Would I be able to tell a difference if I went from a dish 1000.2 pointing at 129,110, and 119 to the eastern arc dish? Does the HD and SD look better with EA? I know it's all mpeg4. Thinking about upgrading.Thanks
Picture Quality?
- Thread starter Cameron3395
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 11
- Views 2K
I doubt you'll see much difference with the SD between mpeg4 and mpeg2. I've never seen any really noticeable difference for the same channel.
Its NO different.
The Mpeg 2 SD resolution is 540x480
The Eastern Arc Mpeg 4 resolution is 480x480.
I've had both and your not missing anything.
Also with the 1000.4 dish, All American Direct DNS locals aren't available.
IMHO You would be Downgrading going too a 1000.4 Eastern arc setup.
Eastern arc is full of Old Satellites.
The 1000.2 is the same dish as 1000.4 , Just the LNB's are spaced differently, But Western arc also has 2 Brand new Very powerfull satellites. Stick to what you have.
The Mpeg 2 SD resolution is 540x480
The Eastern Arc Mpeg 4 resolution is 480x480.
I've had both and your not missing anything.
Also with the 1000.4 dish, All American Direct DNS locals aren't available.
IMHO You would be Downgrading going too a 1000.4 Eastern arc setup.
Eastern arc is full of Old Satellites.
The 1000.2 is the same dish as 1000.4 , Just the LNB's are spaced differently, But Western arc also has 2 Brand new Very powerfull satellites. Stick to what you have.
this is good to know. i was going to do this for my old man but i guess it's not worth it. thanks :up
If you must have 1 dish , By all means get a 1000.4, But if the 1000.2 is available and has all your locals then its Pointless to switch to easternarc.
Three months ago, FNC was in free preview, and via western arc, it looked like somebody smeared vaseline on my TV. Now that I use eastern arc, and subscribe to FNC, the SD version looks better than when Food upconverts an old episode of Good Eats. G4 is the same story. Screen resolution has little to do with picture quality. Signal strength in KC is only about two thirds as strong as WA was, and rain fade is more common. The improved PQ and simpler wiring were worth it for me, though.
I think that the sd picture looks better in eastern arc compared to western arc. I had both a dish 1000.2 sat dish and a dish 1000.4 sat dish run to my house. I have three coaxes run to each tv in my house , because I had Directv at one time also. So I compared the same FX sd channel on two different hdtvs in my home . The eastern arc set up was much cleaner and clearer and I saw no smearing, compression artifacts on it either. Maybe the reason the western arc channels are at a higher resolution is because they have to try to overcome some of the compression artifacts due to over crowding the mpeg 2 sat channels all on one transponder. So I would think eastern arc , which can fit more mpeg 4 channels on one transponder , without loss in picture , would be better . Mpeg 4 looks better on hd channels in comparison to the mpeg 2 hd channels we had before. So why wouldn't the mpeg 4 sd channels look better than the mpeg 2 sd channels? Better compression should mean better picture quality without all those compression artifacts and over crowding we had with mpeg 2. Mpeg 4 is a smarter compression scheme that allows more channels to be on the same transponder without a loss in pq. OF course you will have more rain fade using eastern arc ,because the sats are much older and the signal strength is not as strong as the sats at western arc 110/119/129. In the end it will be your choice as to what you want. Picture quality is subjective. What I consider a better picture, to my dad is not as good. Of course my Dad has cataracts and thinks that the sharpness needs to be turned up to 85 % to look good. He actually likes his picture to look all jagged and rough like analog cable. Go figure.
True, there are providers running full 1920 × 1080 but compress it (using MPEG2) so much that it macroblocks constantly (and looks very very soft on static images). I'd take less compressed HD-Lite over that pixelated (Full-Resolution) garbage anyday.
Its not the same Resolution.
E* Mpeg 2 SD is 540x480 4 channel per TP
E* Mpeg 4 SD is 480x480 7 channel per TP
So sure Mpeg 4 is better, But when you drop the resolution, and cram more channels per Transponder it even out.
I've Had 1000.4 setup for about 6 months, I dropped the 1000.4 for a Dish 500+ so I could have International. I've never noticed any difference in PQ from this change either way.
It all depends on how good of a signal you get versus your old dish.
Better signal = better picture
Worse signal = worse picture.
Just get the dish you have peaked.
As I said pq is subjective. IN your eyes you see no difference. In my situation I do see a difference in pq . Eastern arc wins to me for better pq on SD channels. I have seen the same channels played on both eastern and western arc, at the same time and I see pq artifacts on the western arc I did not see on the eastern arc . Is it worth changing all your setups to eastern arc? That is an individual decision that a person will have to make for themselves.
If you do go with eastern arc ,be warned that you will see more rain fade as the signal is not as strong as with western arc dish. At least in my area of the country ; southeast ,Texas. According to the sat footprint map for 72.7 all I can get is around 45 - 50 . Up north in Connecticut Scott.G is getting around 60 signal on the same sat. The eastern arc setup is using older sats that are not as strong as the latest sats at 110 & 129. This should be fixed later this year when the replacement sats for 72.2 and I believe 77 , will be launched . Then either set up will be as strong.
For me the eastern arc suits me because ALL of my programming is in mpeg 4 , which takes up less room on my internal or external hard drives. I can record a lot more with eastern arc than with western arc. I don't think someone should go out and buy another dish , if they don' t need to. I was able to compare both setups last year and recently went back to eastern arc. I use it with a dish 1000.2 with an lnb adapter I got from the dishstore.net for 9.99. I can use it now for a single lnb for 110 or 119 or for the 129 sat like I am doing now. If the All American Direct gets hd network on the 110 sat , I can easily move the coax from the 129 slot to the 110 slot since it is already set up and peaked for the western arc .
In the end I will say it again , picture quality is subjective. What looks good to me might not look good to you Hemi. I don't recommend people go out and buy an eastern arc dish if they don't need to. But if you do want to and you get one, there are some perks to having all your programming, both sd and hd in mpeg 4. By the way Hemi, what international channels are you getting ?
