Is it just me or has DirecTV changed its compression programs. The quality of most channels, i.e. slow moving darker scenes, has ghost images and shifting. This happens on all three recievers. (A50, 2 B50)

Is it because of all the new DD broadcasts??

Steve

Dunno, Steve. Haven't noticed it here, and haven't see more grumbling than usual over on www.dbsforums.com ...

I am a recent DirectTv customer & I have noticed poor picture quality on my 36" Sony Wega TV. I have noticed that this quality problem occurs on broadcasts that have a lot of physical movement. Sport broadcasts typically look horrible. It seems that moving objects do not appear crisp, but rather blurry. I have swapped out every cable and upgraded to monster cable. I am using s-video connections, and nothing seems to make a difference. I am considering going back to cable because that picture looks better.

Simple.....

>>>>>> from another thread......
DISH technically has a better picture since it uses MPEG2 100% of the time on all channels. Direct does not. In fact, Direct is nicknamed MPEG1.5 by many in the industry. Direct varys it's data compression scheme on the fly on a demand basis using modified versions of MPEG1 and MPEG2. Direct sells their bandwidth for business transmissions (including data), and, if the need arises will rob Peter to pay Paul. Ever notice the PPV stations never look bad? HBO also uses their muscle to not get played with.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


y'all need to switch to Dish

Junebug -

Nice selective quoting of disputed information.

In particular, DirecTV started before the MPEG2 protocal was finalized, hence what it is using is not MPEG2. When MPEG2 was finalized it was very close to what DirecTV was already doing. The differences have to do with data coding not data sampling or compression, so in and of themselves the differences do not affect picture quality. BOTH major providers vary bandwidth assigned to any given channel on the fly according to the needs of the system at the time, although the choice of when and how may differ. Over on www.dbsforums.com the consensus of people who have both systems seems to be that picture quality today is about comparable between DirecTV and DiSH, with DiSH being slightly softer with muted colors. Most fine either vastly superior to their local cable.

I suggest anybody interested read the entire thread themselves, not just the portion quoted by Junebug: [Link: remotecentral.com] Pay particular attention to Dean's responses to Randy.

Scott - the bigger the screen the more apparent digital artifacts are going to be with either system. You might want to turn your sharpness setting back a bit and see if that helps.

As i stated in another thread, i had the same problems with my dss. I have a Sony SAT a-50 receiver and an RCA 52" television. The only way i got rid of the problem was to eliminate all bulkhead connectors in the walls and replace the RG-59 cable with RG-6 cable. I don't have the pixelization problems anymore. NFL sunday ticket comes in clear!!!

I have a dual LNB with a 4 way signal splitter with no noticeable signal degradation after i did all of that.

You won't notice the problems with Direct TV so long as you just LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS!

I heard about it for so long and heard how great it was and finally got it ... but when it was all said and done ..... it's just TV with a bit better picture and a lot more channels (which is not necessarily a good thing since it becomes cumbersome manipulating all those channels)

I Love Lucy is B&W and in mono ----- don't expect it to be any different on satellite TV, just enjoy it. :-)

Makai Guy,

Here we go again! I suggest you reread the entire thread too since you seem to think Dean's comments contradict mine. Dean (nor anyone) ever commented back on my last response to Dean:

.........last post to Dean...........

Again we are stating much the same thing using different wording. DirecTV uses an adaptive data rate with a propreitary compression scheme using statistical multiplexers. This is done in response to bandwidth needs as stated in my original post. Dropping the bit rates on a lossy compression scheme DOES affect picture quality and DirecTV has dropped their rates to ones "approaching MPEG1 quality", thus the comment "modified MPEG1" and the MPEG1.5 nickname. Kind of like comparing VHS to SVHS. I never meant to imply they were using MPEG1. DirecTV has fewer allocated transponder slots (even with the USSB and Primestar purchases) and offers more channels, so the math comes out against them.

DISH has stated that they do not use an adaptive data rate on any of their "standard" programming, premium channels or PPV channels. They do vary the business, music and subleased ones. Maybe you know something newer or have inside info.

As far as the name MPEG1.5....maybe it isn't fair, but it IS what the industry has dubbed it, not me!

..........end of copy from other thread...........

So, Makai Guy, do you have any different info or has DISH's policy changed to where they too now vary the standard, premium or PPV channel data rates?

