Can you tell which is Dish, DirecTV or OTA?

[Mike Greer]

I have attached a sample picture of the 'Best' local broadcasts I can receive in Salt Lake City. Can you tell which is which? There is a sample from DirecTV, Dish Network and OTA Digital (not HD).

I also have samples of the worst local broadcasts I'll post later...

Sorry the sample is so big but I didn't want to water them down!

It is easier to compare if you save the sample and then view it at full resolution rather than letting ie resize it for your screen...

 

[Darin]

I don't know how to do a spoiler tag on this board, and I don't want to skew other people's votes, so don't read if you haven't voted yet.


But my opinion is, the middle is the cleanest, so I'd have to assume it's the digital OTA broadcast. As far as the remaining two... the bottom one clearly has ghosting, which is not typically an MPEG compression issue. I'd say most likely, one of the two satellite carriers in your area is receiving this particular local channel via an analog OTA signal. This is the exception rather than the rule, and will vary depending on the area. So without knowing which provider gets which channels which way in which city, it'll be hard to say. But if I'm right, and this IS an analog reception issue, then it's not really a fair comparison, as the problem is in the source, not in the provider's compression quality.

 

[Mike Greer]

Very interesting.....

 

[Neutron]

You will not get a fair survey in this forum. You should have posted one poll in the General Satellite forum.

 

[Alvarez]

Home Theater magazine just did a side by side comparison of all 3 V*, D*, and E* and if I recall they said movies V* had the best picture followed by D* in a close 2nd and E* in 3rd. Sports was D* then E* then V* and news and weather it was E* then V* then D*

I am at work right now and when i get home I will confirm I have the right order. but nonetheless its hard to do any side by sides unless you like ONE channel (hence my question about NFL Network in another thread)

 

[Dvlos]

Is the answer going to be posted?

 

[Mike Greer]

"Home Theater magazine just did a side by side comparison of all 3 V*, D*, and E* and if I recall they said movies V* had the best picture followed by D* in a close 2nd and E* in 3rd. Sports was D* then E* then V* and news and weather it was E* then V* then D*"

Home Theater magazine was a joke - their so called review did nothing but confuse the facts.

I won't be re-subbing not only because of this review but most of them.

They have gone way down hill....

"Is the answer going to be posted?"

Yep - I'll post the answers this afternoon after I call my provider. I'll then be able to post what they say about their "100% Digital Quality"!

 

[Dvlos]

Ah well we don't have to wait for the Provider bashing I'd like to know now .. heh...

 

[Mike Greer]

Well – here is the deal…

Most people got it right!

The top is DirecTV the middle is OTA and the bottom is Dish Network. I screwed the thing up by not giving an option with the bottom one as OTA. I figured the ghosting in the Dish Network signal would make most people think that the bottom was OTA.

What I was really trying to point out here is that when DBS providers advertise “100% digital quality” it really is “100% Bull ^#%$^”. The fact is with Dish Network in this example, at least in Salt Lake, not only do you get the over-compression problems put you also get the good old fashioned analog problems. Dish must be receiving their Salt Lake locals analog OTA or from cable – no wouldn’t that be funny!

How many of Dish Network and DirecTV’s “100% Digital Quality” channels are just over-compressed re-heated yesterday’s meatloaf analog channels?

Isn’t the claim of “100% Digital Quality” by DBS companies just an out-right lie? Why do we as the consumers let them get away with it? Is it the same reason we keep electing public officials that couldn’t tell the truth to save their own mothers?

Darin – I don’t agree that it’s not a fair comparison… All 3 samples claim to be “100% digital quality”. If they are not (which they’re not) the providers should not be able to claim they are.

The bottom line – “100% Digital Quality” really means nothing.

See here for more details… http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=26533

 

[Dvlos]

Not bad so far i'm 1 for 1...

 

[Darin]

Darin – I don’t agree that it’s not a fair comparison…

I say it's not a good comparison because the issue you are having is specific to the local channels, and specific to the local channels in your market. The vast majority of local broadcasters get their signal to Dish/DirecTV digitally, often via a hard line. But in the cases where the local broadcaster won't provide it, or for whatever reason, they can't get it, they have to put up an antenna. Obviously, this situation isn't going to apply to all the other (non-LIL) channels, and it's not going to be consistent from market to market.

