Not happy with StarzHD quality

[rickaren]

Dear Valued Echostar Customer,

We appreciate hearing from you and are sorry that you are experiencing difficulties with reception from the 129 satellite location. However we are not the least bit surprised to hear of your problems, as we know we have a dying, low-grade satellite at that location, one that we normally would have never pressed into action in a primary satellite location. However as HD customers make up such a small portion of our subscriber base, and as the all-important East Coast markets don't use 129, we decided it was "good enough" for the time being.

We'd like to say that the situation will be fixed in the near future. And maybe it will, if we can find another good deal on a used satellite, as we did from Rainbow Media. In the meantime we urge you to remain confident in our ability to address the problem, although we cannot commit to our eventual solution being at the 129 location or any other location that your present dish configuration is set up to recieve. Should you lose signal from a 129-based channel, then there are plenty of other channels to watch from our more reliable satellites at the 110 and 119 locations.

Sincerely,

Dish Management

Tom you should be in Public Relations if you are not already! When DISH Management sees this I bet you will get an offer too good to refuse! Ha Ha I love it.

 

[Bradtothebone]

The mpeg 4 locals in hd look great on Abc and Fox but the Cbs looks like the STarz hd channel. It is unwatchable. I don't understand why they can do 720 p channels just fine but the 1080i channels look like a jerky mess. I actually get ill from trying to watch these channels.!sadroll

It's just the opposite here in KC - CBS and NBC are fine, FOX is worse, and ABC is unwatchable. Go figure.

Brad

 

[bkushner]

I'm glad they've added some new HD channels, but I must say I am very underwhelmed with the quality of StarzHD... perhaps this has something to do with the mpeg4?

I'm viewing this on a 50" 1080p Sony SXRD. All of the other HD channels (HBO, HDNet etc) look very nice and smooth, no major issues. I'm viewing on a ViP622 connected thru HDMI.

StarzHD just can't seem to achieve full fluid motion. Anytime there's a scene with the camera steadily moving, it's slightly choppy. Also, there's slightly jagged edges in some scenes, as if my hdtv cannot properly find the progressive frames or something (it's in CineMotion mode which has no issues producing a beautiful 1080p image from all of the other HD movie channels).

Also, in moderate to high motion, there's a good amount of "ghosting."

I don't know if these issues are due to their encoders or my box's decoding, but I've forced it to update and then rebooted, which has fixed none of these problems.

I hope these are just early issues that will be corrected soon, with an update or by fixing the encoding on their end. But if not, then mpeg4 is far from ready for prime time.

I've also sent this to Dish's picture quality control email address: dishquality@echostar.com

I get Starz HD on Comcast cable as well and it looks like crap most of the time there too. I think this is a source problem and not the carrier.

Brian

 

[M Sparks]

The mpeg 4 locals in hd look great on Abc and Fox but the Cbs looks like the STarz hd channel. It is unwatchable.

Interesting...I've only had problems with CBS as well. I rarely watch CBS, but I tuned into Letterman a couple of times and saw the jerkiness. I figured the problem was at the station, since the other locals looked fine.

 

[long_time_DNC]

I'm really getting ticked about this 129 problem...not only the Starz-HD problem. E* brags about having 29 HD channels. What they don't tell you is that it's on a dying dog of a satellite and that unless you have two dishes, you can only watch most of them 20-minutes at a time.

 

[MikeD-C05]

This is the future for both Directv and Dishnetwork : Mpeg 4. IF this is what we have to look forward to then I will be watching cable soon. I can't take jerky panning shots.

I still don't know why that the mpeg 4 Fox and Abc look great but the Cbs looks like crap. I can only figure that the Cbs station is supposed to be in 1080i and the Abc and Fox are in 720p. Dish is trying to put a uniform standard for the hd locals , all in 720p. This might cause motion artifacts when the channel is broadcast in 1080i mpeg2, then it is downconverted to 720p in mpeg4, then sent to your receiver where it is upconverted back to 1080i. Maybe there is to many downconverts and upconverts here.

I have noticed that they did something to the Starz hd channel because it doesn't look AS BAD as it did the first few days. The motion artifacts are becoming less noticable . Maybe they have tweaked it some ? OR maybe My eyes are adjusting to the artifacts?

 

[Tom Bombadil]

A 1080i to 720p to 1080i conversion is a very BAD thing!!!!

This is much worse than a 1920x1080i to 1280x1080i HD-lite conversion.

