New Direct TV sub, and picture quality is less than expected

[SteveT777]

New to the forum here... I've searched and read here for threads on picture quality of Direct versus Dish, so I know this has been discussed before; sorry for the rehash, but I'm not seeing what most others are seeing. I just switched from Dish to Direct TV yesterday, after 15 years with Dish (due to this AMC fiasco; Breaking Bad starts in 2 days...) Before switching, the first thing I'd researched was whether there was any picture quality differences between Dish and Direct. I'm a huge stickler for picture quality, and it's by far my #1 criteria. Most sources I found said the two services are pretty comparable, maybe a slight edge to D* (similar to what threads here mostly say). So I signed up, with picture quality seeming to not be a problem I had to worry about.

But as soon as I saw the D* image, I was fairly shocked at the difference. I've got a Pioneer Kuro Elite Pro-151FD, 60", and have had it hooked up to a Dish Vip722 for the last several years. With D*, I had the new HMC (HR34) installed. I'm using 1080i out, just as I did with the Dish 722. And to my eyes, the D* picture is definitely worse. The image on almost every station is way softer, much less "crisp", less contrast, and worse color saturation. I spent last evening watching several shows that I watch regularly, and was therefore pretty familiar with how they'd always looked on Dish. Like Conan on TBS last night. Everything on the set was less sharp, and even people's faces seemed to have less detail. As for the colors, it seemed like the whole image was skewed slightly to the "blue" side, from what I'd always been used to on Dish.

Then I tried "Covert Affairs" on USA network, and it was very similar there. Just a real "washed-out" look to the picture, versus the "crisp-ness" I always had on Dish. Colors looked very flat overall. Then I tried "Aliens" on one of the movie channels, and that was a real shocker. The great thing about the Kuro is how deep the blacks are. I haven't watched that movie on Dish in a long time, but on D*, the blacks were really poor, with almost a "greenish" tinge to them. Tried some golf on Golf Channel, and definitely couldn't see as much fine detail as usual (although I know their HD broadcasts can vary from tournament to tournament.)

Even on the CBS evening news, I was shocked at how much "softer" the image looked on D*, like it just didn't have the detail in the main shots of Pelley at his anchor desk.

Since what I'm seeing is so different from what I've read in similar threads on this forum, I was hoping someone might be able to help with some insights on why D* looks so much worse to me? Appreciate any help...

 

[mcintire123]

Might just be in yer head? Im honestly not trying to insult you or anything, that's the last thing I would do. However that is just not the case... The picture on all my HD tvs and boxes are always great and sharp, assuming the station and show are in 1080 and filmed right. Some channels suck bad and some shows are just cheap.. But I do honestly think you have an issue or are just over analyzing the situation.

 

[ETS]

How many TVs do you have? I notcied my picture quality got better by 121% last year when DirecTV fixed it for me when they replaced a broken DVR. We have TV in 5 rooms so that's two wires to each DVRs. Before DirecTV had all 10 wires going to one Multiswitch. Now they made it 4 wires go to one multiswitch while the other 6 go to a seperate multiswitch. Picture quality gone so much better it was so awesome

 

[SteveT777]

Might just be in yer head? Im honestly not trying to insult you or anything, that's the last thing I would do. However that is just not the case... The picture on all my HD tvs and boxes are always great and sharp, assuming the station and show are in 1080 and filmed right. Some channels suck bad and some shows are just cheap.. But I do honestly think you have an issue or are just over analyzing the situation.

No insult taken, believe me, I've asked myself the same question. I'm definitely one of those people who sees the one slight flaw in an image that others might miss until I point it out. It's more of a curse than a blessing... So I wasn't convinced for sure that it wasn't just me until I watched that Conan last night. I generally catch the opening of his show every night, and it definitely looked different. The lesser detail in people's faces just really jumped out at me. It's like something that in the days of the old TVs would make me jump up and dial up that contrast knob... And no doubt the USA network picture was worse. I tuned into an NCIS re-run on USA earlier, and the image was softer than anything I'd ever seen on that channel before.

If it's not a setup problem (I've got it set to output in native resolution), then I was wondering if it might be in the differences between how D* and Dish process their signals. I mean, MPEG4 is MPEG4, right, so shouldn't be any difference there in the encoding/decoding? But maybe there's some kind of pre- or post-processing that one is doing differently than the other?

 

[SteveT777]

How many TVs do you have? I notcied my picture quality got better by 121% last year when DirecTV fixed it for me when they replaced a broken DVR. We have TV in 5 rooms so that's two wires to each DVRs. Before DirecTV had all 10 wires going to one Multiswitch. Now they made it 4 wires go to one multiswitch while the other 6 go to a seperate multiswitch. Picture quality gone so much better it was so awesome

Just 2 TV's. I'd thought that in the Dish installation, there was a switch somewhere, and that the DirectTV guy would be replacing it with one of theirs. But there wasn't a switch with the Dish setup, and he said he didn't need one of the D* setup...

 

[TheTechGuru]

Be sure your TV's are set to "Dot by Dot" or "Just Scan" or what ever your particular TV manufacture calls the mode.

Also disable 480i and 480p checkbox options on your receivers to prevent accidentally winding up on them.

Check out a 1080P PPV and see how that looks.

 

[RandallA]

Do you have the HR34 going to the same HDMI input on the TV? Sometimes we adjust a particular input to our liking and in some TVs each input's setting is independent of the others.

If it's not a setup problem (I've got it set to output in native resolution)

Just FYI, by using this setting changing the channels is slower. I didn't like how slow the receiver was changing channels with this setting.

