Finally signed up....Disappointed

[grydlok]

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.

And fix what? replace his IRD.
I gone out to peoples home, went and changed the ground block, walk back into the house and they tell me "Well that fixed the problem".
So unless it noise coming through power since cable doesn't use voltage I feel it will be a wasted trip.
Just cancel and go back to cable.

 

[callmebob]

Just cancel and go back to cable.

More than likely, that is what I'm going to do. I just don't want to have to eat the cost of the receivers and the early termination.

I do have one final question. My dish, because of the location, points at the satellites through power lines that run down the street behind me. I didn't think too much about this until I was listening to talk radio and was at a stop light today. The power lines running near the stop light cause the radio to hum (AM) because of the interference. I thought maybe the power lines, that are only 20' from my dish, could be causing the problems.

Is that possible?

 

[Poke]

It might cause some issues.. Sounds like you might need to have Direct send someone to look at your install sounds like something is not right with the install. It amazes me how people can have so many issues when there should be very little. It all depends on who does the work and what kind of setup the house is so forth. These things will Always vary..

 

[videojanitor]

What I mean are that faces have no definition, the picture seems a little blurry and skin looks like mannequin skin. Faces look like they've been airbrushed like magazine pictures, but much more noticeable.

I'm late to this thread, but thought I would chime in to say I know exactly what you are talking about. Sadly, this is simply the result of the high levels of compression that are necessary to shoe-horn a high number of HD channels into a limited spectrum. Now while I think that DirecTV does a pretty good job of balancing picture-quality vs. bandwidth, the artifacts are pretty obvious if you know what to look for (and it sounds like you do).

To make the signal easier to compress, there is usually some noise-reduction applied first, and this results in the "smoothing" effect you're seeing. When you compare an OTA broadcast to the same channel on DirecTV, it's quite obvious. Little things like skin detail and film grain are smoothed out. For the great number of viewers though, it's probably not noticeable, and that is what they count on when deciding how far things can be "pushed." They can't please everyone, but if they please most, that's the best they can hope for.

I also noticed that for whatever reason, the HR24 I bought a month or so ago seems to look more "processed" than the previous models. I can't put my finger on exactly what it is, but it does seem to have perhaps some noise reduction of its own. After looking at it for a couple of weeks, I relegated it to a back room and brought the old HR20 back to the living room. Much happier with what I see from that.

 

[grydlok]

More than likely, that is what I'm going to do. I just don't want to have to eat the cost of the receivers and the early termination.

I do have one final question. My dish, because of the location, points at the satellites through power lines that run down the street behind me. I didn't think too much about this until I was listening to talk radio and was at a stop light today. The power lines running near the stop light cause the radio to hum (AM) because of the interference. I thought maybe the power lines, that are only 20' from my dish, could be causing the problems.

Is that possible?

Possible but you would notice artifacts on your screen like a rolling line. a soft picture no way.
Call D they will send a tech who will stare at you and replace HDMI cable, IRD , or maybe a ground block. Once that doesn't work it, case management will open up a activity for the same thing. Rinse and repeat.