HD-Lite Class Action

[boston area dtv]

We need more of this to share light to the public what deceiving practice these satellite companies are using to lure new customers or exisiting customers. Calling it HD instead of HD Lite or sub-HD or Enhanced TV. We all can win by this one by bringing to the public eye.

I agree whole heartedly!


I dont know if this has been printed but the following interpretation is pretty interesting

http://fsnews.findlaw.com/cases/ca/caapp4th/slip/2006/b184630.html

 

[long_time_DNC]

I think this thread belongs in The Pit. Sheesh!

Calm down folks. Or at least be civil to each other.

 

[vurbano]

"In every case, whether sooner or later, the scheme becomes apparent to the consumer, whether it is the appearance on an invoice of an improper charge or the appearance on the television of an inferior image. In either case, the customer is being deliberately cheated, because he is either paying for something he has not agreed to pay for . . . or paying for something he is not receiving (image clarity...)"

Not to mention the big bucks in equipment you have to buy

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Hey, I just put on my old eyeglasses and must say that I now cannot see the difference between HD and HD-lite!

I highly recommend this to E* "HD" subs. And if you have perfect vision, then put on someone else's glasses and the effect will be the same.

An alternate method is to consume large amounts of alcohol.

 

[YoMamasMan]

Do you guys really think Dish and Direct TV are resizing the video because they want to pis a and rip you off?

NO, what they are doing is laying the groundwork to get you the most amount of HD possible with the limited bandwidth. The future is HD and if they don't do this now and pave the way, the cable companies will become the HD leaders and squash them. When they get the bandwith, they most likely will give the full HD quality.If they don't, they will perish.

Look at the big picture people and think about the future. Its all a game. Siding with a stupid lawsuit (which is really siding with the cable comps.) thinking it will give you full rez and a lot of HD today is being very naive.

No, I think D* and E* are working from a compromised technical position. The houses in my location now have fiber optic connections right into a box in the garage. So far, these cable companies seem to have bandwidth aplenty.

Satellite providers can effective get more usable bandwidth from implementing improved compression techniques, and hoisting more birds. The later is very expensive.

D* and E* will have to look at where/how they are going make money in the future. Will D* and E* continue to offer hundreds of channels, or will they provide customers with true HD TV content?

Perhaps, the High Definition broadcast market belongs to the cable companies. D* and E* will have to satisfy their customer base before the customer base is grabbed by the ‘Comcast’ of the world.

To stay competitive, D* and E* have to offer consumers a product that is better, faster and cheaper.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

It has been shown time and time again that Joe and Jane Q. Public will always pick more channels over higher quality. We've stated that in thread after thread after thread.

E* and D* took SD down the road of reduced quality for number of channels and they are taking HD down the same road. These companies built their subscriber base on delivering a lot of mediocre SD channels. So of course it is no surprise they would do the same thing with HD.

However those of us who popped for HDTVs because of quality are tremendously disappointed in this. And, of course, likewise with the Joe & Jane Publics in these forums who are the "enemy" in this, as their support for HD-lite is the reason why E* and D* do this.

If the public prioritized quality over quanity, then we would have good HD quality. But they don't, so we don't.

This class action lawsuit is probably the only hope of at least educating the public on this issue, and forcing E* and D* to either offer real HD or stop advertising their current offerings as HD. (And calling it DishHD isn't any different, that is still misleading.)

And no HD-lite advocate should be surprised if they come into this thread and find that their comments aren't overly appreciated. The whole purpose behind this thread is to fight HD-lite, not embrace it.

 

[Juan]

I know, Lets sue E* and D* for 100 million each. Then we could launch our own satellites and start a HIGH resoloution HD SERVICE!!!!! oooooops Voom failed miserbly with a LOW resoloution HD SERVICE. so i guess we are just $hit out of luck

 

[dslate69]

...However those of us who popped for HDTVs because of quality are tremendously disappointed in this. And, of course, likewise with the Joe & Jane Publics in these forums who are the "enemy" in this, as their support for HD-lite is the reason why E* and D* do this.

No. The enemy is the individual subscribers that don't all like the same channels. DISH would have plenty of bandwidth if they got rid of the channels I don't watch. I don't know why there are so many international channels, I don't watch them. But alas, someone must or DISH wouldn't have them.

If the public prioritized quality over quanity, then we would have good HD quality. But they don't, so we don't.

I would love to have the quality you speak of with the quantity I speak of and maybe when all SDs are mpeg4, all locals are spotbeam, PPVs are delivered via ethernet, and "so on" happens we will ALL be happy. But until then the quality of HD that DISH is giving me blows away any SD offerings and with the proper bitrate can look as good as True-HD.

The whole purpose behind this thread is to fight HD-lite, not embrace it.

The purpose of this thread seems to be an online pep-rally. The forums are for the exchange of ideas not for affirmation to your opinions. If you want an Amen, go to church.

 

[Juan]

I think some posters are putting too much emphsis on bandwidth. What we really need to measure is symbol rate. My understanding is that mpeg 4 allows a much greater synbol rate than mpeg 2 using the same amount of bandwidth.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

No. The enemy is the individual subscribers that don't all like the same channels. DISH would have plenty of bandwidth if they got rid of the channels I don't watch. I don't know why there are so many international channels, I don't watch them. But alas, someone must or DISH wouldn't have them.

I would love to have the quality you speak of with the quantity I speak of and maybe when all SDs are mpeg4, all locals are spotbeam, PPVs are delivered via ethernet, and "so on" happens we will ALL be happy. But until then the quality of HD that DISH is giving me blows away any SD offerings and with the proper bitrate can look as good as True-HD.

