I have both OTA and Dish locals. I have switched many times to see if there are quality changes. My eye says very little, and this is on a 65" screen sitting about 7 feet away.
This cable has better picture than DISH
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For example our OTA KTUU-HD channel 2 (NBC) show 87% signal 50miles distance from station in Anchorage. When I compare same feed over Dish, I cannot see any difference. My understanding is Alaska satellite feed to Dish Network is send over satellite antenna and not over fiber. Regardless what transfer method is, Dish satellite picture is just as good as OTA quality thru Dish receiver or with television ATSC tuner.
Bet his settings are wrong
I've read the whole thread and tend to think that the OP doesn't have his Panny set up anywhere near close to right. I do know that E* could have better picture but it most likely isn't as drastic as he thinks it is. I'm if the unit is still set to 408 instead of 1080 which the Panny should have run to it w/ either component or HDMI.
I've read the whole thread and tend to think that the OP doesn't have his Panny set up anywhere near close to right. I do know that E* could have better picture but it most likely isn't as drastic as he thinks it is. I'm if the unit is still set to 408 instead of 1080 which the Panny should have run to it w/ either component or HDMI.
I went back and compared my OTA locals aqainst Dish locals and I can't tell any difference on my 65 inch Toshiba with component cables and both pictures are great. I looked at locals in SD from Dish and the SD is pretty bad, so my HDTV is getting a good picture.
Some of it could be transponder loading and what other programming is going on with the various locals across the US, but to me the difference is fairly obvious, even on my 32" set. You guys that don't see it need to tune to a 1080i channel with lots of motion, such as football. That is where the bandwidth starving really shows. Such as the Notre Dame game on NBC right now.
Very noticeable difference. OTA has no visible macroblocking or compression effects. Dish does.
Geez, I wasn't trying to make a big issue out of this. I've read this forum for years and I know some of you are set about your opinions. Did you carefully read what I said? I do my homework. So, for those still skeptical, here is more info. I have HDMI to my TV and my BR DVD. I used to have component with my rear projection but switched when I bought this plasma. Definitely better PQ than my rear projection. My settings are 1080i. I know 1080p is only on BR and VOD, but my parents have neither. I use optical/digital to connect to my surround system. My OTA is a little clearer than than my MPEG4 satellite, which agrees with most of you. But the difference isn't as much as what I can see between my parents TV and even my OTA locals. My parents don't even have OTA! As I said, the cable system here is notorious for lousy customer support as I believe most are, and the HD PQ was nothing to write home about, to say nothing about the fewer number of HD channels. Finally, my Panasonic is TH-65PZ750U. At the time, this Panny line and the Pioneer were the two of the top rated brands. But, as I said, I allow for the possibility that it could be that my picture is not as sharp because it is a 65 inch and/or the Panny brand. I have no horse in this race (although I don't particularly care to change from DISH)...I just want the best HD picture that is available. Of course, FIOS is not available here or I believe I would definitely try it based upon the opinions here. Many on here talk about how much compression there is on DBS and so, based upon what I've seen with my parents' TVs using cable in a small town, I was beginning to believe them. But, it could be my size and type of TV, but I will not know until I either get a smaller screen (no way) or get a large Samsung (not anytime soon).
P.S. Thanks, Vurbano!
P.S. Thanks, Vurbano!
This Dish HD locals and the OTA locals look very good in my area, so I'd say Dish is putting a pretty good signal thru. D* in this area looked much softer which gave fleshtones a more a claylike look.
Now, to the OP:
"My OTA is a little clearer than than my MPEG4 satellite, which agrees with most of you. But the difference isn't as much as what I can see between my parents TV and even my OTA locals. My parents don't even have OTA!"
So, you say your parents cable HD locals are better than your OTA locals?
If so, regardless of what you know, your tv is not setup right.
Sure, thank Vurbano, nobody else does.
My panny is ISF calibrated and looks awesome, but if I put it in the wrong pic mode, it looks like crap.
I've had D*, Comcast and E* on this tv, and I find that D* and E* look best. Dfergie recorded a blind video for us off both, and the majority picked Dish as looking better then Directv, but they were both close.
Now, to the OP:
"My OTA is a little clearer than than my MPEG4 satellite, which agrees with most of you. But the difference isn't as much as what I can see between my parents TV and even my OTA locals. My parents don't even have OTA!"
So, you say your parents cable HD locals are better than your OTA locals?
If so, regardless of what you know, your tv is not setup right.
Sure, thank Vurbano, nobody else does.
My panny is ISF calibrated and looks awesome, but if I put it in the wrong pic mode, it looks like crap.
I've had D*, Comcast and E* on this tv, and I find that D* and E* look best. Dfergie recorded a blind video for us off both, and the majority picked Dish as looking better then Directv, but they were both close.
