When or is E* going to full rezz HD?

[ehren]

well watch channel 548 HD and tell me if you see quick breakups when the camera goes into the corner of the zones, if you look at the plexiglass you can see the image pixelate. Not enough bandwidth I assume? Even in HD-Lite?

 

[Sapient]

Like it or not, the average high def viewer would rather have more channels at HD-lite than fewer channels at full rez/high bitrate.

This is no surprise considering that most current viewers have 42" or smaller 768p LCD's at a 10 ft. or greater viewing distance.

I don't think that is the reason. The difference between true HD and HD-lite is far less than the difference between HD-lite and SD. Given the choice of converting some of my SD channels to HD-lite or some of my HD-lite channels to true HD, I choose the former.

 

[abricko]

My guess is when they launch echostar Z to be able to handle all that extra reZZ you're talking a bout!

 

[kstuart]

Like it or not, the average high def viewer would rather have more channels at HD-lite than fewer channels at full rez/high bitrate.

This is no surprise considering that most current viewers have 42" or smaller 768p LCD's at a 10 ft. or greater viewing distance.

And, in fact those viewers cannot tell a difference:

Chart: 1080P Does Matter - CarltonBale.com

 

[richiephx]

Tonight, I was going through the HD channels on E* and noticed an improvement in picture quality on both MPEG2 and MPEG4. Disc Theater looked much sharper than what I remember. Starz and the other MPEG4 channels looked much clearer and crisper too. Has E* done some recent decoder upgrades that may be causing what I'm seeing, or is it just me?

 

[vurbano]

I saw, and Ramy confirmed, D* is at full rezz HD on all the new stuff. When is E* going to go full HD? any thoughts?

ty

How did he confirm it?

 

[whatchel1]

Both

Tonight, I was going through the HD channels on E* and noticed an improvement in picture quality on both MPEG2 and MPEG4. Disc Theater looked much sharper than what I remember. Starz and the other MPEG4 channels looked much clearer and crisper too. Has E* done some recent decoder upgrades that may be causing what I'm seeing, or is it just me?

Both E* & D* have just recently gone to new decoders from the same company. I have seen the units in action. It is very possible to do 4 full "rezz" channels at good bit rates in MPEG 4 with these. Also it is possible to do 6 w/ smaller bit rates meaning "HD-Lite". When both have their new sats up then the real shoot out will begin.

 

[ehren]

well Dish is the leader in HD-Lite right now.

 

[NightRyder]

well Dish is the leader in HD-Lite right now.

And D* was the leader for years. I'm glad D* finally got the bandwidth to do HD right, should put pressure on E* to do the same when they get their new sats. up.

NightRyder

 

[ehren]

but Dish stooped to Directv's low's by going 1280x1080 on Voom and 1440x1080 on the rest.

 

[NightRyder]

but Dish stooped to Directv's low's by going 1280x1080 on Voom and 1440x1080 on the rest.

Yeah they did but I believe the VOOM channels were upped to 1440x1080 when they switched to MPEG4. Everyone wants more HD channels, for Dish the only way they can do that at present is to make some sort of compromise, I wish it wasn't necessary, but for now, it is.

NightRyder

 

[Sean Mota]

I saw, and Ramy confirmed, D* is at full rezz HD on all the new stuff. When is E* going to go full HD? any thoughts?

ty

Where is this confirmaiton that D* is doing 1920x1080i on all MPEG4 channels. Can you post a link? please.

 

[rad]

Where is this confirmaiton that D* is doing 1920x1080i on all MPEG4 channels. Can you post a link? please.

Since AFAIK nobody's hacked the D* MPEG4 boxes to get proof positive. All we have is reliabile sources like Earl at DBS or Scott here:


http://www.satelliteguys.us/directv-hd-discussions/108108-what-we-hearing.html#post1042226
http://www.satelliteguys.us/directv-hd-discussions/108627-so-hd-lite-not.html#post1048753

 

[technoguy]

Since AFAIK nobody's hacked the D* MPEG4 boxes to get proof positive. All we have is reliabile sources like Earl at DBS or Scott here:


http://www.satelliteguys.us/directv-hd-discussions/108108-what-we-hearing.html#post1042226
http://www.satelliteguys.us/directv-hd-discussions/108627-so-hd-lite-not.html#post1048753

