DirecTV or my Toshiba 50h81? (1 Viewer)

[KurtZ]

Hi All,

I just received and set up my new Toshiba 50h81 last Thursday. Wow! The picture I get using my Toshiba 4700 DVD player via component video is incredible! Which leads me to believe my problem is with DirecTV and not my 50h81, but I wanted to see if anyone else has seen the issue described below.

I used my Avia disk to calibrate everything. My DirecTV connection (via S-Video) looks good most of the time, but occasionaly goes from a nice "focused" image to a slight "pixelated" blur. My normal sitting position is 12'-13' from the screen. I am guessing that DirecTV is "playing" with the bandwidth on certain channels. Certain channels, particularly the movie channels like HBO, don't seem to exhibit this same issue. But when I watch my local channels (via DirecTV), ESPN, History channel, etc. the problem appears. If I stand back about 20' the picture looks great.

I then went back and checked my old Magnavox MX 27" in the bedroom and if I get real close and watch I think I could see the same thing happening.

I was just wondering if anyone else has seen this same behavior?

Thanks,

Kurt

P.S. I will never go back to Time-Warner cable. I've been a DirecTV customer for 4 years. When I first switched to DirecTV I had the chance to do direct A-B comparisons between regular cable and DirecTV (not S-video). There was no comparison, DirecTV was MUCH better in both sound and picture. With DirecTV on S-video it was hard for my wife to tell the difference between DVD and DBS. I haven't had a chance to do a direct comparison to digital cable, but I can't imagine it being much better than DBS on S-video. Besides that, for me to get the same services on cable that I currently have on DirecTV, I would have to pay an additional $30/month. Also, cable doesn't carry NFL Sunday ticket, which is one of the reasons I went with DirecTV in the first place (I'm a Bear fan living in Austin, TX). Now if they would only carry all NFL games in HD on NFL Sunday ticket...

 

[MikeyWeitz]

Welcome to the notoriously cruddy world of Sat transmission. I dont have direct Tv, I have Dish, but the problem you are seeing is major compression due to lack of bandwidth. The sat providers have to offer all of the local channels and unfortunatly, dont have the abitlity to upgrade their bandwidth (unless they launch another Sat which they are (Dish just did anyway) so they have to compress the signal soo much to fit all the channels in that the pic quality really suffers. Some channels look GREAT on my Sat (Discovery seems to be one of the best), but some look like real doo-doo (ESPN). Problem is our sets (I have the Samsung TSL3294hf, which I LUV) are sooo good, that you really get to see how crappy a signal you are getting. The bigger the TV and especially an HDTV capable set, the worse a bad signal looks.

 

[Quentin]

YES! I have exactly the same problem. God, the Simpsons on FOX looks horrible! Thankfully, I will get all the seasons on DVD.

Would upgrading the dish to an "oval dish" help this problem?

 

[MikeyWeitz]

Nope, the problem lies within the compression itself. The only way it will change is when the Sat providors have more bandwidth to use and use less compression on the signal. Since it is digital signal, you either get it or you don't. Their is no inbetween quality wise.

 

[KurtZ]

Thanks Folks,

Exactly what I thought... I guess it's time to buy an HDTV tuner...

-Kurt