Did they announce the New Year price increase yet?

[DrWho]

DarrelP, I hope to confirm your comments come Saturday when D* gets installed.

I also figure I will have 2 options to choose from for Local HD Channels.

Since D* sends those signals over the Sat. I can compare the Sat Local HD images to the OTA HD Images. It will have to wait till Sunday when Football is on though.

But from the sounds of it, I won't see a differnce between Vooms HD and D*'s HD, I should even see an improvement. But if I see no difference I will be happy enough.

 

[gunn55]

So are you saying Voom has the best price i know the other providers are charging 10.99 for there HDTV channels.

Yea, 10.99 labor fee so they can conpress the S$#@ out of it !

 

[Sean Mota]

You ain't sh*ttin, Vurbano. Since I'm jobless, I decided to watch a movie on Cinema10 today (The Good, The Bad & The Ugly). My God, what a piece of crap! Where did they get the transfer for this film? It looked no better than a DVD, in fact, I've seen DVD's that had higher resolution than this. It started out in like 2.35:1 AR then switched to 16:9, so much for showing OAR movies.

So I decided to check out the rest of the Cinema10 and they were not a whole lot better. What's going on with Voom right now? Every single channel was super soft. Oh, I know why! I switched from watching Dish, where HDNET & HDNET Movies is super sharp. I switched back and forth a couple of times and what a disappointment with Voom. Sorry guys, but Voom just isn't cuttin the mustard lately, more like the cheese.

Same goes for DiscoveryHD, Dish is beating the pants off the Voom picture.

I may have to take everyone's advice and get a 27" LCD panel and sit 10' away, then I'll get a great picture.

Disagree with you but what is new (right?). I own the DVD of the Good, the bad and the ugly and compared both - the DVD vs the HD cropped transfer. Yes, it is cropped because this was shown before the decision was made that new titles will be OAR. The HD Transfer although cropped has more details and the colors are vivid and do not look dull like the DVD. here's my initial impression abou the HD Transfer on 9/18

The other channels is your own opinion and anybody can have their own opinion. But I done the same and found that in common channels or movies shown in dish and voom, there are similar. Unless something has changed within the past 48 hours.

 

[Bruce]

Yea, 10.99 labor fee so they can conpress the S$#@ out of it !

All Sat. providers compress,D* being the worst(more so when football is on).

Based on bit rates and all that
D* the worst
V* better
E* best

but based on recent posts,V* is a lot closer to E*

 

[vurbano]

DarrelP, I hope to confirm your comments come Saturday when D* gets installed.

I also figure I will have 2 options to choose from for Local HD Channels.

Since D* sends those signals over the Sat. I can compare the Sat Local HD images to the OTA HD Images. It will have to wait till Sunday when Football is on though.

But from the sounds of it, I won't see a differnce between Vooms HD and D*'s HD, I should even see an improvement. But if I see no difference I will be happy enough.

#1 Darrell was reffering to Dish not D* (Directv).

#2 D* has downrezzed and cut bandwidth for ST. Ive heard HDnetmovies on D* looks like a DVD now and that D* no longer does 1920x1080i on some channels. ALthough some say the bandwidth will be restored I doubt it. Rupert will use it to add more distant network feeds or get a head start on HD LIL. February will be a very interesting time to evaluate PQ.

#3 OTA HD depends on your local affiliates multicasting. If they are not multicasting nothing will look better than that. If they are multicasting then ESPNHD may be the best PQ for things like the NFL.

#4 D* does NOT send out local HD yet!!! Youve probably got about a 2 year wait. And as far as ST goes if the game is being shown locally OTA then D* will black it out on ST and you will not see it in many cases.

 

[DarrellP]

I wish I could invite all you guys over to my house and show you a direct comparison between Dish & Voom, the difference is quite dramatic.

As I stated earlier, I need a smaller screen if I am to continue with Voom.

