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Universal HD - Gone Next Week?

jerryez said:
I have a 211 and the UHD channel is a waste. So is ESPN2 ESPN & ESPN2 both have very little HD.
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Amazing how you try to tell people this and they just won't listen

Also, the committment to UHD can be seen in details.

Last Sunday during BSG, they were running promos for the USA Olympic Hockey Game that aired 12 hours earlier the same day - at 10am Sunday, lol.

Last night during a Quantam Leap episode they ran a long promo for the Olympics- starting February 10th.

If they have the kind of attention to detail, what do you expect?
 
Take a look at the March 2006 schedule of new content --- pathetic! http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=56686

This channel before 1/06 had a repeat schedule with adding nothing new from July 2005 till december 2005. When it was added on Dish, a few new programs were added but now that it is on Dish, it looks like is going back to its pathetic ways.
 

The Stargate you see on you local Fox is syndicated and will not be in HD.
 
Thanks for the great news George - NOT!!
Will the PQ be better than the sci-fi channel anyway?
Is it just that the show was not filmed in HD (which I assume is the case), but the channel (Fox25) is broadcast in HD? Or do they only broadcast in HD at certain times (like prime time)?

HD noob here, in case you can't tell...
 
Well, I like having the extra HD ch....more HD is always a good thing. But there is not enough on the ch for me to cry over not having it. It's a plus right now but I still wish they had some good programing on the ch. In my opinion the ch has always been a disappointment....before and after the name change.
 

You don't actually think that all the programs on local hd channels are HD, do you? Only some primetime programming and sports are--everthing else is still regular standard definition.

Stargate SG-1 is filmed for 16:9 so it could be transferred to HD eventually, but so far it hasn't appeared in HD anywhere. Stargate Atlantis has been shown in HD in Canada.
 
On my local Fox the Stargate reruns are not in HD. But they are in digital and with low compression, so the resultant picture is much better than from Dish & Sci-Fi.
 
" You don't actually think that all the programs on local hd channels are HD, do you?"
Hey - I'm not THAT stupid (close, maybe)!!! lol

"...so the resultant picture is much better than from Dish & Sci-Fi."
That's all I was hoping/expecting.
 
IMHO, I feel NBC (I think that's who owns Universal HD) missed a great marketing opportunity as did dish. The Olympics coverage was poor, except for hockey, the programming was lacklustre, very old series. They could have followed the HBO/showtime free preview model and got people to "really want it" instead they may have turned people off. BSG was one good item, the autoshow was another but too little too late. Just my 0.2c
 
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datwell said:
So, I have the 61.5 dish, will my 942 be able to handle it or will it go to MPEG-4?

---Doug
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No. You need a 211/411/ or 622 to subscribe to the Dish HD packages.
 
Speaking of Battlestar Galatica on Universal HD ...

While the PQ of this is far, far better than the SD version on Sci-Fi, it is not very good for a HD program. I would be surprised if this is due to Dish overcompressing, it looks like the source isn't that good. I was going to characterize it as DVD-quality, but upon close examination, it isn't as good as many DVDs that I've seen. The fine detail and sharpness of HD isn't there.

To me it looks like a decent quality 480i 16:9 widescreen program that is being upconverted to HD. Or maybe it is shot on low-quality HD cameras. In any case, the PQ is definitely below network HD shows and well below the better HD movies I've seen.
 

Correct - it looks the just as bad on cable.
 
Just to be clear, I'm not contesting that Dish & Universal are broadcasting BG in 1920x1080. I'm saying that the recording detail expected from a HD recording just isn't there.

I've seen programs on the current VOOM channels where the detail is much better than on BG, and we know that VOOM is being broadcast at 1280x1080i. Likewise I've seen better detail on SuperBit DVDs, which are recorded in 720x480i at high bitrates (for 480i).

I would not be surprised if Universal is using the same 480i source as Sci-Fi. But where it is significantly compressed (and downconverted to 480x480i?) and then broadcast in non-anamorphic 16:9 on Sci-Fi, it looks like it is upconverted to 1080i and given much more bandwidth on Universal. I.e. it looks like we are getting the DVD version from Universal.

What it doesn't look like is a program that is being originally recorded in HD, downconverted to 480i for Sci-Fi, and broadcast in its native HD format on Universal. Does anyone know if the distributors are claiming that the show is recorded in HD?
 
Jerry G said:
I doubt that Dish will ever put up a channel again on a temporary basis. Too many people seem to get upset that the channel will disappear, even though they knew it would from the beginning.
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I honestly can't say I'll miss it. I was checking out it's listings and it appeared to running mostly things like international dog shows or something, over and over with an occasional Galactica repeat.
 
I'm not going to rush out to upgrade either. I thank E* for letting me see HD Olympic hockey until my eyes bled, but the rest of the stuff just didn't seem worth it. I'm not a BSG fan, and even if I was, it sounds like they are delayed episodes. As for Knight Rider ... I can't believe I never realized how cheesy that show was (I guess I'll blame it on being younger).
 

I just read in a HD magazine that BSG is shot at 1080p/24.
 
waltinvt said:
I honestly can't say I'll miss it. I was checking out it's listings and it appeared to running mostly things like international dog shows or something, over and over with an occasional Galactica repeat.
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This was one of those channels I was always rubbing my hands together and
wishing for, but now that I had it for two weeks, I can tell I wouldn't watch it as much as I thought I would, except for Galactica and maybe Monk (which I never actually saw over the two week preview.) Alright, and maybe the dog show... and the auto show was pretty cool, too...

Not a bad channel, but not as great as I had built it up in my mind.
 
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