# CBS HD on 61.5 now being down converted!!!



## Gary Murrell (Jan 11, 2005)

CBS HD on 61.5 is now being converted to 720p with horrid 10.98 Mbps bitrate

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=49354

this is obviously a mistake on Dish's part

  

-Gary


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Were you not asking E* to use 720p instead of 1280x1080i ?


Gary Murrell said:


> Dish would have been better off having Voom or themselves convert to 1280x720p


http://dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=482065&postcount=49

JL


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## Gary Murrell (Jan 11, 2005)

If they were set on utilizing picture resolution distortion then 720p would be better than 1280x1080i

way to use my words out of context

the answer here is to question Corporate Dish, not me, God this forum  

-Gary


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

It's a fair question. It's obvious that you really would prefer 1920/1080i with a high bitrate but that just isn't going to happen. Even with the massive amount of bandwidth E* has, they have to conserve.

JL


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## Ghostwriter (Oct 11, 2005)

You know I am beginning to wear thin with E* cutting corners. CBS transmits in 1920x1080i so keep it that way. You have had it that way till now, how come all these HD changes now. I think this is also the worst possible time of the year for E* to be messing with things. I had a few Dish products on my wishlist that I have scratched off, I for one will wait till their next HD chat to make a decision on my next move. No MPEG4 receivers/PocketDish in my home from E* until THEY figure out what the heck they are doing.

I agree with you Gary, there are a few people here that back E* blindly as if they can do absolutely nothing wrong. If they do have massive amounts of bandwidth, please use it! And BTW where is my refund for losing OLN???


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## Mike D-CO5 (Mar 12, 2003)

I may sound stupid but I am going to ask it anyway. When you set your satellite receiver to 1080i output, doesn't your box upscale the picture quality to 1080i anyway? 

I personaly have my 942 sat receiver set to 720p , since it gives me a much clearer picture on most of my locals and other national sat channels. My tv does 1080i but it doesn't look as good as when the receiver is set to 720p. 

Maybe Dish is trying to save room and bandwith by doing 720p and hoping the receiver will upscale the image anyways. I think that most people really can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080i anyways unless they sit right up on the screen. Most people sit about 10feet away in the average living room. If you sit to close the picture doesn't look as good anyways on regular sd sat channels. 

IN Sound & Vision magazine for January 2006 , there is an article in Tech Talk about the 720p broadcasts and why they look different. He says in the article by David RAnada:

"If you want the most lifelike reproduction of motion, then a live- action 720p signal is what you should feed your HDTV . It's often overlooked that the total information content of a 720p signal is about EQUAL to that of a 1080i signal , but is distributed differently. What a 720p signal gives up in spatial resolution- which you many not even see- it makes up for in temporal resolution by carrying 60 full frames per second vs the 30 frames per second of a 1080i signal. " 

He goes on to talk about 1080 progressive:

"But 1080p will look like 720p if the combination of screen size and viewing distance puts the screen at your eyes' resolution limit. Don't go looking - or paying- for something you may not be able to see."

So maybe Dish is counting on putting all of the hd channels in 720p, since it too is an hd standard . IF it doesn't look noticably different to people and the receiver will upscale it anyways to 1080i for those who want it to, why should it matter?


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Gary Murrell said:


> CBS HD on 61.5 is now being converted to 720p with horrid 10.98 Mbps bitrate
> 
> http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=49354
> 
> ...


I don't get CBSHD (watching my local free OTA) but I agree this is a mistake if Dish does this, since CBS looks spectacular in 1080i.

However... I hate to say "I told you so"... but all those emails to Dish from you guys saying "720p is better than 1280x1080i" must have sunk in... and you actually convinced them that you would accept even less quality!

I was afraid something like this might happen if folks who didn't know better wrote Dish too much and let them know that a lot of people don't know what is going on...


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## kstevens (Mar 26, 2003)

Mike D-CO5 said:


> I may sound stupid but I am going to ask it anyway. When you set your satellite receiver to 1080i output, doesn't your box upscale the picture quality to 1080i anyway?
> 
> I personaly have my 942 sat receiver set to 720p , since it gives me a much clearer picture on most of my locals and other national sat channels. My tv does 1080i but it doesn't look as good as when the receiver is set to 720p.
> 
> ...


Then there is something wrong with your set. I can tell a big difference between a 1920x1080 signal and a 1280x720p signal. 2 of my locals broadcaste in 720p and the other 3 are 1080i. The 720p signals are always a bit more grainy on my tv.

Ken


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## tsmacro (Apr 28, 2005)

Ghostwriter said:


> And BTW where is my refund for losing OLN???


Didn't you hear? They're using the money they're saving from not paying for OLN to pay for ESPNU, CSTV & the NFL network! :lol:


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## Mike D-CO5 (Mar 12, 2003)

kstevens said:


> Then there is something wrong with your set. I can tell a big difference between a 1920x1080 signal and a 1280x720p signal. 2 of my locals broadcaste in 720p and the other 3 are 1080i. The 720p signals are always a bit more grainy on my tv.
> 
> Ken


 Funny it is the exact opposite on my tv. My receiver makes the picture look more smoother in 720p than 1080i.

The point of the article was that all the hype about 1080 p is just that. The human eye can only see so much detail and depending on the distance you set from your tv , is whether you will notice the interlaced pq vs a progressive.

Either way I think if Dish does 720p it will still be a recognized hd standard and the receiver itself will upscale it to 1080i anyways. Most people won't notice the difference or care , as long as the picture looks great from a regular viewing distance.


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## SummitAdvantageRetailer (Feb 20, 2005)

Some people have TV's that have native resolution of 720p, namely the LCD HDTV owners. At that native resolution, 720p may look better than 1080i though the jury is still out there on that. 

But DISH needs to keep CBS in 1080i unless announced to change so. DISH is losing some support with me as I deal with many int'l customers and taking SBS and Channel 1 Russia away WITHOUT notice cost us a lot of money and headache. And since I'm a big HDTV fan, down-rezzing the Voom channels and now this CBS East is getting pretty annoying. GIVE US A NOTICE, DISH! At least state why you're doing this!


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## jrb531 (May 29, 2004)

By my calculations:

1280x1080 = 1,382,400 / 2 (interlaced) = 691200
1280x720 = 921,600 (+33.3%)

Yes I know compression makes these numbers not very accurate but the same compression affects both and it seems to me that 720p is clearly superior.

Now my old HD set does not do 720p but only 1080i so perhaps the quality depends more on how well your set/box "converts" the picture.

What percentage of HD sets can see 1920x1080?

I am more concerned about the bitrate (compression) and I would far far rather have SD "resolution" with a higher bitrate rather than a higher resolution with a lower bitrate.

Some people seem to be so focused on resolution that they forget that resolution is only important...

1. When your set can use that resolution
2. When the bitrate is high enough so that the PQ does not go in the toilet.

Transmitting a higher resolution just so that 5% (or less) of the HD users can get a slightly better picture (those with the cream of HD sets) and then having to cut corners (lower bitrates / less channels) for "everyone" seems silly at best.

Why not tell Dish to put up 20 more birds and remove all compression? One channel per transponder would be better LOL.

