Harmonic Encoder Improvements? (Feedback Need it)

[SmiGump]

Okay, while the rest of you debate whether or not VOOM will be around come April, I'd like to discuss the impact that the "technical upgrades completed" had. I don't only consider it a placebo at best, I am positive that the picture quality is not better, but worse. Of course that's just my opinion. I never saw the microstutters from months past for instance, but I have always seen the mosquito noise and other motion artifacts. Today, those motion artifacts are more pronounced with the obvious being more blocking than usual. Can anyone honestly tell me the basketball game now being played on World Sport looks better than before? Even Discovery HD (usually my HD reference) doesn't seem up to par.

Okay, may the flaming commence... just my two cents, but I'm not happy (so far) with the "improvements". Sure, maybe the new encoders are using much less bandwidth and are therefore "better" than the previous ones. That'll give us more HD now (before new birds come online), but at what price?

P.S. Had to reboot today and have not received any guide info yet (2 hours and counting). Is this another "improvement" or is it not related?

 

[riffjim4069]

I haven't had time to sit-down and analyze the PQ...however, I rebooted 2 hours ago and still no PG.

 

[bbguy4701]

Pq

Yes I too think that the PQ is lower now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Sean Mota]

I haven't had a chance to see it but let's be as detail as possible since they finished moving the channels today and problably needs tweaking. What are you seeing? and when is it happening? They are willing to work with us to improve it but we have to be specific.

 

[bbguy4701]

On Vooms HD's HDNews, Rave, Equator, it is not as crisp and on the SD. I did not know about the update till after I was watching
TV as I went from channels this is when I noticed it.

 

[softwiz]

I haven't had time to sit-down and analyze the PQ...however, I rebooted 2 hours ago and still no PG.

I'm new to Voom, 5 days and counting. How does one reboot the receiver? I'm also seeing problems changing channels. Sometimes when I change channels, I get a black screen with no sound until I go back and then change channels again.

Thanks

 

[danielle_s]

now that all of the channels are on the new decoders, I'm sure that this was a haste job, all of the channels are going to now be tweaked. You will suffer with unwanted items on your screen until the channels have be calabrated.

Please tell us what channel your having problems with, the time(s) it occured, and what you saw on the screen. Just saying that your pq is not as good as it was yesterday is not going to cut, for the techs don't understand that.

 

[Sean Mota]

take a look at this thread for examples.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=54565

 

[The Stone Man]

I'm new to Voom, 5 days and counting. How does one reboot the receiver? I'm also seeing problems changing channels. Sometimes when I change channels, I get a black screen with no sound until I go back and then change channels again.

Thanks

You will see the terms "soft reboot" and "hard reboot". A hard reboot is when you turn the STB off and unplug it--then plug it back in and turn it on. The soft reboot consists of pressing and holding down the on/off button for 5 to 10 seconds and then releasing it. The on/off button is on the far left as you face the front of the STB.

With the upgrade to new harmonic encoders, the 'black screen' appears to be a temporary phenomenon. The Voom message when you display the channel guide mentions this, and says to channel up or channel down, then go back to where you started.

 

[SmiGump]

A few notes...

World Sport - MPS/MAC basketball game... all sorts of compression artifacts with heavy motion, flash bulbs, scene changes. More pronounced then on previous Euroleague games.

Equator - Seems a bit softer than normal... compression artifacts more pronounced on scene changes.

Rush - blocking on snow scenes on whatever show is playing right now (8:45 p.m. EST). Don't know as I still don't have the guide yet.

ESPH HD - Oxymoron as far as I'm concerned so not worth mentioning any observations.

RAVE - Haven't noticed anything yet.

Discovery HD - Stephen Hawking show not a good example... will wait for something I've seen before.

HDN - Looks bright and sharp for the most part, but I don't remember seeing motion artifacts as pronounced before.

