Certainly is a golf haven.guffy1 said:
I was raised one state away in another golf haven...
Anyway - best wishes for an HD Holiday.
Over 150 national HD channels in 2006?
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I was raised one state away in another golf haven...
Anyway - best wishes for an HD Holiday.
I wonder how Dish Network is going to be able to match what DirecTv is going to do? I know Dish is going to launch a satellite soon but will that be enough? Perhaps that combined with 129 will do the trick.
Stargazer said:
Match D*? They would have to regress to match D*..
I give up
Happy Holidays everyone!
Stargazer said:
Echostar 10 doesn't give them any additional national capacity. (if anything it will be reduced as transponders previously operated conus will be used for spot beams). Echostar has acquired/is acquiring lots of wing slots and FSS Ku positions, but I can't imagine how they're going to put it all together.
For my 2 cents Guffy and Pradike.... I too can not tell the difference between the OTA and D* feed of NBC that I get here in Columbus. Nada, no difference. Using the Panny Projector and 106 inch screen, you can go up to it with a magnifying glass Guffy, and I am telling you that there is no way you can tell the difference. I don't know what is and isn't but it seems I know more than anyone around here or at any of the stores... By here I mean in my neck of the woods
You guys make me laugh.... Anyone who appreciate what HD is supposed to look like have to watch two channels on D* to make sure that those are not HD. Take a look HDnet Movies and Universal HD. Just those two would make you go gee.... there's something wrong here.
Like Cpanther said if you think there's nothing wrong with HD on D* then you never knew what HD is supposed to look like. This is the danger of having customers now that watch HD and do not have a point of reference to compare what True HD is supposed to look like. The argument with OTA maybe true with FlyingJ and pradike. They are probably getting the same crappy HD ota as D*. The rest of the country is watching something completly different since we have so many people that have given testimony that there are something wrong with HD on D*. It is not only the testimony of people's opinion but the data backs it up.
This is HD data on D* http://www.widemovies.com/dfwbitrate.html
This is HD data on E* http://home.bigsandybb.com/gmurrell/bitrate.html
Look at the common channels and you will see that E* is providing better resolution.
I am a D* customer and I will praise them when they satisify me as a customer. I am not apologetic for E*, D* or my OTA signal. I am *mad* because I paid for sub-par quality HD on D* and the trend will continue until people stop being apologetic for a provider that so far has only done harm to the HD cause.
Like Cpanther said if you think there's nothing wrong with HD on D* then you never knew what HD is supposed to look like. This is the danger of having customers now that watch HD and do not have a point of reference to compare what True HD is supposed to look like. The argument with OTA maybe true with FlyingJ and pradike. They are probably getting the same crappy HD ota as D*. The rest of the country is watching something completly different since we have so many people that have given testimony that there are something wrong with HD on D*. It is not only the testimony of people's opinion but the data backs it up.
This is HD data on D* http://www.widemovies.com/dfwbitrate.html
This is HD data on E* http://home.bigsandybb.com/gmurrell/bitrate.html
Look at the common channels and you will see that E* is providing better resolution.
I am a D* customer and I will praise them when they satisify me as a customer. I am not apologetic for E*, D* or my OTA signal. I am *mad* because I paid for sub-par quality HD on D* and the trend will continue until people stop being apologetic for a provider that so far has only done harm to the HD cause.
P.S. I hope people understand that this is not a debate about who is a better provider because we do not want to be caught in that useless debate. People choose a provider for various reasons and maybe one of them happen not to be HD. That debate is beside the point. Here we are trying to let everyone know that danger of accepting sub-par quality. If you are satisfy with crappy HD on one provider whether is E* or D* or cable then you are f*** for everyone else who wants the best HD quality on channels.
Rule #1 - never run a message board if you're going to insult its visitors.Sean Mota said:
Sean - how disappointing to see someone like you who claims to provide an information service here make clearly biased, uniformed, and ridiculous retorts and comments. More important, your additions to the flamer insults of regularly-insulting morons here show you are not even ethical in terms of running a message board. I can't speak for FlyingJ, but...
