Scott: Dish HD Quality Question

[MikeD-C05]

I have been with DISH for over 10 and a half years myself with no commitment. I agree that the sd and HD quality needs to improve when they migrate to all mpeg 4 . IF not I too will look elsewhere for my video. I hope that Directv will improve their pq as well when they launch all of those Hd channels in September. Their pq is very bad on all their channels.

I will probably be adding a Directv sd receiver come September so my wife can keep watching "Passions" when it migrates to their service exclusively. She wants it and is willing to pay about $50.00 a month to watch it. IF they do improve their service I can always change back over to Directv exclusively. But I don't think they will improve that much. DISH has always had better pq than Directv in my opinion and their mpeg 4 plans( one 18 " sat dish for all channels that Dish provides on their service) sound better to me than Directv 's 5 lnb dish and ku band sats. Besides I really don't want to fool with Directv's screwed up receivers , since they sound like they are going through the same growing pains Dish had with the origional dish players in 99 and 2000.

 

[RTK]

We watched Doom last nite on Max-HD and the picture quality was poor. I should have recorded a clip to look at the the resolution and bit rate but visually it wasn't too good.

 

[kb7oeb]

I've had DBS for 10 years now and other than the addition of HD itself I don't think I've ever seen PQ improve long term, its been a gradual degradation.

 

[whatchel1]

Sats

I have been with DISH for over 10 and a half years myself with no commitment. I agree that the sd and HD quality needs to improve when they migrate to all mpeg 4 . IF not I too will look elsewhere for my video. I hope that Directv will improve their pq as well when they launch all of those Hd channels in September. Their pq is very bad on all their channels.

I will probably be adding a Directv sd receiver come September so my wife can keep watching "Passions" when it migrates to their service exclusively. She wants it and is willing to pay about $50.00 a month to watch it. IF they do improve their service I can always change back over to Directv exclusively. But I don't think they will improve that much. DISH has always had better pq than Directv in my opinion and their mpeg 4 plans( one 18 " sat dish for all channels that Dish provides on their service) sound better to me than Directv 's 5 lnb dish and ku band sats. Besides I really don't want to fool with Directv's screwed up receivers , since they sound like they are going through the same growing pains Dish had with the origional dish players in 99 and 2000.

The additional sats that D* is putting up are KA birds. At present DBS is on KU. 18"dish is really a mis-statement. Unless there were a single sat postion that has everything on it. The Dish 500 is a 2 sat 21" dish.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I am talking about the team summit speech that Charlie Ergen said last May. He said all new mepg 4 services of ALL existing channels, locals, hd , internationals would be received on one 18" sat dish over one coax cable into your house. I heard the audio from that team summit and listened to it several times and it did say ONE 18"SAT DISH.

 

[RTK]

Not sure whats going on but during lunch today I had someone stop by my home to checkout the vip622 he has scheduled for install next week. The picture quality on HBO-HD showing THE ISLAND was unacceptably poor with excessive macroblocking. Are they reshuffling channels/transponders or is there anything else happening this week to result in the change? Fortunately I had some HD recordings saved on the DVR which were of pretty good quality.

 

[RTK]

ugh. I just called DN what a waste of time and aggravation. The person I spoke with maintained nothing has changed with the picture quality of their HD channels (specifically HBO and SHOW) and that he has no reason to believe their is any issue as I am the first person he has heard commenting on the issue of HD picture quality.

 

[MikeD-C05]

Try writing to dishquality@echostar.com and tell them what you are seeing. They will respond and write back to you.

 

[RandallA]

ugh. I just called DN what a waste of time and aggravation. The person I spoke with maintained nothing has changed with the picture quality of their HD channels (specifically HBO and SHOW) and that he has no reason to believe their is any issue as I am the first person he has heard commenting on the issue of HD picture quality.

You're not alone buddy, I'm seeing what you're seeing. The quality on DiscoveryHD, HBOHD, ShowtimeHD and some others is crap right now. This was done last week or a couple of weeks ago when they moved some HD channels and they now have lowered the bitrate on these channels. It's a temporary move but for how long do we have to put up with this crap. It's not like they're gonna give you a discount.

 

[kstuart]

I wish people would put their TV in their signature.

Far more relevant than what switches are in their setup.

I'd be willing to bet that anyone seeing problems has a 50-inch or larger set.

 

[RTK]

Try writing to dishquality@echostar.com and tell them what you are seeing. They will respond and write back to you.

Thanks for the suggestion, I took your advice.

 

[richiephx]

I noticed lower picture quality too...I sent an email to dishquality too.

 

[brad1138]

I wish people would put their TV in their signature.

Far more relevant than what switches are in their setup.

I'd be willing to bet that anyone seeing problems has a 50-inch or larger set.

