Dish Network Picture Quality

[engineersteve]

I have now had D* for 2 months now, and I am enjoying it less and less because of the picture quality and other minor problems. I was excited to get the HD programming, and watched them a lot at first, but I find myself watching the local channels more and the quality of the picture is terrible. Watching the BB tourny, I can see pixelation that looks like 1"x1" squares. Most sports events are almost not watchable. I tried a $75 DVI cable instead of the component cables provided, and it was worse yet. Signal strength is usually about 95-100 on Sat 119, so that should not be an issue, and the other channels 100-320 are decent quality.

I thought I would check here to see if there was anyting to try rather than trying tech support. If this is the local channel quality I'm stuck with, I'll probably being calling Comcast back again soon. I have tried the OTA, and I can get most of the locals, most of the time, but I can get them all from Comcast.

Thanks from a new member and first time poster!

 

[Tony S]

engineersteve, you will get a better answer if you tell us who your provider is.

Dish Network (EchoStar) is E*.
DirectTV is D*.

Which is it?

 

[MikeD-C05]

When it comes to local channels on pq it could be either sat service.

 

[Tony S]

That's true. It really doesn't make that much difference. They are both equally as bad.

 

[Cyclone]

Since he spells out "Dish Network" in his thread title and he posted this thread in the Dish Network forum, I'm gonna bet that he has Dish Network and figured that D* meant Dish.

With that said, the PQ on Satellite has gone down hill hard every since the FCC has required the DBS (satellite) companies to carry all of the channels in any local market. If your HDTV Set top box has a OTA input (they all do) then try your best to use that for your locals.

 

[tripod]

Picture Quality

On all channels at nite a persons forehead moves,their nose moves,some seem like x-rays.I have 115-125 on the bar.Very noticeable on East coast package.Any ideas ?

 

[DucTape]

No problems with my PQ on HD or SD. Our picture is great and I compare it to a crystal clear OTA picture in HD and SD.

 

[engineersteve]

Sorry for the confusion - my service is Dish Network (E*). I was mainly wondering if anyone else had the same problem and found a way to fix it. If it matters, it's most noticable on my largest TV (phillips 55" DLP) with an 811 receiver.

 

[mike123abc]

The only way to fix it with your 811 is to put an antenna up and get the OTA digital broadcasts. It might take a giant antenna for many areas of the country. CBS tends to be leading the fight to get affiliate stations to at least put out some juice on their digital broadcasts, so you might be in luck with them and the final 4...

OTA is not fun to do in many areas of the country. I have a rats nest of cables/amplifiers/wiring to get a decent picture on most OTA stations.

 

[K R Kimmel]

Sorry for the confusion - my service is Dish Network (E*). I was mainly wondering if anyone else had the same problem and found a way to fix it. If it matters, it's most noticable on my largest TV (phillips 55" DLP) with an 811 receiver.

The problem you are having is shared by almost all DBS customers. The problem is over-compression. Trying to squeeze too many channels into a limited broadcast channel. The reason it is most noticeable on your largest TV is that the TV is so large, increasing the picture size magnifies defects that might not seem too bad on a smaller TV.

Unfortunately there isn't much you can do about it. You could use a tool like Digital Video Essentials or AVIA to set up your TV or have it ISF calibrated, but that will only do so much.

 

[PILMAN]

Yeah steve I have the same issue. I have a 42" plasma and I never watch anything except hdtv because most the channels are just unwatchable though the ppv's are pretty good. I watch most the channels on my smaller 25" tv in my room.

 

[sprintcarcrazy]

For sure, the bigger the TV, the more it magnifies the problem. I have a sony 61in Project TV, not an HDTV and things look really good on it.

The plazmas and lcd's really show the problems. OTA and OTA HD look really nice, as well as HD.

Dish has resisted adding more HD because of no available bandwidth. I don't like it, but I would rather have a few good HD channels, than several over compressed.

HBO and Showtime HD look nice as well.

 

[Tony S]

engineersteve, I have a Panasonic 42" Plasma TV which, as others have mentioned, is capable of showing how bad the E* overcompression really is. I have found that lowering the sharpness setting on the TV helps out a lot. Otherwise, there is not too much that you can do, except sit father away from the screen!!

In our family room we are 9-13 feet away. At that distance the SD local channels are watchable.

 

[trooper7648]

Could the problem be from the 811 HD receiver itself? I have the 811 and a a 55" HD TV and have the same problem as Steve. My PVR 721 looks great but it's on a 27". Is anyone with a 42" or bigger TV not using a 811 having this problem?

 

[DNSdishdude]

you guy the problem is much more simple than you spending energy on sd will always look bad on an hd set regardless of how its set up the are more overall pixels/lines of resolution to magnify the pq of sd and the "blocking" is mpeg 2 video encoding,so on top of being compressed its also sd......

 

[DNSdishdude]

you *guys

 

[TomA]

I have a 34 inch direct view HDTV and improved my dish 811 picture on local channels by using the S-video output from the 811 to my TV. I get a better picture than what I had with my DVI connection. Still use my DVI for HD but use my S-video for all other channels on dish....

 

[SummitAdvantageRetailer]

Many TV's bigger than 40" don't look good when viewing SD picture. We have a 40" Sony Wega XBR tube TV and this thing is probably the best picture you'll ever get on a TV (bigger than 32" that is). With that said, many SD channels are very good and better than the analog cable we had before. So in our house, DISH is good on this good TV. On older and fuzzier TV's, the compression does get a bit annoying.

Leading from my personal example, TV's bigger than 40" such as 60" projection TV's will have mediocre SD picture quality. If at all possible, try to view them from a good distance and use the best possible connection. Both E*, D*, and many companies compress the heck out of their channels. Only provider that doesn't compress much is Voom. But we can assume that V* doesn't need to compress as much because of their absence of local channels on the satellite. If you don't want V*, stick with E* because you won't get much better from cable or D*. Your mileage may vary and this is based on my PERSONAL experience. Do take it with a grain of salt please.

 

[engineersteve]

Thanks for all the replys and information!

Last night I called Comcast and they are coming out next week to hook up a cable box so that I can compare the picture quality side by side. I'm not sure how this will go since I've never had Comcast connected to this specific TV. If the cable is better, I'll switch, and being a satellite customer the deal to switch is unbelieveable for a year.

I really wanted the dish to work out, I tried three different types of cable, numberous settings on the box and my TV, and even bought a $100 antenna to try to get OTA locals. The SD picture quality looks good on channels above 100, it's just the local channels that look terrible. I realize that my local channels from Comcast will be analog, but each local has an HD channel available through the cable.

 

[Dish Dude]

Locals on antenna or dish? Dish takes an OTA signal and than uplinks it shoots it back down, shoots it back up and back down to you. This is a local problem, where i live Fox had a problem with their local antenna going down. People calling saying it was E* problem it wasn't. Both providers have this problem, and their isn't much you can do about it. Also be sure and check what Comcast package will be at the end of the year, I betcha it is a lot spendier for the same package as dish