Sorry to educate you - but your observations that we are all full of it and seem to blindly view "crappy HD" is in and of itself the most arrogant and blind statement in this thread to date. Coming from you, I've very surprised and disappointed, as I'm sure any others who read your most recent comments were.
I've got news for you Sean - we've seen HD in 7 states on 100s of DLP and CRT projectors, as well as other HD units - content from (the late) Voom, E*, D*, Comcast, Cox, and Charter. Many of us have seen the best HD you can view at CES demos, as well as around the United States at premium HD installs. We know what it is supposed to and can look like when properly installed, configured, and tuned (and the source material not downrezzed and or compressed). To insult those of us who feel that our observations are any less accurate or valid than yours or the other negative detractors here is plain lowest of the low. You have joined the group of people here who do nothing but find bad in everything and spend every day on here with something to complain about. Pathetic.
Very sorry to hear you have stooped to this low milestone point on this board.
This used to be a source for good information - now its nothing but a disgruntled whiner sounding board for people who have too much time on their hands so that they can insult others all day long (medication may be in order).
It's time for us to move on to other places where we can get positive information, useful news, and non-inflammatory supervision from the board management. You don't make us laugh, you make us roll our eyes.
Flame your brains off. No one will be here to care. :neener
pradike said:
Never insulted you or anyone here. Where do you come up with this? Merry Christmas to you too..
pradike said:
Did you look in the mirror this morning are writing about yourself. The only person that I have seen that makes clear biased and uninformed and ridiculous remarks about DirecTv is yourself. You are completly biased about DirecTv and any negative remarks that everyone else makes is just wrong. You are always right that DirecTv has done nothing wrong about their HD channels yet the facts clearly said the contrary. Please we are not here to please you, DirecTv, Dish Network or anyone else for that matter. We speak the truth when the truth needs to be spoken.
pradike said:
Never did I insulted you but only said that you and FlingJ must have the same crappy OTA signal that DirecTv is sending everyone else because it is clear that everyone else or at least a bunch of us have better OTA signal than what DirecTv is sending. Nothing wrong with that. It is just a FACT revealed not only by the good people on this board but by other boards. That's a FACT!!!! not an insult.
pradike said:
Actually it was not only me who hinted that you were blind but various responses on this thread said the same thing because you are the only one with a biased view about the problem that we are all trying to point out. We all wish that this thing would go away and have a pristine signal like we are supposed to have because we all pay for it. Yet, there's a whole lot of us who do not see the "prestine" HD signal on DirecTv. We only see a crappy signal that can only be watched on a 36" TV and not on our 60" plus HDTVs. I am not alone on my observations and I gave you two websites that justify the claim with REAL FACT data and not with your biased remarks. Please provide proof of what you are saying and give REAL Data that contradicts the TWO WEBSITEs I posted before then you can call me a moron.
pradike said:
If there's only one vie that you can view --- DirecTv is not doing anything wrong --, I can't do anything about that. Go to AVS and you will find people with more knowledge than you or me and they will tell you the same thing --- DirecTv HD signal is crappy to the say the least. It does not matter what you think since we know all your biased nature.
pradike said:
And it is a testament to the board that we take both sides of the equation and try to analyze it and look at it with an open mind. How many times did I praise DirecTv for given us the Yankees games in HD!!!! but I also have to recognize that DirecTv is doing a disservice to all HD enthusiasts by downgrading the HD signal and when compare to other providers is quite clear that the other providers are providing better HD quality. How hard is that to understand not only from me but from various testimonies here on this board and AVS. Is is so hard to understand that we all deserve to look at the problem and complaint? Should we all be quiet about this problem? No!!!! keeping quiet about it will be like saying every fine and dandy when it is not.
pradike said:
Move on if you like. We do not hold anyone here. We praise when praise is due and we have to tell the truth about any provider. We do not work for any of them and it will be a disservice to our members and everyone on this board or anyone else if we did not tell the truth about the problems of DirecTv HD signal. It is a fact pradike. These are not speculations. The data proves it and until DirecTv changes their policy and start given everyone the best HD signal we deserve, we will be all screwed.
