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More signal is better signal, right? For those of us who grew up in a world filled with analog signals, that's definitely true. But satellite TV is digital. Does that still hold up? It's an important question to ask if you're dissatisfied with the picture quality that you're seeing. It's really a pretty complex question and there's a lot to discuss before I can really give you a yes or no answer.

What is picture quality, anyway?

With digital signals, picture quality can be a little hard to explain? Why? Because there's no one single measure. A high-definition picture can be 1920×1080 or 1280×720, and right there you can see that there are two different quality levels. But that's just scratching the surface. The best way to measure picture quality is by the bitrate of the image, not its resolution. You can compress and compress a signal, but the more you compress it the worse it gets.

I've written before about the common side effects of overcompression like pixelation, macroblocking, and mosquito noise. I've also talked about gamut compression and crushed blacks, both side effects of taking information out of the shadows where you hopefully weren't expecting to see anything. When you look at all the ways that a low bitrate can manifest itself into poor picture quality, you begin to see the problem in defining what "good" picture quality really is.

Which looks better, satellite or streaming?

That's another question that's hard to answer. Typically, when you're streaming there's a sort of negotiatiot going on. The streaming service has several different versions of the same program at different bitrates. Your streaming app is constantly testing and comparing to give you the highest bitrate.

So, theoretically, you could get better picture quality over streaming than satellite, but that's in a perfect world with a nice fast internet connection that no one else is using. On the other hand, satellite is always provided at the same bitrate, so it's always going to be the same quality. In general I'd say that streaming may give you better quality at 2am on a Wednesday but satellite is going to give you better quality at 8pm on a Saturday when everyone else is streaming too.

OK, so getting back to the amplifier, then

When you're looking at digital signals, an amplifier has a very specific role. It's different from an analog signal where you're essentially taking something weak and making it strong. With digital signals, they're ones and zeros. The only thing you care about is whether you can tell a one from a zero or not. That's what a digital amplifier does. It makes the signal stronger while adding as little noise as possible, so your device can tell ones from zeroes. It's like talking more loudly in a crowded room. It's all about being able to pick out what you want to hear from all the other conversations.

If your signal is so weak that the picture is breaking up, then an amplifier could help. But, an amplifier will not improve the quality of the image on the screen. What you see there is the best possible representation of the digital signal you've been sent.

So what can be done if you're not happy with the picture quality over satellite?

A lot of times there isn't a lot that can be done, but there are two best practices. First, try to calibrate your TV to industry standards. Generally I say it's your TV, you watch it any way you want. If you like it nice and bright, make it nice and bright. But if you're not happy, calibrating may help hide some of those compression artifacts.

The other thing to offer you isn't necessarily what you want to hear. If you're too close to the screen, or if the screen is too big in comparison to where you watch it, you're going to see little things you wouldn't have seen on a smaller screen.

As a general rule, you shouldn't be sitting closer than double the width of the screen. In other words, if you have a 55″ TV and you're closer than 9 feet from it, you're going to see some artifacts. The level of artifacts you're going to see is going to depend on the bitrate of the original signal, but there's always going to be something.

Ready to upgrade your satellite service?

The best option for improving picture quality is to watch in 4K. Not every satellite receiver supports 4K, though. If yours doesn't, call the experts at Signal Connect and we'll lay out all the options for you! Call us at 888-233-7563, or fill out the form below and we'll get back to you!


The post Will a satellite amplifier improve your picture quality? appeared first on The Solid Signal Blog.

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