Sorry dude if you want to quote somebody do it right

Say GOODBYE to HDLITE on DirecTV, we are hearing full resolution on all the new MPEG4 channels! All channels will be using VBR (variable bit rate) encoding. In addition DirecTV is only putting 4 MPEG4 channels per transponder (Dish Network does 6 per transponder at 1440x1080) DirecTV will be doing 4 per transponder at 1920x1080. (The 720p channels will be at full resolution which is 1280x720)

hearing something said from other person is no factual data in my book, To come with this bs since "DIRECTTV HAS NOT BEEN HACK"is a lame excuse for not provide facts,To say the only way to pull this info is "hacking" a box you are saying that our data techs are hackers? mm thats over the top.

 

[ehren]

Scott said he heard from a Directv engineer that they are at full resoultion with minimal compression, and they look better than FIOS, now THAT MUST BE GOOD.

 

[technoguy]

Scott said he heard from a Directv engineer that they are at full resoultion with minimal compression, and they look better than FIOS, now THAT MUST BE GOOD.

for you ,not for me.

 

[ehren]

not for me either, I am extremely pissed with Dish for stooping to Directv's low, now Dish must play follow the leader. We'll see if Dish can match Directv's 1920x1080 and 4 channels per TP. I dare them! They can add TBS-HD when we call complain, they can do this if we give them hell!

 

[tdigden]

Has Scott posted his comparisons between the mpeg4 D* vs E*, I believe he mentioned he was going to do some comparisons?

 

[red hazard]

Not Quite....

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Bombadil View Post
I'm no communications expert on 8PSK vs QPSK, but in some brief readings on them, what I've seen is that 8PSK has demonstratedly better performance under poor weather conditions but only a very minor advantage in bit rate efficiency.

If this is true, then E* might have a very small advantage if they were both running 4 HD channels per transponder, but at 6 vs 4, D* is going to have a BIG bit rate advantage.

As a HD PQ fanatic, if I ever switch to D*, I will be hoping that they never switchover to 8PSK as being limited to 4 channels per transponder is great for quality. Unquote
Quote:
This surprises me. QPSK requires less power to achieve the same bit error rate as 8PSK. I would expect QPSK to work better in poor weather conditions because of this. Unquote

The amount of bandwidth a signal uses on a transponder is related to the symbol rate (modulation rate). Transponder bandwidth is the amount frequency spectrum used. For a given bit rate, 8PSK (8 modulation states) reduces the BW by ~67% compared to QPSK's reduction of 50% as each modulation state (symbol) carries 3 bits of information to QPSK's 2 bits of information. (The reference is to 2-state BPSK). To reduce transponder BW utilization by 75%, one could use 16-QAM where each symbol carries 4 bits of information. The downside of increasing the modulation states is that for a given bit error rate, the amount of power in the carrier most increase and transponder power is limited. This explanation is an over simplification because forward error correction is another factor to consider when calculating a link budget. Here's a satellite modem performance table example:

BER ? 10-8
QPSK 3/4 Turbo 3.9 dB 2048 kbps 1365.333 ksps
8-PSK 3/4 Turbo 6.3 dB 2048 kbps 910.222 ksps
16-QAM 3/4 Turbo 7.7 dB 2048 kbps 682.667 ksps

The Bit Error Rate (BER) is the performance objective. The 3/4 Turbo refers to the Forward Error Correction. 3/4 means for every 3 payload bits, 4 bits are transmitted or 1 FEC bit is added on average. The 2048 is the payload or user bit rate and the last figure is the symbol rate. The figures in dB are EB/NO which is related to carrier-to-noise ratio. Essentially the higher figures require more power other factors being equal. The last column is symbol rate which is directly related to transponder bandwidth utilization. I don't know what BER performance objectives E* uses. As you can see, weather has nothing to do with the preferred modulation scheme. BTW, a BER of 10-8 means 1 X 10 exponent -8 which means 1 error is allowed in 100 million received bits.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

And, in fact those viewers cannot tell a difference:

Chart: 1080P Does Matter - CarltonBale.com

That's an interesting link.

It does show that someone with 20/20 vision sitting at 10' from a 60" 1080p set is able to discern differences vs a 720p set. They wouldn't see the full benefit but that intersection is about half-way between the 720p and 1080p lines.

Now if they were sitting at 8' then they should definitely see a difference. And HD is great at 8' from a good quality 60" set.