just got dish and i am very dissapointed...can you shed some light?

[fgraciano1980]

hello all! i just moved to an apartment complex that provides dish network to its tenants via at&t home entertainment (www.attheonline.com). basically there is a satellite on the roof that feeds the broadcast to all the pre-wired units that subscribe.

i signed up for the top 180 standard definition package with locals, and got a dish 811 receiver. i have a 40" sony bravia lcd tv and i connected the tv and receiver with component cables. the channels look awful! it looks like im watching a heavily compressed video stream, like a quicktime movie. i know this isnt hd, but i feel that the quality is not acceptable. im coming from analog basic cable, and even that didnt look too bad.

since there is a master satellite that feeds the whole complex, i had to plug the coaxial into the "8VSB TV Antenna/Cable In" rather than the "Satellite In/Dish Pro" and the receiver has to be set to the QAM mode. i also set different resolutions in the receiver and that made no difference.

what do you guys think? is there another receiver that displays standard definition broadcast with better quality? or is this just how dish network looks? i cant set up a dish in my patio due to management regulations, so i need to go through the main dish and subscribe with at&t home entertainment.

 

[mdonnelly]

Did you try the s-video input? Some people have said the 811 does SD better that way. But yeah, Dish compresses a lot, and compresses locals even more. The bigger the display, the worse it looks.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Sounds like your brightness and contrast is too high.

I once thought that everything on Dish looked like crap until I had my TV calibrated.

You may want to see if you can get a copy of Video Essentials or Avia and trying that, or if you want to spend more get a Datacolor Spyder TV. (I just picked one up and am VERY happy with it) or if you want the complete red carpet treatment give Gregg Loewen a call from LionAV (one of our gold sponsors)

While the Dish picture quality is NOT perfect, if your TV is properly adjusted you will see a VERY nice difference.

 

[fgraciano1980]

Did you try the s-video input? Some people have said the 811 does SD better that way. But yeah, Dish compresses a lot, and compresses locals even more. The bigger the display, the worse it looks.

ill give that a try and post back the results probably tomorrow.

ive heard good things about receivers 622 and 211 regarding their SD quality, but at&t home entertainment doesnt offer either of those receivers so ill have to buy it on my own, and they're pretty pricey!

if the s-video connection doesnt give a better quality picture, is it safe to assume that either the 622 or 211 will give a better picture and that i should buy it?

 

[fgraciano1980]

Sounds like your brightness and contrast is too high.

I once thought that everything on Dish looked like crap until I had my TV calibrated.

You may want to see if you can get a copy of Video Essentials or Avia and trying that, or if you want to spend more get a Datacolor Spyder TV. (I just picked one up and am VERY happy with it) or if you want the complete red carpet treatment give Gregg Loewen a call from LionAV (one of our gold sponsors)

ill try that too. is video essentials or avia a dvd video that helps me calibrate?

While the Dish picture quality is NOT perfect, if your TV is properly adjusted you will see a VERY nice difference.

yeah i agree. i wasnt expecting HD quality, but i wasnt expecting SD to look this bad either:

 

[RandallA]

"is it safe to assume that either the 622 or 211 will give a better picture and that i should buy it?"

I had the 811 and now have the 211. The SD channels looked like crap on the 811SD looks fairly decent on the 211, not the same as an SD receiver but a lot better than the 811.

 

[Poke]

Yeah also sounds like its the way the complex is share the feed. They probably have it split out to everyone which effects the feed and the PQ. You might see if you can get your own Dish and get on one of the 211's this way its not being split among the hole complex. Do this can sometime degrade the signal which this is some common seen in Electronic stores when they use one Dish. Then they run splitters every where so they can push the same signal on ton's of TV's in the store which will make the PQ suffer. Overall see if you can get on your own setup.

 

[KE4EST]

If S-Video doesnot show any improvement at all, I would do like Scott said and try adjusting the settings on your TV.

 

[fgraciano1980]

Yeah also sounds like its the way the complex is share the feed. They probably have it split out to everyone which effects the feed and the PQ. You might see if you can get your own Dish and get on one of the 211's this way its not being split among the hole complex. Do this can sometime degrade the signal which this is some common seen in Electronic stores when they use one Dish. Then they run splitters every where so they can push the same signal on ton's of TV's in the store which will make the PQ suffer. Overall see if you can get on your own setup.

i thought about that, but this is what at&t home entertainment's website states:

AT&T Home Entertainment currently services apartment communities only. In a multi-dwelling unit setup, one satellite dish serves many units. In order to maintain signal quality over the long distance that the signal must travel from the satellite dish to the apartment, we "stack" the signal. This places the EVEN polarity of the satellite signal at 1550mhz-2050mhz, and leaves the ODD polarity of the satellite signal at 950mhz-1450mhz, allowing both polarities to share the same cable and be amplified/split to as many outlets as are provided at the apartment complex.

what i get from all that is the signal is in no way affected from the satellite to my receiver due to the "stacking" of the signal. i take it that its amplified in some way? i havent seen the dishes that the complex uses, but i think there are 2 and i think they are larger than the consumer ones?

