This is a completely subjective opinion on my part but I think the PQ of HD channels like ESPN and others is the best I have seen since switching from TW to Dish Network last February. I also have HD OTA channels for comparison and I think the PQ on Dish is at least as good or better. I am seeing sharper images and less pixelation.
I think the switch to MPEG4 has markedly improved picture quality
- Thread starter hokie74
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Since 12/4.
9420(138) - TNT EchoStar11 110W TP 07 ConUS beam changed from MPEG2 HD ViP to MPEG4 HD (A)
9421(364) - HDTHR EchoStar11 110W TP 13 ConUS beam changed from MPEG2 HD ViP to MPEG4 HD (A)
9422(362) - HDNET EchoStar11 110W TP 07 ConUS beam changed from MPEG2 HD ViP to MPEG4 HD (A)
9423(383) - HDNMV EchoStar11 110W TP 07 ConUS beam changed from MPEG2 HD ViP to MPEG4 HD (A)
9424(140) - ESPN EchoStar11 110W TP 07 ConUS beam changed from MPEG2 HD ViP to MPEG4 HD (A)
9456(300) - HBO EchoStar11 110W TP 13 ConUS beam changed from MPEG2 HD ViP to MPEG4 HD (A)
9460(318) - SHO-E EchoStar11 110W TP 13 ConUS beam changed from MPEG2 HD ViP to MPEG4 HD (A)
http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-network-uplink-center/156909-uplink-activity-report-12-4-2008-4-02am-67-changes.html
Well, I'm glad you're seeing good things with the picture quality...but I don't think it's as good as, and definitely not better than OTA...OTA is as good as it gets when it comes to a clear uncompressed signal. I'm not picking, just getting technical...but I suppose if it's hard to tell a difference, then who cares about the logistics, right? I have OTA HD too...I'll pay closer attention to the comparison when I get home.
Yea, we had DirecTV pre-HD, then cancelled it, then got a 46" HDTV and have really been stunned with the quality of picture via OTA...especially PBS.
Getting DishNetwork was a bit of a step backwards in PQ. Lots of channels, of course, but I guess we were spoiled with OTA.
Of course, none of the 7 channels in question are available OTA.
You could have said the same sentence with "Blu-Ray" as well as OTA - both of those systems have more bandwidth available per channel than either satellite or cable.
OTA broadcasters only need to provide one HD channel...
You obviously havent seen any HD wild feeds
.. They Blow OTA away and then some more....
Hah, that means they have more wiggle room for squeezing more channels and degrading the picture quality even further.
Why do you say that OTA has to be as good as it gets? OTA is stuck on the older, inferior MPEG2 compression scheme. OTA also often divides bandwidth between the primary channel and multiple subchannels.
If some of the newer channels are able to go from the original source directly into MPEG4, then I think it is entirely plausible that they could have better picture quality than OTA.
Don't most cable companies, and I assume local Dish uplink centers, have fiber connections to the local stations? If so it seems possible that the PQ could be better than OTA, especially in the case of NBC where the local station is now receiving their content from the network in MPEG-4.
Of course that all depends on how much Dish compresses things, but a lot of cable systems do not overly compress their local stations, at least not yet.
IMHO, the recent switch to MPEG4 only restored ESPN, HDNET, HDTHR, and TNT to the HD PQ they had 5 years ago when I first subscribed to Dish HD. I don't think the MPEG2 compression yields any less HD PQ than MPEG4, but Dish allowed the MPEG2 HD channels to degrade over time by decreasing bit rates and overloading transponders.
In the end, OTA HD from a single channel station is still better PQ than anything Dish or DirecTV can generate.
In the end, OTA HD from a single channel station is still better PQ than anything Dish or DirecTV can generate.
There are some experts over on AVSForum who could probably answer this. I recall reading about local stations receiving their network content as 45Mbps MPEG-2 streams years ago. If Dish got a hold of that signal and encoded that with H.264, it could easily exceed OTA, as the local station has to be recompressing down to 19.4Mbps, or more likely a lot less.
But even if a local station has high bit-rate MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 from the network, the local station still needs to insert their commercials. Would Dish have access to a signal that had the high-bitrate stream from the network, plus the local commercials, or is that only available as a lower bitrate MPEG-2 ready for OTA transmission? If that's the case, then the picture quality from Dish cannot exceed OTA. Like I said, someone with industry knowledge is needed to answer this.
