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Dish Picture Quality Discussion

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primetimeguy

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Oct 4, 2006
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St. Paul, MN
I started a separate thread to continue on with a tangential discussion in another thread, http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/297239-Hopper-S229-S230-Feedback!/page76

Jason Whiddon said:
No I do not.

I understand what you are saying about hue, but compression issues (especially ones that show in large areas of the same color like walls; simulate crawling areas) are easy to spot. My plasma does not do well with a compressed signal, and thats where Im telling you Showtime and Fx for example, it's easy for me to say they look better on dish with my gear.

A lot of this "I dont see it" also comes into play with view distance and screen size. Im about 11 feet from the 65" and get to see all the bad side of compression. Dish offers a cleaner image on some of the channels I regularly watch, which is actually a surprise to me with past history.
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In regard to compression issue I would say it really depends on how big the difference is. And you and I may see more than most people care to. :-) I sit 10-11ft from 60" so we are in the same ballpark.

Funny you mention FX as I watch It's Always Sunny and The League. When the new seasons started this fall I thought the PQ as atrocious. almost like YouTube with terrible compression artifacts. But starting about 2-3 weeks ago it is much better. So again, did I really notice a change, was there really a change? I don't have any reference to go back to. How long have you had Dish as I'm curious when you first watched FX to see if it jives what I think I have seen.
 
I posted something in the other thread, but at our seating distances (I'm about 10' from 61") our eyes can't even resolve all the pixel data. Now compression artifacts are different.

Looking at the chart in the link, in order for us to fully resolve the 1080 detail we would need to sit a bit more than 5' from a 60" tv.

http://www.foxav.net/html/body_screen_size.html

I think I need to either move the seating up, or buy a bigger TV!
 

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Agree. that chart is fine for a good source but not satellite TV. If all you watch is satellite or cable HD so don't want to sit that close unless you like YouTube quality.
 
Well all that really matters is that it looks good enough to enjoy and not be distracted by macroblocking and artifacts. None of the TV providers really "pop" IMO like they "should." Blu Ray still has it all beat by far. It's what HDTV SHOULD look like. Dish and DirecTV are both "good enough" in my book. Some cable companies look absolutely awful. AT&T's U-Verse is one of the most consistently bad-looking providers out there.

I laughed a little the first time I saw "4K TV" being mentioned. Not even OTA has sufficient bandwidth to supply 1080p, much less 2160p which is 4x the pixel count. Not only that but you'd either have to sit at the TV like a computer monitor or get a gigantic screen to even see a difference.

Sent from my iPhone 4S using SatelliteGuys
 
I would say in general I am always disappointed in the PQ from Dish. I was so happy to get my OTA on my hopper for the slight increase in PQ which I had given up on my 722. It is very refreshing to throw in a Blu-Ray and say "that is what TV should look like!!". Broadcast TV is always a let down for me.
 
I should also add it is not all Dish's fault. What stations to with mutli-casting and sub-channels drives me nuts. And NFL on FOX is brutal 90% of the time, where as NBC and CBS look good 90% of the time.
 
It's been a long time, but when I first got my HDTV and Dish HD, and they still had the Voom channels, I seem to remember going to those channels to show people to power of HD. Now I just pop in a Blu-Ray.

*Edit, KAB, my wife would be pissed!! But it's easier to ask for forgiveness then permission. :D
 
LOL, I had it about a foot closer and moved it up on the wall, so that cost me. Ill admit now it could be bigger, and Im hoping we see a 70+" plasma this year, I think panasonic will have one.

I did have a 73" DLP for a short time at 9.5 feet. Holy moly! The problem with larger screens on anything but blu-ray though, is the damn compression artifacts. I think most providers are compressing for folks with a 50" or less tv at a decent distance.
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I posted that^^^ in the other thread, before I saw this.

All I can say with regards to FX, is that the week of thanksgiing I swapped from Directv, and the previous weeks version of SoA was below the quality of the next episode I recorded off Dish. Then there is showtime and hbo. Ive been watching Boardwalk Empire and Homeland all season, and IMO the DIsh presentation is better. This display I have offers really nothing in noise reduction performance, I dont have that stuff turned on, but it doesnt handle poor sources well. I mean lets face it, a big screen has problems on many things not blu-ray.

The issues I've seen reduced are blocking I see in the "crawling" I see on walls and other things. I know its compression related because you can see the same issues in Netflix variable streaming if you lose a tier in the middle of the movie, due to internet speed. This is stuff I try and look out for more when comparing channels, and just by that I feel Dish is doing a better job than Directv. I can't say what the cause is, only change in my system is HR34 to Hopper, Directv to Dish.

