Mpeg 4 question

[dude2]

Does this compression mode require that some of the hd bandwidth like the 1920x1080i get reduced.
This is what a dish tech emailed me as to why the hd channels are not as sharp as they should be.
Thought I would throw it out to those of you that are in the know if dish has a legit reason for giving us HDlite or not.

 

[DishSubLA]

MPEG 4 does not "require" anything that would result in less than 1920X1080i. It is up to the provider (Dish) on how they wish to set-up the software for encoding. But to get something, you have to give something up: Higher HD resolution means fewer HD channels available to subs. If Dish (and Direct will do it to) can "cheat" and sacrifice HD video quality to squeez just one more HD channel per transponder, then that's a lot of extra bandwith to uplink additional HD channels. I hope we see the day when all HD on Dish will be full resolution.

 

[DishSubLA]

I should add that the efficiency of MPEG 4 encoding "live," "on the fly" streaming video should improve. That could mean that Dish could have the same number of HD channels per transponder, but at full resolution--OR they could decide to keep HD video quality as it is now and use the greater efficiency for adding more HD channels per transponder. You will have to make your voice heard on this matter. Dish will listen if enough people keep complaining.

 

[MikeD-C05]

Agreed DishsubLA. Keep sending emails of complaint on the mpeg4 video audio problems to : dishquality@echostar.com

THis is the only way I know to keep them aware of how bad their mpeg 4 compression looks on their hd locals in 1080i and starz hd as well.

 

[MikeD-C05]

Looks like the emails paid off on the mpeg 4 locals at least. My Cbs hd station now looks as good as the ota version and the cbs Hd station 9483 in New York . I could see no difference in quality on panning shots or in hd quality. LIve video looks like it is really live now instead of like on film. Congratulations to the dish engineers for getting this right finally.

So you see , complaining with your emails does work. Now if they could just fix the Starz hd channel with what they learned from the mpeg4 locals I would be satisfied and happy with the mpeg 4 compression. Keep sending your emails to the dishquality folks if you see any more picture or audio problems and maybe they will fix your issues as well.

dishquality@echostar.com

 

[Jim5506]

MPEG4 gains you about 20% in bandwidth. A MPEG2 stream of 2.5mb will be a MPEG4 stream about 1.9mB.

These figures are only estimates - actual mileage may vary.

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

Actually, the problems with h264 are beginning to show themself. Quite frankly, for all the hype of lower bandwidth requirements for h264, h264 has inherent problems and artifacts below 15Mbps - of which it would make no sense to use h264 for if you were going to use something that high. To top if off, it doesn't take high bandwidth well. So unless you are in the 15Mbps - 20Mbps range, h264 was a bad choice.

As much as I don't want Microsoft in the box, they really should have waited for VC-1 to finalize its standards before jumping into this mpeg4 mess.