The PQ is back, the love is back

[mike123abc]

Well this was supposed to be a temporary situation anyways. They switched to this brand of encoder because they will provide the MPEG-4 compression upgrade...

 

[gutter]

Well this was supposed to be a temporary situation anyways. They switched to this brand of encoder because they will provide the MPEG-4 compression upgrade...

Mike... I am sticking with VOOM because I hope you are right. But that was projected to take until the 4th quarter to happen if then. I really hope it is temporary and they kick some a** at Harmonic, the manufacturer of the new encoders. I view through DVI connection and I am very disappointed compared to a few weeks ago.

 

[jgantert]

If Chuck paid for these encoders...he ought to get his money back.

I agree. Not nearly as good. I still think UHD looks like crap. Also, From Dusk Till Dawn 3 looks horrible during the motion scenes (which is nearly the entire movie!).

Oh well... I'm sure they'll fix it eventually, tho... Atleast they are still in business.

-John

 

[ChrisDuncan]

I thought the PQ looked very good tonight on most channels. I watched RushHD for about an hour and was really impressed. In fact, all the Voom originals were very sharp. I noticed that some of the premium channels were still lacking though. While HBOHD looked very sharp, HBOHDW looked soft and washed out, much like all the channels have the past few weeks. Tonight was the best picture quality for me in several weeks though, so I believe they're moving in the right direction.

I remember when I first got Voom in December I loved showing it off to people. I have a projector and a 9' wide screen, and Voom was just perfect on it. But the last few weeks I probably would have been more likely to show off a DVD than Voom. So I was pleasantly surprised by the PQ on most of the channels tonight.

 

[DarrellP]

I recorded Picture This today and am just playing it back, what a piece of crap! Smearing, soft, putty face throughout. This is getting ridiculous, I forgot and recorded Voom instead of Dish today, that's my last mistake of that kind I make. GET OFF YOUR BUTT, VOOM, GIVE US A GOOD PICTURE BACK, I AM GETTING SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK OF THIS CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[shanewalker]

I was pleased to see "T3:Rise of the Machines" on CinemaxHD last night, I needed some brainless eye candy after a hard day at the office...until I got the same nasty pixellation/mosaic artifacting when the camera panned or folks were running or something exploded (which tends to happen alot in an action movie). Once again, when the image was relatively static it was nice, so it's got to be an encoding issue. What gives? I tuned to UltraHD for comparison and it looked really good...are they recompressing the premium movie channels?

 

[jgantert]

I was pleased to see "T3:Rise of the Machines" on CinemaxHD last night, I needed some brainless eye candy after a hard day at the office...until I got the same nasty pixellation/mosaic artifacting when the camera panned or folks were running or something exploded (which tends to happen alot in an action movie). Once again, when the image was relatively static it was nice, so it's got to be an encoding issue. What gives? I tuned to UltraHD for comparison and it looked really good...are they recompressing the premium movie channels?

No action on UltraHD, silly!

-John

 

[bookwalk]

Reboot your receiver(s) and see if that makes a difference.

How does rebooting the receiver improve PQ? And is that only on HD or on both?
How often to reboot--and how?

I am a new VOOMER and have only rebooted maybe once--I think there is a soft and hard reboot--so which would I do and how?

Thanks for this tip.

 

[Wayne88]

Posted by Bookwalk: I am a new VOOMER and have only rebooted maybe once--I think ther

Hi Bookwalk, I am new to Voom so I also don't know how rebooting affects picture quality but I can tell you that a "soft reboot" is performed by holding in the I/O button on the front of the receiver until the image on your screen disappears (and it will restart). A "hard reboot" (just like your modem or router) is peformed by unplugging the receiver from its electrical source and waiting for 15-30 seconds for remaining capacitance (sp?) (juice) to leave the device. I believe it might take up to 25 minutes for the receiver to re-acquire the programing information (although I am not sure about this).
The more knowlegeable people can answer the question about whether having the receiver connected to the telephone line speeds up the process.
On an unrelated note, Voom customer service has done a great job orchestrating my installation (March 13th), OTA antenna upgrade, and replacement of one of my 3 receivers. I am thrilled with the local channels provided by the newest OTA, the HD satellite PQ and (for the most part) the SD satellite PQ. Thanks Voom!!!!!

Wayne