so its been what.. about a week now...

[Darin]

Actually, I watched some of DiscHD last night, and even its PQ seemed reduced quite a bit. Not sure what was up with that.

But the whole point is, I understand compromises have to be made when you're limited in bandwidth. As long as the compromises are short term, I don't think it's a big issue. In fact, I was forgiving enough in the AVS thread that a lot of people thought I'd stick up for DirecTV regardless. But what I don't like is the insinuation that it's the customers fault if we don't get what we want. But I guess if the end result is that DirecTV now recognizes that quality is important to their customers, the whole excersize was worth it.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Thanks Longhorn for posting that, if you will notice in my origional post that I said that after TNT-HD and FOX HD we would have no additional HD channels added until after football season.

The reason I said that was because I heard the same thing you did and it was because of people complaigning about the PQ of the HD channels that channels such as Starz HD and Cinemax HD would not be coming until after football was done.

Talking about HD is like talking about sex, no matter how much you get you still want more, and sometimes just like sex, HD quality can be good, although sometimes no matter how good the sex (or in this case HD) is sometimes you just think it can be better.

 

[jabroni]

Personally, I want FOX HD sooner rather than later. Currently I have waivers for this channel and I would like to see the east and west coast feeds of the NFL games!

 

[rad]

Personally, I want FOX HD sooner rather than later. Currently I have waivers for this channel and I would like to see the east and west coast feeds of the NFL games!

No guarentee that you'd get the games. I have the WCBS-DT feed and it will get blacked out for some games.

 

[bcushman]

Talking about HD is like talking about sex, no matter how much you get you still want more, and sometimes just like sex, HD quality can be good, although sometimes no matter how good the sex (or in this case HD) is sometimes you just think it can be better.

And....for those of us in the senior citizen catgegory, MORE HD is even more important

 

[Alan Gordon]

And....for those of us in the senior citizen catgegory, MORE HD is even more important

Or the young Christian for that matter...

~Alan

 

[Alan Gordon]

Actually, I watched some of DiscHD last night, and even its PQ seemed reduced quite a bit. Not sure what was up with that.

I've felt over the last few months that DiscoveryHD Theater is kind of a crap shoot. I've seen several programs that I felt were what HD is supposed to look like, but I've also seen quite a few programs on Discovery where it seemed really compressed and/or pixelated. I figured it was probably the difference in HD cameras being used. That being said I turned on DHDT last night for a minute and felt it was an alright picture, but not as "eye-popping" as some of their programs.

However, Slacker saying that HDNet PQ is bad is amazing to me as it seems to be one of the BEST if not THE BEST channels as far as PQ goes... but then that's just me...

~Alan

 

[pradike]

I've felt over the last few months that DiscoveryHD Theater is kind of a crap shoot.... However, Slacker saying that HDNet PQ is bad is amazing to me as it seems to be one of the BEST if not THE BEST channels as far as PQ goes... but then that's just me...

~Alan

Nope. It's not just you. I still see a great HD PQ with HDNet. Its' the HDNet Movies HD channel that is great 85% of the time, marginal 10% of the time, and pixelated/shakey 5% of the time. Discovery seems to have these same ratios of performance (for now). I have seen some improvement in the past week or so.

As D*TV readjusts the channels, adds new ones, and prepares for new bandwidth next year, these things will probably continue intermittently until the NFL Ticket bandwidth is "freed up/reconfigured" in January.

 

[Alan Gordon]

Nope. It's not just you. I still see a great HD PQ with HDNet. Its' the HDNet Movies HD channel that is great 85% of the time, marginal 10% of the time, and pixelated/shakey 5% of the time. Discovery seems to have these same ratios of performance (for now). I have seen some improvement in the past week or so.

As D*TV readjusts the channels, adds new ones, and prepares for new bandwidth next year, these things will probably continue intermittently until the NFL Ticket bandwidth is "freed up/reconfigured" in January.

Another thing I failed to mention was that at 1:55 A.M. sometime last week, I turned on HDNet Movies and "Bye, Bye Birdie" was playing and it seemed to be quite sharp compared to most movies played on HDNet Movies. Could it have been the PQ of the film print, or could DirecTV have been monkeying around with the compression?!

~Alan

 

[mx6bfast]

Talking about HD is like talking about sex, no matter how much you get you still want more, and sometimes just like sex, HD quality can be good, although sometimes no matter how good the sex (or in this case HD) is sometimes you just think it can be better.

