VOOM Satellite Service to Dramatically Increase to Over 70 HD channels by March 2005

[Indy]

Obviously you have not seen Dish HD & Voom HD on the same big screen system. I'll agree with you that Voom SD is MUCH better blown up than Dish is.

I agree with this observation. I have both Voom and Dish. My set up is a re-tubed Sony VPH G-70 shooting on a 8' wide DaLite Permwall screen. The Voom picture quality looks almost 3 D or wetter than the Dish HD model 6000 image. Also the SD looks better on Voom. No doubt with a A B test Voom wins hands down. Not by a little but by a very obvious margin.

 

[David Dietzel]

Voom Is Good

I have Dish and VOOM as well -- until VOOM delivers their DVR and I dump Dish.

VOOM picture quality in HD is superior to Dish at my location with my hardware and HDTV.

VOOM is as "good" or better than Dish in SD PQ at my location with my hardware and HDTV.

I am surprisingly pleased with VOOM. I expected poor reception and noise from comments I read on the Web. It's not an issue with my location and setup. Really.

I don't work for VOOM or Dish. I'm just a very happy VOOMer waiting for the DVR and network HD channels -- then Dish will just be a rooftop ornament.

Happy holidays.

 

[DarrellP]

I wonder if both of my stbs are defective. I've run into several people with screens my size who say they don't see skeeter noise. I even conversed with the people at a HT rag who gave Voom glowing reviews and they didn't see the noise either. I've tried Component, DVI, different cables, different resolutions, nothing makes the skeeters go away.

This leads me to 2 choices: Both of my Voom stbs are defective, or, You guys with big screens don't watch enough Equator or you are blind to skeeter noise. I know several people on this forum with 42" sets who see the noise.

 

[voomvoom]

Maybe those skeeters are in your HT room and flying around and through the light from the projector.

EDIT:
And maybe even landing on your screen....

 

[ratam]

I have a lowly 30" CRT and think I can see the "skeeter" noise you described on Equator, especially in foliage. Maybe I'm just hallucinating. Regardless, do you think any HD provider will ever cater to very large screen sizes (110" ?) when determining what would be acceptable for a typical customer? I imagine that providers would test 42' - 70" screens using varying amounts of compression to determine what they can get away with.

 

[SeattleVoomer1]

No, Darrell, you are not seeing things that aren't there.

We use a DLP to project onto a 96" screen and have seen the skeeter noise as well. We were a bit surprised to see it on Equator as well particularly on shows that have been recorded recently by VOOM's crews--the Over Europe series. I believe you are just very sensitive to skeeter noise. Being an audiophile myself I constantly hear "things" that most others simply don't as I've conditioned myself to by hypercritical about music reproduction.

Sometimes I notice the skeeter noise and sometimes I don't. It may vary from day to day and week to week but.... And it seems that strongly lighted outdoor scenes particularly with camera movement brings out the skeeters in spades.

But I still love VOOM and assume they will continue working toward making their PQ the best as they have a lot of people with HDTVs to get onboard to make themselves a viable company.

Watching HDTV under rainy Seattle skies, Gill

 

[DarrellP]

Thanks for the affirmation, Gill, I sometimes worry that I am oversensitive to video noise, I want it to be perfect. I, too am sensitive to audio glitches, though I don't have audiophile grade sound gear, it is still very good and I love to listen to music. Remember the old vinyl LP's? Talk about putting up with noise, but man did they sound sweet!

 

[jclampit]

I see noise too, btw. Not all the time or on all shows on all channels, but enough of the time to wish it wasn't there. See it w/ DVI, see it w/ component, see it w/ Comcast HD, see it w/ Voom. (InFocus 4805 shooting on to an 8' wide DaLite Hi Power screen, btw.)

 

[cruzer]

Go Voom! I SO want you to succeed. I think local channels in HD and maybe the Sunshine Network are all I need.

 

[VideoGrabber]

ratam commented:
> using varying amounts of compression to determine what they can get away with. <

Yeah, unfortunately, that seems to be the problem with ALL the satellite providers, at this point in time. With the cost of transponder space being what it is, and the limited # of birds in their fleets, constraining bandwidth. Every one of them is/will be looking to MPEG4 to solve this problem, within the next few years.

Also unfortunately, "what they can get away with" varies by provider. The one with the largest # of subscribers can "get away with" degrading the picture much more than their competitors (instead, offering promises of how much better things will be a year, or 2, or 5... down the road). Even to the point of sometimes lowering bitrates to DVD-levels. That'll get them by for a while. Perhaps long enough. People in the mass are pretty gullible. Hey, it's worked for Microsoft for a lot of years.

IMO, Voom shouldn't be trying to get away with anything in the PQ department. They can afford to sacrifice a few #'s in the channel count race to maintain PQ at it's best. They should have every customer enthusiastically endorsing Voom to their friends and associates; not just based on quantity, but unsurpassed quality as well. Then the only missing piece they'll have is the convenience factor (the mythical DVR).

- Tim

 

[DarrellP]

Tim, nice to see you back.

