Dish HD is going to Hell in a Hand Basket :mad:

[DarrellP]

Since the Olympics, Dish HD has deteriorated immensely. Last night on HDNET Movies I watched Oxygen, which has a lot of closeup facial shots. The overcompression aritfacts were readily apparent, whenever a face was still, the picture was fantastic, but with the slightest movement, all detail would disappear and the skin would appear to "smear". Also there is a scene where they open a matchbox and it has "Room 10" written inside the matchbook cover and there was an extreme closeup of this and the "Room 10", which was written in dark ink, appeared to "float" around in space.

Dish needs to get off their ass and devote a constant bitrate for HD. I emailed Mark Cuban, Charlie Ergen, Dish Tech, Dish Feedback and Dish PQ twice now and have not even had the courtesy of a return email.

I dropped Dish SD programming about a year ago after suffering through several years of highly overcompressed programming and I will not stand for it with HD. If need be, I will drop the Dish HD Pack as well, I don't need this crap. Voom and OTA are my last hope for good HD and Voom is not yet delivering that, hopefully with the WM9 implementation I can be a Happy HD Camper once again.

 

[cdprayor]

I don't blame you for being mad.$10 for the hd pack is overpriced for the crap they put on there.Discovery hd has too many reruns and the other channels forget about it.Looks like directv is finally getting more hd channels and if they would lease the hd receivers and get my locals I would switch in a minute!!!

 

[LosingPatience]

Amen, Brother!

The quality of Dish "Digital TV" makes me long for the days of Analog cable.

But I live in the middle of nowhere, Voom at this point doesn't sound any better and I won't give Rupert a dime of my money, so... if I want to watch TV, I'm stuck with Dish.

Yay for me.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I dropped the hd pack the other day. I am not impressed with the value the pack has or the picture quality either. I really watch Hbo hd and Showtime hd more anyway. Tnt was nice but the picture quality has suffered since they put three hd channels per transponder. I really am not impressed with old movies from the 70s 80s and early 90s on Hdnet either. I have my ota locals in digital including CBS in true hd so I can live with it for now. If the picture quality improves and they would add something more for my money I will add it back. I think they need to add the other movie premiums (Starz, Movie channel ,Cinemax) in hd but that won't give them any thing for their money. It would be like Hbo and Showtime in hd ; if you sub to the premium version movie packs they come free .

 

[thevoice]

??

since they put three hd channels per transponder. I really am not impressed with old movies from the 70s 80s and early 90s on Hdnet either.

HDNET and HDNET Movies share a transponder with no other HD feeds right? So why do you think the quality maybe lower if only two HD channels are on this transponder?

Don't you just love the FCC?

 

[slacker9876]

It is never too late to make the switch to DirecTV! Just kidding fellas! In all honesty I had these type of issues with the SD programming on Dish several years ago and it was one of many reasons I left and went back to D*! Back then I was on a 32" JVC with the "round" screen. I am now on D* with a 16:9 55" Samsung RPTV and rarely experience these issues. This is why I argue with Mike Greer about the digital quality, mine is immaculate.

 

[Cholly]

Let's face it -- neither D* nor E* have a lot of HD channels to offer, and the HD providers have a limited amount of programming content, hence the repeats. Once the new broadcast season starts, the major networks will have a fair amount of new HD shows available (OTA, of course). As far as compression is concerned, the satellite providers are between a rock and a hard place. We all want locals (210 DMA's worth!) and none of the providers have enough bandwidth to supply uncompressed HD in addition to all the locals. As for me, I'm happy to have the HD content I'm getting. Unfortunately, I'm in an area that offers only PBS and ABC in HD OTA, and PBS suffers from the same problelm as HDNet and Discovery HD Theater -- not enough material.

 

[long_time_DNC]

Guess I'm one of the few who enjoys the HD pack and isn't having problems with the PQ. Sure, I'd love to see more stuff in HD and I'm sure E* will add more as time goes by. I sure as heck won't go to cable to get more HD.

 

[Matt_Stevens]

Joe, everyone is having problems with PQ because DISH is lowering bandwidth. They have compressed the channels down quite a bit and there is a noticeable difference. My local HD Cable feed now looks superior, despite their putting three HD channels per QAM channel! Similar reports are coming in nation-wide. It is a fact that DISH has compressed the signals down.

I have just one 6000 receiver under my account (a 169Time modded version) and once I am confident enough in my ability to record HD via Firewire from my Cable Box (so far so good) I will drop DISH for good. I HATE my local Cable Company, but I must go where the quality is.

