Are you satisfied with your SD & HD Picture Quality

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There's more to choosing providers than just subjective PQ opinions...channels, sports, movies, hardware, cost, upfronts, etc. Overall, the difference is PQ between the two is negligible. Your decision should be based on the other factors.
 
EASTERN ARC( 77/72.2/61.5 sats - dish 1000.4) has better SD quality than either Western arc ( 110/119/129 sats- 1000.2 )or DIRECTV. That is because all sd channels on eastern arc are in mpeg4 as well as hd channels. HD is about the same between either provider and HD is the same on either eastern or Western arc as they are all in mpeg 4 anyway . As for hd channels between DISH or DIRECTV, DISH has more national hd channels than DIRECTV, and that includes national cable and especially premium movie channels. DIRECTV has more hd sports rsns and some national sports like MLB or NFL Sunday Ticket that DISH won't carry. They don't have VERSUS anymore and DISH does and is giving it in free preview for 3 months . DISH has better hd dvrs than Directv and they can be used in two different rooms at the same time.
 
MikeD-C05 said:
EASTERN ARC( 77/72.2/61.5 sats - dish 1000.4) has better SD quality than either Western arc ( 110/119/129 sats- 1000.2 )or DIRECTV. That is because all sd channels on eastern arc are in mpeg4 as well as hd channels. .
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I don't agree that Eastern Arc SD is any better then Western arc SD . I had Eastern Arc for about 6 months , and went back to the 110/119/61.5 wing dish setup for AAD HD. I can't say I've noticed any Difference in SD PQ. Remember it might be Mpeg 4 But they also went from 540x480 SD Mpeg 2 to 480x480 SD in the Eastern Acr MPEG 4.
I do agree that SD from E* is better then D*. It never used to be , But I think the past Year D* got worse. A lot of Microblocking.
 
My video quality seems fine. SD doesn't look too good when I'm too close to my TV, but I don't normally watch it from that close.
 
Hemi 6.1 said:
I don't agree that Eastern Arc SD is any better then Western arc SD . I had Eastern Arc for about 6 months , and went back to the 110/119/61.5 wing dish setup for AAD HD. I can't say I've noticed any Difference in SD PQ. Remember it might be Mpeg 4 But they also went from 540x480 SD Mpeg 2 to 480x480 SD in the Eastern Acr MPEG 4.
I do agree that SD from E* is better then D*. It never used to be , But I think the past Year D* got worse. A lot of Microblocking.
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WE watch a lot of Hallmark tv channel and the We channel and Oxygen for shows my wife likes. I see a MARKED difference in pq on eastern arc compared to western arc. Like Night and day. I can now turn up the backlighting to 50% and the contrast to 90 % and the picture looks great now on all SD channels . There is no compression artifacts or macro blocking on the backgrounds . My wife thought that Hallmark/We/Oxygen channels had gone HD because the shows were so much better and clearer.

I have had both dish setups on poles in my back yard for a year now ;1000.2/1000.4. I can switch when I want to. Everytime we switch we see the difference in pq on SD channels . The hd is the same obviously=mpeg 4 regardless. HD looks great in hd ,especially the hd locals and it stands to reason the sd channels look better because they are in mpeg 4 as well. That is probably why they have the western arc sd channels in 540x480sd. They are trying to hide some of the artifacts created by mpeg 2 compression. But it isn't working , we can still see them.

But as usual picture quality is subjective. We see a difference in eastern arc sd channels and we appreciate it too. My hard drive takes up less room too. Can't wait till the new sat for 72.7 goes up this month and then the better pq will be accompanied by stronger sat signals as well for less rain fade issues. That is the only draw back to me using eastern arc ; more rain fade and not as strong signal strength on the sats . I get 45 - 48 on 72.7 and 50s on 77 sat and anywhere from 45-59 on 61.5 sat. That is why I hooked up my dish 1000.2 sat dish with lnb adapter for just 129 and hooked it into my port on my 1000.4 sat dish. Back up for hd just in case rain fade takes 61.5 down.
 
Recently, Dfergie took HD video from Dish and Directv, off the same show, and put them up for us. We did not know which provider we were viewing, and the two or three of us that did the experiment, picked Dish.

That being said, a difference was hard to come by.

On hardware, other than the Directv HR20, the Dish 722 and 722k beat pretty much anything.

I cant comment on SD, it all looks like crap on my tv.


Another comment on the HD, is many times its a feed problem. I can see something on Discovery or History that looks great, then the next program looks like arse. Same thing with ESPN.
 
I am so much happier with E* so far anyway. The picture looks so much better than when we had D*. Chiller especially looks so much brighter on E* than on D*. E* went out once when we had heavy rain the other day but has not gone out with light rains like D* did. Hope that helps.
 
Dish HD PQ looks great, very close to the PQ of live, OTA HD I get with my TV's ATSC tuner. I don't think they could do any better. I used to think they were a little "soft" on their HD PQ, but when I replaced my older 50" HDTV with a Sony 52Z5100 back in June, I saw that it was my old HDTV and not Dish. The Dish HD PQ on my new Sony looks absolutely great. Like looking through a picture window.

SD, OTOH, is a mixed bag. It really depends on the source content. Some of it is just flat unwatchable on a large screen LCD HDTV. Other SD that is digital video at creation looks decent. Dish SD, in general, looks better on a smaller screen. Most of it looks decent on my 32" Samsung LCD HDTV, but on a 52", there just isn't enough bits there to give good PQ.
 
I dont have HD yet...but SD picture quality on Dish is way better then cable or Directv in PR....& I m happy that I sub to Dish. Even on HD tv....from abt 8 foot...the pictures look much better then on same channel on Cable. eg when watching WWE Raw...on USA...on Dish...it have very less blockings then watching the same on Cable (Onelink).
 

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