Of course who will be able to afford the $2000 a month bill 

Maybe removing stupid and utter waste of bandwidth channels might help? Demo channel? HD cartoon channel? I could go through the SD channels but that is a slipery slope 

-JB


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

jrb531 said:


> I am more concerned about the bitrate (compression) and I would far far rather have SD "resolution" with a higher bitrate rather than a higher resolution with a lower bitrate.
> 
> -JB


I agree. Either 720p or 1080i look most excellent with a high bit rate in various aspect formats, but a low bit rate renders picture quality to cr*p.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

I'm trying to find the exact wording of the FCC requirement that stations within a market be given equivilent bandwidth. I keep finding the rule as it refers to distant channels not getting more bandwidth than the local version and significantly viewed channels not getting more bandwidth than the local version but not the rule I'm looking for.

I know I've read it in the FCC rules that secondary retransmissions such as E*/D*'s cannot favor one station over another in bandwidth.

The reason why I'm looking is that we MAY be seeing some effects of the law on what E* is doing to CBS-HD. As an individual digital TV station there are no others to compare CBS-HD to ... but when the NY market has all the major networks up the idea of "equivilent bandwidth" comes into play. If E* left CBS-HD at 1080i and gave the signal a third of a transponder then all of the other NY HDs would have to have a third of a transponder.

It looks like with 720p E* will be doing four channels per transponder (MPEG2/8PSK) - which means they can almost fit a digital market on one transponder. Going three channels per transponder pushes E* to needing nearly two full transponders per digital market.

E* is talking that a year from now there will be as many as 60 local digital markets. If they all have five active network channels we are at 300 channels - 75 transponders full at 4 per TP or 100 transponders full at 3 per TP. Going with the true HD format of 720p and the 1/4 TP bandwidth they have chosen gives 33% more markets than if they are forced to stay at 1/3 TP.

We've had the discussion before about bit rates ... the less you put in to the blender the less you have to crush up. E* is going to try to get as many channels on a TP as possible so they can get as many channels and HD markets up as possible. Starting with 720p gives them less bits to crush into the available space.

No one promised that satellite fed channels would look as good as terrestrial feeds. DBS has been attacked on PQ issues since they started - the original C-Band quality came from having one feed per transponder - someone figured out how to multiplex six per transponder - DBS routinely does 12 SDs per transponder. Compression is a fact of life.

If we want to demand of E* that they get more local markets up in HD than D* we are going to have to accept that they will have to find a place to put them all - not just the market we receive but the others as well. The way that satellite companies find a place to put their channels is by managing the space they have within the rules that the FCC and congress has set forth. (Which is why upliking one super high quality HD feed of each network and giving it to all customers in the US doesn't work ... the law doesn't allow it.)

When it comes down to it I believe E* is doing the best that they can within the resources they have. Perhaps when MPEG4 comes along they will be able to do six 1080i channels per TP ... (there is a disturbance in the force - a massive shout of NO to six channels per TP before anyone has seen the PQ). This is DBS. Don't expect c-band perfection.

JL


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

Gary Murrell said:


> CBS HD on 61.5 is now being converted to 720p with horrid 10.98 Mbps bitrate
> 
> http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=49354
> 
> ...


I know someone is saying this but are we sure we should believe it?


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Yes. I don't doubt Gary's findings on CBS-HD.

JL


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## Dave (Jan 29, 2003)

So it doesn't matter if E is trying to please everyone as long as they please just the few. Is this what you are saying. They do have 9 or 10 Sat's in the air compared to Directv. They are trying to move forward in leaps and bounds ahead of Cable and Directv. The TV manufacturers are actually downgrading the signal in HD TV's. It use to be that everything was 1080i. Not any more. A lot of the plasma's and DLP's , and LCD's are now 720p's. Just about the only thing out there left in 1080i is the big heavy projection TV's. Yet some would like to blame E for this problem. If you only have a 720p TV how do you make it play in 1080i? Granted some of you do have the older sets that play in 1080i. But even the manufacturers are trying to do away with it to save on bandwidth for the Cable and Sat companies. You can only squeeze so much bandwidth and so many channels out of a transponder. Perhaps a few will donate money for all these Sats for everyone to get 1080i instead of the 720p. And then perhaps you can buy a 1080i TV for all who want it. Or perhaps if you are really this unhappy you should go on to the buggy R15's and R10's at Direct TV. Yes Direct's receivers also have many problems that need to be worked out. Maybe Direct will get all these HDTV channels that you have now with Dish.


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## hokieengineer (Jul 31, 2004)

JL: I could see how that equal bandwidth rule could come into play, however they currently have abc,nbc,cbs on one TP and fox on its own TP. Fox is averaging ~14mbit/s, while cbs/abc/nbc average between 9-12mbit/s. 

There is no way they are cramming 4 HD channels per TP unless they want some really pissed off HD customers. 9Mbit/s even for 1280i is cutting it pretty low. So, what I think we'll see is maybe abc/cbs on one TP and nbc/fox on the 2nd. Having fox by itself doesnt make sense, unless they plan on adding the local pbs and WB in HD :lol:


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## hokieengineer (Jul 31, 2004)

Dave said:


> So it doesn't matter if E is trying to please everyone as long as they please just the few. Is this what you are saying. They do have 9 or 10 Sat's in the air compared to Directv. They are trying to move forward in leaps and bounds ahead of Cable and Directv. The TV manufacturers are actually downgrading the signal in HD TV's. It use to be that everything was 1080i. Not any more. A lot of the plasma's and DLP's , and LCD's are now 720p's. Just about the only thing out there left in 1080i is the big heavy projection TV's. Yet some would like to blame E for this problem. If you only have a 720p TV how do you make it play in 1080i? Granted some of you do have the older sets that play in 1080i. But even the manufacturers are trying to do away with it to save on bandwidth for the Cable and Sat companies. You can only squeeze so much bandwidth and so many channels out of a transponder. Perhaps a few will donate money for all these Sats for everyone to get 1080i instead of the 720p. And then perhaps you can buy a 1080i TV for all who want it. Or perhaps if you are really this unhappy you should go on to the buggy R15's and R10's at Direct TV. Yes Direct's receivers also have many problems that need to be worked out. Maybe Direct will get all these HDTV channels that you have now with Dish.


So we should just sit back and take it then? I have a choice when I buy a tv. I also have a choice when I choose my satellite provider. I thought Dish was doing a pretty damn good job with their HD offerings up till a few weeks ago. The voom debacle, and now these local channel downrezing makes me wonder WTF is going on here.

I expect this kind of crap from Directv after reading all the complaints about HDLite. I DONT want it to happen with Dish as well. That is why we are making a stink out of this. I feel Dish does listen to its customers and that we have a chance to make our feelings heard. We know they read these boards, and we know they listen when a lot of people call/write in to complain (as shown by the voom campaign). Now, we have not seen any direct action yet, but I am willing to wait until these channels are officially launched before judging the voom situation.

As to CBS-E HD, this is an available subscribed channel. It was switched with no warning on Wednesday. I feel either they don't know about the situation they caused, or they are testing the waters. I and a lot others are here to let them know we are NOT happy about this change and hope they take that into consideration.

I'm not sure what TV you have, but I can tell a difference between 720p and 1080i on my 720p projector. Watching the NFL on CBS just gives the screen that "pop" of super clarity. I'm still up in the air on the "motion blur" of 1080i for fast moving scenes. However CBS always in MY OPINION looks better with their NFL broadcasts than Fox in 720p. Thus, I'd really hate to see dish mangle the cbs 1080i broadcast into a 720p one.


