Dish's HD Picture Quality- Improved or not?

[Spike]

I no longer think of DishHD as an HD service. I think of it as a form of ED - Enhanced Definition, a higher standard of ED, that I call ED+. It is much better than SD, and it is nice to have all of these good ED+ channels. But there is not a single channel, outside of maybe the HD demo channel, that I consider to have good quality HD.

I don't feel the term HD-lite is one that can broadly represent the quality of the DishHD channels, as that term has come to be defined as down-rezzed HD. Many of E*s "HD" channels fall short of good quality HD due to compression, even the HD-lite channels are further deteriorated by over-compression.

So I think of it as ED+. Super Definition might be okay too. A standard that is above EDTV, which can be up to 720x576 - or some ED plasmas went up to 852x480, but falls short of True HD in resolution and/or sufficient bandwidth.

As such I think of myself as a Dish ED+ subscriber and have come to accept that I have no way, at present, to subscribe to a true HD service. Although I do get some true HD for free via OTA. Not all OTA channels or programs are good quality, but some are excellent.

Bummer! That is all I have to say... BUMMER! UGGH

 

[MikeD-C05]

The hd demo channel is now hd lite too.

 

[Jim5506]

By ATSC standards 1080X1280 and 1080X1440 ARE TRUE HD.

Bandwidth is more critical than horizonal resolution.

 

[Smith P.]

By ATSC standards 1080X1280 and 1080X1440 ARE TRUE HD.

Bandwidth is more critical than horizonal resolution.

Only as a surrogate, because a) not 16:9 b) practically no TV sets with the resolutions.

 

[FitzAusTex]

Having said that, I am back with Dish Network: Comcast services goes out during bad weather while Dish Network is rock-solid even during the worst storms; my Dish Network 622s and EPG are stellar...

Riffjim, would love to get more info on the 'rock-solidness' of your E* service, It appears you use 61.5, rather than 129? I'm in Texas and have a 1000+, and to stop 129 from dropping about a third of the 129 channels every time even a moderate storm occurred, E* came out and tweaked the dish, Now I lose 110 and 119 hella-often with rain, (plus 129). Guess I need a re-tweak, but I 'moved' to Dallas, so I guess I'm going to have to do this tweak myself.

 

[dgpruitt]

Please pardon my ignorance, but what channel is the "HD Demo" channel? Maybe I just haven't seen it because I usually am in a Favorites list in the guide...

I usually use Discovery HD, or something interesting on HDNet to show off a decent HD picture.

 

[kstuart]

Sorry, but your blind and consistent denial of facts about HD-Lite ( downrez AND bit starving) what posted last couple years [why you did the mockup of the myphical 10 years ?!] your posts come into denial category also, ie Ignore List.
:down

I haven't been discussing this subject of HD-Lite for more than a couple of weeks, so you are confusing me with someone else.

But, the whole concept of HD-Lite is false simply because Digital High Definition Television is always lossey.

There is no such thing as a Full HD that is different from so-called HD-Lite

The digital master tape is never broadcast, because there is no broadcast medium with that much bandwidth. HD is always broadcast in a lossey "HD-Lite" format, using either MPEG-2 or MPEG-4.

Yes, any given HD broadcast of the same material has greater or lesser PQ, no question. But the term "HD-Lite" implies that there is something other than a spectrum of better and worse, and implies that there is someone doing something other than removing bits.

All Digital TV broadcasts remove bits

The job of the MPEG2 and MPEG4 encoders and engineers is to get the best possible PQ out of a given bandwidth.

Channels that have better PQ either have:
a) Better encoders, or
b) More bandwidth.

 

[kstuart]

DVDs are a perfect analogy.

DVDs use MPEG-2, a lossey format, where bits are removed to present the whole program on one disk.

Often, movies were encoded to DVD without occupying the full space due to special features. So, some of those movies were released as "SuperBit DVD" versions with greater bandwidth by using the whole DVD without special features. The PQ was better. Were the older versions with special features "DVD-Lite"? The SuperBit versions weren't perfect, they just had somewhat more bandwidth than the older versions.

It's just a spectrum of quality. More bandwidth is more quality.

In the case of DVDs, better quality means less special features, in the case of DBS, it means less channels.

The current spring 2007 HD PQ on Dish does not have PQ problems for the majority of HD sets currently in use, i.e. all sets under 40 inches and larger native 768p sets. The number of 47-inch or larger sets with 1080 resolution are a small fraction of current HD sets, and such people cannot expect to rely on mass market providers for high end videophile quality. That's is what Blu-ray and HD-DVD are for...

 

[MikeD-C05]

Please pardon my ignorance, but what channel is the "HD Demo" channel? Maybe I just haven't seen it because I usually am in a Favorites list in the guide...

I usually use Discovery HD, or something interesting on HDNet to show off a decent HD picture.

You would only get the hd demo channel if you have the 61.5 sat. Channel number #9443.

 

[Jim5506]

Only as a surrogate, because a) not 16:9 b) practically no TV sets with the resolutions.

a) they are 16:9, just not square pixels
b) TV sets do not have to be capable of those resolutions because DishNetwork and DirecTV use them every day for HDTV transmission to their STB's. True, their STB's don't output the data as such, but that's how it gets there.

