811 SD Picture Quality

[Broadband Lab Rat]

Who cares about analog--it is going the way of the black & white broadcasts.

I don't care about analog OTA either ... but I'm also aware that I'm not the center of the universe ... Some people care for one valid reason or another, and equipment should work as advertised.

 

[rad]

I don't care about analog OTA either ... but I'm also aware that I'm not the center of the universe ... Some people care for one valid reason or another, and equipment should work as advertised.

Thank you! That's the point I've been trying to make about Dish lately. Their hardware is loaded with bugs and is missing advertised features but people keep flocking to them and saying how great they are. I just don't get it.

 

[Broadband Lab Rat]

Their hardware is loaded with bugs and is missing advertised features but people keep flocking to them and saying how great they are. I just don't get it.

Well, to be fair and look at the other side of the coin, you can always cancel DISH, spend more money elsewhere and perhaps have equipment and service with fewer bugs.

DISH was the cheapest solution for me when I chose my 811. I waited 7 weeks for it and it's very buggy ... I don't like that, but I choose to accept it because it was cheaper, the bugs don't affect me personally very much, and because I believe DISH will work these things out in the end. Sure, I wish it was sooner rather than later... and I also believe things should work as advertised...

Each person has their expectations and price points. Vote with your dollars, and may the best service win!!!

Cheers,

 

[rad]

Well, to be fair and look at the other side of the coin, you can always cancel DISH, spend more money elsewhere and perhaps have equipment and service with fewer bugs.

That's exactly what I did, sold all my E* stuff on E* and got D*. I was spending over $120 per month on E* and for that kind of money I expect more. I know folks that have old 4K and 5K or 301 receivers and love E*, thet hardware runs fine. But when you spend $399 for a STB and have to reset it once or twice a day that's not right.

 

[WeeJavaDude]

Thank you! That's the point I've been trying to make about Dish lately. Their hardware is loaded with bugs and is missing advertised features but people keep flocking to them and saying how great they are. I just don't get it.

There are other reason why people choose a service. Cost, programming, and impulse buying. Most people don't make informed decisions about there choices. Having said that, I have a international programming requirement that D* does not fill. As for their receiver loaded with bugs... I am not sure I would fully agree with that statment. Yes they have bugs.. Yes they released the 811 before they should have. Yes they released the 921 prematurely. However, most people on this board new the 811 issues within the first weeks and could have easily not mad the jump either.

I made the jump to the 811 knowing what the issues where. I was a little concerned about it, but I am glad I did. The pluses for me outweighed the minuses. Of the list of issues I see 3 maybe 4 bugs as being high pain threshold and of those one is also in the 6000.

1) Acquiring Signal - Also in the 6000.
2) Audio Drop Out
3) PQ on Svideo and detail loss in shadows on HD.
4) OTA not locking in in all cases. (For me OTA is better with the 811 than my 6000).

I have 2 508s and an 811 and I would say they require a reboot about once ever couple of weeks. The 508 are more like once ever couple of months. I would like to see better reliability from these units, but my experience has not been a reboot every day. I am sure mileage my vary, but I also believe that things are not as ugly as painted here. I spend about 100 bucks a month on Dish content and overall I am happy with my system. I can fully understand from your point why you dont get it, however, everything is not about the box... I guess that is the final point I wanted to make.

 

[rad]

As for their receiver loaded with bugs... I am not sure I would fully agree with that statment. Yes they have bugs.. Yes they released the 811 before they should have. Yes they released the 921 prematurely. However, most people on this board new the 811 issues within the first weeks and could have easily not mad the jump either.

OK, I can understand the programming issues, I know I miss a couple of channels that D* don't carry that E* did. However, I do take issue with your point above. Maybe it would be different if E* made every purchaser visit this, DBSTalk and DBSForum web sites and sign a release that they fully understand what they are getting into. However most purchasers don't know about these sites (we're talking about a few thousand registered users in this site, not sure about the others) so they have no idea on what they're getting into. I sold my old Mits HD set to someone over the weekend that's a E* subscriber. He was all ready to go out and get an 811 for the set until I told him to research these sites. He's now asking me questions about D* since he doesn't want to put up with the 811's problems.

If this was an exception to the rule (811 quality) it might be different but Dish is always selling new products before their time, either too many bugs or advertisied features missing. Example, you look at the E* web site right now and it still says 2 day EPG, not something coming in the future.

 

[rjallen]

I would like to get this thread back to its original intent. I would like to know how most 811 users view SD programming. I my Panasonic RPTV, SD looks best using 480p resolution. This is a pain as it is not easy to change resolution. Some have mentioned this may simply be an issue with Panasonic RPTVs and not widespread.

Thie issue is, at least on some sets, SD programming looks fuzzy on large widescreen TVs using 1080i.

My HD programming is very sharp. What is your experience?

