I have heard negative comments about "down resing" of HD on Dish.
Dish does reduce the quality on Voom channels to 1280x1080i (native would be 1920x1080i) lovingly reffered to as HD-lite. Do a search for hd-lite and you will find all sorts of stuff on it as it frequently hijacks the topic of a thread. Dish also reduces quality on some of the new mpeg4 channels to 1440x1080i. It is somewhat noticeable, but I wouldn't consider it a show stopper. I was also under the impression that direct did something similar to some of their channels, I am not a directTV sub so correct me if I am wrong.
Channels in 720p (ESPN NGHD etc) are passed in 1280x720p.
And is Dish Mpeg2 or 4? If not 4, when will it be available?
New HD channels including locals are being launched in mpeg-4 and have been since February. You need an mpeg-4 receiver vip211 (single sat tuner, 1atsc no DVR) or a vip622 (2 sat tuners, 1ATSC DVR). There are a couple of new receivers on the way as well. Dish is also getting better at mpeg-4 encoding, several people here have noticed improvements in Starz-HD, and some of the mpeg-4 hd locals over the last few months.
Like direct tv dish is adding hd RSNs in the somewhat near future.
The vip211 does a very nice job with OTA locals. Multipath interference seems to be less of a problem with the new tuners than the older 811.
I am very happy with the HD that I receive from Dish network. Like directTv they have to battle with available bandwidth to give us good picture quality.
My cable company (time warner) really sucks in all aspects. They have only 8 regular HD channels (ESPN, universal, INHD1\2, HDNet, HDmovies, YES-HD (for games only), Discovery HD) + HBO and SHO. They also charge an extra 6/mo for ESPN HDnet HD movies, and universal. They are a freaking joke. Dish has 30 or so plus locals.
Dish networks EPG kicks the living poop out of the scientific atlanta garbage heaps. There is no delay between guide changes and button pressing on the remote. The quide is 16x9 not full screen. Doesn't look horrible either. If the motorola stb is half as bad as the scientific atlanta you will be happy with the dish box.
I don't have a dvr so I can't comment on the 622.