I just don't think it's fair to compare the DBS providers based on a local channel. There are many more variables in local channels, and the comparison is only going to be valid for that channel in that market. People can't look at these pictures and come to any conclusion to DirecTV's compression quality compared to Dish's compression quality, because the issues are upstream of that. My (fill in whatever network that is) will look completely different (and in fact it does, as I don't think any of our locals are received by DirecTV via analog OTA). The national channels are the only fair comparison in a nationwide forum like this, because those are the only ones that will look the same to everyone. Even in your examples, one channel DirecTV has ghosting on, and another channel Dish has ghosting on. So obviously, the only conclusion that can be drawn here is on those specific channels, only in your market.

 

[Mike Greer]

Darin- I wasn't really trying to say that DirecTV or Dish is 'better'. In fact they both:

Are lying about "100% Digital Quality"
Take advantage of people that don't know how this works
Put a very low priority on picture quality
Lie when they even suggest DVD quality for any channel

Maybe I should take a few samples from each provider to compare - I may do that in the future but I had to give my cousin back his Dish Network receiver for now....

Every time I hear how great the picture quality on Dish or DirecTV I get this sudden urge to puke!

 

[Darin]

I know that may not be your intent, but people are interested to be able to compare the quality of the various providers. It's rare to have a chance to have digitally extracted screen caps available to compare. While I understand your beef, marketing is marketing. I can tell you that here in Atlanta, the LIL channels are better than what I can get off cable at my house. Not as good as digital OTA, of course, but not many have that option.

Also, when it comes to locals, not only is there wide variance in quality due to how the signal is delivered to the DBS provider, but it will also vary by market depending on how many channels have to share the spot(s). It's not averaged out as much as the national channels are, since some markets have more channels than others.

 

[slacker9876]

Mike all I can say is perhaps you require professional installation. You have the worst D* transmissions of anyone have ever seen. If mine looked like that I would be bitching too. Thank God it doesn't, if you want the digital quality you first need a quality installation.

My E* used to look like that which was why I went back to D* the day my contract was up like 3 years ago. I have seen others E* installations and they were not as bad as mine.

 

[Darin]

He's extracting those straight off the hard drive of his TiVo. There is nothing in an installation that would cause pictures like that. That's definitely an indication of (sub-par) analog reception used by the DBS provider. While they don't typically receive local channels in that manner, they do for some channels, in some markets. They may be maintaining a POP, and then send all the local channels to their headquarters. Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to get to the level of someone at DirecTV that even understands this, much less knows how to get someone to resolve an issue at their POP station. You have to be persistant, and while you shouldn't have to, explain to the CSR how it all works so they at least understand that you aren't some idiot customer that doesn't know what you're talking about. An alternative would be to offer to go to a local DirecTV installer, and look at their setup. It will be the same, and you could either get the installer to agree that there's a problem, or take a picture of his TV (ghosting would probably even show up on a digicam pic). That would at least get them to stop saying "it's your setup".

Of course, another option would be to send them the captures, or even point them to this thread. Of course, I could understand not wanting to admit to them that you're extracting video.

 

[Dvlos]

Did you compare a non OTA channel between the two by any chance?

 

[rad]

Mike all I can say is perhaps you require professional installation. You have the worst D* transmissions of anyone have ever seen. If mine looked like that I would be bitching too. Thank God it doesn't, if you want the digital quality you first need a quality installation.

My E* used to look like that which was why I went back to D* the day my contract was up like 3 years ago. I have seen others E* installations and they were not as bad as mine.

I think his D* PQ is what most people see, hence the majority picking the right order. My D* PQ looks OK unless you look closely at small graphics, such as on the top of the screen, which is exactly what I see on my D* PQ.

 

[Mike Greer]

Mike all I can say is perhaps you require professional installation. You have the worst D* transmissions of anyone have ever seen. If mine looked like that I would be bitching too. Thank God it doesn't, if you want the digital quality you first need a quality installation.

My E* used to look like that which was why I went back to D* the day my contract was up like 3 years ago. I have seen others E* installations and they were not as bad as mine.

You don't happen to work for DirecTV do you?

This is not an installation problem - we are talking about digital signals here. No cables, connections, dish, lnb or receiver problem could cause this to happen. Period. End of story.... Anyone in Salt Lake that has DirecTV is getting the same WB as I am..

 

[Mike Greer]

I think his D* PQ is what most people see, hence the majority picking the right order. My D* PQ looks OK unless you look closely at small graphics, such as on the top of the screen, which is exactly what I see on my D* PQ.

I think if I had created poll correctly most people would have likely picked the Dish Network (bottom) picture as OTA. No one expects "100% Digital Quality" to look that bad!

 

[Dvlos]

Yo MIke hang in there if/when Voom releases a DVR and that stability is verified, I'll drop a post for you on this forum