DISH NETWORK: Address Local Channel Issues

[JAM]

To: Dish Network Local Channels Engineering Dept/Please address problems with the standard def re-transmission of local channels when it is brought to your attention. I have contacted dishquality@echostar.com in an attempt to point out the poor video quality of the Jacksonville FL feeds of CBS and FOX. I have received standard response e-mails from you on two seperate occasions within the last 10 days. However, it is apparent that no adjustments have been made, because the CBS and FOX feeds are still terrible! The picture appears out of focus and the color saturation is too low. This effect is most apparent when network programming is broadcast. It is not as noticable on local programming (live news). Surely it can not be that hard to simply observe the video of the affected channels to see what I am talking about. This topic has been discussed on other dbs and video forums concerning these channels, so it is apparent some problem does exist, as many others are seeing the same thing I am. In closing, I will again point out this refers to the JACKSONVILLE FL feeds of WAWS FOX/30 and WTEV CBS/47. For many of us out here in dbs land, satellite is the only way we can receive network programming. No one wants to pay for channels that are unwatchable. Thank you.

 

[Pepper]

Agreed... WPMI 15 in Mobile, AL is another one, in this case the audio is bad. So bad in fact, I have to turn my subwoofer off because of all the pounding when I view that channel. I have reported this both to the station and to dish with no apparent fix in sight.

I have also verified with the station management, their OTA signal is stereo since they replaced the transmitter after the hurricane, however the signal on Dish is mono.

 

[JAM]

UPDATE on JAX PQ issue: Today (Jan 1), the feeds on FOX/30 and CBS/47 have shown definite improvement. I think they could stand a little more tweaking, but they are certainly better than they were initially. Thank you Dish Network and/or the stations for making adjustments. I strongly encourage investigating these kinds of problems, by both the dbs provider and the local station, when such grievances occur. Often time subscribers will not take the time to report problems, so you may not get 100 complaints. However, that does not mean that the problem does not exist! Please take ALL Quality Control issues seriously! We customers want consistency and quality from our dbs provider. Thanks again.

 

[JAM]

THIS IS RIDICULOUS! Less than 24 hours have passed since I noticed an improved picture on the above mentioned Jacksonville stations. NOW THE VIDEO ON CBS/47 (Channel 9051 or 47) HAS RETURNED TO GARBAGE! The picture quality is WAY TOO SOFT resulting in an OUT OF FOCUS appearance. There is WAY TOO MUCH WHITE SATURATION in the video. It looks, at times, like a 3rd generation vcr recording. DISH NETWORK: IF YOU ARE READING THIS, I ASK ONCE AGAIN THAT YOU CLEAN UP THE PICTURE AND CORRECT THE PROBLEM! You can verify what I am seeing by simply observing the video from any standard DISH receiver connected to any tv or monitor. COME ON GUYS! This has been a known issue for weeks!

 

[Barry Erick]

Why not call the station? This certainly sounds like the video is being hit by the white clip in their proc amp. Dish simply has a receiver going into a encoder to send to the uplink.
Now, I am a broadcaster (not in Jacksonville) and our two stations are on both DirecTV and Dish. In the time we have been, DirecTV and I have talked several times about either a setting going bad on their equipment or one on ours. I also let them know if we are going off the air for overnight maintenance and if their will be another way to get the signal or not (we have both a SD receiver and Analog for DirecTV at the pickup point). For dish network, we do not even have a phone number to talk to a tech.

Also, for the broadcaster, DirecTV gives free Local In Local subscription to allow the locals to see themselves. Dish? We can't contact them and the contact for the carry contract can't tell us.

Seems this might be something I want to email ceo@echostar.com about.