At the risk of getting off my original topic, I would like to say the 811 gives a great HD picture and I am taking Dish at their word the problems with darkness, rebooting, OTA etc will be fixed in a few weeks. Right now, as a temporary measure, I am more than willing to live with this issues and be able to get great HD programming.

Rick

 

[ingramba]

All my HD and SD is viewed on the HD Component outs of the 811 to the HD in's of my tv. The 811 is set to 480P which I find works the best for me. I have a OTR antenna for my HD Locals and it looks great! My S-Video is too dark and only use that to record to my S-VHS. Other than that, I'm staying patient waiting for the updates.

 

[WeeJavaDude]

OK, I can understand the programming issues, I know I miss a couple of channels that D* don't carry that E* did. However, I do take issue with your point above. Maybe it would be different if E* made every purchaser visit this, DBSTalk and DBSForum web sites and sign a release that they fully understand what they are getting into. However most purchasers don't know about these sites (we're talking about a few thousand registered users in this site, not sure about the others) so they have no idea on what they're getting into. I sold my old Mits HD set to someone over the weekend that's a E* subscriber. He was all ready to go out and get an 811 for the set until I told him to research these sites. He's now asking me questions about D* since he doesn't want to put up with the 811's problems.

If this was an exception to the rule (811 quality) it might be different but Dish is always selling new products before their time, either too many bugs or advertisied features missing. Example, you look at the E* web site right now and it still says 2 day EPG, not something coming in the future.

Rad,

That is my point, If the general population had issues with Dish hardware then you would see an uproar and a huge drop in subscriptions due to word of mouth. You don't see that and the reason is that we tend to be a lot more picky about the features and functionality of the unit. As for the 811, like I said milage my vary. I had a 6000 for about 8 months and have a 811 now for about 3 months. I perfer the 811 over the 6000 and I have not heard any complaints from Grandma and my wife. This is usually a good indication that the unit is working an not causing them any user pain. That does not mean that all features are there. They are not..

It is not uncommon for features to be in a marketing materials that are not in the product yet. This is not just a Dish issue, but one ever company faces. Marketing materials are produced about 6 months before the product ships so I never have expectation that the product has all the features that a listed on the brochure or website. Yes they should update the website to reflect reality, but lots of times marketing and engineering are not always in sync. This is from personal experience and I am not making excuses for Dish. The website should reflect reality in my opinion. If you want examples you dont have to look far. All Windows releases had features pulled out at the last moment. I guess the point is that it is not uncommon for product literature to not reflect reality at times. It will be interesting if the HD Tivo drops a few features before release what the reaction will be.

As for me, for $149 the 811 is a steal even with it warts. Peoples opinions will differ here and I am happy with this unit until the 921 price drops and becomes stable. At that point I will move to a 921.

 

[WeeJavaDude]

I would like to get this thread back to its original intent. I would like to know how most 811 users view SD programming. I my Panasonic RPTV, SD looks best using 480p resolution. This is a pain as it is not easy to change resolution. Some have mentioned this may simply be an issue with Panasonic RPTVs and not widespread.

Thie issue is, at least on some sets, SD programming looks fuzzy on large widescreen TVs using 1080i.

My HD programming is very sharp. What is your experience?

At the risk of getting off my original topic, I would like to say the 811 gives a great HD picture and I am taking Dish at their word the problems with darkness, rebooting, OTA etc will be fixed in a few weeks. Right now, as a temporary measure, I am more than willing to live with this issues and be able to get great HD programming.

Rick

How big is your RPTV. There are reasons for fuzziness in SD. One is that SD is optimized for a maximum 36" TV. (what most people Have). When you got to 50 and 60 inches the picture will get start to get fuzzy. Also it depends on how far you are from the TV. If you have a 60" and you are 6' from the TV it will not look as good as 60" and 12 feet. Also, I improved SD PQ by using a power conditionar. Mileage my vary, but in my case this helped.

Don't Expect great SD on RPTV.. Your best hope if fair to good. Also depends on the TVs/Receiver's scaling features and how good they upscale the picture.

 

[tomes]

My 2 cents..

SDTV via component seems okay, but not fantastic. It's slightly worse than when I use s-video, and use the tv to scale, but still fairly good.

My problem is that when I use S-video, while the picture looks nice, it is way too dark. When I compensate for this in the tv, the picture gets very washed out...

While I could just use component, the problem then is that my tv won't be able to stretch the picture (it only stretches interlaced pictures), and I end up with black bars. This would be okay with me, if it wasn't for the fact that I have a CRT hdtv, which is susceptible to burn in.....

Until there is some kind of software upgrade, it looks like I am SOL....

-Tom

 

[rjallen]

How big is your RPTV. There are reasons for fuzziness in SD. One is that SD is optimized for a maximum 36" TV. (what most people Have). When you got to 50 and 60 inches the picture will get start to get fuzzy. Also it depends on how far you are from the TV. If you have a 60" and you are 6' from the TV it will not look as good as 60" and 12 feet. Also, I improved SD PQ by using a power conditionar. Mileage my vary, but in my case this helped.

