Eastern Arc SD Picture Quality

[cditty]

I am *finally* about to get my 3 dish setup put up. I am mounting each dish outside of my fence area. I have noticed a number of comments speaking of the improved quality of the SD on the eastern arc. I have LOS from my install area to both arcs. Is the picture quality on EA that much better? There are a number of SD channels that I watch right now (E, G4, BBC, etc...)

Can someone that has been on both arcs give me an opinion?

Thanks.

 

[CowboyDren]

'Bout the same, really. A little less fuzzy in MPEG4 than on the Western Arc, but still not as good as 3Mbit SD OTA.

 

[old corps]

I had to go from WA to EA this summer 'cause of LOS problems. Solved my problem but IMHO I can't see ANY difference in SD or HD pq. The only advantage I notice (other than now having reliable signals) is that my recordings take up noticably less time on my hard drives--622/722. Don't ask me why that is but it is a known fact. Too technical for this old fart, LOL.

Ed

 

[crimpshrine]

WA-MPEG-2, EA-MPEG-4 = Less space taken up!

 

[MLBurks]

There is a small difference in SD PQ. It is somewhat better on the EA. The colors are deeper and the picture is sharper.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I disagree. To my eyes the sd quality is significantly better than western arc. I can watch tv shows like Match Game on The game show network and not see a lot of pixelation and compression artifacts in the background. Looks better to me on shows like Golden Girls on Hallmark channel as well. It definitely looks better to me than western arc. I wouldn't even watch many sd shows when I had western arc. I also can set my picture controls to use more contrast & back lighting using eastern arc compared to western arc. But to be fair I don't watch that many shows in sd but a few, since we have had hd receiver 6 years ago.

 

[CowboyDren]

This weekend, I spent some time at my grandmother's house playing with a DirecTV D21 and a Panasonic TC-P50X1. Dish SD PQ is not in the same league as what I saw at her house. The DirecTV SD service was directly on-par with OTA SD.

 

[bgothard72]

I think the SD is better on Dish than Directv!

 

[--sexy-warlock--]

I think SD is only good on smaller older televisions.

 

[harshness]

This weekend, I spent some time at my grandmother's house playing with a DirecTV D21 and a Panasonic TC-P50X1.

I'm pretty sure you meant a DIRECTV H21. It is roughly equivalent to the ViP211.

Are you sure you were viewing SD channels and not HD channels? Even the most satisfied DIRECTV viewer wouldn't give such a glowing review to their SD quality.

 

[MLBurks]

Dish SD completely blows away DirecTV SD. It's not even close enough to debate. HD can be debated but not SD.

 

[CowboyDren]

I find BBC and AMC on Dish to be difficult to watch, but I muscle through it because I want the content. Maybe it's specific channels, but what I saw on that D21 (NatGeo, Sci, HLN, Food, HGTV, DiY) was better than what my 722 puts out when tuning to an SD feed.

I've also noticed some really good PQ at times on channels that I don't often watch, like TMC and the SD Encores, but those are exceptional, not normal.

 

[Ghpr13]

I find BBC and AMC on Dish to be difficult to watch, but I muscle through it because I want the content. Maybe it's specific channels, but what I saw on that D21 (NatGeo, Sci, HLN, Food, HGTV, DiY) was better than what my 722 puts out when tuning to an SD feed.

I've also noticed some really good PQ at times on channels that I don't often watch, like TMC and the SD Encores, but those are exceptional, not normal.

Dish's SD PQ I feel is really good, blows away what I had with Insight's cable, but I do feel that certain channels have much better SD then others. AMC is definitely one of the lower quality SD channels. I wish for the day when AMC is in HD via Dish!
Ghpr13