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## rthomp03 (Sep 29, 2005)

jrb531 said:


> By my calculations:
> 
> What percentage of HD sets can see 1920x1080?
> 
> -JB


Mine can and it's awesome.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

jrb531 said:


> By my calculations:
> 
> 1280x1080 = 1,382,400 / 2 (interlaced) = 691200
> 1280x720 = 921,600 (+33.3%)
> ...


About seventy-zillion (ok that's an exaggeration) time in various threads several folks, including myself, have tried to explain the above erroneously incorrect type of information.... so I can't bring myself to do it all over again.

But I will take the opportunity to say no... 1080i is superior resolution of image to 720p, period. And even a scaled down 1280x1080 instead of native 1920x1080 contains more resolution than a 1280x720 picture.

No arguments, just facts. All the strange math and wrong assumptions that folks keep jumping on are making my head hurt.


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## n0qcu (Mar 23, 2002)

jrb531 said:


> By my calculations:
> 
> 1280x1080 = 1,382,400 / 2 (interlaced) = 691200
> 1280x720 = 921,600 (+33.3%)
> ...


Dividing by 2 is WRONG.

Just because interlaced only gives "half" of the frame at a time the WHOLE frame is still 1080 'lines' which is 360 more than 720.

Forget the funny math just use simple math.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

hokieengineer said:


> JL: I could see how that equal bandwidth rule could come into play, however they currently have abc,nbc,cbs on one TP and fox on its own TP. Fox is averaging ~14mbit/s, while cbs/abc/nbc average between 9-12mbit/s.
> 
> There is no way they are cramming 4 HD channels per TP unless they want some really pissed off HD customers. 9Mbit/s even for 1280i is cutting it pretty low. So, what I think we'll see is maybe abc/cbs on one TP and nbc/fox on the 2nd. Having fox by itself doesnt make sense, unless they plan on adding the local pbs and WB in HD :lol:


I must have misread Tony's charts ... seeing 9483, 9936, 9937 and 9938 on R1 TP17. One of those numbers must be a mirror (two numbers, same content).

BUT - CBS at 10.98 Mbps times four channels is 43.92 Mbps. 8PSK transponders can handle 41.2 Mbps (FCC filing for E10). It is not inconcievable that four HDs would be tried on a TP (average 10.3 Mbps each). If E* was planning on giving the channel 1/3 of a transponder the bitrate could be closer to 13.7 Mbps.

Eventually we are going to have to let go of the numbers games. When HD channels go MPEG4 (and the encoders get up to speed) it is likely that we will see lower bit rates per channel.

JL


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## JohnH (Apr 22, 2002)

Too bad we can't get natural scan anymore. We have to put up with these 60 or 30 freeze frames per second and the motion just jumps across the screen.

I am waiting for someone to tell them they cannot change the digital OTA signal when providing it on satellite. That is they have to mirror it. No additional compression or any format changing.


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## JohnH (Apr 22, 2002)

James Long said:


> I must have misread Tony's charts ... seeing 9483, 9936, 9937 and 9938 on R1 TP17. One of those numbers must be a mirror (two numbers, same content).
> 
> JL


Someone who can see the PAT, PMT and PIDs made note of that somewhere. It is CBS and CBS are the same channel.


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## JohnH (Apr 22, 2002)

n0qcu said:


> Dividing by 2 is WRONG.
> 
> Just because interlaced only gives "half" of the frame at a time the WHOLE frame is still 1080 'lines' which is 360 more than 720.
> 
> Forget the funny math just use simple math.


Yep, but the flicker is different.


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

James Long said:


> I'm trying to find the exact wording of the FCC requirement that stations within a market be given equivilent bandwidth. I keep finding the rule as it refers to distant channels not getting more bandwidth than the local version and significantly viewed channels not getting more bandwidth than the local version but not the rule I'm looking for.
> 
> I
> JL


I have read it also and I have read the latest letters to the FCC. As I have said in other posts, it is a HARD read. I believe that the FCC basically gives the satellite broadcasting industry to do as they feel fit within reason. It is so general and ambiguous that it is open to just about any interpretation.

Here is a reference point for the report to congress: http://www.fcc.gov/


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## kb7oeb (Jun 16, 2004)

Do we know that its 720p? Maybe its 720i since the original signal is interlaced.


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## BrettTRay (Aug 13, 2005)

its is 720p


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

JohnH said:


> Too bad we can't get natural scan anymore. We have to put up with these 60 or 30 freeze frames per second and the motion just jumps across the screen.
> 
> I am waiting for someone to tell them they cannot change the digital OTA signal when providing it on satellite. That is they have to mirror it. No additional compression or any format changing.


A lot of folks also don't seem to grasp that moving to digital from analog threw out a lot of resolution too. Japan has analog 1000 scanline TV, so we could have done that here in the US too... but when the move to HD was discussed the powers-that-be also decided to go digital at the same time.

We gain a bunch of stuff... but one gain is in digitizing the signal, they can compress it and even at a minimal level of compression the digital HD signal takes less bandwidth than an analog HD signal would have.

We could have done analog HD digital, and *that* would have been an awesome sight!


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## BoisePaul (Apr 26, 2005)

HDMe said:


> We could have done *analog HD digital*, and *that* would have been an awesome sight!


I think my head just exploded when I read that...


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

> A lot of folks also don't seem to grasp that moving to digital from analog threw out a lot of resolution too.


I recall seeing an analog HD display MANY years ago at an NAB convention. I have NEVER seen anything come even close since. The source material was on custom laser discs, the display was two stacked CRT projectors. I certainly wouldn't have wanted the job of converging that mess, but the end result was worth it. I always had a hard enough time back then converging my 3 tube Zenith projector. :lol:


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

James Long said:


> I must have misread Tony's charts ... seeing 9483, 9936, 9937 and 9938 on R1 TP17. One of those numbers must be a mirror (two numbers, same content).
> 
> BUT - CBS at 10.98 Mbps times four channels is 43.92 Mbps. 8PSK transponders can handle 41.2 Mbps (FCC filing for E10). It is not inconcievable that four HDs would be tried on a TP (average 10.3 Mbps each). If E* was planning on giving the channel 1/3 of a transponder the bitrate could be closer to 13.7 Mbps.
> 
> ...


What is the bit rate claimed for 8psk turbo that Echostart said it was going to roll out? This was said to be happening even before they planned to go to mpeg4.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

I believe the 41.2 Mbps for 8PSK is including Turbo.

JL


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

BoisePaul said:


> I think my head just exploded when I read that...


Sorry... I was just trying to be as wrong as some other people to fit in 

Actually, it was an honest mistake as I didn't proofread my post before (or after) I sent it... Thanks for noticing my mistake! Really, when I make a mistake even an accidental one, I like knowing so I can try not to do it again!

It does read pretty funny though...


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Richard King said:


> I recall seeing an analog HD display MANY years ago at an NAB convention. I have NEVER seen anything come even close since. The source material was on custom laser discs, the display was two stacked CRT projectors. I certainly wouldn't have wanted the job of converging that mess, but the end result was worth it. I always had a hard enough time back then converging my 3 tube Zenith projector. :lol:


I wish I could have seen that. I seem to remember way back that when Japan introduced their analog HD there was some pressure here in the US and there were some sets designed for some of those fancy CES-type shows... but I gather either it was too expensive OR at the same time folks were looking at going digital so it never really saw the official light of day.

