Washington, DC HD Locals - HD Lite

[aufbau]

Response from Dish about HD Quality for HD Locals and Starz-HD

I received a response today (one week after my original message) from dishquality@echostar.com regarding the poor quality of the Washington D.C. area HD locals and Starz-HD...Here is the response:

Thank you for expressing your concerns and interest in DISH Network. Customer input is an important tool in our efforts to continuously improve the quality of the DISH Network service.

We are aware of the smearing on STARZHD and currently working towards a resolution. Interestingly enough on August 23rd we had a customer write to us that STARZHD looked better. Would you agree? Your information on Washington DC is very helpful! We did share it with our engineers. We are working very hard to resolve these HD issues. It is our number one priority right now. HD technology is relatively new and we are constantly trying to improve. We will keep looking into the issue and trying to get it resolved. And as for your last statement, “I hope that Dish Network continues to improve in the area of HD by offering more and more HD programming in the future, but (more importantly) I hope that the picture quality of the HD channels does not get any worse than it is now, and hopefully it actually improves.” You are exactly right, this is what we are striving for and it will improve.

At DISH Network we appreciate the time customers take to email their audio/video quality concerns. Thank you for your patience, information, understanding about our HD product, and for being a valued customer.

EchoStar Satellite LLC
Quality Assurance Department
dishquality@echostar.com

 

[dslate69]

I received my reply yesterday as well...

Dear Mr. *****,

Thank you for expressing your concerns and interest in DISH Network. Customer input is an important tool in our efforts to continuously improve the quality of the DISH Network service.

Thank you for your information. We are looking into the issues on the HD Locals. It is our number one priority. HD technology is relatively new and we are constantly trying to improve. We will keep looking into the issue and trying to get it resolved. It will be a matter of getting the problem identified and then corrected. Unfortunately, sometimes these things take awhile and then other times it is a matter of a few minutes. We are very glad to hear you enjoyed NFL-HD. We are very excited to have this channel on board.

At DISH Network we appreciate the time customers take to email their audio/video quality concerns. Thank you for your patience and for being a valued customer.

EchoStar Satellite LLC
Quality Assurance Department
dishquality@echostar.com

 

[woljr]

What is the difference between HD LITE and 720P ???

 

[Cyclone]

HD Lite is interlaced while 720p is progressive.

What does that mean, well the number of pixels transmitted per second (ie amount of detail) is much greater with true HDTV ( 1080i or 720p) vs a watered down HD Lite transmission.

Usually a 1080i signal (which should have a resolution of 1920 x 1080i) is actually down converted to 1440x1080 or even 1280x1080. This reduced the detail and saves the provider some bandwidth.

As you observed, why is 1280x1080 not true HD while 1028x720 is? Well its the difference between interlaced and progressive scanning which makes the difference. In progressive, every pixel on the screen is transmitted with every frame. But in Interlaced, only half of the pixels are sent per frame. It alternates odd and then even and so on.

 

[woljr]

Thanks for your reply. I am now seeing HDTV advertised with resolution 1366x768at FRY's Electronics. I am seeing numbers all over the spectrum. I assume there is no standard for HDTV resolution. If this trend continues in a few more years it will not matter what resolution DISH broadcasts in. People will not be aware of what they are buying because the TV is advertised as HDTV.