not as sharp

[Conjuror]

We need to stay on the topic but here's what I think about 720p and 1080i. Both look very, very good on my 1080i native TV set with the exception of most Voom exclusives.
My TV is 1080i native but still "upconverted" ESPNHD (on Dish 811) looks excellent on it. That is not the case with cinema 10 and some other Voom's exclusives. Okay, maybe I overreacted when I said Voom's HDs are very much like progressive DVDs. They look better than DVD but that is not the point. The point is, when I saw HDTV for the very first time, I watched it with wide opened mouth and eyes. And I still have wide opened mouth and both eyes when I watch (on Dish 811) DHDT, HDNet, HDNet Movies, ESPNHD, HBOHD, OTA Jay Leno, etc. This is not the case when I'm watching any Voom's exclusive channel especially cinema 10 (with the exception of some models on ultra ). There are some problems with black levels and color balance when I watch non-Voom HD channels through Voom's receiver including OTA channels (which means we could blame the receiver for some of it). Yes, they are better than cinema 10 but not as good as the same channels on 811.
I would really like to stay with Voom but if their competitors add more HD channels I will switch to one of them, unless Voom's improves PQ. I hope they will.

 

[jrM]

ill do the same if pq does not improve ill stick it out with d* voom is like watching hi res instead of hi def

 

[gutter]

We need to stay on the topic but here's what I think about 720p and 1080i. Both look very, very good on my 1080i native TV set with the exception of most Voom exclusives.
My TV is 1080i native but still "upconverted" ESPNHD (on Dish 811) looks excellent on it. That is not the case with cinema 10 and some other Voom's exclusives. Okay, maybe I overreacted when I said Voom's HDs are very much like progressive DVDs. They look better than DVD but that is not the point. The point is, when I saw HDTV for the very first time, I watched it with wide opened mouth and eyes. And I still have wide opened mouth and both eyes when I watch (on Dish 811) DHDT, HDNet, HDNet Movies, ESPNHD, HBOHD, OTA Jay Leno, etc. This is not the case when I'm watching any Voom's exclusive channel especially cinema 10 (with the exception of some models on ultra ). There are some problems with black levels and color balance when I watch non-Voom HD channels through Voom's receiver including OTA channels (which means we could blame the receiver for some of it). Yes, they are better than cinema 10 but not as good as the same channels on 811.
I would really like to stay with Voom but if their competitors add more HD channels I will switch to one of them, unless Voom's improves PQ. I hope they will.

I feel like you do about the PQ and don't know why? I am using DVI. Are you using DVI or component and have you compared them? I am a new VOOM'r also and am trying to figure this out. Not seen any posts on here explaining it.

 

[Conjuror]

I tried both DVI and component cables and PQ is about the same. On many HD channels I see a fine grain especially in dark scenes. I see nothing like it on the same HD channels on Dish.
I tried to eliminate it with different picture configurations but I had no success. It has to do something with Voom's receiver because OTA channels on 811 look better than on Voom.
I

 

[cameron119]

I too have noticed a slight increase in sharpness on Disc HD Theater on E* vs. V*. Obviously we can't compare HDNet, and I've not done a comparison of ESPNHD's (one reason is the difference should be negiligible since I'm upconverting to 1080i anyway).

Voom has the advantage of having a relatively massive amount of content. That (for me) outweighs the slightly higher quality of the E* content.

Voom appears slightly smoother, and has less bandwidth/channel. However, Voom is also the only one committed to more efficient compression technologies. In the meantime, Echostar will either have to keep 2HD/8PSK transponder or start packing them in (or use some of their wing capacity--compress the wing locals even more).

I don't buy that D* is much better than Voom. They're sticking 2 channels/QPSK transponder. Inefficient modulation scheme coupled with comparitively lower-bandwidth transponders vs. Echostar or Voom.