Mpeg 4?

[bnewt]

Will this improve the picture quality or is it free up bandwidth for additional channels?

 

[JamesJ]

its my understanding a little of both, sorta kinda if they free up bandwidth (which should happen with this encoding) they can take some compression off the channels, and give more channels (hd more bandwidth) which will then give better picture quality! but more then anything its going to cause a headache I am sure for the swaping of STBS and such!

 

[Cyclone]

MPEG-4 is more efficient than MPEG-2. So a HD channel that usually takes up 12MBs for a certain level of PQ only requires 8MBs with MPEG-4.

Now that could mean that if a HD channel that is now compressed to use 8MB instead of 12MBs on MPEG2, once its on MPEG4 @ 8MBs it will look much better (Like a 12MBs MPEG2 channel). But what might happen is that they'll keep it at the same level of PQ and run only 5MBs on MPEG4 so they can run more channels.

So we might not even salvage any improved PQ with MPEG4. Sad.

 

[JamesJ]

MPEG-4 is more efficient than MPEG-2. So a HD channel that usually takes up 12MBs for a certain level of PQ only requires 8MBs with MPEG-4.

Now that could mean that if a HD channel that is now compressed to use 8MB instead of 12MBs on MPEG2, once its on MPEG4 @ 8MBs it will look much better (Like a 12MBs MPEG2 channel). But what might happen is that they'll keep it at the same level of PQ and run only 5MBs on MPEG4 so they can run more channels.

So we might not even salvage any improved PQ with MPEG4. Sad.

thank you for the numbers, I couldnt find those! More then likely Dish companies will compress the video, as long as people demand more channels, then Satellite providers will need to find the space somehow

 

[Stargazer]

Wasn't Dish Network also going to implement 8PSK or something even more advanced to improve compression to squeeze in more SD and particularly more HD channels? How about HD Lite? Wouldn't they be able to squeeze two or three HD Lite channels in the space that one full HD channel would offer? One has to start somewhere and its better to have a channel available in HD Lite than nothing at all as a start then transition them to full HD at a later date when more bandwidth would become available for the less popular stations.

 

[DWS44]

One has to start somewhere and its better to have a channel available in HD Lite than nothing at all as a start then transition them to full HD at a later date when more bandwidth would become available for the less popular stations.

I'll toss a gigantic NO to that idea. IMO, if they start adding more HD Lite, then they would probably continue adding HD Lite. What incentive would that have to transform the PQ later? Once added, they would probably assume that we would "get used to it" like the SD channels and highly overcompressed locals, and eventually we would be stuck that way.

 

[SimpleSimon]

I'll toss a gigantic NO to that idea. IMO, if they start adding more HD Lite, then they would probably continue adding HD Lite. What incentive would that have to transform the PQ later? Once added, they would probably assume that we would "get used to it" like the SD channels and highly overcompressed locals, and eventually we would be stuck that way.

I'm with DWS44 on this one!

 

[JamesJ]

yeah, go to the directv forums and read about hd lite, I pay a premium price for premium channels, its like a car dealer selling me a fully loaded car and it comes out with a little taken off here and a little taken off there...I really like dish for the way they do their HD and I will be highly disappointed if it changes...you wouldnt want a half eaten hamburger from mcdonalds would you??? I know I wouldnt and I would also like to keep my HD as a full signal and not HDLITE