Mpeg 2 or Mpeg4?

[tigerfan33]

How many hd channels are still Mpeg2. Not until the World Series could I really tell a difference in pq. When TBS hd went over on one game and started another on TNT hd. You could really tell the difference. TBS hd is Mpeg4 and TNT is Mpeg2 if I am not mistaken. I was wondering about both ESPN HD channels. It looks like both are still Mpeg2

 

[ehren]

tnt-hd, discovery-hd, hd-net, hd-net movies and espn-hd are still mpeg 2

 

[whatchel1]

Finish the statement

How many hd channels are still Mpeg2. Not until the World Series could I really tell a difference in pq. When TBS hd went over on one game and started another on TNT hd. You could really tell the difference. TBS hd is Mpeg4 and TNT is Mpeg2 if I am not mistaken. I was wondering about both ESPN HD channels. It looks like both are still Mpeg2

You said you could tell the difference. What was the difference?

 

[Pepper]

one thing for sure, I know recorded content from the above mentioned channels takes a heck of a lot more storage than the MPEG-4 channels.

(obviously, that's one reason for using a more efficient compression scheme, less bandwidth)

 

[JimK2]

How many hd channels are still Mpeg2. Not until the World Series could I really tell a difference in pq. When TBS hd went over on one game and started another on TNT hd. You could really tell the difference. TBS hd is Mpeg4 and TNT is Mpeg2 if I am not mistaken. I was wondering about both ESPN HD channels. It looks like both are still Mpeg2

8 hd channels still mpeg2 (110 tp7 and tp13)
http://www.satelliteguys.us/bfg/dish-hd.htm

 

[tigerfan33]

You said you could tell the difference. What was the difference?

Sorry about that. I thought I shouldn't even have to finish the statement. I thought everyone could see. You can see almost "snow" on the mpeg2. Not even close on the pq compare to mpeg4.

 

[DanLee]

Sorry about that. I thought I shouldn't even have to finish the statement. I thought everyone could see. You can see almost "snow" on the mpeg2. Not even close on the pq compare to mpeg4.

HDNMV is really bad sometimes in regards to the "snow". However, ESPN looks really good most of the time, except when they upconvert PTI, Around the Horn, and other SD shows.

 

[JEFFinINDY]

How many hd channels are still Mpeg2. Not until the World Series could I really tell a difference in pq. When TBS hd went over on one game and started another on TNT hd. You could really tell the difference. TBS hd is Mpeg4 and TNT is Mpeg2 if I am not mistaken. I was wondering about both ESPN HD channels. It looks like both are still Mpeg2

Again, it's not the encoding, but the bitrate. ESPN always looks really good on Dish, but I'm guessing they give it a decent amount of bandwidth since it's such a popular channel. It's also 720P. The HDNets and TNT (when displaying real HD content) would look better if Dish chose to compress them less.

All OTA HD signals, which are considered to have the best possible image quality, are MPEG-2.

Jeff

 

[primetimeguy]

ESPN always looks really good on Dish,

Jeff

Guess again.

 

[digiblur]

All OTA HD signals, which are considered to have the best possible image quality, are MPEG-2.

Jeff

Come check out my CBS affiliate and you'll beg to differ about the best quality.

 

[tigerfan33]

When were the last of the Voom channels converted to mpeg4?? I missed that one. Espn has had pq problems for a while in my area. I hate it when the grass always waves at you.

 

[digiblur]

When were the last of the Voom channels converted to mpeg4?? I missed that one. Espn has had pq problems for a while in my area. I hate it when the grass always waves at you.

I think it was back in August.... do some searching here on the old uplink reports or dig through the 2007 archives of Dish Network Channel Chart (Unofficial)

 

[tigerfan33]

Digi. Thanks for the info. I looked at the older uplink reports and found it.

 

[JEFFinINDY]

Guess again.

Nope.

Looks great to me.

 

[primetimeguy]

Nope.

Looks great to me.

Consider yourself lucky. Those with large displays or projectors and optimal viewing distances complain a lot about ESPN, me included.

 

[whatchel1]

Ota

OTA MPEG 2 takes more bandwidth than MPEG 4 satellite. It is also a different type of transmission than satellite.

 

[kb7oeb]

Come check out my CBS affiliate and you'll beg to differ about the best quality.

Mpeg2 is fine if given the bandwidth, my CBS had the best PQ until they started multicasting. Now the HD leader in my area is a local independent with only HD news.

 

[DaCypher]

I've always thought ESPN has had some of the better PQ of all the HD channels (I have a 56" 1080p DLP). I think the best PQ is RAVE and EQUATOR (but who really watches those?). ESPN doesn't come close to these. I've found that Discovery HD seems to have pretty consistently crappy PQ relative to the other HD channels. Has anyone else noticed this? It seems maybe the resolution that Dish (or Discovery?) is broadcasting their content is really low or something.

This is slightly off topic, but supposedly Dish downsamples 1920x1080i video into 1440x1080i. I don't quite understand how this would work since this would mess with the aspect ratio. If this was the case, wouldn't all 1080i HD channels then have the black bars on the left and right side? If not, then they must stretch the image horizontally to fill in the sides causing a pretty obvious distortion to the video (people's faces would look fat, etc). If they didn't stretch the image, they could probably zoom it, but this would cut off the top and bottom of the image (in which case it wouldn't make sense to broadcast 1440x1080, instead they should just use 1440x800 or whatever it works out to).