False Promises of 1080p ?

[Seeker47]

O.K., so I signed up with DirecTV. The reseller's sales agent (because the resellers are extremely prevalent, and I did not know you could purchase directly from DirecTV) went on and on about DirecTV being the "Cadillac of the industry" and having "the most 1080p service you can get anywhere" etc. I got what were supposedly their current top-of-the-line HD DVR receivers. But these receivers only show 1080i as a best resolution option. Isn't that something different and something less ? The plasma set recently delivered is definitely 1080p capable. The HD picture is generally very good or better, but I'm not finding any evidence of 1080p happening here. What's the deal ?

Incidentally, after a fairly bad service glitch, during a non-peak period, I spent 45 minutes on hold waiting for a DirecTV tech support person to pick up, but they never did. (Anyone know if they are among the many companies that outsource tech or customer support overseas ?) This is hardly a promising start to my two year service committment.

[fritzi93]

I've been under the impression that HD cable and sat is 720p and 1080i, and nowhere 1080p, yet. Am I behind the times?

[EDIT] Sorry about the crummy customer support. All the people I know that have DirectTV say the same, but I suppose that may be an unrepresentative sample. No doubt someone will be along presently saying it's great.

[usually_quiet]

Does the programming are you watching claim to be 1080p? I looked at DirecTV's website, because I hadn't heard that they offered 1080p. Reading the bottom of this page http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/contentPageNR.jsp?assetId=3720002&_DARGS=/DTVAPP/...uestid=2330050 it looks like 1080p is only available for some of their on-demand programming, and you have to connect your receiver to the internet to find and order most of it.

[edDV]

O.K., so I signed up with DirecTV. The reseller's sales agent (because the resellers are extremely prevalent, and I did not know you could purchase directly from DirecTV) went on and on about DirecTV being the "Cadillac of the industry" and having "the most 1080p service you can get anywhere" etc. I got what were supposedly their current top-of-the-line HD DVR receivers. But these receivers only show 1080i as a best resolution option. Isn't that something different and something less ? The plasma set recently delivered is definitely 1080p capable. The HD picture is generally very good or better, but I'm not finding any evidence of 1080p happening here. What's the deal ?

I'm not a DirecTV user but from their web page it appears "1080p" is only for on-demand programming sent over the internet. Regular off satellite HDTV programing will be MPeg4 720p/1080i as broadcast.

Several things are required.

1. Your HDTV would need to accept 1080p/24 fps over HDMI.

2. You need their HD-DVR ($199) and connect it to your home broadband internet. There is an additional $25 charge to initiate Pay Per View service.

They don't talk about bit rate but if they could actually deliver "Blu-Ray" quality live, that would require a sustained 20-35 Mb/s internet connection that only FIOS could deliver. Or, they are downloading non-real time so you have to wait for the movie to download before you can view it.

My educated guess is they are not sending these at full Blu-Ray bit rate. If so it would be false advertising. You should be able to tell if the movies they are downloading consume >25GB of your DVR disk. My guess is they are using additional AVC compression to get down to 8-12GB or less which is far from Blu-Ray quality.

24p only means the movies are downloaded without telecine pad fields. Some HDTV sets will accept 24p directly. For others the DVR will add telecine pad fields for 1080i/29.97 then the HDTV will inverse telecine back to 24p. In theory the quality at the display would be the same. Blu-Ray is more about low compression than it is about "24p".





3. You need to set the HDTV and box to 1080p/24. Tell us what it says under "More Info" in the setup menu.

[lowellriggsiam]

They claimed they have the most HD channels, I have never seen them represent that they had ever had 1080p.

[jman98]

This thread kind of reminds of how Comcast at one time (and may still do - not sure) said that they had more HD "channels" or "programming" than anybody else. What they meant was that they counted a bunch of on demand stuff in that total, but if you took on demand away, they were not the champion any more. It does seem clear that DirecTV is offering 1080p only for their on demand service too and Seeker47 seems to have misunderstood or been misled.