Dish was pulling some crap with compression on HDNET/HDNET Movies awhile back and I fired off an email to 5 different areas at Dish and CC'd Mark Cuban and I have to tell you, they were fabulous. I now have an email address of a VP for PQ at Dish and an email for a tech in the control room and whenever I see anything, I send them an email and they are right on the problem. I would like to see Voom be this responsive. It seems right now they don't give a damn about mosquito noise, since EquatorHD has suffered with it now for 6 months.

 

[BlackHitachi]

Tim, nice to see you back.

Dish was pulling some crap with compression on HDNET/HDNET Movies awhile back and I fired off an email to 5 different areas at Dish and CC'd Mark Cuban and I have to tell you, they were fabulous. I now have an email address of a VP for PQ at Dish and an email for a tech in the control room and whenever I see anything, I send them an email and they are right on the problem. I would like to see Voom be this responsive. It seems right now they don't give a damn about mosquito noise, since EquatorHD has suffered with it now for 6 months.

mosquito noise When you look at Equator the pic kinda wiggles in the back ground?

 

[DarrellP]

mosquito noise When you look at Equator the pic kinda wiggles in the back ground?

Exactly. It really manifests itself in fine detail. GalleryHD is terrible since they have so many closeups of items, it is squiggling everywhere.

Shots of forests, grass, bushes, gravel roads, housetops, anything with a lot of small detail makes Voom throwup. It really is a breath of fresh air to switch over to Dish after watching Voom. Even DiscoveryHD, which had been looking pretty good for awhile has noise that is not on Dish.

 

[BlackHitachi]

Exactly. It really manifests itself in fine detail. GalleryHD is terrible since they have so many closeups of items, it is squiggling everywhere.

Shots of forests, grass, bushes, gravel roads, housetops, anything with a lot of small detail makes Voom throwup. It really is a breath of fresh air to switch over to Dish after watching Voom. Even DiscoveryHD, which had been looking pretty good for awhile has noise that is not on Dish.

Ok i seen what you are talking about. I too like you have Dish HD and Voom. I was looking at channel 700 this am and did not see the noise. (on voom that is) i have seen it on others. It seems to come and go on various channels. I am guessing voom is working on compression? Also thank you for the reply.

 

[VideoGrabber]

DarrellP commented:
> I now have an email address of a VP for PQ at Dish and an email for a tech in the control room and whenever I see anything, I send them an email and they are right on the problem. <

Cool! The next time I see that HDNet has their entire prime-time schedule shifted 10 minutes early, I'll notify you, you can e-mail the tech @ Dish, and he can inform HDNet operations. Maybe that way it won't take 3 days for them to admit they have a problem, as it does when they get a report from a lowly "viewer".

- Tim

 

[DarrellP]

Ok i seen what you are talking about. I too like you have Dish HD and Voom. I was looking at channel 700 this am and did not see the noise. (on voom that is) i have seen it on others. It seems to come and go on various channels. I am guessing voom is working on compression? Also thank you for the reply.

You can't use channel 700 as a Voom barometer, as they are transmitting with the new Harmonic encoders on this channel. I watched 10 minutes of it this morning and it looked spectacular with just a few scenes showing any kind of noise at all and that was negligible, but still not as good as HDNET which is totally clean.

Scott, Ilya or Sean, do you guys know if Voom has tweaked the encoder on 700 yet? It is looking quite good, but not as good as HD should look. The other channels seem to be heading downhill lately. Even Rave today was riddled with skeeters and it is usually quite clean.

 

[vurbano]

The equator HD channel looks great to me except the skeeter noise. It seems horrible on this channel. But the lack of other PQ problems make me doubt its simply a compression issue. Wouldnt we be seeing other problems? Would the channel be as vivid and detailed? wouldnt we be seeing green artifacts, rips in the picture, macro blocking or a channel with an overall SD look to it?. This is a very strange problem. Seems or feels like some kind of noise issue could this be why Voom is moving to a different compression scheme, not necessarily for compression but for noise issues as well? Doesnt it have a better error correction rate as well?

 

[BlackHitachi]

The equator HD channel looks great to me except the skeeter noise. It seems horrible on this channel. But the lack of other PQ problems make me doubt its simply a compression issue. Wouldnt we be seeing other problems? Would the channel be as vivid and detailed? wouldnt we be seeing green artifacts, rips in the picture, macro blocking or a channel with an overall SD look to it?. This is a very strange problem. Seems or feels like some kind of noise issue could this be why Voom is moving to a different compression scheme, not necessarily for compression but for noise issues as well? Doesnt it have a better error correction rate as well?

You know what you are right!! That hits it on the head!! I see the HD on dish lately at least for me Grey macro blocking! It was bluring also.

 

[Cliff]

I don't care if they only add a couple of channels, I still think Voom is the greatest!
GO VOOM!!! I'm here till the end.

 

[marty2112]

Even with the suspended spin off we are not slowing down and show no sign of giving up. As far as the VOOM uplink and origination is concerned, its business as usual! Thanks for the support!!