Fashion TV - Dish Network

[jbenn]

Fashion TV Heavy Pixelation?

Has anyone noticed this? I've only watched a few hours of this since it went up late last week, but I notice some brief periods (2 - 3 seconds at a time) of heavy pixelation that washes out the screen. The first few times it happened I thought that they were doing it intentionally because it was happening in transitions, like bumping in and out of commercials. But now I'm seeing it when it would clearly not be intentional, like when a model strikes a brief pose after getting to the end of a runway.

Question is, is it coming from the source, is it an E* problem, or something going on with my DVR? I don't notice it (yet) on any other channel but FTV.



Oh yeah, 2nd Question:

This Midnight Hot thing, is it something special being billed specifically as "Midnight Hot," or is it just something generically hot that they run at midnight? I noticed a show about Lingerie running at midnight, but nothing specifically titled "Midnight Hot."

 

[kovach]

I noticed it too, it's a pretty bad picture. Almost looks like SD in widescreen format!

 

[M Sparks]

Scott said it looked like an encoder problem.

And I think "Midnight Hot" is a show...or possibly a whole channel...in Europe.

 

[whatchel1]

Another thread

There is another thread on this already. It's been happening of & on from the start. Maybe be due to they are pushing this one at full 1080 resolution and are having to work with adjustments on the encoder until they get it right. It is also possible that they need to replace the encoder and are having to wait until a replacement is available.

 

[allargon]

I emailed Dish quality and let them know. They said they are aware of the issue. So, it's likely an encoder error like Scott and others said. Dish has been HD-lite so long, they probably forgot what it's like to run 1080i at full res.

 

[kstuart]

It has been reported that the same pixelation is in the feed itself at 97 West, so it is not Dish's encoders.

FTV-HD as a different schedule and different programming from FTV-SD, so the program "Midnight Hot" appears to be missing, probably because it is not filmed in HD. But, as mentioned they appear to have similar programming at Midnight ET...

 

[dennispap]

Now the sound is going out for a few seconds, every 30 sec or so.
The picture seems to be fine.

 

[oggusfoo]

Are you all subscribing to the primo package or, perchance, is anyone seeing this channel with the old HD absolute only one? Trying to figure out if this should be showing up or not. All other threads I've read point to yes I should with absolute, but was wanting an independent adjudicator on the matter.

 

[?Sa?dma???]

Ya, I have Absolute and i have it.

 

[jbenn]

The picture and sound issues both seem to have cleared up. It's an interesting channel, and my daughter loves it. Good addition, I say.

 

[bhelms]

I have watched FTV a bit since it went live 2 weeks ago. I was an "UltraHD" fan in the voOm days as well and wanted to see what the comparison might be. Plenty of models on the runways to be sure and some "behind the scenes" stuff, but that's about where it ends. (Ultra had a couple of shows that I actually liked enough to look for them, like the ones where they visited exotic restaurants and toured interesting house designs - can't recall the names of either.) Regardless I find myself watching FTV for longer than just commercial breaks!

That requires an explanation: I have a couple of channels in queue that I will swap to when another channel I'm watching goes into commercial. Those have to be essentially commercial-free channels (no commercials during the main programs) and I have used HDNet Movies and IFC for that purpose a lot. Now I can add FTV to the list since I can't discern any real commercials in their programming. (They self-promote like the others and seem to allude to an on-line store, but that's about all I could detect.) Sometimes when I switch to my "commercial alternative" channels I forget to switch back (guy thing!) and I have to confess, FTV is causing that same reaction...!

...and yes - I was detecting a lot of break-up and audio drops initially (thought that was a 129W thing since I just got active with that sat., but the other channels don't have a similar problem). I haven't noticed any change in the past several days, but haven't watched much then either...

 

[jbenn]

I have watched FTV a bit since it went live 2 weeks ago. I was an "UltraHD" fan in the voOm days as well and wanted to see what the comparison might be. Plenty of models on the runways to be sure and some "behind the scenes" stuff, but that's about where it ends. (Ultra had a couple of shows that I actually liked enough to look for them, like the ones where they visited exotic restaurants and toured interesting house designs - can't recall the names of either.) Regardless I find myself watching FTV for longer than just commercial breaks!

