Picture quality continues to go downhill !

[sprintcarcrazy]

I have noticed over the last several months how bad most of the SD stations look. I recently have added a 37in Sharp LCD and the SD stations are terrible. Local OTA Digital looks very nice, as well as OTA HD.

I have heard about the over compression issues, Dish, you need to stop adding crap stuff until you get this resolved. I would rather have 100 stations of good picture quality, than 500 that look like crap.

 

[hpman247]

For one reason, they suck because you have a LCD TV, which I believe makes the compression seem worse b/c it is so sharp. The Tv's were made for a digital signal meanin 720p 1080i and 480p. Not 480i. This is the reason your PQ sucks. I own a 51' RPTV and even my SQ is definitely watchable, not HD, but still good.

 

[astrotrf]

For one reason, they suck because you have a LCD TV, which I believe makes the compression seem worse b/c it is so sharp. The Tv's were made for a digital signal meanin 720p 1080i and 480p. Not 480i. This is the reason your PQ sucks. I own a 51' RPTV and even my SQ is definitely watchable, not HD, but still good.

I have an RPTV with Sony's "Digital Reality Creation", which smells just like a fancy line-doubler to me. My wife always thought E* quality was good and didn't understand my complaints.

So the other day, I fired up my old Chaparral Monterey BUD receiver and found a feed of the Fiesta Bowl. I then switched back and forth for her and she has now seen the light! To tell the truth, the difference even amazed *me* - the E* picture is grayish and there is a great loss of sharpness by comparison. Almost makes me want to switch back to the BUD. I kinda wish 4DTV made a DVR ...

And E* was about ten or twelve seconds behind the BUD feed, too, leading me to some speculation about how to win some bets on the play-by-play.

Terry

 

[Greengo]

I have noticed over the last several months how bad most of the SD stations look. I recently have added a 37in Sharp LCD and the SD stations are terrible. Local OTA Digital looks very nice, as well as OTA HD.

I have heard about the over compression issues, Dish, you need to stop adding crap stuff until you get this resolved. I would rather have 100 stations of good picture quality, than 500 that look like crap.

At least someone else is seeing the same thing as I am. I made a post about a month or so ago about the picture quality with a Superdish. One of the replies called me an old fart, an said I should get a new TV. At least now I know someone else is fed up with the crappy picture quality. I am not alone.

 

[LosingPatience]

You are definitely not alone. I have a 58" Pinoeer Elite RPTV and Dish SD looks like pure crap... most of the time.

 

[Tony S]

I have to agree that the PQ is marginal on the SD stations. I have compared cable and over the air stations with the Dish network feeds (side by side on a split screen 42" plasma TV). The E* picture is free of noise artifacts, but the resolution and clarity is worse than my local cable company (I discontinued my cable service many years ago, but they never shut it off), and much much worse than over the air channels which I can receive for free. To me, the picture quality on E* is only slightly better than analog VHS tape. Very soft picture (blurry at times), and not enough color depth, especially in the darker scenes.

That is the main reason why over the years I have decreased my programming package with E*. I used to subscribe to AT180 and several of the premium movie packages. Now, I only have AT120 and HBO (because I like their original programming). I joined Netflix with the money that I saved, and now, I do not watch movies on E* anymore.

My wife, who is not particularly tech savy, always remarks about how much better the picture looks with a DVD or an over the air feed. I am going to wait a little longer to see how E* handles incorporating more HD channels into their lineup, but if the situation does not improve, I will be looking at alternatives.

 

[road_rascal]

I've only had Dish for a month now and I'm extremely disappointed in the picture quality, and I only have a measley 32" Toshiba flat screen. Even the local channels look bad. I wish I would have known about this signal compression, compression artifacts, the "Gibbs effect" and other tech terms before I signed up. At least this message board clued me in on what I'm seeing.

 

[long_time_DNC]

I too have noticed a creeping degradation in the SD PQ. It is particularly noticable on the Travel Channel, which is so soft it's almost on the verge of being fuzzy. 6-7 years ago, before hundreds of channels were available, the PQ really wasn't that big of an issue. E*'s picture quality completely blew away that of my local cable company...now they are about on a par with each other, which makes me feel rather sad.

Goes to show what a combination of corporate greed and indifference results in...

 

[Greengo]

The funny thing is that when I had the Dish 500 the PQ was much better. I got the SD in Sept. 04 to get my locals. PQ went to s_ _ _ after that. I was spoilded in that I had c-band from 1985 to 2001. PQ was super. Oh well, live and learn. I like the ease of operating a Dish Network system, (no moving parts). So much for ease when picture quality SUCKS!!!

