721 vs 501 PQ Question

[Larry]

I'm giving serious thought to the 721. How does the PQ compare to the 501? Better I hope. I've noticed the PQ on the 501 (especially lil locals) doesn't seem to be as good as the older non-DVR receivers and always chalked it up to taking everything off the hard drive. So if there is an improvement with the 721, I guess that would get me off the fence.

 

[TyroneShoes]

Its identical. Both the 721 and 501/8/10 have sharper PQ than older receivers. Normally that's a good thing, but if your particular locals have lots of artifacts, that will exaggerate them. The HD has no bearing, as it records the bitstream directly from the sat. On playback the decoder sees exactly what a normal receiver's decoder would see live as its input signal.