 

[Bruce]

I wish I could invite all you guys over to my house and show you a direct comparison between Dish & Voom, the difference is quite dramatic.

As I stated earlier, I need a smaller screen if I am to continue with Voom.

Just wondering,what projector do you have?

 

[TheTimm]

I wish I could invite all you guys over to my house . . .

Great idea, Darrell! How's Thanksgiving? Just throw a couple extra turkeys in the oven!

P.S. After the Voom/Dish showdown, could we watch the Lions game on that 9-foot screen of yours?

 

[DarrellP]

Bruce, I have a Studio Experience 2HD (Sanyo Z2 clone). It's a 720p native resolution LCD pj. It throws an awesome image at 110".

TheTimm, you betchya'.

 

[Bruce]

Bruce, I have a Studio Experience 2HD (Sanyo Z2 clone). It's a 720p native resolution LCD pj. It throws an awesome image at 110".

TheTimm, you betchya'.

What I have is the Sony VW11HT,a pretty close clone to your Sanyo,just can't beat that 52x92 screen for movies.

 

[DarrellP]

What I have is the Sony VW11HT,a pretty close clone to your Sanyo,just can't beat that 52x92 screen for movies.

I've seriously been considering going down to about a 90" screen because as I walk down the hall away from my screen, most of the noise and other compresson artifacts on voom and SD channels melt into the image. But when a source is good, like HDNET and OTA CBS, I wouldn't want it any smaller.

 

[stevesmall]

"Guess you don't like Hi-Def. VOOM has the most. One channel I do miss on D is Trio it is SD but a good one and techtv. You will tire from HDnet/Movies. Inhd1 & 2 rock! they are much better, but you can't get them on D*."

Considering that I don't watch much on the Cinema 10 Channels, I really won't miss that much.

I will miss monsters and the occasional scene here and there and I will miss Rave. Though HDnet has a pretty decent lineup of Music as well so it's kind of a trade off.

I still get DiscoveryHD, which I didn't watch that much, and all my Locals will be in HD and ESPN-HD. I tend to watch more sports anyway, since that is typically the highest concentration of HD Content anyway. And I will get HBO and nearly half the Price $12.00/Month compared to Vooms $19/Month.

So yes, Voom has more HD channels, but I never really got into The 3 Stooges Go To Space in full glorious HD.

"Inhd1 & 2 rock!"
I would like that Channel, but you can't get that on Voom either.
And if any Sattelite is going to get that it would be D* well before Voom. But InHD will be forever on Cable Only it would seem.

VOOM offers inhd 1 inhd2 ?????????

 

[BFG]

"Inhd1 & 2 rock!"
I would like that Channel, but you can't get that on Voom either.

It's right above your post

 

[Darin]

All Sat. providers compress,D* being the worst(more so when football is on).

Based on bit rates and all that
D* the worst
V* better
E* best

but based on recent posts,V* is a lot closer to E*

That is incorrect. Based on bit rates, Voom is the worst, DirecTV is in the middle, and Dish has the most bandwidth/HD channel. If you look at the three movie channels that share one transponder on DirecTV, those three channels may have less average bitrate than Voom's average bitrate between all of it's HD channels. But if you take the average bitrate across all of their HD channels, DirecTV has more.

 

[DrWho]

Direct has bit rates that hover around 17mb from the lists I have seen.

Not sure what the bit rates for Voom are.

Grant it, with Direct showing every NFL Game in their NFL Package in HD, that's gonna eat up a lot of BandWidth. So there is a bit of a seasonal thing no doubt.

Plus Direct has a new Sat going up in April that's supposed to free up some space.

 

[Darin]

#2 D* has downrezzed and cut bandwidth for ST.

And how much downrezzing has Voom done?

Ive heard HDnetmovies on D* looks like a DVD now

I disagree.

D* no longer does 1920x1080i on some channels.

That is correct. And if Voom has any concept of preserving PQ in reduced bandwidth situations (which they are currently in), they are doing the same. If not, then you guys probably have some artifacting issues.

