HBO 501 Picture Quality

[W5VYY]

I am having picture quality issues with HBO channel 501 on a 118 inch home theater screen.
All other HBO channels are great.
The quality issue seems to be on 72 inch screens and above and does not show up on small screens.
Is anyone with a large screen seeing this problem on 501?
Thanks for your time
John Gammon
john5vyy@gmail.com

 

[teachsac]

501 looks horrible most of the time on any size screen any time I watch it.

S~

 

[BattleGnome]

This problem is very annoying. The screen shifts from grainy to sharp every second or so. It is hard to notice on a smaller screen, but is very bad on bigger screens (65"+). It is especially bad if the screen is close-up on an actor's face, and you can see the detail shift in and out repeatedly. It seems to be worst on channel 501.

 

[gadgtfreek]

I bitched and bitched about this last year at the other site, even posted it at AVS. That grainy to sharp thing pisses me off, but many folks will tell you it looks fine at their house...

I actually download the HD VOD now, instead of watching it live.

 

[wildbill129]

Never had an issue with it...but mine are measly 50" and 42" screens....

 

[tigerfan33]

Looking good on two 50",60" and 106". Have had HBO for about a week.

 

[texasbrit]

This problem with HBO has been reported by several people, but others don't have the problem at all, even on very large screens. That seems to indicate it's a problem with the HBO signal on certain TVs. There were thoughts that it was a problem with the 120Hz frequency doubling in the TV but it seems to happen with 60Hz TVs also. Maybe it's something to do with HBOs MPEG-4 conversion, I believe they are the only provider to deliver MPEG-4 signals instead of MPEG-2 (DirecTV converts from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 encoding).

 

[gadgtfreek]

In my home, ive observed this on a 32" Panny 60hz LCD, a 58" Panny Plasma, a 73" Mistu DLP, and a 55" Samsung LED LCD 240hz.