PQ Question

[luciddreamer]

I'm not too happy with my Dish Network picture quality. I'm in Orlando, FL. The question is: is the signal strength at the particular receiver the only judge of picture quality? Meaning, if I'm at signal strength 105, and my neighbor's is also at 105, do we see the same picture?

 

[Wayn23]

Once the signal strength is high enough to receive a picture without breakup
your picture will be as good as you can get. It might be possible to minimize some of the problems through TV adjustments but It can't fix the picture if it is over-compressed.

 

[luciddreamer]

Thanks for the prompt reply. The PQ has always looked overcompressed, to the point of making me want to switch to DirectTv. Browsing these forums convinced me to stick with Dish.

My signal strength is different for the different transponders. Most are around 105, but they range as high as 112 and as low as 75. Is this normal, or should all transponders have the same strength?

I have a Dish international channel coming in through another dish, and its signal strength is a constant 125. It happens to look much better than all the other channels (except HD).

 

[Tony S]

Thanks for the prompt reply. The PQ has always looked overcompressed, to the point of making me want to switch to DirectTv.

DirectTV has the same problems with PQ. In my opinion, there really isn't that much difference at all. They are both trying to cram too many channels into the available bandwidth.

When I compared the 2 providers, depending on what day it was, some channels looked slightly better on E*, and some were slightly better on D*, but there wasn't much difference. Sometimes DirectTV looked slightly sharper, but it had a lot more digital artifacts, E* looked a little softer, but had less artifacts.

To me, they are both borderline. I am seriously considering dropping satellite TV because of the continually declining PQ.

 

[ROLLTIDE]

Cband is your answer if you want the best PQ out there .

 

[Mr Tony]

Cband is your answer if you want the best PQ out there .

But not everybody can put a C-Band dish up

 

[luciddreamer]

I thought I was going crazy for thinking that the PQ has declined in the past 4 years. The most disappointing thing is that the international channel that comes in from another dish (61.5 degrees) has a signal strength of 125 and looks way better than anything else.

I swear the PQ is worse than a VCD.

 

[ROLLTIDE]

signal strength has nouthing to do with PQ once it's above 80

 

[Tony S]

I have had satellite TV for many years now and the PQ has very gradually gotten worse and worse and time goes on. Last night we were watching Star Trek Enterprise on WWOR (the episode from 2 weeks ago recorded on our 501) and the PQ was just about the worst I have ever seen from Dish Network. It was way worse than a video tape!

My Wife, who usually is not one to notice PQ, asked "is there something wrong with our TV"? "No honey, what you are seeing are the MPEG compression artifacts". Looking at peoples faces, they were moving...it almost looked like you were looking at a reflection in water. The faces would move, and then the picture detail would "catch up" with where it was supposed to be. After watching the show I was totally disgusted. Unfortunately, with E* adding more locals, I think that things will be getting even worse!

 

[DarrellP]

If you want to improve the PQ of Dish, buy yourself a Panasonic DMR-E85 DVD/Hard Drive recorder, it will clean up your signal like you won't believe. I just bought one and I had written off Dish PQ years ago, but I hooked up my 501 through it via the S-Video input and I couldn't believe my eyes. Normally Dish has tons of background noise due to overcompression and this Panny cleaned it up! I was able to watch recordings on my 110" screen that I found acceptable, where before I had to relegate them to my 27" screen. I'm serious, I am a major complainer about Dish PQ and this Panny really works magic on PQ.

I can even watch downrezzed HD through it and be satisfied with the picture since it is output in 480p and looks as good as a well mastered DVD.

 

[dfergie]

I have both Direct and Dish, as was stated above they both have pq probs on some channels... my local nbc on E* is not near as sharp as the pq on wnbc on D*. But some channels look the same, my local cbs is about the same as wcbs. Have not checked my c-band lately and to be fair the receiver on it does not have s-video out. Only problem I remember on c-band was the "sparklys" before the lnbs got better Have never had, nor do I plan on getting cable. ( unless they come up with hd which is doubtfull here)