Its surprising to me, because I held the opinion for awhile that Dish was below Directv in PQ, and a couple of years ago I felt I could prove that. Directv has also been adding an xtra channel on some tp's, for a long time they stuck to 5. Maybe thats part of it, but I can't really say because some channels that are on a tp with 5 others, looked pretty nice.

Ive seen comments before that Directv seems to have contrast boosted with whatever they are doing, and Ive also read recently that a swap from Directv found better color (not as washed out). Those could be in relation.

We have some guys here who have both at the same time, I think Scott and Dfergie are two. Would be nice if they could take a look at some of this stuff. The only place I wanted to go with it is, as a person who has held Directv in a higher regard for PQ over Dish, I am having my opinion changed by what Im seeing.

I have a bad habit of nitpicking stuff, to my wife's dismay, so these arent things I just throw out lightly. Like I said, a lot of times I find myself looking for PQ issues on a show, as opposed to watching. Just a pet peeve and interest of mine.
 
I have switched back and forth between Dish and DirecTv then to Dish then to Direct then to Dish several times every Two years.
HD is the SAME between the two. It really is. SD is better on Dish by far on the western Arch. I am not sure about the dish eastern arch set of sats.
 
primetimeguy said:
You sound like my twin :-)
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I think what you guys are missing, is it was even proven that different HR24 models offered a different PQ. Thats where I find it amusing that you just say "SAME". BS.

The HR24-500, which was the first model released, had a chip made by NXP instead of broadcom, and was the only Directv box to use this chip I know of. PQ was inferior to the HR20, HR22 and HR24 with a broadcom chip. Thats just one variable, then add in implementation of the chip between companies, as well as other factors like encoders, bitrate and all other things. I think you are kidding yourself if you think Directv and Dish look the same.

I've seen this before, its like when many felt Directv looked better than Dish a couple of years ago, and a lot of the Dish folks werent having it. Then, as some of the regulars got pissed at Dish and swapped, low and behold they made comments "hey, the PQ is actually better". I can't say all these people saw it for real, but where there is smoke there is fire. Now you have people noting something new, Hopper PQ. And once again the majority is acting like people do not know what they are talking about.

Id put my video background, especially with my calibration experience against any of you. In my experience, I see things that other folks dont even pay attention to or care about. I'm going to digress, because the effort is really not worth it. I stand by my comments that my locals, HBO, Showtime and FX look better on Dish currently than they did on Directv two weeks ago. There may be more but I've not evaluated them, and with the time thats passed, it would be tough to form an accurate assessment. That needs to be done quickly after your switch is made, with familiar content.

Its like watching a test disc or test pattern, on different displays. If you are familiar with the content/pattern, you can determine problems in the display.
 
Another thing to consider in the PQ equation is the fact that Dish uses two sets of satellites, with two different codecs (MPEG2 on WA and MPEG4 on EA). That could also enter into the discrepancies on the PQ people are reporting.
 
Not saying there are not differences, just that it is tough to get a true valid comparison.

Watching dish one day and direct the next does not qualify, too many uncontrolled variables to draw definitive conclusions. Hence my fx comparison, I swear something changed about a month ago with that channel but I don't have the recordings to prove it. Maybe it was just the other content in the mix that caused it. I maybe the room lighting conditions were different.

Before I got the hopper I did an evaluation of my ftth provider. Had it along with dish along with ota, and recordings of each and could swap inputs to watch same exact content from each provider. That is about the only way to do it, but then the difference is still subjective and not quantifiable. But to me it was obvious ota was best, and then dish and then ffth. I had wanted ftth to be the best since they should have the most bandwidth. I shared my thoughts with the owner of the small company but for business reasons I doubt anything will change. I would have switched for the better quality, and even with fewer channels and hardware that wasn't as good.
 
dare2be said:
Another thing to consider in the PQ equation is the fact that Dish uses two sets of satellites, with two different codecs (MPEG2 on WA and MPEG4 on EA). That could also enter into the discrepancies on the PQ people are reporting.
Click to expand...

I think the only mpeg2 left is sd, all hd on both arcs is mpeg4 I believe. But yes the quality can also be different between arcs at any point in time.
 
I know when folks switched from a 612 or 722, many did comment on the better quality with PQ, many discussed the chip set in the Hopper. Switching from Direct to Dish, I find the picture quality to be comparable but others will jump in from Direct and say not possible. I guess as long as the individual is happy that's what matters
 
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