You are simply making the classic quanity over quality argument. Nothing new here. You are willing to compromise on quality to get quanity. Others of us are not. I would rather lose some of the channels that I watch if others were improved.

The subs who are happy to get a lot of HD-lite because it is still better than SD and don't really care that much that it is not true HD, indeed are the bane of those who really want and appreciate true HD.

And you are building the pretense that down-rezzed HD is as good as true HD, which simply isn't true. Sure down-rezzed HD with a lot of bandwidth can be better than full res HD with starved bandwidth, but none of us are arguing for the latter.

Full res HD with good bandwidth > Down-rezzed HD with good bandwidth.

The purpose of this thread seems to be an online pep-rally. The forums are for the exchange of ideas not for affirmation to your opinions. If you want an Amen, go to church.

No one said you couldn't express your opinions, I only stated that any quanity over quality statements would not be overly appreciated in this thread. This thread is all about making the good fight to prioritize quality, not quanity.

 

[Jeff_R]

Its not deceptive. Dish offers DishHD, not HD at any specific rez or size.

However, the Dish Network website says "DishHD offers twice as many national HD channels as any other provider!" and "This includes over 200 hours per day of HD programming from the nations top programmers. 30 HD channels!".

So, while they may copyright their "DishHD" package names, their advertising is still claiming HD channels, hours of programming, etc. as HDTV. In reading their site, I would believe that they are offering true HDTV programming, not HD-Lite.

I'm not taking sides one way or the other on quality of HD-Lite or it's sufficiency, just pointing out the legal and J6P interpretation of the materials they have put out for interested customers.

 

[dslate69]

You are simply making the classic quanity over quality argument. Nothing new here. You are willing to compromise on quality to get quanity. Others of us are not. I would rather lose some of the channels that I watch if others were improved.
...

The Meat of my argument is not quantity over quality. But instead all of you guys that make a stink about True-HD could not come to a concensus on which channels to keep and which to get rid of.
The good quality and great quantity is however a better bridge for now. It attracts new subs to allow DISH to pay for new hardware.
I find it hard to believe that none of you HD-Lite haters ever watch a DVD or lord forbid a DIVX\XVID file. I mean really DVD quality is so bad your OCD wouldn't allow you to enjoy the movie if this is all about quality.

 

[kokomogator]

Congratulations, you've already ruled the case, now go after the locals and the cable companies advertising HD but giving you HD-Lite. Also make sure the camera people are using full HD res and size when shooting and make sure every remastered film in HD is full up to specks.

You are really good at bringing up HD-Lite every second of the day like an obsessive compulsive disorder, so continue to do so. There is a lot of people and companies to sure over this.

Can't imagine why people like you go to these threads, are you just trying to be controversial? Must you inflict your opinion on those of us that really would like to champion this cause because I don't believe anyone needs to hear your 2 cents!

 

[FreddyvsJasonvsAsh]

I think we need to let this guy know we are behind him in this lawsuit!!!! I think if we ban together in numbers it will say something. This guy is only one, but if more people complain of the same problem it will say something. It will prove that this is not the only person seeing this problem.

 

[Juan]

I think we should be sueing the content providers too!! The the FCC for not setting stringent rules!!

 

[rad]

The the FCC for not setting stringent rules!!

The FCC is too busy enforcing their morals to be worried about technical concerns.

 

[YoMamasMan]

Can't imagine why people like you go to these threads, are you just trying to be controversial? Must you inflict your opinion on those of us that really would like to champion this cause because I don't believe anyone needs to hear your 2 cents!

Do not believe for a moment that foghorn2 is innately invested in mediocrity. He is, or people like him are just earning their Echostar stock.

Can you say “shill”?

 

[TC_Lauderdale]

The FCC is too busy enforcing their morals to be worried about technical concerns.

LMAO!! Man is that true.

How about this, we re-engineer the Sat. systems to act more like a switched IP network. The 50 or so HD channels can have as much bandwidth as they need when they are broadcasting (ie prioritizing the packets) and starve the remaining SD channels down to bare minimum. As some have posted on the thread, the monkeys watching the SD channels don't care about quality, so be it! Go to town. :up

 

[foghorn2]

Can't imagine why people like you go to these threads, are you just trying to be controversial? Must you inflict your opinion on those of us that really would like to champion this cause because I don't believe anyone needs to hear your 2 cents!

My opinion is just as important as yours. If you don't like that, perhaps you are living in the wrong country.

If someone does not like HD-Lite, and likes the lawsuit, thats fine.

If someone does not like HD-Lite, and dislikes the lawsuit, thats fine.

The thread title is, "HD-Lite Class Action"

it is not "HD-Lite Class Action lovers post here only".

 

[foghorn2]

No. The enemy is the individual subscribers that don't all like the same channels. DISH would have plenty of bandwidth if they got rid of the channels I don't watch. I don't know why there are so many international channels, I don't watch them. But alas, someone must or DISH wouldn't have them.

I would love to have the quality you speak of with the quantity I speak of and maybe when all SDs are mpeg4, all locals are spotbeam, PPVs are delivered via ethernet, and "so on" happens we will ALL be happy. But until then the quality of HD that DISH is giving me blows away any SD offerings and with the proper bitrate can look as good as True-HD.

The purpose of this thread seems to be an online pep-rally. The forums are for the exchange of ideas not for affirmation to your opinions. If you want an Amen, go to church.

Thank you for making sense of all of this. There are some here who are dissenting and yet shrugging those who are dissenting the dissenters

Church behavior indeed!