That requires an explanation: I have a couple of channels in queue that I will swap to when another channel I'm watching goes into commercial. Those have to be essentially commercial-free channels (no commercials during the main programs) and I have used HDNet Movies and IFC for that purpose a lot. Now I can add FTV to the list since I can't discern any real commercials in their programming. (They self-promote like the others and seem to allude to an on-line store, but that's about all I could detect.) Sometimes when I switch to my "commercial alternative" channels I forget to switch back (guy thing!) and I have to confess, FTV is causing that same reaction...!

...and yes - I was detecting a lot of break-up and audio drops initially (thought that was a 129W thing since I just got active with that sat., but the other channels don't have a similar problem). I haven't noticed any change in the past several days, but haven't watched much then either...

Similar to you having "commercial alternative" channels, I keep "nothing's-on-right-now alternatives" queued up on the DVR. To this end I recorded a few of the swimwear, etc. shows to have around in case I can't find anything better on when I'm folding laundry or paying bills.

They're only 30 minutes, they don't kill too much disk space, all of that. But those I recorded over the first few days are definately getting erased as they are full of pixelation and audio drops. The episodes I've recorded over the last 3 - 4 days are clear, and I haven't noticed any problems while watching it live either (recently). Someone must have cleared up the issue. Also though, the more recently recorded shows do not contain the same content as the earlier, poor quality shows.

At this channel they seem to do a little better job of dealing with re-running content than did Ultra HD. In the VOOM days, if I looked at the schedule for Ultra HD there were times when it seemed that I recognized everything that was on for the rest of the week. I had already seen it or had it queued on the DVR. I would have to consistently walk away from that channel for a couple of weeks and then come back and see what may / may not be fresh. So far I haven't had to do that yet with F tv, but I'm still checking it out.

One thing that they do at F tv for example, take a show like "Photographers." Two episodes of that show may share the same 5 min. segment (re-run material), but the rest of the two episodes are different (fresh) from each other. They piece-part things together and you don't know what you'll get. So that's enough to keep me engaged.

I'm taking my sweet time viewing things on it too, based on that previous experience with Ultra HD. But so far I've been able to see something pretty fresh whenever I've looked at it. I have not yet had the experience of saying to myself "I know for a fact that there is nothing coming on this channel for the next 6 hours that I haven't already seen."

 

[bhelms]

Lousy microphones at FTV ??

Another thing I noticed: on quite a few FTV interview segments where the handheld mic is being used, the voice audio has a LOT of crackles and pops to it. The other evening I thought I had blown a speaker in my center with that cacophony. But no other channel has that problem in my system at whatever volume up to close to ear-damaging levels. And the noise I'm talking about is there on FTV at even very low volume levels, but only with the mics. The music audio is almost stellar, great range and dynamics and it's only DD 2.0...

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Its due to all the bling taped to the microphone. They seem to like making the F on the mic wind screens out of fake diamonds.

Nah thats probably not it... but I do know one thing, I dont watch that channel to listen to the interviews.

 

[JFaber99]

Nah thats probably not it... but I do know one thing, I dont watch that channel to listen to the interviews.

+1 :up

 

[bhelms]

Depends on who they're interviewing !!! But I jumped big time for the vol. control on my remote the first time I heard that crap! Now it's just plain distracting...

 

[allargon]

I no longer get audio issues or massive macroblocking--even camera flashes don't cause breakups or massive artifacting. (This was always an issue with Dish on Voom's Ultra HD and HDNet as well.) My 1080p display was out of commission when the channel first launched. I noticed that it now looks soft (even softer than the other Dish channels). Is it still 1920x1080i, or did Dish finally downrez it to 1440x1080i? The picture of Fashion TV now reminds me of the some of the adult videos on Blu-Ray and HD DVD where they tried to stuff a 3 hour movie plus extras onto one 25/30GB disc.