DISH 381 / 211 upconverting for SD output?

[rpauls]

Hi:
Basically I just want to watch the best quality dish SD locals on my HDTV.

This looks like just the right fourm to ask my question. I recently purchased an HD monitor mostly to watch dvds on and I am very happy with the quality. However, when I look at my SD dishnet programs they are really bad (Blocky and much worse than they appear on my old CRT even when allowing for the size increase). Obviously the problem seems to be rooted in the D/A - A/D deinterlacing/interpolating operations. I have only local channel package from dishnet and an old (10 year old) dishnet receiver with only composit and s-video out. I am wondering if I purchase a more recent dishnet receiver (such as 811, 411, 211, or 381) and use the digital outputs (HDMI or DVI-D) to connect to my HD monitor will I see better quality SD programs than the s-video method. I assume all the receives listed above including the 381 perform digital up conversion to the digital video outputs. Is this correct? What output formats are available? (can it do 720p and 1080i?). Next question I have is can I watch the HD local channels that dishnet carries on their system (ABC, CBS, NBC, etc) using one of these boxes and if so would I have to pay the monthly HD connectivity fee.

Is the upconversion performance in the 211/411/811 any better than the 381?

Thanks

RIch

 

[garys]

Depends of the tv. Several HDTV's do not give good picture quality via it's composite or s-video inputs, but do have much better pq via components, dvi and HDMI imputs.

I believe the 381 is an renamed 811, it will work the same upconverting the sd signal as the others you listed. It will not be abled to be activated for Dish's HD packages, but will still supply ota HD.

 

[caam1]

The 811/381 will only receive OTA HD locals and not the Dish HD locals because the Dish locals are MPEG-4. To receive them you must have a MPEG-4 receiver such as a 211 or a 622. There are issues with all the receivers up converting the SD channels. (I have heard that the DirecTV HD receivers have some of the same issues.) I have found that the 211/622 look better on SD channels than the 811/381. All of of the HD receivers seem to have scaling issues if you want to record an SD channel via the S-video or composite output (the HD channels look fine recorded from the S-video output). I kept my 508 SD DVR activated because the picture looks better on SD channels and the recordings of SD channels on DVD look much better than those of SD channels from the 622.