 

[Poke]

Well that true to a certain point it all depends on how the install was done in the complex. Not all install jobs will be done the same so it will differ from place to place. Either way it's always best to have your own equipment when you can and where you live will always be a factor. So if they don't let you then you might try going to a 211 and try HDMI connection if your TV have that video input. Again good luck with everything.

 

[JimK2]

ill try that too. is video essentials or avia a dvd video that helps me calibrate?



yeah i agree. i wasnt expecting HD quality, but i wasnt expecting SD to look this bad either:

I've had that "macroblocking" (from your image) effect when the 'fog rolls in' awhile back. I had to move dish to get better shot around neighbors tree. Also I think there's 150ft cable limit from receiver to switch/dish. Dirty connector's?

Thats my guess

 

[damaged]

FWIW, besides what has been said (all correct), watching SD on anything bigger than a 27 inch TV, will always look like crap (compared to SD on a 27 inch or smaller), no matter how much you adjust the color, what input you use, or how much you calibrate.

 

[lunkie]

I have the 811 feeding a 32" sony HDTV 4x3 screen, using s video to watch SD the pq varies each channel. Watching FSN sucks the pq is so bad, but pq is OK on the movie channels. I have also hooked the 811 up to my old 31" analog JVC using composite video and the pq is much better on this TV, on all channels. The digital processing that these newer TVs do just seems to have a hard time with SD signals. Poor quality into the jack, poor quality out to the screen I guess.

 

[mike123abc]

You need to turn off the sony edge enhancements. It is enhancing the macro block edges. On my sony I use component but turn down the sharpness and edge enhancements. These are meant to correct problems in analog signals, and have the opposite effect on digital.

 

[caam1]

Have you tried connecting the 811 to your TV with a component cable or a DVI to HDMI cable. I had two 811s before I got my 622s and found that the composite and s-video were bad, compared to the SD only receivers such as the 311, 510, etc. The newer 211 and 622 are better, but I kept my 508 for recording SD channels because the picture is better on SD channels.

 

[XXX-XXX]

FYI, since your complex is run off a QAM system you cant just buy a 211 and hook it up. It would not pick up the QAM signal. Only the 811 and a 351 can do QAM.

To use a 211 or a 622 you would need your own dish on your patio.

 

[mdonnelly]

Is QAM enabled on all 811 receivers? Or is it just on 351 and 381?

 

[XXX-XXX]

yes, all 811 receivers can do QAM. It is not the default though. It has to be selected to switch to QAM

 

[bhelms]

If you do get a 622 or 211, don't expect to get HD until you confirm that the complex's receiving system has HD capability. The stacking you mentioned is routine in the Dish Pro environment but as others mentioned there are distance limitations. Those might be extended with proper amplification. If you can do it, try to have your own independent dish(es). That might be your only option for HD. All that said, SD digital generally looks crappy on larger screen TVs. That fact makes me watch more HD just for the improved PQ vs. the program content...

 

[fgraciano1980]

hello all, i unplugged the component cables and installed an s-video cable as some have suggested to see if it changed the quality...still the same i then pluged the coaxial straight from the wall jack to the tv and quality was still the same (although i could only view locals). are receivers supposed to enhance the picture quality?

FYI, since your complex is run off a QAM system you cant just buy a 211 and hook it up. It would not pick up the QAM signal. Only the 811 and a 351 can do QAM.

To use a 211 or a 622 you would need your own dish on your patio.

this is true. all receivers at&t home entertainment has to offer are dish 811, dish 3750 and dish 351 because of the QAM setup. so im pretty much stuck with those. should i get one of the other receivers instead? i would like to have my own dish, but the complex management will not allow it.

You need to turn off the sony edge enhancements. It is enhancing the macro block edges. On my sony I use component but turn down the sharpness and edge enhancements. These are meant to correct problems in analog signals, and have the opposite effect on digital.

i have yet to calibrate my tv , but im definitely going to get digital video essentials. is avia any better?

Have you tried connecting the 811 to your TV with a component cable or a DVI to HDMI cable. I had two 811s before I got my 622s and found that the composite and s-video were bad, compared to the SD only receivers such as the 311, 510, etc...

i originally had the 811 connected via component cables to the tv, but after trying the s-video and composite cables i dont see any difference. plus i dont think i would get any benefit from the component hookup since im only viewing SD. it was posted, however, that the 811 did better with SD via s-video. can someone confirm this? should i get the 3750 or 351 instead, due to the fact that they are SD only receivers?

FWIW, besides what has been said (all correct), watching SD on anything bigger than a 27 inch TV, will always look like crap (compared to SD on a 27 inch or smaller), no matter how much you adjust the color, what input you use, or how much you calibrate.

The digital processing that these newer TVs do just seems to have a hard time with SD signals...

All that said, SD digital generally looks crappy on larger screen TVs...

so if calibrating the tv or getting an SD only receiver doesnt imporve the PQ, am i screwed? im soo sad . my analog cable looked better than dish networks over compressed signals . it looks like im watching jpeg movies. too bad time warner wont return my calls about the site survey i requested for the complex. ive seen time warners SD digital cable on a 50" digital lcd and the PQ was very good in my opinion, definitely better than dish networks SD digital signal.