Actual HD Resolution
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Both of these providers are MPEG 4 so that is a moot point. HD Lite is a bit of a misnomer as if you compare any provider (sat or cable, MPEG 2 or 4) to the standards from dnld files or Blue Ray all will not be come close. The fact that E sends down 1440 X 1080i it really doesn't make that much difference as your TV translates it up to 1920 X 1080i anyway using it's internal scaling system. If that is a cheap one it will not do as good of a job as those with a good system. As far as the bit rate both companies use the same encoders for the VBR (variable bit rates) sent to the uplink. The amount that they put into the VBR is more likely something that will show and if they tweak the parameters of chroma & luma it could make it look more brilliant or could actually make it garish or lose good blacks. I'm not too fond of the engs doing that as it's messing w/ the digital eye pattern (nothing to do w/what is in your head but can be seen by it).
Since the 2 pictures are of totally different material it is not a real comparison. As one of them was shot completely differently than the other. To do comparisons it has to be the same shot from the different providers. ALSO NEVER use a picture that has some type of CGI like a logo or rating suppered over it. As the supper will add a layer that could be a bit of an issue.
I don't think my post was off topic. The op asked about pq. I responded that I thought Directv was slightly better, but that there are bigger issues, the most important one to me being programming. It may have been outside the scope of his question, but how was it off topic to consider ancillary issues?
Did you realize each link contained two images that toggled on a mouse-over? How can it get any better than that unless you start breaking into the data bits of each stream. The eye tells all in this case. They both look like crap compared to what could be, and what was once available.
What's bad is that I, with my huge suppy of disposable cash, cannot buy great HD quality progamming feeds. I'm now watching a 480i 16x9 Lions pregame from WXYZ that many in the masses would think was HD. Sad to think about.
I wonder how much of the PQ difference is introduced with the difference in the capturing/conversion methods: MPEG2 (what bitrate?), and H264 (what bitrate?).
OK I have script block set so I saw nothing when mouse rolled over it. Now I can do it by temp disable of script block. I can see a small difference tween the 2. You are one of the few that has a good image off cable. In this area I can barely stand to watch friends "HD" cable nasty looking stuff.
To me, the first of the images looks to be more pixilated, like when you crank up the sharpness settings on the digital displays. I don't like that.
Dish has what can be called(depending on the person) either a smoother presentation or softer. I think in the pix it is smoother as well.
I'm still waiting for Hopper OTA integration because to me it is very obvious the OTA signal is superior to Dish locals.
I recently did an in home trial of our local cable company compare to Dish. What I found was the picture from the cable company was sharper, but also had more compression artifacts. So my hunch is that this local company does not reduce resolution, but still only allows about the same bandwidth as Dish does which gives sharper stills but worse motion.
Oh the early days of HD with fewer channels and great PQ.
I recently did an in home trial of our local cable company compare to Dish. What I found was the picture from the cable company was sharper, but also had more compression artifacts. So my hunch is that this local company does not reduce resolution, but still only allows about the same bandwidth as Dish does which gives sharper stills but worse motion.
Oh the early days of HD with fewer channels and great PQ.
Technically that may be true, but for most, including me, there is little or no discernible difference between the two.
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