Digital Deluxe Package

[PopcornNMore]

Digital Deluxe Package

As most of you know late last year I adjusted my 6' C band dish to AMC18 and subscribed to the Digital Basic Package for one month. Because it was snowing I was able to get a very good picture, but didn't spend the time to tweak the dish. My first impression of H2H was very good, but having a family created some problems, because certain favorite channels weren't available and the DSR-410 receiver doesn't have any DVR functionality. After the month was over I switched to the MTV package for three months just to support H2H.

Several weeks ago I got a chance to tweak the dish and was able to squeeze out a higher signal strength. At this point my MTV package had expired, so the only channel received was SON Broadcasting and the audio channels.

Yesterday (6/30/11) my wife talked to me about how everything is going up in price and that we are beginning to struggle financially. I was then able to talk her into reducing our Dish Network Top 120 package to the Welcome package and to subscribe to the H2H Digital Deluxe package. The cost would be about the same and we would receive approx. 30 additional channels. Then if we wanted to save more later we could always reduce to the Digital Basic package.

Today (7/1/11) our new subscriptions started and we are very pleased. Both packages together make an excellent combination and everyone seems to be happy. With Dish Network we can record our favorite programming and my wife and daughter enjoy receiving additional channels such as Hallmark, Boomerang, The Hub, AMC and Oxygen. Plus the H2H subscription gives us many channels only available within Dish Network's Top 250 package that costs $70 a month.

With the dish now tweaked my impression of H2H is WOW. The video quality is excellent. They look much better than Dish Network's SD channels and the same if not better then Dish Network's HD channels.

Attached is a chart I developed tonight showing the channels we now receive. I thought it might be useful for others to edit for themselves.

 

[PopcornNMore]

I forgot to mention that the Skyvision Digital Deluxe package now copies the SRL Digital Family package and includes Sundance and Bloomberg which is probably why the price increased.

 

[Kb Cool]

Digital Deluxe Package
The video quality is excellent. They look much better than Dish Network's SD channels and the same if not better then Dish Network's HD channels.

.

Your kidding?

 

[tvropro]

Digital Deluxe Package

As most of you know late last year I adjusted my 6' C band dish to AMC18 and subscribed to the Digital Basic Package for one month. Because it was snowing I was able to get a very good picture, but didn't spend the time to tweak the dish. My first impression of H2H was very good, but having a family created some problems, because certain favorite channels weren't available and the DSR-410 receiver doesn't have any DVR functionality. After the month was over I switched to the MTV package for three months just to support H2H.

Several weeks ago I got a chance to tweak the dish and was able to squeeze out a higher signal strength. At this point my MTV package had expired, so the only channel received was SON Broadcasting and the audio channels.

Yesterday (6/30/11) my wife talked to me about how everything is going up in price and that we are beginning to struggle financially. I was then able to talk her into reducing our Dish Network Top 120 package to the Welcome package and to subscribe to the H2H Digital Deluxe package. The cost would be about the same and we would receive approx. 30 additional channels. Then if we wanted to save more later we could always reduce to the Digital Basic package.

Today (7/1/11) our new subscriptions started and we are very pleased. Both packages together make an excellent combination and everyone seems to be happy. With Dish Network we can record our favorite programming and my wife and daughter enjoy receiving additional channels such as Hallmark, Boomerang, The Hub, AMC and Oxygen. Plus the H2H subscription gives us many channels only available within Dish Network's Top 250 package that costs $70 a month.

With the dish now tweaked my impression of H2H is WOW. The video quality is excellent. They look much better than Dish Network's SD channels and the same if not better then Dish Network's HD channels.

Attached is a chart I developed tonight showing the channels we now receive. I thought it might be useful for others to edit for themselves.

I'm glad your happy with H2H. Your comments about picture quality vs pizza is the truth. H2H does not compress like pizza. They are also a broadcast provider to the cable companies so the quality has to be up there. Plus my favorite thing is no rain fade.

I understand about tightening the belt with finances and looking for options. I downgraded DirecTV to the family pack last week $29.99 a month since I cannot afford to pay almost $70 a month for choice xtra. H2H came to the rescue with all its high tier package options at a low price. I like VH1 classic and get it for $8.00 a month vs paying Direct $38.00 more month for it, plus CMT pure (not on any pizza) and Tv Land is there.

Your best bet to tune your DSR is to tune by EBNO. I set up a 6 foot dish for a client a couple years back and his reception has been solid in all weather.

Welcome to the H2H family and supporting the cause.

