VIP622 resolution pass through

[bigjohns97]

I have been a dish customer for about 4 months now and it has been an upgrade in all aspects from picture quality, dvr quality, programming, cust support, number of hd channels.

The only thing that comcast has them beat on is their dvr had a resolution pass through. I don't see many people talking about it on here so i am wondering if i am missing something. Can anyone help?

 

[RandallA]

There was a very long thread about it, just do a search and see if you can find it. I don't think Dish Network is interested at all in resolution pass through otherwise they would've done it by now.

 

[bigjohns97]

There was a very long thread about it, just do a search and see if you can find it. I don't think Dish Network is interested at all in resolution pass through otherwise they would've done it by now.

I tried doing a search for "pass through" without the quotes of course and couldn't find any such thread. Do you have a link or know the correct search term that would get me the hit.

 

[Hall]

This ability or feature is a VERY popular one amongst 622 owners and Dish is fully aware of this wish. I believe they did acknowledge it in a tech chat and said they plan to add it. NO date or timeframe was given, if I recall.

 

[RandallA]

Here is one:

http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-hd-discussions/95943-native-resolution-pass-through-revisited.html

and

http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-hd-discussions/74103-native-resolution-pass-through.html

 

[bigjohns97]

looks like native was the key, thanks..

 

[vicw]

Here is one:

http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-hd-discussions/95943-native-resolution-pass-through-revisited.html

and

http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-hd-discussions/74103-native-resolution-pass-through.html

Thanks for the thread references. They made for some mighty painful reading. I thought my brain would explode with the many conflicting explanations of the issue. A few were right on the mark, but it's obvious that this issue is widely misunderstood.

I've been on TWC for the last couple of years, using an SA8300HD DVR, which has the ability to pass-through native modes, and the user selecitons available to define which modes match the TV. It has been a pleasure to be able to select between SD or HD channels and let my set do the scaling, rather than having to also switch between component and SD inputs with every channel switch, as I had to do for the 4 years preceding, when I had a Dish 4000 receiver setup.

I'm currently considering going back to Dish, but since it appears that Dish has made no realized progress in providing the format pass through capability, I may have to take another look at D*, which clearly has the pass through and the TV type definition available on their HD DVR.

Most puzzling to me is that there were apparently statements made by Dish that the capabililties would be provided in 2006, but here we are a year later, and nothing has happened.

 

[BobaBird]

It was the May 2006 Tech Forum. It was to have been added possibly as early as that summer. I didn't realize we've been waiting over a year since that promise.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I've read the directv forums about native resolution pass through and they all complain that the time changing channels takes to long to justify the feature. They say the channel goes black and the picture flickers till it settles down on the resolution that you have set or the tv does. Most recommed just setting the resolution to 720p or 1080i. My 622 takes 4 seconds to sync and the video to come up on my hd channels now that are in mpeg 4 . I can only imagine how long it would take if we had the resolution pass through.

That being said I would perfer that we could just set the receiver to 480p for sd and 720/1080i for hd. THen you could set the tv to the picture mode you want to make the stretched picture look right on the tv for sd shows. I only hope that if they do get this feature it doesn't take anymore than 4 seconds to sync the video/audio.

 

[vicw]

It was the May 2006 Tech Forum. It was to have been added possibly as early as that summer. I didn't realize we've been waiting over a year since that promise.

I'm shocked, shocked to learn that Echostar failed to meet a promise on schedule . It's good to know, though, that at least it's on their radar.

 

[vicw]

I've read the directv forums about native resolution pass through and they all complain that the time changing channels takes to long to justify the feature. They say the channel goes black and the picture flickers till it settles down on the resolution that you have set or the tv does. Most recommed just setting the resolution to 720p or 1080i. My 622 takes 4 seconds to sync and the video to come up on my hd channels now that are in mpeg 4 . I can only imagine how long it would take if we had the resolution pass through.

That being said I would perfer that we could just set the receiver to 480p for sd and 720/1080i for hd. THen you could set the tv to the picture mode you want to make the stretched picture look right on the tv for sd shows. I only hope that if they do get this feature it doesn't take anymore than 4 seconds to sync the video/audio.

I have serious doubts about the pass through feature being the cause of any switching delay, but I'll have to search through the Direct TV forum for that discussion. On my SA8300HD, the mode switch between HD and SD channels is almost instantaneous, much less than one second, not an issue at all.

Your preferred options are pretty much the same as I want, as long as they would be selectable to match the capabilities of the set. In my case, I have the modes set for 480i, 480p and 1080i, so with a 480i input, I can pass through 480i to the set, and let the TV take care of the scaling. I have found the scaling choices on the Pioneer Elite look much better to me than any external processes.

