I don't find that to be the case at all. What is your signal strength on the 129 bird? I love the HD channels and go out of the way to watch it. I leave the 622 receiver set to output 720p, as that is my TV's native resolution anyway. I noticed no difference in the 1080i signal.

Interesting, we were just saying how much better the pic looked over cable.

You sure the connections and set up is 100%??

Sometimes (and this is what the installer told me... dont know if it is a load of crap or not) the connectors that the existing cable are cruddy and will comprimise the signal...

Now this is what I was told by the installer. He wasnt selling me anything so there was no "But you will get a better picture if you pay extra... yada yada" Not at all, he just changed them and that was it... same price.

Just trying to help.

It might attenuate the signal through the bad connector, but the signal is digital - you either got it or you don't. If you have a poor signal, you'll continuously get dropouts as the tuner is either able to pull in the signal or not.

There could be a couple of issues.

1. Both Dish and DTV have their "premium" channels (i.e., the original HD channels) on their old Ku-band, MPEG v2 infrastructure.  This is necessary due to all of the legacy equipment that's still out there.  MPEG v2 is fine for SDTV, but does a poor job at higher data rates that HDTV needs.

DTV's *local* HD channels are broadcast via brand new Ka-band, MPEG v4 satellites, and look much better.  All channels will *eventually* be on this system, but we are years away from that, for a number of reasons, several of which are out of anyone's control.

2.  If you are not watching the programming in the same resolution it was shot/broadcast in, then either your receiver or your TV is up- or down-converting the signal.  You can usually set the receiver to either output everything in one resolution (most people force all output to 1080i), or you can set it into "Native" mode, so that the receiver sends to the TV whatever resolution the content is broadcast in, and let's the TV handle any necessary conversion.  In some cases, you will get a better picture this way, but you will also have your display switching modes all the time, and you may have to ride the "format" button on your TV to match the output.

3.  Some types of display technology (LCD in particular) don't look very good in anything but their native resolution.  So, if you have a large LCD or Plasma that can do 1920x1080, you may find that 720P content doesn't look nearly as good.  And for smaller displays that have actual resolutions of 1280x720, you'll find that 1080i doesn't look so great.  Tube TVs suffer the least from this problem, and LCDs the most, with other technologies somewhere in the middle.

Can you describe the specific problems you are seeing?

-Troy

Quoted: Troy, you're scaring me from upgrading to HD. It sounds like too many things are thrown into the mix.

There ARE a lot of things thrown into the mix, and most consumers are totally clueless.

With SDTV, you only had one resolution and one aspect ratio, so you never had to even think about those things, must less ADJUST them.  HDTV has multiple resolutions (480i [SDTV], 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p), and most TVs have several settings for aspect ratio/zoom/format.

Then, you'll eventually need to upgrade all of your related AV equipment to handle HD signals.  Your cable box or satellite receiver, your DVD player, your DVR (if separate), and possibly your audio receiver.  Oh, and I guess I should mention video game consoles as well.

And depending on how many inputs your TV has and what type, you may need a switch box in order to get them all connected properly.

I won't even go into all of the various types of displays, and their strengths and weaknesses.

Yes, it IS somewhat complicated, especially given that we are still in the transition period between formats, so lots of things are still changing.  In a couple of years, things will have settled out considerably, and manufacturers can work to simplify certain things, such as reducing the amount of analog inputs and increasing the number of HDMI inputs on all TVs.

Still, HDTV can be a great experience TODAY.  You just need to realize its limitations and complexities.  And by doing some research and planning BEFORE you buy, you can make sure your TV has the features and connections that you'll need now and going forward.

A couple of months ago, we did an HD upgrade at a McMansion where the guy had 2 large professional plasma monitors, for which he paid $42,000 EACH.  But they were 4 years old, and had only one set of analog component inputs.  When I explained that he'll need a converter box to hook up his 2 HDMI components (sat receiver and HD-DVD player), he decided that he's just gonna replace them with modern units...    I left him my card in case he wants to get rid of those old, obsolete displays...

