Now I know this is a Dish forum and as such I know that getting an unbiased answer may be a bit difficult. But those of you who have had both Direct TV HD and Dish HD, honestly which seemed to have the best HD picture? I have heard both pros and cons for both services, but come on guys and gals which service really does give the better HD picture.
Best HD picture
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I have had both and honestly could not tell the difference.
I think the Tv makes the most difference. I notice a big difference on my $2500 oled vs the $200 Black Friday Special.
I think the Tv makes the most difference. I notice a big difference on my $2500 oled vs the $200 Black Friday Special.
I can’t tell a difference. Years ago Dtv was better. Have Directv where I work on a 65 inch 4K and Dish at home on a 65 inch 4K. Service and equipment is much better with Dish and it’s a better value I feel.
I've got both now and on some channels DirecTV HD is a tiny bit better and on some channels DISH HD is a tiny bit better. Overall IMHO it's a wash.
Now SD is a different story with DISH having the clear upper hand.
Now SD is a different story with DISH having the clear upper hand.
I agree that the TV makes the biggest difference. BTW I am getting ready to set up my new Sony XBR 55X900F so we shall see how good Dish HD really is.
So weird, went to Sony's site for that TV, and watching their Promo Video for a 4K TV, shot in 1080 on a 4K monitor.....
I've got both now and on some channels DirecTV HD is a tiny bit better and on some channels DISH HD is a tiny bit better. Overall IMHO it's a wash.
Now SD is a different story with DISH having the clear upper hand.
What is this SD you speak of!?!?!?!
If you saw the HD quality on C-Band or even some of what's available on Ku, you'd think both Dish and Direct were behind the curve 
If you saw the HD quality on C-Band or even some of what's available on Ku, you'd think both Dish and Direct were behind the curve
You mean something like these?
That's a gorgeous dish farm right there
That's half of the farm. On the south end we also have Hughesnet Gen5, Viasat Exede and 3 more 1000.2 EA dishes.
That's either your back porch or you aren't married.
DirecTV and Dish Network both look terrible. They both ruin the C-band uplinks, but I don't have samples from them to compare.
I did do a comparison of WGN America on 125W vs. the WGN-9 over the air affiliate in Chicago though!
Can you believe that the normies watching WGN on cable and via an antenna think that this macroblocked MPEG-2 mess is acceptable?
DirecTV and Dish Network are actually a step BELOW over-the-air broadcasts in terms of picture quality, so they should look even worse than WGN 9 looks here, in theory. DirecTV and Dish Network both re-encode the C-band distribution feeds to lower bitrates, but at least they use H.264 instead of the ancient MPEG-2. However, Dish Network downrezzes channels to 1440x1080 in addition to transcoding them to lower bitrates, so they look even worse than DirecTV.
I'd say that generally, the picture quality order, from best to worst, would be UHD Blu-ray > High bitrate 4K backhaul feed > Netflix 4K stream > High bitrate HD backhaul feed (>30 Mbps) or Blu-ray > 1080p Amazon stream > C-band fronthaul feed (typically 6-12 Mbps H.264) > over-the-air broadcast > the local cable company's crappy MPEG-2 transcode of the network's C-band uplink > DirecTV > Dish Network > AT&T U-verse > DVD > SDTV channel
I did do a comparison of WGN America on 125W vs. the WGN-9 over the air affiliate in Chicago though!
Can you believe that the normies watching WGN on cable and via an antenna think that this macroblocked MPEG-2 mess is acceptable?
DirecTV and Dish Network are actually a step BELOW over-the-air broadcasts in terms of picture quality, so they should look even worse than WGN 9 looks here, in theory. DirecTV and Dish Network both re-encode the C-band distribution feeds to lower bitrates, but at least they use H.264 instead of the ancient MPEG-2. However, Dish Network downrezzes channels to 1440x1080 in addition to transcoding them to lower bitrates, so they look even worse than DirecTV.
I'd say that generally, the picture quality order, from best to worst, would be UHD Blu-ray > High bitrate 4K backhaul feed > Netflix 4K stream > High bitrate HD backhaul feed (>30 Mbps) or Blu-ray > 1080p Amazon stream > C-band fronthaul feed (typically 6-12 Mbps H.264) > over-the-air broadcast > the local cable company's crappy MPEG-2 transcode of the network's C-band uplink > DirecTV > Dish Network > AT&T U-verse > DVD > SDTV channel
Would you believe I actually had customers tell me that the HD was too clear and hurt their eyes.
True story!
True story!
There was a hardware add-on for some receivers such as the 211 that allowed you to capture the decrypted stream and write it to disk. Once on disk, you could examine it with your own tools. Caveat: I never had one of these magic boxes, so I cannot personally vouch for the 1440X1080 size.
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