I believe Japan switched to digital as well at some point... but I figured it was worth noting that it was possible and spectacular. In a perfect world, we would get crisp analog signals and that would put everything else to shame!

But usually we have to choose between poor analog and passable digital... with the occasional nice HD digital signal thrown into the mix, fortunately.

To keep myself semi-on-topic here... I sincerely hope they don't decide to downconvert CBSHD or NBCHD. I know both use 1080i natively... I believe the WB does as well. I know ABC and FOX are 720p. I don't know what UPN uses, because my local UPN is the only station that doesn't use HD at all. I've read that PBS typically is 1080, but I can't be sure of that from my local PBS because it never looks quite as sharp as my CBS does.


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## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

I've heard people say that 1080i looks "sharper", but that 720p handles motion better.

I tend to leave my 921 set at 1080i....


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

BobMurdoch said:


> I've heard people say that 1080i looks "sharper", but that 720p handles motion better.


There's plenty of pro/con propaganda for both formats. I wish someone would do a double blind study comparing the two so this controversy could finally be put to rest.


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## voripteth (Oct 25, 2005)

I have a set that can display 1080p and I think more of that type are purchased every day. It would be a shame to throw away the extra data just to appease the 720p zealots.

I did see some odd graphic glitches this weekend on CBS HD. Every few minutes I would see a screen flash. With careful use of freeze frame I was able to see that it was a video frame shifted to the right about a half screen. Is this an artifact of DISH changing from 1080i to 720p?


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## Mike123abc (Jul 19, 2002)

James Long said:


> I believe the 41.2 Mbps for 8PSK is including Turbo.
> 
> JL


What turbo coding does is use an improved error correction algorythm so they are able to cut back the amount of error correction and still get the same error rate for a given signal strength.

Dish is currently using 2/3 FEC on 8PSK. So 1/3 of the bits being transmitted are error correction. Now with turbo coding they can either keep 2/3 FEC and have less rain fade since error correction is better, or they can reduce the error correction to 3/4 or 5/6 and have more bits used for programming and keep the rain fade resonable.

At 3/4 they would have 21500 (symbol rate) * 3 (8PSK) * 3/4 (FEC) * 188/204 (RL EC) or roughly 44.58 Mbit/sec

At 5/6 they would have 21500 * 3 * 5/6 *188/204 or roughly 49.53

versus the current 21500 * 3 * 2/3 * 188/204 or roughly 39.62

It will be interesting to see what the final rates end up being. They can make adjustments in the symbol rate to balance rain fade vs bits/sec. For example if they decide that 3/4 is too little rain fade yet 5/6 is too much, they could slow down the symbol rate to lower the rain fade.


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## Foxbat (Aug 1, 2003)

I think everyone is missing the point with the 1080i vs. 720p argument here. CBS *originates* in 1080i; therefore, a conversion must be made to 720p. If Dish had decided to try 1280x1080i, the image would lose horizontal resolution, but kept the same vertical resolution, and more importantly, the same interlacing. To convert to 720p from 1080i you need to deinterlace. Is Dish cheating and taking each 540 line field and scaling it up to 720 lines, or are they building up a 1080 line buffer with both fields, then scaling down to 720?

Either way, Dish is taking CBS's 1920x1080i signal, decoding it, converting it to 720p, encoding it, uplinking it to the satellite, broadcasting to your receiver, where it may undergo another conversion back to 1080i (since many sets won't accept 720p from an external input).


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## thxultra (Feb 1, 2005)

Brings up the question if sat will ever be able to handel hd as well as cable. I have heard many storys that sat will never be able to have the bandwith cable has. Not to mention sat has to share its bandwith with many local markets.


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## Mike123abc (Jul 19, 2002)

thxultra said:


> Brings up the question if sat will ever be able to handel hd as well as cable. I have heard many storys that sat will never be able to have the bandwith cable has. Not to mention sat has to share its bandwith with many local markets.


It is hard to say at this point. Cable can beat satellite if they eliminate the analog stations, which they are probably going to do a few years from now. But, by the time cable gets around to eliminating the analog channels the satellite companies will have a bunch of new satellites. So, it is really going to be interesting, not to mention the outside players putting in fiber everywhere.

Right now most of the cable capacity goes into the analog channels. If cable were to eliminate the analog and have a state of the art cable plant, they could deliver 250-300+ full resolution HD channels. Most cable companies already carry so many analog channels and have not updated their plants that they cannot carry more than 10-20 channels. That is why they have been fighting must carry digital locals, they do not want to have all their remaining capacity filled by minor locals in digital.

It will probably remain as it is now... some areas cable will be the best deal with the best resolution and in other areas it will be satellite or a third party like fiber.


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## Jon Spackman (Feb 7, 2005)

All digital cable is happening now in some areas. Newport beach, CA has an area where Adelphia has 100% digital service. They had to replace the amplifiers that boosted to signal to multiple tv's because they were not compatible with their all digital system. All i can say is that the locals digital looked very good. I think this is going to happen elsewhere soon.


Jon


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## Bill R (Dec 20, 2002)

thxultra said:


> Brings up the question if sat will ever be able to handle hd as well as cable.


Are you kidding? Have you ever seen HD on cable?

While it might not be the same on all cable systems, some (especially mine), does a horrific job on HD. They over-compress it and, on top of that, their digital set top (DVR) boxes sometime can't handle recording a HD channel while you are watching another one.

While HD via satellite might never be as good as OTA HD, I hope that it will never be as bad as my local cable company provides.


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## Bill R (Dec 20, 2002)

j5races said:


> All digital cable is happening now in some areas. Newport beach, CA has an area where Adelphia has 100% digital service.
> 
> Jon


Can cable systems currently do that? I thought that the FCC rules say that the cable companies must provide their basic tier (which, at the very least, must include OTA local channels) unscrambled and must not require a cable box. Did I miss a FCC rule change?


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

I am sorry but I must ask again. What evidence do we have that they are converting WCBS-dt to 720P. Tonight I have been recording CSI Miami tonight both from Satellite and Direct frin WCBS-dt in NY. I am having trouble seeing any difference in picture. Alright the TV I am using is a first generatrion HDTV toshiba (tws65h85) but shouldn't I see some significant difference in some of the frames.


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## hokieengineer (Jul 31, 2004)

tnsprin said:


> I am sorry but I must ask again. What evidence do we have that they are converting WCBS-dt to 720P. Tonight I have been recording CSI Miami tonight both from Satellite and Direct frin WCBS-dt in NY. I am having trouble seeing any difference in picture. Alright the TV I am using is a first generatrion HDTV toshiba (tws65h85) but shouldn't I see some significant difference in some of the frames.


Debug message from VLC while playing back the transport stream recorded from CBS-E HD from TP17:

main debug: picture in 1280x720 (0,0,1280x720), chroma I420, ar 16:9, sar 1:1

Gary and others with transport recording ability can also confirm this.

I find it interesting some people have seen flashing effects after this change took place. That really sounds like a problem between dish doing their conversion to 720p and a customers receiver either reconverting to 1080i output or having problems processing the converted transport stream.


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## saweetnesstrev (Oct 8, 2005)

What channel is CBS-HD i just got HD, and i dont see it and im in the cleveland area  tyvm.