 

[Bodo Fenrirsson]

I use "Native On" & "original format" for screen format(plus having all resolutions checked). While it DOES slow down the channel changing,I think the picture looks great(my TV is also set to Native). By the way,I also have Dish & my 722k set to 1080i(my Logitech Revue ups the resolution to 1080p). Changing channels on my 722k doesn't necessarily seem faster than my DTV DVR's/receivers,& the picture quality is marginally less than on my DTV DVR's/receivers. Everybody has their preference on resolution,etc. when it comes to display,I just feel like I'm watching whatever the way it was intended to be seen.

 

[bruin95]

I have the same exact TV and exhibit none of the issues you are having. This TV can make YouTube look good. I would check the settings on the receiver. I only select it to output 1080i, and unselect all other resolutions. I assume you are using HDMI and it's connected to the same input as was the Dish receiver?

 

[gadgtfreek]

I've been back and forth between the two twice, with different displays, and I just havent ever seen Direct (overall) look worse than Dish, sorry. They look different in certain ways, neither bad or good (mostly color related), but when it comes to sharpness, Dish always lost IMO.

 

[Lkr]

hit the format button on your remote and make sure its outputting 1080i. on some receivers even checking the boxes isn't enough for some reason(looking at you, H23)

 

[gadgtfreek]

Should also be able to use info on his remote, or something of the sort, and the display should tell em what its getting.

My HR34 outputs ycbcr color space, if it was RGB that could also cause a washout problem.

 

[ZandarKoad]

I believe nothing he has described is the result from some defect with, or compression decisions made by, DirecTV. Perhaps the OP would do well to do some research on "Display Calibration." No settings within the DirecTV receiver itself can account for the color and contrast changes reported. Those are issues with the settings on the TV itself. Even if he used the same HDMI input, he is now using a totally different display source with different output characteristics. Just different, not necessarily worse.

I'd highly suggest that you go back to the basics of display correction, which usually means a calibration disc with a good instruction manual and a blue filter (though your TV most likely has a blue mode you can use). There are several discs to choose from.

However, you can't insert the calibration disc into the HR34 to calibrate the source as well as the display. So you're left with the next best method, which is using your Blu Ray player to calibrate that input (the HDMI port your DirecTV will use). I'm assuming the OP does in fact have a Blu Ray player, as no cable or satellite companies can hold a candle to the picture quality offered by Blu Ray. Yet the Blu Ray player itself will have it's own inaccuracies, unless you have an OPPO Blu Ray Player ($500 to $2000 brand new) or a Panasonic BDT210 (highly recommended). The Panny 210 is very affordable and performs perfectly. No other Blu Ray comes close to the Panny 210 in the price vs display quality department.

Maybe that's more than you wanted to know, or raises more questions than it answers, but nevertheless, it is the only path which will lead to video fidelity. Unless you want to skip the cheap solutions and drop $1000 on a spectrophotometer, $3500 on a pattern generator, and $1500 on software.

 

[gadgtfreek]

Owning a 151, Id figure they knew a little about that stuff. I calibrate my display with a signal generator, and I find the results carry over to Directv nicely.

 

[jcrandall]

I'd echo what RandallA said about the HDMI ports, make sure you aren't using a different port, some TV's isolate those settings.

I know it may be difficult, but perhaps a carefull picture from your dish broadcast and your directv broadcast showing the difference, maybe clarify what you are seeing to us. There has to be something flaky going on, I've compared both right next to each other on identical setups and they are extremely difficult to tell apart with what I felt was a slight crisper picture on the Directv setup, most noticeable on motion.

 

[Jimbo]

I have the same exact TV and exhibit none of the issues you are having. This TV can make YouTube look good. I would check the settings on the receiver. I only select it to output 1080i, and unselect all other resolutions. I assume you are using HDMI and it's connected to the same input as was the Dish receiver?

I also have the same set and have none of the issues mentioned above.

Pioneer Elite 60" FD151

I LOVE it !!!

As mentioned previously, you are using HDMI correct ?

Just for grins, try replacing the HDMI cable or at least, unplug it and re plug it in.
See if that happens to help.

Also, every recvr is a little different, it's not unusual to get a new recvr and have to make adjustments to the Video settings.

 

[ejb1980]

Why would anyone concerned with picture quality set the ratio to "original format?" It's the same as "stretch" and destroys SD programming more than Directv already does. My TV is set to "Screen fit" and the Directv receiver (HR24) is set to:

native off
pillar box
only 1080i and 1080p are selected

Channel changes are fast, the banner is always full screen, SD looks the best, and aspect ratio is correct - assuming the broadcaster isn't screwing it up.

 

[gadgtfreek]

Depends on the situation. I for one, ONLY watch HD, and use Native with Original Format. I then have my tv set up in 1:1 mode, so Im getting the best PQ the chain allows. There is no blanket answer.

 

[OSD771]

Turn native off! Its a piece of crap.
Then hit the RES button on the front til the light gets to 1080

As an installer, I think dtv has better pic quality.
I just swapped someone from direct to dish (they were 80 years old) and they could tell dish was worse

 

[Jimbo]

Why would anyone concerned with picture quality set the ratio to "original format?" It's the same as "stretch" and destroys SD programming more than Directv already does. My TV is set to "Screen fit" and the Directv receiver (HR24) is set to:

native off
pillar box
only 1080i and 1080p are selected

Channel changes are fast, the banner is always full screen, SD looks the best, and aspect ratio is correct - assuming the broadcaster isn't screwing it up.

I would much prefer to see the show/movie the way it was intended to be seen.

I am not worried about the SD as I don't watch anything that is still in SD.

I too am using the Native OFF setting.
I bounce between Original Format and Piller Box.