Scott: Dish HD Quality Question

Spike

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Feb 11, 2005
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Suburbs of Milwaukee
A week or so ago you made a comment that Dish was striving to have the best HD Picture quality of any provider. Are you still standing by that comment??
 
Ok,

Then One more Question. Are you of the "opinion" that when the VOOM channels go MPEG 4 that we will see improved pic quality? Or about the same?
 
Yes.

The current MPEG2 versions of VOOM are 1280 x 1080 when they go to MPEG4 they will be at least 1440 x 1080.

I expect when the new MPEG4 service launches we will see all chanel launched in their native resolution. :)
 
The current MPEG2 versions of VOOM are 1280 x 1080 when they go to MPEG4 they will be at least 1440 x 1080.

I expect when the new MPEG4 service launches we will see all chanel launched in their native resolution. :)

Scott,
Does this mean you expect to see HBO-HD and Showtime-HD return to 1920x1080? Any thoughts on if the other HD movie channels, MaxHD, StarzHD, HDNet, etc, will ever return to 1920x1080? I haven't been following things to closely lately but when is the mpeg4 transition happening? Honestly StarzHD often looks like garbage so I can only hope that HBO doesn't end up the same way. :(
Regards,
Rick
 
So are there ANY channels that are full resolution? Because I honestly think that the HD channels look great. I did notice a LITTLE pixelation on Food Network HD but that was because my video settings reset and the contrast was 100%! When I fixed that all was good. :)
 
Im hoping too that scott is right... I dont like seeing any channels being downrezed, expecally the move made last week. Im hoping that everything will return to normal in august, with a few RSNHD additions. You never know Dish may surprise us. Although, Right now Im not holding my breath, if past performance speaks for the future.
 
So are there ANY channels that are full resolution?

ESPN-HD, ESPN2-HD, National Geographic-HD and all ABC-HD and FOX-HD channels are all full resolution.

[joke on]
In fact, ESPN-HD is "better" on Dish Network than anywhere else because it is upconverted from 1280x720 to 1440x1080 ! :D The numbers are bigger, so it must be better, right ?
[joke off]
 
I was told by a dish tech that with digital compression I could never expect to see hd the equal of my toshiba HD A2. He said that the dvd's do not use compression and that they are the best that current hd can be..
Do you people agree with that.
 
Scott,
Does this mean you expect to see HBO-HD and Showtime-HD return to 1920x1080? Any thoughts on if the other HD movie channels, MaxHD, StarzHD, HDNet, etc, will ever return to 1920x1080?
For some reason, another Forum that is strongly anti-Dish nevertheless has more rational - meaning technical - discussion on this issue. One guy comments:
It's be proven on this forum time and again that it's useless to argue with the HD-lite evangelists, but the vast, vast majority of PQ woes are directly related to bitrate NOT reduced horizontal resolution.

If you try to understand how mpeg2 coding works (especially the DCT basis transform and quantization) you'll realize how little downrezzing affects the picture at broadcast bitrates.
In fact, DCT-based lossy compression (mpeg2) is around precisely because it happens to be a mathematical way of throwing away resolution in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

At broadcast bitrates the high-frequency detail you'd see at 1920 and not 1440 would by thrown away by the mpeg2 encoder except in a very, very static scene.
 
For some reason, another Forum that is strongly anti-Dish nevertheless has more rational - meaning technical - discussion on this issue. One guy comments:

I've been on that "other" forum for a long time and I assure you that I and a lot of other people there are not anti-Dish. Keeping things on topic, I'd like to hear from Scott with regards to his comments about the HD channels returning to their original (uplink?) resolution. My personal hope is that with mpeg4 we will see a return of what DishHD used to be but I'd like to hear exactly what Scott meant.
 
I've been on that "other" forum for a long time and I assure you that I and a lot of other people there are not anti-Dish. Keeping things on topic, I'd like to hear from Scott with regards to his comments about the HD channels returning to their original (uplink?) resolution. My personal hope is that with mpeg4 we will see a return of what DishHD used to be but I'd like to hear exactly what Scott meant.

Me too. Sadly history says, once a channel gets downrezzed it never comes back. Even in mpeg4 they think it's good enough, so why put it back... BULL. And worse, they act like HD Lite is top secret (deny all plausability) and taboo (won't ask the hard questions when given the chance). They've got the room to do full rez mpeg4 at 12Mbps, so where the hell is it? Seems we are just damned to see more channels dissappear into downrezzed hell every fricken week, because they can.

Hammer
 
Me too. Sadly history says, once a channel gets downrezzed it never comes back. Even in mpeg4 they think it's good enough, so why put it back... BULL. And worse, they act like HD Lite is top secret (deny all plausability) and taboo (won't ask the hard questions when given the chance). They've got the room to do full rez mpeg4 at 12Mbps, so where the hell is it? Seems we are just damned to see more channels dissappear into downrezzed hell every fricken week, because they can.

Hammer

I can't find the link to the news story but apparently HBO will soon start uplinking their HD content in mpeg4 which from memory the article said 8-9mbps. How this is then passed on to us remains to be seen. It should be an interesting year for HD viewers and like I said above, hopefully the transition to mpeg4 will improve things.
 
And worse, they act like HD Lite is top secret (deny all plausability) and taboo (won't ask the hard questions when given the chance).

HD-Lite is a political slogan, it refers to a practice by people with a tiny bit of technical knowledge, to grab one particular measurement, and act like it means something outside of the context of every other measurement.

They've got the room to do full rez mpeg4 at 12Mbps

False.

Seems we are just damned to see more channels dissappear into downrezzed hell every fricken week, because they can.

"If you try to understand how mpeg2 coding works (especially the DCT basis transform and quantization) you'll realize how little downrezzing affects the picture at broadcast bitrates.
In fact, DCT-based lossy compression (mpeg2) is around precisely because it happens to be a mathematical way of throwing away resolution in an aesthetically pleasing manner. "

A good summary of your technical skill and subtlety.
 
Ya you're right... I guess it doesn't matter that Charlie chops the resolution by one third and starves the bitrate, then lies through his teeth by saying it's a fiber problem from V*. And the picture quality isn't really that bad today compared to the good ole days(cough), when we had full rez @ 17Mbps with three channels per transponder. All those HD LiL's are really great for HD quality too. I just can't wait for more channels to be added (not).

Hammer
 
If and when E* gets the increased capacity on 2 new birds (leased or owned) and migrates SD and HD programming to MPEG4, I for one, will expect, no, demand to see improved picture quality over what we see today. Even though I have been an E* customer for more than 10 years, I will look elsewhere if my expectation is not met. The ball is in E*s court now. Fortunately, my 18 month commitment is up in August so I can cancel service anytime after that if I so choose.
 

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