THIS is how Movies SHOULD look on VOOM

[DarrellP]

Yesterday I watched My Fair Lady on HDNET MOVIES and I have to say, this was the most vibrant, clear, crisp movie I've ever seen from ANY source on TV, to include OTA.

I hope with Voom's new MPEG-4 tweaking coming up in January that they can make ALL of their HD channels look this good. I would be a happy camper.

Dish is very responsive to my emails to them. I have been given an email address of a compression tech to correspond with and everytime I corrrespond with him, he is right on the issues fixing them. DiscoveryHD has had some problems over the last few days (Voom actually looks better than Dish on DHD right now) and Dish is working to get it corrected.

Why can't Voom be this responsive? I know Ilya, Sean, Scott and others talk directly with the Hauncho's at Voom, why aren't they fixing Voom's PQ? Any of you guys care to chime in?

 

[andrzej]

With all due respect to your responsive guy at E* I don't think that the PQ issue is as simple as asking a compression tech to take a minute and "just fix it".

 

[1080iBeVuMin]

With all due respect to your responsive guy at E* I don't think that the PQ issue is as simple as asking a compression tech to take a minute and "just fix it".

That may be true. But DarrellP should be able to get somebody at Voom to give him a basic answer.

DarrellP, have you tried Wilt?

 

[txcruiser]

That may be true. But DarrellP should be able to get somebody at Voom to give him a basic answer.

DarrellP, have you tried Wilt?

I seem to recall DarrellP trying Wilt about a zillion times on these boards.

 

[vinnyv07]

When you deal with older transfers it all depends on the transfer. I have seen movies look like crap on HDNET and great on VOOM....and the other way around also. I have seen THe Terminator many times on VOOM in HD...and tonight its on HDNET ....I doubt Directv's version will look any better. I have heard that Dish HD does look really good...

 

[gutter]

The lastest transfer of "My Fair Lady" was done from the original negative and not from a positive print and it was done in 1080P. (not 1080I) You can also see the difference in the lastest DVD release as well compared to previous DVD's However, the HD special transfer which was done with great care must look fantastic on a HD set. Hope we can all see it soon.

 

[gutter]

I hope with Voom's new MPEG-4 tweaking coming up in January that they can make ALL of their HD channels look this good. I would be a happy camper.

When was this announced? I thought MPEG 4 was going to be delayed until later in 2005 and only MPEG2 was going to be tweaked? Did I miss a thread?

 

[DarrellP]

When was this announced? I thought MPEG 4 was going to be delayed until later in 2005 and only MPEG2 was going to be tweaked? Did I miss a thread?

It's in the big announcement about the purchase of the new satellites. I jumped the gun, it is MPEG2, not 4. Sorry.

RE: Compression tech, it goes higher than that, I am also corresponding with a VP at Dish in charge of PQ and he has been great, they seem to really care about PQ. I had emailed Tech Support asking if anyone there even cared about HD PQ because at the time, HDNET was spiralling downhill and HDNET Movies looked like Dish SD (really bad). There were responses flying into my inbox faster than flies on crap!

I initially started corresponding with the VP and then he passed me over directly to the compression tech so I didn't have to go through him any longer. It's worked out well and I keep in touch with them weekly to let them know how things look. If there is an issue, I let them know right away and they jump on the problem.

How long has EquatorHD been up? June 15th? That's more than 6 months and nothing has changed.

 

[riffjim4069]

How long has EquatorHD been up? June 15th? That's more than 6 months and nothing has changed.

Gnat Noise would be quite an improvement.

 

[DarrellP]

Gnat Noise would be quite an improvement.

Congratulations, Voom, I just watched Benny & Joon and it indeed, was reduced to just Gnat noise. Hallelujah, we may be making progress here, folks. Yessiree, Bob, the noise was almost nil, nada, zero, zip, nothing. If Voom could make all of the HD channels look this noiseless, I would be happy. Cinema104, BTW.

 

[Dvlos]

Sadly I think Equator will always have mosquitos, I guess to add authenticity to the exotic locals. Again it could be a byproduct of the transfer or camera, as Earth Diaries was breathtaking on Equator, by the way is it still only 1 entry in the "diary"?

 

[Bilodeaumj]

Yesterday I watched My Fair Lady on HDNET MOVIES...

You guys miss the point. DarrelP was watching My fair Lady...Ha Ha

 

[DarrellP]

Dvlos, the shows I've seen on Equator that did not have Skeeters were unusually soft, so I don't know if it's a compression or a source issue. Maybe softness vs Skeeters is a tradeoff? It's definitely a compression issue since whenever the scene is static, it sharpens up and the Skeeters disappear. As soon as the image starts moving again, the PQ goes to Hell in a handbasket.

 

[barth2k]

Not enough bandwidth.

Everybody got all excited with the 70 channels announcement, but I groaned when I read that. Here we go again with the number game -- with a bunch of redundant PPV channels, no doubt -- instead of trying for the best PQ.

How did they come up with 70 anyway? I bet they just looked at what they have now, and extrapolated that into the additional bandwidth. Was PQ even a consideration? I haven't heard anybody from Voom even admitting that PQ can and should be better (aside from maybe acknowledging the obvious problems).

Of course now that they've locked themselves into the magic number 70, they won't reduce that number even if that's what they need to do to improve PQ.

Voom: you already have more channels than anybody else and yet you haven't exactly set the HD world on fire. Maybe now you should concentrate on QUALITY??

 

[DarrellP]

AMEN Brother Barth, can I hear a Hallelujah? I say can I hear a Hallelujah?

I just hope the people at Voom actually read our complaints here, my emails certainly fall on deaf ears (or blind eyes). Maybe they are monitoring on 42" Plasma screens and think the PQ is just dandy. Just like Dish, who sets their SD PQ to satisfy the majority of the viewers with a 27" or less set & don't give a damn about those of us with a larger screen.