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## JohnH (Apr 22, 2002)

CBSHD East is 9483. CBSHD West is 9484. You will not see either unless you have a subscription to those specific channels. You also would need a dish pointed at 61.5 or 148 for East or West.


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## voripteth (Oct 25, 2005)

hokieengineer said:


> I find it interesting some people have seen flashing effects after this change took place. That really sounds like a problem between dish doing their conversion to 720p and a customers receiver either reconverting to 1080i output or having problems processing the converted transport stream.


I'm using a 942 to display in 1080i for my Sony 60" SXRD which displays 1080p.


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## saweetnesstrev (Oct 8, 2005)

You have to buy CSHD East seperately? Oh i get it ,,, it costs 1.50 dollar more,, Can Cleveland area people get this i have my second dish pointed at 61.5


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## bmanner (Jan 19, 2004)

> I did see some odd graphic glitches this weekend on CBS HD. Every few minutes I would see a screen flash. With careful use of freeze frame I was able to see that it was a video frame shifted to the right about a half screen. Is this an artifact of DISH changing from 1080i to 720p?


I am seeing the same screen flash on CBS HD (East Feed) and it started after the switch to TP17 on 61.5. I have a 6000 receiver. It may be my imagination, but I am also seeing some "jitter" in fast moving objects that I did not see before.


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## thxultra (Feb 1, 2005)

Bill R said:


> Are you kidding? Have you ever seen HD on cable?
> 
> While it might not be the same on all cable systems, some (especially mine), does a horrific job on HD. They over-compress it and, on top of that, their digital set top (DVR) boxes sometime can't handle recording a HD channel while you are watching another one.
> 
> While HD via satellite might never be as good as OTA HD, I hope that it will never be as bad as my local cable company provides.


I find that interesting as hd on comcast in the chicago suburbs is actually very clear. I can't see a difference between it and my off the air.


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## hammerdown (Jan 20, 2004)

I don't subscribe to CBS HD from E*, but my local PBS OTA started downcoverting from 1080i to 720p about a year ago. I can see a big difference! I remember PBS shows in 1080i, and repeats of the same shows now in 720p look mushy/soft.

Hammer


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## rrfrey (Dec 1, 2005)

My local PBS "HD" is transmitted alongside two SD feeds on the same channel. Because of this apparent channel sharing, I believe the HD is really only getting half bandwidth. It is 1080i but the picture is just awful.


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

Others (on that other site) are now claiming the its not 720p but 1080i LITE. Anyone KNOW?


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

tnsprin said:


> Others (on that other site) are now claiming the its not 720p but 1080i LITE. Anyone KNOW?


Gary hasn't updated his website in a while, he's still got CBS-HD listed as 1920x1080i 16.6mbps

http://home.bigsandybb.com/gmurrell/bitrate.html

I don't understand what is so different about "HD lite" that gets people so worked up. Satellite has been "SD lite" for many years (and getting lighter). Digital HD even uncompressed has it's own set of problems - and there is no way that ANY satellite provider is going to pass the full HD signal on to the consumer. Nobody has the bandwidth.

Some day we will see HD signals in MPEG4 with 7 Mbps video streams. Modified 6000's won't see them (they only do MPEG2) but they will be there. Will they be "HD lite" - by some definition they must be since no satellite carrier will EVER transmit the source signal unmodified. After one has accepted that fact it is all just a matter of degrees.

JL


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## robill (May 13, 2005)

> I don't understand what is so different about "HD lite" that gets people so worked up. Satellite has been "SD lite" for many years (and getting lighter). Digital HD even uncompressed has it's own set of problems - and there is no way that ANY satellite provider is going to pass the full HD signal on to the consumer. Nobody has the bandwidth.


JL
I don't understand how you can't 'understand'..... Yes, we've put up with satellite SD lite for years, but knowing HD wasn't far away made it bearable. Walking into local stores and getting a chance to see the spectacular video being shown on Dish's own HD Demo channel made the future of TV look very exciting.
Well now that I've bought an HD receiver and TV things seem be going backwards. I've had my system just long enough to know how fantastic HD can look, but unfortunately not all channels look as good as they did a short time ago.
The quality of the video not the quantity is what will get my programming dollar.


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## booger (Nov 1, 2005)

Richard King said:


> I recall seeing an analog HD display MANY years ago at an NAB convention. I have NEVER seen anything come even close since.


Has anyone here been able to compare 4DTV's HD to E*? I hear c-band high def is unbeatable. If so, what are the spec's?


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Building upon what JL said...

OTA, if you have a good antenna and local stations broadcasting properly, has always been better than cable or satellite even before digital.

Analog OTA when received properly with strong signal is superior to digital OTA... but now we have digital OTA that carries higher quality signals in many markets (HD) so the digital OTA is higher quality than the analog in those markets.

Cable and Satellites have different degrees of bandwidth problems, carrying 100s of channels to any given market (and satellite carrying thousands in total from their orbital slots) so besides technical issues, there are limits to their quality vs OTA.

Most of the channels we receive via satellite or cable, are not available OTA in any market... so the only way you get them is with satellite or cable.

I wish we could get OTA quality signals from satellite and cable... but I believe this will never happen for the reasons JL mentioned plus more that I'm sure are escaping us at the moment.

I think what will happen, whether we want it or not... is that HD via satellite or cable will by design be better than SD via those same services... but as JL said, it will not be full quality HD in the same way that we don't get SD in full quality today.

Some DVDs aren't as good as others... Superbit DVDs are generally better when I compare them to regular DVDs... but some regular DVDs are pretty good quality too. If they ever settle on an HD-DVD standard, then those should look pretty good, and likely better than we will get over satellite or cable.

I think, unfortunately, this is just the nature of things.

People, after all, have already been sold on "100% digital quality" when nature isn't digital, and any digital picture is by design NOT as clear or detailed as analog reality... so compression and bitrate tweaking is just the next step of acceptance once folks accept "digital quality" over analog.


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## hokieengineer (Jul 31, 2004)

James Long said:


> Gary hasn't updated his website in a while, he's still got CBS-HD listed as 1920x1080i 16.6mbps
> 
> http://home.bigsandybb.com/gmurrell/bitrate.html
> 
> ...


Sooo whats your point? Should we not strive for the best possible? We've seen what has been done in the past. So many SD stations jammed onto a TP that it barely looks better than an Internet streaming video. We have a chance here, today, to try and change the course our providers take with regards to HD transmission. Sure, they might not listen, but they might as well.

I would think a moderator on a satellite discussion board would want to rally his members around a cause such as providing a higher quality product. Instead, I see a lot of "well, this is the way it is, oh well" defeatist attitudes.

Please explain to me why HDNet and HDNet movies are transmitted 1920x1080i with a data rate of at least 17Mbit/s? Apparently Mark Cuban did not roll over and play dead to Charlie, and demanded his product be delievered to consumers at a quality that deserves the label "HD".

I would have hoped Voom would have the same attitude Mark has with his product, but so far it does not appear so. Thats where we consumers come in. I want to see more channels delievered at the quality HDNet is sent.

You can take a passive approach to these changes, and just sit back and "wait and see what happens", or you can be active and use the facts we have to persuade Dish that we won't accept these changes to Voom.

As for mpeg4, I will be upset if they try and STILL down-res Voom after cutting the new channels from 11 to 5. So far, all their mpeg4 tests have been 1440x1080 which isn't exactly a promising sign of things to come.