This is my own remark but you sure have an interest on DirecTv. On the AVS board that was clear stated. So we now know as well here that you are a pro-DirecTv. For whatever reason that maybe. But here we have to look at both sides of the equation and give our members the positive and negative. You can see for yourselve that my remarks against Dish Network or any provider are not kind when Dish Network started doing the same downgrade on the Voom channels. But luckly Dish Network has not done the same to the other channels but who knows when that it's going to change. When DirecTv start delivering the best possible HD or at least compatible to the competition, we will all say it to the open heavens. In the meantime we say it like it is. We have our observations and we also have FACTS releavant to the observations that are being made by various members.
Whoa whoa whoa.
If I've learned one thing on boards, it's that generalizations kill everyone (us mod-types too!)
Example 1 - I really can't tell a big difference between an OTA ABC affiliate and D*'s WABC-DT feed. Why is that? It would be a combo of:
1) 720p being less suceptable to "HD-Lite" due to less needed bandwidth.
2) My smaller 1080-i native TV set, which would not show differences compared to bigger set
3) The OTA affiliate possibly sucking eggs (honestly don't have anything to compare it to)
4) My HD-Tivo doing odd things to the signal
5) Anything else, who knows (?)
Example 2 - Someone with the 50+ inch screen sees a full bandwidth CBS affiliate (for example), and compares it to D*'s WCBS-DT feed.
Yeah, I'd see a big difference, and I'm sure most would. But, not everyone has access to a good OTA feed, if any at all (hence D*'s HD LIL push). Plus, the various combos of sets / STB's / channels / hookups, etc...
In short - Is there a difference between D*'s HD and "good" OTA HD? Sure. Is it that big a problem? Depends. Would I like full bandwidth HD on D*? Of course.
Let's all stop shooting the messengers on both ends of this, and just agree that full bandwidth would be better, to varying degrees.
If I've learned one thing on boards, it's that generalizations kill everyone (us mod-types too!)
Example 1 - I really can't tell a big difference between an OTA ABC affiliate and D*'s WABC-DT feed. Why is that? It would be a combo of:
1) 720p being less suceptable to "HD-Lite" due to less needed bandwidth.
2) My smaller 1080-i native TV set, which would not show differences compared to bigger set
3) The OTA affiliate possibly sucking eggs (honestly don't have anything to compare it to)
4) My HD-Tivo doing odd things to the signal
5) Anything else, who knows (?)
Example 2 - Someone with the 50+ inch screen sees a full bandwidth CBS affiliate (for example), and compares it to D*'s WCBS-DT feed.
Yeah, I'd see a big difference, and I'm sure most would. But, not everyone has access to a good OTA feed, if any at all (hence D*'s HD LIL push). Plus, the various combos of sets / STB's / channels / hookups, etc...
In short - Is there a difference between D*'s HD and "good" OTA HD? Sure. Is it that big a problem? Depends. Would I like full bandwidth HD on D*? Of course.
Let's all stop shooting the messengers on both ends of this, and just agree that full bandwidth would be better, to varying degrees.
What I do not understand is why is this topic so touchy for "some" DirecTv subscribers. If anyone dares to mention it, it is like inviting a debate of "who is better" when clearly that is not the purpose. The purpose or at least the objective should be to complaint about this because as DirecTv dealers, personel and those in charge of changing policies could read this and make changes. Yet customers engage in the debate of this provider agains the other because of the issue. The issue is not stating that Dish Networ or cable is better than DirecTv but clearly stating that in the common 1920x1080i channels, the channels have better PQ in the competition. Also, let's forget about OTA for a moment and let's concentrate on HDnet Movies and Universal HD on DirecTv. Those two channels are right now at DVD quality at best. They both suffer from downresolution and low bitrates. That should be enough to raise a flag among DirecTv subscribers that something is wrong. Yet the endless discussion of me against you prevails. I do not know whether there is intent on this to take us away from the real issue at hand but it's another FACT about this topic that many times have prevailed in this discussion.
On the Dish Network forum the opposite seems to happen where customers do not feel afraid of arguing or complaining about this topic. As a matter of fact, it is a welcomed topic because we want resolution to the issue at hand.