I have owned both and see much less pixelization on DISH than DIRECT. I too agree that DISH is a tad softer but feel that DISH is more correct and consistent on color saturation if you use Video Essentials as a guideline. But, both use NTSC as the source and compress it so both have inherent problems.

When I view on my 10" or 32" they both look great. When I view on my Runco DTV-5801c (65" rear projection) or my Runco DTV-1101 with a VFC-4404 Ultra with a Stewart 110" 16:9 screen, they show a lot of flaws. HDTV and DVD are both superb! My cable feed sucks (only have it for the cable modem which is down a lot..thanks AT&T!).

The bottom line is that I agree that either is superior to cable and that the differences have gotten smaller as new generation receivers have come out. The other thread covers the pros and cons of one versus the other pretty well so I won't go into details.

randy

Check you Picture/Sharpness settings. Sharpness intended to "improve" the image quality when using composite video. It is addding distortion to somewhat emulate sharpeness. Adjust your settings to a very low setting if your are using s-video and you picture should clear up alot.

I don't claim to know all the technical ins and outs. I DO know enough to see when only one side of a contentious thread is quoted as gospel. That's why I referred people to read the whole thread and make up their own minds.

As I only own the Dish (6000 & 4000), I haven't had the opportunity to do a side by side comparison with DirecTV but I have seen plenty of displays in stores showing what DirecTV can deliver. From what I have seen of DirecTV, my personal feeling is the Dish has a more "watchable" picture. By this I mean a more stable (less pixelization, blocking), consistent colors, and more detail. Do I get truer colors on the Dish? Maybe, maybe not. By using the video essentials DVD mention earlier, I feel I can get the best (consumer adjusted) picture possible from my Mitsubishi 50703.

I have seen pixelization, blocking on the Dish but ONLY during a heavy rain/snow storm. I was just commenting this weekend about the outstanding quality of reception I get for both prerecorded shows (Discovery channel special on Mammoths) and live broadcast (boxing). The premium channels & pay for view (some with Dolby Digital surround sound) are truly awesome. The only sports I really watch on satellite are the fights (HBO & Showtime, Max) and I got tell you, they are fantastic. Think about the long horizontal lines the ropes create, then imagine them being crystal clear without any hint of jagged edges, fully textured and in a deep clean red color without any bleeding. Contrast this with my local channels that can not even get a straight 50 yard line drawn for my Packer games. It may not be HDTV but it's pretty damn good.

I did take Makai Guy's suggestion and read thru the thread: [Link: remotecentral.com]. I'm sorry Makai Guy, but I did not read anything there that change my opinion of DirecTV or that contradicted what Junebug was saying earlier. What I did read and found troubling, was the fact that MPG 2.0 standard not being finalized when DirecTV was introduced was somehow a reason why DirecTV does not embrace the standard. How long has this standard been out? I know I have had the Dish for over 3 years, that Dish has always been MPG 2.0 and that the thread in question was written in August of 2000. So how long does it take to upgrade a system?

Isn't the difference between MPEG 1.0 and 2.0 just a firmware upgrade as suggested in the original thread? If that is the case, then why hasn't DirecTV updated their system? Why haven't they upgraded their customers receivers? I can tell that the Dish has made a considerable investment improving the signal compression they use. This has been stated on past Charlie Chats and confirmed with my own high quality reception. I can also tell you that that my receivers firmware has been upgraded multiple times over the last year. One example would be a download that gave me the ability to use caller ID and have the number of the caller display on the TV from my receiver. Then there was the new signal meters because changes to the system had pegged the old ones and the support for multiple switching boxes to add even more flexibility to the system. Does DirecTV even have the ability to do firmware upgrades via the phone?

It's like Junebug says buy the Dish...

JO

I had a long reponse typed out but danged if a computer lockup didn't cause me to lose the whole blasted thing. No way I'm gonna retype, so everyone can consider themselves spared. (Yes the original was even longer than this one.)

