Dish network signal quality

[pcaffari]

Hello all, I just bought a Sony HD Ready tv, and the quality of the picture coming from the dish is poor. (pixels are visible, and edges are fuzzy). The dvd looks great, and even the local channels that I get through "rabbit ears" look very sharp. Could there be something wrong with the signal from the dish signal or receiver? Note, signal strength is 100+.
Thank you, Paolo.

 

[ShadowEKU]

sounds to me like the tv is too big for the distance you are sitting from it. the bigger the tv or the closer you get the more pixelation you will notice. the reason your rabbit ears dont look bad is it sounds like you are jsut getting the analog signal.

 

[ShadowEKU]

By the way

welcome!

 

[Enforcer]

Just to add to Shadow's find words of wisdom. In addition to what Shadow explained, that does make somewhat of a difference. Also, Dish has had some issues with their PQ. Dunno what they are doing, I suspect they are jamming so many local channels on a satellite that they have to "overcompress" the signal so all of the channels will fit. More compression equals less PQ. Hopefully they will listen to the viewers on this forum and tackle this situation.

 

[ShadowEKU]

Just to add to Shadow's find words of wisdom. In addition to what Shadow explained, that does make somewhat of a difference. Also, Dish has had some issues with their PQ. Dunno what they are doing, I suspect they are jamming so many local channels on a satellite that they have to "overcompress" the signal so all of the channels will fit. More compression equals less PQ. Hopefully they will listen to the viewers on this forum and tackle this situation.

I fully endorse this comment or suggestion

 

[rhasselbaum]

There have been problems reported with Sony sets and standard definition broadcasts in particular. Take a look at this thread:

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=27951

 

[pcaffari]

Thank you, so it looks like I can't do much about it.

Just to add to Shadow's find words of wisdom. In addition to what Shadow explained, that does make somewhat of a difference. Also, Dish has had some issues with their PQ. Dunno what they are doing, I suspect they are jamming so many local channels on a satellite that they have to "overcompress" the signal so all of the channels will fit. More compression equals less PQ. Hopefully they will listen to the viewers on this forum and tackle this situation.

 

[ajohnson]

What receiver do you have, and what inputs/outputs are you using to connect the receiver to the TV?

 

[pcaffari]

Thanks for the suggestion, however 30inch TV from about 7 feet doesn't seem unreasonable. Also I notice the problem more on soccer games, the players are almost unrecognizable. With my other tv (with less resolution) the problem wasn't so obvious. Thanks paolo.

sounds to me like the tv is too big for the distance you are sitting from it. the bigger the tv or the closer you get the more pixelation you will notice. the reason your rabbit ears dont look bad is it sounds like you are jsut getting the analog signal.

 

[pcaffari]

301, and I'm using s-video

What receiver do you have, and what inputs/outputs are you using to connect the receiver to the TV?

 

[pcaffari]

301, s-video

 

[ken0042]

The dvd looks great, and even the local channels that I get through "rabbit ears" look very sharp.

One of the reasons the rabbit ears signal looks good; your TV has a digital comb filter. It's a device that is designed to clean up analog signals.

And I'll bet you are using an S-video cable for the video, right? Try just a plain composite video cable; the standard RCA type. When you use S-video, you are telling the TV you are sending a digital signal; no cleaning of the image required. Using the composite cable, the TV thinks it's analog, and engages the digital comb filter.

It's a band-aid for now.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Try hooking a progressive scan DVD player to it - if that works nicely, you may be happy with a HD tuner - 811 or 921.

 

[ShadowEKU]

One of the reasons the rabbit ears signal looks good; your TV has a digital comb filter. It's a device that is designed to clean up analog signals.

And I'll bet you are using an S-video cable for the video, right? Try just a plain composite video cable; the standard RCA type. When you use S-video, you are telling the TV you are sending a digital signal; no cleaning of the image required. Using the composite cable, the TV thinks it's analog, and engages the digital comb filter.

It's a band-aid for now.

quick question just for my knowledge bank... Component Inputs (not composite) does a comb filter TV treat those as digital or does it try to clean it up?

 

[ShadowEKU]

Thanks for the suggestion, however 30inch TV from about 7 feet doesn't seem unreasonable. Also I notice the problem more on soccer games, the players are almost unrecognizable. With my other tv (with less resolution) the problem wasn't so obvious. Thanks paolo.

You are right in tat its not unreasonable. Most people when they say they jsut bought a HDTV its usually 50" or bigger from waht I understand. I may be wrong.

 

[TuxCoder]

When you use S-video, you are telling the TV you are sending a digital signal; no cleaning of the image required. Using the composite cable, the TV thinks it's analog, and engages the digital comb filter.

S-video is still an analog video signal (as is composite). Is this just because it's only (or at least typically) digital devices that have S-video connections, like DVD players, digital IRD boxes, game consoles as opposed to, say VCRs? So while this video signal is still analog, its source is digital so trust the signal to be very clean?

 

[Tony S]

pcaffari, one other thing to try is to lower the sharpness setting on the TV. A lot of people turn the sharpness to zero (completely off). This will help to cover up the digital artifacts. With satellite TV sharpness does more harm than good.

 

[ken0042]

Component Inputs (not composite) does a comb filter TV treat those as digital or does it try to clean it up?

It will also by-bass the digital comb filter; treating it as if it's a digital source.

S-video is still an analog video signal (as is composite). Is this just because it's only (or at least typically) digital devices that have S-video connections, like DVD players, digital IRD boxes, game consoles as opposed to, say VCRs? So while this video signal is still analog, its source is digital so trust the signal to be very clean?

You are correct. S-video is still analog. For that matter so is component. I guess I was trying to over simplify things. Bottom line is the TV will only engage the digital comb filter with RF input (like analog cable or rabbit ears) or composite input.

The reason it "trusts" the S-video or component inputs, is it believes it comes from a digital source. By not using the comb filter, it is able to re-draw or refresh the signal more often. Which is why a DVD looks so much better using S-video as opposed to composite.

 

[ShadowEKU]

It will also by-bass the digital comb filter; treating it as if it's a digital source.



You are correct. S-video is still analog. For that matter so is component. I guess I was trying to over simplify things. Bottom line is the TV will only engage the digital comb filter with RF input (like analog cable or rabbit ears) or composite input.

The reason it "trusts" the S-video or component inputs, is it believes it comes from a digital source. By not using the comb filter, it is able to re-draw or refresh the signal more often. Which is why a DVD looks so much better using S-video as opposed to composite.

thank you for clarifying... i was err um confused

 

[M Law]

When you say it's an HR-ready set, does that mean it is 16:9 or 4:3? If it is 16:9, and you are expanding a 4:3 image to fill the screen, then you are using a line doubler somewhere. These often cause poor PQ of expanded images.