HD Picture Quality

[redelephants]

anyone notice the picture quality of fox news today. On my end, it looked like crap, very soft and edgey.

 

[kstuart]

Whenever you have a comment about picture quality, please

State Which Channel

 

[brad1138]

I did notice that the Sunday Night game with Vikings and Arizona looked great on my tv.

Mitsubishi 65" DLP

Ya, all the better for watching E.J. Henderson break his leg. Man that was gruesome to watch. :yikes

 

[Mike_H]

Just to be clear. Dish, at it's best in the past year (it's been better before ) is not even close to the best that HDTV can produce. They use a compression scheme that relies on the ability to throw visual information away, with the idea being that the system throws away only the information that can not be perceived by the human eye. But what one person can see and another person can see can vary widely. As well, dish tends to cut even more data, trying to find a balance between what some people will be unhappy with, and everyone will be unhappy with.

 

[whatchel1]

Definition

Just to be clear. Dish, at it's best in the past year (it's been better before ) is not even close to the best that HDTV can produce. They use a compression scheme that relies on the ability to throw visual information away, with the idea being that the system throws away only the information that can not be perceived by the human eye. But what one person can see and another person can see can vary widely. As well, dish tends to cut even more data, trying to find a balance between what some people will be unhappy with, and everyone will be unhappy with.

You've just given the definition the MPEG digital systems. E* is using MPEG 4 so what's your point?

 

[bgothard72]

Anything is better than SD!

 

[sam_gordon]

Just to be clear. Dish, at it's best in the past year (it's been better before ) is not even close to the best that HDTV can produce.

Keep in mind, if you want the best HD can produce, you're looking at ~18Mhz of bandwidth for one channel. You start dedicating that kind of bandwidth, you'll REALLY see a decrease in the number of channels.

People keep saying "give me more HD" AND "give me better HD picture quality". You can't do both. To add more channels, you need to compress the signals more. Compressing the signals means a drop in quality. So pick one. Or you do what Dish is doing and try to compromise between the two. But you can't make both camps happy.

 

[pendragon]

Keep in mind, if you want the best HD can produce, you're looking at ~18Mhz of bandwidth for one channel. You start dedicating that kind of bandwidth, you'll REALLY see a decrease in the number of channels.

MPEG2 at 18 Mbps gives pretty good HD, certainly better than what we see on Dish for the most part. The general rule of thumb for H.264 compression is one can achieve the approximate quality of MPEG2 at half the rate. If this is true, one would see the same quality with 9 Mbps on Dish (H.264) as a MPEG2 master feed at 18 Mbps.

I haven't done a direct comparison of passing 'perfect' video through two separate compressors, but I believe this may be a little optimistic. I based my conclusions on the less accurate test of comparing 4DTV and FTA MPEG2 master feeds with Dish H.264 recompressions via R5000s and FTA PC tuners. In these cases one has the problems of an additional generation of compression and the anamorphic compression Dish does on HD, so it's impossible to fairly the compressions directly. Regardless, Dish is losing quality and in some cases a lot.

I keep track of Dish HD quality on my R5000 recordings and I have seen some improvements on these lately, but it's very inconsistent. A few on HDNET and MAX have clocked in at 7-8 Mbps recently, but most of the time it's half that rate. Dish seems to have upper and lower tiered HD even for the same set of channels. For example, MAX can be 'high' or low rate, but MAXP, ACMAX and 5MAX are always low. I assume Dish uses some form of rate stealing on their muxes, so it may depend on what is running at the same time on the other channels.

MPEG2 at 18 Mbps is still a ways from the best current HD can deliver. Some Blu-ray titles and FTA feeds are at least twice that and look a lot better. And some of the latter are at 4:2:2. This is apparent on our 160" projection screen at 18-20' back. I also use a couple of 30" 1600p screens on a desk to really pick things apart.

 

[MikeInAlaska]

> A few on HDNET and MAX have clocked in at 7-8 Mbps recently, but most of the time it'
> s half that rate.

How can I judge the bitrate of a Dish signal I am receiving?

 

[sam_gordon]

pendragon... notice I was talking about Mhz (ie: bandwidth). And I misspoke. A 'full' HD signal (being uplinked from the arena) could take up to 36Mhz. The 18Mhz I referred to was the bandwidth allocated (actually 19.3, but take away audio, psip, etc) to an OTA station.

