Dish messing with Voom, All are now HD-Lite 1280x1080i: Discuss this issue HERE!

[gdarwin]

Yep and just as many threads and more will be started by me praising Dish if this problem is corrected, it goes both ways from me

I have always praised Dish for their HD quality and would love to continue to do so

-Gary

Same here.

:clap:clap

 

[errett]

Here is a reply I got today. I responded to someone from Dish that replied to me earlier today and thanked him for the time and attention he had given me regarding the Voom situation:

There was a successful meeting held today to address the VOOM issues in particular. As these plans move forward and maintenance is implemented to improve the picture quality we know that you will find an improvement to these services. Thank you for your patience in these matters.

Hopefully we are going to be pleased with the Voom offerings again soon.

E

 

[Gary Murrell]

sounds good guys

my eyes and equipment will be peeled

-Gary

 

[bytre]

Let's see what we get before we praise.

I would personally prefer to have fewer channels at higher bitrates and resolution. I'd take them on a side satellite.

 

[JamesJ]

whats the chances they are listening and maybe gave us more channels and put voom at 720p? I think that would be alright with me, but also then again I am still new to all this stuff, but I am thinking there has got to be middle ground somewhere. oh and true 720p, with a nice high bitrate!

 

[vurbano]

whats the chances they are listening and maybe gave us more channels and put voom at 720p? I think that would be alright with me, but also then again I am still new to all this stuff, but I am thinking there has got to be middle ground somewhere. oh and true 720p, with a nice high bitrate!

You lose image quality converting 1080i to 720p or vica versa.

 

[Gary Murrell]

The channels can't be true 720p because they are from a 1080i source, so there must be a conversion somewhere, but

1280x720p with decent bitrate would look much better than this current treatment

Bell Expressvu, converts some of it's HD movie channels to 720p(they are delivered to them 1920x1080i) and they look stunning

1080i to 720p(and vice versa) is known as a side conversion

I just hope the answer is not 1440x1080i as that is still HD-Lite and is doing a odd conversion from 1920x1080i

in the end the answer is to provide them unchanged(Dish mentions this alot and does this with all their other HD), Voom sends true 1920x1080i

-Gary

 

[JamesJ]

is dish hurting for bandwidth is that why the change? are they trying to get us espn2hd and maybe another HD channel? or can they handle all of this Hd and they are just trying to somehow protect themselves with extra transponder space?

 

[Gary Murrell]

Dish is not hurting at 61.5, 129 I am not in the know about

I think Voom is going to use 61.5 to distribute these 21 channels to future buyers, could Dish not send them thru untouched ??

I could not say why Dish did this to Voom, I am not really sure, but lets hope they got the message

-Gary

 

[Reefer123]

Well I am new to all this but if they up the resolution and counteract that with low bitrates and high compression isn't that gonna be just as bad? I have been lurking on this thread since post one and see no mention of this. If they have found a solution but will take time well them there must be other HD channels to be launched very shortly otherwise they would just switch everything back correct?

Can someone confirm/correct me on the point about higher rez but with low bitrates/high compression (bandwidth savers) wouldn't the image still look terrible, even at 1920x1080???

 

[John Kotches]

It really is going to depend on the MPEG encoders being used at the head end.

If the material is preencoded using off line encoders, which gets you the best results, then they could get very good results at 15 Mbits/second.

Cheers,

 

[Ilya]

Well I am new to all this but if they up the resolution and counteract that with low bitrates and high compression isn't that gonna be just as bad? I have been lurking on this thread since post one and see no mention of this. If they have found a solution but will take time well them there must be other HD channels to be launched very shortly otherwise they would just switch everything back correct?
Can someone confirm/correct me on the point about higher rez but with low bitrates/high compression (bandwidth savers) wouldn't the image still look terrible, even at 1920x1080???

Welcome to the forum, Reefer123! And yes, you are absolutely correct that resolution is only part of the story. Bit rate and compression should also be taken into account. There is no advantage in having 1920x1080i if it will be over-compressed. That's why we should demand the best possible picture quality on HD channels, not just the highest resolution. The picture quality is what really counts in the end. High resolution combined with high bit rate are the ways to achieve that.

 

[BFG]

It would be really sweet but at the same time it would probably take a miracle to get voom with full rez and bitrate The difference is only 3 transponders, but 3 transponders prob makes a big difference to them.

