Just for grins I'll set the DVR to record an episode and see what it looks like. See if there still is quality HD somewhere on Dishnetwork.
ESPN Picture Quality Worse Recently?
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Just for grins I'll set the DVR to record an episode and see what it looks like. See if there still is quality HD somewhere on Dishnetwork.
So I just watched the first 10 minutes of an episode. By Dish's standards, the PQ is pretty good but that's not saying much. That show looks good because 90% of the time there is little motion. Watching the opening of the show and when the ants are show the screen is a mess. During the episode I watched they showed some birds over water, it was a mess. A bunch of birds flapping there wings, you'd think someone turned on strobe lights with all the macroblocking. Conclusion, Dish PQ is OK if you watch programming with little movement. But for action and sports, the PQ is severely bit starved.
There are indeed a few scenes that seem to dissolve into pixels; but there are many other action scenes, such as antelope running, and crocodiles leaping from the water to attack a wildebeest, which do not. You are quite right that the way Dish throttles the bandwidth is particularly hard on action and live sports programming. Still, I don't think Dish has gotten any worse in the last several months. I went back and looked at an EHD copy of Discovery Channel's Planet Earth series, probably made two or three years ago, and the pixelation was much worse than with the new National Geographic program.
I'm less confident about the SD channels. I have several times recently noticed characters on SD programs dissolving into pixels when they simply walked across a room. I don't remember that happening before.
Indeed. One can only hope. IMHO, it's disgraceful to carry on about a "100% digital quality picture" when in some cases it's starting to take on the appearance of a blown-up, washed-out, soft and smeary, posterizied or banded, block and mosquito noise infested, artifact-ridden, resolution-reduced, glorified YouTube video! I guess they feel they can put anything out there and we have to take it...that is, once they have us in a contract.
To expand in more detail what I'm currently seeing: On the HD channels, any camera movement over things such as sky backgrounds have lots of weird random motion artifacts -- as if the encoder can't keep up with the data stream. Black and darker scenes are splotchier and blockier. Colors sometimes posterized or banded. The overall picture is simply softer, noisier and "dirtier". More fatiguing to watch. On several of the SD channels, it's even worse -- mosquito noise and jaggies out of control, as well as the usual breakup and macroblocking during fast motion. The worst part is that any inherent noise or grain in the picture -- such as in some old black and white movies -- just gets overcompressed along with the whole shebang, compounding everything and making for a really distracting experience.
Like I noted, when I first signed up in June, I considered the MPEG-4 compression artifacts on the Eastern Arc negligible -- with a still reasonably "clean" and pleasing picture to look at. I was realistic in not expecting Blu-Ray quality, but frankly, on a good day, I thought some channels and transfers came damn close enough. In fact, I felt that I made the right decision in terms of my carrier options and in jumping from my cable provider (Cox). Some of the standard-def channels were worse than others, but on the whole, I was content with the what I saw coming out of the HD Platinums, TCM and the HD Premiums (In all honesty, I wasn't even paying full attention to the HD sports channels like ESPN, etc.) In terms of my viewing interests, I started to notice a slight deterioration in either late August or early September, but nothing like the steep downward turn that I'm seeing in the last week or so. I can only surmise that it must have something to do with the bandwidth leeching from the mass and sudden influx of PBS HD channels that the FCC "forced" them into adding. In fact, IIRC, wasn't that Dish's main reason for stalling and fighting the mass high-def PBS add-ons for so long? That is, the hit their bandwidth "pipe" would have to take. Well, it ultimately looks like they had to throw picture pride right out the window, crank up that compression ratio, starve that bitrate and further shrink that usable bandwidth within an inch of its life -- and in my humble opinion the results are all too apparent. Seriously, I don't think it's being too picky to expect a viewing experience where the artifacts and picture don't distract. Maybe some folks don't notice or don't care...but I do. Especially when I'm paying a hefty chunk for the "privilege" of that noted "100% digital quality picture."
