It seems the choppiness on StarzHD goes away when they're showing something that's not from a film 24fps source (like animated Starz logos).
Not happy with StarzHD quality
- Thread starter Mark Strube
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Starz HD looks fine to me as well, except for the occasional LOS because it's coming from the dying sat at 129... 
Finally watched Hostel
PQ was sharp and soft (like it alternated) which didn't bother me too much...
But it looks like the frame rate is WAYYYY LOW! any kind of motion is visible as jerky and or slow moving (as if frames are being skipped). I really think E* has no clue what they are doing with the MPEG4 Encoder!!!
Looks like a bad 24 to 29.97 FPS upconvert!
PQ was sharp and soft (like it alternated) which didn't bother me too much...
But it looks like the frame rate is WAYYYY LOW! any kind of motion is visible as jerky and or slow moving (as if frames are being skipped). I really think E* has no clue what they are doing with the MPEG4 Encoder!!!
Looks like a bad 24 to 29.97 FPS upconvert!
Front panel reset should fix it. If not after a couple times your receiver may have problems.Spinerep said:
I've had experience with similar perception and quality issues in the past. I'd be willing to bet money that the exact same MPEG4 effects are the same on every HD set connected to a 622 receiver, even though some people are stating that they don't see it. That is almost always due to them not being sensitized to the particular effects.
It is almost impossible that several people would see the same exact effect and yet not everyone has it. Because the effect is not TV-dependent. The type of effect described is almost certainly a MPEG4 encoder effect, and everyone is getting the same data stream through the same encoders.
Well, there could be some TV-dependency. A lower quality TV could mask some of the effects. But the better the TV, the more obvious these effects should be. A great TV will not compensate for image defects, rather they will display them in even sharper resolution & clarity.
Technically it could be due to a problem in some 622s, but that is very unlikely, as they are all using the same MPEG4 chipset.
It is almost impossible that several people would see the same exact effect and yet not everyone has it. Because the effect is not TV-dependent. The type of effect described is almost certainly a MPEG4 encoder effect, and everyone is getting the same data stream through the same encoders.
Well, there could be some TV-dependency. A lower quality TV could mask some of the effects. But the better the TV, the more obvious these effects should be. A great TV will not compensate for image defects, rather they will display them in even sharper resolution & clarity.
Technically it could be due to a problem in some 622s, but that is very unlikely, as they are all using the same MPEG4 chipset.
Try hitting the back button once when you start to see the stutter...(from another thread and a reply/post by Simple Simon)
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I tried the back button trick (it worked for HBOHD and SHOHD back when I first got my 622 in March), but it doesn't work with STARZHD. I called DISH to complain and was told that they have received several complaints and that they are putting together a bunch of cases for their engineers to review. FWIW, I no longer experience those problems with HBOHD or SHOHD, so I am hopeful that they can figure this one out as well.
Terribly choppy on pans. Most likely cause is the deinterlacing of the 1080i mpeg2 source from Starz. Picture quality is actually pretty good otherwise. Kinda surprised they are encoding it at 15Mbps. That's more than HBO which is mpeg2.
I noticed on my tv that i get a black border about 1/4" on the bottom of the screen as if the screen is shifted upwards this is only on the starz HD Anyone else have this issue?
No , I don't notice the black border but if I do get one I can Zoom it away the same way I do on Showtime Hd. Keep sending the emails to the dishquality folks and maybe we can get this crap fixed on STARZ HD. I hope that once they learn to fix the hd national mpeg 4 channels they can apply the same fix to the Hd locals on channels like CBS. IN Houston this channel really looks bad on wide panning shots . It looks like even the live video shots look like film that is missing every other frame. It gives me a head ache to watch it on either STarz Hd or the Khou channel 11/ 6390 in Houston. I found that if I reduce the sat receiver to 480p instead of 720p or 1080i and let the Toshiba hd tv do the upconverting , it lessens the artifacting in the picture- making it less jerky. But why would I want to sacrifice the other hd channels just so I can watch the two that look like crap?
dishquality@echostar.com
dishquality@echostar.com
The black bar Issue Bob is seeing I see with many older VOOM movies, I've aligned my overscan perfectly using the HDNET pattern and all my HD channels obey this except for randomly with VOOM channels, for a *HD* bragger/provider they sure dont' know what they are doing....
as far as the StarzHD *stuttering* it's not the same stuttering as the 622's software bug *stutter* this is clearly a result of either bad 24p to 29.97 conversion or horrible interlacing / conversion with this *new* MPEG4 encoder... E* really needs to figure out how to use this encoder, technically they should be able to run the MPEG4 stuff at lower bitrate same resolution as MPEG2 and get the same clear picture with ~1/2 - 3/4 as much bandwith... they clearly dont' know what they are doing, i say RTFM E* video engineers!
as far as the StarzHD *stuttering* it's not the same stuttering as the 622's software bug *stutter* this is clearly a result of either bad 24p to 29.97 conversion or horrible interlacing / conversion with this *new* MPEG4 encoder... E* really needs to figure out how to use this encoder, technically they should be able to run the MPEG4 stuff at lower bitrate same resolution as MPEG2 and get the same clear picture with ~1/2 - 3/4 as much bandwith... they clearly dont' know what they are doing, i say RTFM E* video engineers!
I did notice (when i came into the the livingroom with the 622) that duece 2 did not look super sharp... but when I returned Austin Powers looked pretty good altough I did notice artifacts on both... ( watching dvr stuff on PJ in other room)
I'm new to StarzHD, it looks like so far a bunch of their content is either 4:3 (come on they don't have a good copy of HEAT?) or 16:9 upconverted content... and then the true HD content they have looks half fuzzy and jerky due to the encoding! I'm very disappointed with StarzHD so far. I was looking forward to having an all movie network, HBO and Showtime seem to play a lot of *special* programming (some good some i could care less for). However to give them credit so far I've seen very few 4:3 movies on their channels.
I'm still glad to have more HD options to choose from though.
I'm still glad to have more HD options to choose from though.
I thought Dish was having issues with there Mpeg4 decoding software and thats why they still had most of the new channels on Mpeg2 but marks so only the new receivers could get them.
Should we call Starz in HD on Mpeg4 a BETA TEST?
They just dont seem to have it looking right.
Anyone compare it on a a Cable system that has the full Bit rate?
Should we call Starz in HD on Mpeg4 a BETA TEST?
They just dont seem to have it looking right.
Anyone compare it on a a Cable system that has the full Bit rate?
BFG said:
Probably just because they make good test channels. Starz has a lot fewer subscribers than any of the other HD channels. And it's not football season. They can get some of the bugs out without ticking off as many people.
I'm watching "Out Of Sight" right now...the picture is all shakey, and it freezes sometimes. It seems like some of the scenes are out of chronological order. And in one scene, the characters were talking but their lips weren't moving! But it looks great to me!
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