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Topic:
Directv looks bad on a HDTV
This thread has 11 replies. Displaying all posts.
Post 1 made on Saturday October 22, 2005 at 09:18
jimdoo
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Does anyone else have issues with Directv PQ on a HDTV? For some reason my new Sanyo HDTV has a great looking pic on OTA hd - when I compare Directv - DTV looks horrible. I thought Directv was an all digital quality pic and sound. It looked fine on my old analog Tv. I know this is partially due to the resolution capability of my new set- However it really makes DTV look bad.
Post 2 made on Saturday October 22, 2005 at 18:26
Daniel Tonks
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Some HDTVs do a better job of SD upconversion than others. And "digital" means nothing in terms of a standard of quality. :-)

Play around with the TV's settings to try and "smooth" out DirecTV's image (which is generally better than Dish but worse than properly done digital cable). How do DVDs look?
Post 3 made on Saturday October 22, 2005 at 21:39
Ernie Bornn-Gilman
Yes, That Ernie!
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Sadly, you probably were not shown NTSC on that TV in the showroom before you bought it. Since there is still so much NTSC out there in videotapes and plain old satellite receivers and cable boxes, not showing those signals is about the closest thing to hornswoggling I've seen in years.

I think the TV manufacturers are not putting much money into making SD, that is plain old NTSC, look good. It is comparable to AM radio; there were some GREAT sounding AM radios, and I once had one that pulled in Chicago (I'm in L.A.), but once FM and its obvious high fidelity appeal came in, well, anybody listen to the AM quality on a flagship A/V receiver lately?

DirecTV is definitely digital, but its transmission of NTSC analog pictures is much like playing 78 rpm records on FM. You can hear the noise in great hi fi, and sometimes the recording quality sucks. To see the best that SD can look, keep watching the HD channels, especially network programming (where, unfortunately, DirecTV has not got much going for it). SD looks pretty good on an HD channel.

But HD coming out of a satellite box on the channel 3, analog $2.50 modulator inside a satellite receiver will look better on a TV tube than the best DirecTV non-HD channel on most new HDTVs...on their analog inputs. And a couple of generations ago, it looked even worse!

Hopefully you are soon to be in the position to get or change to a new A/V receiver, which will upconvert NTSC to 4801 or even 480p component, so you won't have to use the crummy part of your TV to show those programs.
A good answer is easier with a clear question giving the make and model of everything.
"The biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." -- G. “Bernie” Shaw
Post 4 made on Monday October 24, 2005 at 14:38
serpantor
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Well I know from experience that my sat looked like crap when I ran the standard coax into my tv. even the red/white/yellow AV cables look crappy. The best I could do with the dishnet 3100 is connect it to my s-video input which is capable of a pure digital signal. Its not 480p but it looks damn good. Digital sat is about 500 lines res (dvd) quality on average. I'd check the connection on the back of the sat receiver and see if you have s-video output. If you do I'm sure your HD tv has a s-video input as well. try setting it up that way. If you have already set it up this way then I am sorry about your bad picture quality and suggest investing a bit of money into avia's guide to home theatre. I noticed a huge difference when I set up a friends HD system from analog cable (COAX) to a digital cable box using component. S-video is as close to component as you can get.
Here is a AV chart that sony put in my tv manual from worst pic quality to best
COAX (standard cable feed) (unless it RG6 from antenna feed for HD)
Composite (Red/White/Yellow)
S-video
component
DVI
HDMI (dvi/hdmi are pretty much the same although the new hd-dvd blue ray discs support a new 1080p resolution standard that is apparantly going to travel via HDMI

Good Luck
More digital content please
Post 5 made on Tuesday October 25, 2005 at 13:34
Spiky
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Svideo is not digital. Nor can it transmit HD material, so many skip it with an HDTV from their HD cable/sat box. Shouldn't be any issue with doing this.

