Very bad pixellation on Dish HD channels ...

BarryO

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Oct 11, 2003
189
5
see this thread on DBStalk: http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=35457

People have seen it with a 921, 811, and a 6000. I've seen it on my 921 for the past couple of weeks.

THE PQ on the HD channels got noticibly worse around the time of the Olympics (especially Discovery HD, where every American Chopper welding shot spews pixels now as well as sparks), but this has now gotten ridiculous. At times, the whole screen will be covered with large macro blocking.

Some have called Dish tech support, who as usual denies any problem with their PQ, and have said they have received no complaints. But I know from past experience that Dish phone support people will say things that they know to be untrue.

One person who still has a dish pointed at 148 says that there isn't a problem on that dish.

The HD channels are now unwatchable, people who call Dish are being told that they won't fix anything: I feel screwed over.
 
I have to agree. I was watching Master and Commander on HBO-HD a couple of days ago and any scenes where the action switched quickly, the camera panned quickly or scenes went from dark (or medium) to bright, the pixelization was horrendous and I've never seen that before on HBO-HD.

It's not doing it tonight, but their HD is becoming increasingly unstable. It'd be nice to 1) know why and 2) what they are doing to fix it?
 
Typically I dont complain about little picture glitches but recently its been so bad that Ive thought about cancelling the HD pack or just not watching them.

HBO-HD you cant watch the credits as they are unreadable. The rest of the movies tend to act like they arnt getting all the information and certain blocks will jsut go some random color for a few secs.

TNT-HD While they dont really have any hd content the dang channel freezes every few minutes.

HDNET this is by far the most watchable but those blocks are still there and its not compression artifacts. they blur these are just little 1/4" squares that go a random color

Discovery HD- I admit i only watch BIG and American Chopper on this channel but everytime someone welds the picture gets all screwy. Otherwise it still suffers from that blocking issue.

I havent had HD for long but before the olympics it looked decent... now it looks like crap.
 
This is What Crap Looks Like

I managed to grab a screen shot (sorry about the angle, I was in a hurry) of the blocking that appears on Dish's HD channels during graphics. What's odd is this is a static image, which one would think should be pretty easy to encode.

This is off of my Dish 811 (P281LADD-N) through a Toshiba 34HF81.
 

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Foxbat said:
I managed to grab a screen shot (sorry about the angle, I was in a hurry) of the blocking that appears on Dish's HD channels during graphics. What's odd is this is a static image, which one would think should be pretty easy to encode.

This is off of my Dish 811 through a Toshiba 34HF81.
Whatever that problem is, its not pixelatation. Probably source encoding errors.
 
I am also getting this and i am not one to complain but this has to get better. Dish's Hd has gone done hill for me? I get grey blocks and blurred vision sometimes?? :no
 
This is exactly what I've been seeing as well. I watched a show on Discovery HD Sunday night and that happened several times throughout. I can't say that I've been watching alot of HD lately off satellite as I've spent more time watching time shifted programming and OTA HD.
 
Here's my email to Dish.

dishquality@echostar.com

During the past week I and many others have noted a decline in the picture quality on your High Definition channels (TNT-HD, HBO-HD, Discovery-HD, ESPN-HD, HDNET). When I first subscribed to Dish Network the HD channels were excellent, since the Olympics HD broadcast, the quality has suffered most notably on TNT-HD, Discovery-HD and ESPN-HD. While I realize Dish currently has bandwidth constraints in regards to HD, something has to be done! The picture quality issues over the last week are totally unacceptable. Rather than try to document all the problems in this message I would like to refer you to the following link's where the problems are being discussed. Thank you for your attention.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=36771


http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=35457



NightRyder
 
This really isn't a "picture quality" issue. It's not a result of agressive compression. It is most likely faulty encoder(s)/uplink/transponder or other things related to transmission.

My 2c... when contacting E* about this I wouldn't get in to how the quality of their HD has declined because they may just dismiss the entire message as a complaint about compression levels and not the true problem.
 
HookedOnTV said:
This really isn't a "picture quality" issue. It's not a result of agressive compression. It is most likely faulty encoder(s)/uplink/transponder or other things related to transmission.

My 2c... when contacting E* about this I wouldn't get in to how the quality of their HD has declined because they may just dismiss the entire message as a complaint about compression levels and not the true problem.

I also sent several emails.

I attached the espn pic here and a pic of discovery... got really lucky and grabbed it last night.

I may end up sending a ceo email but i dont know if that woudl do any good either.
 
I have been seeing this on my Dish 6000 lately also. It does appear to only happen on the Dish HD channels and not on my OTA HD channels.

It also get really bad during credits and isn't really that bad during the programs. I was waiting for thread to confirm that it wasn't just me. I'll take some pics when I get a chance.
 
In another thread there was an email address for picture quality issues (dishquality@echostar.com)

I sent in my complaint this morning and receive a reply within the hour. They are aware of the problems--yes, they agree that there are picture quality problems--and are actively working to solve them.

If you send in a query/complaint, I think you'll be unexpectedly surprised at the response...
 
Hmm, I've never seen this said pixelling (especially like that screenshot has)

The only think I have seen is a little pixel blip about once an hour when watching any of the channels.
 
BFG said:
Hmm, I've never seen this said pixelling (especially like that screenshot has)

The only think I have seen is a little pixel blip about once an hour when watching any of the channels.

really thats weird because just about everyone with dish hd has seen this. i get it alot... its especially bad on ESPN, TNTHD, and DISCHD
 
MarcS said:
If you send in a query/complaint, I think you'll be unexpectedly surprised at the response...

The response I got back was an automated response saying how they can't answer each email personally but put them in a database to be reviewed and suggestions and/or complaints will be looked into.
 
peid said:
The response I got back was an automated response saying how they can't answer each email personally but put them in a database to be reviewed and suggestions and/or complaints will be looked into.
thats what i got
 
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