New install, lousy picture

[road_rascal]

New user, sort of long rant, apologies abound, here's the scoop:
Completely new install of DishPro500, 522 and 301 on 12-1-04.
Main TV (32" flat screen Toshiba with S video) picture looks chunky/ blocky/ computer generated, etc. Yup, I did the forum search on pixelization. All of the signal strength meters are above 95. I had the 522 replaced once already, no improvement.

Folks, I cancelled regular cable because of poor picture quality. Charter Cable says, "Oh, upgrade to Digital Cable for $100 a month and all of your problems will disappear." Thanks, but no thanks.

I had 3 appointments with service techs to come back and look at the system and 3 times they never showed (how's that for customer service?). Now I'm being told this blocky picture is as good as it's going to get unless I "upgrade" to an HDTV with an HD receiver. I watched ESPN football the other night and it was almost unbearable.

Just for giggles I hooked the 301 up to the main TV and I get the same picture. Since I'm completely new at this, I have no idea what's going on. What's even worse, Dish Network's tech support and their website is absolutely horrible. I only figured out 10 minutes ago from this forum that I only, and I mean only, can get true Dolby Digital 5.1 from PPV channels, not Monday Night Football, not primetime ABC or NBC shows (which Dish techs and installers do say you should be able to get).

So, what should I be looking for in solving this problem? Or, is this a "put up and shut up" situation? Thanks for reading.

Tom K. in Apple Valley, MN

 

[Pyrophoric]

Dude, I am having the EXACT! same problem. My picture on the 522 with basically the same setup looks like a ripped dvd encoded on a crap computer using bad software .. lol

I was expecting a lot more than I got but atm I am looking into getting HD. Its funny though, when I was with cable tv the picture was so bad that I never noticed the blocky pixels if they were there and now with Sat the picture is so clear that I notice EVERYTHING wrong with standard digital tv.

 

[TuxCoder]

That blockiness is the visible result of the high compression used by Dish Network. There's not really anything you can do to get rid of it, but on many TVs you can play with certain display settings. Most notably, try playing with your TV's "sharpness" setting. Sometimes lowering contrast and brightness will help. Give yourself time to adjust to those changes though if it doesn't look right to you right away.

There is truth to the HD option. While E* still compresses it more than they should, you shouldn't see near as many compression artifacts in the picture.

As for Dolby Digital audio, you are correct. You'll only get that on certain premium channels (HBO E/W, SHO E/W, etc.), certain PPV channels, and the HD channels. However if you are within good reception range of your local stations, and they are broadcasting digital with HD, you can invest in a digital OTA receiver and get free DD audio with certain content.

And welcome to SatelliteGuys.US, road_rascal!

 

[reddice]

And you people want to waste even more bandwith on stupid HD Locals and content.

 

[Bobby]

As Forrest Gump's Mama used to say, "stupid is as stupid does." There is nothing stupid about HDTV. I'm a child of the 50's (the 1950's that is). I remember people saying how stupid it was to spend $1000 on a color TV. That's life and growth. Take it for what it is.

 

[road_rascal]

Thanks for the replies. I have been messing around with the settings on the TV and I guess I'll just get used to it eventually. I'm just plain pi$$ed off with the whole situation. The original installer saw the blockiness, or compression artifacts, and stated that's the way local channels are, depending on the signal beamed to Dish (?). Dish reps state I should get a crystal clear picture. The manager (imagine how long it took me to get a hold of that guy) of the installation company says that's the way it is. I honestly should not have to spend hours researching this.

As for the Dolby Digital, I really could care less if I got it or not for regular channels (only for HD and PPV channels, period). It's too bad Dish would flat out state that on their website and instruct their installers and customer support people these facts. I do like Sirius music channels, even though it's in 2 channel PCM mode.

 

[Mike Greer]

You have just happened onto my biggest bitch....

100% Digital Quality means 100% nothing.

Digital doesn't mean better or even good... It just depends on how it is used. In the world of digital TV, with maybe with the exception of HD, 'Digital' means the picture looks like what you are seeing. If you can get over-the-air digital TV it can be much better but still has many 'digital' problems.

As mentioned earlier - you can adjust the display with the sharpness/brightness/contrast controls to somewhat smear and cover up the '100% Digital Quality' but it won't get even close to a decent DVD quality picture.

I have had digital cable from Comcast, Dish Network and DirecTV and non of them have a decent picture if you have a decent display. They don't come close to what you can get with a good analog signal.

Good luck!

 

[PILMAN]

Same problem here, the picture looks TERRIBLE on my 42" plasma tv. Svideo is horrible for quality tv's. I know for a fact it's not my tv set because dvds play awsome. I guess your tv can only display as good as the signal it gets. Therefore the HDTV converting the signal would give you more lines, better resolution, aka much better picture, probably why the hdtv setboxs cost so much. All my tv's are fine that are just standard tv but my beautiful 42" plasma I cannot bare to watch the picture, it's hideous. I noticed some PPV channels look average but just standard fox news makes me want to cry. I picked satalite because I was told that it displays a TRUE digital signal unlike "digital cable".

 

[SimpleSimon]

The problem is not with digital carriage as such, but with the amount of compression in use. many locals are compressed to the point of being unviewable. This MAY change as more bandwidth becomes available.

OTOH, IMO, Lil is a horrible waste of bandwidth - the NAB should be shut down and local affiliates can go to H E double hockey sticks.