-Troy

Quoted: Troy, I see no provision in my 622 receiver (Dish) for native resolution. I can change it, but I see no way to have it select the native resulotion for whatever I may be watching.

I'm not as familiar with the featureset on the Dish receivers, so, yeah, that feature may not be available.

Blu Ray content is EFFFING AMAZING SHITE

Yes indeed!

Interestingly enough, I did a local channel scan using the Dish reciever and found a number of locals that are digital. Problem is NONE of them are in HD. Digital, just not in HD format (muddy screeen, 4.3 aspect).

Keep in mind that 80% of the shows on your local networks are sindicated shows shot in SD.  The only HD content is found during prime-time hours and the "late night" shows like Leno.

It's the same reason that the other networks aren't available in HD yet; 90-100% of their content is old shows shot in SD.

-Troy

The Dish 622 receiver can do 480i - 480p - 720p - 1080i.

One other question: Are you going through HDMI or component? I had to switch to component for a while, and thought the picture wasn't as good as through HDMI, although I admit that wasn't exactly a double-blind test.

Quoted: ...what I DO get ishow the HD pic changes when I adjust the image by pressing one of the remote buttons. The HD channels would look better in some forms than others. I dunno why. I just know which button to push. That button changed the screen completly. Considering we have 5 remotes, I'm happy I can remember which damn button to push so I can see every blade of grass on the Eagle's 50 yard line.

Logitech Harmony. Best remote EVER. I <3 mine.

Quoted: Quoted: Logitech Harmony. Best remote EVER. I <3 mine. Had it, didn't work with my system, took it back...  Looked cool, though!

Didn't WORK? Good grief! Why wouldn't it work? Hell - it controls my powered subwoofer (off brand) that I bought many years ago. Even that thing was in the database!

I wonder how long it will be until 1080p is broadcast. They're having a hard enough time getting "regular" HD (720p/1080i) content out, so moving up to 1080p will take quite a bit of time I bet. The badwidth issue alone probably causes the cable/sat providers nightmares.

All of the latest HD channels provided on Dish are MPEG-4, so that helps. Like Troy said - they have to keep the rest in MPEG-2 due to legacy equipment out there. There might come a time where they force you to trade in your old(er) HD receivers to one that does MPEG-4, but that's speculating.

Quoted: After some time on Discovery HD, I notice no pixelation on that channel. It's usually on HDNET during concerts. Weird.

Concerts and dance club scenes are absolutely going to be a problem, especially given that HDNet is still MPEG v2 on both Dish and DTV.  MPEG compression works so well because most of the time, not a whole lot of information changes from one frame of video to the next, so MPEG compression only has to record/transmit information for those pixels that have changed.

But when you have any type of content where every pixel on the screen is constantly changing, the information can't be compressed enough to be squeezed into the limited bandwidth, and so you start getting compresion artifacts (the blocky pixelation).

Concerts and dance club scenes in movies, along with certain types of sports shots (auto racing, basketball, hockey) often have too much movement going on, especially for MPEG v2.

Concerts and dance clubs use foggers/hazers to make the colored lighting visible, causing frame-to-frame changes of virtually every pixel on the screen.  And when they pan out into the crowd, the whole crowd is in motion.

For the sports scenes, you get lots of shots of the camera following the cars while the fans in the seats blur by, or vice versa with the cars bluring by.  And with fast-moving sports, the camera again pans around the crowd a lot, all causing data overload to the encoder.  DirecTV, for example, puts fewer HD channels per transponder for sports programming for this reason, giving those channels more raw bandwidth to work with.

MPEG v4 does a much better job handling the data rates needed for HDTV, so the problems on channels encoded with it are greatly minimized, but you may still see occasional problems.  But as long as HD and MPEG v2 are combined, you can expect to see more artifacts more often.  The problem will eventually get fixed (figure about 3 years from now), but you'll have to live with it for now.

-Troy