Maybe we'll just have to agree to disagree, but I urge anyone reading this who has HD or is thinking about getting HD in the next year to voice your concerns with Dish. A simple email or phone call is all it takes. There is power in numbers, and I thank the ones out there who are putting in the effort.


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## Ghostwriter (Oct 11, 2005)

Hokie I completely agree with you. Seems like too many people here have the "thank you sir, may I please have another" attitude. Why should I just sit back and let them do what they wish. I purchased an HD TV and I have the 811 to receive HD not some bastardized version and I am not paying an extra $15 to get something similar to a high qualty SD, that is just ridiculous. 

In the beginning E* as above and beyond D* and most Digital Cable providers, but that is no longer the case if you ask me. Personally I am about to drop off a $15 a month BOGUS HD charge and heck if they are headed down this road I will just go and get a FREE HD DVR from my local cable provider since their HD quality is probably on par with E* right now. 

Personally I will not sit back and take it. I will let my displeasure be known to E*, and JL you should rally the people not take such a passive #%@-kiss approach.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

hokieengineer said:


> Sooo whats your point? Should we not strive for the best possible?


Yes. And I believe that E* is working in that direction. They cannot continue doing 1920x1080i ... so they are going to do the best they can with the resources they have.

JL


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Ghostwriter said:


> Hokie I completely agree with you. Seems like too many people here have the "thank you sir, may I please have another" attitude. Why should I just sit back and let them do what they wish. I purchased an HD TV and I have the 811 to receive HD not some bastardized version and I am not paying an extra $15 to get something similar to a high qualty SD, that is just ridiculous.
> 
> In the beginning E* as above and beyond D* and most Digital Cable providers, but that is no longer the case if you ask me. Personally I am about to drop off a $15 a month BOGUS HD charge and heck if they are headed down this road I will just go and get a FREE HD DVR from my local cable provider since their HD quality is probably on par with E* right now.
> 
> Personally I will not sit back and take it. I will let my displeasure be known to E*, and JL you should rally the people not take such a passive #%@-kiss approach.


I have gone on record many times that people should complain about Dish reducing resolution, bitrates, etc for these HD channels.

HOWEVER... I've also gone on record as saying they should complain correctly!

Many people on "the other site" were posting messages about how they would rather have 720p than a downconverted 1080i... and then when Dish starts giving them CBS in 720p they complain about that too!

If people would have just complained that they didn't want any downconverting, to leave 1920x1080i alone... I would have 100% supported that... but people started going into crazy/incorrect explanations of how 720p was better... and apparently Dish has been listening... so the folks who were rallying and complaining have actually helped Dish prove their HD customers aren't that smart and will settle for less.

That's what makes me mad about all this... the complainers actually proved to Dish that they can get away with what they are doing.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Agreed. I'm not going to shoot the messengers but it appears they have shot themselves by not having a consistant message.

E* is a business. They will make business decisions. No amount of wild complaining will change their business decisions. The only thing that will change their business decisions is losing or not ganing business. Good complaining might lead them down a better path without losing business, but not the wild stuff.

You want improve PQ on HD? Complain about PQ on HD. Complain in terms that the average CSR can understand. Complain in terms of what you are seeing on your screen and not what you are seeing on any internet forum.

Every once in a while the religious wrong gets on a crusade about one thing or another and some guy leads the march to sign the petition or write/call congress or whatever to get that organizations message across. Most of the time it has little effect because the people taking the messages KNOW that it is an organized effort - and no matter how well written or spoken the plea the message is boiled down to a checkmark on a tally sheet - and then the count is discounted because they know only one side of the issue has been rallied. For all the effort little message gets through.

That is what I can see happening here. E* is getting complaints about PQ being bad because someone on a forum told them PQ is bad. I've read posts from those who (bravely) said "I don't see a difference" and were flamed because they wouldn't just drink the kool aid and believe. E* COULD quite well be discounting the overall message because they are seeing the organization.

Which is a shame ... because there could be valid complaints lost thanks to the crusaders who are trying to drown out everyone else.

JL


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

HDMe said:


> HOWEVER... I've also gone on record as saying they should complain correctly!
> ..................
> That's what makes me mad about all this... the complainers actually proved to Dish that they can get away with what they are doing.


Why not look to the future? Lets just change the standard to 1080p! This way we will have at least 2 months before something better comes along and about two years before we notice the difference.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

James Long said:


> That is what I can see happening here. E* is getting complaints about PQ being bad because someone on a forum told them PQ is bad. I've read posts from those who (bravely) said "I don't see a difference" and were flamed because they wouldn't just drink the kool aid and believe. E* COULD quite well be discounting the overall message because they are seeing the organization.


The whole "Kool-Aid" thing always makes me think... Aside from the fact that the "original" Kool-Aid drinkers usually being referred to here died from drinking it... and they drank it because a religious leader told them to...

Just who is drinking the Kool-Aid in the forums?

The guy who is "kissing up" to the corporate entity? Or the folks who are jumping on the bandwagon?

I've seen the folks who come in and say they can't tell a difference... and someone else says "yes you can" and then they say "oh yes, I can now"... or the ones who post and say "It looks better to me today" and someone else will say "no it doesn't".. and then they say "oh, you are right it doesn't look better to me".

There's probably lots of flavors of the Kool-Aid to go around!

I know from experience of working at a company that looked at public forums (not a TV/DBS/cable company)... that the company was quite good at ignoring most of what they read on forums as being on the fringe of what their actual customers wanted... and if they got an actual customer calling in saying something that matched something in a popular forum, they would sometimes discount that as being someone who had been "sucked in" to the mob mentality of folks online.

Not saying it is right or wrong... but companies do tend to tune out folks that start pounding them with statements that are identical to things they hear/read from people that don't entirely know what they are saying.

And in the end, we all lose.

Kind of like when I'm watching the news, and I see a reporter interviewing someone who is supporting a cause I support... but the guy sounds like an idiot... sometimes makes me want to switch sides!


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## hokieengineer (Jul 31, 2004)

HDMe said:


> I have gone on record many times that people should complain about Dish reducing resolution, bitrates, etc for these HD channels.
> 
> HOWEVER... I've also gone on record as saying they should complain correctly!
> 
> ...


I disagree with what you two are saying about the "chorus" and bandwagon effect, and I dont think we're gonna change each other minds, so I'll leave it at that.

Dish was transmitting the NY and LA locals (on the test channels) in 720p before they messed around with voom, and before we complained about any downresing. Whatever plan they had for cbs-e hd was put in place before we said anything, don't try and blame that on us.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

hokieengineer said:


> Dish was transmitting the NY and LA locals (on the test channels) in 720p before they messed around with voom, and before we complained about any downresing. Whatever plan they had for cbs-e hd was put in place before we said anything, don't try and blame that on us.


CBS and NBC are 1080i. I think WB is 1080i also. ABC and FOX were already 720p. I don't know about UPN since my local station doesn't do any HD for UPN. I *think* my local PBS is 1080i, but I can't tell for sure. I can't see the "test channels" so I don't know what they have ever been... so my statements here just reflect what I get OTA.

The "CBS is now being converted to 720p" thread is a recent thread started long after the Voom complaints started. As far as I was aware, the changes to CBS happened after the complaints about Voom. IF the change to CBS happened prior to the Voom changes, I wonder why no one complained?


