Need help diagnosing artifacting issues...

[oregonxfile]

I'n not sure if this is the best place to post a question about the above subject, but I have been having issues with digital artifacts in my picture, and I need a good place to start troubleshooting.

Basically, I know picture is an issue on some stations for various reasons, as posted throughout these forums. I'm trying to figure out just how picky to be, and how tough I need to be with Dish on the issue.

I have a basic DVR, current firmware, that has been replaced once to try to correct the problem, to no avail. They gave me such a hassle on the phone about the exchange, so I'm not too keen to go back to them, until I have all my facts straight.

Is there anyone out there who wants to take a stab at this one?

I'll be as specific as I need to be about equipment, cabling, terminations, and tv sources etc.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. I'm sure I'm not the only one with trouble.


Thanks,

Dave

 

[Smithy]

Digital Artifacts (looks like little blocks where motion is) is squarly in Dish's court, there is nothing you can do to improve it.

 

[oregonxfile]

So,

Are you saying there is nothing I can "troubleshoot", as in change out or adjust or replace or even looking at in my system?

May sound incredulous, but I guess I find it hard to believe........

 

[Kaydigi]

So,

Are you saying there is nothing I can "troubleshoot", as in change out or adjust or replace or even looking at in my system?

May sound incredulous, but I guess I find it hard to believe........

Small pixelated square blocks, and blacks that look greyish and washed out are all from DISH over compressing their signal on their SD channels. There is nothing you can do about except complain, take pictures and send them to the is dishpq email address.

 

[Pepper]

you can try to reduce the contrast, resulting in a less sharp but hopefully less "artifacted" picture.

 

[DishSubLA]

Some TV's, usually older or of inferior quality, will show these "artifacts" more than others. However, having 4 TV's of various brands, age, and quality, I have found that spending some time adjusting brigthness, contrast, color, shapness, has resulted in good quality pictures on all the sets and, as a rule results in no noticable or distracting artifacts. There will be the rare, exceptional "pixalization" or break up do to programming containing too many flashes of light or extremely fast spinning images and the like due to high compression, but if you play with your TV a bit, you should get a good quality picture.

 

[Jordan420]

Are you watching Sdtv on an HDTV set? Is this the problem you are having?

http://www.adamwilt.com/pix-artifacts.html

What receiver are you using?

What TV set do you have?

Large HDTV sets will show problems in the signal that you would not notice wiyh a smaller analog tv set.

 

[oregonxfile]

My equipment list...

I am watching Standard def TV fed to a Standard Def 4:3 set.

Sony KV-32FS100 TV (basic non-hi def set, CRT type)

Dish DVR 510 current firmware

Dish 500 antennae (5 yrs old ?) , 2 individual LNBF's (NOT a DishPro system)

High quality cabling all around, direct feed from Sat to Tuner. RG-6 quad shield, correctly terminated by myself

Signals run both from S-video connector, and basic video connector. Quilting-type artifacts noticed from both, but especially apparent with S-video connection.

Artifacts especially noticable on ABC, CBS feed (LOST and CSI look especially crappy), but most stations show evidence.


Any chance purchasing and installing a new Dish and new LBNF's could help alleviate the problem?? Current signal is near 100 on both satellites...

Thanks for your help!

X

 

[Smith P.]

Definitely not new dish nor new LNBF ( you have high signal now ) will not help you.
Try other DVR ( 622 ?) and new TV set .

 

[osu1991]

It is going to be most noticeable on the locals, because of how much the signal is handled. Sometimes the signal that dish gets from the local station is not the best to start with.

 

[DishSubLA]

While the S-video is the best quality output for SD, that also means it will show all the glory and warts at best quality. You may prefer using the composite output. This inferior quality output will also do a poor job of bringing all the flaws to life on your beautiful TV.

Dish is always playing with the compression on all its channels, trying to find a balance for the best quality with the limited bandwith. As a rule, local into locals, especially medium or small markets (cities) have the worst picture quality (digital artifacts). The best video quality is reserved for the premium movie packages (HBO, etc.) and pay-per-views. Most of the other channels are given fair treatment except for CNN and BBC America because they have scrolling tickers at the bottom of the screen, and they can't be read clearly with too low compression, so Dish gives those channels more bandwith.

This really is about the adjustment of your TV. I have several generations of DVR's and standard boxes. Every TV is different, and it will take some time for you to find just the right adjustment. You may be noticing some artifacts of late because Dish will change the rate of compression from time to time

You may have the contrast up too high on your TV, allowing you to see the pixels and "squares". That is the most common maladjustment of TV's. SD video has a very narrow contrast ratio. You need to use the least contrast you can . As a starting point, turn your "picture" or contrast level all the way down. The turn you brightness all the way down. Now, increase your brightness, and work with that only increasing it quite some way. Then increase your picture/contrast ever so slightly, using the least possible. You will find that your color can be turned down (too much color creates noise) to a far more pleasing result, and it should seem more vivid. You will find that areas of the picture that before seemed too dark, you will detail that was there all along. Best of all, you should notice a significant absence of the troubling "artifacts".

 

[oregonxfile]

Have tweaked my tv as much as I can, by using my remote and a factory service repair manual. Both my contrast and brightness are set to nominal values using assorted tweaking DVDs (Avia, S&V, etc.)

I understand the issues with the locals being awful. I see the trouble with other stations as well, and some more than others.

I have been considering upgrading my DVR to the 2 tuner model, but I don't imagine that will solve anything, will it?


I'm curious if anyone who has used DirecTV have had similar issues....


The Fall TV season is soon to be upon us, and I'm hoping I can get a handle on this issue.

