# SF Bay Area: Dish HD Quality investigated by local news team after complaints.



## Wrecker06 (May 23, 2006)

It seems that the Dish Network Reps have been telling people who call in that nobody has complained about the ABC HD Audio Sync issues and the NBC HD Picture quality issues. 

KGO (local ABC Affiliate) played a phone conversation with a Dish Subscriber and Dish Tech Support where the Dish rep said that there was not any issues in the SF Bay Area with picture / audio quality on the local HD channels so it had to be an issue with the local stations broadcast and they needed to call them. Apparently the subscriber recorded it and played emailed it to KGO engineers who inturn sent it to their investigative team. Apparently they've received several calls from Dish customers.

So they are doing a 7 on your side investigation. They mentioned people on several forums have been complaining to Dish Network who just gives canned responses. They then said that people in the Bay area can rest assured that the signal the station is sending out is in sync and that Dish Network is causing the issue with their software. They showed three televisions side by side, one with an OTA signal, one with a comcast signal and one with Dish Network signal - the Dish Network signal was a full second out of audio sync.

They also showed the NBC Signals from OTA, Comcast and Dish, Dish HD was the only one that was off. CBS & Fox HD appeared to be fine.

Dish Network would not take ABC 7's calls.

They also said the bottom line is people are not getting what they're paying extra $$ for and Dish Network does not seem willing to discuss it or remedy the issue. They said that people should read the internet forums (they will be listing them on their website) before signing up for Dish Network service "as they can get an accurate view of problems other users are facing". They will do a follow up next month.

Maybe this will make Dish get off their (_I_) and fix ABC & NBC in the Bay Area.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Wrecker06 said:


> They showed three televisions side by side, one with an OTA signal, one with a comcast signal and one with Dish Network signal - the Dish Network signal was a full second out of audio sync.


You can bet that Comcast will have an ad campaign put together by Monday and blasting out over TV, radio and newspapers.


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## GeeWhiz1 (Dec 6, 2005)

Remember too that KGO has a sweetheart deal with Comcast already. Just watch their news to get the promos about all the Comcast channels that carry their HD stuff. That includes their 24 hour weather channel.

I have experienced some problems with E*'s feed of KGO. But generally the problems have been very intermittent and often just limited to commercials (of all things). However, the problems with KNTV (the NBC local) are consistent and irritating. Luckily, I hardly ever watch NBC.


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## tomcrown1 (Jan 16, 2006)

NEW PROBLEM no local KTVU HD local again dish paid(played??) dumb and yes their is a new comcast ad Dish may not even be a bay area player at this rate.


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## Mikef5 (Apr 13, 2006)

tomcrown1 said:


> NEW PROBLEM no local KTVU HD local again dish paid(played??) dumb and yes their is a new comcast ad Dish may not even be a bay area player at this rate.


KTVU has problems at the Sutro tower and will be down for a couple of days to fix the problems. So the OTA signal is down not only for KTVU but for a couple of other stations that share the same area of the tower, this may also require the whole tower to go dark for repairs to be done for worker safety. The signal to Comcast is a direct feed and doesn't get it from the tower so they will be unaffected by this outage. I don't know where Dish gets it's feed for their local sat feeds but if it's from Sutro you are SOL. This is not a Dish problem or one that they can fix.

Laters,
Mikef5


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## Paradox-sj (Dec 15, 2004)

NBC has issues even without E* MPEG4 software issues. If you watched the Senior Tour PGA in what was supposed to be HD on NBC11.1 you will know what I mean. The OTA signal was horrid...basicly unwatchable. So the E* MPEG4 version was even worse.


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## BillM (Apr 27, 2005)

As of last night, I noticed a significant improvement in the KPIX-DT and KNTV-DT HD signal on the late night talk shows, which traditionally have looked the worst in terms of < 30 frames/sec (they looked like 24 frame/sec movies previously). Is anyone else seeing an improvement this week? Could Dish be simply providing more bandwidth to the problem?