On the Dish Network forum the opposite seems to happen where customers do not feel afraid of arguing or complaining about this topic. As a matter of fact, it is a welcomed topic because we want resolution to the issue at hand.
Sean Mota said:
Maybe it's because of the posts where E* folks say that D* folks are stupid, blind, idiots (put in your own word of choice) for putting up with HD-Lite. Or as mentioned it the prior posts, maybe folks don't have 100in screens and sitting 10 feet away?
As a D* subscriber I'm not happy with the situation at the present time and hoping that D* changes their ways as more satellites go up. Why do I stay then, because E* hardware, in comparision to D* hardware, is less reliable and problem prone. How long has the 921 been out and I still see posts about zero length recordings or polls about how many times do you reboot your E* receiver per week, etc. I want to watch TV and not have to be taking corrective actions because the STB is locked up again or whatever. Just my two cents.
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I just got satellite HD installed the past week, and a friend suggested I log on here (I am a newbie) to see if there might be some good information about HDTV here. I was all excited to see what I might find here.
I was shocked to find such negative comments like the one I just read from Mr. Mota. I was hoping to get useful information. His statements sound like the town bully.
I guess I will have to just look through here without saying anything, and see if I can find anything useful. It seems dangerous to make any comment. Its a shame that people have to be so negative.
I was shocked to find such negative comments like the one I just read from Mr. Mota. I was hoping to get useful information. His statements sound like the town bully.
I guess I will have to just look through here without saying anything, and see if I can find anything useful. It seems dangerous to make any comment. Its a shame that people have to be so negative.
hdtoby said:
i have a feeling that your friend is "pradike". Maybe it has something do with the both of you having the same ip address.
enjoy the site, it is the best one out there.
rad said:
I agree with you about that post and we certainly do not have to go that route to express the real issue at hand. There's no need to call anyone stupid or moron because one does not agree with ones statement. In this thread however no one was called stupid or idiots for putting up with HD Lite. I myself have DirecTv and do not like the situation of not being able to record anything on HD coming through DirecTv because I can't watch it. Yes, "blind" was used to express the frustration of putting up with this situation for more than 1.5 years already without any resolution. We only hope that there's resolution somewhere and the light of the tunnel is near by.
korsjs said:i have a feeling that your friend is "pradike". Maybe it has something do with the both of you having the same ip address.
enjoy the site, it is the best one out there.
I saw that... It looks like some people do have a special interest in hiding the truth. That is very sad because this situation can only help us all and not to act like this in a very childish way. Isn't this sadder than HD Lite?
Well, we're forgetting a lot of things here. First...
Mike McGann: resolution and compression/downressing are not the same thing. Neither is bitrate. So, that would have little to no effect on clerity of the picture in terms of the best your TV could display. Artifacing would come from compression which has nothing to do with what you view it on other than severity.
Other: The only way bitrate is linked in this is that you need to see if the bitrate being delivered is appropriate for the resolution. In a perfect world the resolution being provided would be the only thing affecting the bitrate. If they devlivered full bitrate, even at 1280x1080i. It would still look very good. When we compress this further is where it becomes really bad. I've been making MPEG-2/4 videos for a long time. Very quickly does the picture lose quality when downgrading the bitrate. That's why MPEG-4 is the best thing they could do. Hopefully it will allow them to jack up the bitrate. At least it'd better since it's only a fraction of the bandwidth. Even 14Mb for what they deliver is a lot of bandwidth. I don't blame them for having to deliver their HD in this mannor right now. But which is more important? The same 7 or so HDs in a better quality with the company barely looking at the future. Or, suffering knowing that it's something that needs to be done while D* looks to the future.
Sean, judging by the links you posted on E* side I would expect their highest res channels to look almost identical to their lower resolution channels. Minus some clerity. Their sacrificing bandwidth on the high side in favor of a higher resolution. But that bitrate is too low. I might expect HDNet and HDNet Movies to look a little better. The old Voom channels have a very good bitrate for the resolution, and might actually be preferred at times. On D* side, when I had HD through them, it definitely mattered what I was watching, when, on what day. Sometimes amazing, others it was terrible. In terms of just the stright video part of it 1024x1080i should be able to get away with a little over 12Mb bitrate. Of course that would make the picture "adaquate". More is better.
