Bad HD Picture Quality in Seattle

[duanej79]

Hello, first time poster here. I recently signed up with Dish after getting fed up with Comcast's high costs and touchy reception with an OTA antenna. When I had Comcast I was fairly happy with the HD PQ on my Samsung 27" HD tube tv, but I disliked paying $65+ for it. I decided to get a quality HD Antenna in November and really enjoyed getting free HD - when I could get it to come in. When it did come in the PQ was incredible. Anyway, the TV broke last month and I bought a 40" Sony Bravia (72Op).

I decided to go with DISH becuase the strike was finally over and wanted to be able to watch the daily show/colbert and such. I read the stellar reviews of the 722VIP and decided to go for it. However, hearing of HD-Lite I decided to not sign up for the 2 year plan in case the PQ wasn't up to par. I'm glad I did because I am really dissapointed in the HD PQ...it is often grainy/pixilated and I get really noticable macroblocking (?) during fast movement. Am I just spoiled from the OTA and my HD DVD player? Could I just be getting bad reception? I love the DVR, best I've ever used, but I can't justify keeping it for sub-par PQ. Is this the same for DirectTV? I'm using HDMI and have tried both 720p and 1080i settings, and I have calibrated my TV using a THX disc. HD DVD's and my 360 look great, so I know it is not the tv.

Can anyone provide some thoughts on this?

 

[GRG]

You are probably seeing breakups from the 129 bird, unfortunately in Seattle you almost need to have a separate dish for 129. I have a dish 1000 & 2 622's hooked up to 57" & 52" Sharp LCD's and have stunning PQ aside from the occaisonal break up every 15- 20 minutes on certain weak transponders on 129. What is your dish set-up?

 

[Miner]

duane,

What GRG says. I am happy with my HD picture and am in Seattle. Are you picture quality issues on all channels or just some? Do you use OTA and is the quality the same or better? The daily show and colbert report are not in HD and SD channels tend to look worse than with SD tuners.

Miner

 

[duanej79]

I have two dish receivers on my roof...the installer never really explained why I needed a second one. The PQ is pretty much the same on all the HD channels, I've tried them all. Sometimes a scene looks almost great but then it it gets grainy/pixilated and during fast transitions I get really noticeable macro blocking. It is really annoying! I am not using my OTA antenna right now but I am thinking of putting it back up and hooking it to my DVR. Should I call DISH and let them know? This is my first experience with a satellite service and I don't know much about the hardware. Will they send someone to take a look at it for free?

Thanks for the help! I really want to keep the service, I love the VIP722 and their customer service has been great so far. But if I can't get the PQ improved I think I'll just go back to OTA only and deal with just having the network stations.

 

[kstile]

You're never going to get as good a picture through Dish as you would OTA. I noticed the macroblocking during CBS's sports coverage (football and, now, basketball) - switching to OTA almost always looks a whole lot better (especially when their graphics zoom on and off the screen). Some of the HD channels look better than the others - try HDNet or HDNet Movies for what I think is the best looking image. It's up to you whether paying for Dish in order to have OTA DVR on your 722 is too much, but I know I couldn't live without it.

And while it's true that 129 is a bit shaky here, I'm pretty sure that none of the network stations are on that satellite. Whether you get macroblocking or are suffering through "hd-lite" has nothing to do with your signal reception, just the signal that they're sending.

 

[harshness]

I noticed the macroblocking during CBS's sports coverage (football and, now, basketball) - switching to OTA almost always looks a whole lot better (especially when their graphics zoom on and off the screen).

I've found that KOIN's PQ has been very bit-starved OTA. This seems odd as it is one of two Portland stations that has only an HD feed (maybe they're saving room for the SD feed?).

 

[harshness]

HD DVD's and my 360 look great, so I know it is not the tv.

Don't be so sure it isn't the TV. LCD and motion are not a great combination and combining that with the decidedly reduced quality offered by most all carriers and you're going to see some degradation. At this point a 720P TV is what one would call a budget model and it may not feature the hottest compensation technology.

 

[duanej79]

Well, it's a very highly rated Sony LCD and there is no ghosting or smearing when playing games on the 360, and action scenes on the HD DVD player are smooth as silk. Anyway, thanks for all your replies. I think I'll stick with it for now because I don't think I'll get a better picture with DirectTV or Comcast, and Fios is not available in my area. I am going to put up my antenna again for the local HD channels. Is it hard to integrate with the 722 guide and recordings? Any issues? Does OTA take up more space on the HD?

