dual feeds after next Feb.

[Marty43]

I don't quite understand what will happen after the analog stations go off air.

Will Dish and Direct have to feed two feeds of each of there LIL. Will there have to be an SD feed and an HD feed of every local station? Or can the HD feed be down converted? This would free up bandwidth wouldn't it, if there is only one source feed.

 

[Peter Parker]

Don't confuse HD with digital. Dish is already using digital signals to provide SD in some cases.

There should be no change at ll. having said that id DISh or Direct are atill swapping out diigtal for analog on the SD feed there may be inteerruptions in some markets. But i am guessing that they are working on this as we speak.

 

[aperry]

I read somewhere that Dish (and Direct) are both working on rolling out using Digital sources for the SD in most areas. So, they'd get a digital signal, and pass it along. Should look better than the analog crap that gets sent, massaged, compressed, then sent to our boxes.

 

[Peter Parker]

In fact there wasa thread a week ago showing the conversion dschedule for digital (SD).

 

[Carl B]

We seem to be getting the digital SD locals here in metro-Denver or maybe both the digital and analog locals. Anyway, I think some folks watching those 4:3 CRT sets are going to be freaked by some of what they see when they get SD DTV from some of their main local stations. The problem is with the 4 major broadcast networks that are now broadcasting their DTV signal as an HDTV signal (720p or 1080i), even when they send out a 4:3 picture (the black on the sides is actually part of the broadcast picture, not the absence of picture). What you get is a really distorted picture. The 4:3 SD actual picture isn't too bad (it is in the right proportions and the edges are straight), but it doesn't fill the screen and the black on the sides gets distorted into a shape that looks like a CRT monitor needing some trapezoidal adjustment. Hitting SD Full Zoom fills the screen, but chops off some of picture on all sides. It may be clearer because it is digital, but it isn't as pleasant to watch as good 4:3 at 480i, which fills the screen almost perfectly without zooming.

This issue exists with the ATSC tuner converter boxes as well. I think as we get closer to the digital conversion, there will be a howl and cry from the non-HDTV public about the lousy picture they are now getting since they were forced to DTV.

 

[crimpshrine]

In fact there wasa thread a week ago showing the conversion dschedule for digital (SD).

Here's the link to the thread for people who didn't see it the first time. Thanks to ksutart for the great find by the way...:up

http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-network-forum/136902-dish-converting-digital-locals-feeds.html

 

[M Sparks]

Phoenix CW on DISH...

 

[Carl B]

Phoenix CW on DISH...

I'm not following your point here at all. What are you trying to show us?

Carl B.

 

[garys]

It looks like the sd feed upconverted on the HD channel.

 

[M Sparks]

I'm not following your point here at all. What are you trying to show us?

Carl B.

Uhhh...I am illustrating YOUR point. Or so I thought. The only difference is that these are widescreen pictures, which add one more layer of black bars on the sides.

It looks like the sd feed upconverted on the HD channel.

No, it's the opposite. DISH doesn't carry the HD feed. Either DISH or the station is DOWNconverting the widescreen HD feed for their SD channel on DISH.

The first picture illustrates exactly what the label says it is. It is an SD commercial with a 2.35:1 letterbox. THAT commercial is being shown on the HD channel inside a 4:3 pillarbox. Then the HD channel is put inside a 16:9 letterbox on the SD feed. Finally, my receiver puts that inside another 4:3 pillarbox for display on my widescreen TV.

The second picture shows the same situation, but the commercial is letterboxed at 1.77:1, not 2.35:1. The arrow points to scan lines visible at the top of the original SD commercial. These would not normally be seen, but since they are letterboxing the HD feed, you see everything on the top and bottom.

In the third picture, you can see that the corner bugs are placed in the 4:3 position. Obviously, the CW sends their HD feed with the intent of it being zoomed in on the SD channel. Again, in this case, either the station or DISH are letterboxing the HD feed instead of zooming.

I do not live in Phoenix, so I can't check the OTA signal...that's why I don't know if it's DISH or the station is screwing up.

 

[Carl B]

Well I saw the linked PDF schedule and metro-Denver does go digital for SD until September. Looking again at my setup and the results, what I'm seeing is the Dish HD signal down-converted to SD from the SD output tuner on my Dish 222.

Coincidently, it pretty much is the same crappy PQ that I see on another old TV using a digital converter box. Both sources of digital TV on old 4:3 CRTs have the same problem when showing the major networks broadcasting an HD signal (1080i or 720p) with only 4:3 video content. When those stations are showing HD with a 16:9 picture, I see an acceptable 16:9 letterbox picture on the 4:3 CRT TV (black bars top and bottom). When they are showing 4:3 content (but still at 1080i or 720p), the black bars on the sides are badly distorted as are the edges of the video itself. DTV broadcasts in 480i yield a beautiful 4:3 picture on these old TVs (at least using the digital converter box, since I'm not getting any local digital content from Dish that isn't broadcast in 1080i or 720p. Nothing to look forward to here.