Anyone else notice this?

[357mag]

I have just switched from cable to Dish Network. A few nights ago when I was watching General Hospital, in the background behind the characters that were talking I could see blotches of color like squares or pixels or something like that move around and get bigger and then shrink, depending on the camera angle. I went into the living room where I have a bigger TV and looked for it but it hardly if at all shows up on the living room TV. But it is more apparent in the bedroom TV, which is a small 13 inch. The people I talked to at Dish had me check the signal strength and said it was pretty good.

I might add I do have one DVD amongst my collection in which I can see the same thing going on, but again it is most evident on my bedroom TV, and it's barely noticeable at all on my living room TV.

Is this just a by-product of digital? Digital television? Or is it because a smaller TV has a greater resolution and thus can show any defects if they happen to be present?

I'd like to know if anyone else has noticed this with their satellite TV or perhaps a DVD or two.

 

[TNGTony]

Yes, it's called pixellization (or Pixelation). Whatever it's called, it is a by-product of digital compression. Basically we sacrifice detail for the sheer number of channels carried on a transponder. 12 video channels per transponder is the norm now.

Now, why can you see it more on the 13" TV versus the bigger set is beyond me. It should be the other way around. It COULD be the receiver itself! Ultimately, it is the receiver that translates the digital stream into a picture.

One way to find out is to swap the receivers temporarily and see if the digital artifact follows the receiver. If it does, you have your culprit. If it doesn't then I'm stumped!

Are you using Video or S-Video inputs on the big TV and RF input on the 13" TV? That could be part of the problem too.

RF (Channel 3) = Good
Composite Video (Yellow plug) = Better
S Video (Round plug with 4 holes) = Best

This is only for regular TV.
(If I don't say that, some one will tell me I'm wrong and start spouting off about HD inputs. )

Welcome to Satelliteguys!

See ya
Tony

 

[jtravel]

It sounded like classic over compression of the Sat channels at first but I would expect it to be worse on the larger TV than it is on the smaller.
You then said you see the same thing playing some DVD's, That should not be the case unless your playing a homemade DVDR copy that has been compressed to fit on a single Dvd blank.
If these are store purchased DVD's then I think you must have a problem with your TV or the input cables.

 

[illusion123a]

you know, the other day when (thursday i think) when I was also watching GH (they are replacing carly by the way) I noticed that the picture was fuzzy, i was watching it off DVR though, and thought maybe it was from the weather being overcast.

By the way how do i check my single strength? ANd what is a good level?

 

[DarrellP]

How do you think Dish crams so many channels up there? They highly overcompress their local channels, and many of their SD channels, that's why I only have HD and 2 movie packages. The movies packs seem to be less compressed. When I had Dish locals I couldn't even watch them on my 27" analog TV they looked so bad. I'd rather watch a snowy analog channel than what Dish serves up as an excuse for "digital' TV on locals.

illusion123a, the weather will not affect your Dish picture. With digital, either you have it or you don't, it's not like analog where you get interference lines or snow.

 

[357mag]

After looking at the back of my two TV's neither one of them has this S-Video plug-in on the back. It looks like both of them I have a white and a yellow plug plugged into the back, more specifically the TV in the living room has a white, yellow, and a red plugged in, and the TV in the bedroom has just a white and a yellow plugged in. The red is not plugged in. I think the reason the red is not plugged in is because when I bought my Xbox and was hooking it up I needed help so I called Best Buy and he told me not to plug that one in, that it was not needed.

I only have one receiver in the apartment. Two receivers are not needed since this is Dish Network, not DirectTV.

The Mike Hammer DVD is the only DVD I have in which you can see those squares of color. None of my other DVD's show that. In fact my other DVD's appear razor sharp. I now suspect that when they made the disc the transfer itself was not very good. Probably happens occasionally.

I'm rather disappointed to learn of this "pixelation" problem. And they have you sign an 18 month commitment? Seems very unfair to the customer.

 

[DarrellP]

FWIW, the yellow plug is your composite video feed, the red is the right side of stereo audio and the white is the left side of stereo audio. Normally if your unit does not output stereo, it feeds both signals into a mono feed into the white cable. If your TV has only the white, you can feed it only the white or use a "Y" plug that takes the red and white and combines it into a single audio feed for your TV.

 

[357mag]

On my living room TV both the red and white are plugged in. In the bedroom TV just the yellow and white are plugged in. I can't remember why the guy at Best Buy said that plugging in the red is not needed, but perhaps it has something to do with my Xbox.

