Starz HD PQ is awful

[duckydan]

Has anyone else had a problem with Starz HD? I tried watching 3 different movies throughout the week since signing up for starz and all three have looked awful.

For example on Monday we tried to watch Enchanted. The picture was not OAR but almost 4 x 3 stretched. Last night we went to watch Spiderman 3 and there was black crush throughout the picture to the extent that the film was way too dark. I have had no problems with cinemax and even HBO which many rate as inferior to the other premiums has had a better picture.

Is this a temporary flaw with Starz or is this how they always air their programs?

 

[tigerfan33]

It may not be hd. There are several movies I have seen on there that was 16:9 but was not hd.

Did the guide say hd on info.??

I watched Spiderman 3 briefly last night and all was well. I do notice that the Max hds and HBOs in general have been better pq.

 

[Hemi 6.1]

What?, You guys must be on the 129 then . Starz has Great PQ, so does Cinemax and HBO. I've not 1 complaint about the Premium HD PQ

 

[Nick1Toast]

What?, You guys must be on the 129 then . Starz has Great PQ, so does Cinemax and HBO. I've not 1 complaint about the Premium HD PQ

+1:up And I am on 129.

 

[DishSubLA]

All the premium movie channels have great HD PQ. However, when they air a NON-HD movie, or the few really poor transfers, then it looks bad, but that is Starz poor quality, not Dish.

The quality of transferring from film to HD can vary, depending upon how much the studio wants to spend. The Star Wars movies are about the best quality digital transfer, but they use huge bandwidth (when transferring to the digital master) and spend the money to make it look great. Meanwhile a low budget digital transfer can still display the film artifacts with the graininess of the film apparent or poor color accuracy or many other un-aesthetic things including imperfections from the print. MGM HD has aired several crappy HD transfers. They aren't spending the money to make the channel and its content look good.

There are other anomalies (mostly dealing with transmission/stream problems) that are Dish's fault regarding HD, but it has been my observation that the Dish HD PQ quality is really quite good on Dish and if it isn't, it is usually the fault of the channel. History Channel can distort a non-HD program to fill the widescreen, but Dish gets the blame for it looking bad when it is really History Channel's fault.

 

[whatchel1]

I just did a quick view of the 1st 10 mins and there were no problems. Now the cartoons at the start of the movie are in 4X3 since they were originally made that way. So don't know why you have such a bad pix.

 

[Rey]

What?, You guys must be on the 129 then . Starz has Great PQ, so does Cinemax and HBO. I've not 1 complaint about the Premium HD PQ

yeah i agree. it looks good.

 

[Ronnie-]

yeah i agree. it looks good.

Add me to this list also. Starz has generally been at the top when it comes to PQ on the premiums.

 

[duckydan]

Maybe I've just picked the wrong films... I'll check it out again this weekend.

Also I'm on 61.5 (129 is west coast I believe... I can only remember so much)

I know that the cartoons in Enchanted are 4x3 (was forced by my daughter to watch it on BD multiple times) and I didn't watch the entire film but the part I did see (when the queen is running rampant in NY and the fat guy is in the cab on the radio show) looked absolutely awful but it may just have been the wrong day to see it.

The other premiums have been great which is why I could not figure out what was wrong with Starz but I'll give it another try this weekend and see if it's any better.

 

[Rey]

you're on the 61.5 ducky

 

[MikeD-C05]

I have a feeling that a lot of people that complain about pq issues on their hd channels are really having troubles with their own tvs. Either they have the pq controls set wrong and this shows all the problems in the picture or they are sitting right up on the tv itself , way to close for normal viewing.

I have a 57" rear projection Toshiba hdtv(1080i) and I have my pq controls set at the * movie mode, warm setting and it has the automatic contrast controls that reset the picture for the amount of light in the room. We set about 12 feet from the tv in a 16 x 16 room. The picture looks great to me on hd and okay on sd.

*(Movie mode is 50 on all settings except I have sharpness turned down to 25)

Now I know someone will scream that I am crazy but I use the dish receiver in 4x3x1 mode -1080i and this gives me a normal control for hd and stretch for sd. The picture fills the screen without a loss of picture or news scrolls on sd. The people don't look short,fat or squat. I have compared the hd picture in 16x 9 and 4x3x2/4x3x1 and I see no real difference in the picture. No loss to me in vertical or horizontal. As usual some will say that I have committed heresy, and I really don't care. The picture looks normal to me without any distortion in the sd or the hd.

Now on my Toshiba tube top 26" hdtv (1080i)in the master bedroom I have similar settings with some minor adjustments to brighten the picture and to turn down the sharpness to 0 , the receiver is set the same: 4x3x1 and 720p. We usually watch tv in the bed from about 14 feet away in a 16 x 16 room. THe tv is acceptable but we DO see some artifacts in both the hd and the sd tv picture. It is much worse when the receiver is set for 1080i. I have tried every combination of pq controls but the only thing that works is DISTANCE. So between two different kinds of tv ,from the same maker-Toshiba, you have a different kind of picture. Both tvs are using hdmi- the rear projection is fed into an hdmi to dvi connection.

