I recently bought a pretty good TV, Vizio E550i-B2, and I noticed that my regular TV shows were not as good of quality as my friends who had cable. Is Dish known to have poorer quality than cable? I really noticed it when I was watching a 1080p YouTube video and it looked so much better than anything I've ever seen while watching TV. Is it all in my head or does Dish have worse quality than normal programming?
Dish Has Worse Quality?
- Thread starter Molarmite
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There is a couple of things going on here. First question, what model reciever are you using. Secondly, what kind of cable goes from reciever to tv. Third, dish only supports 1080i, except on select vod and ppv. Lastly, it could possibly be the settings on the tv, if just used as is out of the box. May just need calibrated.
I don't know what receiver I'm using, how do you find out? I'm assuming it's pretty new since I just got it in November 2013. I understand that Dish only supports 1080i but don't most cable companies as well? I'm more so comparing this to my friends that have cable than the 1080p video I saw on YouTube. I've calibrated my TV to the suggested settings I've read online. But I know the people who's TV that I compared it to have not calibrated their TV at all, they are the type of people to just use it out of the box.
Depends on where you are. What Cable Company do your friends have? Where I live Dish definitely has superior PQ compared to most cable channels. It varies a little. A couple of local channels look better on TWC as they have "no bit-starving" clauses in their carriage contracts with TWC, and others look about the same on Dish and TWC, but anything that is on SDV (switched digital video) looks far worse.
In other areas, cable might look better, and people on this forum have certainly claimed that is the case.
I assume you have made sure the Hopper is sending 1080 to your new TV? Also, have you calibrated your new TV? Most new TVs these days have extra video processing enabled which is unnecessary, and could cause the picture to look worse than it would otherwise.
In other areas, cable might look better, and people on this forum have certainly claimed that is the case.
I assume you have made sure the Hopper is sending 1080 to your new TV? Also, have you calibrated your new TV? Most new TVs these days have extra video processing enabled which is unnecessary, and could cause the picture to look worse than it would otherwise.
I've found that it depends on the channel you are watching and the program that is on at that time. Some channels and shows look bad. When I'm showing customers TVs in my showroom I make sure I have the Hopper on a movie channel because the PQ is better.
I have purchased return TVs that people did not like because they claimed poor quality, there was nothing really wrong the TVs had not been set up properly, once I fined tuned the picture quality everything worked fine an a beautiful picture. Just a suggestion look into your TV video settings.s
I just changed to Dish from DirecTV two weeks ago. I cannot tell any difference in HD quality on a 59" Samsung Plasma.
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Just being honest, not harsh, since you didn't even know what receiver you have then without actually seeing how you have things set up I don't know any of us can give the best answer. But the suggestions given are good ones especially make sure you really are connected via HDMI and that the receiver is actually set to either 720P or 1080I. If you are connected in another way in addition to HDMI, disconnect the other ways and only be connected to HDMI and see if you still have a picture. That way you will know you have the TV set to the correct input.
Just a note that TV I am familiar with. You are correct, that is rated quite good in many respects, but there is one downfall and I could immediately see it against the LG TV I bought. The color accuracy is not as good as some others, and because of that where the picture jumped out at me from the LG, it was more mediocre on the Vizio. Somehow the colors just don't seem as good as some other TV's even other Vizios. Using online settings is something I do feel is worthwhile, in particular Cnet calibrated settings. I have the input for OTA however, set a little differently than for DISH, as I also do for the Blu ray/DVD input. Sometimes subtle changes make a difference.
Just a note that TV I am familiar with. You are correct, that is rated quite good in many respects, but there is one downfall and I could immediately see it against the LG TV I bought. The color accuracy is not as good as some others, and because of that where the picture jumped out at me from the LG, it was more mediocre on the Vizio. Somehow the colors just don't seem as good as some other TV's even other Vizios. Using online settings is something I do feel is worthwhile, in particular Cnet calibrated settings. I have the input for OTA however, set a little differently than for DISH, as I also do for the Blu ray/DVD input. Sometimes subtle changes make a difference.
I personally could never convince myself that the Vizio, same model that the OP has stated, has that good of a picture. Some channels looked fine and then others not so much. Too bad because it has a very attractive price point and feature set, but I could never get the thing dialed in for an acceptably consistent picture. I took it back and ended up with a Sony KDL-50W800B and have been very happy with it.
The question I have, and I hope you elaborate a bit, do you have the same channels that don't look so fine?
