DishNetwork Uplink Activity Report - 4/18/2008 4:27pm - 2 changes

[CJPC]

I am looking forward to a return to discussions about the Satellite Hobby. :

PS I wonder what happened to "Chiller" from the same providers ?

If I had to guess - probably Wednesday w/ the rest of the Uplinks. Tonight due to new programming at night on these channels + its good, buzz for the weekend at blogs etc!

 

[Mdvalenz]

The doctor who episode looks SD to me.

 

[ncted]

My left arm is hurting for some reason. Glad I saw this before BSG came on. New timer setup and ready to go!

Ted

 

[ncted]

The doctor who episode looks SD to me.

Yes, I was disappointed to see that, but I watch the unmolested versions from the BBC, downloaded from BitTorrent anyway, so no biggie.

Ted

 

[kstuart]

The doctor who episode looks SD to me.

The creaters and producers of Doctor Who refuse to shoot it in HD. You can do a web search if you want to read more. The supposed reason is that it costs more and takes longer to do HD special effects, but some industry people in AVS Forums have refuted those reasons, so it seems more likely that they just view HD as an unnecessary complication.

However, SciFi-HD is showing these letterboxed, so it is OAR, and the SciFi-HD upconverted resolution looks a lot better than the SciFi-SD PQ. Also, SciFi is showing these in 1.5 hour time blocks, so they are not showing them cut for time. :up If you use the "*" key on your 622/722 remote to change the mode to "Zoom", it will fill the screen and the PQ, while not HD, is pretty good.

Tonight's "Season Premiere" is actually the annual Christmas episode, and starts International Pop Superstar Kylie Minogue (who is as well known as Britney Spears everywhere except the USA).

 

[Smith P.]

Error ?

Digi, is the number (Channels in the system: 3643) instead of 4943 should tell us you found a way to separate _channels_ from services ? Or it was an error in your report ?

 

[JohnL]

Tonight's "Season Premiere" is actually the annual Christmas episode, and starts International Pop Superstar Kylie Minogue (who is as well known as Britney Spears everywhere except the USA).

KStuart,

Yes, every year BBC creates a special Doctor Who Christmas Episode. I've seen the entire Season airing on SciFi already, thanks to Bitorrent. I like Martha Jones. If you saw the Christmas Bride Episode, The Runaway Bride is the New Companion for the current season, Martha Jones will appear in several Episodes of this new season as with Rose. I've already seen the first two episodes of the new season, already, with a very small Cameo of Rose. Scifi airs Doctor Who one season behind.

The first episode, "Adipose" was rather stupid, the second "Fires of Pompeii" was very good. Quite Funny to see the people of Pompeii speaking with an English accent, though. The reason is that the Tardis converts the spoken language to that of the Tardis's occupants. When Doctor Who uses actual Latin, the People of Pompeii hear the language of their heritage "Celtic". Quite funny and a reasonable Science Fiction explanation.

John

 

[tjiles]

Yea!!! Now let's gripe about The Weather Channel not in HD.

 

[Uther Pendragon]

Yea!!! Now let's gripe about The Weather Channel not in HD.

I already did :up

http://www.satelliteguys.us/frontpage-news/132501-usa-scfi-hd-now-live-3.html#post1325161

 

[mstregamer]

Did anybody notice that BSG tonight in HD looked grainy?

 

[Ramen]

Did anybody notice that BSG tonight in HD looked grainy?

That may be intentional. I've watched it from other sources and it looked the same.

 

[kstuart]

Yea!!! Now let's gripe about The Weather Channel not in HD.

Actually, Dish Network has a signed contract to add Weather-HD and the channel will start having live HD on June 2nd (right when Hurricane Season starts), so I am sure that Dish will add the HD version some time over the next 6 weeks.

PS The post by JohnL actually has some minor spoilers, please use the spoiler tag function (works just like quote function), so we don't have to "report" people for minor lapses... perhaps a mod can do it for him... specifically the "cameo" and the "language" references are both things intended by the writer to be surprises...

 

[VinceT3]

not really.. looked reaaaaal good on the 62

that was one of the best frackin nights of tv in a while!

 

[spiegelj07]

It is a little grainy but so is the SD version

 

[TNGTony]

I wonder how come these HD channels cannot "zoom" 16x9 SD content? It seems like a relatively simple thing to do. I did that on my receiver so no big deal. It still looked tons better than the SD channel.

I am just so glad that NBC hasn't started stretch-o-visioning their channels!

See ya
Tony

Aspect Ratio

 

[ncted]

Did anybody notice that BSG tonight in HD looked grainy?

They use a coarse grain film to add "texture" to the show. It is intentional, and it drives my wife nuts.

Ted

 

[Primus]

A lot of times when filming in dark areas it will be quite grainy. that is not intentional, just a product of the cameras.

 

[shy_guy]

I wonder how come these HD channels cannot "zoom" 16x9 SD content? It seems like a relatively simple thing to do. I did that on my receiver so no big deal. It still looked tons better than the SD channel.

I am just so glad that NBC hasn't started stretch-o-visioning their channels!

See ya
Tony

Aspect Ratio

I wondered that myself, then I noticed that during Doctor Who, the SciFi logo did not say HD; but during BSG, it did. It looks as if SciFi is only broadcasting the standard SD signal from the standard channel on SD content unaltered.

Does that make any sense? I guess every company is going to have thier own method of dealing with SD content. As long as it's not stretched, I'm fine with that.

 

[digiblur]

Digi, is the number (Channels in the system: 3643) instead of 4943 should tell us you found a way to separate _channels_ from services ? Or it was an error in your report ?

Minus the EPG channels that aren't really channels.

 

[Fitzie]

Though not a fan of Monk or Dr. Who, I watched both last night to assess the quality of the new HD channels. I was certainly pleasantly surprised, though neither program was in HD the upconverting is not bad. Certainly much to be preferred over the SD versions.

Regarding the weather channel, I am looking forward to the HD version since this is one of the channels I will watch in SD for the content.

Regards,
Fitzie