Nobody's TV can directly receive satellite transmissions (with the possible exception of the RCA F38310) so we must look at what's coming to the STB and STB's are designed to interpret most, if not all, of the HDTV Standards set by ATSC. Two of those standards for satellite transmission are 1080X1280 and 1080X1440.

 

[Jim5506]

You would only get the hd demo channel if you have the 61.5 sat. Channel number #9443.

It's also on 148, and maybe one of the Superdish sats.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

The current spring 2007 HD PQ on Dish does not have PQ problems for the majority of HD sets currently in use, i.e. all sets under 40 inches and larger native 768p sets. The number of 47-inch or larger sets with 1080 resolution are a small fraction of current HD sets, and such people cannot expect to rely on mass market providers for high end videophile quality. That's is what Blu-ray and HD-DVD are for...

"Mitsubishi’s own statistics show that overall industry sales for large-screen TVs 40 inches and over surpassed the eight-million-unit level in 2006; it estimates that figure will reach 10.5 million units in 2007 and 14.28 million in 2008. The company expects such big screens will account for fully two-thirds of the TV business in 2009, at 18.7 million units. Overall industry LCD unit sales hit 1.8 million in 2006, company estimates show, should balloon to just over four million in 2007 and hit 7.3 million in ’08 and 10.78 million in ’09."

 

[Tom Bombadil]

A lot of people are underestimating the sales of 1080p sets too.

1080p sets now make up 48% of all large-screen micro-display sales, and just crossed 30% of all large-screen LCD sales.

 

[Jim5506]

A lot of people are underestimating the sales of 1080p sets too.

1080p sets now make up 48% of all large-screen micro-display sales, and just crossed 30% of all large-screen LCD sales.

Mr. Barnham is smiling.

 

[Smith P.]

Jim - you're loose cannon ! Word's wizzard - man !
Do you understand how pixels processing when it goes from studio (1920x1080) all the way to yout TV set 1980x1080i/p ? Do you know your TV (Plasma, LCD and practically DLP) have _square_ picture elements ?

 

[kstuart]

A lot of people are underestimating the sales of 1080p sets too.

1080p sets now make up 48% of all large-screen micro-display sales, and just crossed 30% of all large-screen LCD sales.

But I'm referring to the installed base. Sure, in 2009, a large portion of sets sold will be 1080p - but at the moment, most people (with HD) have 720p or768p sets.

 

[Jim5506]

Jim - you're loose cannon ! Word's wizzard - man !
Do you understand how pixels processing when it goes from studio (1920x1080) all the way to yout TV set 1980x1080i/p ? Do you know your TV (Plasma, LCD and practically DLP) have _square_ picture elements ?

Fortunately, I have two CRT projectors, one front, one rear.

 

[Smith P.]

In this better case, your CRTs PQ still suffer from artifacts produced by many MPEG-2/4 conversions and overcompression.
Remember, all parameters of the artificial processes have high priority for provider's needs (bandwidth) and minimal priority for customers, ie crush video PQ to that lower level while customer's base not affected.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

But I'm referring to the installed base. Sure, in 2009, a large portion of sets sold will be 1080p - but at the moment, most people (with HD) have 720p or768p sets.

And when looking back, people tend to forget that millions of rear-projection CRT sets were sold, and that none of them were 720p sets. While these RP-CRTs cannot fully resolve 1920x1080i, the images on them are sharper when fed a full 1920x1080 picture.

Also since more HDTVs are sold every year, the number of 40"+ sets that are limited to 720p are going to be overwhelmed in numbers in a fairly short time.

 

[katellite]

I haven't been discussing this subject of HD-Lite for more than a couple of weeks, so you are confusing me with someone else.

But, the whole concept of HD-Lite is false simply because Digital High Definition Television is always lossey.

There is no such thing as a Full HD that is different from so-called HD-Lite

The digital master tape is never broadcast, because there is no broadcast medium with that much bandwidth. HD is always broadcast in a lossey "HD-Lite" format, using either MPEG-2 or MPEG-4.

Yes, any given HD broadcast of the same material has greater or lesser PQ, no question. But the term "HD-Lite" implies that there is something other than a spectrum of better and worse, and implies that there is someone doing something other than removing bits.

All Digital TV broadcasts remove bits

The job of the MPEG2 and MPEG4 encoders and engineers is to get the best possible PQ out of a given bandwidth.

Channels that have better PQ either have:
a) Better encoders, or
b) More bandwidth.

you're confusing two different things.. lossyness and resolution. Everyone knows all broadcasters use Mpeg-2, Mpeg4. What's happening here with dish network is that they are using the same compression settings but with a lower resolution to produce streams with lower bandwidth. It's garbage and that's all there is to say about this. I just subscribed to 622 and I have to say it's the worst quality HD I've ever seen. Originally when I got the 6000 and the 921 when they first had HD channels the quality was MUCH better. They were using Mpeg 2 at the time.