Just got DirecTV set up, REAL BIG PROBLEM!! HELP!

[Dino]

Raff,

I guess we don't have the exact same receiver because my receiver's ouput resolution is selected by a small black switch in the rear of the unit, and my only options are 480i, 720p and 1080i. I would think that 720p would be your best selection option since your DLP monitor is probably 720p. Beyond that, if those selections don't seem to make any difference I would assume that my ideas won't be of any further assistance in tuning up your picture.

Remember that our fabulous big screens do bring out the inherent limitations of standard digital. I am satisfied with my big screen picture in SD, but it's not perfect, and the same SD program typically looks better on our second TV, which is an old-fashioned SD CRT. Now, having said that, it shouldn't HURT to look at SD programs.

Just as an afterthought, you might also want to activate DNIe (I think that's waht it's called) on your Samsung receiver. It's Samsung's version of software to 'clean up' SD pictures for big screen TVs.

Glad I could at least help a little.

Good luck!

 

[Raff]

Dino-

Yah man I just wish i could get decent standard definition quality.

I didn't notice anywhere on my reciever or anywhere in the manual itself where it says "DNIe" or any sort of combonation to made the sd better.

I may just be very picky but after spending a lot of money on this setup, I would appreciate it if all my channels were "SD" quality and nothing less.

 

[Dino]

Wait-- sorry about that, the DNIe setting is on my Samsung DLP television, not the Samsung receiver. (Samsung has made a LOT of money off me-- DVD player is Sammy, too. And my flat panel computer monitor. AND my digital camera!)

I agree that for the investment you'd think ALL your channels would look good, HD or not. Part of the perils of early adoption, I guess.

Anyway, you might check to see if your television has a setting for 'cleaning up' standard definition signals. On my Samsung I keep DNIe set to 'on', but I don't remember if I ever actually witnessed a signal improvement compared to when it is off.

There's also the issue of channel compression to consider. The more the signals are compressed, the less color saturation you get, along with more pixelation, artifacts, etc. I have heard from people on this forum who say that DirecTV has recently (in the last few years) compressed their channels more than ever before, and that they can definitely see a picture degradation on standard digital signals. I don't know if this is true, as I have been with DirecTV for only a year now, but on the bright side these issues are supposed to clear up when the new satellites go up early next year (April or so). Maybe we'll see improvement then.

 

[robert luzzi]

we own own company, hd does suck, and DIRECTV IS THE DOMINANT ENTITY and always will be. C>E> is is a meglomaniacle idiot and dish sucks , thats my opion i have mine , you have yours, bet you voted for kerry and his drunken horse faced wife. ps i do not like voom or dish

 

[AndyMon]

we own own company, hd does suck, and DIRECTV IS THE DOMINANT ENTITY and always will be. C>E> is is a meglomaniacle idiot and dish sucks , thats my opion i have mine , you have yours, bet you voted for kerry and his drunken horse faced wife. ps i do not like voom or dish

Hehehehe, That's the funniest thing I've heard all day
You certainly do have a way with words
Thanks for the chuckle!!

 

[bree]

Dish Network compression bad

I had dish 500 installed with 322 reciever and removed the same day. Everyones faces had no detail, like compressed jpeg, blurry slighly out of focuse. Tried all the diff cable hookups, clolor and sound improved but not the focus. Signal was over 100. I have a new Toshiba 35" analog TV. Installer said this was a good picture, I told him my crapy grainy time warner cable had sharper images, remove it. I hear Dirct TV may not be better? Is this just satellite quality?

 

[Lem52]

I had dish network 2 times and both times the quality was horrible it made me want to throw up. Directv used to be better than what they presently are although some channels look better than others but you could't pay me $500 a month to get dish network again and never in this lifetime.

Both providers have been putting out what they can get away with. As long as you can barely make out a picture, Oh! Thats great! I don't think it will ever, ever improve because they always want to see how many channels they can squeeze in. This is exactly what the high definition channels are going to go to also. They are going to squeeze the crap out of them. Don't matter what the 2 new satellites bandwidth is, directv will figure out a way to keep compression at its highest and cheat the customers.