 

[PopcornNMore]

Your kidding?

The H2H picture just "pops" and is instantly noticeably by the naked eye. You just have to see it to believe it. Motorola builds very good quality receivers and the picture shows it.

 

[tvropro]

What you need to do is tune into the same channel on pizza and H2H then switch sources between the two. You will notice the difference unless you need glasses. Also look at the increase in digital artifacts on pizza.

The real test though is comparing a master feed to pizza. ABC Family and Disney masters were ITC a few days ago for a few hours. I swapped between Direct & the master and no matter how I tried to adjust my tv to try to recreate the sharpness and clarity of the master it could not be achieved. Once you throw away the bandwidth that a good quality signal has it cannot be recreated no matter what even using Mpeg 4, S2 or any other so called lossless codec.

Hits to Home does a very good job keeping the PQ up there and the DSR's have very good video.

 

[Kb Cool]

The H2H picture just "pops" and is instantly noticeably by the naked eye. You just have to see it to believe it. Motorola builds very good quality receivers and the picture shows it.

I'm sure the SD is much better. No argument there! But, saying H2H SD is just as good or better than DishHD maybe stretching the truth a little? Don't you think?

 

[trinidex]

I'm sure the SD is much better. No argument there! But, saying H2H SD is just as good or better than DishHD maybe stretching the truth a little? Don't you think?

Beauty (quality) is in the eye of the beholder!

We have both in our house, Pizza adjusts compression to suit it's needs for quality and bandwidth. Live sports with lots of action needs more bandwidth than an episode of Murder She Wrote, too little and you get artifacts, too much (there can never be too much) and another channel's PQ is sacrificed.

There's an interesting article on the web about how pizza changes the resolution of different picture components. For example, they take only the Red channel (of Red, Green & Blue) and reduce the resolution to save bandwidth. Pizza STBs rescale the image to the same resolution as the other 2 components. This results in a "soft" picture.

Found the article: http://www.tsreader.com/mpeg/index.html scroll down to "MPEG-2 Sample Shots"

Tvropro does give pizza a hard time here, justifiably, IMHO, but there is no substitute for seeing it yourself.

Remember this simple, important fact, where do these channels originate from? Master feeds, on c-band, in their original resolution.

Take a look at this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Lite

 

[tvropro]

When I had DirecTv installed last year the installer thought that everything I showed him on c & ku band SD was HD. Now this is from a guy that looks at Directs HD daily (and Directs HD looks better than Dish). So sum up your own conclusions. And Yes I showed him the W5 HITS channels (no X4 then) We even compared History and Bio in the hotel mux on ku which is a second gen and he was floored by the quality.

The pizza advocates on these forums will always defend their product because thats all they ever look at.. But facts are facts, C band's picture is superior. It has to be, its a broadcast standard. But the pizza advocates don't understand what a broadcast standard is. How can they when they think a 24" dish is too big. Brainwashed masses to say the least.

http://www.themusicworkshopchicago.com/satellite/hdlite.htm

 

[trinidex]

The pizza advocates on these forums will always defend their product because thats all they ever look at..

But the pizza advocates don't understand what a broadcast standard is. How can they when they think a 24" dish is too big. Brainwashed masses to say the least.

:

 

[tvropro]

:

:high5: :LOL

 

[Kb Cool]

From what i remember. The master SD feeds were always better than the re-upped HITS feeds. And HDlite was better than the masterSD feeds. Did something change?

 

[tvropro]

And HDlite was better than the masterSD feeds. Did something change?

Ya its called compression and greed on pizza

 

[Asket]

From what i remember. The master SD feeds were always better than the re-upped HITS feeds. And HDlite was better than the masterSD feeds. Did something change?

Something is changing right now. Apparently Dish is dropping a huge number of its SD feeds. This leaves just HD feeds of many channels. Understandable in many ways but a few HD feeds have been upscaled
to 1080 from some low definition programmers and in those few cases the result is ugly.

Regarding H2H the picture quality is no way as good as its original standard broadcast. Difficult to compare with Dish now since many SD feeds have been cut. H2H was maybe slightly better than Dish SD.

 

[Mr Tony]

Something is changing right now. Apparently Dish is dropping a huge number of its SD feeds. This leaves just HD feeds of many channels. Understandable in many ways but a few HD feeds have been upscaled
to 1080 from some low definition programmers and in those few cases the result is ugly.

what are you talking about? Dish isnt dropping any SD feeds. If a SD feed goes away from the provider the HD feed is downconverted to SD. And these cases are pretty rare

 

[LocutusOfBorg]

:

Yep, I agree that it's beating a dead horse. I don't bother trying to convince anyone what is better. I use to try to get people to use Linux, also, but not everyone is technically inclined so I don't bother convincing them to use Linux. The same is true for e-mail encryption (GnuPG, PGP). Most people don't care about what's really good for them. Cost and simplicity/ease of use is what matters to most people.