SD channels MTV (sparklies are back), E!, Fuse - looking grainier than before (Fuse used to be one of the better SD channels on Voom)

 

[geekygizmo]

Harmonic Encoders

I could be wrong about this but video, like audio contain harmonics of the original signal, in audio many people want the extra harmonics as it adds to the quality of the audio, if you remove all the harmonics in audio everyone will have to admit that something is missing. Back to video, for the most part harmonics in video are like little mirrors of the original signal usually offset in some way, making extra things run around in the pix that we DON'T want to see. Once all the extra stuff is removed the video will compress even further then before which is the overall goal. Removing the bad and leaving the good (Which is the sharpness) is a real magic trick, I can only assume that there will be ongoing software upgrades to the encoders for years to come. Every time we try to put more in less bandwidth something has to go, this time its the harmonics and hopefully not the detail. Time will only tell if this magic trick can be pulled off without penalty.

Geeky

 

[Sean Mota]

Good information and I see the same on World Sport & Rush. I am told the sparklies on those channels will be gone soon. I will point them to this thread with the information posted. Please continue posting.

 

[gammadude]

I've also noticed PQ problems during the past couple of weeks. There are alot of blocking artifacts on SD, several channels, during scene panning and much more mosquito noise around edges and graphics. Discovery HD exhibits similar artifacts. SD reminds me of Directv quality at this point. Hopefully they can optimize the encoder settings to improve PQ.

 

[cmslick3]

Currently wathcing Cartoon Network at 10PM in Chicago and we are seeing:

PROS:
I want to say I don't see as many sparklies.
colors seem better.


CONS:
Blocks with odd shapes/colors.
Bars sticking across the screen with different colors
Some high speed movements stick and leave trails.

Haven't watched much else sorry..

 

[zombie]

Currently wathcing Cartoon Network at 10PM in Chicago

Watching toon network too and just saw a big chunk of scrambled crap (pixelation) in the lower right of the screen.

 

[softwiz]

I watch a lot of RAVE. I've watched the Cherl Crow concert before. Tonight it looks a tad less clear and the flashes now pixelate. Haven't seen that before on the RAVE channel.

If there is a difference in picture quality, it's very minor.

 

[Phaetos]

Well all my watching I did on a standard 20" TV in my bedroom tonight. The few channels I looked at ABC for "Lost" and Travel for "World Poker Tour" looked good to me. I can tell you the WPT show was a lot crisper and clearer than it has ever been, previously it was always fuzzy, not clear. That may be due to the new hardware or the WPT used better cameras this season and better production. But they need to fire the guy that did the sound, it kept floating up and down the entire time, but it looked damn good.

I have also noticed that when switching to another channel, sometimes the new channel doesn't come in. I don't get the "channel not available" message, it just comes in as a black screen. No video, no audio. If I hit the BACK button, then BACK again to return the the channel I wanted to see, it comes in.

 

[who_the]

Seems pretty clear that Voom is trimming bandwidth in conjunction with the new encoders.

 

[bryan27]

I haven't had a chance to see it but let's be as detail as possible since they finished moving the channels today and problably needs tweaking. What are you seeing? and when is it happening?

I understand there will need to be tweeking, so I'm not complaining just reporting what I saw and am very happy to see VOOM moving foward.

I haven't really watched much today, hey it's much more entertaining here. I did watch about 15 minutes of HDN at around 1:00pm today (I always try to catch 1 15 minute report on HDN everyday). The PQ of HDN looked just as it always did, I didn't notice anything different.

This evening from 6:30pm-8:00pm I sat down to my daily dose of "lets play doctor" by watching Discovery Health. The digital artifacts (blocking) was very bad, the picture would almost pixilate to the point of breakup with the slightest movement, even still images would show a lot of digital artifacting (blocking). Most disturbing was that digital artifacts were so bad it made the channel logo nearly impossible to see and the artifacting would spread out a few inches from the logo (I have a 27" TV). I did flip through some of the other SD channels during commercials and they looked rather the same as D-Health, but I don't remember what those channels were.

From 8:00pm-9:00pm I watched a Steven Hocking documentary on Discovery-HD, though I have been with VOOM for almost a year now this is the first time I have really found something of interest to watch on TDCHD at a convient time. The PQ looked perfectly fine and what I would expcet for HDTV.

 

[T2k]

Dunno, call me crazy but SD PQ seems to me better...