SD resolutions dropping on 110W

[buckchow]

Dish Network has started to reduce the resolution even further on some of their SD channels. Encore Drama and some other SD channels on 110W appear to be affected so far. Dish receives the video at 704x480, would normally reduce it to 544x480 for MPEG-2 channels, but now appear to be switching to 480x480 just like DIRECTV and their H.264 Eastern Arc service.

Always a downgrade, never an upgrade with the SD channels. Nice.

 

[Fitzie]

Buckchow, can you describe how you know the above? Intermittent observation, casual one time glance, measurement, guess, etc.?

 

[buckchow]

Buckchow, can you describe how you know the above? Intermittent observation, casual one time glance, measurement, guess, etc.?

As far as I know, subscription support on PCs isn't officially promoted or supported by Dish, but that's what I use when I'm doing random checks on how channels are being handled or need digital screencaps.

I've been trying to keep an eye on the SD channels for a while since Dish handles different incoming SD channel feeds in at least three different manners, all of which have their ups and downs, and some of which get switched around occasionally. Just as an example, there was actually a sort of upgrade (yes, an upgrade!) on at least some channels on 110W last summer (same resolution of 544x480 before and after, but substantially higher video quality since Dish's special brand of edge enhancement was stripped away). Looks like the benefits of that upgrade may be reduced if this new downgrade spreads to a lot of channels.

 

[CowboyDren]

My SD stuff from 61.5/72 looks almost as good as SD OTA. Call me simple, but on SD stuff, if it looks good, I don't really care what the raw frame size and bitrate are. On HD stuff, I'm a bit more vocal, but that doesn't mean I know what I'm looking at, either.

 

[digiblur]

Only way to see the resolutions is two ways....hacking with a PC or a receiver with a R5000 mod.

 

[TheKrell]

Only way to see the resolutions is two ways....hacking with a PC or a receiver with a R5000 mod.

Or most any Dish DVR and using PVRExplorer to... Explore. My unhacked Twinhan 1025 also works for those precious few Dish channels broadcast ITC. (Encore Drama is of course not one of them.)

 

[digiblur]

He said it was the same as EA now and I remember last time I looked at that app it would not do MPEG4 streams.

 

[TheKrell]

He said it was the same as EA now and I remember last time I looked at that app it would not do MPEG4 streams.

Still true today, I am sorry to report. Is it possible to check video resolution using the standards for DVB-S, or is that encrypted along with the program?

 

[digiblur]

You have to be able to decrypt the stream to see the resolution on the video.

 

[Pepper]

OK, I might be a little slow but I can read between the lines, you all are accusing the OP of being a hacker, right?

 

[digiblur]

OK, I might be a little slow but I can read between the lines, you all are accusing the OP of being a hacker, right?

Of course not... people always post the proof(video captures) with pics of their R5000 mods

 

[BuddyBoy]

I can confirm 480x480 on Encore Drama.

 

[digiblur]

Nice!

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Lucky Man Buddy Boy!

Is that coming from EA or WA?

 

[abricko]

wow now that is a MAJOR FAIL! 480 x 480 @ 4034 KB/s... which includes the MPEG Audio stream, that is POOP. No wonder most of the SD channels look terrible, soft/murky and blocky. How can they even begin to think what they are broadcasting is acceptable. I wish FiOS had a better DVR I'd jump over in a heartbeat.

 

[TheKrell]

I too am most impressed with that R5000HD mod. I thought this cost thousands of $'s, but it seems they now have a DIY kit for under $300.

One wonders how they keep the wolves at MPAA away.

 

[Pepper]

Of course not... people always post the proof(video captures) with pics of their R5000 mods

I stand corrected. And I want one of those mod kits!

 

[buckchow]

He said it was the same as EA now and I remember last time I looked at that app it would not do MPEG4 streams.

Well, I never said it was exactly the same as EA, just that the resolution was now the same. The change is on WA, and there's still no MPEG-4 SD on there as far as I've observed.

With my current subscriptions, receiving equipment, and tuning equipment, I can check resolutions for many of the MPEG-2 channels on DIRECTV (SD+HD), many of the Dish WA channels on 110W and 119W (MPEG-2 and H.264), some H.264 HD on 61.5W, FTA channels on 72.7W and other satellites (including some, but not many H.264 SD channels), and anything else I can make use of from any Ku/DBS-band satellite that drops a signal on my property. Also, anything someone else might be so kind as to send me a sample recording of that I can't otherwise receive can be a useful and viable resource, especially when barriers such as oceans or other territorial boundaries are involved.

While obtaining subscription services in a direct, digital form on a PC almost definitely involves some form of "hacking" by the many and varied definitions of the word, it does not and should not imply that anything illegal or even morally objectionable is taking place. Using a Roku or 16:9 Time box can be considered "hacking" because the IRD operates outside of its original, intended capabilities. The same can easily be said of means of utilizing a subscription on a PC by tuning on the PC instead of through the IRD while still using a subscribed conditional access card from one of your IRDs. In my opinion these are reasonable extensions of fair use, especially since devices such as the Hauppauge HD PVR can record all of the same programming to a PC, retain very high quality levels, and don't require that an IRD's lid ever be removed. Of course, since the HD PVR doesn't make a direct digital copy, information such as the transmitted video resolution is not available from it. Also, using the HD PVR for recording may be less practical in an HTPC or similar system due to the potentially high overhead of transcoding the input video to a bitrate that doesn't noticeably hurt the input quality.

Hopefully that clears a few things up.

Thanks to BuddyBoy for posting that nice screenshot.

 

[digiblur]

My terms of hacking is basically viewing an encrypted service you are not paying for. For instance if you are paying for HBO, have a ball and watch it and record it all you want, as long as you aren't uploading it on the web for illegal distribution of course.

 

[BuddyBoy]

wow now that is a MAJOR FAIL! 480 x 480 @ 4034 KB/s... which includes the MPEG Audio stream, that is POOP. No wonder most of the SD channels look terrible, soft/murky and blocky. How can they even begin to think what they are broadcasting is acceptable. I wish FiOS had a better DVR I'd jump over in a heartbeat.

Actually, it's much worse than that. The 4.034KB/s is megabytes per second, and it's the entire transponder. The actual bitrate of the channel can be calculated from the file size and recording duration and is probably less than 2Mbits/sec.

10MBytes/57 seconds ~ 1.4Mbits/sec (!)

The R5000 will record the MPEG-4 content, it just can't play it back. However, if you have CoreAVC or even ffdshow (or whatever it's called) installed on your PC you can view the captures, and they can also be viewed with a Playstation 3 or NMT-based streaming player (Popcorn Hour being the most popular).

I'm on the west coast.