An update from Scott at CES
- Thread starter Scott Greczkowski
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I'm going to say this in Scott's defense:
It's one thing to be an advocate for your readers, it's another to commit professional suicide. I think in many of these current high-profile HD matters, some diplomacy and careful timing of pointed questions is entirely warranted.
I think many of us here appreciate the job Scott's doing, and don't see the point of flying off the handle until after the Chat and ALL the facts are in. There's a lot to people's criticism of the current situation that is quite warranted...and a lot that begs to be determined and sounds like knee-jerk conjecture.
Thanks Scott. Hang tough. We know you want the best for all of us...but have to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with these execs/reps and want real answers, not defensive retorts and spin. Here's hoping for the best.
It's one thing to be an advocate for your readers, it's another to commit professional suicide. I think in many of these current high-profile HD matters, some diplomacy and careful timing of pointed questions is entirely warranted.
I think many of us here appreciate the job Scott's doing, and don't see the point of flying off the handle until after the Chat and ALL the facts are in. There's a lot to people's criticism of the current situation that is quite warranted...and a lot that begs to be determined and sounds like knee-jerk conjecture.
Thanks Scott. Hang tough. We know you want the best for all of us...but have to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with these execs/reps and want real answers, not defensive retorts and spin. Here's hoping for the best.
Note also that this someone is a woman, part of a group that has been stereotyped as being more interested in content than PQ, viewing on a relatively small (34") set that has been widely denounced as being a "crappy RCA" model. She noticed it despite not having knowledge of the change, the male perspective, a large enough screen, or an expensive or advanced display technology.DJ Rob said:
BobaBird said:
I'll back her up! HDNet looks so much better than the VOOM channels right now on my 50" Sony!
shanewalker said:
Scott has already said the HD-Lite decision is done. The only thing that is supposed to be revealed in the Charlie Chat is the upgrade path for existing customers.
Hammer
I'm not saying Scott didn't try at CES, but just because he had these interviews with folks at Dish doesn't mean they gave him some BS reasons and excuses. Scott's info from contacts has proven to be wrong before and hopefully it will be wrong again and Dish will pull their heads out of the rear and stop the down rez to 1280 when it isn't necessary, and don't pull some marketing scheme with MPEG4 when it's not even ready to be used yet.
CES 2006 confirms one thing- real Voomers who took their money and put it in the bank where the smart ones. Those of us who went with DISH have wasted our money waiting and induring endless replays. HDNet offered little more in content, ESPN in its annoying grey side bars, TNT with its upconverts gave us little in value as we patiently waited for Voom/Dish to get back up and in a forward direction. All we get to look forward to is more of the same and with less quality.
Now everything unveiled, those who jumped over have gotten nothing for our troubles. Wow 5 more Vooms and two nationals, UHD and ESP-2. With Voom, the same old stuff just reshuffled and relabeled. Check out the new Voom.com site nothing we all haven't seen before in the roll out.
Bur for Gameplay!? Where's Sizzle? The teens/twenties don't pay for the TVs and sat bills; we older ones do. Porn industry rivals the Gamers in sales and HD investment. I'd much rather watch others have sex than play video games.
We all Re-invested in the second 61.5 dish just to find out we need everything replaced. New dish1000, new recievers just to continue to get Mpeg 2 until the illusive day comes that Mpeg4 rolls out.
Here in Los Angeles, my OTA with the 45+ digital/HD locals on my old Voom box was and seems to be the smartest way so spend my TV dollar. With no last minute surprises tomorrow, I will be saying buy to DISH.
Man am I even more pissed at the Dolans! Lacking patience and Giving up just when success was at hand.
Now everything unveiled, those who jumped over have gotten nothing for our troubles. Wow 5 more Vooms and two nationals, UHD and ESP-2. With Voom, the same old stuff just reshuffled and relabeled. Check out the new Voom.com site nothing we all haven't seen before in the roll out.
Bur for Gameplay!? Where's Sizzle? The teens/twenties don't pay for the TVs and sat bills; we older ones do. Porn industry rivals the Gamers in sales and HD investment. I'd much rather watch others have sex than play video games.
We all Re-invested in the second 61.5 dish just to find out we need everything replaced. New dish1000, new recievers just to continue to get Mpeg 2 until the illusive day comes that Mpeg4 rolls out.
Here in Los Angeles, my OTA with the 45+ digital/HD locals on my old Voom box was and seems to be the smartest way so spend my TV dollar. With no last minute surprises tomorrow, I will be saying buy to DISH.
