Late last year with the move to Nimiq 5 at 72W (Eastern Arc), Dish Network switched all transponders from QPSK to 8PSK providing ~10 Mbps additional bandwidth on each transponder. Sadly, instead of allowing the bitrates for all of the SD channels to be opened up to fill this extra capacity, Dish forced null data into the stream, so the bitrates remained the same and the new available capacity was being wasted.
Early last month, Dish finally opened up those bitrates. This yielded ~40-50% increases in video bitrates for many of the SD channels on Eastern Arc. So, what would they do for the SD channels with all of those nice extra bits?
Would they restore the resolution of the channels from 480x480 to their original 704x480, eliminating unpleasant aliasing and rainbow artifacts? No.
Would they reduce the filtering on the channels that strips away fine details? No.
Did they do anything at all? Certainly! They increased the filtering and are now stripping away more details than before. Only the brilliant minds at Dish Network would decide that a substantial increase in bitrates should coincide with a substantial reduction in picture quality.
Anyway, here's a pair of images for comparison. I can provide more if necessary. These are both from TCM (Channel 132). The film was 2.55:1 so I've cropped off the black bars on the 480x480 frame and zoomed to 2x so the details are more visible.
July 6th, 2009:
March 9th, 2010 (Today):
You can see on the piano, bricks, curtain, and in other places how a whole bunch more detail has been removed. The curtains are the messiest looking thing I can see here, but I wouldn't be surprised if something else is worse. If by some chance you can't see any problems then I can post close-ups.
Also here's a bitrate comparison graph. Blue is old (7/6/2009), Red is new (Today).
Finally, I should note that I noticed the PQ reduction on my TV before I started picking things apart on the computer. I had become suspicious and wanted to verify that something unpleasant was going on before posting. Not exactly comforting to confirm that DVR recordings now take up 50% more space than before yet are of lower quality. Ugh.
Early last month, Dish finally opened up those bitrates. This yielded ~40-50% increases in video bitrates for many of the SD channels on Eastern Arc. So, what would they do for the SD channels with all of those nice extra bits?
Would they restore the resolution of the channels from 480x480 to their original 704x480, eliminating unpleasant aliasing and rainbow artifacts? No.
Would they reduce the filtering on the channels that strips away fine details? No.
Did they do anything at all? Certainly! They increased the filtering and are now stripping away more details than before. Only the brilliant minds at Dish Network would decide that a substantial increase in bitrates should coincide with a substantial reduction in picture quality.
Anyway, here's a pair of images for comparison. I can provide more if necessary. These are both from TCM (Channel 132). The film was 2.55:1 so I've cropped off the black bars on the 480x480 frame and zoomed to 2x so the details are more visible.
July 6th, 2009:
March 9th, 2010 (Today):
You can see on the piano, bricks, curtain, and in other places how a whole bunch more detail has been removed. The curtains are the messiest looking thing I can see here, but I wouldn't be surprised if something else is worse. If by some chance you can't see any problems then I can post close-ups.
Also here's a bitrate comparison graph. Blue is old (7/6/2009), Red is new (Today).
Finally, I should note that I noticed the PQ reduction on my TV before I started picking things apart on the computer. I had become suspicious and wanted to verify that something unpleasant was going on before posting. Not exactly comforting to confirm that DVR recordings now take up 50% more space than before yet are of lower quality. Ugh.