[TBoneit]

As well as On-Demand 1080P it is 1080P 24.

Right now they are more interested in pushing their 3D

Was this what happened to you? 6/8/2010 http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=178863
From:
"DIRECTV - DVR users experiencing major issues this morning. More here.

Note: All HR2x DVRs automatically restarted at approximately 2:55pm ET (11:55am PT) in an effort to correct the lockup issue."

[TBoneit]

They claimed they have the most HD channels, I have never seen them represent that they had ever had 1080p.

Both DirecTV and Dishnetwork have some 1080P/24FPS PPV type video. I believe on Dishnetwork it is downloaded onto a reserved portion of the DVRs hard drive.

[edDV]

There are other issues related to "1080p" and "24p" vs. "1080i" as used in satellite up/down links for cable and sat providers. Remember that both come to you over satelite links because long distance fiber doesn't come close to most cable head ends.

In North America, most of the major TV networks offer 720p/59.94 or 1080i/29.97 feeds only. They do this so that channel bandwidth is optimal for both live and 24p movie formats. These formats consume considerable channel bit rate (~19 Mb/s or more).

Dedicated movie networks can be set to constant 24 fps for considerable savings in bit rate, or offer less compression (higher quality) at the same bit rate. Also 24p movies or TV series require less bit rate vs. live programming because of the way they are produced. For this reason, these channels are grouped together and sent 3 at a time to a satellite transponder at about 12 Mb/s average each for MPeg2 or more channels for MPeg4 at ~8 Mb/s. Techniques like "statistical multiplexing" allow the three or more channels to share total transponder bandwidth to dynamically optimize motion demands. So in this context, 24p means cramming more networks into a transponder rather than offering higher picture quality. The set top box receives the 24p streams and converts to the various formats required by the individual home HDTV sets (e.g. 480i/29.97, 480p/59.94, 720p/59.94, 1080i/29.97, 1080p/23.976).

The marketing people will imply "1080p" "24p" "Full HD", etc. means higher quality but in reality it means more channels at similar quality to 1080i.

Contrast this to Blu-Ray which offers the movies at 2x to 3x the bit rate vs. cable/sat for much higher potential picture quality.

[edDV]

This thread kind of reminds of how Comcast at one time (and may still do - not sure) said that they had more HD "channels" or "programming" than anybody else. What they meant was that they counted a bunch of on demand stuff in that total, but if you took on demand away, they were not the champion any more. It does seem clear that DirecTV is offering 1080p only for their on demand service too and Seeker47 seems to have misunderstood or been misled.

DirecTV and Dish talk about HD "channels" because after their conversion to MPeg4, they have more "channels" per transponder and more total HD "channels" vs. a typical cable system. That doesn't mean all their programming was shot in HD. Much of it is upscaled SD.

Cable systems vary locally for total channel capacity and this is a compromise with the amount of analog channels they provide. Each analog channel could be converted to 10 digital SD channels or 2-3 HD channels. A state of art local cable system could offer as many as 450 MPeg2 HD channels if that was all they offered. Instead, about a third of capacity goes to analog, another third to digital SD (including foreign language, sports, VOD, Premium channels etc.) leaving room for ~50-150 HD channels. If they could restrict analog to 30 or so channels, the HD channels could double.

Many communities have older cable technology with far less capacity. The entire ground network needs upgrade to allow more channels. So cable responded with VOD (video on demand) to fill the gap vs. satellite. They offered this service free to all digital subscribers so IMO they are justified to count VOD in the HD program total vs. satellite providers. When you count "channels" satellite wins. When you count HD programs available, cable wins by far. Plus the VOD programs are available instantly on your schedule vs. programming a DVR.

Dish and DirecTV can't offer VOD over satellite except for a few popular movies due to limited satelite transonders. So they are trying to compete with internet sourced VOD to DVRs. Cable does it through their network with local servers. No internet required.