I don't know if I have mentioned earlier, CBS and NBC are both doing 1920x1080i, and when sufficient bandwidth is provided (in the case of our local CBS station), the games blow away any 720p games on ABC, FOX and ESPN. But when bit starved like our local NBC station, you see a lot of motion artifacts to ruin a good game for you.
My first impression of D* HD vs. E* HD
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I wouldn't blame your local NBC station, from what I've seen it's the network that's causing this since I've seen this on three different NBC afflilaites and 2 of the 3 don't run any subchannels.
Jac,
Would you be willing to run a few comparisons of ESPN and Showtime, and maybe an SD channel or two (MSNBC or CNN)? I watch a LOT of ESPN and wouldn't want to think of switching if ESPN isn't up to par.
TIA!
Jeff
Unfortunately I no longer have E* so I could only compare what was recorded on my 622. Since I never watched much ESPN nor SD, I can't really tell you. I doubt ESPN will be any different though since it is 720p. I haven't seen 720p channels impacted by over-compression and down-rez.
as far as NBC yes... Fox is hopeless for Their sporting braudcasts too.. they look the worst out of all the stations.. HistoryHD is in 720P
Jeff, if you are happy with ESPN on E*, you will be equally happy with ESPN on D*. That is one of the ones I compared just as soon as I got D* hooked up.
Well I also have/had Dish and now have Directv again. I spent yesterday doing comparisons between D*, E*, and OTA.
StarzHD - For those who had E* when this channel launched you know that it looked super soft and had a motion blur type issue. The issues were fixed but the channel looked soft. I compared a few movies that were playing in HD and some upconverts to see if there was a difference. The upconverts looked pretty much identical. The HD showed some difference. The image looks a lot sharper. I wouldn't say Vhs to DVD type difference, but it is noticeable on a 60". There were a lot more finer details that were visible as well. Win goes to D*
HDNet - Both are downrezzed, but the D* looks sharper once again. The sharpness make certain details stand out more. Faciel textures such as wrinkles on the oldies (dan rather) were easily visible like they were when dish didn't destroy its pristine picture on HDNet. Win goes to D* again
Science Channel HD - The same on both. Really didn't notice a difference in the little I saw there. Channels like Discover, APL, nat geo, and science all look the same on D* as they do on E*. I'm assuming the slight softness is a source issue and not a provider issue. I guess I was too harsh on E* for these. No matter I have my Scifi now so I could care less. :-D
OTA Locals - D* vs OTA
This is for the Miami locals so I don't know if there are any differences in other markets. OTA wins HANDS DOWN! These local channels are watchable but they are soft, I can easily tell I am losing a lot of detail thanks to compression. On leno last night I compared the textures of the fabrics on the suits of baldwin and leno. On D* it was just a blob on OTA I could see the details of the fabric. Same thing for letterman. The faces also seemed a tad soft, though they still maintained some sharpness. Overall OTA is still the best choice for locals. I was expecting better from D* on this since they are using Mpeg-4 now, but this pretty bad IMHO.
If you go back to a year or so ago E* had an amazing picture. I loved it, only the voom channels were downrezzed but everything else was full and HDnet, Sho, and HBO looked amazing. Now they look like crap. D* use to have a horrid picture which is why I made the jump to E* a year and a half ago and I must say I am impressed with the improvements D* has made. I hope they leave these channels alone and don't donwrezz or over-compress them because they look fine the way they are. Now all they need is to move the currently downrezzed channels to Mpeg-4 so I can enjoy my HBO and SHO with the PQ it should have.
StarzHD - For those who had E* when this channel launched you know that it looked super soft and had a motion blur type issue. The issues were fixed but the channel looked soft. I compared a few movies that were playing in HD and some upconverts to see if there was a difference. The upconverts looked pretty much identical. The HD showed some difference. The image looks a lot sharper. I wouldn't say Vhs to DVD type difference, but it is noticeable on a 60". There were a lot more finer details that were visible as well. Win goes to D*
HDNet - Both are downrezzed, but the D* looks sharper once again. The sharpness make certain details stand out more. Faciel textures such as wrinkles on the oldies (dan rather) were easily visible like they were when dish didn't destroy its pristine picture on HDNet. Win goes to D* again
Science Channel HD - The same on both. Really didn't notice a difference in the little I saw there. Channels like Discover, APL, nat geo, and science all look the same on D* as they do on E*. I'm assuming the slight softness is a source issue and not a provider issue. I guess I was too harsh on E* for these. No matter I have my Scifi now so I could care less. :-D
OTA Locals - D* vs OTA
This is for the Miami locals so I don't know if there are any differences in other markets. OTA wins HANDS DOWN! These local channels are watchable but they are soft, I can easily tell I am losing a lot of detail thanks to compression. On leno last night I compared the textures of the fabrics on the suits of baldwin and leno. On D* it was just a blob on OTA I could see the details of the fabric. Same thing for letterman. The faces also seemed a tad soft, though they still maintained some sharpness. Overall OTA is still the best choice for locals. I was expecting better from D* on this since they are using Mpeg-4 now, but this pretty bad IMHO.
If you go back to a year or so ago E* had an amazing picture. I loved it, only the voom channels were downrezzed but everything else was full and HDnet, Sho, and HBO looked amazing. Now they look like crap. D* use to have a horrid picture which is why I made the jump to E* a year and a half ago and I must say I am impressed with the improvements D* has made. I hope they leave these channels alone and don't donwrezz or over-compress them because they look fine the way they are. Now all they need is to move the currently downrezzed channels to Mpeg-4 so I can enjoy my HBO and SHO with the PQ it should have.
It can very greatly from market to market. Sometimes the difference is minimal, but OTA will generally win this every time.
Oh I was expecting OTA to win. However, I was expecting it to be by less of a margin. When Mpeg-4 launched I read on forums how people said they could barely tell a difference from their OTA locals and the D* ones. I can't speak for the other markets, but at least in Miami you can easily tell a difference.
I remember back when HDNet and Sho launched their HD channels for the first time and back then D* didn't downrezz anything. Thats when you could barely tell a difference. Those were the good ol' days of HD. I think back and wish all the channels looked that good now. I loved those BMW commercials on HDNet with Clive Owen. Those things looked amazing on my Pio Elite Pro 510
I have a friend that "moved" to get birmingham locals from D*. The difference between his Mpeg 4 locals and what he gets OTA is very minimal.
I have also seen a few people that have had your experience.
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