Digital sat is only CAPABLE of 480 lines of resolution. But resolution is not the end-all factor in picture quality. DirecTV tends to compress the channels so much it doesn't matter what the resolution is, they still look bad on an HDTV. Soft and occasionally macro-blocking is visible. I see this on a 20" TV, on my big screen it is not worth watching. I don't think Dish is as bad right now, but that is from what others tell me so I can't really say.
Post 6 made on Tuesday October 25, 2005 at 14:59
serpantor
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I didn't say it could transmit HD. but if it isn't digital I take back my statement above. S-video is as close to digital as you'll get if you sat receiver isn't HD. I don't know what model you have or how you've wired it into you're TV. Perhaps you could let us know how you have connected the TV to help you better.
More digital content please
OP | Post 7 made on Tuesday October 25, 2005 at 15:37
jimdoo
Long Time Member
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Thanks for all of the input - My DTV receiver is not HD- (not ready for the extra $11 + $5/ month for the extra receiver for not all that much choice in programming. I'm enjoying the FREE OTA right now. As for my connections - I'm using s-video to my a/v receiver then to my HDTV. Dont get me wrong the pq is not horrible - it is viewable -however especially on locals at time the pic is grainy/ washed out and generally less than half the quality of the pq of ota hd.
Post 8 made on Wednesday October 26, 2005 at 11:15
Spiky
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You would need a better scaler than your TV to get a better pic. But it still wouldn't be great. As I mentioned, D* doesn't do a very good job. I think their assumption is "how will it look on a 27" analog TV?" To most people, that looks just fine right now so they feel justified in compressing the hell out of it. Whenever I compare my local channels in SD from D* and from antenna, it is shocking. It's like they've taken that 480i resolution capability and are using a 3rd of it. I simply don't watch SDTV where I care about the PQ on my HDTV. I've got a 20" for that. For instance, the Colts game last weekend was not in HD, so I didn't watch it on the big screen. I don't want to be distracted by bad picture when I'm that into the show.
Post 9 made on Wednesday October 26, 2005 at 15:54
serpantor
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Speaking of football, WIVB's second game on sunday Buffalo Vs Oakland wasn't in HD either...Crap! and the damn CBC's hockey night in canada is a joke, line double on the HD channel to look like a bad digital transmission
More digital content please
Post 10 made on Wednesday October 26, 2005 at 15:58
serpantor
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On another note...I would tend not to run my sat to a AV reciever and then to the TV. I'd would send it straight to the TV from the sat box. If its a good TV it'll do a better job than a AV recieverTV combo...its cleaner that way...unless its mega $$$ receiver. I only start running things into the AV receiver if I've run out of inputs on my TV..but with 7 on my tv...its more than I need.
More digital content please
Post 11 made on Friday November 11, 2005 at 00:15
DPD1
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On 10/25/05 13:34 ET, Spiky said...

Digital sat is only CAPABLE of 480 lines of resolution.
But resolution is not the end-all factor in picture
quality. DirecTV tends to compress the channels
so much it doesn't matter what the resolution
is, they still look bad on an HDTV. Soft and occasionally
macro-blocking is visible. I see this on a 20"
TV, on my big screen it is not worth watching.
I don't think Dish is as bad right now, but that
is from what others tell me so I can't really
say.

Many of the channels still look bad on ANYTHING. I have Dish, and I was shocked when I realized how much compression was being used on some channels. I live right in the city, which has good reception for about 12 local channels... So I can reluctantly use an antenna (which is ridiculous) to get the locals on-air, and have better PQ. But what really gets me, is that they use high compression on popular channels that are not locals as well... SciFi, Spike and others... I can actually see the frame rate start dropping in low light scenes on SciFi. I'm not using anything fancy for monitors, so I can imagine how the people with the big buck sets feel. They don't even bother cranking up the bandwidth on big 3 network sporting events, which are typically using the best capture technology, producing excellent images... Then it all gets filtered through the provider and turned into a quicktime movie.

It's kind of upsetting when you think of all the technology that's happening now days, and in the end, you get a worse picture then was available 20 years ago. Supposedly they're putting up another sat in a couple months... But they'll probably just use the extra bandwidth for more shopping channels. They claim they did a poll, asking people which would they rather have... Better picture, or more channels. Apparently most people have poor vision, because they all asked for more channels.

Dave
Post 12 made on Friday November 11, 2005 at 22:26
avslave
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Another point to take into consideration is having HD channels OTA and comparing that to the SD channels. The HD channels look so nice that suddenly you will notice the imperfectections of a measly 480 lines of resolution.
It takes 2 to tango, but only one to be nice!,
A/V Slave


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