 

[Ransack]

My Wash DC locals look like washed out pixelated crap too. I know it was not this bad when i signed up with E* back almost 10 years ago. And the bigger TV you have, the worse it looks. Ironically, my "seemingly" best picture is on my lowly tv in our master BR, but it's 13" and i sit about 10 feet away. It's kind of like getting better vision by squinting real hard (you need to fool yourself into thinking you have a good picture)

 

[PILMAN]

My Wash DC locals look like washed out pixelated crap too. I know it was not this bad when i signed up with E* back almost 10 years ago. And the bigger TV you have, the worse it looks. Ironically, my "seemingly" best picture is on my lowly tv in our master BR, but it's 13" and i sit about 10 feet away. It's kind of like getting better vision by squinting real hard (you need to fool yourself into thinking you have a good picture)

Well I'm somewhat happy yet sad to know others are having this problem but at the same time knowing it's not just me having this problem. I spent money on a great tv only to have the source end up as a sh!tty one

 

[Bobby]

The problem is not with digital carriage as such, but with the amount of compression in use. many locals are compressed to the point of being unviewable. This MAY change as more bandwidth becomes available.

OTOH, IMO, Lil is a horrible waste of bandwidth - the NAB should be shut down and local affiliates can go to H E double hockey sticks.

:clap

 

[ShadowEKU]

In ranking order

Best to Worst (is that a word)

High Def
GOOD analog Signal
My Cable Company's Analog
Directv SD
My Cable Company's Digital
Dish Network



I just switched From dish so that might be slightly biased. Truth be told big screens are not good for any type of signal other than HD at this point. I got a marked improvement going from E* to D* but PQ wasnt my main complaint.

Im not trolling either I just want to point out my thoughts.

 

[Bobby]

Worst is a good word....

Worst: Not favorable; unpropitious: ill predictions.

 

[Jstanuthrdishguy]

The current compression levels being used were designed for the Direct View 27" TV's most people had at rollout. I'm hoping all carriers will be made to accept that this is not gonna cut it on larger wide screen sets. In the end it's our (average viewer) fault. Try to use this marketing approach, "We have less channels than our competitors, but our quality is far superior". Deaf ears.

 

[ShadowEKU]

The current compression levels being used were designed for the Direct View 27" TV's most people had at rollout. I'm hoping all carriers will be made to accept that this is not gonna cut it on larger wide screen sets. In the end it's our (average viewer) fault. Try to use this marketing approach, "We have less channels than our competitors, but our quality is far superior". Deaf ears.

sounds like voom. not aht ive ever had or will have voom but from what ive read this is the case

 

[road_rascal]

I guess I'm just going to have to deal with it. While most of the channels look pretty good, others are just plain horrid. The local FOX affiliate is disastrous. I may put a regular TV antenna in the attic just for the local stuff. I still need to get over the fact that the picture looks better on my 8 year old Mitsubishi 27" with just the RG6 coax going into it than my 2 year old Toshiba 32" flat screen with S-video. At least I found thread #11769 to "school" me on video artifacts.

 

[Rlanham]

Same problem here, the picture looks TERRIBLE on my 42" plasma tv. Svideo is horrible for quality tv's. I know for a fact it's not my tv set because dvds play awsome. I guess your tv can only display as good as the signal it gets. Therefore the HDTV converting the signal would give you more lines, better resolution, aka much better picture, probably why the hdtv setboxs cost so much. All my tv's are fine that are just standard tv but my beautiful 42" plasma I cannot bare to watch the picture, it's hideous. I noticed some PPV channels look average but just standard fox news makes me want to cry. I picked satalite because I was told that it displays a TRUE digital signal unlike "digital cable".

I have a Panasonic EDTV 42" plasma. I have it hooked up S-Video & the picture is very good with SD. If you have a HD plasma it may be upconverting the signal. Can you manually adjust the signal upconversion? If you have a true HD plasma with a DVI input, you may get a better
SD picture if you upgrade to an 811 receiver. I also have a 57" HD RPTV and even thought the HD channels are fantastic, SD channels do suffer in comparison to my EDTV plasma. A friend of mine, (they never ask your opinion until "after" they make a purchase), got a new RPTV big screen for xmas and is dissappointed with the SD picture. Calibrating his set has helped some. The stores are now showing everything in HD, (even though none of the sets are calibrated), if you have not done your homework, I can see how one can become dissatified, especially if you buy a lower-end set, after just seeing how it does with an HD signal.

 

[PILMAN]

I have a Panasonic EDTV 42" plasma. I have it hooked up S-Video & the picture is very good with SD. If you have a HD plasma it may be upconverting the signal. Can you manually adjust the signal upconversion? If you have a true HD plasma with a DVI input, you may get a better
SD picture if you upgrade to an 811 receiver. I also have a 57" HD RPTV and even thought the HD channels are fantastic, SD channels do suffer in comparison to my EDTV plasma. A friend of mine, (they never ask your opinion until "after" they make a purchase), got a new RPTV big screen for xmas and is dissappointed with the SD picture. Calibrating his set has helped some. The stores are now showing everything in HD, (even though none of the sets are calibrated), if you have not done your homework, I can see how one can become dissatified, especially if you buy a lower-end set, after just seeing how it does with an HD signal.

I have EDTV but a DVI port, and I'm using just a regular standard satalite box, no hdtv, that's probably why it looks like crap