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Hey everyone!
I just bought a brand new 65" Samsung KS8000 TV (which as an aside, I highly recommend as the best picture quality you can find on a TV of that size for the lowest price) on Black Friday to use with my Hopper 3 receiver I got a few months ago. So the last few days I've been messing around with it and going through all the various settings and modes, because I'm obsessed with getting the highest quality picture. Here's a recap of what I found.
If you have any 4K content from the Hopper to feed it, the quality is amazing no matter what. For Hopper 4K sources I sampled a PPV title, a free streaming show On Demand, and Netflix, and they all looked fantastic. The picture quality was not *as* nice as streaming 4K Amazon and Netflix titles from the built-in apps on the TV, but the difference is barely perceptible, and I suspect that is only because the content from Amazon supports HDR natively, and because nothing has to be transferred over an HDMI cable to get to the TV, "cutting out the middleman", so to speak.
Regular HD content is where things get interesting, because that's 95% of what I and most people will be watching for the foreseeable future, and what Dish primarily offers.
For most native 1080i programming, the quality is just "good", with occasional visual artifacting. In general, any computer generated graphics (like the lower third graphics on the news) upscale perfectly on my TV. Other content can be hit or miss. This is where setting the different picture modes/profiles on the TV can definitely help, especially for movies.
For 720p native content, there are issues. I used the OSU-Michigan game on ABC/ESPN as a test for this. There were visual artifacts all over the screen, and the quality for this was the worst of anything I tested. A big reason for this is the image was being upscaled twice. The native 720p source was being output in 1080i by the Hopper receiver (because I had 1080i/1080p/4K selected in Dish settings), and upscaled again to 4K by the TV. To resolve it, I changed the output of the receiver to 720p to match the source, leaving the TV to do all the upscaling. After this change, the overall picture quality improved to "okay/decent" and a lot of the visual artifacting was gone, but at a cost of decreased sharpness everywhere, especially for still/slow-moving images.
The annoying thing then became switching between 720p and 1080i/1080p/4K in the Hopper settings any time a channel was changed, because Dish does not offer a "Source Native" mode. If you wanted to switch it manually like me, you can find out which channels broadcast in which resolution natively here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_television_in_the_United_States
I was resigned to this less than ideal solution until I discovered a trick to make the Hopper output 4K regardless of what was being watched. All you have to do is turn on "Sports Bar mode" in PIP to push a 4K res image to the TV, and then select one of the 4 quadrants to make it full screen. The receiver remains outputting 4K and the resulting quality was MUCH better than anything before, for both 1080i and 720p sources. There was nearly zero artifacting and the image was as sharp as can be.
For other Hopper 3 users with 4K TVs, can you try this and see if your picture quality improves as well?
For any software engineers at Dish reading this, can you make 4K it's own option in settings instead of lumping it in with 1080i/1080p so the receiver outputs that res all the time? It would be nice to not have to resort to the Sports Bar hack, and I suspect would be an even better solution than offering a "Native" resolution option that a lot of people were clamoring for.
I just bought a brand new 65" Samsung KS8000 TV (which as an aside, I highly recommend as the best picture quality you can find on a TV of that size for the lowest price) on Black Friday to use with my Hopper 3 receiver I got a few months ago. So the last few days I've been messing around with it and going through all the various settings and modes, because I'm obsessed with getting the highest quality picture. Here's a recap of what I found.
If you have any 4K content from the Hopper to feed it, the quality is amazing no matter what. For Hopper 4K sources I sampled a PPV title, a free streaming show On Demand, and Netflix, and they all looked fantastic. The picture quality was not *as* nice as streaming 4K Amazon and Netflix titles from the built-in apps on the TV, but the difference is barely perceptible, and I suspect that is only because the content from Amazon supports HDR natively, and because nothing has to be transferred over an HDMI cable to get to the TV, "cutting out the middleman", so to speak.
Regular HD content is where things get interesting, because that's 95% of what I and most people will be watching for the foreseeable future, and what Dish primarily offers.
For most native 1080i programming, the quality is just "good", with occasional visual artifacting. In general, any computer generated graphics (like the lower third graphics on the news) upscale perfectly on my TV. Other content can be hit or miss. This is where setting the different picture modes/profiles on the TV can definitely help, especially for movies.