Anyway none of this is going to affect my satellite TV picture. If pixelation is a by-product of digital TV I don't see a way to get rid of it.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

You could also have you contrast and brightness turned up to high on the TV.

If you tv is setup correctly then you should not notice most of the compression artifacts..

You could try getting a video called AVIA which will help you calibrate your TV.

 

[boba]

After looking at the back of my two TV's neither one of them has this S-Video plug-in on the back. It looks like both of them I have a white and a yellow plug plugged into the back, more specifically the TV in the living room has a white, yellow, and a red plugged in, and the TV in the bedroom has just a white and a yellow plugged in. The red is not plugged in. I think the reason the red is not plugged in is because when I bought my Xbox and was hooking it up I needed help so I called Best Buy and he told me not to plug that one in, that it was not needed.

I only have one receiver in the apartment. Two receivers are not needed since this is Dish Network, not DirectTV.

The Mike Hammer DVD is the only DVD I have in which you can see those squares of color. None of my other DVD's show that. In fact my other DVD's appear razor sharp. I now suspect that when they made the disc the transfer itself was not very good. Probably happens occasionally.

I'm rather disappointed to learn of this "pixelation" problem. And they have you sign an 18 month commitment? Seems very unfair to the customer.

357mag I bet you can disconnect the yellow and white cable in the bedroom and still watch TV. Your description of the DISH receiver suggests a 522/625 which sends a RF signal to the second room the poorest quality signal available. The white and yellow cables are probably for your X box only, you have a coaxial cable screwed into the back of your TV and tune to a channel number to watch satellite.

 

[357mag]

Actually the white and yellow cables hook up my DVD player in my bedroom to my bedroom TV. So the only cable that has anything to do with my satellite TV in the bedroom is the round black coaxial cable itself which plugs into the plug-in on the back of the TV.

Maybe I do have a 522/625 receiver. I don't know cuz that info is not given in the owner's manual. And let's say I do. What do I do about it? Do I contact the people that installed it and say I want a better one? And what does it cost?

Actually I'm not saving any money at all, since I had to buy into the most expensive package just to get OLN.

 

[bweiteka]

I agree with Scott. On a 13 inch TV,regardless of how it's hooked up, you should not see any effect from compression. Try adjusting the contrast and brightness of your picture.

 

[DarrellP]

I agree with Scott. On a 13 inch TV,regardless of how it's hooked up, you should not see any effect from compression. Try adjusting the contrast and brightness of your picture.

Sorry guys, but I wholeheartedly disagree with this. I use my old Commodore 13" monitor hooked up via composite to use as a monitor or like a PIP device in my home theater and I can see the ugly effects of compression even on this small size screen, but then again, I only sit 2 feet from it. If you were to sit 5 feet away then the compression would not be an issue. It's the same with any TV, the further away you sit, the less noticeable it will be. I don't even like watching SD digital OTA channels even when they are broadcast on an HD carrier in my HT because they look like crap because I am sitting 14' from a 110" screen, but HD is pristine. Now if I back up about 5 feet the SD looks fine.

 

[357mag]

I should not have to alter the contrast or brightness. I believe right now it's set up to the halfway point for both. And I really love that TV in that bedroom. It has great color and I like the smaller 13 inch size. I was looking at Soap.net again a little while ago and once again, in the background especially the walls I saw blotches of color which must be this thing called pixelation. I too thought it would be more noticeable on my bigger living room TV, but in fact it is not. It's definitely there on my smaller TV. And the bedroom TV is only 23 months old so nothing is wrong with it.

 

[357mag]

What about what one guy said about the 522/635 receiver? Could I go to the store and have them put in a higher quality receiver that would eliminate the pixelation problem in my bedroom?

 

[Van]

hmm, a member with the name of 357mag watching a soap opera reminds me of the biker dude whom I did a service call for that had a poodle named pritzy, hehehe

 

[Pablo_New]

The real problem......

Everybody's missing the big "picture" here. Did you hear that they are replacing Carly on GH???!!!!

That's it, I refuse to watch that show ever again!

 

[357mag]

I don't see why they would want to replace Carly again. I think the new actress is doing a great job in the role. As far as the pixelation goes, Dish told me to go down to the store and have them install an attenuator. That may help. So I'm going to try it and see if it helps.