Turbo PQ
- Thread starter danknapp76
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I received a message on my 722 a few days ago that said "You've been turbo charged!"Anecdotally, the picture quality seems to be about the same, but I have noticed less macroblocking and picture breakup. Maybe there is a real improvement there.
The picture on CBS C has been great. The channel is doing a lot of SEC football re-runs, apparently from games originally done in CBS HD (at least the recent ones). This bodes well for SEC fans, since CBS just re-upped with the SEC for 15 years (football and basketball). I'll be able to watch some of those top games I missed in the past due to not being able to watch 2 games at once. The SEC now needs to get ABC/ESPN to sign on again.
But that's enough about the SEC, the best college football conference in the country...
Fitzie
Anecdotally, the picture quality seems to be about the same, but I have noticed less macroblocking and picture breakup. Maybe there is a real improvement there.
The picture on CBS C has been great. The channel is doing a lot of SEC football re-runs, apparently from games originally done in CBS HD (at least the recent ones). This bodes well for SEC fans, since CBS just re-upped with the SEC for 15 years (football and basketball). I'll be able to watch some of those top games I missed in the past due to not being able to watch 2 games at once. The SEC now needs to get ABC/ESPN to sign on again.
But that's enough about the SEC, the best college football conference in the country...
Fitzie
I agree 100% on CBS C. I've been watching a ton of that and I'm getting very fired up for the season.
Anecdotally, the picture quality seems to be about the same, but I have noticed less macroblocking and picture breakup. Maybe there is a real improvement there.
The picture on CBS C has been great. The channel is doing a lot of SEC football re-runs, apparently from games originally done in CBS HD (at least the recent ones). This bodes well for SEC fans, since CBS just re-upped with the SEC for 15 years (football and basketball). I'll be able to watch some of those top games I missed in the past due to not being able to watch 2 games at once. The SEC now needs to get ABC/ESPN to sign on again.
But that's enough about the SEC, the best college football conference in the country...
Fitzie
Really? Every time I have turned it on there, even games from last year, have been stretched. They looked horrible. Even just a couple days ago they were being stretched. These were games that I watched last year in HD.
We are almost certainly seeing a variant of what social scientists call the "Hawthorne Effect" --
"The Hawthorne effect is a form of reactivity, and describes a temporary change to behavior or performance in response to a change in the environmental conditions, with the response being typically an improvement. The term was coined in 1955 by Henry A. Landsberger[1] when analyzing older experiments from 1924-1932 at the Hawthorne Works (outside Chicago). Landsberger defined the Hawthorne effect as:
* a short-term improvement caused by observing worker performance.
Earlier researchers had concluded the short-term improvement was caused by teamwork when workers saw themselves as part of a study group or team. Others have broadened the definition to mean that people's behavior and performance change following any new or increased attention. Hence, the term Hawthorne effect no longer has a specific definition."
The real test is how many people would have noticed/reported an improvement in HD PQ if Dish had not made such a big deal about "TurboCharging"?
Talon Dancer
"The Hawthorne effect is a form of reactivity, and describes a temporary change to behavior or performance in response to a change in the environmental conditions, with the response being typically an improvement. The term was coined in 1955 by Henry A. Landsberger[1] when analyzing older experiments from 1924-1932 at the Hawthorne Works (outside Chicago). Landsberger defined the Hawthorne effect as:
* a short-term improvement caused by observing worker performance.
Earlier researchers had concluded the short-term improvement was caused by teamwork when workers saw themselves as part of a study group or team. Others have broadened the definition to mean that people's behavior and performance change following any new or increased attention. Hence, the term Hawthorne effect no longer has a specific definition."
The real test is how many people would have noticed/reported an improvement in HD PQ if Dish had not made such a big deal about "TurboCharging"?
Talon Dancer
I would have said that
My 4th test was done side by side with D*'s MPEG4 HDs, and I noticed on some channels the E*'s actually had a little less motion artifacts, but on others the results remained identical to the 1st and 2nd tests.
I don't consider such minor difference as improvement though. But what I can say is, in all practicality, MPEG4 HD PQs are about equal between E* and D* for now.
Note that this "turbo-code" refers to error correction not improvements in PQ in the absence of errors. So the variable reports in this thread of PQ since "turbocharging" make sense if you assume that some subscribers' location/equipment setup (e.g. dish peaking etc) make them more susceptible to errors in the transmission thus requiring more and/or better error correction -- particularly the reports w.r.t. reduced motion artifacts. Hence for some the PQ may actually be better due to error correction while others see little or no difference.
OTH simply knowing that something should have changed can cause people to expect and often perceive changes, that are nearly invisible to others.
Talon Dancer
Isn't the operative word here ALLOW? Dish may use this extra bandwidth to ALLOW more "actual content" OR more channels per TP or both. And how Dish uses this extra bandwidth may change over time.
I'm not that technically savy on this subject, but it would seem that Dish would be unable to increase the bit level or resolution until ALL the HD subs' receivers were "turbocharged". Has that happened yet? IOW how does an receiver that has not been turbocharged handle the signal that was transmitted with the turbocharged error correction and also took advantage of the extra bandwidth by increasing the bit level or resolution? Is the PQ on that receiver the worse, the same or better?
BTW has anyone measured higher bit levels and/or higher resolution since being "turbocharged"?
Talon Dancer
Bit rate is not the only thing to determine PQ, software improvement may help too. A $500 DVD player can display a much better picture than a $30 DVD player, even though they may use the same DVD disk.
I am not sayging that is what happened to the "Turbo Charged" software, but it could. Still I don't think the "Turbo Charge" impoved HD PQ based on my test.
I am not sayging that is what happened to the "Turbo Charged" software, but it could. Still I don't think the "Turbo Charge" impoved HD PQ based on my test.
Just because it costs more does not make it better. Poor analogy.
Yes it is, a DVD player at $30 MSRP cannot possible be better than one with $500 MSRP