I am liable to get flamed for this post, but this is my opinion, directv has seen what uncle charlie can dish out and they figure if he can squash it that much, they can too.

Lem52

 

[stevesmall]

we own own company, hd does suck, and DIRECTV IS THE DOMINANT ENTITY and always will be. C>E> is is a meglomaniacle idiot and dish sucks , thats my opion i have mine , you have yours, bet you voted for kerry and his drunken horse faced wife. ps i do not like voom or dish

um one word for you- prozac

 

[fkostyn]

now - I consider my Directv (55" projection) Much better than cable. Here in Phoenix - it is cox cable - as far as I'm concerered - the cable is terrible. Sure, I do see some compression on the D*, but its no where near the fuzz / grain / snow that I recieved on cable. I have also noticed as of late that D* seems to be much sharper. Maybe it is just me though.

 

[video62]

<deleted by author>

 

[geocole]

D* Pq

I have had D* about a year now. I have the oval dish and RCA DRD435RH a Toshiba 36" 9 year old TV and a 6 year old Zenith 27". Both TV got excelent PQ in SD. I replaced the Zenith with a Samsung LT-P227W and a Zenith SAT 520 reciver with componet hook up. Of corse the HD picture is outstanding and the SD to me is better than the old analog TV. I replaced the Toshiba with a Sony KDF-50WE655 and a old SR1 TiVo RCA DRV 80 which I haft to use the S vido to TV hook up.
The SD PQ is the best. Better than the Toshiba and the HD is out of this world. I have read a lot of threads about poor PQ in SD and wonder Why? Is it the location,equipment,installer,TV,cable hook up or all the above?
I also have a RV and a extra dish and do not have any trouble on the road. If I am at a RV park with cable I use that if not I use the dish. I would like to get HD from D* but am wating on price of equipment to come down.
BTW I live in San Antonio TX . No cable or DSL out here in the country.

 

[tdti1]

Hey guys..I'm back again after finally getting my direcTV set up ...i run into HUGE problems.

After activating DirecTV, I tuned into the channels and they all came in Blurry and terrible quality. I thought it might be just 1 channel, I was wrong.

It turns out, every channel I turn too does not look anywhere close to analog quality, LET ALONE DIGITAL. My locals look HORRENDOUS, and even other channels look crappy.

Only the Hi-Def channels come out fine, everything else (AND I mean EVERY channel) comes out blurry and distorted.

I've been on the phone with DirecTv and they said my signal strength is fine and they have no idea. The person who installed the dish, their company is closed till tuesday..so I am really dissapointed.

I JUST WANT MY DirecTV to work. Everyone seems so satisfied with DirecTV, why do I always get all the bad luck.

I live in the 02747 zip code(south eastern MA) and I feel that comcast cable analog is a better quality than what I am getting now!

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

That is pizza dish man, no matter what wire you use or unit you have it looks like crap, this is the reason I still use my big dish and will use it till something has better quality, and better prices on programming, 20 years and nothing has come close

 

[robert luzzi]

why would i need you to recommend me????????

ive got 96 jobs in cue from 3 companys for the next two weeks my opinion is they rushed this product to market , and didnt perfect it.

again , i bring home 7000.00 per month , i DO NOT NEED YOUR RECOMMENDATION.

again, BRING HOME

my service call ratio is a proven .05%, one servive call per 200 installs

been doing directv for 5 years , we also do voom and XM radio.

sorry, i get paid to do an install correctly, but, in my mind, HD SUCKS.

try working in the pittsburgh area with all of our hills and TRYING to get all of the hd stations

..............bob

 

[robert luzzi]

directv is the dominant provider , why would you laugh????

charlie is selling!!!!

what is so funny???

 

[robert luzzi]

if installed right , with s video and rca cables AT LEAST d* looks as good or BETTER than a progressive scan dvd player, dish looks as good as digital cable

..................bob

 

[eyekahn]

Can't believe I read that

If your (try "you're") not happy go back to cable. You have one major misconception digital is not better. A good analog signal will always be better it contains all of the information not just a digital sample of the key information. A good analog signal is hard to find but you may have a cable provider that does it right. Next thing you need to learn about is line doublers and how your TV signal is processed.

