I sure hope you can get this resolved. Are you able to assess OTA HD (through the box)? I'm not familiar with DirecTV equipment, so I don't even know if your receiver(s) are equipped with ATSC tuners.
Finally signed up....Disappointed
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callmebob said:
Something is wrong. call Direct back and get a tech back out. You should be seeing a very good HD picture. Second only (some say) by FIOS.
While perhaps not limited to the HR24, many of these smeary picture reports of late have been from HR24 users. HBO seems to be the most popular channel named in these situations.
One party mentioned that the problem didn't manifest in their HR23 but was plainly evident in HR24s hooked to the same display.
I checked all those listed HD channels and also have no issues on my 37" LCD or 96" FPTV so sorry to say but I think thee is something on the user's end with this problem.
Yes two things I noticed on Direct the day I got hooked up were soft (smeary) video and that green/yellow push in the color. I was able to adjust it out on my displays.
Send a tech out to look at your picture on all your TV's. There are so many of us using quality TV's & having perfect pictures that something major is wrong with your hardware feeding these TV's. It can't be all your receivers so that leaves a problem from your LNB, through any switch (SWiM for dummies) & finally the cabling which must be RG-6+ (you might also have a problem with distance on the cable run). Anyway, a good tech should be able to look at your picture on each TV & see that something is wrong........do this before you spend a grand buying out your contract when we all know the picture should be just fine. :rant:
Another thing you could try is to use component cables instead of HDMI (I know, analog evil, digital good...). I got two new HR24s to replace HR20s and both looked very washed out and soft compared to the HR20s. This was on two different TVs, adjusted resolutions, native setting, TV pic settings, etc. My wife even complained about the picture. Because of their speed I wanted to keep the HR24s so I decided to try component before I returned them. The picture was sharper, much better contrast and almost as good as my HR20s so I kept them.
It seems most people don't have this problem but using component worked for me. There's a thread I started a few weeks ago in the technical forum about this problem. It might be worth a shot.
Good luck!
It seems most people don't have this problem but using component worked for me. There's a thread I started a few weeks ago in the technical forum about this problem. It might be worth a shot.
Good luck!
Send a tech to replace the cable from the dish will not improve PQ.
A tech cannot do more than either replace ird or HDMI cable.
I spent to much time on service calls for people trying to get me to see what they see because they sit 2inches from the tv looking for artifacts, or just don't want D* and are trying anything they can to get out the contract.
D* definitely compresses all of their channels, HD and SD. The picture quality is not going to be as good as Blu-Ray or an OTA channel that is not self-compressing much. However D* compresses significantly less than E* and thus D*'s HD picture quality is a couple of steps better than Dish's HD quality.
Typically it is also better than cable, but that's not a guarantee. Most cable companies have limited bandwidth and compress HD even more than D* does. But not all of them.
I see compression artifacts on D*'s HD channels. But not to the extent that you report. But if I was used to a very high quality HD source, I might. If I watched a lot of uncompressed or lightly compressed HD and then watched D*, I would be very dissatisfied with D*'s picture. And I don't know how I could even watch E*.
Typically it is also better than cable, but that's not a guarantee. Most cable companies have limited bandwidth and compress HD even more than D* does. But not all of them.
I see compression artifacts on D*'s HD channels. But not to the extent that you report. But if I was used to a very high quality HD source, I might. If I watched a lot of uncompressed or lightly compressed HD and then watched D*, I would be very dissatisfied with D*'s picture. And I don't know how I could even watch E*.
I sit 14 feet away from a 70" TV, 12 feet from a 65" and 11 feet from a 50". I don't want to drop DirecTV. I love MRV, online scheduling and having more channels than cable, but I also can't stand looking at people who look like wax figures or backgrounds which flicker and buzz with compression.
Tom Bombadil said:
I watch a lot of Blu-Rays, but I know better than to compare that to DirecTV. I will say that watching Netflix HD streaming from my XBox 360 looks almost as good as DirecTV and that people's faces look more natural on the streaming Netflix. If 1.4 Mbps streaming Netflix looks almost as good as DirecTV, that's a problem in my opinion.
So .... are you gonna get someone out there to fix your problem or not.
Call D* and get them out there to isolate the issue.
I do find this statement funny because I bet in the real world you come across it all the time. My only point was that a 200ft cable run of RG59 might make the picture look terrible. Seriously though, funny. :up
That is interesting because I am a very critical viewer and have excellent corrected vision of 20/12. I'm always seeing compression artifacts when others barely notice them. I've seen streamed Netflix vs D*'s HBO and it wasn't close in quality. On my set HBO HD was far better. And I'm talking about facial detail. I am using a HR21 DVR.
However, from your description of your setup, I can't figure out why it is as bad as what you describe. A bad RG-6 cable from the dish should impact signal strength at the receiver, not picture quality when your signal is over 90. I've swapped out RG6 cables and found signal strength differences as great as 6 to 8 points.
I have had to recalibrate when switching from Component to HDMI connections. When I was with Dish I was hooked up via component and when I switched to HDMI, the picture was washed out, colors were weak, and the overall picture was quite worse. But by recalibrating my settings, I tweaked it to where the best HDMI picture was better than the best component/RGB picture.
However that is not the same as seeing compression artifacts, and your descriptions are consistent with compression artifacts.
E* is Still the National HD leader!!! I am thinking about switching to D* for MLB EI, and saw a demo at a Costco of the playoffs on ESPN. It was a mess. Glad we have DISH (almost as good as FiOS ) DVRs and Frontier FiOS. D* NEEDS HELP ON THE PQ.
& more HBO/Max HD on D*.....Written on Sprint EVO 4G. Just need CSN Chicago HD full-time here on E*/FiOS.
You can't go by what you see at a major retailer on picture quality. They are splitting and amplifying their video all over the store. Not at all the same as feeding a TV directly from a receiver.
The issue of D* vs E* HD picture quality is not really debatable. E* employs significantly more bandwidth compression. They put 8 HD channels on a transponder whereas D* puts 5. You can't pass a video image through with only 60% as much bandwidth and pretend it is better.
I was with E* for almost 10 years. Then I switched to D* to get MLB:EI and the better HD picture quality. I'm glad I did. It is significantly better.
The issue of D* vs E* HD picture quality is not really debatable. E* employs significantly more bandwidth compression. They put 8 HD channels on a transponder whereas D* puts 5. You can't pass a video image through with only 60% as much bandwidth and pretend it is better.
I was with E* for almost 10 years. Then I switched to D* to get MLB:EI and the better HD picture quality. I'm glad I did. It is significantly better.
The RG59 doesn't affect Picture quality if it was used, It would affect voltage.
I had FIOS and D* at the same time and the SD picture was noticeable difference, but the HD pictures you only could tell at hight resolution and in my opinion you really had to look.
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