I guess the only option in them stopping this channel-war madness -- if they want to reclaim the quality talking point -- is to launch another satellite. But, what are the actual odds of that happening in the near future? I'm still interested in knowing the real-world technical specs of the Eastern Arc in terms of MPEG-4 capacity and the allotted bandwidth/bitrate for each channel that they're currently giving us. I'm also actually curious as what the current state is, visually, of Eastern compared to Western Arc. While MPEG-4 is obviously the more efficient compression scheme, I'd love to know just *how* far it's being pushed in terms of bandwidth allotment and bitrate on the Eastern Arc. Furthermore, how do the the two compression schemes (i.e. MPEG-4 vs. MPEG-2) visually compare when they're pushed to their limits?
PS - I'm watching a SD movie right now on Showtime Beyond that I DVR'ed yesterday, and it's absolutely dreadful. The term 'blown-up and glorified YouTube video isn't a stretch at all to describe it. Hideous. Yet, as mentioned, HD is only marginally better on some of the dedicated premium channels -- and that's not saying much. : (
--LR
PS - Thanks for all the comments so far!
That sucks. I was under the impression eastern arc was better than western arc. Which is what i'm on.
I beleive Dish has about 42mbps per tp. So if they have 8 channels per tp. each gets around five. But, they use a varible rate so one channel could be getting 3 while another can get 6, ect.....Maybe with the PBS adds. Dish is now loading 9 channels per TP. I don't know. I wish the "list" was broken down by transponder instead of channel number.
I think at one point it probably was better. In fact, as a lurker, I remember old vidcaps posted here a year or two ago that seemed to suggest just that (e.g. edge enhancement being used on the Western Arc SD channels, etc.). Though, I've also seen contradictory posts that have mentioned it's the *EA* where both the HD and SD signal is being down-rezzed and then blown-up. It's also important to remember that, as far as I know, there's nothing *inherently* superior about MPEG-4 over MPEG-2. Just that the former is obviously a more efficient codec -- where more can be fit in. Of course, as you noted, none of that matters if they're overloading that bandwidth and "starving the bits" on the former to begin with. I also seem to remember reading once that MPEG-4 actually can look uglier than MPEG-2 when it's pushed to its compression limits. So, who knows?
Again, I can vouch firsthand that when I started on the EA in June it looked head and shoulders better, IMHO, than what has popped up this last week or so. Heck, at some point before June, it may have looked even better than that. I'll also say that if this is somehow something *unique* to my setup in Cleveland, OH, I'd still want to know "why the change" from what I once had? My professional background is in industrial video production -- albeit more in the analog era -- so, at the very least, I'm pretty well-versed in working with signal processors, waveform monitors and vectorscopes. I'd still like to feel I can trust my eyes. If no one else on the EA is experiencing this...all I say is 'shame on me'. I'd love to hear some other reports from current EA users.
-- LR
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Estimated numbers say MPEG4 is nearly twice as efficient as MPEG2, so 19Mbps channel could fit to about 10Mbps MPEG4 and maintain similar quality. But not 5-6Mbps like Dish is using, if you are lucky.
I'm not aware of any differences between EA and WA at this point. Originally some HD things on WA were MPEG2 but that is long gone. I think they were some reports of SD differences.
I'm not aware of any differences between EA and WA at this point. Originally some HD things on WA were MPEG2 but that is long gone. I think they were some reports of SD differences.
Indeed. That's the 64,000 question. As you and other folks have noted, what are we down to now for each slot? Particularly if the big PBS HD add *is* the impetus for the degrading PQ on the EA that I'm seeing.
I mean, that's the whole thing. We're not talking about the addition of one or two premium HD channels on a particular satellite, we're talking about a whole boatload. For example, both of the PBS adds in Cleveland are on 61.5 -- which was already pretty stuffed to capacity from what I've read. I'm just curious...did they all go on 61.5, or did they split them between that and 72....AND how many PBS HDs, total, across the country were added? 20? 30? More?
-- LR
I really don't think any of the PBS would share space with a Conus TP (national HD) as they are spotbeams and would go on a Tp containing other locals. I think what you are seeing is E*'s bit-stealing in action. One channel can look great for a few hours then the bandwith gets dropped because a football game came on another channel and now your left with Cr@p!