From the sound of things, It seems more likely I'm SOL......


Thanks, and keep replying. I'm willing to try anything within reason...


X

 

[Kaydigi]

I understand the issues with the locals being awful. I see the trouble with other stations as well, and some more than others.

I have been considering upgrading my DVR to the 2 tuner model, but I don't imagine that will solve anything, will it?

ESPN (certain shows), TNT, Bravo, Spike TV (Deep Space Nine especially), FX all have noticable compression artifacts. The only way around that is to watch the HD feed of these channels.

If you watch a lot of fall programing from the regular networks, I highly reccomend you watch the OTA HD feed, it doesn't matter if you have a HDTV or not.

The overall SD compression is my biggest fear with Dish. What's going to stop them 2 years from now from doing the same thing to the HD channels?

 

[Jordan420]

What's going to stop them 2 years from now from doing the same thing to the HD channels?

2 yrs from now? they are doing it NOW!

But to the OP, as stated before, the problem most likely lies with your locals, I have distant networks & locals & the picture out of NY is much better than the same show from my local channel.

Try composite from your stb to your tv or even coax, and try to keep the sharpness down as well.

Unfortunately you have a quality display & a marginal(at best) source

 

[johnny q]

ESPN (certain shows), TNT, Bravo, Spike TV (Deep Space Nine especially), FX all have noticable compression artifacts. The only way around that is to watch the HD feed of these channels.

If you watch a lot of fall programing from the regular networks, I highly reccomend you watch the OTA HD feed, it doesn't matter if you have a HDTV or not.

The overall SD compression is my biggest fear with Dish. What's going to stop them 2 years from now from doing the same thing to the HD channels?

The absolute worst PQ for me is VH1 classics, its a blurry, washed out mess. My locals are pretty bad too. G4, HBO, CNN, Fox, MSNBC all look consistantly good.

I dont know man, I got rid of my cable because of the crappy PQ and the extreme variance between channels and day to day PQ - this is just as bad if not worse.

JQ

 

[Kaydigi]

2 yrs from now? they are doing it NOW!

But to the OP, as stated before, the problem most likely lies with your locals, I have distant networks & locals & the picture out of NY is much better than the same show from my local channel.

Try composite from your stb to your tv or even coax, and try to keep the sharpness down as well.

Unfortunately you have a quality display & a marginal(at best) source

I wouldn't even bother messing with settings. Why should I if other input soiurces look good on the same TV set?

I watched 24 (the episode where they go to a submarine) from my FOX Richmond, VA feed. I then watched the west coast feed at 11 PM. They looked exactly the same. The compression was in the same places and the blacks looked washed out and greyish.

I don't view my locals from Dish anymore, I bought a OTA HD receiver 2 weeks ago for my SDTV. So far so good everything is sharp and the colors are unbelivable. My first test is next week during the Prison Break season opener.

 

[oregonxfile]

So,

Who makes the OTA HD set top receiver?

Does it downconvert to accomodate your non HD tv set?

What method do you use to connect your receiver?

Do you dump your stuff off onto DVD or something similar? A BIG draw with the DVR is the recording/time shifting capability...

I do connect my DVR via coax as well. Stupid artifacts are there, just less noticable. Yep, 24, Lost and CSI, like House, NCIS, Prison break ALL have tons of nightime/low light scenes. Figure that thats when the artifacting becomes SO noticable.....

X

 

[Kaydigi]

So,

Who makes the OTA HD set top receiver?

Does it downconvert to accomodate your non HD tv set?

What method do you use to connect your receiver?

Do you dump your stuff off onto DVD or something similar? A BIG draw with the DVR is the recording/time shifting capability...

I do connect my DVR via coax as well. Stupid artifacts are there, just less noticable. Yep, 24, Lost and CSI, like House, NCIS, Prison break ALL have tons of nightime/low light scenes. Figure that thats when the artifacting becomes SO noticable.....

X

I have the Samsung Direct TV T-160 receiver. Going S-Video/480i out to the SDTV, with the toslink cable going to the receiver for the 5.1.

I'm not into archiving just timeshifting, so it was toss up between the Polariod 2001g HDD 80 Gig recorder or a series 2 Tivo. I chose the Tivo since it has a IR blaster and 30 day return policy before you are locked into the contract. I will lose the 5.1 when recording but I am more concernd about the PQ at this point.


I did want to Dish it up a few months ago to a 622 but the word is Dish will not install in on a NON HD set even though it all down converts to 480i. I do have my eye on the 2 HDTVs and wil pull the trigger when I can find the right HD provider.

 

[DishSubLA]

Gotta say, every source will give you a different result. In other words, using one of those DVD's to set your controls will give you good results from that DVD player, but not necessarily other sources, such as STB's, etc. Those DVD's are almost useless for settings of broadcast NTSC, Cable, Satellite. That fact has been covered extensivley on this forum. Unless your tube is old, you gotta blaze your own trail, my friend, and stay away from the factory pre-sets. Those are designed for floor displays under harsh lighting. There is no easy way around this. You are gonna have to roll-up sleeves, and take the advice of many on this forum who have given the same advice: tweak it, tweak it, tweak it, right. It is experimentation. Even in the old days with channels given a lot of bandwith, there were still some artifacts visable that required tweaking. I just want to save you money and time hunting in the wrong direction. Sonys usually have great contrast control. Tweak just a bit here and there, but keep tweaking. You will develop a knack for it.

Finally, some people on this forum provided pictures of thier TV settings that have really helped folks make the magic tweak, of course they should be of the same brand and/or model as yours. You could try a search for those.