Why do all the HD locals look horrible?!

chrisw27

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Mar 2, 2006
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Why is it so hard for them to get it to look decent. I mean it really looks like i'm watching pirated DivX files, with the bad frame rate, audio sync, pixellation. Seriously MPEG4 looks really good if its done right.. they are using H.264, right?
 
chrisw27 said:
Why is it so hard for them to get it to look decent. I mean it really looks like i'm watching pirated DivX files, with the bad frame rate, audio sync, pixellation. Seriously MPEG4 looks really good if its done right.. they are using H.264, right?
I have to disagree with you. I think they look good. Not as good as OTA but way better the SD and not horrible.
 
At times they look good and at times they look worse than SD... It's pretty frustrating for me to have upgraded a receiver and have nothing to show for it. (More Voom channels and Universal HD are pretty much worthless)
 
Ditto here. I've only got 3 of 5 local HD channels and NBC always looks horrible. I should have waited for them to work the bugs out I'm afraid.
 
Yeah they look better than the SD channels thats for sure, but I am noticing slower movements and more ghosting. Could it be my 211 not able to handle it? I notice that If I run some intense 1080p H.264 MPEG4 videos on my iBook the movement is slower too.
 
Doing near realtime encoding takes a lot of horsepower. The technology is fairly new for mpeg4 and is going to take a while to get the bugs worked out.
 
nicknageli said:
Ditto here. I've only got 3 of 5 local HD channels and NBC always looks horrible. I should have waited for them to work the bugs out I'm afraid.

Did you receive OTA before you got your locals over satellite? NBC looks horrible on some programming most everywhere because of Weather Plus.
 
long_time_DNC said:
The Seattle HD locals are up now and they look significantly better than their SD counterpart channels.

And the much maligned DirecTV HD channels look significantly better than their SD counterpart channels. You're redefining success to a much lower standard with that statement. They can look significantly better than their SD counterpart channels while at the same time looking significantly worse than their OTA counterpart channels.
 
Oh, I have no doubt that OTA would look significantly better than what I'm getting at this time, but since I'd need to put an antenna about 300-feet to get OTA over the hill to my north, I can't compare it to OTA... I have no doubt or illusions that the HD locals are HDlite, so I'm not really redefining success...I'm just measuring what I'm seeing against the SD local channels, since that's the only basis for comparing the locals that I have available.
 
Here is SF bay Area I compared HD NBC to OTA HD NBC and the difference was huge. The shadowing on the Dish HD in the background made it look grainy. The OTA is vivid and sharp. At least the 622 has a nice ATSC tuner ;-)
 
Have to agree that the SF NBC is terrible. All other networks look OK but the movement is not smooth. 2 nights in a row the CBS and NBC feed have had no picture just sound, reboot fixes it.
 
I'm in the SF bay area too and NBC looks horrible but I guess its normal for everyone else. Last time I checked the sound on KTVU-HD was strange, like it was downsampled to 22khz, anyone else notice this?

So anyway, after watching a bit of the good channels.. mainly CBS and ABC, the new HD locals don't look so bad. I could say they look better than MPEG2 HD on scenes with low motion. I hate how some channels are all scrambled in green and take a few seconds to load but I guess that bug will be fixed eventually.

Now I'm just waiting for UPN and WB, even though I don't watch any shows on them :)
 
GeorgeLV said:
And the much maligned DirecTV HD channels look significantly better than their SD counterpart channels. You're redefining success to a much lower standard with that statement. They can look significantly better than their SD counterpart channels while at the same time looking significantly worse than their OTA counterpart channels.

Ahh, someone that can still think objectivly in a world blinded by subjectivity.

Many just can't get it through their head that just because their garbage might not contain dog sh*t it is, in fact, still garbage.
 
waltinvt said:
Ahh, someone that can still think objectivly in a world blinded by subjectivity.

Many just can't get it through their head that just because their garbage might not contain dog sh*t it is, in fact, still garbage.

Man...I will definitely be using this line here at work.....

.....may have to provide you royalties.....
 
GeorgeLV said:
Did you receive OTA before you got your locals over satellite? NBC looks horrible on some programming most everywhere because of Weather Plus.

Yeah, I still have the OTA hooked up and try to record all that I can off it. Will only use the satellite locals when I gotta record two at the same time.
 
waltinvt said:
Ahh, someone that can still think objectivly in a world blinded by subjectivity.

Many just can't get it through their head that just because their garbage might not contain dog sh*t it is, in fact, still garbage.

Wow, yours must be pretty bad. Did you see his reply? He doesn't have good OTA to compare it to yet. His statement was true as far as it went.

My HD LIL's in Seattle are very good so far. There is a barely noticeable difference between it and OTA. I certainly wouldn't classify it as garbage in any case. Given the amount of processing it's going through, I doubt if I could expect better in comparison to OTA HD. My DishPass seems to be working well with them also.

At least I don't have to put up with the pixelation and drop-outs on KOMO OTA anymore. I have a clear LOS to the 3 towers on Queen Anne Hill 11 miles away and two stations are great and one drops out.

I'm anxious to see how FOX HD looks especially since I can't pick it up OTA. At this point I am pleased with my HD LILs.

Hope yours gets better.
 
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