HD appears very compressed

[Yrd]

My parents have been Dish customers for many years now. I'm in their house while they are away and noticing their HD feed seems to be either fuzzy or highly compressed. Settings for the TV are on 1080i/p. They have two 4k tvs but still using an older hopper/joey system. I don't ever watch the TV, it's usually streaming servicesfor me. But, I went in to get one of the free movies and notice how bad the picture is. It's hard to notice with moving stuff, but everything has these soft features. Even the text in the menu is fuzzy. It's off putting to me, making it hard to watch, because it's all I see. I supposed they just don't notice it.

Anyway, am I missing a setting somewhere? I've gone through all the settings in the menu and it's pretty minimal for options. Can they be upgraded to new hardware? If 1080p is this bad I can't guess how 4k will look.

 

[KaptainRandom]

Seemingly, Dish has variable compression between channels and even programs based on expected viewership and available bandwidth.
So, expectedly very popular programs with get less compression then another (less popular) program on the same channel will get compressed more to push the bandwidth elsewhere.

 

[TheKrell]

Anyway, am I missing a setting somewhere? I've gone through all the settings in the menu and it's pretty minimal for options.

Which menu? The TV's menu? What input is it using?

 

[Bobby]

Which menu? The TV's menu? What input is it using?

Yes, it almost sounds like they are using the analog outputs (yellow, red, white.) It should be using HDMI.

 

[Frank Navin]

If you have an OTA adaptor, hook that up and compare the locals.

That will tell you if the issue is Dish, or your connections to the Tv.

It’s likely dish over compressing the signal.

Eastern arc or western arc?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[HipKat]

I had a Customer with a newer Samsung 4K TV complaining about that a few months ago. I Googled Calibrate Samsung <Model#> And went through all the settings - which there were a bunch of little tweaks to the various levels - and when I was done it looked like a completely different TV. THe settings out of the box are rarely accurate.

 

[jct21]

My parents have been Dish customers for many years now. I'm in their house while they are away and noticing their HD feed seems to be either fuzzy or highly compressed. Settings for the TV are on 1080i/p. They have two 4k tvs but still using an older hopper/joey system. I don't ever watch the TV, it's usually streaming servicesfor me. But, I went in to get one of the free movies and notice how bad the picture is. It's hard to notice with moving stuff, but everything has these soft features. Even the text in the menu is fuzzy. It's off putting to me, making it hard to watch, because it's all I see. I supposed they just don't notice it.

Anyway, am I missing a setting somewhere? I've gone through all the settings in the menu and it's pretty minimal for options. Can they be upgraded to new hardware? If 1080p is this bad I can't guess how 4k will look.

thats the first thing i noticed when i recently became a new dish customer. their hd is not as good as directv was. some channels are better than others. last night while watching showtime i noticed the hd wasnt as clear as it should be, it had a smoothed over look. i had to pull up the guide to see if the channel was listed as hd. reminded me of the old days of using s-video or the rca cables. many people cant tell the difference but i find it very noticeable. i did notice while watching shark tank on cnbc that the hd quality was excellent.

 

[scoob83]

My parents have been Dish customers for many years now. I'm in their house while they are away and noticing their HD feed seems to be either fuzzy or highly compressed. Settings for the TV are on 1080i/p. They have two 4k tvs but still using an older hopper/joey system. I don't ever watch the TV, it's usually streaming servicesfor me. But, I went in to get one of the free movies and notice how bad the picture is. It's hard to notice with moving stuff, but everything has these soft features. Even the text in the menu is fuzzy. It's off putting to me, making it hard to watch, because it's all I see. I supposed they just don't notice it.

Anyway, am I missing a setting somewhere? I've gone through all the settings in the menu and it's pretty minimal for options. Can they be upgraded to new hardware? If 1080p is this bad I can't guess how 4k will look.

If it’s a newer tv, you probably need to adjust the picture settings. I have had this issue with two newer tvs and the hopper 3.


Sent from my iPhone using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[sam_gordon]

Since OP complains the menus are not sharp either, I agree with checking what input they're using (RCA or HDMI). Also, could it be the TV simply not showing the 1080 signal well (since it's a 4k?). Just a thought.

 

[Yrd]

If you have an OTA adaptor, hook that up and compare the locals.

That will tell you if the issue is Dish, or your connections to the Tv.

It’s likely dish over compressing the signal.

Eastern arc or western arc?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No OTA adaptor. We are on the east coast so I'm assuming eastern arc. Not a term I'm familiar with.

And to answer some of these tips or questions from the other comments.

Input is HDMI.
Settings I mentioned in the first post were Dish settings. Settings for the TV are fine. Granted it's not a fancy TV, but the picture is fine on other inputs or the built in apps. I had already gone through their TV settings before.
This is absolutely a Dish thing. It's like the screen has a blur effect. In the menu, the pictures of a program it's even more apparent. The effect is much heavier.