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## bobl (Jan 17, 2004)

I watched Letterman last night and completely agree with your statement. This show, until last night, looked terrible over the Dish feed so I've mostly been watching it OTA. Last night I checked out the Dish feed and was shocked at the improvement. It now looks pretty close to the OTA feed.

I always seemed to notice a bigger problem with KPIX than KNTV but I haven't watched Leno. Maybe the late night shows shot with HD video present a bigger problem with mpeg4 encoding. I've only been watching one NBC primetime show during the summer (Windfall) and to me it doesn't look bad on the Dish feed (certainly no where near as bad as Letterman on CBS).

Maybe this is why my thinking has been that KPIX was worse than KNTV when the general feeling seems to have been that KNTV was the worst. Maybe I should have checked out some primetime shows on KPIX to compare against Windfall. Maybe then I would have thought that KNTV was worse than KPIX. Regardless, here's hoping these problems are now behind us.

Bob


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## Wrecker06 (May 23, 2006)

I received another email from the person who has been responding to my complaints at Dish. Seems like they escalated it once the local media got involved. 

He said that the NBC issue should be fixed now, but that the ABC audio sync issue is still being worked on. 

I'm not at home to test it out. Anyone in the Bay area who can check?


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## Grandude (Oct 21, 2004)

Wrecker06 said:


> I received another email from the person who has been responding to my complaints at Dish. Seems like they escalated it once the local media got involved.
> 
> He said that the NBC issue should be fixed now, but that the ABC audio sync issue is still being worked on.
> 
> I'm not at home to test it out. Anyone in the Bay area who can check?


Medium last nignt on channel 11 was as bad as ever with the smearing, acid effect, that has been reported from the beginning. Didn't stay up for the later shows so can't say if they fixed it between 11PM and 11:30PM but I have my doubts.

I'll check this evening again. I hope the previous posters are correct and it has been fixed.


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## socceteer (Apr 22, 2005)

Wrecker06 said:


> I received another email from the person who has been responding to my complaints at Dish. Seems like they escalated it once the local media got involved.
> 
> He said that the NBC issue should be fixed now, but that the ABC audio sync issue is still being worked on.
> 
> I'm not at home to test it out. Anyone in the Bay area who can check?


Besides the audio sync problem are they addressing the Pixel problem..! It was very bad during the Soccer Worldcup. I had pixel problems where the entire image was un-viewable (it was off in blocks) for about 3 to 5 seconds. The audio was still there.

5 seconds is allot during soccer, hokey, basketball. and others.


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## R_Childress (Jan 4, 2006)

What original caller to Dish Tech did was dangerous. If they figure out who it was, it is illegal to record a conversation without the second party being notified. Could bring up a nasty legal issue.


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## DoyleS (Oct 21, 2002)

R_Childress said:


> What original caller to Dish Tech did was dangerous. If they figure out who it was, it is illegal to record a conversation without the second party being notified. Could bring up a nasty legal issue.


You just need one of those little announcements that you always here that says. 
"This call may be recorded for quality improvement"

Of course the quality improvement comes after the recording gets to the news media.

..Doyle


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## kenglish (Oct 2, 2004)

We've had similar issues with the SLC locals. Also, had a problem with CC text and empty CC boxes that you couldn't get rid of. E* engineers finally got that one fixed. But, CSRs had already told many viewers it was the stations' fault.


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## grooves12 (Oct 27, 2005)

The audio sync issues seem a lot better, but NBC still looks like an acid trip


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

R_Childress said:


> What original caller to Dish Tech did was dangerous. If they figure out who it was, it is illegal to record a conversation without the second party being notified. Could bring up a nasty legal issue.


That would bring even more publicity...not quite what Dish would want in this case.

Also, the legality varies by juristiction. In many locals it is legal as long as at least 1 party to the conversation is aware of the recording. Others require all parties to be aware. Not sure what the law is in California.


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