I really don't think any of the PBS would share space with a Conus TP (national HD) as they are spotbeams and would go on a Tp containing other locals. I think what you are seeing is E*'s bit-stealing in action. One channel can look great for a few hours then the bandwith gets dropped because a football game came on another channel and now your left with Cr@p!
Okay, fair enough on the PBS HD's being upped on the the local transponders. That completely slipped my mind. I'd reckon 99% of them are spotbeams. But, it seems that I'm seeing a wholesale degradation across the board that wasn't even there two weeks ago -- be it 4:00AM or 4:00PM, Sunday or Wednesday. Let me ask you this? Do you think they could be "pre-starving" their movie channels with the knowledge that we're in the heart of nearly all the major sports seasons right now? That is, would they reduce the bandwidth or bitrate ahead of time (and across the board) due to simply the *anticipation* of needing it for the sports channels?
Or, has their been any *other* recent ConUS adds that would have sucked up some precious bandwidth (e.g. PPV, Free Previews, etc.) ? Or, perhaps something else in their services that may have caused a change? I'm just really trying to get a handle on why *now* for what I perceive as a wholesale decrease in quality on the Eastern Arc?
Thanks again!
(I'm glad I finally quit lurking...and registered here!)
--LR
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Cnn looks good. Also the weather channel isn't bad. I wonder if it because of the almost still camera shots.
Okay, fair enough on the PBS HD's being upped on the the local transponders. That completely slipped my mind. I'd reckon 99% of them are spotbeams. But, it seems that I'm seeing a wholesale degradation across the board that wasn't even there two weeks ago -- be it 4:00AM or 4:00PM, Sunday or Wednesday. Let me ask you this? Do you think they could be "pre-starving" their movie channels with the knowledge that we're in the heart of nearly all the major sports seasons right now? That is, would they reduce the bandwidth or bitrate ahead of time (and across the board) due to simply the *anticipation* of needing it for the sports channels?
Or, has their been any *other* recent ConUS adds that would have sucked up some precious bandwidth (e.g. PPV, Free Previews, etc.) ? Or, perhaps something else in their services that may have caused a change? I'm just really trying to get a handle on why *now* for what I perceive as a wholesale decrease in quality on the Eastern Arc?
Thanks again!
(I'm glad I finally quit lurking...and registered here!)
--LR
I don't have an answer. But, i will say the only thing that keeps me around is the HDabsolute package. If i had to pay full price. I would go to Cox cable.
I'll agree that ESPNU is probably the worst SD channel I have ever seen. Maybe if we get ESPNU-HD it will look as good as SD should.
I started a thread I need to follow up about SD quality being worse than OTA multicasted SD on my HDTV, but not my old-time phosphor... but then it might be because I'm usually watching ESPN. I'm still going with size of my screen and the phosphor's forgiveness, but this is an interesting angle.
In any event, I still wonder how much is the signal and how much of it is the receiver. But if Dish SD has less bandwidth than OTA SD, we've got a winner.
EDIT: By the way, why do they waste bandwidth with SD anymore? Are there tons of SD-only receivers? HD channels on analog sets lose lots of screen space, but they otherwise look fine. Seems like you could blast SD from the signal.
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The Michigan State/Penn State game on ESPN 2 is awful HD. It reminds me of UVerse, if not worse. Can anyone compare this to another provider (DirecTV, Comcast) to see if it's the source material or Dish?
The Oregon .vs. Arizona game last night was pretty darn good. The Oregon State .vs. USC game last weekend was also very good.
I suspect the ESPN issues may depend a lot on the equipment used to capture and uplink the game.
I suspect the ESPN issues may depend a lot on the equipment used to capture and uplink the game.
Yeah, they just showed a clip of Michigan State/Penn State on ABC. Watching OTA, the clip looked terrible also. It's the venue/equipment...
Wow. Just caught some of Hawks vs. Knicks on SportsSouth and it was, as others have said, YouTube-esque. Wow. Two guys sitting in a studio doing postgame, and it was pixelated as crud. I don't know that it's just ESPN.
when you bring up a satellite on thelist (say 61.5) you can sort by channel or transponder. Here is 61.5 done that way
SatelliteGuys.US_TheList - DISH Network 61.5°W
