E* - better encoders ?

[kstuart]

Generally, I don't get much opportunity to see DirecTV. I have Dish, and my relatives all have cable, except for one that also has Dish.
A few months ago, a sports bar opened in town (first one ever), and installed DirecTV.
Generally the SD screens looked like crap, but I thought that was just in contrast to the HD screen, and because they were showing locals.
Recently, I went into the local Radio Shack store, which also carries E* and D* and they had a recent medium size HD set connected to a DirecTV receiver.
While I was waiting for a salesperson, I tuned to Setanta to see what it looked like, and was surprised to find that the PQ turned to crap any time there was motion (which is a lot on a sports channel). For a reference point, I changed to FSC (which I watch a lot). The PQ was decidedly worse than FSC on E*.
Someone might say "Well it was the set" - but I often watch FSC on my 5 year old 13-inch TV - the recent HD set had to be better than that.
My guess is that the E* encoding software is a lot better at dealing with motion. I have noted that, over the years, E* has gotten a lot better in that regard.

 

[mlyles]

I switched from D* to E* last fall. I was immediately blown away by how much better E* PQ is than D*. Even my locals are better. Getting back to what you said about motion, since basketball season started, I have noticed there is so much less pixellation in games when there is fast motion than when I had D*. I wish I had switched sooner.

 

[wh5916]

I switched from D* to E* last fall. I was immediately blown away by how much better E* PQ is than D*. Even my locals are better. Getting back to what you said about motion, since basketball season started, I have noticed there is so much less pixellation in games when there is fast motion than when I had D*. I wish I had switched sooner.

Same here. I made the switch to Dish 3 weeks ago, and noticed the difference in image quality immediately. I had been putting up with substandard image quality with DirecTV for 7 out of the 8 years that I subscribed...wish I had switched sooner as well. Dish may not be DVD quality, but it's a lot closer to it than DirecTV.

 

[truckracer]

overcompression anyone?

cram as many low quality channels on a tranponder means more profit.

 

[stck4evr]

If you are comparing picture quality on 13 inch screen versus an 30 inch or bigger HD screen - the 13 inch will always look better than the HD screen (that is showing satellite SD channels). Basically it's like blowing up a badly compressed picture to 13 inch in size versus 30 inches in size. On your 13 inch screen, the Dish signal will always look great. Same for my 27 inch TV. But on my 42 inch, the SD channels are bad, if I watch SD, I wish I still had my old 27 inch TV in my living room....

 

[wh5916]

If you are comparing picture quality on 13 inch screen versus an 30 inch or bigger HD screen - the 13 inch will always look better than the HD screen (that is showing satellite SD channels). Basically it's like blowing up a badly compressed picture to 13 inch in size versus 30 inches in size. On your 13 inch screen, the Dish signal will always look great. Same for my 27 inch TV. But on my 42 inch, the SD channels are bad, if I watch SD, I wish I still had my old 27 inch TV in my living room....

The artifacts/compression are still there and visible on my 27" inch Panasonic, so I can only imagine what they must look like on a bigger set. Dish, to my own eyes, simply comes closer to the ideal that I'd like to see from DBS providers. It's far from perfect, but is noticeably better than what I had come to expect from DirecTV standard definition during 7 of the 8 years that I subscribed.

This is such a turnaround. I originally had Dish in 1998, for 10 months, and the image quality was hideously soft/overcompressed at the time. When switching to DirecTV in late 1998, the image quality initially blew Dish out of the water...until one year later, when they started adding locals.

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

D* is using SD-LITE of 480x480 on SD - so you are surprised?

 

[technikal]

I switched from D* to E* a few months ago, after using D* for 5+ years. My opinion is that E* is slightly better on national SD feeds, but much worse on my local SD feeds. D* local SD's in my area were superior to anything I could get off of cable or OTA (not comparing to HD - those definitely look better). E*'s locals are just bad - very washed out, some ghosting, etc.

I'm now using a 622 and can pull in most all locals OTA in HD now, so I'm much happier.

 

[KE4EST]

overcompression anyone?

cram as many low quality channels on a tranponder means more profit.

You said it.

 

[DishSubLA]

The artifacts/compression are still there and visible on my 27" inch Panasonic, so I can only imagine what they must look like on a bigger set. Dish, to my own eyes, simply comes closer to the ideal that I'd like to see from DBS providers. It's far from perfect, but is noticeably better than what I had come to expect from DirecTV standard definition during 7 of the 8 years that I subscribed.

This is such a turnaround. I originally had Dish in 1998, for 10 months, and the image quality was hideously soft/overcompressed at the time. When switching to DirecTV in late 1998, the image quality initially blew Dish out of the water...until one year later, when they started adding locals.

back in 1998 I thought Both Dish and Direct looked like crap--because they were both using MPEG1. Then in 1999 Dish elegantly sent everyone a software update and MPEG2 on Dish easily blew away Direct for 2 years, until Direct implemented the DSS to allow for MPEG2.

