SPS Satellite Programming Service Inc.

[kirara386]

I could have lived with the picture quality of the reuplinks. The only one my husband wanted was Fox News and I got tired of paying $32/month for one channel. I did subscribe to the movie packages a couple of times and the picture quality was excellent on those, but I find I don't usually have enough free time to justify paying for those. That's why in the end my husband and I decided to just drop everything since we couldn't just sub to the channel we wanted.

 

[tradewinds]

I agree, that Charlie guy when I had DISH many years ago and once watch his Charlie Chat, I said, this guy is planning on ruining everything in this country concerning satellite. He and his sidekick needs to be taken out to pasture. I am baffle how America allowed these two pizza companies and cable to take away all the quality programming. What is wrong with event organizer getting paid directly via us than to be stranglehold by pizza and cable companies with their terms, contracts etc. This is rubbish!

 

[tvropro]

NPS G3 Pictures

Here are 2 pictures from NPS's reuplinks on G3 taken from my Sharp AQUOS 1080P HDTV using S video out on the 4DTV. This is what the complaint is about. Look at the peoples faces for digital artifacts.


This is not the case on the other 4DTV master channels. (see post on other channels below)

 

[tradewinds]

that is horrible!

 

[tvropro]

What's really funny is some people say they don't see the G3 artifacts . Granted I took the pictures from about 2 feet away but still it is well seen even at regular viewing distances 8 feet or so.

If you can tolerate that then the G3 channels are for you. Otherwise go with all the others especially the masters they are great.

Here are a few of the other channels (1st gen Masters and W5 HITS second gen) I've taken pictures of in the past. Same HDTV and S video output as with the G3 pictures above. These were taken using my tripod at 3 feet away.

In a nutshell...Don't sell the 4DTV's picture quality short or only base a decisions on the poor NPS reuplink's. Even though currently I don't have a sub to the movies channel's. The picture quality is the same as you see here for the Disney Masters, EXCELLENT!

 

[Kb Cool]

that is horrible!

Yes, looks about like DISHSD. And yet 10 million people don't complain.

 

[tvropro]

Yes, looks about like DISHSD. And yet 10 million people don't complain.

Don't make sense to me how people can watch pizza quality. You can see the plan though with pizza. Butcher SD till it looks so bad that there HD looks great. Then slowly compress the crap out of the HD stuff till you end up with widescreen SD quality. They won't complain

 

[Kb Cool]

Yes, that appears to be their plan. Hopefully a PQ war breaks out between the providers before it happens.

 

[tvropro]

A few more comparisons

These were just taken using my tripod at 3.5 feet. The first picture is on IMO NPS's best G3 looking channel American Movie Classics. This is somewhat tolerable when the picture stands still. The next two are of Starchoice's Knowledge Network (FP mode) out of Canada. This is to compare the excellent job Shaw (Starchoice) does on Anik F1R with MPEG 2 Digicipher.

If NPS wanted to do it right they could. HITS and StarChoice does second gen's very well using the same 19510 3/4 FEC that NPS does. NPS's original update plans were to go to 29270 3/4 if they would have done that they would have had a real winner. Better bitrate than HITS and Starchoice. I really wish Mike Mountford at NPS would have shelled out the Do Ray me and made it happen

One thing that boggles my mind is NPS is running 19510 3/4, so is HITS and Shaw. Why does NPS look worse? If I have to guess it has to do with Crawfords engineers not knowing what they are doing, and possibly because NPS's encrypter is very old. Shaw runs less channels in there mux 8 I believe. HITS is right up there with NPS's capacity 11 or 12.

 

[tvropro]

Yes, that appears to be their plan. Hopefully a PQ war breaks out between the providers before it happens.

I see all the HD that that is provided to the consumer (including OTA) going in the dumps totally in the next year or so.

 

[Inno]

Sad.........very very sad but I can only agree with that summation. Today it is more about quantity than quality. Proof of that is in mp3 players and "swiss army" cell phones which do everything but don't do a really good job of any one thing.

My 4DTV sub just expired and I am really torn as to what to do. The main reason for it was DIY network which is now available on Bell TV. Some of the other channels I watched are available FTA (RFD etc.) I'm going to talk it over with the wife, maybe we'll sub to some movies or something for her............If it were just me in the house it would be 4DTV, FTA and OTA and nothing else.