HD appears very compressed

[johnwadams]

FWIW; An hour of OTA on my external hard drive can run 4-5 GB. 1 hour off sat will run .8MB to 2 MB. The .8mb will look terrible. Live sports seem to have the least compression.

 

[MrDRC]

Home theater is my hobby. I've been an AVSforum member for a long time. I'm well aware of the device side of things. The only thing I don't know about is satellite stuff. That's what brought me here. They have had the same dish for quite a while and the coax too, I'm pretty sure. Their Hopper is, I think one of the first, if not the first iteration of the device. Their main viewing room is an open room with about 15 feet of distance to a 55" tv. There are only 2 walls to this room, behind it is their kitchen. So viewing distance helps with them not ever noticing this. I am spending my time in small room with a close up view and it's just horrendous. But, I rarely watch the TV. Streaming services are what I have been using.

Nice economical hobby huh? LOL

Now I don't feel bad saying the roku tv could be the culprit. I don't know much about them except they are cheap. My Samsung Q90 from last year, which is not cheap, doesn't suffer from that lack of sharpness your photos show.

Are you a gamer? Watch a lot of Blu-ray's, 4K and/or HDR content? The quality of those mediums are so outstanding it's hard to go back and watch "mediocre" HD. I know its spoiled the crap out of me.

 

[olds403]

When I first switched from my old 722 to a Hopper w/sling (H2) i thought the picture was soft as well. I tried everything I could think of. I too am into home theater and VERY particular on settings and calibrations. For some reason on the Hopper when I got it I had to adjust the picture size and position(in picture settings on Hopper) to make it smaller or there was material that was cut off. I couldn't understand it.

After asking here about it, I went back and checked my TV (Panny 65VT60 plasma) and when I moved to my new house, somehow the screen settings on the TV were no longer set for no overscan. Once I changed that so that there was no overscan on my TV making it 1 to 1 pixels on a 1080 picture (no extra processing) and then reset to hopper picture settings for no size or position adjustment, the picture sharpened right up. It isn't as good as bluray but it is a lot better than it was with the Hopper remapping the picture to adjust the size for overscan.

 

[Bruce]

Nice economical hobby huh? LOL

Now I don't feel bad saying the roku tv could be the culprit. I don't know much about them except they are cheap. My Samsung Q90 from last year, which is not cheap, doesn't suffer from that lack of sharpness your photos show.

The TCL 4 Series are quite cheap, but the 6 Series and 8 Series are not and get high marks from Reviews and Ratings.

 

[MrDRC]

The TCL 4 Series are quite cheap, but the 6 Series and 8 Series are not and get high marks from Reviews and Ratings.

After a cursory look on avsforum the TCL is still considered a budget display lacking bitrate processing capability. I didn't dive deep but saw enough to think it might be the OP's problem.

I think we all know Dish or Directs bandwidth is limited so you better have a display that's capable if you want the best picture quality possible. There's only so much you can cram into the satellite bitrate and until codecs become exponentially better it has limits. It will never measure up to OTA, Blu-ray, 4K and maybe even some streaming but you can get sharp video with a good display.

One thing that still amazes me is how good old plasmas are. I just had my GF convert to Dish and she has 3 dumb 55" Samsung plasmas. Their Dish video quality is excellent and in some ways I'm almost jealous despite having one of the newest highly rated Samsung QLED sets. Across the board they have a very consistent picture quality. The black levels are killer.

 

[olds403]

After a cursory look on avsforum the TCL is still considered a budget display lacking bitrate processing capability. I didn't dive deep but saw enough to think it might be the OP's problem.

I think we all know Dish or Directs bandwidth is limited so you better have a display that's capable if you want the best picture quality possible. There's only so much you can cram into the satellite bitrate and until codecs become exponentially better it has limits. It will never measure up to OTA, Blu-ray, 4K and maybe even some streaming but you can get sharp video with a good display.

One thing that still amazes me is how good old plasmas are. I just had my GF convert to Dish and she has 3 dumb 55" Samsung plasmas. Their Dish video quality is excellent and in some ways I'm almost jealous despite having one of the newest highly rated Samsung QLED sets. Across the board they have a very consistent picture quality. The black levels are killer.