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## gdarwin (Jan 31, 2005)

HDMe said:


> IF the change to CBS happened prior to the Voom changes, I wonder why no one complained?


Probably because most don't have true 1080i sets to see the difference. I spent today at my Father-in-law's house and he has a set where I could tell the difference (STB - 942). My next set is going to be a high end HDTV and I want the same quality from Dish....


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

HDMe said:


> I don't know about UPN since my local station doesn't do any HD for UPN. I *think* my local PBS is 1080i, but I can't tell for sure.


Viacom owned UPN stations are 1080i. I believe all PBS stations are also 1080i.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

gdarwin said:


> Probably because most don't have true 1080i sets to see the difference. I spent today at my Father-in-law's house and he has a set where I could tell the difference (STB - 942). My next set is going to be a high end HDTV and I want the same quality from Dish....


You missed what I was getting at in my reply to the other poster... The people who were complaining about Voom, didn't complain at all about CBS until recently... which implies that CBS was only changed recently OR they didn't notice it.

IF it was changed recently, it may have been in response to their complaints... IT they didn't notice it until recently, then it implies they really aren't as observant and the changes aren't as obvious as they have complained about.

Either way, it ends up being a strike agains their "we won" campaign...


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

keenan said:


> Viacom owned UPN stations are 1080i. I believe all PBS stations are also 1080i.


The only show I was watching last season on UPN was Enterprise... so I haven't watched any UPN at all this season... but I do flip over there from time to time during prime-time programming to see if they are broadcasting any local HD.

I did see one time an episode of Veronica Mars that CBS carried to promote the show, and that was in HD... so I guess it does make sense that UPN shows could be in 1080i if my local station ever decides to do it.

What's weird to me... Both my local WB and UPN are owned by Sinclair... so it seems odd to me that they upgraded their WB to HD but not the UPN when they are both sharing a lot of stuff, including the local news team.


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## kb7oeb (Jun 16, 2004)

My local CBS is still running a full 19Mb to its HD stream so I still have one channel to compare to. To me voom has always looked worse than the other dish stations. I always heard Equator as the best voom but it looked terrible to me. Before they lowered the resolution it pixelated constantly. Now it has a smoother but fuzzier picture. If they are going to compromise picture quality I think they are better off reducing resolution than bit starving 1920x1080.

As networks CBS,NBC,UPN,WB,PBS are 1080i and Fox and ABC are 720p. Fox is unique in that its bitrate is determined by the network and should look the same on every station.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

My local UPN is a subcarrier of the CBS station. My local ABC and WB are low powered stations. The ABC and WB are unlikely to be digital (at all) until the analog shut off date or until the owners of those stations ask for permission to end analog transmission early and convert their signals to digital. At that point they might be HD - depending on finances.

My UPN station will likly NEVER be HD. Unless they find a way of broadcasting the CBS primetime and the UPN primetime at the same time both in HD or shift UPN primetime to another time of day. The way may very well be 720p at some lower bitrate. It is a business decision that the local station will need to make.

Each television provider must make their business decisions. DirecTV has made theirs, Echostar is making theirs. If your local cable company does HD then you have a third option.

As far as visible glitches ... I watch OTA HD in 'glorious 1080i' that isn't perfect. I wonder if the PQ issues that can be found only when some expert gives you a precice flicker to look for is one on the inherant errors in transmitting a digital signal at any rate. Sending 1920x1080i does not guarantee a perfect picture.

And back to the original complaints ... IIRC: From the first week that Voom was on Echostar they were broadcasting six of the 10 channels in 1280x1080i. The sky apparently fell when the other four channels were changed to 1280x1080i. Why? Were the six channels junk where nobody cared about the conversion or were people living under the unrealistic assumption that for some magic reason all of Voom would be 'upgraded' to 1920x1080i ? If you have been living under that assumption, why? Does the history of E* tell you that they are a company that gives MORE bandwidth to a channel over time or that they are a company that tries to get as many channels as they can get away with on their bandwidth?

There are some unrealistic expectations at play here.
:backtotop


HDMe said:


> The "CBS is now being converted to 720p" thread is a recent thread started long after the Voom complaints started. As far as I was aware, the changes to CBS happened after the complaints about Voom. IF the change to CBS happened prior to the Voom changes, I wonder why no one complained?


The changes to CBS HD were observed when E* turned off the old CBS-HD East feed from Echostar3 and turned on the new CBS-HD East feed from Rainbow1. The new CBS-HD being part of a mux that will be delivering LIL-HD to the New York City DMA. Few know how long the 'new' feed has been testing in 720p - and no one is saying - but the 720p CBS-HD feed was not made available to customers until AFTER the Voom downrezzing complaints began, and in many of those complaints it was suggested that 1280x720p would be better than 1280x1080i. Which makes it appear that E* was listening to the complaints, just not choosing the real answer that the majority wanted.

JL


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

kb7oeb said:


> As networks CBS,NBC,UPN,WB,PBS are 1080i and Fox and ABC are 720p. Fox is unique in that its bitrate is determined by the network and should look the same on every station.


Interesting about FOX... I didn't know that. My local affiliate for FOX is a different animal sometimes, though. The same company owns my CBS and FOX... so for FOX network programming (prime time and sports for instance) they are in 720p as the network broadcasts...

but for some local programming, like local news, they switch over to 1080i like the CBS station does (they share the same newsroom and personalities)... so sometimes my FOX station is 1080i during non-network programming.

I don't really know what kind of bitrates I'm getting locally... but it seems to me like my CBS, FOX, and WB stations are the best followed by ABC & NBC and PBS. Just based on the kinds of pixellation I get at times being more frequent on the latter channels than the former.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

James Long said:


> As far as visible glitches ... I watch OTA HD in 'glorious 1080i' that isn't perfect. I wonder if the PQ issues that can be found only when some expert gives you a precice flicker to look for is one on the inherant errors in transmitting a digital signal at any rate. Sending 1920x1080i does not guarantee a perfect picture.


I'm with you there... About a month ago I accidentally reset my TV picture settings... and had to tweak it again to get the best viewing experience. I noticed ABC Monday Night Football I can see a lot of glitches (MPEG glitches) in their transmission around the logos and stuff they put along the bottom of the screen during the broadcast.

I see other things on the other channels from time to time... but ABC seems to show the most for me... so I tweak my TV to a happy medium that smoothes some of that to make it less noticable. But it's there OTA.



James Long said:


> And back to the original complaints ... IIRC: From the first week that Voom was on Echostar they were broadcasting six of the 10 channels in 1280x1080i.


I remembered hearing that at the beginning... and the thing is, all the channels looked nice. Sure, knowing that I would like higher resolution and I always noticed they weren't quite the same as the HDNets... but they still looked pretty nice to me and the only way to get those channels is via satellite so its not like I could switch to cable and get them better!



James Long said:


> Few know how long the 'new' feed has been testing in 720p - and no one is saying - but the 720p CBS-HD feed was not made available to customers until AFTER the Voom downrezzing complaints began, and in many of those complaints it was suggested that 1280x720p would be better than 1280x1080i. Which makes it appear that E* was listening to the complaints, just not choosing the real answer that the majority wanted.