As to MPEG4, I have confidence that this will work fine at some point. But that point may be next month, 3 months, 6 months or longer from now.

 

[abricko]

It's less jerky but it still looks slow. the overall picture also looks soft and the colors look strange, they lack the crispness and often appear like a hand tinted/colorized black and white film. It really gives the appearence of a Telesync Transfer from Film (like the crap you can download from the internet transferred with a handy cam). I really have a hard time watching this channel! What a waste!

 

[adidadi]

I have a Sony VPL VW 100 (Ruby) projector which delivers a stunning picture. i used to have Voom. NOW THAT WAS A GREAT PICTURE. Since switching to Dish, I can't complain for the most part, but the picture quality is just not where it used to be. I notice the down rez on all the Voom channels with Lots of mosquito noise. I am in Beverly Hills, so I get perfect OTA. CBS is spectacular in HD. CSI is an astonishing picture. Now HBO on Dish is good, but I have to say Starz is pretty appalling so far. Ghosting everywhere and MPEG compression artifacts galore. Everything looks like a bad bootleg dvd from the net. They really should start delivering some full rez stuff soon. I think we deserve it with the amount we spend.

 

[jgags6]

I think half of the problem on starz is half of their programming isnt even hd, its just upconverted.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

You know, E* still hasn't added really compelling content from their pre-MPEG4 lineup. I'm still on a 942, and still paying just $9.99 month for both HD & VOOM under an old promotion. I'm missing the following channels:

ESPN2 ... some compelling content
Universal HD ... a little content
VOOM 5 extra channels ... I'd like to have the World Cinema channel
HGTV ... little appeal, limited HD
Nat Geo HD ... limited HD content, would have to upgrade from AT120 to AT180 for another $10/mon.
Starz HD ... would have to pay another $7/mon to get artifact ridden, sometimes HD

I would have to pay an extra $27 a month ($324/yr plus tax) to get the above channels. This doesn't strike me as a real winner of a deal.

 

[1080psf]

Here is a message I just sent to dishquality@echostar.com

#1 The Hue is shifting from green to red in the flesh tones. First HD-SDI should not even have the opton for turning the HUE like you can in NTSC.



#2 There is a blur on all motion, a ghosting effect. It makes me dizzy to watch. People have a halo arround them thats moving with them. The colors are washed out, almost like a bad VHS. This channel even looks worse than 525 upconverted to 1080i.



#3 Interframe skipping every 10th of a second. Like a pulsing effect. That makes me dizzy to watch as well.

 

[FunkyBoss]

I switched to 129 last night and Dredd looked pretty good. Been watching some today and picture seems to be smoother.

Had to go back to 61.5 because my level was heading down again.... It was 50 when I went back to 61.5 it was 89.

A couple questions...
1. How can I tell if my channels are from 61.5 or 129? I have access to both sats.
2. How can I tell it which sat to use?

 

[Jim5506]

Tune the channel - Menu-6-1-1

 

[gdarwin]

2. How can I tell it which sat to use?

Disconnect one or the other at the switch.

 

[gdarwin]

Make sure you do a check switch after disconnecting/connecting.

 

[M Sparks]

HGTV ... little appeal, limited HD

Minor correction...HGTVHD (what an unfortunate name!) is ALL HD. It's just relatively repetitive. (Although not as bad as any of the Vooms).

IMO, that's the RIGHT way to do a national HD channel. As long as the HD & SD channels are separate, I'd rather have more repetition than upconverted SD. (And no G-D Stretch-o-Vision!) When I tune to Discovery HD or HGTVHD, I KNOW I'm getting HD. From what I understand, M-HD is the same. And while Universal HD isn't that great, it has the right idea. (It started as BravoHD, right?)

5 or 10 years down the line, when everyone's capable of receiving the HD version, then go ahead and merge them and mix SD and HD if you must.

 

[riffjim4069]

Minor correction...HGTVHD (what an unfortunate name!) is ALL HD. It's just relatively repetitive. (Although not as bad as any of the Vooms).

Accurate regarding HGHD; there will be 300-340 hours of content this year and the PQ is excellent - er...what figures are you using to back your VOOM statement? For example, the HDNews channel alone should air at least 1500 hours of new programming alone.

 

[long_time_DNC]

Maybe it should be HGHDTV instead?

 

[techfan]

i sent DISH a comment thru their website, complaining about the STARZ HD quality, but there's been no reply. Anyone else made a complaint?