I have seen the degradation over the last few years, first Voom channel qual dropped, you could definitely see a difference between Voom chans and Discovery, If you really don't think you can see a difference, take a look at the demo channel (for those of use with 61.5 dishes) It always looks a lot crisper. As stated elsewhere why would they lie and say the problems with the Fiber optic line. It is hard to describe but I sometimes see kind of a faint twinkling in each pixel in the downresed chans. That really isn't a great description but I can't explain it any other way.

 

[kstuart]

As I suspected, you have a 61-inch set, of significantly better quality than the average HD set.

Also, for many years, people have been "spoiled", because there were very few HD channels. so it was easy to provide those handful of channels with the sort of bandwidth approaching that of, say, HD-DVD.

Now, within the next 18 months, most of the current SD "cable" channels will be launching HD versions, and all the customers will be asking E* to add all those HD channels (and all their local HD channels and HD RSNs). Even with MPEG4 and new satellites, I doubt that the PQ for those with very large sets will ever equal that from the early days. And, the best PQ has always come from optical disks and that is no different with HD.

Dicovery HD Theater will be replaced this fall by an HD simulcast of "Discovery Channel" and I really think that HD-Net will die in 2 or 3 years, because it will be no longer relevant when every channel has an HD version.

When I read the HD TV Displays Forums, there are far more posts about 32-inch and 37-inch sets than about larger sets, and I expect that the average Forum reader has a larger set than Average Joe Sixpack.

So I can't imagine that more than a tiny fraction of customers will be able to notice any of these differences.

I've had DBS for 10 years now and other than the addition of HD itself I don't think I've ever seen PQ improve long term, its been a gradual degradation.

I've had Dish for 10 years, and at several different points, the PQ improved significantly. The problem is that the TV display quality has improved steadily over the 10 years.

Here is a good example. I'm sure all of us have been annoyed at seeing upconverted 4x3 SD material on HD channels. Well, that material is near-perfect 480i, and it still looks like crap. Why? Because the resolution of HD sets make it look like crap.

 

[Spike]

As I suspected, you have a 61-inch set, of significantly better quality than the average HD set.

Also, for many years, people have been "spoiled", because there were very few HD channels. so it was easy to provide those handful of channels with the sort of bandwidth approaching that of, say, HD-DVD.

Now, within the next 18 months, most of the current SD "cable" channels will be launching HD versions, and all the customers will be asking E* to add all those HD channels (and all their local HD channels and HD RSNs). Even with MPEG4 and new satellites, I doubt that the PQ for those with very large sets will ever equal that from the early days. And, the best PQ has always come from optical disks and that is no different with HD.

Dicovery HD Theater will be replaced this fall by an HD simulcast of "Discovery Channel" and I really think that HD-Net will die in 2 or 3 years, because it will be no longer relevant when every channel has an HD version.

When I read the HD TV Displays Forums, there are far more posts about 32-inch and 37-inch sets than about larger sets, and I expect that the average Forum reader has a larger set than Average Joe Sixpack.

So I can't imagine that more than a tiny fraction of customers will be able to notice any of these differences.


I've had Dish for 10 years, and at several different points, the PQ improved significantly. The problem is that the TV display quality has improved steadily over the 10 years.

Here is a good example. I'm sure all of us have been annoyed at seeing upconverted 4x3 SD material on HD channels. Well, that material is near-perfect 480i, and it still looks like crap. Why? Because the resolution of HD sets make it look like crap.

Kstuart,

You bring a very unique point of view to these threads. REFRESHING!
:

 

[brad1138]

Discovery HD Theater will be replaced this fall by an HD simulcast of "Discovery Channel"

You know this for sure? What would be the point? You still have an SD and HD "Discovery" chan. I never watch the SD chan. but a quick check of the guide looks like they don't have the nice HD specials like "Planet earth" Or "Sunrise Earth" etc... Discovery HD is one of my fav chans, I hope that isn't true.

If it is true then there will be something else to complian about.

 

[navychop]

Maybe (I hope) the new Discovery Channel will be an SD version of Discovery HD. Then it's just a name change but the HD stays good and the SD gets better. Not much point in seeing Planet Earth in SD, IMHO.

 

[primetimeguy]

I think the issue is right now Discovery and Discovery HD Theater show different programming. Not sure which one will go away but the change will make the SD channel and HD channel have the same programming from what I understand.

 

[kstuart]

One would think that the New Discovery HD would retain a few of the HD-only shows, and these would be converted to SD for the SD channel, together with statements like "get HD to see this as it was originally intended".

 

[kb7oeb]

Here is a good example. I'm sure all of us have been annoyed at seeing upconverted 4x3 SD material on HD channels. Well, that material is near-perfect 480i, and it still looks like crap. Why? Because the resolution of HD sets make it look like crap.

I don't think it actually is near perfect 480i, I have a ATSC box connected to my bedroom tv via s-video and I can tell when a station is upconverting or in HD. When its in HD (downconverted to 480i by my box) the colors are brighter and the picture is sharper.