Football:Horrid Locals, Excellent ESPN ??? (1 Viewer)

[Matt Heebner]

Anyone experiencing this?? I was watching football yesterday, and my local channel (FOX) looked totally horrid, it looked almost black and white the colors were so washed out. It was also suffering from severe blurriness. (I think it was the Minn/Philly game) Now, I have had satellite for about 4 years, and I know that the locals are very compressed and always look bad but damn, this was at an almost unacceptable level!
Then I turn on the ESPN Sunday night game...Oakland/Seattle game and damn....looks incredible. Vibrant colors, very sharp image, about as good as I've ever seen with satellite. Total opposites.
Anyone else getting this same type of differences in quality, or even just with local football games?
For the record, this is DirecTv on a 55" Mits 16:9 widescreen.
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NO OAR...NO SALE/NO RENTAL!

 

[JoshWB]

I also have the mitsu 55" diamond series HDTV. I also use directv and I use a mitsu 500 STB. I did not have that problem, but I watched it through the NFL ticket. I did change over to the local to show a friend the difference, and it was a little worse, but nothing like you described, so you might want to check that out. The locals are obviously never as good, because of the compression, but it shouldnt look like you described it.

 

[Matt Heebner]

It must be on DirecTv's end because I have signal strength in the mid 90's. It only seems that bad for Sunday Football on FOX, not even CBS (local) football games look that bad. I am using the RCA 480drde sat. box. Maybe I need a HD box...

Matt
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NO OAR...NO SALE/NO RENTAL!

 

[JoshWB]

It might be the STB. I use the Mitsu HD-500. It is absolutely wonderful. I tried the Toshiba box at first, because it was cheaper, but the Mitsu is much better, and offers so many more features. But I do have the NFL ticket, and of course those games look wonderful, but I have not had too much trouble with the local games either.

 

[Judson West]

ESPN has always been excellent. I believe they broadcast all digital whereby the locals are analog-digital-analog.

 

[Joe Tompkins]

This has been my exact experience. My signal

is 96%, yet the NFL ticket channels are really

a mess. I have two receivers, the Dolby Digital

one in my HT room with a Panasonic ct34wx50, the

extra in the family room with a 10 year old Zenith.

The Zenith looks better!!

Some of the "cable type" channels are pretty poor

also. SciFi is not that good.

I have yet to take the HD plunge even though my

set is capable. I'm too far away for OTA HD and

don't want to put up an outdoor ant. even if that

would help.

I'm seriously considering the Panasonic STB now that

it's dropped to 499. That would give me HBO-HD,

but no local HD, right???

Joe T.

 

[Matt Heebner]

I am not familiar with the Panasonic HD STB, but I believe that most all of them have a OTA input for local HD with an antenna.

Matt

 

[JohnDG]

Matt,

This is pretty much the way it is. The local channels are overly compressed by DirecTV. The national local channels (out of N.Y. and L.A) are better (NFL Direct Ticket will use these for the "national" games), with ESPN being the best when it comes to NFL viewing.

Hopefully this will improve in a couple of years if the merger goes through: more bandwidth.

jdg

 

[Andy L]

Hopefully this will improve in a couple of years if the merger goes through: more bandwidth.

Actually, its expected that this will improve in just a few weeks when the new spot beam satellite that DirecTV just launched comes online. This satellite allows transponders to be reused many times across the country since it beams 38 separate spots, each of which only has to carry the local channels for that spot. While the main purpose of the new satellite is to meet must-carry requirements, significant extra bandwidth will also be made available. Based upon interviews with DirecTV and opinions of those more knowledgable than I, it appears that DirecTV is going to use some of this extra bandwidth to decrease compression thus improving picture quality. How much they decrease compression remains to be seen.

 

[Bob Monio]

There have been several messages about this new DirecTV satellite coming on-line. Will we need to do anything to access it or will it be automatic?

I, too, see the differences in the channels. I am using Sony A55's and there is a noticable difference between the local channels and ESPN when I'm watching a simulcast of a local game (sunday night football with the Vikings was that way). The MNF game tonite with the Packers on ABC was pretty bad when it showed wide field shots but the graphics were fine.

I'd be interested in learning more about this new satellite that is going up - where is it documented?

-Bob

 

[Matt Heebner]

I agree. The MNF (Pack vs. Jags)game looked horrid again, Field shots looked like crap. I ended up going to my brothers bar to watch it on an old Mits 60". The Sunday night ESPN game looked great! Colors were vibrant, and edges were sharp...not that "compression" look to it.

I hope that this new spot beam sat. goes up or becomes operational soon!

Matt

 

[Mark Rogo]

You will not need to do anything for the new bird. It will do the following:

All locals, except for some or all for New York and L.A., that are on 101 will move to "spot beams" that will only hit their general geographic area. In other words, Seattle locals will not even hit the ground in Kansas anymore. This will allow a range of frequencies to be reused over and over. It is expected that DirecTV will reserve 2-3 frequencies for this purpose and spread the channels over 36 unique spots.

This will mean that instead of using 8-9 national frequencies for locals, that will drop to 3 max. The result is 5-6 "freed up" transponders. As a result, DirecTV will probably offer a new pack of channels, but also will be able to reduce compression by nearly 20% on the remaining national channels.

Locals will also see compression drop, but it's been really hard for me to calculate exactly how much. They current carry 41 markets and claim to be adding 280 channels, or 7 per market. If that average holds for the satellite at 101, which carries 28 markets (or is it 29?), that'd be an average of 11 channels per market or 308 channels total for locals.

With 38 spot-beam transponders, DirecTV would average roughly 8 channels per transponder, even for locals. The end result would be a much, much, much more beautiful picture than you get today, where >10 channels are shoved on each transponder for locals.

Mark

 

[Bob Monio]

This is great news. I was looking over the configurations for my A55's the other evening and noticed that I could select Satellite A or B (although I stuck with A as the technician had originally set it up). If the switchover is automatic then I won't have to worry about making and channels.

And perhaps the degradation on the local channels - as well as the dithering we sometimes see due to compression - will go away on others (You can see it on TVLand quite a bit).

Thanks for the info!

-Bob

 

[Dane_D]

I am still on the fence on getting Direct TV when I get my new Mits RPTV. Football is a HUGE issue in my case, I already have several people coming over for the SuperBowl, anyone have any thoughts as to how the reception will be for that? Will it be HD? Will it be over the locals or is it available on NFL ticket? Sorry for all of the questions, but I am spending $4700 for the TV and accessories, if I shell out another $1200 for the dish, receiver, etc. and it doesn't come in well, especialy the Bowl, my wife will have my head.