My point to all of this is that each tv is different and no one size fits all solution will work for every body out there. Which is different than the sd tvs I have owned before. Usually we could advise someone to turn down contrast,and brightness and sharpness and the sd tv would look fine . For hd tvs it is an all new ball game and you will have to work to get the best picture you can and I can't advise enough to sit at a distance that you won't notice the artifacts. You might have too big a tv for your room. I know if I had a 73' hdtv in my 16 x 16 room I would sure as hell see artifacts in my picture.

So in conclusion I don't think that DISH has an inferior pq on any of their hd channels. I don't think it is as good as DIRECTV's picture because they compress it a little more and have more hd channels per transponder -7 . I had both hd services for about 6 months. BUt to the average Joe 6-pack consumer the DISH hd picture is more than acceptable. IN the end I feel that the individual tv is the usual culprit in all of these hd pq complaints. Now if you get hd off of 129 satellite , then you probably DO have problems created by that wobbly satellite causing the picture to drop out , pixelate or audio drop outs. Hopefully this will be rectified by the replacement sat launching in November .

 

[riffjim4069]

StarzHD looks spankingly good on FiOS TV. My daughter was watching Meet the Robinson's on StarzHD the other day, and I thought she was watching it on Blu-Ray since the PQ was that good. While DishHD isn't a terrible picture, it certainly lacks the snap & pop (jaw-dropping 3D effect) when watching high-qualty HD material on the big screen.

Our new neighbors have DirecTV and I must say...their HD PQ looks pretty darn good. It may or may not be as good as FiOS or OTA, but if I had the service I certainly wouldn't feel cheated or like I needed to make comparisons.

DishHD-Lite isn't for everyone...you can either tolerate it (if it doesn't bother you), continue to hope E* ups the horizontal resolution, or look for another provider. Of course, you can always send email to dishquality at echostar dot com.

 

[KAB]

I caught a little bit of Pirates of the Caribbean on Starz this morning. No complaints here.

 

[JimK2]

Has anyone else had a problem with Starz HD? I tried watching 3 different movies throughout the week since signing up for starz and all three have looked awful.

For example on Monday we tried to watch Enchanted. The picture was not OAR but almost 4 x 3 stretched. Last night we went to watch Spiderman 3 and there was black crush throughout the picture to the extent that the film was way too dark. I have had no problems with cinemax and even HBO which many rate as inferior to the other premiums has had a better picture.

Is this a temporary flaw with Starz or is this how they always air their programs?

Starz is in the process of converting from sourcing in mpeg2 formate to mpeg4 so there probably still in the optimizing phase tweeking the Motorola DSR-6050 receiver/transcoder setup.

But the premium programmer won't go to MPEG-4 across the board right away. Initially it will use the advanced compression scheme, which promises to boost bandwidth efficiency by as much as 50 percent, on its HD channels -- Starz, Starz Kids and Family HD, Starz Edge HD, and Starz Comedy HD. Encore HD will also be delivered in MPEG-4 when it launches later this summer. (See Starz Lights MPEG-4 Plan and Encore HD Set for July.)

Cable Digital News - Cable Digital - Starz Aligns on MPEG-4 - Telecom News Analysis
Motorola?s New MPEG-4/MPEG-2 Receiver Media Experiences 2 Go

 

[Carl B]

We are regular Starz-HD watchers. No complaints with the PQ; however, because we get our signal from the dying 129 bird, we lose the broadcast about once during each movie.

 

[rad]

Starz is in the process of converting from sourcing in mpeg2 formate to mpeg4 so there probably still in the optimizing phase tweeking the Motorola DSR-6050 receiver/transcoder setup.

But the premium programmer won't go to MPEG-4 across the board right away. Initially it will use the advanced compression scheme, which promises to boost bandwidth efficiency by as much as 50 percent, on its HD channels -- Starz, Starz Kids and Family HD, Starz Edge HD, and Starz Comedy HD. Encore HD will also be delivered in MPEG-4 when it launches later this summer. (See Starz Lights MPEG-4 Plan and Encore HD Set for July.)

Cable Digital News - Cable Digital - Starz Aligns on MPEG-4 - Telecom News Analysis
Motorola?s New MPEG-4/MPEG-2 Receiver Media Experiences 2 Go

If that was the case then wouldn't us D* folks also be seeing a problem, and I'm not seeing any problems on either my 46" or 72" 1080p displays.

 

[Ronnie-]

If that was the case then wouldn't us D* folks also be seeing a problem, and I'm not seeing any problems on either my 46" or 72" 1080p displays.

I was wondering the same thing. I havent seen it. Is there a difference that I am not aware of?

 

[Arse69]

I just got done watch Pirates of Caribean, picture was awsome

 

[smoeke]

My starz is my best Hd channels,

i recorded Enchanted for my kid and it looks very nice, that movie starts out 4:3 until the live action starts ,then its 16:9

 

[skottey]

I just got done watch Pirates of Caribean, picture was awsome

Awesome picture, yes. Boring movie, yes!

edit: Almost forgot, the ride at Disney World in Orlando is one of the best rides in the park. It is only topped by maybe Space Mountain and Haunted House. Toads Wild Ride was cool too... but the movie... oh gosh those movies are rotten. Maybe the Space Mountain movie will be better.