Here is a picture, I laid the remote on the screen to show it isn't the image quality in the picture itself. That is the effect I see on the entire screen, it's less apparent when watching moving objects full screen. On those little pictures the effect is dialed up to 11 where as a full screen show the effect is at about a 5.

Is this how everyone's menus appear?

 

[MrDRC]

No OTA adaptor. We are on the east coast so I'm assuming eastern arc. Not a term I'm familiar with.

And to answer some of these tips or questions from the other comments.

Input is HDMI.
Settings I mentioned in the first post were Dish settings. Settings for the TV are fine. Granted it's not a fancy TV, but the picture is fine on other inputs or the built in apps. I had already gone through their TV settings before.
This is absolutely a Dish thing. It's like the screen has a blur effect. In the menu, the pictures of a program it's even more apparent. The effect is much heavier.

Here is a picture, I laid the remote on the screen to show it isn't the image quality in the picture itself. That is the effect I see on the entire screen, it's less apparent when watching moving objects full screen. On those little pictures the effect is dialed up to 11 where as a full screen show the effect is at about a 5.

View attachment 150527

Is this how everyone's menus appear?

That's TERRIBLE! Our picture looks nothing like that, even in SD. Somethings up but since most of us probably don't have that garbage it's got to be something curable. Can you attach a full image? Not cropped? I'd like to see the unedited picture.

 

[Yrd]

That is the full image. If you're asking for a full shot of the TV, sure.

 

[Yrd]

That image with the remote is not cropped. I just got close to make sure text was as crisp as it could be in comparison to what I see on dish.

(Edit: Just now, for my own curiosity. I checked with a different HDMI and going directly into the TV instead of the AVR. Same image quality.)

First image is DVR menu.
2nd image is the Roku TV built in netflix app.
3rd image is the dish channel talking about the hopper.

 

[TheKrell]

That image with the remote is not cropped. I just got close to make sure text was as crisp as it could be in comparison to what I see on dish.

First image is DVR menu.
2nd image is the Roku TV built in netflix app.
3rd image is the dish channel talking about the hopper.
View attachment 150529View attachment 150530

View attachment 150531

Huh. In my estimation, the middle one is the blurriest. But I must admit all 3 are not great.

 

[Yrd]

Huh. In my estimation, the middle one is the blurriest. But I must admit all 3 are not great.

Well chalk that up to my phone and picture taking skills, I guess.
In person the netflix app is much better.

 

[Ypsiguy]

The best looking 1080i signal is OTA main channel CBS, IMO.

i have 2 CBS affiliates near me and both main channels look great.

 

[sam_gordon]

The best looking 1080i signal is OTA main channel CBS, IMO.

i have 2 CBS affiliates near me and both main channels look great.

OTA, as a general rule, should look better than any MVPD signal. While OTA is getting compressed, MVPDs will do further compression.

 

[MrDRC]

That's really odd because I don't see that on any of my sets or my GF's 3 older dumb plasmas. I wonder if it's time to upgrade the Hopper? It could also be the roku TV, HDMI cable, coax or? I don't know but I'm not experiencing that kind of picture. We also both have fire tv devices and Dish looks similar to all the streaming app services. If there's a difference it's hard to see. Nothing like that first picture above, that is bad. I think much of the display quality discussion can sometimes be narrowed down to the display devices. I'm not up to speed on the latest and greatest Tv's but there's got to be a difference in various sets. AVS Forums is usually a good place to get display info and reviews.

 

[Yrd]

Home theater is my hobby. I've been an AVSforum member for a long time. I'm well aware of the device side of things. The only thing I don't know about is satellite stuff. That's what brought me here. They have had the same dish for quite a while and the coax too, I'm pretty sure. Their Hopper is, I think one of the first, if not the first iteration of the device. Their main viewing room is an open room with about 15 feet of distance to a 55" tv. There are only 2 walls to this room, behind it is their kitchen. So viewing distance helps with them not ever noticing this. I am spending my time in small room with a close up view and it's just horrendous. But, I rarely watch the TV. Streaming services are what I have been using.

 

[joewhite57]

Home theater is my hobby. I've been an AVSforum member for a long time. I'm well aware of the device side of things. The only thing I don't know about is satellite stuff. That's what brought me here. They have had the same dish for quite a while and the coax too, I'm pretty sure. Their Hopper is, I think one of the first, if not the first iteration of the device. Their main viewing room is an open room with about 15 feet of distance to a 55" tv. There are only 2 walls to this room, behind it is their kitchen. So viewing distance helps with them not ever noticing this. I am spending my time in small room with a close up view and it's just horrendous. But, I rarely watch the TV. Streaming services are what I have been using.

I can’t speak to earlier hoppers, I jumped from a 722 to H3. I saw a noticeable improvement in HQ as well as overall speed of operation. There are some of the lower bandwidth HD channels I can barely stand to watch. Poor quality and jitter framed crapola.