I just downloaded a couple of movies via VOD and although they are supposed to be HD, they do not look as sharp as watching the movie via Dish. Is this normal or does it have anything to do with my internet?
Is VOD quality the same as Dish?
- Thread starter bnewt
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 36
- Views 3K
There has been a hot debate on this for some time now. It has always been my understanding that it is the same, if not better quality as the Dish product, however your internet speed has some to do with it. There was another poster that had the minimum 3-5 Mbps, had crappy quality, then got 50 Mbps, and suddenly the VOD was "blueray" quality, according to him. You, I am sure, have seen him on the other forum. GMan. He will tell you his experience.
My internet speed is very slow..........but was considering increasing. Any idea what I should increase it too for "blu-ray" quality? What type of sound quality comes with these? Is DTS available or is it just Dolby?
I have 30M down and my iVOD is excellent. Even the SD looks good, unlike the satellite-delivered SD channels.
Now, the question of the hour is... Why does it matter what your Internet speed is? Why can't it download onto your internal disk at whatever speed you have, and then later allow you to see it in the same quality those with faster Internet speeds get?
Now, the question of the hour is... Why does it matter what your Internet speed is? Why can't it download onto your internal disk at whatever speed you have, and then later allow you to see it in the same quality those with faster Internet speeds get?
that is what I am asking? The few that I have selected & then tried to view are not as sharp as viewing via normal tv
VOD tries to keep up with real time so you can watch the program (without pauses) soon after you start the download. If the quality wasn't based on available bandwidth then this wouldn't work for slower connections.
The best I've been able to determine, Dish HD is about 4 Mb/s so if your internet is close to that I'd expect the quality to be the same and that's my noncritical impression of the VOD I've watched with a 5 Mb/s (measured) internet connection. Technically a faster internet connection could provide higher quality but that assumes the Dish receiver could keep up with it.
Did you pick "Watch now" or "Watch later"? If you tried "Watch now", your internet speed will definitely impact the quality.
Watch later. This is exactly what I'm talking about. If you select "watch later", you should not get the crappy quality recording that only pertains to streaming. If the software insists on streaming quality, then why oh why can't those with non-DVR VIP receivers watch stuff?
Yes, if you pick the "later" option, it *could* download at higher quality but obviously take longer to become available. How long is too long? Usually people want to watch it fairly soon after choosing an event.
That could explain why a few times -- I honestly think it was a glitch now -- that we picked "Watch later" and a 1-1/2 to 2 hour movie was going to take days to download !
That could explain why a few times -- I honestly think it was a glitch now -- that we picked "Watch later" and a 1-1/2 to 2 hour movie was going to take days to download !
Last edited:
I never use VOD, but the few times I've tried, I've picked "watch later" and it ALWAYS gave me the crap quality version, even on allegedly HD content. It may look like HD (well, Dish HD to be exact, there's quite a difference you know) when nothing was moving, but otherwise, forget about it, it looked like SD (and I mean Dish SD, not real SD, which can actually look alright on a big screen if it's not bit-starved.)
I have speeds approaching 5mbps, no great but workable. I've tried watch now and watch later, on my system it makes no difference and is not as good via VOD as it is watching Dish TV normally.
I think that was the point -- it downloads the same quality as if you were streaming it live. What we're trying to say is that that doesn't make a lot of sense -- if I'm going to hit the "watch later" button, I'm going to be watching later enough to download the whole thing, not just a few minutes from now. Apparently Dish thought that people who were hitting "watch later" weren't really going to wait, or have even worse broadband than I do. (I have a very shaky 3Mbps DSL line. I can download an hour-long 720p MPEG4 show from unauthorized sources in less than an hour and a half, and it'll look at least as good as, if not better than, most of Dish's MPEG4 programming live on satellite, never mind the VOD.)
Yeah, it sounds like "Watch later" doesn't get any higher quality video, it just downloads it at the same speed, but in the background. When we had 6 Mb/s DSL (speed tests showed us getting ~5 Mb/s consistently - normal loss for DSL), we pretty much never tried to truly stream anything. Streaming on Netflix was flawless though....
Now, we've got 15 Mb/s cable (just tested and got 16.25 Mb/s) but if I "Watch now", but Dish says it's streaming in the 5-6 Mb/s range. I do understand that those numbers are only for that instance of 3-4 seconds and can go up or down at other times, plus no one would want it to suck up ALL available bandwidth.
Now, we've got 15 Mb/s cable (just tested and got 16.25 Mb/s) but if I "Watch now", but Dish says it's streaming in the 5-6 Mb/s range. I do understand that those numbers are only for that instance of 3-4 seconds and can go up or down at other times, plus no one would want it to suck up ALL available bandwidth.
When I had a 722 (which was until a few weeks ago), VOD on Dish was horrible. The "HD" pq was fuzzy and pixelated. Now that I am on a Hopper, it is identical, if not better, than what I get on Dish. It is also lightning fast now, as they installed a Hopper Broadband connector to provide ethernet to the hopper rather than wifi.
I never use VOD, but the few times I've tried, I've picked "watch later" and it ALWAYS gave me the crap quality version, even on allegedly HD content. It may look like HD (well, Dish HD to be exact, there's quite a difference you know) when nothing was moving, but otherwise, forget about it, it looked like SD (and I mean Dish SD, not real SD, which can actually look alright on a big screen if it's not bit-starved.)
This seems to be exactly the results that I get............
When I use VOD.........I generally choose "watch later". My internet speed is supposedly 2.0, but I doubt that it is that fast. I am seriously considering upgrading, but if it isn't worth the $$, then I won't.
This seems to be exactly the results that I get............
When I use VOD.........I generally choose "watch later". My internet speed is supposedly 2.0, but I doubt that it is that fast. I am seriously considering upgrading, but if it isn't worth the $$, then I won't.