For 720p native content, there are issues. I used the OSU-Michigan game on ABC/ESPN as a test for this. There were visual artifacts all over the screen, and the quality for this was the worst of anything I tested. A big reason for this is the image was being upscaled twice. The native 720p source was being output in 1080i by the Hopper receiver (because I had 1080i/1080p/4K selected in Dish settings), and upscaled again to 4K by the TV. To resolve it, I changed the output of the receiver to 720p to match the source, leaving the TV to do all the upscaling. After this change, the overall picture quality improved to "okay/decent" and a lot of the visual artifacting was gone, but at a cost of decreased sharpness everywhere, especially for still/slow-moving images.
The annoying thing then became switching between 720p and 1080i/1080p/4K in the Hopper settings any time a channel was changed, because Dish does not offer a "Source Native" mode. If you wanted to switch it manually like me, you can find out which channels broadcast in which resolution natively here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_television_in_the_United_States
I was resigned to this less than ideal solution until I discovered a trick to make the Hopper output 4K regardless of what was being watched. All you have to do is turn on "Sports Bar mode" in PIP to push a 4K res image to the TV, and then select one of the 4 quadrants to make it full screen. The receiver remains outputting 4K and the resulting quality was MUCH better than anything before, for both 1080i and 720p sources. There was nearly zero artifacting and the image was as sharp as can be.
For other Hopper 3 users with 4K TVs, can you try this and see if your picture quality improves as well?
For any software engineers at Dish reading this, can you make 4K it's own option in settings instead of lumping it in with 1080i/1080p so the receiver outputs that res all the time? It would be nice to not have to resort to the Sports Bar hack, and I suspect would be an even better solution than offering a "Native" resolution option that a lot of people were clamoring for.
22 Replies
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22644 views
TWiT Tech Podcast Network
Time for another AWESOME video from the TWIT Network!
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_diwjVjCxQ
Direct YouTube Link - MacBreak Weekly 1049
TWIT's Website
TWIT Live Feed
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_diwjVjCxQ
Direct YouTube Link - MacBreak Weekly 1049
TWIT's Website
TWIT Live Feed
0 Replies
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1 views
Supporting Founder
Pub Member / Supporter
Lifetime Supporter
According to this article on The Verge, Videostrong Technologies based in Shenzen, China, placed a backdoor into 1.3 million of their devices and used this to deploy a botnet:
www.theverge.com
One of Google’s Android partners turned 1.3 million set-top boxes into a botnet
A manufacturer intentionally hijacked its Android TV devices.
www.theverge.com
4 Replies
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51 views
Pub Member / Supporter
Pissed off at the crappy healthcare costs
My health Insurance renewal for 2027 just came in. Going from $827 a month to $1,187 a month. Deductible going up a $1k to $9,350. Max out of pocket also going up $1k to $11,000. Doctor co-pay of $40. Urgent Care co-pay $50. ER 50% coinsurance after deductible. That's all in network. Out of network is double, should it be needed.
Have to think about this. I'm really tempted to just go without now. I only go to the doctor once or twice a year. I pay out of pocket for Tirzepitide and can do without the Rosuvastatin (crestor) now. Really tired of spending over $10k a year and getting nothing out of it.
After years with Blue Cross I switched last year to Ambetter as my Blue Cross premium was going from $1200 to $1800 for a Silver plan and the Bronze plan was still going to be $1300 at BCBS. Ambetter was $827 for the same coverage with a Bronze plan. Didn't think it would jump this much so soon.
I'm guessing a Silver plan is probably over $2,000 a month for 2027.
68 Replies
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899 views
Such a scam. Healthcare.gov shows me cheaper individual plans available for 2027 from ambetter that ambetter doesn't show on their website. Looked it up. I've spent $68,000 in premiums the last 5 years and got nothing out of it except a few doctors visits and labs.
TWiT Tech Podcast Network
Time for another AWESOME video from the TWIT Network!
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN6vppKYdpc
Direct YouTube Link - iOS Today 827
TWIT's Website
TWIT Live Feed
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN6vppKYdpc
Direct YouTube Link - iOS Today 827
TWIT's Website
TWIT Live Feed
0 Replies
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7 views
I have Dish with Hopper3. I choose to get local channels OTA and had a "guide list" established at my previous home. Having moved a few miles away, I wanted to update the list by appending a couple new stations via a rescan. As many would know, some stations come in with the UHF/VHF antenna aimed in one direction, while others come in better with a different direction.
