Hopper 3 terrible HD picture

[eddie willers]

SO, IN CONCLUSION (WITH ALL OF THESE OTHER PEOPLE HIJACKING THIS THREAD), DOES THE H3 HAVE A VIDEO PROBLEM OR IS IT JUST CERTAIN TVS NOT SET UP PRPPERLY OR RANDOM CONNECTION PROBLEMS. AFTER 6 PAGES, WE HAVE HASHED AND REHASHED EVERY CONCERN.

My guess is that it was a bad Hopper. But the OP needs to come back to clarify.

Anybody who suggested "bad fittings", coax quality or HDMI cables is just flat wrong. If you see a picture and hear the sound, it ain't the hookup. Its either the TV or the Hopper (and if I was there I could tell you which one in less than a minute)

Now to take the thread BACK off track, (but one that has been running through it by me) here's the latest on the LG OLED and HDR circuits. After first tripping the switch, then not tripping the switch, then tripping the switch again, I woke up to it NOT tripping the switch this morning. THIS time I did a soft reboot of the Hopper via remote, and when the Hopper came back, the "HDR is now on" banner came back. So it is a buggy bug, not a consistent bug.

But here's the thing (and only anecdotally) I'm beginning to think that it actually IS a better picture when the Hopper is tripping the TV's HDR circuit.

 

[aaron_huber]

OK, you lost me...how IS this different from native passthru???

It's not, we're talking about the same thing. I've had AV equipment that use the terms "just scan" or "passthrough" or "video processing off" or "native", all basically meaning just send out the signal as they get it without doing anything else to it.

Aaron

 

[Derikp]

I got the picture issue resolved I believe setting a few different picture calibration differently. It had nothing to do with aspect ratio or setting the circles properly in the Hopper screen adjust menu. I do have two LG tv's to respond to a post a few pages back. I had to use the auto back light feature in my TV though so sometimes the picture is a bit darker than I would like, but clarity is back and does look a bit better than the HWS. My H3 did also do some sort of update in the middle of the day that popped a box up at the bottom of the screen saying updating guide and DVR. The software version did not change but just thought I'd mention it.

 

[Jhon69]

One of the general rules of video processing is "only do it once". Technically right now on a 720p channel the Hopper is scaling it to 1080 before outputting it, and then my 4K TV has to scale it again. Actually, now that I think about it, does it output a 720p channel as 1080p or 1080i? It might actually be interlacing it and then the TV de-interlaces it again. I'll have to check what it outputs on a 720p channel.

If there was a "just scan" feature then the Hopper would just output whatever the signal actually is without modifying it and let the TV handle it completely. Not critical but I would also like to have it to see if it improves PQ.

I suspect the reason they don't offer it is some TVs go black for a moment when you switch input formats and you'd see that going between channels, and my guess is most people would blame the Hopper for being slow switching channels without understanding what is actually happening.

There's the problem when you select 1080p/1080i with Dish or DirecTV your going to get 1080i on your satellite channels,1080p on PPV(except Netflix which is 1080i also for some reason).

When I watched on my 1080p HDTV I had to use the 1080p/1080i setting because while the picture's colors looked better on 720p the picture would lose clarity on the 720p setting.

Now with a 4K UHDTV I set it to 720p to watch the satellite channels because they now look better and the 4K upconversion retains the picture clarity.

Besides with all the complaints about Dish's HD Lite on the satellite channels you would think everyone would be using the 720p setting for the satellite channels.

 

[glabrecque]

Still having the same bad picture so Dish is sending me a new Hopper 3 to try that. Have tried all my TVs ,4 HDMI cables (which really can't be the issue) At this point I really hope it was just a bad unit just to be done with it. I had to watch the superbowl on Apple TV which looked so much better in 1080p anyway I am just glad they live streamed it this year. I will update when the new receiver comes in.

 

[Scherrman]

Still having the same bad picture so Dish is sending me a new Hopper 3 to try that. Have tried all my TVs ,4 HDMI cables (which really can't be the issue) At this point I really hope it was just a bad unit just to be done with it. I had to watch the superbowl on Apple TV which looked so much better in 1080p anyway I am just glad they live streamed it this year. I will update when the new receiver comes in.

