to 1080i - interlacing is an obsolete technology only necessary for 20th Century television. See for example:
> 
> http://alvyray.com/DigitalTV/default.htm


The miss information in that article is very abundant. There are 1080 lines every 60th of a sec in 1080I and 720 in same time period in 720P. Difference is the 720 lines are presented in a linear fashion hence progressive and the 1080 lines are in alternating order so it takes 2 fields to produce the 1080 lines. 1 field is displayed in half the time then the 2nd one is displayed. So the visual difference is going to be very hard to be seen. Right the ultimate is 1080P but it is not a standard yet. It will be 1 begore too long. The standard in a very few years will be know as Super HD or Super high resolution. Electronics will continue to push the limits that's how they keep selling us new equipment.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

We all have own agenda and mistakes. 

It was old discussion ( more then one ), but in brief - count by yourself how many pixels in background ( the sand ), not only for moving ball.


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## Mr.72 (Feb 2, 2007)

whatchel1 said:


> The miss information in that article is very abundant. There are 1080 lines every 60th of a sec in 1080I and 720 in same time period in 720P


This "miss information" is also equally abundant in your post.

Take just one field (1/60 of a second). On a 720p source, this field contains 921600 pixels (1280x720) and on a 1080i source this field contains 1036800 pixels (1920x540). It takes another frame to complete the 1920x1080 image on an interlaced display (fill in the other 540 lines). With any display, a de-interlacing technique is employed either by virtue of the display characteristics (CRT) or by digital reconstruction (combining of fields to form one frame) and in either circumstance, the display has a maximum number of 30 unique, complete, non-interpolated frames per second for a 1080i source.

Additionally, by requiring de-interlacing processing on the display end for most HDTV displays, the possibility for error is introduced. Noise, errors, distortion, pixelation etc. are common and dependent on the quality of the de-interlacing hardware. With a 720p source and a progressive display, de-interlacing is not required so this opportunity for error to be introduced is alleviated.

Now, given all of that, it's hardly any big deal depending on the source. For me, it's simple. For fast-moving action, including mostly sports, 720p is far and away the better format. For slow-moving pictures or movies, 1080i is more than adequate frame rate and provides higher display resolution.

It's all kind of a moot point anyway, though, since the very fact that there are multiple formats and most displays are fixed-pixel displays necessitates the use of a scaler. This is further complicated by the design of displays, which has very few (besides CRT displays) that are 1:1 pixel scale of the original format. There is no display I am aware of with a native resolution of 1280x720. There are some that are actually 1920x1080 but they require scaling of 720p material.

Worse yet is the attitude of programming providers (and networks), and equipment providers.

Take for example your typical LCD TV owner. LCDs are extremely common for mid-level HDTVs. Most of them have a panel resolution of 1366x768 @ 60 Hz. Let's then say you hook up a 622 to it, and try and watch an NBA playoff game on a Sunday afternoon in Austin, TX on ABC.

1. The network formats this program in 720p. In fact they format all of their programming in 720p. It just so happens that the game is being shot by ESPN who know what they are doing, and they provide the material to ABC in 720p.

2. The local broadcaster (KVUE) coverts that to 1080i for inexplicable reasons, thus losing 1/2 of the frame rate (cutting the resolution per second IN HALF), introducing all kinds of artifacts, interpolating pixels and that sort of thing. This conversion adds nothing but noise and distortion and removes half of the frame rate.

3. The 622 picks this up and then scales it to 1280x720 since it's set to 720p, the best match for the LCD panel. This again introduces artifacts.

4. The LCD TV has to now scale that to 1366x768, introducing even more noise and artifacts.

So here we have four stages of processing and conversion that the program has to go through before being viewed.

Native pass-thru feature would eliminate one of these stages. The Austin ABC affiliate pulling their head out of the sand would remove another stage. However, the broadcasters and content providers are shooting themselves in the foot with this stuff.

So you know, it still looks better than SD TV. But not long from now, "better than SD" is not going to be a high enough standard for "HD" and customers are going to start to demand a bit more quality.