 

[wallyhts]

Yep, I agree that it's beating a dead horse. I don't bother trying to convince anyone what is better. I use to try to get people to use Linux, also, but not everyone is technically inclined so I don't bother convincing them to use Linux. The same is true for e-mail encryption (GnuPG, PGP). Most people don't care about what's really good for them. Cost and simplicity/ease of use is what matters to most people.

I sure do love cent os

 

[trinidex]

Cost and simplicity/ease of use is what matters to most people.

Nail on the head

 

[Mr Tony]

honestly if H2H was still on KU Band you'd have more customers.

There are people who arent going to spend the money to buy put up even a 6 foot dish and buy a "special" and outdated receiver to get channels that are in a "higher" tier on Dish/Direct but instead would rather pay the $5 or $10 more a month and just get them. If they dont like those channels they drop back down and arent out extra money. (except for the month they had them). Here is a great example. I see the "sports" package H2H is offering for $15 a month. I can add almost all those channels (ESPN Classic and HRTV exempt) for $5 more than what the basic package is with Directv.

There are LOTS of people who can't put up a larger dish...thats not opinion. Thats fact. And I'm not including folks in apartments who are extremely limited. Many folks who own their own home cant or wont put up a larger dish.
The only way I think I am getting by with my 6 footer is because I am the president of the HOA. More and more people are moving into HOA communities. Here where I live all they seem to build are HOA communities. So a 30-36" dish would be fine under OTARD but a larger dish can't be put up.
If it was still on X4 (99W KU) more folks with existing setups could add it just by getting a receiver. I know I'd look at it harder and maybe sub to something if it was.

Also the programming isn't very elaborate. They dont have any basic cable channels and that hurts them too. They can only carry Starz for movie channels. I know someone always talks about the 900 movie channels they could get back when gas was 1.09 a gallon but all I see available now is Starz which if Dish is giving it to all customers it cant be that good
People bitch about NPS and their uplinks but at least you had an option of getting some channels. Now you don't. I go back when NPS had them and they had channels that I would sub to A&E, TruTV, MSNBC, USA, Spike, TNT, CNN, Fox News as example. Yeah the picture may not have been top quality but folks still got it because that was an option. Just like folks who sub to Globecast and their sometimes crappy picture. It gives them an option. Now that option for C-Band is gone..

Basically it comes down to 3 things
-what do you want in terms of channels and options
-what can you afford
-how bullheaded you are towards a provider. There are folks who wont switch between Directv or Dish because of their views towards the other. I wont go back to cable unless its absolutely necessary

 

[PopcornNMore]

I guess it all depends on what type of programming a person is interested in. If a person is big into sports (I'm not) then having sports channels such as ESPN available in HD would probably be a must. My favorite programming is retro sitcoms and dramas which most of the time are not available in HD anyway and if they are (example Walton's on Hallmark) they are simply shown having black side banners.

I then came to the conclusion that most of the HD available on popular cable channels such as TLC, HGTV, History, Syfy, Food, etc are reality TV shows. After all do I really need to see shows like Cake Boss, Say Yes to the Dress, Extreme Couponing, The Little People, Chopped, Ghost Hunters, etc in HD? After thinking about it my answer was no.

What I want to see in HD are special events such as the Super bowl, Sunday Football, Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, Winter and Summer Olympics and hit current sitcoms and dramas such as Mike & Molly, Big Bang Theory, CSI, etc which are all available on local channels in HD within Dish Network's Welcome Package as well as for free OTA. I love to see movies in HD as well and with Dish Network I'm currently receiving a free full year of Starz and Encore in both SD and HD. Plus each month Dish Network provides several free freeview channels in both SD and HD. This month I'm receiving National Geographic, Cooking Channel and epix in HD. All this for only $14.99 a month.

With H2H I receive several channels that aren't available on pizza such as Halogen, CMT Pure, VH1 Soul, Gospel and MTV Hits.

Before: Top 120 was $45
Now: Welcome & Digital Deluxe is $52

We are now receiving many additional channels that we never received within the Top 120 for only $7 more per month plus there are NO contracts and I can change programming at any time.