The game was broadcasted in 1080p?

 

[lparsons21]

The game was broadcasted in 1080p?

Probably not, but his AppleTV was set to output 1080p


Sent from my iPad Pro using Tapatalk

 

[Scherrman]

Probably not, but his AppleTV was set to output 1080p


Sent from my iPad Pro using Tapatalk

Is it actually upconverting it to 1080p though?

 

[lparsons21]

Is it actually upconverting it to 1080p though?

Turns out that is a very good question. On ATV prior to 4 you set the the output resolution and it up scaled to that. On the ATV 4 mine is set to auto so I don't actually know what it does. The way it shows makes me think it would match the input, but it may be matching the output. I've not noticed anything other than 1080p coming from it and I just checked the Watch abc app and it shows as 1080p source to my tv.


Sent from my iPad Pro using Tapatalk

 

[glabrecque]

I may be upconverted to 1080p but it def looks better than the normal 1080i signal coming from Dish.

 

[Backup Brain]

It's weird to see these reports of worse picture quality. The FIRST day we had the Hopper 3, my wife (who used to claim she could not see any difference between SD and HD), turned to me and said. "Is it me, or does the picture look sharper?". Nothing changed in the display chain except the Hopper equipment (LNB, hub, DVR). We went from an installed-in-the-first-week Hopper 1 to a Hopper 3. Even the programs I'd backed up to my EHD look better, whether they play from the EHD or are moved back to the Hopper 3.

I've had the same Samsung 61" 1080 TV since 2008. I'll probably never make the sale to 4K unless this Sammy dies.

My conclusion is that the video decoding hardware in the Hopper 3 is better; the Hopper 1 was recording better quality than it could play back.

 

[bmetelsky]

I believe there are only a few reports of worse pq. I, like you, see a picture that has very good pq. Obviously, SD channels don't look as good on my Hitachi 50 inch television as the HD channels.

 

[eddie willers]

My H3 did also do some sort of update in the middle of the day that popped a box up at the bottom of the screen saying updating guide and DVR

I caught that yesterday as well. Took 5-10 minutes and I haven't clue as to what it did.

 

[budda]

I have a question/comment. On my Hopper 2. If the HD was having trouble, signal or whatever. It would just jump to the SD version of the channel. Almost seamlessly. If the switch in the LNB was bad or it was not tuned/aligned correctly, would that happen here? Even if you tune directly to an HD channel it would go to the SD channel if there was a problem. Just a thought.

 

[ralfyguy]

I did a comparison last night watching the same ABC channel from four different sources. The sources were from SAT, OTA tuner, Samsung TV tuner and DTV-Pal. They all looked pretty much identical to me. I was looking very close, sitting right in front of the screen. The SAT picture might have been a smidge softer, but I could be wrong. Too hard to tell.
Well this is on a 40" LCD Samsung from 2010.

 

[ScottChez]

121 Inch projector screen. If there was a difference in Pic quality I would think I would of seen it.
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I did a Super Bowl Compare in near real time.
Dish Local , Dish using the USB over the Air, and TV Tuner for Over the air.
Same channel
All looked the same to me.
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And some from the other sat company say Dish HD is not as good. To them I would say that is no longer valid as the new Hopper 3 has a better and faster newest chipset now, it fixed the past issues.
It is better now.
Any one try comparing all of the above AND D TV at the same time? You need to do it at the same time as both use variable compression rates that change depending what is on the other transponders, so you needs to be at near the same time to compare.

 

[glabrecque]

Well I have now tried two Hopper 3 boxes and both have the same terrible picture compared to my Hopper 2. They are coming out check the new LNB and switch but that is really all they have left to try.

 

[budda]

I'm going with the LNB/Switch. I believe you are getting the SD feed. You should be able to see which transponder your on. Then cross reference to see if it right. Good luck.

 

[glabrecque]

The SD feeds would not be widescreen.

 

[Tampa8]

The SD feeds would not be widescreen.

That isn't correct. Sure they could be, some SD feeds are the HD sent as SD. As just one example the SD feed of USA is widescreen. TVland is not widescreen because it is SD, not HD sent as SD.