I'm a newlywed & have HD, so I got the best of both worlds

It is good to see that D* knows that we do care about the PQ. I just hope once the Spaceway sat's go up they will also work on the SD channels PQ.

 

[Mike Greer]

Also for those of you that keep bitching about bad picture quality you just fu*ked yourself out of getting more HDTV channels before football season ends so all of us should thank them for their good work helping all of us.

Now that is the funniest thing I've read in a long long time!

I'd like to thank all of you that didn't complain for fu**ing me out of my HD Tivo. If more people would have complained long ago when DirecTV first started watering down their HD maybe DirecTV would still have HDTV.

Besides, DirecTV told me several times that I was the only person to complain about the picture quality.

If I did screw all of you out of a few more light-weight HDTV channels I apologize - I didn't realize that DirecTV would put off a bunch of HDTV Lite channels because of my one complaint.

I'd like to thank DirecTV (and those of you that didn't complain - Oh wait they told me I was the only one..) for forcing me to switch to Comcast where I get more channels that are really HDTV... And it's costing me less to boot!

 

[Mike Greer]

Very well said Darin - you may want to put on that flame suit... People seem to really like watered down HDTV in these parts!

Well, I'm going to take the contrary POV on this... if they really were going to add even more channels before the end of the season, THANK GOD everyone bitched. They squeezed 3 channels on one transponder, which DID sacrifice PQ. They would have had to have done a lot more squeezing to add many more channels - I'd rather they wait until they can show the channels properly than try and get them a few months earlier.

DirecTV is the one who fu*ked up here... I think people would have been much more forgiving if they had only sacrificed PQ on Sundays. There's a compromise that has to be reached, I think we all understand that. But there are six days a week that they have lots of leftover bandwidth to add channels. If they had done it the right way, it wouldn't have been a big deal. Hell, I bet most people wouldn't even be upset if these additional channels were added, with a clause that they wouldn't be available on certain times on Sundays until the end of Sunday Ticket.

Don't blame the customers for demanding a quality product, blame DirecTV for screwing up the handling of the issue. They could have done much better.

 

[Barney]

I'm a newlywed & have HD, so I got the best of both worlds

Still tan under the finger right? Get ready for the ring in the nose & shopping programming in HD

 

[jdk]

Now that's starting to get a bit ridiculous. "We aren't going to give our customers the product they want unless they're really nice to us. If they complain, we'll make them wait even longer". We aren't children, we are customers who pay $50-$100 or more a month for their service. It's up to them to figure out how to provide the most desirable product to offer the market. It's up to us to decide whether or not to buy it. They should be THANKFUL for getting feedback. Most companies spend a lot of money to find out what works and doesn't work for the market.

I agree completely - it reminds me of a joke spread around the support people at a company I worked for a few years ago:

"If it weren't for all these darn customers, we'd have no problems."

It's a cute joke - and as long as it is taken as a joke, it means nothing. But when it appeared the management team started taking an attitude like this seriously, I decided it was time to move on...

Well guess what - that division did eventually get their wish! They have no more customers (and thus are no longer is business).

DirecTV needs to make sure they keep in mind the #1 and #2 rules of business...

 

[Darin]

Besides, DirecTV told me several times that I was the only person to complain about the picture quality.

Well, that much you should have expected. All calls to customer service should always be prefaced with "I know you are going to tell me I'm the first one to report this, and I also know that's not true. Lets save eachother some time and not even have that discussion."

Or maybe DirecTV could just put it into their menu system before you ever get transfered to an agent: "Thank you for calling DirecTV. Because we know that you are the first out of our 13 million customers to report this issue, please stay on the line so we can find out what your issue is".



Actually, I've had good luck with their customer service, but I do know this IS an issue with them. I don't know if they are supposed to make us believe all of our problems are isolated, of if they are just that slow and/or inept at keeping their CSRs up to date about known problems.

 

[JerryVolunteer]

I keep hearing everyone talk about FOXHD & TNTHD...Does anyone know anything about ABCHD? I hope it comes soon where I can see MNF in HD.

 

[CWS_kahuna]

I keep hearing everyone talk about FOXHD & TNTHD...Does anyone know anything about ABCHD? I hope it comes soon where I can see MNF in HD.