I've been reading for a few weeks and had to register to reply to this post.

A digital signal is a more accurate signal as there are only zeroes and ones. Look at an analog sine wave - you don't know what's between the peaks and valleys. It may be 0.345 or 0.456 . Analog to digital conversions may lose a tiny bit of information in the process, but a signal converted to digital will be more accurately reproduced on the other end than one that stayed analog and lost its signal along the way. This is why I pull in a fuzzy, snowy picture over the air (or through cable), while the same channel's digital signal is crystal clear. Well, as clear as SD gets at least . Since more and more programs are being recorded digitally, it would be a nightmare to try to convert those to analog and send them out.

As far as getting a good analog signal goes, move in right next to the broadcast towers, because you're not going to get one far out, or through cable.

 

[eyekahn]

Dino- thanks for your help..i managed to set it to Pillar...but still have a question about the resolutions..I have hte same HD reciever as you..and I dont see any DLP thing in the back which you were talking about..on the front of the reciever it says RESOLUTION and you can change from 480 i/p - 720p-1080i-native1-native2-native 3..i really have no idea what native 1,2 or 3 is but i dont see much of a difference between any of those.

Just wondering if you can go into more detail about hte resolutions so i can change it..My problem is.. that the programming on any channel seems blurry even when in 4:3 with the bars..its hard to make out the faces and it doesnt seem to be normal.

Any help would be great!

Raff, it sounds like you may have a Samsung receiver. Check the user manual for a better chart than what I'm about to provide:

Native 1
1080i = 1080i
720p = 720p
480i/p = 480i/p
Native 2
1080i = 1080i
720p = 1080i
480i/p = 480i/p
Native 3
1080i = 720p
720p = 720p
480i/p = 480i/p

This is for some HDTVs that can't show 1080i or 720p. It sounds like you have a much larger problem on your hands if everything's blurry. Do you have another TV and receiver hooked up to the same dish?

 

[eyekahn]

sorry, i get paid to do an install correctly, but, in my mind, HD SUCKS.

try working in the pittsburgh area with all of our hills and TRYING to get all of the hd stations

..............bob

Just because you live in the Pittsburg hills and can't get an OTA signal doesn't mean that the picture quality of HD sucks. It just means you can't get the signal because of the obstructions. Phrase your statements better and you might not get as much backlash.

 

[robert luzzi]

eyekahn,

1st its pittsburgh NOT pittsburg we're in pa not cal or kan

i was stating a fact that because of the terrain , most cx can get one dominant station or all of the others, but not both, most just cancel.

one more thing, directv is launching one and moving the other spaceway spot beam bird by june 2005 , each is capable of 750 local/ hd channels

murdoch/directv is going to be the surviving satellite company, ergen/echostar is DONE by 2007. murdochs boot heel is on ergens neck.

check out the posts on wall street .com,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,ergen IS SELLING,,,,,he is out gunned ,,,,,out programmed,,,,,,,,,,,,out financed ,,,,,,,,,,out classed,,,,,,,,,,,,,and out of his meglomaniacle mind

VOOM will go down the tubes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[K R Kimmel]

sorry, i get paid to do an install correctly, but, in my mind, HD SUCKS.

try working in the pittsburgh area with all of our hills and TRYING to get all of the hd stations

I do live in the Pittsburgh area and yes, the terrain can make it challenging to receive all the digital OTA stations. That said the PQ of the digital stations (and yes I do receive all the Pittsburgh stations) is clearly superior to the same station when it provided by cable, Dish Network or DirecTV. And when they transmit HD programming the PQ is so superior that trying to make a comparison is absurd.

And before you criticize someone for misspelling Pittsburgh (most other -burgs do not have the ending "H") you might want to check your own spelling. Your favorite word is spelled M-E-G-A-L-O-M-A-N-I-A-C-A-L not M-E-G-A-L-O-M-A-N-I-A-C-L-E. Try running the spell-check when you post. It will catch it.