 

[DishSubLA]

Generally, I don't get much opportunity to see DirecTV. I have Dish, and my relatives all have cable, except for one that also has Dish.
A few months ago, a sports bar opened in town (first one ever), and installed DirecTV.
Generally the SD screens looked like crap, but I thought that was just in contrast to the HD screen, and because they were showing locals.
Recently, I went into the local Radio Shack store, which also carries E* and D* and they had a recent medium size HD set connected to a DirecTV receiver.
While I was waiting for a salesperson, I tuned to Setanta to see what it looked like, and was surprised to find that the PQ turned to crap any time there was motion (which is a lot on a sports channel). For a reference point, I changed to FSC (which I watch a lot). The PQ was decidedly worse than FSC on E*.
Someone might say "Well it was the set" - but I often watch FSC on my 5 year old 13-inch TV - the recent HD set had to be better than that.
My guess is that the E* encoding software is a lot better at dealing with motion. I have noted that, over the years, E* has gotten a lot better in that regard.

Not only has Dish gotten better starting in 1999, but, for all his faults and penny-pinching and aversion to spending money, our good founder Charles Ergan really has committed from day one to do everything he can to see to it that Dish Network has the best possible quality video and audio with a goal to be the best in that regard, and over the long years, he has consistently done just that. It really is personal to Charles Ergan.

Now, Direct TV does what it can, given its previous management's poor business decisions that leave it with limited band-width, but I do believe that Charlie has great personal pride in the Dish Network he created form nothing, and he will spend the money on the best of whatever it takes to deliver what he and his engineers believe to be the best possible PQ and audio.

The day Ergan steps aside, one has to wonder if the company will really care about the PQ with that much passion. My cable company could not care less, just as long as you can see some kind of ghosty picture, that's fine by them.

 

[MikeD-C05]

If Dish ever gets taken over or sells out my bet is that the company that buys it will not care about Picture quality but more like channel quantity. The more the better. THen I will have to bid them adieu.

 

[Smith P.]

Not True !

back in 1998 I thought Both Dish and Direct looked like crap--because they were both using MPEG1. Then in 1999 Dish elegantly sent everyone a software update and MPEG2 on Dish easily blew away Direct for 2 years, until Direct implemented the DSS to allow for MPEG2.

Dish ALWAYS been MPEG-2/DVB-S compliant; DTV used/use MPEG-2 but not DVB-S compatible stream type plus both companies step forward and doing implement H.264 [MPEG-4], but DTV goes farther and supporting DVB-S2 standard in H20/HR20 at least for Ka band.

 

[RandallA]

I don't think it's a matter of encoders but a matter of compression. Directv wants to squeeze as many channels as they can and that's why their channels look like crap. I had Directv for 6 months and I couldn't stand it, went back to Dish Network.
This was with small TVs (27'' and 20'') and their SD channels still looked like crap.

 

[Tampa8]

I don't usually post about Direct VS Dish because to me either is better than my Cable. But I do admit Dish seems to have either improved PQ, or Direct has diminished PQ somewhat. While it is on two different TV's - 46" projection at my house (Dish), 42" projection at neighbors (Direct) - especially in motion scenes you can easily see the better picture on Dish.

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

Dish ALWAYS been MPEG-2/DVB-S compliant; DTV used/use MPEG-2 but not DVB-S compatible stream type plus both companies step forward and doing implement H.264 [MPEG-4], but DTV goes farther and supporting DVB-S2 standard in H20/HR20 at least for Ka band.

lol PSmith! Perhaps you should tell him the bitrate that would have been needed for MPEG files compared to MPEG2.

 

[digiblur]

back in 1998 I thought Both Dish and Direct looked like crap--because they were both using MPEG1. Then in 1999 Dish elegantly sent everyone a software update and MPEG2 on Dish easily blew away Direct for 2 years, until Direct implemented the DSS to allow for MPEG2.

Uhhh.... who fed you this information?

ROTFLMAO!!

You're comparing modulation schemes to compression schemes. Sounds like some of the nonsense I hear from the D* subs saying only the new satellites support MPEG4.

 

[DishSubLA]

Uhhh.... who fed you this information?

ROTFLMAO!!

You're comparing modulation schemes to compression schemes. Sounds like some of the nonsense I hear from the D* subs saying only the new satellites support MPEG4.

I should correct myself and say that Direct was using Digicipher 1 rather than MPEG1.
As for you other remarks:
Uh, no I'm not. Whatever, dudes

 

[digiblur]

I should correct myself and say that Direct was using Digicipher 1 rather than MPEG1.
As for you other remarks:
Uh, no I'm not. Whatever, dudes

There you go again... LOL. Spouting off more wrong comparisons and incorrect information.

 

[Smith P.]

Head spinning ? You just used the acronyms as a kid, man !