Man am I even more pissed at the Dolans! Lacking patience and Giving up just when success was at hand.
I checked the manual on my nearly 5 year old Hitachi 43UWX10B the other day and i found out, if I'm reading it right, that my set only displays 1200 lines of horizontal resolution leaving me with 1200x1080i. I can't say I could tell a difference with the down rez and I imagine that's the reason for Dish's position. There are a lot of sets out here that can't resolve the full 1920x1080. Of course, I haven't kept up with the latest and I suppose most of the sets selling now can indeed take the full resolution.
You can see the difference with any set. Just because your set may not have 1920 lines of horiz resolution doesn't mean you can't see the difference from a source that has 1920 or 1280. It's the same reason you'd see a difference in 480i SD. The less you receive the worse it looks regardless of display
What time and channel exactly is the Charlie chat tomorrow?
Also, my deepest appreciation to Scott for his efforts and CES reports. I am amazed at the flaming directed his way. I had a web forum once and the thankless flaming for no good reason caused my wife to say one day, why don't you just pull the plug. So I did. Scott could do the same. Be careful what you wish for.
Over the years I've come to realize that people like Scott (and me with my web forum) are just trying to do their best, to fill a void, to provide a useful service to others who share their interest. Don't assume their motives are bad, stick to the issues in a rational discussion and everyone benefits and the forum will live on.
My last comment: I have a Toshiba 51-in projection 1080i CRT system with a 942, Voom, SF Bay OTAs, etc. This forum is the first place I heard of the HDlite problem. I notice res differences from progam to program but not some devestating loss of quality across the board (mostly). I am wondering if this is a problem more for lower res plasma (typically vert res 768 instead of 1080) that are always having to manipulate bits to show 720 or 1080 HD. Seriously, my Voom still looks great when the content is great. Am I missing something? No flames, please, just facts. I'm a long time lurker - this is my first post, so encourage me (and be kind to Scott)!
Also, my deepest appreciation to Scott for his efforts and CES reports. I am amazed at the flaming directed his way. I had a web forum once and the thankless flaming for no good reason caused my wife to say one day, why don't you just pull the plug. So I did. Scott could do the same. Be careful what you wish for.
Over the years I've come to realize that people like Scott (and me with my web forum) are just trying to do their best, to fill a void, to provide a useful service to others who share their interest. Don't assume their motives are bad, stick to the issues in a rational discussion and everyone benefits and the forum will live on.
My last comment: I have a Toshiba 51-in projection 1080i CRT system with a 942, Voom, SF Bay OTAs, etc. This forum is the first place I heard of the HDlite problem. I notice res differences from progam to program but not some devestating loss of quality across the board (mostly). I am wondering if this is a problem more for lower res plasma (typically vert res 768 instead of 1080) that are always having to manipulate bits to show 720 or 1080 HD. Seriously, my Voom still looks great when the content is great. Am I missing something? No flames, please, just facts. I'm a long time lurker - this is my first post, so encourage me (and be kind to Scott)!
Of course the difference may not be very noticeable on a set that only resolves 1200, but I am convinced there can be a difference still. As I posted in another thread, it's not just the native resolution that matters, but also how many times you rescale the signal. If your receiver outputs 1080i and the signal has unchanged 1920 horizontal resolution, then there is only one conversion done to it inside your TV set: 1920 -> 1200, or whatever the native resolution of your TV set is.Stacy A said:
In HD-Lite scenario there are many more conversions involved:
1920 -> 1280 -> 1920 -> 1200 and each conversion degrades the picture quality.
This is one possible explanation why HD-Lite may degrade the picture quality even on a TV set that does not resolve more than 1280 lines.
Note, that many TV sets sold now and in the past couple of years have higher horizontal resolution than 1280. For example, 1366 is very common among LCD and DLP sets.
The chat room will be open at 8:30 PM EST and you can find the Charlie Chat at 9PM EST on Dish Network Channel 101! Thanks for being a Satelliteguys.Us member and we hope to see you there!ergoman said:
BFG said:
Just curious, what type of display do YOU watch HDTV content on?
I use a Dwin TV3e with a 92" wide screen in a light controlled HT room. Therefore my pixel depth resolution is limited to 1280 and test patterns with an RGBHV signal from a test generator confirm that there is nothing resolved higher than 1280. Actually the visual resolution tests indicate slightly less at 1200 pixels rounded off. I also recently purchased a small 24" LCD computer monitor for my edit suite It is said to be 1200x1920 pixels but I have not yet put the pattern generator on it to see what it really can do. However with a. RGBHV signal from a computer in native resolution, I see a degree of artifacting that would tend to degrade the H res at the upper end. I don't have a digital connection (DVI) for it so that may be necessary to actually see the resolution into the range of 1920.
