Does Dish Network have any plans to improve picture quality?

[FearTheVoices]

So with my latest switch to Comcast a couple days ago that lasted less than 2hrs with the X1 system i packed it up and returned it yesterday. Never canceled Dish of course but my main reason for wanting to move on is the picture quality. It seems no matter where I go, everyone has better picture quality than i do. Either at a friends or at a bar, no matter what they have either DirecTv or Comcast it always looks better. And to top it off they always have lesser TV quality than i do, $4000+ plasma vs sub $1500 or $1000 tv's.

Does dish have any plans to increase picture quality? What would it take to accomplish this? Rumor is the Carbon UI may benefit picture quality a bit due to driver improvements?

Or do they just have no need to improve it?

 

[fishman316]

We have started watching sleepy hollow and gotham on foxnow app the day after air because the picture quality on our local fox affiliate sucks. Also picture quality for American horror story on fx is horrible. But fargo doesnt seem as bad. Maybe because it doesn't have as many dark scenes. Unfortunately no access to fxnow app yet

 

[navychop]

Check your settings on all equipment and all cables and switches if you have them.

Do BDs look great on your TV? If not, something outside Dish's control is wrong.

Try alternating between 1080 and 720 output from the Dish STB, and cycling thru your TV settings on each Dish setting.

If BDs look good but Dish doesn't, swap the HDMI cables and see if PQ follows the cable. I am shocked at how many HDMI cables have gone bad on me.

Dish is aiming to please the large majority, not the top 2%. Or 5% or whatever. I find their PQ acceptable, and on occasion quite good. But I've never been wowed by Dish PQ like I have been with certain BDs.

 

[Tampa8]

Boy do I agree. We had a new room wired for DISH, I brought a VIP receiver in to make sure it worked and nothing. After checking a couple of things I changed the HDMI cable and boom, it worked. That cable worked minutes before. Tried the HDMI cable on the WDLive player and nothing. That isn't the first time trouble shooting I found it was the HDMI cable causing the problem, not just no signal. (Freezing was another source of the problem)

 

[charlesrshell]

Check your settings on all equipment and all cables and switches if you have them.

Do BDs look great on your TV? If not, something outside Dish's control is wrong.

Try alternating between 1080 and 720 output from the Dish STB, and cycling thru your TV settings on each Dish setting.

If BDs look good but Dish doesn't, swap the HDMI cables and see if PQ follows the cable. I am shocked at how many HDMI cables have gone bad on me.

Dish is aiming to please the large majority, not the top 2%. Or 5% or whatever. I find their PQ acceptable, and on occasion quite good. But I've never been wowed by Dish PQ like I have been with certain BDs.

What is a BD?

 

[brad1138]

The Hopper offers better PQ than any VIP or older series Dish receiver. But DTV has had slightly better PQ, on average, than Dish over the years. It is a trade off, aside from PQ, everything about Dish is better than the competition, and the PQ difference isn't real significant. Just a couple days ago I notice Dish looked better on a Local station than DTV, we have a pair of 42 inch Toshiba LCDs in our office, 1 with Dish and the other with DTV. I was hoping that with the recent retiring of all Qpsk receivers and the move to 8psk, it would free up enough bandwidth to improve PQ, but I don't think it is that easy. Dish has their compression technology and can't just change it, also most of the freed up bandwidth is going to 4K.

 

[brad1138]

What is a BD?

Blu Ray

Also, a Blu ray should look better than Dish, 1080P vs 1080i/720P.

 

[charlesrshell]

Blu Ray

Also, a Blu ray should look better than Dish, 1080P vs 1080i/720P.

Thanks

 

[TheKrell]

Blu-ray Disk.

 

[navychop]

And full bandwidth.

Used to be, Dish had the better SD PQ and DTV had slightly better HD PQ.

 

[dishcomm]

I have always been in the camp that believes the better quality the TV, the more the TV will show "artifacts"....Flaws in the picture. To those who want error free video display, unfortunately satellite tv is not the way to go. With the number of HD channels available, all that data has to be squeezed into the limited amount of TP space. It is what it is.

 

[dare2be]

To those who want error free video display, unfortunately satellite tv is not the way to go. With the number of HD channels available, all that data has to be squeezed into the limited amount of TP space. It is what it is.

And the TP space on Dish is even more limited, otherwise we'd have full-time HD RSNs

 

[Juan]

And the TP space on Dish is even more limited, otherwise we'd have full-time HD RSNs

No we wouldn't. .they won't even carry a RSN's for nyc

 

[charlesrshell]

And the TP space on Dish is even more limited, otherwise we'd have full-time HD RSNs

Looks like to me DISH needs to put another bird in the air with lots of TPs. Are there any plans to launch another satellite?

 

[The Fat Man]

No we wouldn't. .they won't even carry a RSN's for nyc

That's a money issue, not a TP issue.

 

[dare2be]

That's a money issue, not a TP issue.

Don't let that stop a completely irrelevant rant...

 

[king3pj]

I have always been in the camp that believes the better quality the TV, the more the TV will show "artifacts"....Flaws in the picture. To those who want error free video display, unfortunately satellite tv is not the way to go. With the number of HD channels available, all that data has to be squeezed into the limited amount of TP space. It is what it is.

Cable seems to be getting around this problem by using Switched Digital Video. It allows them to continue adding new HD channels without running out of bandwidth. The less popular channels aren't broadcast down the wire into everyone on a given node's home until someone on that node actually tries to tune to it. Basically, if no one in your neighborhood is watching Showtime 2 West at any given time it doesn't have to be taking up bandwidth.

Unfortunately a system like this can't work on satellite. Not everyone has their receivers hooked to broadband so there isn't a 2 way street to request channels. Even if there was, satellite operates on a national level instead of using local nodes so at least 1 person is probably trying to watch every single channel available on Dish all the time.

 

[zippyfrog]

And the TP space on Dish is even more limited, otherwise we'd have full-time HD RSNs

I agree with this - I really wish they would make the RSN's in HD full-time. But moving away from what I want and just looking at "The List", since the 8PSK conversion has taken place, there are 5 full transponders available that have "HD Test Channels". (Scott said in the Nov. 11th uplink thread Dish is trying tests of various encoders on those transponders right now). Transponders 14 and 15 on 110, and 9, 11, 21 on 119 according to "The List" are available to use. If you put on 8 HD channels per transponder, that is 40 HD channels that Dish could put up. And who knows what other space is available since they have added Al Jazeera America and Smithsonian in HD and haven't used those freed transponders up. But I have a feeling that some of that space is going to be used for 4k and not HD. And if Dish is satisfied with 8 or 9 HD channels per transponder, I can't see them going back and using that space freed up to make picture quality better.

 

[Juan]

That's a money issue, not a TP issue.

Its a sports issue..they don't see the need for sports like D* does..they are good without it

 

[The Fat Man]

The original statement from dare2be was that there was limited TP space, citing the lack of 24/7 HD RSNs. Your retort had nothing to do with the statement. The lack of NYC RSNs is a financial choice on Dish's behalf, not a TP issue. I'm not agree with it personally, as there should be an option, but that's a different discussion than dare2be's original statement.