 

[GRG]

Well, it's a very highly rated Sony LCD and there is no ghosting or smearing when playing games on the 360, and action scenes on the HD DVD player are smooth as silk. Anyway, thanks for all your replies. I think I'll stick with it for now because I don't think I'll get a better picture with DirectTV or Comcast, and Fios is not available in my area. I am going to put up my antenna again for the local HD channels. Is it hard to integrate with the 722 guide and recordings? Any issues? Does OTA take up more space on the HD?

You have something funny going on somewhere. My 57" Sharp & 622 exhibit none of the things you are describing, (I'm in Dot by Dot mode on the Sharp). I've done side by side PIP between the same OTA & dish feeds on NBC, ABC & CBS and see very little difference between the two, the OTA is a bit clearer but not an earth shaking delta IMO. I do have my 622 set at 720 instead of 1080 as I watch mainly sports and find that setting most appealing to me.

Re your OTA, if you are handy, just use 2 diplexers to split your OTA on top of your Dish rg6, this way you don't have to feed another home run into your house. On my install a few years ago I got the installer to do it for me for free. The OTA integration into the 622/722 guide & DVR is awesome , definately set it up that way (gives you more multiple recording options).

If you think your issue is dish related, see if you can get a go back and have the tech double check things and maybe offer him a $20 tip to do the diplexers while he's there FWIW...

 

[harshness]

Is it hard to integrate with the 722 guide and recordings? Any issues? Does OTA take up more space on the HD?

OTA is seamless with the ViP722 as long as you subscribe to locals via DISH. If you don't subscribe, you must manually program the OTA stuff.

OTA is not currently available with DIRECTV's current crop of roughly comparable receivers that are offered at the big box stores.

 

[duanej79]

So I can set shows to record on the local HD stations strictly for my OTA antenna? I am going to put it up tonight and see how it works. I also just called DISH and switched to their all-HD service, the only SD station I really watch is CC and I can get those shows off the net easily. The only other show I care about is BSG but hopefully that will be in HD soon.

I really appreciate the help!

 

[kstile]

Yes, you can record from your OTA only, just look in the guide and differentiate b/t the Dish channels an the locals; the latter have an antenna icon when you're recording and are yellow in the guide. Also, be aware that while there are two Dish tuners in your 722 there's only one OTA tuner. That means that you cannot record two OTA programs at the same time. For me that's reason enough to be happy with Dish's HD locals - I can record three network broadcasts at once (two Dish tuners + OTA) and that makes me very happy

 

[highdefjeff]

Hello, first time poster here. I recently signed up with Dish after getting fed up with Comcast's high costs and touchy reception with an OTA antenna. When I had Comcast I was fairly happy with the HD PQ on my Samsung 27" HD tube tv, but I disliked paying $65+ for it. I decided to get a quality HD Antenna in November and really enjoyed getting free HD - when I could get it to come in. When it did come in the PQ was incredible. Anyway, the TV broke last month and I bought a 40" Sony Bravia (72Op).

I decided to go with DISH becuase the strike was finally over and wanted to be able to watch the daily show/colbert and such. I read the stellar reviews of the 722VIP and decided to go for it. However, hearing of HD-Lite I decided to not sign up for the 2 year plan in case the PQ wasn't up to par. I'm glad I did because I am really dissapointed in the HD PQ...it is often grainy/pixilated and I get really noticable macroblocking (?) during fast movement. Am I just spoiled from the OTA and my HD DVD player? Could I just be getting bad reception? I love the DVR, best I've ever used, but I can't justify keeping it for sub-par PQ. Is this the same for DirectTV? I'm using HDMI and have tried both 720p and 1080i settings, and I have calibrated my TV using a THX disc. HD DVD's and my 360 look great, so I know it is not the tv.

Can anyone provide some thoughts on this?

I and others have consistently seen properly set-up Dish systems that are a very close second, and sometimes indistinguishable, from OTA. Something is wrong. Check this page "Do's & Don'ts":

Do's & Don'ts - How to get the best HDTV picture quality.

 

[8bitbytes]

Does OTA take up more space on the HD?

Yes, approximately twice the space of Dish mpeg4 HD. OTA is still mpeg2.

I think the total hours estimate on the DVR is based on mpeg2 compression so it shouldn't reduce what hours you thought you were going to get.