PQ improvement?

[kevink]

Unless it is just me getting used to it, or changing my TV to display with less brightness, it seems that my HD quality has improved over what it was 1-4 months ago.

Less pixelation, especially in dark areas.

Anyone else see any change?

I have the ViP622.

 

[MikeD-C05]

Maybe you have become accustomed to the quality of the hd channels now and no longer see the pixelation.

 

[primetimeguy]

Unless it is just me getting used to it, or changing my TV to display with less brightness, it seems that my HD quality has improved over what it was 1-4 months ago.

Less pixelation, especially in dark areas.

Anyone else see any change?

I have the ViP622.

I think it has to do with you changing your TV settings. You said you turned down brightness, which affects black level, and then said you noticed less pixilation in black areas. Brightness, contrast and sharpness will all affect your perceived PQ.

 

[Poke]

Hmm must be your install or your TV setting or something with your receiver due to I rarely ever see pixelation. Only time I see some is if the signal gets some interference due to a major storm. But besides that things have always looked good.

 

[kevink]

I'll go with the post about lower light level, since thinking back, it was probably coincident with that.

I noticed it most on dark areas on movies, including HD movies.

 

[whatchel1]

settings

When you get a new monitor as they come from the store the setting are not going to be the correct way for viewing. What may have happened over the past few months is you have set them for better viewing with your adjustments. Monitors are set up to start with be be on the show room floor and try to catch the customer's attention. In other words they are set to be flashier than the one nest to it. So now all monitors are set too bright and usually w/too much color. So now that you have reset it you will see less of the problems that this overdrive.

 

[kevink]

I know that when I first got it, I tried one of the energy save modes, and it looked dim and inferior to the default. So I changed it back.

A few months later, now that spring was approaching, I thought of the energy save mode to cut down on heat around the TV. After a couple days, I didn't notice the dimness anymore. A month or so later, it dawned on me that the quality seemed better than what I had remembered.

And since noone else jumped in and said that they noticed a quality improvement, it must be my TV

 

[jayiw]

I noticed a huge improvement in PQ, most notably SD. SD is much sharper, clearer/less blurry and less artifacted. I did not make any change to TV settings either and it did not happen because of the 4.03 update, it was within the last week or so and there were no other updates. I just hope this lasts.

Jay

 

[Todd Humphrey]

There are several things that affect Image quality and I have found that given the same image, people will each see differant problems (or none) at varioues levels. There is also the display technology. A 60" plasma will show a hell of a lot more PQ problems than the same signal sent to a 42" DLP, or even an older CRT projection TV.
We all need to consider the display type when trying to talk to each other.

IMO, Pixulation does not exist unless you have a low signal level or some other error.
I beleive the image quality problems we all see, and contribute to overcompression, is due to a reduction in the Forward Error Correction (FEC) componenet of the signal. This is what makes the image less than perfect. Loss data trying to be filled in by the tuner. I guess that is a form of pixulation, but what actually IS the technical discription of pixulation.
Perhaps the commpression issue could be called micro-pixulation.
Maybe we need to develop a library of images that match terminolgy. It sure would go a long way to help us explain problems.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I am surprised no one mentioned mpeg-4. I have noticed that UHD (one of the new mpeg-4 channels) looks a lot better, more crisp, vibrant colors; than it did as mpeg-2.

I know not everyone has been happy with mpeg-4, but to my not so well trained eye, it has looked very nice.

 

[Drone35]

I noticed a huge improvement in PQ, most notably SD. SD is much sharper, clearer/less blurry and less artifacted. I did not make any change to TV settings either and it did not happen because of the 4.03 update, it was within the last week or so and there were no other updates. I just hope this lasts.

Jay

I,ve noticed the same thing and its started seems like 3 or 4 days ago, even my locals look pretty darn good for a change and this is the sd channels, and as for as HD still looking pretty awsome for the most part, largely because of the mpeg4 encoders! Makes one wonder what their up too, just keep it up!

 

[MikeD-C05]

Eventually all programming will be in mpeg 4 and I expect the picture quality to improve vastly. They had said by this summer all hd would be in mpeg4. With Directv breathing down their neck about " capacity for a 100 hd channels by year's end", I would hope that they would be in hurry to upgrade all hd customers to the 622 and the 211 and get the conversion going. Especially since they can put up to 6 hd channels on a transponder in mpeg 4 and it looks as good as today in mpeg 2 or even better.