I don't have any actual numbers to refer to but my eyes don't lie. I was watching a re run of Law and Order circa 1995 and later watched an episode circa 2010. The PQ difference was astonishing. The old stuff was way more defined showing hair strands and weave patterns in suits so much sharper than the new stuff. Even HDNET looks softer than shows from 8-10 years ago.
Is the HD quality of today really getting worse
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There can be many factors.
The old episodes may have had better lighting and film. Budget cuts are everywhere, HDCams and less money spent on lighting helps to cut production costs.
Some of the cheap LCD TVs have a lot of motion blur, and make the picture look muddy.
Providers are also compressing more to get more HD channels in. And OTA stations are compressing to get in sub channels.
The old episodes may have had better lighting and film. Budget cuts are everywhere, HDCams and less money spent on lighting helps to cut production costs.
Some of the cheap LCD TVs have a lot of motion blur, and make the picture look muddy.
Providers are also compressing more to get more HD channels in. And OTA stations are compressing to get in sub channels.
Yes, the hd quality of today is nothing like it was 8 years ago when we only had a handful of channels
Yes some of it is better and some of it is worse. Depends on the how it was recorded and many other factors. Most looks pretty damn good on my Panny plasma.
I find that many of the news channels uses some sort of filter to soften the sharpness on the anchors faces. For example when they have a picture up on the screen at the same time they are talking you can see the graphic/picture nice, sharp and full of details, color and brightness but the anchor has a much softer look. I'm guessing so we can't see all the imperfections in their faces.. Same thing goes for the logo of the channel or the scroll down below. They are always crystal clear.
I remember when CSI Miami first came out. The quality of the picture was amazing compared to the other CSI's at the time. I haven't watched any of them in years so not sure if that has changed but I wonder now if CSI Miami got away with it because it was in south Florida and all the stars wore sun glassless all the time.. Hence they didn't have to worry about the HD showing you every wrinkle or bag under and around their eyes.
Plus as the years go by the compression formulas get better but in my opinion the more you compress you have to loss something in the quality/sharpness/brightness department.
I remember when CSI Miami first came out. The quality of the picture was amazing compared to the other CSI's at the time. I haven't watched any of them in years so not sure if that has changed but I wonder now if CSI Miami got away with it because it was in south Florida and all the stars wore sun glassless all the time.. Hence they didn't have to worry about the HD showing you every wrinkle or bag under and around their eyes.
Plus as the years go by the compression formulas get better but in my opinion the more you compress you have to loss something in the quality/sharpness/brightness department.
It must be a Dish Problem....because I am not seeing it on Time Warner; and I was concerned when I dropped Dish for Time Warner there would be a difference in PQ, and I am quite pleased with the PQ. It is just TW's lousy equipment (drv) that sucks.
It may have something to do with the fact that back when the content didn't have to share bandwidth with subchannels. Perhaps now that most of the content has to share space, the producers are making the content less bandwidth demanding.
As more hd channels are added and hd becomes the norm , you will see less details and sharpness in the picture and the compression turned up to squeeze more channels in. Then the industry will come out with Super High Definition , requiring everyone to upgrade to it, to get the sharpest picture quality. More $$$$ for the industry. Remember when Satellite tv began in the early to mid 90's? The picture was razor sharp and they advertised "Crystal Clear Digital picture". Then as locals were added and more national channels were added ,the crystal clear picture began to degrade and looked like crap. Case in point Directv's sd picture looks like total crap. DISH has come up with compression techniques that continue to cram more channels into the same transponder and you are supposedly not able to see the channel suffer any picture quality loss. First it was 3 hd channels to a transponder , then 8 and now I am hearing 9 hd channels are being crammed on to one transponder, using mpeg 4 compression. The more hd becomes the normal delivery for most channels , the more you will see the picture quality drop and the average public won't even see the difference. Remember most think that coax cable plugged into the tv is hd ,JUST because the tv is hd . Most don't even know they need hdmi cable to get hd picture.
Well you can get HD ota with coax, and you dont "need" HDMI from a sat box to get HD. Component works just fine.
Obviously HD PQ depends on a number of factors. I know there are some HD channels that Dish tends to compress too much (like my ABC station) and then there are just some HD channels that just do a lousy job broadcasting HD like E! and Style for example. Those two suck at broadcasting HD when you compare it others like ESPN and TNT.
Most companies are running a reduced resolution known as high def lite @ 1440x1080i since it uses a lot less bandwidth. 99% sure dish and direc use this.
Now thats funny...
It has diminished in the race for who has the most. I also think the compression was able to be gotten away with in the past years because of tv sizes. With these larger screens being cheaper, more and more 50+" sets are getting our there and the issues will be exposed more. IMO, current HD is only really good for about 50", if you sit at a decent distance. With my set, and 9.5 feet, I can see compression issues. If Im in the kitchen cooking at about 20 feet, it looks much better.
So, it depends a lot on screen size and view distance.
Yeah, the main channels I care about being top line HD are movies and sports. You can watch two different movies on the same premium, say Sin City and Rocky, and go Wow! the pq is great, and then, Wow! the pq sucks. Now neither of those had anything to do with Dish, it's just all the different factors that go into making a movie. Bright lights are HD's best friend.
