HD-Lite?
- Thread starter mdavej
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Compared to what? Since you have a 1080p tv you are always seeing 1080p no matter what you feed it.
Upconverting does not increase resolution. If it did we wouldn't need bluray, we could just upconvert dvd and sd. I'm assuming you agree bluray looks much better than upconverted dvd?
Upconverting does not increase resolution. If it did we wouldn't need bluray, we could just upconvert dvd and sd. I'm assuming you agree bluray looks much better than upconverted dvd?
I'll add upconverting worked wonders on my 1080 crt as it would show dvd at 480p and I could see scan lines. Upcoverted to 1080 the scans were gone and the picture was much better, but there was not any more resolution of the source, just more scan lines.
It depends which has the better scaler your TV or the DVD player.
Of course it is a better picture if you component or HDMI vs 480 composite or RF channel 3/4. The DVD is 720x480p.
Here is the famous chart: 1080p charted: Viewing distance to screen size -- Engadget HD
on a 40" set 480p looks as good as 1080p to most people around 14'
Of course it is a better picture if you component or HDMI vs 480 composite or RF channel 3/4. The DVD is 720x480p.
Here is the famous chart: 1080p charted: Viewing distance to screen size -- Engadget HD
on a 40" set 480p looks as good as 1080p to most people around 14'
Good points, and very few OTA use the full 19Mbps (I believe 19Mbps is also the standard for cable channels) for its main HD as they have multi-plexed sub-channels in operation, even in HD. OTA is looking sad now because of it. My major OTA nets now suffer from occasional break up due to this. Bit rate can be a bigger factor in PQ than slightly downrezed HD.
I have to add the my DVDO Edge has noticeable improvement of PQ, especially HD as it is sent out in 1080P. Even on the entry level HDTV in the other room with no external processing, Dish HD still looks really good. They seem to have improved lately, perhaps by using the latest encoders.
I was at a guys house about 3 months ago and he had both D* and E* setup in his garage and had the exact same TV playing on each service for a NFL party. Both TV's were Vizio 47 inch lcd's I believe. There was noticeable difference in the quality between the 2 providers while viewing the same channel on each service. Looked at several different channels from sports to locals to national news cable sources like Fox and CNN simultaneously and D* was hands down the best in picture quality. Dish's "lite" pic was very noticeable imho.
Not saying there wasn't a difference, but were were both sets calibrated properly? Just having all settings the same doesn't mean two identical model TVs will look the same. A couple clicks difference in brightness, contrast, sharpness, etc will make a difference in perceived PQ.
Especially with Vizio. They are the cheap TV leader for a reason. They pump them out at a Hi volume and QC is not exactly the best in the world. How do I know this the last TV station I worked at we had a Vizio main display. It would consistently go out once a year due to the cheap parts it was made from.
The difference between OTA's 19Mbps and cable's 19Mbps is how many signals they're cramming down that pipe. Our "big four" locals have a maximum of three channels. Usually the HD is ~10-13Meg, 2nd channel is 5-7, and the last channel is 1-3.
Our local cable however is push 8(?) SD signals inside one "channel". I've got the chart at work.
An OTA signal is 6Mhz wide. You're getting 2, maybe 3 signals (assuming one HD). How many signals are being sent down a 36Mhz satellite transponder?
My set is 1920x1080i. It has the ability to "shift" the picture (up/down/left/right). If I go more than 1-2 scan lines in either direction, I'm seeing black lines. Kind of hard to believe if I'm really looking at 481x200, which isn't even a 16:9 image, more like 16:6.
It doesn't correlate like you are figuring. Digital Quam is done in a total different way than either sat or OTA. So it not apples to apples like you are trying to compare.
OTA is 19.39 mbit/sec with realistically around 18mbit/sec available for programming
cable depends on what QAM they are running at QAM64 - 27.7Mb/s or QAM256 - 38.8Mb/s in 6MHZ - QAM256 has enough for 2 full HD OTA channels. So a 125 channel cable system (750 MHZ) could carry 250 HD channels without having to compress more than the provider provided signal. A modern 900 MHZ system can carry the 250 HD and have lots of DOSIS channels for cable modems.
A DBS transponder is a variable beast depending on encoding, symbol rate and error correction. Dish runs thier HD TPs at a net result of 40mbit/sec. They could for example lower error correction (increasing the possiblity of rain fade) from the current 2/3 (1 out of 3 bits is error correction) to 3/4 and go to 45mbit/sec.
It's not that I don't want to respond (sorry if you feel ignored), but I can't give an answer to a question I don't know the answer to. Finding an answer is proving to be more difficult then originally thought.
Perhaps a call or email to Mark Jackson at echostar would answer the question.
I believe you will find that every HD channel on Dish network has been compressed more than the original provider feeds. It depends on your definition of HD Lite as to whether or not you think it is HD Lite since there is no definition of the term. Some channels have had their horizontal resolution reduced from 1920 to 1440, but all have had their bit rate reduced and if they were in MPEG2 converted to MPEG4.
It is up to you as to whether or not you think it is an acceptable picture and to decide if you want to switch to a different provider that you feel provides a better picture. No amount of complaining has caused Dish to change over the years. Instead they have steadily added more channels to any improvement in compression technology instead of improving bit rate/quality of existing channels.
It is up to you as to whether or not you think it is an acceptable picture and to decide if you want to switch to a different provider that you feel provides a better picture. No amount of complaining has caused Dish to change over the years. Instead they have steadily added more channels to any improvement in compression technology instead of improving bit rate/quality of existing channels.
I appreciate Matt's efforts. He has been very responsive. I recently switched to Dish from DirecTV and am very happy with my PQ. Whatever they're doing, it still looks great. But in spite of Dish's commanding lead in HD nationals, the idea of HD-lite (1440 vertical lines instead of 1920) is still a major obstacle for many potential subscribers. Compression doesn't matter to the nay sayers since everybody does it, but line count does. I thought it would be nice to have the facts directly from Dish. If Matt can't get an answer, maybe another response team member watching this thread can. I didn't mean to ruffle any feathers.
I can confirm this. At work we have 2 42" Toshiba LCDs, both set up exactly the same, side by side. One has a HR23 and the other has a 722 connected to it. The D* picture quality is noticeably sharper when watching the same program in HD. It is not enough to make me switch, but it is there.
Brad
