Is it just me or has Voom's SD channels improved?

[Dvlos]

I used to hate watching CourtTV on Voom, it was one of my favorite channels but even on my smaller 36" TV it was a little grainy and had mosaic PQ problems. Starting on Tuesday of this week, I've been watching more SD channels for one reason or another, and then it dawned on me that the damn PQ is better. I thought it was my imagination or something. However I checked CNN Headline NEws which usually has strange lines and wierd snow all over the place, and NOTHING. Has Voom done something new?

The only thing I can think of is that it has been unusually dry here lately, I know I have problems with some of the old coax cables running through the house, it's causing problems switching to Starz etc. I wonder if the crap I was seeing before was a direct result of MY cables, or if Voom did something to improve PQ across SD and even HD channels (we know they improved Equator a bit).

 

[Kentstater72]

no quantitative evidence but I see it too.

I was watching FOX news last night thinking I was on my cable channel.
I have been comparing VOOm with cable and thought that VOOm lagged in SD.
Maybe you're right.

 

[wasch_24]

What...SD...what's that...don't watch it with Voom

 

[Dvlos]

Sorry man shows like Forensic Files aren't on HD yet !! I wish though...

 

[owlbox]

PQ does seem to be better on the few SD channels I've checked lately.

 

[ROLLZROYCE]

All I know is that SD channels on Voom look much better than DishNet. When I first hooked up my HDTV to DishNet I thought something was wrong with my TV, it feels like you are watching tv from under water!

 

[wbuffetta]

I Have Noticed Lately With My Infocus 4805 DLP PJ The PQ On Vooms SD's Have Looked Better Then My SD's On DirecTV.
Wilt Seems To Be Working Out Some Bugs.

 

[Dvlos]

Awesome, I thought I was getting all excited about nothing, man I wonder what they fixed/tweaked to get it better?

 

[DarrellP]

I was browsing the SD channels just last night and thinking how good they look. Some of them look better than most of my local OTA digital SD channels.

 

[jgantert]

Yep, the sparkles are gone! About time, too. A&E is finally watchable again.

-John

 

[squicken]

Yep, they do look better. But they had to rob from Peter to give to Paul. Check out Equator and PBHOTHD, both have horrible PQ.

 

[Wally]

Yes, it really varies. Sometimes AMC, even FoxNews looks darn good. Other channels sometimes are not so good. But almost all the time, it beats the SD I had on Dish which was ALWAYS so soft. Until next Thursday I still have dish, and when I look at an SD channel after looking at VOOM for a while, I feel like rubbing my eyes to get the "fuzzies" out of them.

 

[DarrellP]

Travel, BET and a few others are still very fuzzy.

 

[Dvlos]

I don't have the problems with mosquito noise and snow on Equator as much anymore, I wouldn't steal BW from that channel if I were Voom, just gank it from one of the 1950-1970 Cinema10 channels, no one would know the difference.

 

[DarrellP]

I was quite surprised yesterday, I tuned in several shows on EquatorHD to check out the mosquito noise and it was practically gone, I say practically because almost every single Voom channel has it to some degree. I believe it's due to bandwidth constraints.

I also noticed several SD channels still have the red sparklies: TNT, Fox News, Headline News and several other news shows.

 

[Dvlos]

TNT stretch or TNT SD? Headline News looked vastly improved to me, I was getting lines, snow, and erroneous news!

 

[DarrellP]

TNT stretch or TNT SD? Headline News looked vastly improved to me, I was getting lines, snow, and erroneous news!

I'm talking all SD here, the HD channels do not exhibit sparklies.

 

[Dvlos]

What you call sparklies is what you refer to as mosquito noise I think, some HD channels have the "twinkles", that hasn't all but dissappeared yet, when I say "lines and snow" you are calling sparklies I think... sorry for the misunderstanding.

Back on topic, what could be causing mosquito noise, is that bandwidth related?

 

[DarrellP]

What I call the sparklies on SD channels are the lines that streak out from red colored graphics.

 

[Dvlos]

Ah.... those I call "Lines and snow" and I was getting them on more than just the red, yellow and bright words on CNN Headline were "sparkling" all over the place, before.

So what you call Mosquito Noise is what I think of as sparklies:

Random tiny dots and squares that speckle throughout the image, more noticeably in darker areas of the screen.