 

[MikeD-C05]

HDNET and HDNET Movies share a transponder with no other HD feeds right? So why do you think the quality maybe lower if only two HD channels are on this transponder?

Don't you just love the FCC?

Hdnet has an agreement with Mark Cuban not to compress the Hd net feeds for carriage. The other hd channels like Discovery and Tnt have been compressed with three channels per transponder. This has noticebly reduced the picture quality. Dish even told me that they have noticed the problem with the Discovery Hd channel and they were working to fix this problem. The engineer I talked to at Dish said that after the Olympics they were discussing putting the bandwith back by placing the hd channels back to 2 per transponder. I haven't noticed any improvement and have since dropped the hd pack.

Like I said there is really nothing on these hd channels I really watch except Hbo and Showtime which I get for free anyway because of AEP.

 

[Mike Greer]

It is never too late to make the switch to DirecTV! Just kidding fellas! In all honesty I had these type of issues with the SD programming on Dish several years ago and it was one of many reasons I left and went back to D*! Back then I was on a 32" JVC with the "round" screen. I am now on D* with a 16:9 55" Samsung RPTV and rarely experience these issues. This is why I argue with Mike Greer about the digital quality, mine is immaculate.

Don't make me get my pictures out again!

 

[Stryf3]

It is never too late to make the switch to DirecTV! Just kidding fellas! In all honesty I had these type of issues with the SD programming on Dish several years ago and it was one of many reasons I left and went back to D*! Back then I was on a 32" JVC with the "round" screen. I am now on D* with a 16:9 55" Samsung RPTV and rarely experience these issues. This is why I argue with Mike Greer about the digital quality, mine is immaculate.

When I had D* the picture quality on SD channels was terrible. Try watching a basketball game and there were macro blocks all over. On HD, I have noticed E* getting a little worse, but when I tried digital cable for a couple of months, it was better than either D* or E*. The problem there is my local cable co. only has 3 channels Discovery, HBO, and Showtime, and they want a ton of money for these. I've milked the Club Dish program for all it's worth and only pay $15/mo for at120+HD+HBO+DVR in two rooms, so I can't complain too much.

 

[long_time_DNC]

Joe, everyone is having problems with PQ because DISH is lowering bandwidth. They have compressed the channels down quite a bit and there is a noticeable difference. My local HD Cable feed now looks superior, despite their putting three HD channels per QAM channel! Similar reports are coming in nation-wide. It is a fact that DISH has compressed the signals down.

I have just one 6000 receiver under my account (a 169Time modded version) and once I am confident enough in my ability to record HD via Firewire from my Cable Box (so far so good) I will drop DISH for good. I HATE my local Cable Company, but I must go where the quality is.

Matt, my local cable looks terrible. I was visiting my brother a few days ago and they have cable. My PQ with Dish is far and away better than what I was seeing on their digital cable (Comcast). I realize that others are having problems with their PQ with Dish, but after seeing what my brother has for digital cable TV, I wouldn't switch if they (Comcast) paid me.

 

[joeadt]

Pq

I have RCN cable in my area and there SD digital is better than some of E's HD programming. The PQ does s*ck compared to what I can get with my cable company. The only reason I am with E is I cannot get 2-way service yet where I live so I connot get HD programming. RCN has ALL of what E offers in HD and ALL my local HD channels.

The day RCN comes through with 2-way service, I am outta here....

 

[DarrellP]

I'm impressed with Dish, I had a flood of emails from them and actually got to talk to a Senior HD Engineer this morning. He assured me that Dish is not altering the HD signals from HDNET/HDNET Movies in any form and are passing them through from HDNET as they are received. These 2 channels also share a transponder and are the only 2 channels on it. PQ seemed to pickup this weekend, Bikini Destinations and NASCAR were razor sharp. I now have a personal contact at Dish that I can share my observations with, cool!!

 

[mboy]

Forget HD, SD really looks like crap now. HD still looks pretty good to me altho I don't watch it as much as I would hope as their ain't much on to watch more then 1x..

 

[JonUrban]

When I first got Dish HD a year or so ago, when they first offered it, I was BLOWN AWAY by the DiscoveryHD. It did not matter what was on, it blew people out of the room.

Now, when I go to DHD, I have to look hard to see if it is really HD. If anyone thinks there is no difference, they are crazy!

To bad those sleazy cable companies stopped "The Merger"......

 

[GB42]

Does D* put 3 HD's on one transponder also??