SD resolutions dropping on 110W

[buckchow]

Actually, it's much worse than that. The 4.034KB/s is kilobytes 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 (!)

What remains most sad about this in my mind is that Dish Network, DIRECTV, and Bell TV all use similar bitrates and numbers of channels per transponder, yet every bit of every sample I've seen from Bell TV looks absolutely fantastic compared to the US sat providers. All of the SD video on Bell seems to be full-res (704x480) and comparable to DVD quality in appearance, much like FiOS SD quality supposedly is in the US (although FiOS uses significantly higher bitrates than Bell).

A lot of quality can easily be squeezed out MPEG-2 video at fairly low bitrates if it's handled properly. However, some companies prefer to ignore this fact in favor of pretending the standard was just introduced (even over 15 years later), the only encoders that exist only work well at high bitrates, and the only way to use lower bitrates is to resize and excessively filter the video prior to transcoding it. They're living outside of the reality of improved technology that is available today and has been for several years now. Digiblur's avatar sort of says it all. I'm sure someone around here has a similar one for DIRECTV.

 

[HDRoberts]

So the next obvious question: Why? It doesn't seem Dish NEEDS to make space on 110. There are 7 empty HD slots as is, and some more SD slots as well. There is space on 129 and 61.5, too. What's their plan?

Maybe they want to clear some space to move some 129/61.5 HD there to expand the AK/HI/PR offerings.

 

[tempVAdish]

I can't tell the resolution, or bit rate of the channels, but by visual observation, last night M*A*S*H on the Halmark Channel looked awfull. I could see horrible "jpg" type of halos around the people, and background motions looked like MPEG1

(I saw that before I read this, so I wasn't looking for problems, just glad that maybe it's not in my system )

 

[buckchow]

I can't tell the resolution, or bit rate of the channels, but by visual observation, last night M*A*S*H on the Halmark Channel looked awfull. I could see horrible "jpg" type of halos around the people, and background motions looked like MPEG1

(I saw that before I read this, so I wasn't looking for problems, just glad that maybe it's not in my system )

Hmm. Last time I looked at Hallmark was a few weeks ago, and it was by far one of the best looking SD channels that I could see. As much as I have trashed Dish's SD PQ in this and other threads, Hallmark has really stood out as not looking bad at all. This might have just been a problem with the copies of M*A*S*H they were airing. Looks like there are some episodes airing this afternoon, so I'll do some investigating then to see if they changed something.

 

[buckchow]

More channels seem to be going south now. Just found that Fox Movie Channel is now 480x480. It was still 544x480 when this thread was started on 4/5. Ugh.

 

[RandallA]

Not that everyone cares but some of the Latino channels are looking like crap too. I don't watch them often (mostly HD for me) but I saw a few ones when my wife was watching her Novelas and they looked awful. I don't really know how long this has been going on for since I don't watch them often.

 

[digiblur]

Hallmark on 110 right now is hovering around 2.00-2.20 megabits.

 

[buckchow]

So the next obvious question: Why? It doesn't seem Dish NEEDS to make space on 110. There are 7 empty HD slots as is, and some more SD slots as well. There is space on 129 and 61.5, too. What's their plan?

Maybe they want to clear some space to move some 129/61.5 HD there to expand the AK/HI/PR offerings.

I doubt that a sane answer to the question of "why?" exists in this case. My best guess right now is that negative changes are made to the SD channels periodically because the people or person Dish hired to manage picture quality can only justify their position(s) if things are always changing. If they make the quality really good across the platform, then their services would no longer be needed by the company. If they regularly make some things worse and occasionally make some things better, they can keep telling their clueless bosses that there is room for improvement and that they're working hard on the problem. Sounds like a reasonable scam to be going in any typical business to me.

Perhaps they think that DIRECTV is doing better than them since their SD resolution is also 480x480, and they think matching them in that regard will solve all of their problems.

Perhaps they aren't receiving too many complaints about the SD PQ on EA, so they feel it's a good idea to drop to 480x480 on the rest of the platform for no real reason. After all, the current standard in this country is to give consumers the absolute minimum level of quality they will tolerate before they become outraged, regardless of whether or not better quality could be offered at no additional cost.

Or perhaps, as some other signs have indicated, they've given up all real interest in competing with anybody else, and they intend to botch things up as much as possible just to have a bit of fun before the whole company slowly sinks. False announcements about HD channels and further reducing the quality of SD channels that have no HD equivalents is a wonderful place to start if that is the plan.

 

[tempVAdish]

Hmm. Last time I looked at Hallmark was a few weeks ago, and it was by far one of the best looking SD channels that I could see. As much as I have trashed Dish's SD PQ in this and other threads, Hallmark has really stood out as not looking bad at all. This might have just been a problem with the copies of M*A*S*H they were airing. Looks like there are some episodes airing this afternoon, so I'll do some investigating then to see if they changed something.