 

[butters]

I have Dishnetwork with a Superdish and I have not been happy with picture quality. It is not bad on my 20" Sony Wega and my Panasonic 32", but on my Sony 46" HDTV (SD feed as I don't have any HD package/equipment) it is very pixelated and grainy. It isn't great on my smaller TVs, but better than the big one. I tried to tweak the settings on my TV, but so far I haven't been able to remedy it much. Locals are by far the worst of all the channels. I would love to go HD, but until I can get network or local channels in HD then it is not worth it to me. OTA is also very hard to pull in unless you have a huge antenna and even then it can be spotty in my area so I am stuck with the poor quality. I guess I'll have to live with this unless anyone here has any suggestions.

 

[Soccernut]

I have an RPTV with Sony's "Digital Reality Creation", which smells just like a fancy line-doubler to me. My wife always thought E* quality was good and didn't understand my complaints.

So the other day, I fired up my old Chaparral Monterey BUD receiver and found a feed of the Fiesta Bowl. I then switched back and forth for her and she has now seen the light! To tell the truth, the difference even amazed *me* - the E* picture is grayish and there is a great loss of sharpness by comparison. Almost makes me want to switch back to the BUD. I kinda wish 4DTV made a DVR ...

And E* was about ten or twelve seconds behind the BUD feed, too, leading me to some speculation about how to win some bets on the play-by-play.

Terry

Hey man I'm hurting too. My 4DTV went out 3 months ago so no more C-Band watching, I had C-Band for 20 years. In reality a lot of the channels are going to all kinds of different digital technology on C-Band, that's the way providers down link their signal. I some times wonder how much these digital signals are compressed by the time Dish Net gets them.

 

[Cyclone]

The worst part was, that back in 2000 when I first got Dish Network, it looked great.

I hate to admit it, but they will never go back.

 

[mboy]

I posted complaints months ago about the PQ of dish going into the toilet. This is on a direct view 32" no les. VERY soft. HD is good, regulard SD kinda blows.
Glad I am dumping Dish next month.

 

[tdti1]

Hey man I'm hurting too. My 4DTV went out 3 months ago so no more C-Band watching, I had C-Band for 20 years. In reality a lot of the channels are going to all kinds of different digital technology on C-Band, that's the way providers down link their signal. I some times wonder how much these digital signals are compressed by the time Dish Net gets them.

If your 4d died http://www.ats-electronics.com/ is a great cheap and fast place to fix it, or you can get a new 922 while there on sale. Skyvision or NPS

 

[PILMAN]

I have a 42" plasma EDTV and most of the SD content looks like crap, local looking the worst. I have yet to get a HDTV setbox but all the cartoons are watchable and look great, also techtv looks nice and CNN looks nice but certain things like the science channel are ok and then I can barely watch the travel channel it kills my eyes, NBC local news is god awful someone poke my eyes out with a pencil!

By the way yes regular SD does have the pixelation/grainy picture you aren't the only one with that problem. I thought it was my tv, I thought that was bad then I tried cox cable that was even worst! On my regular 24" Phillips tv in my room everything looks good though. Guess it's time to get a HDTV receiver so at least some channels look good although it's only gonna affect ppv channels and like 10 other channels ;(

 

[Soccernut]

If your 4d died http://www.ats-electronics.com/ is a great cheap and fast place to fix it, or you can get a new 922 while there on sale. Skyvision or NPS

Thanks for the info, it was painful but the big ugly dish is gone

 

[herisson12]

I subscrided to Dish a month ago -- and I am very disappointed by the picture quality.
I was thinking that maybe the quality can be dependent on the receiver we use.
I currently have a 301.

Can there be a difference in PQ because of the receivers? Are there good and bad receivers?

 

[sprintcarcrazy]

I think alot of it has to do with the TV, I have a 61 in sony projection TV and a 510 DVR using S Video and the picture is 2 times better than cable, use to be 10 times better. Some of my other TV's, the picture is crappy looking, and I have 1 301 and some 311's.

It is very noticable that the picture quality has declined over the last few years, and I am guessing they keep squeezing things in so the compression is too much. I am guessing they figured most people would never notice. My wife will watch a network broadcast on a fuzzy distant local and not care, even if all it takes is a click to get it OTA in HD on the same TV. Once she sees it in HD she loves it, but the next week, she will again start off on the fuzzy distant local.