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## tomcrown1 (Jan 16, 2006)

Mr.72 said:


> This "miss information" is also equally abundant in your post.
> 
> Take just one field (1/60 of a second). On a 720p source, this field contains 921600 pixels (1280x720) and on a 1080i source this field contains 1036800 pixels (1920x540). It takes another frame to complete the 1920x1080 image on an interlaced display (fill in the other 540 lines). With any display, a de-interlacing technique is employed either by virtue of the display characteristics (CRT) or by digital reconstruction (combining of fields to form one frame) and in either circumstance, the display has a maximum number of 30 unique, complete, non-interpolated frames per second for a 1080i source.
> 
> ...


thanks for the correct information. I get so tired of the bad information on the net in regards to HD lite etc that it hurts my head. As you stated their are several factors that affect PQ.


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## johnsbin (Nov 14, 2002)

Mr.72 said:


> 1. The network formats this program in 720p. In fact they format all of their programming in 720p. It just so happens that the game is being shot by ESPN who know what they are doing, and they provide the material to ABC in 720p.
> 
> 2. The local broadcaster (KVUE) coverts that to 1080i for inexplicable reasons, thus losing 1/2 of the frame rate (cutting the resolution per second IN HALF), introducing all kinds of artifacts, interpolating pixels and that sort of thing. This conversion adds nothing but noise and distortion and removes half of the frame rate.


Maybe your local ABC converts it to 1080i but mine does not and as far as I knew ABC broadcasts at 720p nationwide. If your local broadcaster is changing that to 1080i, they are doing it outside of ABC's national standard.


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## kstuart (Apr 25, 2002)

Mr.72 said:


> So you know, it still looks better than SD TV. But not long from now, "better than SD" is not going to be a high enough standard for "HD" and customers are going to start to demand a bit more quality.


I don't see any evidence of that.
In audio, four formats have arisen since CD - two better quality than CD (SACD and DVD-Audio) and two worse quality than CD (Dolby Digital and MP3).
The formats are popular in *inverse order* from their quality - the most popular is MP3, which is a significant step down in sound quality from any previous audio format (although far more convenient).
While I love my Olevia LCD, I'm sure that HD is driven more by manufacturers than consumers. 
From what I read in various forums, I'm inclined to think that a stylish thin flat panel 16x9 480i TV would far outsell an equivalently priced thick CRT 16x9 TV that was 1080p...


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## Mr.72 (Feb 2, 2007)

you know, kstuart you have a good point. But as a professional musician, former owner of a record label & recording studio, and record producer, I think I can say with authority that music customers do not care about sound quality. They cannot tell the difference between MP3s and CD audio tracks. Even most professional musicians who come into the studio cannot tell the difference between a 24 bit master and a 16 bit downsampled master. 

However, with HDTV, anybody watching on a screen larger than 13" in diameter can clearly and easily tell the difference between 480i and 720p.

But still my argument was not about the difference between 480i and 720p, or 720p and 1080i, etc. Rather, I am talking about artifacts of conversion from one format to another for display and transport that result in variable degrading of the picture. Anybody can see the difference between slow-moving action in an NBA game free of pixelation and artifacts, vs. fast-moving action with abundant pixelation and artifacts, since those are happening right there in sequence. 

My friend just bought a new HDTV (30" CRT) and he's far from a videophile. In fact, he is about the lowest-rank user of a TV that there is. He bought the cheapest HDTV he could find, because his former TV just died, and he wanted to avoid having to add on a converter when all broadcasts go digital in 2009. He called me the first day he had it and commented on the pixelation on a broadcast NBA game on the local ABC affiliate. Everybody can see this but not everybody can hear the difference between MP3s and CDs.

To be honest, the convenience of MP3s is a major selling point. I'ma pro and I don't use CDs. I use 192k mp3s exclusively. The first thing I do when I get a CD is rip it, put it on my iPod, and then forget I own the CD.

I think this is an apples-to-oranges comparison.

You're right about a thin, light, low-power-consumption LCD outselling big, hot, heavy CRTs regardless of quality. That's why nobody has tube hifi rigs or large-format speakers anymore. 8ose 4coustimass systems sound horrid but they sure fit into the decor easily.

See ya-


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## isuzudave (Sep 29, 2006)

Wienerdog said:


> Thank you both.
> 
> I am moving down from Canada and looking forward to US Dish. I have a Canadian version which is made by Echostar which are pretty much the same equipment. I do need to by a new LCD TV down in Sugarland as I had to sell my plasma with the house.
> 
> Again thanks.


Welcome to the Houston area.

In case you are wondering, you should have no problems picking up the HD locals. I think most of the antennas for the Houston area are in the Sugarland area.


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