If you get the chance to watch, see if you can notice a shot of someone walking in the background from inside the "swamp". I watched last night (every night really) and while they were in the swamp, if someone walked by outside (looking through the sketter netting) thier legs would leave a "pixelized ghost" for lack of a better word, also, the scene transitions would pixelate bad... Did it for 2 episodes then I had to leave

 

[buckchow]

I can't tell the resolution, or bit rate of the channels, but by visual observation, last night M*A*S*H on the Halmark Channel looked awfull. I could see horrible "jpg" type of halos around the people, and background motions looked like MPEG1

Okay, just checked on Hallmark. The channel is still 544x480 and it is still not a victim of the heavy filtering Dish applies to most SD channels. I looked at what was on before and during M*A*S*H and it all looks good. All I can guess now if that Hallmark had a bad copy of the episode you were watching, or that Dish was screwing around but stopped.

 

[buckchow]

If you get the chance to watch, see if you can notice a shot of someone walking in the background from inside the "swamp". I watched last night (every night really) and while they were in the swamp, if someone walked by outside (looking through the sketter netting) thier legs would leave a "pixelized ghost" for lack of a better word, also, the scene transitions would pixelate bad... Did it for 2 episodes then I had to leave

Well, I don't have time to actually watch an episode today. I've been spending a lot more time trying to examine things than actually watch them lately.

As for the scene transition problem, I'm not at all surprised. I've observed before that Dish's scene change detection is quite poor and the PQ can be anything from slightly reduced to unwatchable for about a second every time the encoder misses (or ignores) the change. Once the next picture sequence is encountered, the picture snaps into better quality.

 

[mike123abc]

Dish may just be working to free up another transponder. They are running out of HD space, and if they want to keep adding more HD channels they are going to have to cut somewhere. They are pretty much stuck with the capacity they have now for a few years.

Customers do not want wing dishes.

Customers do not want Ku-FSS dishes (superdish).

HD customers want more channels.

Dish must carry all LiL HD channels soon for markets it carries.

Dish has a limited number of replacement satellites going up, but they will not really increase national HD capacity, they will be more for LiL.

Dish has to mirror both EA and WA HD. Western Arc is more constrained at this time.

All these add up to them needing to squeeze somewhere. I would not be surprised if they continue to degrade SD. It has the added benefit of "encouraging" HD adoption and more fees.

 

[buckchow]

...

All these add up to them needing to squeeze somewhere. I would not be surprised if they continue to degrade SD. It has the added benefit of "encouraging" HD adoption and more fees.

But why mess with channels that have no HD equivalents? I could understand if they further downgraded the quality of SD versions of channels that are available in HD. It would be an extremely dishonest scam, but I could understand it. Instead, they're picking on the channels that either don't have an HD equivalent, or if such an equivalent exists then Dish isn't carrying it. If anything, shouldn't they be trying to retain or increase the quality of the SD-only channels and drop the quality of the SD versions of SD+HD channels? That way they could have at least one decent-quality version of every channel on the platform, get some extra bandwidth, and be better able to encourage people to upgrade to HD.

 

[tempVAdish]

Okay, just checked on Hallmark. The channel is still 544x480 and it is still not a victim of the heavy filtering Dish applies to most SD channels. I looked at what was on before and during M*A*S*H and it all looks good. All I can guess now if that Hallmark had a bad copy of the episode you were watching, or that Dish was screwing around but stopped.

Maybe both of the above Thanks for checking

 

[Jim S.]

My SD locals have become garbage in the past week or so, but since the uplink report indicates that they're trying to add a 7th one to the same transponder, that may be the reason. Either way I'm disgusted -- they put my HD locals on a beam that doesn't cover my location (where there is zero OTA reception) and then downgrade the SD locals. I have basic cable for the HD locals, but it would be nice to be able to record everything on one device with one interface!

 

[JuanPablo]

I thought I was the only one that noticed this but apparently not. My SD channels started looking like crap recently too. Especially my Zee TV and Star India channels. Hope Dish fixes the issue soon. This is like watching a video on You Tube. Sucks!!!

 

[Smith P.]

The scam started many years ago - see our old threads about HD-Lite ...Perhaps goaliebob still running his web site dedicated to HD-Lite and could add new SD-Lite page ?!

 

[buckchow]

The scam started many years ago - see our old threads about HD-Lite ...Perhaps goaliebob still running his web site dedicated to HD-Lite and could add new SD-Lite page ?!

Well, the "Lite" scams have been going on for ages, with both SD and HD being at reduced resolutions. That certainly isn't supposed to come as news. The scam I was mentioning, which others have suggested before, is the further reduction of SD quality to encourage people to move to HD. They aren't pulling that theoretical scam though since they're only going after SD channels with no HD version, so there's nothing for subscribers to upgrade to. There's definitely a new scam emerging here, but it isn't entirely clear what could be motivating it.

I'd love to see an SD-Lite page . I've thought about creating one myself, but have tried to hold out hope that SD would improve in order for the sat providers to compete more with one another, against FiOS, and against improving cable PQ in some areas.

 

[guhuna]

IMO G4 chan looks like crap now. Even more than it did before. I told me friends it looks like VHS tape.

 

[TheKrell]

We all need to get off our duffs and email... That PQ email address which escapes me at the moment. If Dish doesn't get a peep out of subs when they turn channels into poop, we can just blame ourselves for suffering in silence.