Right now voom is set up on 4 TPs, it looks like the plan was to add 11 channels and go to 7 TPs. If they used 10 Transponders they could get all but 3 channels at 2 per TP, but while that looks great they are really using a lot of space to do that

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Gary,

Yes, 1440x1080 is odd, but so is 1280x1080. 1280 is 2/3rds of 1920, 1440 is 3/4ths. And 1440 is a standard format for recording, the HDV format. I believe 1920 can be downconverted to 1440 fairly effectively. I believe 1440x1080 is an HD standard in Australia and is considered true HD there.

Not that I'm advocating it, but I think it's option that Dish would be considering.

 

[Reefer123]

So does anyone other than me think that they will give the 1920x1080 that most everyone wants and compress it and lower the bitrate to fit the other 11 Voom channels? Personally I think that what they decided on during these meeting they say they have been holding.

Although I agree that we should give Dish a chance to fix the problem, I think by years end it should either be resolved or an explanation on what their intentions are should be given to us. Otherwise I'll kick the HD pak and Voom channels off my account and enjoy the OTA HD I am lucky enough to get!

 

[Reefer123]

Its still a lower resolution than 720p. In my opinion a 720p signal with good bitrate would probably be the best current solution. But then again I am no Dish engineer!

 

[Gary Murrell]

I am not sure I would be happy with 1440x1080i either, that is still altering the original signal and is a FORM of HD-Lite

1280x720p would be just about the only acceptable altering to me

here is the pixel count per second(this is not the say all determining factor for quality though):

1920x1080i = 62,208,000 pixels
1280x720p = 55,296,000 pixels
1440x1080i = 46,655,000 pixels
1280x1080i = 41,472,000 pixels

1440x1080i would not be acceptable to me and is shaving alot of information from the signal

1920x1080i at 15 mbps with GOOD encoders would be decent

Discovery HD Theater on 110 is 1920x1080i and 14 mbps video, see what you think of it ??

-Gary

 

[GeorgeLV]

Because the Voom programming originates in 1080i converting it to 720p is much, much worse than converting it to 1280x1080i. 720p has a higher temporal resolution, but if that data wasn't there in the first place all you have is the deinterlacer's best guess if it's video or simply a 33% less resolution if it's telecined flagged film.

Steps to convert 1080i to 1280x1080i:
Resample each scan line from 1920 pels to 1280 pels.

End result--33% loss in horizontal resolution. 33% total resolution loss.

Steps to convert 1080i to 720p (video):
Resample each scan line from 1920 pels to 1280 pels.

Either scale the 540 lines in a field to construct the 720 line frame OR
interpolate them with the 540 lines in the next field and guess what a 720 line progressive frame looks like.

End result--33% loss in horizontal resolution plus up to 50% loss in vertical resolution

Steps to convert 1080i to 720p (telecined films):
Use inverse telecine to reconstruct 1920x1080 frame
Scale to 1280x720

End result--33% loss in horizontal and vertical resolution.
56% total resolution loss.

 

[GeorgeLV]

I am not sure I would be happy with 1440x1080i either, that is still altering the original signal and is a FORM of HD-Lite
1280x720p would be just about the only acceptable altering to me
here is the pixel count per second(this is not the say all determining factor for quality though):
1920x1080i = 62,208,000 pixels
1280x720p = 55,296,000 pixels
1440x1080i = 46,655,000 pixels
1280x1080i = 41,472,000 pixels
1440x1080i would not be acceptable to me and is shaving alot of information from the signal
1920x1080i at 15 mbps with GOOD encoders would be decent
Discovery HD Theater on 110 is 1920x1080i and 14 mbps video, see what you think of it ??
-Gary

Gary, there is no way to get a true 55,296,000 pixel rate 720p offers when you're coming from a 1080i source. Temporal resolution can't be created from information that isn't in the signal. The most you can theoretically get is half that (30 fps) which isn't attainable outside of a perfect 2:2 pulldown source. Therefore the most you're going to get sideconverting 1080i to 720p is 27,648,000 pixels/sec which puts it in last place by far.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

If Dish is planning to use 61.5 to provide several East Coast HD Locals, then it may not be a matter of how much bandwidth is available today, but rather how much will be available to meet all of their plans. If they can save a few transponders on VOOM, and then use those for spotbeaming to multiple cities, it could be pretty important to them.