Help! Poor picture quality with Dish

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Jaskets

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Oct 20, 2004
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I recently switched from Charter Digital Cable to Dish Network (with DVR). I love having the DVR, but the picture quality is terrible. Sorry, but I am not overly technical when it comes to the specifics of the satellite system. The picture basically looks like a QuickTime movie you would see on the internet. In darker areas, instead of seeing a smooth transition between colors/shades there will only be "dark", "medium" and "light" with very distinct separation between the shades. As a graphic arts (my profession) I would say it looks like a bad .JPG compression. The details of the image look fine, the problem is in the dark backgrounds.

I have had the installer back out and he checked the signal strength, the ground wires and the cabling. I have changed out the TV cables with Monster cables, installed a $150.00 power/signal cleaner (also Monster brand) and even bypassed the AV receiver/surround sound, all with no real improvements. We did try to plug the receiver into a different outlet and that helped a bit, but not completely. The power cleaner helps as much back in the old outlet.

The only recommendation the installer could give me was that "some TVs are compatible with satellite systems". Has anyone ever heard of this? It is only a couple years old Sony and I never had problems with my digital service or watching DVDs.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Tony
 
Welcome to the world of overcompressed satellite tv. Things are like this no matter what type of tv you have and there really isnt anything you can do about it. I wish I had known about this website before I signed up for Dish. Charter starts HD here in Walla Walla in a week so I will be looking at that to see if I will jump ship.
 
Just to clarify. The compression problems are most apparent on the SD channels. Dish HD channels are very very good. Cable quality varies widely by location and even within the same system so it's really not possible to make generalized comparisons between the two.

Another thing that comes into play is personal sensitivity. While I personally can ignore many of the digital artifact's I just can't tolerate the ghosting and video noise common in most analog cable systems. I have yet to see a digital cable system that didn't exhibit the same or worse compression problems as Dish. With very little exception it's "pick your poison" between satellite and cable.


NightRyder
 
I have a four year old Sony 20" flat screen, and my picture quality is fantastic. Way better than it was when I had cable. Wish it was bigger, but for the moment, it works like a champ.
 
Mickdog said:
I have a four year old Sony 20" flat screen, and my picture quality is fantastic. Way better than it was when I had cable. Wish it was bigger, but for the moment, it works like a champ.
Click to expand...

20" is gonna look good no matter what. However, when you take that same image, and stretch the crap out of it onto say a 50" LCD, it's just not going to look as good no matter what you do. That's why they invented HD to give us 1080i or 720p resolution so the bigger TV's have a better picture.

Jask, what inputs are you using? S-Video, Composite, RCA? My 721 with S-Video out looks good on some channels, better on others. Certainly no worse than Digital Cable.
 
Mickdog said:
I have a four year old Sony 20" flat screen, and my picture quality is fantastic. Way better than it was when I had cable. Wish it was bigger, but for the moment, it works like a champ.
Click to expand...
Your are exactly the population that Dish is feeding, those of us with high quality big screens can't even watch SD channels. I dropped Dish SD programming after suffering for years on a 27" TV, now that I have a 110" screen, there is no way in Hell I would ever watch Dish SD again. :p But then, I don't have to with 40 HD channels to choose from. :shocked
 
I dont know a lot about cable but here in Walla Walla, Charter Pq is awesome. We have it at work and it looks perfect, no artifacts, no pulsing,no pixelation no nothing but good picture. I dont know if its cause our system is fairly small (population 30,000) or what but it really looks good.

Nighryder, I agree that HD on Dish looks good but not as good as it used to be with two channels per transponder. If Charter HD looks better, I'm sold, especially with the locals in HD
 
dispatcher_21 said:
Nighryder, I agree that HD on Dish looks good but not as good as it used to be with two channels per transponder. If Charter HD looks better, I'm sold, especially with the locals in HD
Click to expand...

dispatcher_21, Agree about the 3 channels per transponder. Even more frustrating because they could put it back to 2 but haven't. Sounds like you have a great alternative. Let us know how it works out.


NightRyder
 
dispatcher_21 said:
Nightryder, I agree that HD on Dish looks good but not as good as it used to be with two channels per transponder. If Charter HD looks better, I'm sold, especially with the locals in HD
Click to expand...
HDNET & HDNET Movies are on the same transponder and there are only those 2. DiscoveryHD is sharing with 2 others and it shows.
 
DarrellP said:
HDNET & HDNET Movies are on the same transponder and there are only those 2. DiscoveryHD is sharing with 2 others and it shows.
Click to expand...

It's certainly made PQ variable. The Discovery-HD strobing problem is really apparent on Sunday nights when ESPN-HD is showing NFL football.

l
NightRyder
 
dispatcher_21 said:
Welcome to the world of overcompressed satellite tv. Things are like this no matter what type of tv you have and there really isnt anything you can do about it. I wish I had known about this website before I signed up for Dish. Charter starts HD here in Walla Walla in a week so I will be looking at that to see if I will jump ship.
Click to expand...


I guess the gripe I have is that my parents have had a dish of some sort since they were 12ft across and moved across the horizon, now they have a mini dish on their roof that my father installed himself. They have a great picture on both an old Magnavox and a huge flat picture tube Sony. I went home this weekend to see if I had just never noticed the pixilization, but everything looks perfect on both TVs. They aren't using any kind of fancy cables or anything, just straight from the box.

I hate to go back to cable as they keep raising my rates, but if I can't get this resolved I guess I will have to go back and buy Tivo since I am now totally hooked on the DVR.

Hopefully some of the suggestions I have gotten will help.

Tony
 
Yes, I received some good advise here. I ended up switching my connection to the TV to s-video and moved the whole unite to the top of my entertainment center away from the other components. I also reduced the sharpness on the TV down to zero. The quality of the picture improved dramatically, but the artifacts are still there only less noticeable.

My service is about $10 cheaper than my old digital cable, but so far the picture quality is not as good and some of the channels I used to get are available (i.e. MTV Hits, VH1 Mega Hits, Oxygen and local UPN). If I had to do it all over again I am not sure I would, but I would definitely get a DVR.

Tony
 

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