Is Dish still HD Lite in 2019?

[mklimek]

Hello all, I know this has been a topic that's been around since forever, but scouring the 'net I haven't been able to find anything recent.

I've been a Directv customer for 14 years. My equipment was 11 years old and starting to break down, so I "upgraded" to the Genie. I got the HR54 which has been ok for the most part, but the clients leave something to be desired with periodic freezes. Never had any issues with my older equipment until they got long in the tooth, so the Genie experience has been disappointing.

So I'm looking at Dish and it appears the Hopper 3 has a good reputation. What about picture quality? Along with working equipment, picture quality is a top priority for me. How does it compare to Directv in 2019? Is Dish HD still 1440x1080? I've read a post from a few years back that claims Dish did something of late to improve their HD. Is that true? If so, does anyone know what they did? Has anyone switched recently and seen a difference one way or another?

 

[Ypsiguy]

I have OTA HD, Roku HD and Dish HD channels. There really isn’t an appreciable difference. It more depends on the source material.

 

[JSheridan]

We have both DirecTV and DISH and are able to compare both on the same TV. Depending on the statistical multiplexing DISH looks better on some HD channels and DirecTV looks better on some HD channels but overall it's a wash. The SD on the other hand is markedly better on DISH.

 

[edisonprime]

When I switched back to Dish last year in July I noticed DirecTV had a far superior HD quality. I also remember back in 2013, the day I switched to DirecTV from Dish, the picture became much better. So from all my experiences, DirecTV has had better picture.

 

[Claude Greiner]

I can’t tell the difference. Even Comcast looks pretty good on my 55 OLED

 

[ncted]

Hello all, I know this has been a topic that's been around since forever, but scouring the 'net I haven't been able to find anything recent.

I've been a Directv customer for 14 years. My equipment was 11 years old and starting to break down, so I "upgraded" to the Genie. I got the HR54 which has been ok for the most part, but the clients leave something to be desired with periodic freezes. Never had any issues with my older equipment until they got long in the tooth, so the Genie experience has been disappointing.

So I'm looking at Dish and it appears the Hopper 3 has a good reputation. What about picture quality? Along with working equipment, picture quality is a top priority for me. How does it compare to Directv in 2019? Is Dish HD still 1440x1080? I've read a post from a few years back that claims Dish did something of late to improve their HD. Is that true? If so, does anyone know what they did? Has anyone switched recently and seen a difference one way or another?

If you tell us what channels you routinely watch, we might be able to give you a better answer. FWIW: when I switched from DirecTV to Dish two years ago, I saw my locals look slightly better on Dish, but most non-sports "cable" channels looked a bit worse. Neither of them look as good as they should IMHO.

 

[olds403]

I moved in 2018 and in the process changed from a 722 to Hopper 2. I have a 65" Panasonic plasma TV that was used in both locations and no settings were changed with the move. I feel that overall the picture is slightly softer with the Hopper than it was with the 722. The picture with the 722 was crisp and more detailed than with the Hopper on the same channels/shows. I will say that I think the movie channels are generally the best looking channels on Dish. My OTA locals look better than the Dish locals.

 

[Kirk1233]

I’ve had both services and DirecTV has the better PQ (neither as good as FiOS or YouTube TV)

For a while late last year until the middle of this year Dish had improved PQ, close to DTV but something happened a few months ago and it degraded.

 

[JSheridan]

All this might depend on which DISH arc your dish is pointed at. The pictures on the eastern arc are excellent.

 

[sty6]

I can’t tell the difference. Even Comcast looks pretty good on my 55 OLED

Not here in the Twin Cities. The NBC station is so heavily compressed the video it just falls apart on high motion. Direct and Dish don't really have that problem. The SD feed is 2x worse which it's probably expected. Maybe it's system specific due to how many QAM channels they carry.

 

[The Fat Man]

I would say no. Then again, I've had the same HD TV since 2011 and the same Hopper since 2012. My only comparison is OTA versus Dish. I do feel that my locals via OTA are more "crisp", but that is marginal at best.

 

[tspangle]

I'm on record as not being happy with Dish's PQ. Especially on darker scenes, there's so much macroblocking it can be hard to tell what's going on. We switched from DirecTV a year ago, and Dish's PQ is a bit worse. But where we really see the difference is on streaming. With a good internet connection (200mb), services like Netflix and Prime look GREAT on our Vizio 4k TV with a Roku Ultra.

 

[Jon J]

All this might depend on which DISH arc your dish is pointed at. The pictures on the eastern arc are excellent.

My DISH installer five years ago wanted to use the western arc but I held out for the eastern arc birds. Have been very satisfied.

 

[HipKat]

All this might depend on which DISH arc your dish is pointed at. The pictures on the eastern arc are excellent.

Yep, my picture looks great!

 

[Ypsiguy]

Yep, my picture looks great!

Mine does as well. I assume the eastern arc is MPEG4 AVC only, correct?

I am sure the western arc still has to contend with MPEG2, as my dad still runs a 311 receiver.