HBO, Showtime and HDnet movies are all on Sat 110 transponder 10. How can D* do this? I thought that the transponders were limited to the amount of bandwidth they have. If this is how D* is going to add new HD channels then I don't want them. It was bad enough when they went to two channels per transponder but now three. We need to do something about this and fast.
3 HD channels on one transponder!!!!!!
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I wondered how long it would take someone to bring this up after having seen it elsewhere.. And I wondered how long it would take someone to get irate about it.. It took a while, but both events happened together.. neat.
so.. who wants to sell me their HD Tivo.. cheap..
so.. who wants to sell me their HD Tivo.. cheap..
Ok so I keep reading about this 3 channel per trans thing and how D* has lowered the res on Showtime and HDnet Movies. I did not do a major search here for more info on this but I could find anything in the D* forum about this lowering of the resolution.
What is making me bring this up is today I was searching through the guide and for the first time I can ever remember HDnet Movies was showing the little HD flag next to the shows being played. However I scrolled through Showtime HD on the guide and noticed nothing at least tonight had the HD flag next to what was showing. HBO and all other HD channels were showing the HD flag.
What is making me bring this up is today I was searching through the guide and for the first time I can ever remember HDnet Movies was showing the little HD flag next to the shows being played. However I scrolled through Showtime HD on the guide and noticed nothing at least tonight had the HD flag next to what was showing. HBO and all other HD channels were showing the HD flag.
The reason for the 3 HD per transponder is because of NFL:ST. Some of the games are shown in HD. They will have the problems solved with the two Spaceway satellites that will be launched next year. That's how they will have more HD and not take up any bandwidth. For the current situation we will just have to live with 3 HD per transponder until after NFL season.
I have D* HD and I also just picked up a Comcast DVR to record local HD. On HDnet movies on D* the quality looks like about the same as DVD. The quality of the HD on Comcast right now is alot better. I was able to compare Discovery and Espn HD and in both cases Comcast won out. I am giving D* the benefit of the doubt right now and I am hoping once the new Sats get up all this will improve.
They haven't used all of their capacity yet.clanger said:
That is a mystery. I'm still hoping they'll be doing something like that once they get everything ironed out.
I have seen about the same. I know what HDNet looked like 2 years ago on D*, and now, it was more eye popping before. Discovery still looks good to me and considering that that channel is like 7.00 of the 10.99/mo it should look the best.minorthr said:
Last night I did watch X-Men 2 on HBO-HD and it looked no better than my DVD does so I would say there is a noticeable difference in PQ as of late.
For those of us with a little less knowledge (like me) would someone who actually knows mind posting what bit rate full HD programming runs at? In reality what does it take, bit rate wise, to send 1920x1080? A link might be nice too.
So does anyone know why Showtime HD in the guide is no longer showing the HD flag/logo next to the programs they are showing? Was it just a fluke last night that they were not showing anything in HD? Did they lower the res so much on Showtime HD that for now they're not considering it HD anymore? I don't have Showtime but I was thinking about adding it, however if it's not gonna be in HD for a while I can wait. Also why did the HD flag/logo suddenly start showing up on HDnet Movies, I can't ever remember seeing this, it was actually the only channel that never showed the HD flag/logo in the guide next to the program they are showing.
Not trying to repeat what I asked above, I just did not see any answers towards these questions yet. Maybe it's just my Sat Box acting strange, I dunno.
X-Men 2 did look very good in HD last night. So did the Harry Potter movie, also shown on HBO-HD.
Not trying to repeat what I asked above, I just did not see any answers towards these questions yet. Maybe it's just my Sat Box acting strange, I dunno.
X-Men 2 did look very good in HD last night. So did the Harry Potter movie, also shown on HBO-HD.
Showtime rarely has HD programming and even when they do it is "not that compelling." I had said the X-Men did not look much better than a DVD ... HD should look FAR better than a DVD, IMHO.CWS_kahuna said:
HDNet Movies rarely shows anything that was in Theaters after '83 anyway. Lower Res shouldn't matter. Do you really need to count the acne scars on Joe Don Baker's face??
slacker9876 said:
I watched X-men for a while last night and thought it looked far better than the DVD. Why do you say Showtime rarely had HD programming? I actually thought they do a pretty good job. It seems like they have at least two movies almost every night in HD and all of their in-house series, as far as I can tell, are in HD.
slacker9876 said:
You're right that HD should look FAR better than DVD. The Xmen 2 did look really good to me. It would be interesting though to compare it to a DVD side by side.
I don't know how big your TV is either, mine is a 36"16:9 so it's not very big which makes it easier for an image to look good in my opinion. I am also sitting 11 ft away, not the ideal distance for my size screen which I believe is closer to about 8 - 9 ft.
I did not realize Showtime did not show to much in HD, sounds like it would be smart to hold off on that channel for now.
I am just simply not impressed with Showtimes offering. I watch maybe one movie a month there. As far as the PQ on HBO I have yet to see a program that was not made in HD look better than DVD. Now that I own the Denon DVD1910 my DVD's look even better since this player features DCDi.
Technically, there's not a specific number. HD, is broadcast in MPEG2, a lossy compression format. The more bandwidth, the better the quality. Most people, however, consider "full" to be 19.3Mbps, as that's the max that OTA can be (actually, it's a little bit lower, because of some overheard). I believe that some of the "cable" type networks send a signal to the satellite companies that is near that number, while others may send a higher number that is then re-compressed to a lower number. The HD that most of us see, however, is typically less than that. Many OTA stations multicast more than one feed into that 19.3Mbps channel, and all three satellite companies re-compress the signal to fit more channels into their transponders. SOME cable companies also re-compress HD to get more out of their bandwidth, though Comcast apparently typically doesn't.slacker9876 said:
FWIW, I thought that X2 last night looked better than DVD. Transfers from film will never look as sharp as direct to video HD, like the things you typically see on Discovery or HDNet. Today's telecine transfer process often doesn't produce more than 1000 lines of resolveable detail.
CWS_kahuna said:
My TV (yes devil, it isn't an HDTV...yet!) is a 36" 16:9 Flat-Screen Wide-Screen and while I meant to watch the whole thing again, I at least flipped to X-2 to see a comparison between my DVD and HBO-HD's PQ. The HBO version looked a little sharper, but it was rather hard to tell as it was OAR on the DVD, and cropped on HBO. So, it's entirely possible that the DVD might look just as good if the picture was cropped on the DVD...
~Alan<~~~~~~~~~Who is getting ready for Ivan... and possibly Jeanne... ugh!!
Thanks Darin, Perhaps my vision is getting blurry or my neighbor has a tree in the way now .. who knows. Thanks for establishing "the standard" for bit rate, that was what I thought but I have read some reports of, perhaps Voom, going as high as 35Mbps.
How long til Episode II is broadcast on HBO HD or SHO HD in its full HD glory!?!? Now that would look nice.
How long til Episode II is broadcast on HBO HD or SHO HD in its full HD glory!?!? Now that would look nice.
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