From all I've read, the manner of handling resolution, color depth, compression, etc, used by DirecTV came from the same sources used as the basis of what eventually became the MPEG 2.0 standard. What differed when the standard was issued was the manner in which the data packets themselves are formatted for transmission. Now I have not read the documents themselves but only explanations of this from seemingly knowledgeable individuals over on www.dbsforums.com -- anybody wanting to argue details should go to them. I am told that the actual image handling by DirecTV is basically same as with MPEG 2.0. But if this is true then it is not the variance from MPEG 2.0 that may differentiate the picture quality between providers, but how they have chosen to implement the inherent and defined variables of the system under MPEG 2.0. If one chooses to compress the snot out of the picture the quality degrades - no surprise there. But doing this can be done within the confines of the MPEG 2.0 standard. When Dish chooses to compress something to hell and gone, as they have done at times too, the MPEG 2.0 compliance doesn't somehow save it.

Why hasn't DirecTV changed to this exact standard? If my understanding of the differences is correct, there is no reason to obsolete millions of receivers in a way that won't affect picture quality or bandwidth required, only the manner in which the data is transmitted. Many of the early RCA receivers cannot be updated by software transmission. There are some benefits of not being the first out of the chute sometimes -- software upgradeability is something Dish had from the beginning, but now DirecTV is stuck needing to have everything continue to work with generation 1 units. Backwards compatibility is a pain sometimes, just ask Microsoft.

While reading up on this stuff I also ran across a related piece of information. Reportedly, Dish uses a 480x480 matrix of rectangular pixels to represent the full screen, while DirecTV uses 640x480 square pixels. (Actually, what I found said 720x480 but I think this is in error -- square pixels would be 640x480 for a 4:3 screen ratio.) With fewer pixels/screen this could explain the "softness" of the Dish picture that many report when comparing the two - on a good picture without excessive compression where the system is working up to its potential, the DirecTV picture will have 1/3 more detail-carrying pixels. There are many other things that also affect our perception of sharpness, such as color depth, but I found this interesting. All else being equal, this may mean that since Dish starts out with a narrower datastream, they don't then need to compress it as far as DirecTV does to get to the same bandwidth (both are supposedly averaging around 10 channels per transponder). How we each react and judge the overall effect may well be a highly individual perception.

But NONE of this is reponsive to the original poster who asked basically, "is DirecTV's picture lately worse than it used to be?". Quoting the MPEG stuff was not responsive to this query and suggesting a different provider to the person whose system is installed already was not helpful.

Personal Opinion:
Thanks for the extra effort Makai Guy. As always, your posts are informative and helpful. I would like to suggest however, with the current aggressive marketing being done by Dish that switching providers is a viable alternative.

With an existing system the home already wired and ready to go. Installation costs would be minimal if not free. Depending on the receiver you want that too can be free or at a greatly reduced price. If Steve feels he has done everything to improve is current system and it still is not at a level that is acceptable to his eyes, then he has little alternative but to make the switch.

The decision tree here goes something like: are you happy with what you have? If not, then fix it. If it can't be fixed, replace it...
JO

I've always recommended that people in the market should visit dealers so they can form their own impressions and opinions. Different people react differently to the same display, and strong preferences can be formed for one user interface over another.

In the several years I've been following this, both providers have gone thru major swings in perceived quality as they've added new channels thus crowding their bandwidth and having to implement greater levels of compression. Then as new and (usually) improved compression schemes are implemented, and bandwith allocations between channels and transponders gets fine tuned, things improve back again. Neither is delivering the image quality they were several years ago, but this is the price of having all those extra niche channels that nobody watches and local channels taking up everybody's bandwidth but that only a few can get. As mentioned above, the consensus of those on dbsforums that have both systems installed and can thus make reasonably good comparisons is that the pictures from the two suppliers do have some differing characteristics, but the overall perceived quality is about the same today. Of course, this could change tomorrow in either direction.

So I guess I'd revise your protocol to something like

• Are you happy with what you have?
• If not, fix it if you can.
• If it can't be fixed, see if there is something else that actually suits you better.
• If there is something that suits you better, consider switching.

Dang - it's amazing what you can find when you keep digging.

Re - screen resolution.

The 720x480 figure for DirecTV was correct. Actual NTSC screen resolution is 720x540 (4:3), but 60 of those scan lines contain interframe information not part of the picture, so the remaining pixel array, which DirecTV apparently uses unchanged, is 720x480, 50% more pixels than Dish's 480x480. As compression causes individual pixels to be displayed the same as some of their neighbors, we have to look at both of these as maximum capabilities only, but it appears the DirecTV system has the potential for the sharper picture.

Thanks to Dan Collins at www.dbsforums.com for the explanation.