Unfortunately, when a scan is done (bringing in 25-30 stations for that particular antenna aim), the dialog screen does not present the established guide list; it presents an empty field to the right that the scanned stations may be selected one by one and added to the empty guide. But because of antenna aim, some stations originally saved are missing, and would have to be retrieved with a different antenna aim. But as I explain, if a 2nd scan is done with a different antenna aim, the stations saved from the first scan are lost.
It troubles me that Dish didn't develop software that would allow a user to simply append only 1 or 2 channels to the established list.
Any thought on this? Has anyone experienced this or heard of this from others?
Unfortunately, when a scan is done (bringing in 25-30 stations for that particular antenna aim), the dialog screen does not present the established guide list; it presents an empty field to the right that the scanned stations may be selected one by one and added to the empty guide. But because of antenna aim, some stations originally saved are missing, and would have to be retrieved with a different antenna aim. But as I explain, if a 2nd scan is done with a different antenna aim, the stations saved from the first scan are lost.
It troubles me that Dish didn't develop software that would allow a user to simply append only 1 or 2 channels to the established list.
Any thought on this? Has anyone experienced this or heard of this from others?
6 Replies
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233 views
Staff member
Pub Member / Supporter
Cutting Edge
The TPN Map Excel Presents all DIRECTV Channels:
Understanding the TPN Map
Making Sense of the TPN Map Display Conventions
National (50-States or wide/NAT+PR beams)
Local (Local-Into-Local or narrow/Spot beams)
Local (Local-Into-Local or narrow/Spot beams)
Additional tabs provide:
OTA the (Over-The-Air) Database
VOD (Video On_Demand) Records
Offline Records
Engr Records
Net Decoder a graphic presentation of all satellites and transponders
VOD (Video On_Demand) Records
Offline Records
Engr Records
Net Decoder a graphic presentation of all satellites and transponders
Domestic Satellites
@99W...... D11, D14
@101W.... D16
@103W.... D12, D15
@110W.... D5
@119W.... D8
@99W...... D11, D14
@101W.... D16
@103W.... D12, D15
@110W.... D5
@119W.... D8
Understanding the TPN Map
Making Sense of the TPN Map Display Conventions
2173 Replies
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950492 views
iJustine
Time for another AWESOME video from iJustine!
View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bJwsBosuuFs
Direct YouTube Link - NANO XBOX CONTROLLER!
The official iJustine Website's Website
Buy her book!
View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bJwsBosuuFs
Direct YouTube Link - NANO XBOX CONTROLLER!
The official iJustine Website's Website
Buy her book!
0 Replies
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5 views
Lifetime Supporter
Looks like dish is Bankrupt. Filling tomorrow Tuesday June 30th
442 Replies
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14973 views
Can't remember where or who I saw predict this.
It wouldn't surprise me to see Elon soon own all of DISH / Echostar in the future.
So Charlie is going to sell out and give it all the Elon?Can't remember where or who I saw predict this.
It wouldn't surprise me to see Elon soon own all of DISH / Echostar in the future.
Staff member
HERE TO HELP YOU!
Cutting Edge
Sometimes a thread gets so many posts in it that is can cause issues for the server so that why today we introduce The Song Name Game Part 3!
So let the game continue!
The last song was added by Bobby who posted...
One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters
CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!
Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game
Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.
Example:
Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow
Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio
Another example:
Ride the Lightning -- Metallica
Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne
Get it?
An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....
So let the game continue!
The last song was added by Bobby who posted...
One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters
CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!
Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game
Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.
Example:
Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow
Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio
Another example:
Ride the Lightning -- Metallica
Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne
Get it?
An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....
68720 Replies
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2683706 views
Staff member
HERE TO HELP YOU!
Link to Todays Broadcast HDTV Program Guide (updated daily from our friends at HDTV Magazine...)
Watched the last hour of the Today show in HD , Rockstar finale and CSI NY later...
Watched the last hour of the Today show in HD , Rockstar finale and CSI NY later...
9901 Replies
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642356 views