One of the problems I see in lay interpretation of the down res myth is that so many people do not have the ability to truly evaluate what they see and understand what the real limits are and where they originate from. In discussion with expert engineers who work in this industry, it is common knowledge that content creation is extremely limited beyond the HDCAM upper end of 1440 pixels. And, any attempt to deliver resolution beyond that results in passing nothing but image noise as opposed to an improvement in image quality. Therefore, a delivery service has a choice to limit the resolution in this range occupied by typical noise or pass it and waste bandwidth on a portion of the content that really does not contribute to the program quality. If the viewer at the receiving end has his monitor limited in resolving power then the whole exercise in passing an unrestricted upper limit becomes an exercise that has only one result, wasted bandwidth.
My position is that if a happy balance can be achieved where the MSO passes HDCAM resolution he will satisfy the needs of most if not all consumers at this time. As more and more consumers have these 1080p x 1920 monitors then not only will the MSO need to up the specs but so will the content creators need to acquire with higher resolution source equipment and that content be created and distributed in native resolution as well.
Now, I have not heard what downresing is done to. When asked, those doing it get quite evasive. If the PQ is being downresed to the point where it looks quite fuzzy on a 720P x 1280 monitor then I submit that the MSO may be downresing to SD resolution which I agree is reprehensible when advertising HDTV channels. This, IMO, goes far beyond HD lite, but rather HD FRAUD.
I think, in order to continue a reasonable dialog in this subject, we consumers need to define exactly what it is we are complaining about. HD-Lite needs a range of acceptance based on industry standards. Since the ATSC and FCC have assigned the vertical resolution of 720P 60 and 1080i 30 as the standard and allow a range of H pixels to qualify as HDTV it would be wrong to define HD-Lite as anything less than 1920. 1080i 30 at 1440 is indeed considered by industry standards as HDTV resolution. Most HDTV viewed is just that, not 1920 anyway. Few people have ever seen full 1920 on a 1920 monitor sourced from D5 shot on a studio HD camera. I have only seen it at NAB. Now I believe the CES demos look to be full 1920 on the 1080P monitor demos.
I suggest we define HD-lite as any resolution above standard definition that has the required 720P or 1080i but offers less than 1200 pixels in the horizontal from either vertical standard.
Where does the ATSC (or the FCC for that matter) define HDTV where they allow a "range of H pixels to qualify as HDTV" ?
Don,
I am not an engineer and only understand conceptually what you are saying, but that is exactly why I posted that my HDTV monitor has a horizontal resolution of 1200. I knew from previous membership at the HomeTheaterSpot that at one time there was great controversy surrounding the broadcast resolution. Simply put, Why broadcast the full 1920x1080 when there were no consumer sets that could fully resolve it?
I definately don't want to start a flaming and I will be the first to stay away from controversial arguments, choosing instead to try and find facts rather than opinions, but I could not tell that any single one HD channel on Dish was consistently of poorer PQ than any of the others. To me, it seems to do a lot with the particular show/episode, channel, production method and medium to cause inconsistency in quality. There have been times that I have wanted to demonstrate HD to someone and turned on Discovery HD Theater only to find they are showing a program that is not as "wow" as I would have liked. The upcoming program might be "pristine" however. I have seen the same thing on most of the other channels in one way or another.
And by the way, thanks for the information.
I am not an engineer and only understand conceptually what you are saying, but that is exactly why I posted that my HDTV monitor has a horizontal resolution of 1200. I knew from previous membership at the HomeTheaterSpot that at one time there was great controversy surrounding the broadcast resolution. Simply put, Why broadcast the full 1920x1080 when there were no consumer sets that could fully resolve it?
I definately don't want to start a flaming and I will be the first to stay away from controversial arguments, choosing instead to try and find facts rather than opinions, but I could not tell that any single one HD channel on Dish was consistently of poorer PQ than any of the others. To me, it seems to do a lot with the particular show/episode, channel, production method and medium to cause inconsistency in quality. There have been times that I have wanted to demonstrate HD to someone and turned on Discovery HD Theater only to find they are showing a program that is not as "wow" as I would have liked. The upcoming program might be "pristine" however. I have seen the same thing on most of the other channels in one way or another.
And by the way, thanks for the information.