 

[Hall]

I had an 8300HD for a couple of years and the slow switching was the fault of the TV, not the box. If I set it to pass 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i, if I changed from a 480i channel to a 1080i, it would take a few seconds, it would snap and flicker while the TV switched, and then it would show the picture. If I went from a 1080i channel to another 1080i channel, it was literally instant change. My TV is a rear-projection. Others didn't have as much of a problem but they maybe had LCDs or plasmas.

 

[vicw]

I had an 8300HD for a couple of years and the slow switching was the fault of the TV, not the box. ....

I think you are probably right. My rear projection set, combined with the SA8300HD switches between 480i/p and 1080i quickly, fortunately. It doesn't do 720p, so that isn't a factor.

After scanning the D* forum for native passthrough issues on D*, it's apparent to me that this is the most confusing, and most widely misunderstood feature one could imagine, and there are too many variables at play to draw any hard conclusions, other than the fact that it is available on D*.

In the User Guides, at least, the D* boxes look to have the same native passthrough featues as the SA8300HD, so I'm going to consider that to be a plus factor for D*, and currently a negative for E*.

 

[8bitbytes]

In the User Guides, at least, the D* boxes look to have the same native passthrough featues as the SA8300HD, so I'm going to consider that to be a plus factor for D*, and currently a negative for E*.

So it's too hard to change the resolution in the DVR menu?

 

[MikeD-C05]

IF it was as easy as a push of the button on the remote it wouldn't be hard at all. You know push the tv /video button and it would function for the hd resolution and you could cycle through the different modes without having to push menu , system setup, hd resolution then push the one you want , hit yes, then hit cancel out of all the menus and wait for the tv to come back with video and sound. It is way to cumbersome and it would be an easy fix to adjust the software to allow this . Then we could change the resolutions by a push of a button .

 

[8bitbytes]

IF it was as easy as a push of the button on the remote it wouldn't be hard at all. You know push the tv /video button and it would function for the hd resolution and you could cycle through the different modes without having to push menu , system setup, hd resolution then push the one you want , hit yes, then hit cancel out of all the menus and wait for the tv to come back with video and sound. It is way to cumbersome and it would be an easy fix to adjust the software to allow this . Then we could change the resolutions by a push of a button .

That's what macro buttons are for on universal remotes.

 

[vicw]

So it's too hard to change the resolution in the DVR menu?

It's not a case of easy or hard, it's just that when switching between HD and SD channels, I want to have the DVR pass the native mode of each channel, so that I can allow the TV to use my preset scaling choice, which I consider superior to the choices usually provided in the DVR. That works beautifully for me, now, with the SA83000, and I don't want to lose that capability when I move back to satellite.

By the way, I noticed this afternoon on a poll in DBSTalk, that the most desired customer future feature for the 622/722 is Native Mode Pass Through, with 65% having chosen it on their top 5 list, so I'm not exactly alone in wanting it. On top of that, Dish apparently commited to providing that feature by Summer, 2006, so it is overdue. I know it's not important for everybody, but it is for me.

 

[FitzAusTex]

I'm probably missing the true point, but to an extent the 622 does keep separate settings for HD and non-HD channels. It does pass SD through at 480, and lets you select HD at either (all) 720 or (all) 1080i. If you use the # key to set an SD (480) channel to Normal, Wide, Partial Zoom, or Zoom, this only applies to the SD (480) channels, and the same is true for the HD channels.

I had a SA8300HD with TW, and did in fact set up native pass through. It was pretty slow changing channels when it had to go from a 720 channel to a 480 channel to 1080i channel, but was fast when it was changing to the same resolution type.

I guess i've gotten a little less picky when it comes to the distinction btwn a 720p and a 1080i channel. For the most part I can't see the difference when I'm watching a 720p show in 1080i mode versus watching it in 720p mode, nor watching a 1080i show in 720p mode versus watching it in 1080i mode.

 

[Pepper]

Sorry, but it does NOT pass SD through at 480 unless that's the resolution you chose. It upscales it to 720 or 1080. That's the whole point of this feature people are asking for, maybe their TV does a better job with native 480 input vs 1080 as upscaled by the ViP.

 

[rdinkel]

Remember, the Dish receiver still needs to process its signals before passing any signal, since they are using a variety of resolutions, compressions, and bit rates. So the "native pass-through" is a bit of a misnomer. What you are asking is for Dish to recreate the nominal native format and then pass that along. Does that improve picture quality? Maybe, but not necessarily. The signal will still be extensively processed by the receiver.