D* does NOT send out local HD yet!!! Youve probably got about a 2 year wait.

DirecTV DOES send out local HD. If you live in NY or LA. Other markets are in the works. I don't know where Dr. Who lives, but he's in one of the top 30 or so markets, it will probably be under a year for him, not two years.

 

[Darin]

Direct has bit rates that hover around 17mb from the lists I have seen.

Not sure what the bit rates for Voom are.

It's actually very difficult to come to a bitrate comparison between Voom and DirecTV, because we have no way to extract video from Voom's service to find out now much net bitrate is allocated to the content. Some of the data available to the satellite providers is used for overhead, things like error correction, guide data, etc. We know how much GROSS bandwidth Voom has, and we know how much gross bandwidth DirecTV has. Because we can extract video from HD-TiVos (well, we're not supposed to, but it CANn be done for those who put the effort into it), we can also find out how much NET bandwidth actually goes towards encoding the programming. If we compare gross to gross, DirecTV is around 17.2Mbps for all the HD channels that are two/transponder, and 11.4Mbps for the HD channels that are three/transponder. Based on the charts at the bottom of this page, it's still just the three movie channels, even on Sundays during the games. During the week, many HD channels have an entire transponder to themselves, or 34Mbps (which isn't really used fully, as that's more bandwidth than the networks send it at to DirecTV).

Doing the same math for Voom, based on the total bandwidth they have available, if we assume 2.5Mbps for SD channels, at roughly 90 channels, that leaves 490Mbps for 37 HD channels, or 13.2Mbps average. They do have an advantage though, in that they have many in-house movie channels, that can probably be pre-encoded at a lower bitrate, therefore raising the average for the other channels. I'm taking these numbers from an earlier calculation I did for this post, there may be a little more info there.

As far as Dish, I believe most of their HD channels are now three/transponder, but Dish gets more bandwidth out of each transponder because of the modulation they are using. In the end, I think their bitrate numbers are pretty close to DirecTV. Voom also uses newer modulation, and gets even more bandwidth per transponder than Dish. But Voom doesn't have anywhere near as many transponders as Dish or DirecTV, so their total bandwidth is still much less.

If Voom can get MPEG4 and/or WM9 going, and/or get content shifted over to the other satellite they have leased space on, they will be in much better shape from a bandwidth perspective. And DirecTV will have much more bandwidth with all the satellites they have launching over the next couple of years. And I'm sure Dish is doing something to, it just hasn't been talked about as much.

 

[Bruce]

If Voom can get MPEG4 and/or WM9 going, and/or get content shifted over to the other satellite they have leased space on, they will be in much better shape from a bandwidth perspective. And DirecTV will have much more bandwidth with all the satellites they have launching over the next couple of years. And I'm sure Dish is doing something to, it just hasn't been talked about as much.

E*'s answer to D*'s spaceway birds:

From the FCC Daily Digest-10-02-04:

ECHOSTAR SATELLITE LLC. Granted EchoStar Satellite LLC Authority to
Construct, Launch and Operate a Geostationary-Satellite Orbit Satellites
in the Fixed-Satellite Service Using the Extended Ku-Band Frequencies at
the 109,83,121 Degree W.L. Orbital Locations.

This is E*'s answer to D* new birds,I guess they are not just sitting down vs. D*'s spaceway birds.

 

[Darin]

Yes, and Dish also has some Ka licenses they haven't yet utilized. They just haven't been very vocal about what their plans are.

 

[barth2k]

That is incorrect. Based on bit rates, Voom is the worst, DirecTV is in the middle, and Dish has the most bandwidth/HD channel. If you look at the three movie channels that share one transponder on DirecTV, those three channels may have less average bitrate than Voom's average bitrate between all of it's HD channels. But if you take the average bitrate across all of their HD channels, DirecTV has more.

and you base this on?

we also know, btw, that D* filters most channels down to 1280x1080i