This is an idiotic statement.
Cox in my area offers half the HD at more of the price. Who cares IF the PQ is marginally better, with a big screen tv I'd much rather have a larger offering of good HD as opposed to a small offering of great HD and crappy SD.
Other than FIOS, I do not think you should pick your provider on PQ, but rather hardware and channel offerings.
Reason I say this is, that most HD out there looks pretty good regardless of provider, so go with who gives you the most for your money.
If I had FIOS in my area I would still not go with them, until I knew their DVR was better than a 722k.
I still think the OP has crappy tv pic settings, but thats just me. Plus he continues to overlook his tv is larger, and is subject to looking worse than a smaller one. Yeah, I know, he self proclaimed himself an expert.
Get it calibrated
The 2 plasma's you are ref to the Panny & Pioneer are basically the same set only difference is Pioneer tweets the electronics design differently. So if your Panny isn't looking good w/both E* and the OTA is only slightly better then you need to get someone out there to calibrate that set. Also if you are too close to your 65 then you will be see too much of the minor problems it has. So how are setting on the Panny?
The 2 plasma's you are ref to the Panny & Pioneer are basically the same set only difference is Pioneer tweets the electronics design differently. So if your Panny isn't looking good w/both E* and the OTA is only slightly better then you need to get someone out there to calibrate that set. Also if you are too close to your 65 then you will be see too much of the minor problems it has. So how are setting on the Panny?
MY personal experience on a 2005 1080i Sony 50 Projection LCD.
I had Comcast of Union(NJ) service from 2005 until April. Since April, I've been subscribing to Dish and. AFAIK, I am connected to the Arc(I think in the East Coast is the EA, but I forgot, installer told me at the time). Both cases, I connected to my TV via HDMI. No comparision, Dish HD picture is far better, too much macroblocking/artifacts on Comcast. SD picture on Dish overall is also better, Comcast compressed well too much out of it.
That said, a very good friend of mine has the same TV as I do and subscribe to FIOS. That was a shocking experience for me, not so much on the HD front, but on SD, one could realize what a non-compressed SD picture looks like.
I had Comcast of Union(NJ) service from 2005 until April. Since April, I've been subscribing to Dish and. AFAIK, I am connected to the Arc(I think in the East Coast is the EA, but I forgot, installer told me at the time). Both cases, I connected to my TV via HDMI. No comparision, Dish HD picture is far better, too much macroblocking/artifacts on Comcast. SD picture on Dish overall is also better, Comcast compressed well too much out of it.
That said, a very good friend of mine has the same TV as I do and subscribe to FIOS. That was a shocking experience for me, not so much on the HD front, but on SD, one could realize what a non-compressed SD picture looks like.
As I said before, the DISH HD picture is not bad...it is pretty good, just not fantastic which is how I characterize my parents' picture. I am not complaining, just stating my observations. I actually had my rear projection professionally calibrated but didn't notice that much of a difference. All 3 of the Samsungs have not been tweaked or calibrated so they are better out of the box? Having said that, I tweaked the settings on my TV based upon suggestions and general recommendations for Panny models from a couple of web sites. I also bought the calibration disc, Digital Video Essentials. The settings I am currently using are: Picture Mode= Std., Picture = 11, Brightness = 6, Color =-1, Tint = 0, Sharpness = -15, Color temp. = Normal, everything else = Off. I never really saw that much difference in the clarity tweeking these settings (e.g., increase/decrease Picture levels), but could see diffs. in brightness, black levels, and color saturation. If anyone has suggestions for better settings, I'll be happy to try them but just not optimistic they will make that much of a difference. I sit at least 11 ft from my set, and interestingly I think it looks a little better when I sit 3 or 4 ft closer. Again, it doesn't matter where I sit looking at my parents' TV.
If your cable company is only doing two HD channels per QAM then they probably are retransmitting the mpeg2 as received from their big dish. The only channel I am aware of that they can't do this with is HBO because HBO distributes in MPEG4 and few MPEG4 cable boxes have been deployed so they will transcode it to MPEG2.
Dish converts MPEG2 HD to MPEG4 to save bandwidth, since HBO is already in MPEG4 format it would be interesting to compare dish HBO to cable HBO.
Its moot to me, after watching ~25Mbps MPEG4 on bluray I am spoiled.
Dish converts MPEG2 HD to MPEG4 to save bandwidth, since HBO is already in MPEG4 format it would be interesting to compare dish HBO to cable HBO.
Its moot to me, after watching ~25Mbps MPEG4 on bluray I am spoiled.
Out of the box means "tortch" settings. Not accurate at all. Very bright though. Maybe you like a brighter pic??? Nothing wrong with that. To each his own. I favor the accurate picture though.
Dish use to recommend this for viewing distance.
Screen size in inches divided by 8.5 = viewing distance in feet
