Wash DC HD Locals- Shock & AWE!!

[datwell]

Wow! I don't know what old Charlie & Co. did, but the HD PQ on our NBC local (WRC-DT, 1080I) was just great for the Steelers/Dolphins game last night!

Looked great on the Sony! Great job, Dish!

(I just hope the other Washington, DC HDs always look as good!)

--Doug

 

[riffjim4069]

I actually flipped over to WRC-DT last night, channel 6361, because I was recording something on the OTA tuner and noticed the channels looked much improved. There were still a few "ugly effects" every now and again, but those are due to WRC-DT since I later checked out WRC-DT OTA and noticed similar problems.

WRC-DT was the first to go HD in our area and ever since they started multicasting their weather channel, 1080i HD sports have had problems: macroblocking, ghosting, etc. IMO, WRC needs to upgrade their aging encoders or display a static image on their weather subchannel during live sporting events.

Anyway, I concur with your observation...but we've seen in the past how the picture will improve one day, only to look worse the next.

 

[jgarrison]

Looked very poor on Spokane's MPEG4 feed.

 

[riffjim4069]

It looks like E* acted to resolve the numberous complains they receive on Washington DC HD LIL quality by moving the problem over to Washington State.

Seriously, I've seen improvements in the past...but they never seem to last very long.

BTW, lot's of macroblocking complaints regarding NBC last night: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=720676&page=1&pp=30

 

[jgarrison]

Complaints from that thread are basically what I had. Still shots were fine, motion showed serious artifacting/blocking.

 

[Cyclone]

I have noticed that I no longer notice a "jittery" effect on the 1080i channels anymore. I wasn't sure if they fixed it, or if I had become acclimated to it (like I have to stretched SD content on my 16:9 TV).

 

[Mark Strube]

They fixed the jittery problem awhile ago, but it still has a long ways to go.

 

[riffjim4069]

I must admit, the US Open looks pretty good today on DishHD's WUSA-DT this afternoon. In most cases, the picture is almost as good as OTA. The most noticeable problem is with the area just below the judge. The pole and ladder create a blurring and floating effect at times (same thing with one of the wall banners at certain camera angles). However, other than that, it looks pretty good and there are no horrible trailing effects, etc. Having said that...there are some artifact when switching between cameras, but those are identical to what I am seeing from OTA.

If anyone has DC OTA and HD LIL, can you post your observation...

 

[dslate69]

If they are adjusting things for big events so be it. I'll take it until they get great quality 24\7.
As long as the Skins look good on game days.

 

[datwell]

If they are adjusting things for big events so be it. I'll take it until they get great quality 24\7.
As long as the Skins look good on game days.

YES!! Our 'Skins must be served!!!!

I had a busy Sunday, but was able to see part of the Dallas game and the Manning Bowl on NBC (WRC-DT) and the PQ of both looked very good to me.

---Doug

 

[riffjim4069]

Reply from Dish Quality...

Dear Mr. Riffjim4069,

Thank you for this information! We did make some changes and the engineers were very happy to see your email! Thank you for taking the time to write in to us. You made their day!

It's too bad they won't tell us what changes they made to correct the problems. Perhaps they slapped in a new Tandberg EN8090 MPEG-4 Encoder.

 

[bluetrain1]

Picture was much sharper than the SKINS

Once again the Washington Racial Slurs shanked their efforts wide right and fell to 0-5 including preseason. I watched on the DC area OTA HD feed and whenever they showed Tom and Katie and littleman Dan the picture got all crazy and started jumping up and down - or maybe that was just Tom being Tom. I am actually an ex-season ticket holder for the Skins from their RFK stadium days but now I would rather poke out both my eyes with a lit cigar than give one more red cent to the already overstuffed pockets of littleman Dan.

 

[riffjim4069]

I haven't heard any complaints about the DC HD LIL lately, but I do have a few observations and questions. I have been comparing Fox5 (DC)/Fox35 (Richmond) OTA, Fox5 HD LIL (E*), Fox HD Seattle (*C).

1. Fox OTA sports is delivered consistently across the board: DC, Richmond, Baltimore, etc. - it all looks the same from my observations.

2. E* has done an excellent job with HD LIL the past few months. The MPEG-2 Fox HD from Seattle (*C) looks identical to our MPEG-4 HD LIL.

3. OTA is ever-so-slightly better than E* HD LIL. The 720p channels (Fox and ABC) are excellent, even for the most avid HD-Lite haters, and the 1080i channels (CBS, NBC) are pretty good, but could be a little better.

4. I noticed the Seattle MPEG-2 HD Fox (*C) is only about one-half second behind Fox5 HD OTA, whereas E* MPEG-4 HD Fox5 is around 2 1/2 seconds behind Fox5 HD OTA.

Questions:

Does everyone agree or disagree?

Why the additional 2 second delay for the E* MPEG4 version vice the *C MPEG2 version? I can't imagine it taking that much longer to encode/decode an MPEG-4 datastream?

 

[chg]

So, can anybody comment on the quality of the DC HD channels these days? Especially, compared to OTA. I am thinking of dropping my distants and going back to DC, so I can get the HD feeds. Tired of having no guide info for OTA. Makes recording and watching, a real pain.

 

[Cyclone]

I'm happy with my HD LIL channels, but I still give OTA the preference. I will usually record on a HDLIL channel, but watch Live on the OTA tuner.

I can't imagine that Distant's HD would be any better than DC's HD channels.

 

[MikeD-C05]

So are the Washington D.C. locals in true mpeg 4 or mpeg 2 and what is the picture quality like? Does it break up with green screen pixelations?

 

[Peter Parker]

In my case the DD LiL is close to OTA but I can indeed thell the difference.

 

[riffjim4069]

The DC HD Locals have been MPEG-4 since they went live last March...

 

[8bitbytes]

I'm happy with my HD LIL channels, but I still give OTA the preference. I will usually record on a HDLIL channel, but watch Live on the OTA tuner.

I can't imagine that Distant's HD would be any better than DC's HD channels.

I record my shows OTA, everybody else gets HDLiLs. They haven't complained! They certainly look much better than the SD channels.

 

[Cyclone]

I record "My really favorite shows" on OTA too. But the rest get HD:LIL since I want the OTA free if I'm watching live. But I have found that WJLA will get "blocky" quite often when watching Desparate Housewives (wife show), so I use the OTA tuner for Lost so I don't get that. I hear Cable an D* folks complain about the same thing with WJLA, so I don't think its a Dish problem.

Still, the HD:LIL was jumpy when it first launched, but its been smooth shortly there after.