But what I stated still stands... the less you compress a signal, the more bandwidth you take up. The more bandwidth a single channel takes up, the less room you have for other channels. So now you have to draw a line between quantity and quality. THAT'S the problem Dish has. If you make one crowd happy (the one who wants more quality), the other one (who wants more quantity) gets upset.

 

[redelephants]

Anything is better than SD!

I must agree, however sometimes I wonder if I'm watching SD. With all the macroblocking and mosquito noise, it reminds me of SD.

 

[Mike_H]

Keep in mind, if you want the best HD can produce, you're looking at ~18Mhz of bandwidth for one channel. You start dedicating that kind of bandwidth, you'll REALLY see a decrease in the number of channels.

The full potential of HD quality is not a cost effective thing for a satellite company to chase on ever single HD channel. In fact it may not be justified for many of them. What dish needs to do, and what every HD provider should do is strive to give the best possible. That at times we see better from Dish, and other times worse, tells us that they are not striving to give us the best possible. Or at a minimum, they don't have sufficient staff to ensure the best possible is there. Thus if we want better, we need to make sure we are telling dish when they fail rather than hope they get better. Emailing DishQuality with clear information about the channel, the orbital slot (press info see little dish antenna with a number) date and time, and tell them what you see as a problem. If there is anything they can do, I believe they will do it.

 

[mike123abc]

Satellite bandwidth and OTA bandwidth are different animals. OTA gets 19.2ish Mbit/sec in 6MHZ. Dish gets about 40mbit in TP for HD (32 TPs in a 500Mhz block).

 

[JohnDillinger]

This is my first post here....So, hi!
After quite a bit of research and much procrastination I too took the plunge and ordered a 722K HD DVR Receiver:

Initial impressions:

The movie channels, HBO, Skinemax, Showtime (in HD) look like they are supposed to look, sharp, detailed and most importantly HIGH DEF!!!!!

The local channels? Eh, WTF?????
My Wally-World OTA Antenna (which was my source for HD content up until today)
did a much better job of HD picture, AND most importantly everything was broadcast in what we'll call "WIDESCREEN FORMAT."

Up until today I had thought the very definition of High Definition programming had WideScreen broadcasts as a requisite for such a title....???? I, uh am at a loss for words:tux:

-My panel is a Panasonic 42X1 Plasma (720p) model
-Viewing distance is at 7.5 feet.
-722K does not have the MT2 OTA module installed...

I had thought HD meant HD, but now that I read more and more I find that HD really stands for "Hosed-Definitely!"

Anyway I checked ALL settings:
Menu---6----8------Offair----1080i and/or720p----16X9

*button (format) is at normal.

I have dully noted and taken into account the standard issues/PQ quality issues associated with the regular anomalies such as:
-Commercials shot in SD
-Source material not in HD to begin with
-Selective Bandwidth issues....

I don't understand WHY or HOW Channel 7 could broadcast OTA HD shows like All My Children, or The People's Court (for example) and those shows are shown with black bars on the left and the right when they are on Dish, yet with my OTA antenna they are widescreen, with zero picture degradation?

Say it ain't so!

 

[david_jr]

Neither All My Children nor People's Court are broadcast in HD. They would be broadcast with bars on the side and that is why your 722K is displaying them that way. You can change the display by pressing the format button with will stretch the program out if that is the way you want to watch it. Dish is passing the program on the way they get it.

 

[simplexswrhs90]

That's right... Dish is merely the provider and their isn't much if anything they change in regard to receiving the signal from the broadcaster.

 

[--sexy-warlock--]

Using those two shows has to be a joke post.

 

[KAB]

Using those two shows has to be a joke post.

You got that right!

 

[MikeD-C05]

Next month All My Children will go high def. They will move the entire show to L.A. to produce it with high def cameras. Friday is their last day in New York and their last day to do the show in SD. But the show will still be located in fictional Pine Valley , Pennsylvania.

 

[sam_gordon]

Satellite bandwidth and OTA bandwidth are different animals. OTA gets 19.2ish Mbit/sec in 6MHZ. Dish gets about 40mbit in TP for HD (32 TPs in a 500Mhz block).

You are correct (about the difference in satellite and OTA bandwidth). That's why I tried to correct my post. The point is STILL Dish (Direct/local cable co), has to try to strike a balance between quality and quantity.