And that's what I was afraid of from the beginning... I know a business is a business, and I understand Dish has technical issues to overcome, but I would like to see 1080i where the programming is native to that resolution. I feared that people complaining who didn't know, and were just jumping on, might have the reverse effect of proving to Dish that most folks really don't know.

As a point of interest... I was reading recently about 1080p, and how it may never see the light of day as a broadcast standard... but rather it is used by movie studios for their capturing because that allows them to downconvert to either 1080i OR 720p with ease... and better 720p results than if they captured it at 720p to begin with... which kind of shoots those "downrezzing" concepts in the foot.

It's a commonly performed thing to capture video and audio at a higher resolution than you intend to use, so that when you convert to your final signal you will have the best quality left.


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## kb7oeb (Jun 16, 2004)

HDMe said:


> Interesting about FOX... I didn't know that. My local affiliate for FOX is a different animal sometimes, though. The same company owns my CBS and FOX... so for FOX network programming (prime time and sports for instance) they are in 720p as the network broadcasts...
> 
> but for some local programming, like local news, they switch over to 1080i like the CBS station does (they share the same newsroom and personalities)... so sometimes my FOX station is 1080i during non-network programming.


Fox stations take a pre-encoded signal off a satellite, splice in a station logo and dump it on the air. All the others start with a 40Mb network feed that is re-encoded at the station to fit in the 19.2 ota limit. I've read fox keeps their stream down to around 11Mbs so the stations have room to insert a sub channel.

Maybe the reason your station goes to 1080i for the news is because they are using the equipment they had before fox started doing hd. Is it actual HD or just upconverted? My non hd upn sends out 1080i and is owned by fox.


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## JohnH (Apr 22, 2002)

It is likely the WRAL CBS in Raleigh.

UPN Network is 1080i.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

kb7oeb said:


> Maybe the reason your station goes to 1080i for the news is because they are using the equipment they had before fox started doing hd. Is it actual HD or just upconverted? My non hd upn sends out 1080i and is owned by fox.


As JohnH posted, I am talking about WRAL 5 for CBS and WRAZ 50 for FOX in Raleigh. WRAL was the first to go HD in the country way back when... and several years ago they built a new HD newsroom. They also have mobile HD cameras they take out for location shoots for news segments.

The 11:00 news is on WRAL, they have a 10:00 "early" news on WRAZ... and though they sometimes rotate the news persons around, its basically the same people and exactly the same newsroom.

Though I don't like hockey... they sometimes broadcast 1080i HD Hurricanes games on WRAZ during the hockey season (when hockey exists of course). And last year they doubled-up on the NCAA broadcasts so they could show an HD game on WRAL and another HD game on WRAZ when two of the local teams were playing games at roughly the same time.

So they take advantage of their 1080i equipment whenever they aren't broadcasting the FOX-forced 720p programming... which is kind of nice.


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## JohnH (Apr 22, 2002)

For informational purposes: ESPN2HD is now listed as Mpeg2 in the tables. The 5 new VOOMs are still listed as Mpeg4 regardless of what format they actually are.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

JohnH said:


> For informational purposes: ESPN2HD is now listed as Mpeg2 in the tables. The 5 new VOOMs are still listed as Mpeg4 regardless of what format they actually are.


Thanks for staying on top of the numbers.

JL


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

JohnH said:


> For informational purposes: ESPN2HD is now listed as Mpeg2 in the tables. The 5 new VOOMs are still listed as Mpeg4 regardless of what format they actually are.


I gather from reading threads in the past that what the tables say may or may not reflect reality until activated for customers, right? So it is still possible that the extra Vooms will be turned on in MPEG2... but also possible that ESPN2HD could become MPEG4.

It just doesn't seem logical to me, that they wouldn't do this batch in MPEG2... and use the locals in HD rollout to "force" folks to buy the MPEG4 receivers while also giving them to all new installs after XX/XX cutoff date.

Otherwise it seems like they would be inundated with calls to upgrade to the new receivers and they can't meet that demand OR they would be met with disinterest from those of us angry enough to balk at the forced upgrade at this time.

Seems more likely that the January batch will be MPEG2... except for locals in HD... and then probably all new HD they add from February onward may be in MPEG4 to force upgrades then as well.

Otherwise they'll be in a pickle, charging folks for channels they can't get unless they pay for a receiver they maybe can't get either!


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## guruka (Dec 27, 2003)

Has ayone noticed that the audio sync is off ever since they switched CBS-HD to Rainbow 1 and started transcoding it to 720? The video lags the audio by several milliseconds. Very annoying! I emailed E* FWIW.

.....G


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## bmanner (Jan 19, 2004)

guruka said:


> Has ayone noticed that the audio sync is off ever since they switched CBS-HD to Rainbow 1 and started transcoding it to 720? The video lags the audio by several milliseconds. Very annoying! I emailed E* FWIW.
> 
> .....G


Yes, I have noticed it too. The audio will get out of sync but fluctuates back in and out. However the initial pixlization and video problems that were occurring when they first switched CBS-HD to TP17, now seem to be much better.


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## voripteth (Oct 25, 2005)

Waitaminute... Voom has historically had a problem with audio sync. Now that CBS-HD is being transmited on the Voom satellite we're seeing audio sync problems. Conicidence?  

Or is this a flaw with the satellite itself? :eek2: 



Hope Dish got a good price on damaged goods. :nono2:


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## hazydave (Jan 7, 2006)

kstevens said:


> Then there is something wrong with your set. I can tell a big difference between a 1920x1080 signal and a 1280x720p signal. 2 of my locals broadcaste in 720p and the other 3 are 1080i. The 720p signals are always a bit more grainy on my tv.
> Ken


Quite a few of the HD sets, including nearly all smaller ones, have a native resolution of 1280x720 or thereabouts. It's pretty common for manufacturers to publish this now, it wasn't until recently. There certainly are full 1920x1080 sets, they tend to be large rear projection or very, very expensive flat panels.

So they can technically get away with it.

The 720p fans are confused, anyway... those who favor 720p [a] probably have 720p-only sets, and * they think the progressive is less flickery and offers some better motion characteristics. Well, the last one is true -- IF you have real 720p material.

However, when you downconvert from 1080i to 720p, you don't magically get 60 frames per second, you still have 60 fields per second. So what you get is 720/60i. You can convert fields to frames, but you're going to wind up with what's effectively 720/30p. Which, of course, Dish probably loves, it's going to be much smaller than 1440 or 1280 x 1080 interlaced. I don't believe they'd bother interpolating twice per frame to deliver what's basically a fake 60p anyway... plus, that offers little savings in bandwidth over real 1080i.

Most of the HD world has settled on 1080i for now. My new video camera does 1080i (albeit, at 1440 x 1080), and that's the big direction the industry's supporting, with cameras, tools, etc. Except JVC and ABC, I guess, who are the remaining standard bearers of 720p... and you need serious pro gear to get 720/60p. So you're going to see this on ABC TV and perhaps other ABC owned channels, but not elsewhere.

So that CBS downconversion is bad news for absolutely everyone.*


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

:welcome_s hazydave
Some of the assumptions at the beginning of this thread are no longer true. It appears that E* is now doing straight 1080i conversions to 1280x1080i on those channels they have chosen to downsize and passing 1280x720p on channels such as ESPN2HD that are provided in that format. It does not appear that they are doing the 1920x1080i -> 1280x720p trick that was reported by a single source at the beginning of the thread.

JL


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