Edit: Of course that doesn't take into accounts other ways to save bandwidth. Like not encoding and sending the extra duplicate frames in the tranfer from film to video. Major reduction in needed bandwidth there. Other tricks. We just need to know which ones D* is using.
Mike McGann: resolution and compression/downressing are not the same thing. Neither is bitrate. So, that would have little to no effect on clerity of the picture in terms of the best your TV could display. Artifacing would come from compression which has nothing to do with what you view it on other than severity.
Other: The only way bitrate is linked in this is that you need to see if the bitrate being delivered is appropriate for the resolution. In a perfect world the resolution being provided would be the only thing affecting the bitrate. If they devlivered full bitrate, even at 1280x1080i. It would still look very good. When we compress this further is where it becomes really bad. I've been making MPEG-2/4 videos for a long time. Very quickly does the picture lose quality when downgrading the bitrate. That's why MPEG-4 is the best thing they could do. Hopefully it will allow them to jack up the bitrate. At least it'd better since it's only a fraction of the bandwidth. Even 14Mb for what they deliver is a lot of bandwidth. I don't blame them for having to deliver their HD in this mannor right now. But which is more important? The same 7 or so HDs in a better quality with the company barely looking at the future. Or, suffering knowing that it's something that needs to be done while D* looks to the future.
Sean, judging by the links you posted on E* side I would expect their highest res channels to look almost identical to their lower resolution channels. Minus some clerity. Their sacrificing bandwidth on the high side in favor of a higher resolution. But that bitrate is too low. I might expect HDNet and HDNet Movies to look a little better. The old Voom channels have a very good bitrate for the resolution, and might actually be preferred at times. On D* side, when I had HD through them, it definitely mattered what I was watching, when, on what day. Sometimes amazing, others it was terrible. In terms of just the stright video part of it 1024x1080i should be able to get away with a little over 12Mb bitrate. Of course that would make the picture "adaquate". More is better.
Edit: Of course that doesn't take into accounts other ways to save bandwidth. Like not encoding and sending the extra duplicate frames in the tranfer from film to video. Major reduction in needed bandwidth there. Other tricks. We just need to know which ones D* is using.
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drbill28,
thanks for the clarification on the bitrates and resolution downgrade. On the D* side the low bitrates on HDnet Movies from 7mbps - 9mbps I find it to be so low and makes the picture very soft and wherever there is high action or big explositions that involves fire the picture pixelates like crazy. As you can see on the E* side the same channel is at 15mbps and the same does not happen.
Another channel on the D* side is Universal HD. Even thought the bitrate is like 12mbps the picture pixelates a whole lot and it is very soft. These two are very good example of looking for Picture Quality.
thanks for the clarification on the bitrates and resolution downgrade. On the D* side the low bitrates on HDnet Movies from 7mbps - 9mbps I find it to be so low and makes the picture very soft and wherever there is high action or big explositions that involves fire the picture pixelates like crazy. As you can see on the E* side the same channel is at 15mbps and the same does not happen.
Another channel on the D* side is Universal HD. Even thought the bitrate is like 12mbps the picture pixelates a whole lot and it is very soft. These two are very good example of looking for Picture Quality.
Once DIRECTV begins rolling our national HD channels using MPEG-4 compression they will have the ability to deliver full HD bandwidth. I believe that is their plan.
-Robert
-Robert
Sean, DirecTV users aren't happy that we have to put up with several channels of substandard hd, but we're more unhappy that a lot of Dish fanboys are calling us idiots for doing so. DirecTV is investing several billion dollars to launch next generation satellites and upgrade the receiving equipment to deliver more hd channels to their customers in 2006 and 2007. I consider that an adequate response. Apparantly, to satisfy Dish fanboys we should demand that out content is cut or that we have to put up a network of wing dishes like they do because nobody will ever receive full bandwidth hdtv if DirecTV isn't delivering it at the moment.
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