Don't Expect great SD on RPTV.. Your best hope if fair to good. Also depends on the TVs/Receiver's scaling features and how good they upscale the picture.

I have a 47 widescreen RPTV. The 811 is currently hooked up with component cables. I have a 510 hooked up by s-video and its SD is much nicer. I have avoided messing with the 811 s-video because of the well known dark issue.

It's not a power issue since the 510 looks great. This TV upconverts all SD to 1080i and that may be part of the problem- ie. the TV converts better than the 811. As said before all the fuzzies go away when I go to 480p output from the 811 but HD looks better at 1080i

Rick

 

[yrac]

While I could just use component, the problem then is that my tv won't be able to stretch the picture (it only stretches interlaced pictures), and I end up with black bars. This would be okay with me, if it wasn't for the fact that I have a CRT hdtv, which is susceptible to burn in.....
-Tom

The 811 can toggle the different picture formats using the "*" on the remote. IIRC, it has gray bars (normal with gray bars) , normal (with black bars), stretch, partial zoom, and full zoom. This works on the component ouput on both SD and HD signals; haven't tried on DVI or S-video since I don't have those hooked up.

SD video via component at 1080i into my non-ISF calibrated Pioneer PRO-510 RPTV looks on-par with my 4900 that was connected there previously (via s-video). And, to my eyes, this is very watchable at 53" and sitting 8' from the screen.

 

[WeeJavaDude]

I have a 47 widescreen RPTV. The 811 is currently hooked up with component cables. I have a 510 hooked up by s-video and its SD is much nicer. I have avoided messing with the 811 s-video because of the well known dark issue.

It's not a power issue since the 510 looks great. This TV upconverts all SD to 1080i and that may be part of the problem- ie. the TV converts better than the 811. As said before all the fuzzies go away when I go to 480p output from the 811 but HD looks better at 1080i

Rick

I am not suprised that the TV upconverts better than the 811. This seems to be the general concensus. Maybe a cool enhancement would be to send 480p on the SD and 1080i on the HD to the TV. get the best of both worlds.

 

[hancox]

I am not suprised that the TV upconverts better than the 811. This seems to be the general concensus. Maybe a cool enhancement would be to send 480p on the SD and 1080i on the HD to the TV. get the best of both worlds.

It has been rumored this is what the "March" aspect ratio fix entails. I would prefer 480i to p, and let me TV descale/stretch, but 480p will do

 

[Forward]

SD quality seemed much better this weekend

I was using my 811 on a 27" SD Toshiba TV up until a few weeks ago and didn't know what all the fuss was as the picture seemed just as good as with my old 4000.

About two weeks ago I bought a newest version 32" HD Toshiba CRT set which upconverts everything to 1080i and was appalled at how SD signals looked. Everything looked smeared. (OTOH, HD content and DVDs look fabulous on the Toshiba.)

This weekend, however, it seemed as though everything looked much better, particularly movies. I watched a couple movies on TCM and was just delighted.

FWIW, I'm watching through a DVI input. Even the S-video input looked much better however. I don't have a ready explanation; I just hope it stays this way.

And please, Dish, fix the guide, the aspect ratio toggle for OTA digital signals, the Channel 100 availability, etc., etc. soon. Please?

 

[WeeJavaDude]

Do you know if it will be 480p or i through the DVI and Component? I would hope so so that there is no input switch needed on the TV end. From what I saw on my GWII 480p looks so much better than 480i at least with PS2 as being the source.

 

[tomes]

Thanks I will give it a try. I thought I tried pressing the * button already and that it didn't do anything, but I might be mistaken

Would have been nice if they could also make it an automatic option, so it would, whenever it encountered 4:3 material, whether it be SD or HD, switch to a default mode (I would probably try stretch or partial zoom, though a mix of the both would have been ideal)

-Tom

 

[Kevinw]

I watch my standard Dish programming with my 508. All HD programming and anything I do not want stretched or zoomed, with the 811 using component outs. It would suck if did not have the 508 and had to rely on just the 811 becuase of the poor pq using the S-video outs. (My tv does a better job of stretching/zooming than the 811)

 

[docbog]

I am very disappointed in the SD picture quality from my new JVC 811.

I have done various A vs B tests.

SD Dishnet program is SIGNIFICANTLY worse compared to my 301 using ALL 811 outputs (except the S video, which from all reports is all that most people are complaining about).

Best picture quality of SD Dishnet programming I have found is via composite video.

For reference, I am using Sony 34" XBR910 for HDTV monitor.

I find I am using the 301 most of the time. I am about to cancel 811 authorization and the HD Pack (4 channels which do much repeating is not worth $10/mo).