I agree, my 8 year old Panasonic 65VT60 Plasma looks very good with the Hopper 3 in the living room. We bought a new Samsung 4K tv for the master bedroom, It was a budget model, TC8000 series I think, it cost less than $400 on Amazon. While it does look crisp with the Joey 3 the black level sucks and there is a lot of false contouring as well. I wish they made smaller OLED TV's as I probably would have gotten one of those if a 43" was available, a 50" won't fit where we have it placed in the bedroom. I don't need absolute top quality for the bedroom but my 8 year old Panasonic Plasma looks a LOT better than the 1 year old 4K LCD, they were amazing TV's.

 

[Yrd]

The TVs are definitely capable. I convinced them to get these TVs over some other vizio garbage as these were reviewed well. They are the 6 series TVs. Their main viewer is the 55. Limited size based on their goofy wall sized hutch/TV furniture with only enough room for about a 60" max TV, which are almost nonexistent now.

I'm spending my time on the same model in 65" with a computer, ps4 and bluray and the built in streamers. The TV display is sharp. There is something wrong with the satellite feed or coax or hopper or something.

They'll be back soon and might just switch to cable anyway.

 

[marjew99]

Home > menu > settings > TV
Is it set to 1080p?

 

[Bruce]

Home > menu > settings > TV
Is it set to 1080p?

 

[jerryez]

I have a 65" LG OLED C1 tv and my Hopper 3 picture is excellent on my tv. I also have an outdoor antenna for OTA and the pictures on both the Hopper and OTA are nearly alike.

 

[bearfan4]

I just got a new Sony A80K and Dish Programming looks terrible. I recorded the Chiefs vs. Rams that was on Fox on Sunday, and am currently watching it. It has to be compressed because the players look blurry around the edges. OTA channels look much better that the locals on Satellite through the Hopper 3. Other devices look great. Has anyone else had this problem? Are there any settings to play with to help, or is this just a Dish issue?

 

[bearfan4]

I just got a new Sony A80K and Dish Programming looks terrible. I recorded the Chiefs vs. Rams that was on Fox on Sunday, and am currently watching it. It has to be compressed because the players look blurry around the edges. OTA channels look much better that the locals on Satellite through the Hopper 3. Other devices look great. Has anyone else had this problem? Are there any settings to play with to help, or is this just a Dish issue?

I think this may be a Fox/Dish issue. I just turned on a recording of a game recorded on OTA CBS and the picture is much better than the game on the local fox channel on Dish.

 

[HipKat]

I just got a new Sony A80K and Dish Programming looks terrible. I recorded the Chiefs vs. Rams that was on Fox on Sunday, and am currently watching it. It has to be compressed because the players look blurry around the edges. OTA channels look much better that the locals on Satellite through the Hopper 3. Other devices look great. Has anyone else had this problem? Are there any settings to play with to help, or is this just a Dish issue?

Have you calibrated the TV for HDR and SDR feeds?

 

[jerryez]

I just got a new Sony A80K and Dish Programming looks terrible. I recorded the Chiefs vs. Rams that was on Fox on Sunday, and am currently watching it. It has to be compressed because the players look blurry around the edges. OTA channels look much better that the locals on Satellite through the Hopper 3. Other devices look great. Has anyone else had this problem? Are there any settings to play with to help, or is this just a Dish issue?

Go to YouTube and search for a setup video for your model tv. Then follow the setup directions in the video and see if that doesn't improve the picture. It sounds to me that your new tv needs adjustment. You do have it set to Home mode and not Store mode.

 

[bearfan4]

Have you calibrated the TV for HDR and SDR feeds?

No, I have not had my TV calibrated.

 

[HipKat]

No, I have not had my TV calibrated.

Whenever I buy I new TV, and for some of my customers when I have time, I'll Google Calibrate the make and model number of other TV, Tings.com comes up most of the time now - and I'm not always happy with their recommendations on some settings - mostly white balance and advanced color settings, but it gives me a base to do some tweaking on my own. Out of the box settings are typically OK for most people (And most go right to the ungodly Vivid setting) but sounds like you are one of those that wants the best, very best picture you can get. A little searching will get you a long way.

I have my Sony X900H as good as I think it can get it now and sometimes I'll go to YouTube and search for 4K or 8K and just watch in awe at how amazing the picture is