It would be wonderful if ABC was also released but I think it won't be released until Jan 05 at the sametime ESPN 2 HD is suppose to kickoff.

 

[slacker9876]

However, Slacker saying that HDNet PQ is bad is amazing to me as it seems to be one of the BEST if not THE BEST channels as far as PQ goes... but then that's just me...

~Alan

Yeah, you're right I meant HDNet Movies, I must have been distracted while typing. HDNet is top notch. HDNet Movies, is looking more like analog OTA from the 80's I tried to watch Friday the 13th and during all the kill scenes (in the dark) it was just compression artifact city. Either way I should not base this upon the one movie a month I try to watch on there. My NFL ST is top shelf, PQ ... looks as good as OTA and that is what matters to me.

 

[LonghornXP]

I said what I said for a reason. I made it sound so harsh that some of you would say how bad it really was. Well that is what the picture quality posts sound like to me. I will say this one more time and take it however you want but its the truth regardless of your beliefs.

The fact is if you don't like DirecTV leave them they don't need your business. Secondly no company has to provide you anything in HDTV at all. Secondly the reason DirecTV has added all those local channels is because we the 5 percent of high end users are just that. They are a business to make money and they have to cater first and foremost to the other 95% of their average customers. If you want high end go with Voom and we are lucky to have them around but it does show that creating a business with a market of 5% with brand new technology and high prices and very picky people it might be hard to make money and Voom is having much trouble making money and keeping customers.

But right now they are giving you 6 free months of the HD Package for free because they know they are having problems. Also just to answer the question some of you have asked about why the picture quality problems are everyday the answer to that is that they are using that bandwidth for testing.

Right now all of the HD channels that they are working on getting for us customers is being tested right now and they are working with different things to help with bandwidth but just because they have them testing doesn't mean they have or will get a contract. But after football season they will get better because the bandwidth for football is being put aside all week so all the new HD channels are using everything else and after football season is over all those channels will be spread out over the I think the 4 xponders that they put aside for HD football. Also I've been told that DirecTV is going to show all HD football games next year but just mirroring the games from the local HD stations because most if not all HD games will be shown in the top 30-35 markets. So with that said those customers with NFL Sunday Ticket will need a new dish but they can gain local HD channels if in the top 30 markets but this would be a big step for them.

But just be open minded and understand that we still are a 5% market and we will have kinks to work out. I hate to say this because yes every company should have prepared for this but I look at this problem as a good thing. We now have more HDTV available and companies want to add this but they don't have room. That is a good thing if you look at this like I do. More HDTV programming is a good thing even if we don't have it today. Last time I checked even if DirecTV had tons of room if they have no HD programming available to fill it it wouldn't make any difference would it. This shows that HDTV is moving forward.

Now just to clarify I'm not supporting nor bashing any companies choices but we sadly to say still have to remember that these choices are expensive choices and only benfit a very small percent of the subscriber base. If you can't give a company 3 months to work on things you won't give any company time. I bet the same people who complain that DirecTV adds many new HD channels but picture quality is bad and they switch to say Time Warner Cable and say picture quallty is great but they never add new channels and their bills keep going up and their HD box sucks and never reboots. There will always be something wrong and that is what I'm getting sick of reading. Forums are to help people for real problems and short term picture quality problems aren't worth going over and over with. If DirecTV is still doing this for more than 6 months which they won't then yes its a problem and every customer has a right to complain. Also SD locals is done and most if not all customers are happy with them and want them. I may want my SD locals to look better but last time I checked they still look much better than analog cable on my 53" widescreen HDTV set.

Also InHD is being worked on for those of you that want to know.

 

[Alan Gordon]

Yeah, you're right I meant HDNet Movies, I must have been distracted while typing. HDNet is top notch. HDNet Movies, is looking more like analog OTA from the 80's I tried to watch Friday the 13th and during all the kill scenes (in the dark) it was just compression artifact city. Either way I should not base this upon the one movie a month I try to watch on there. My NFL ST is top shelf, PQ ... looks as good as OTA and that is what matters to me.

That makes me feel a lot better about your eyesight!

I also watched "Friday The 13th" (believe it or not, that was the first time I saw the whole thing.. well, I missed three minutes this time, but I saw that part before) and was quite pleased with the daytime scenes as they appeared quite crisp (maybe not HD crisp, but DVD crisp at least) but the night scenes (a good part of the movie BTW) did have a ton of compression done to it.

~Alan