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Did not where to put this post, but this seemed the most likely spot.
I have a NEWBIE question concerning digital tv. I recently got DISH network. While video quality is a definite upgrade over analog broadcasts, I am experiencing something a bit strange. I have a Sony 27" with good picture quality.
Sporting events - I am getting pixelizatiion/macro blocks when someone is running. Sometimes worse than other times. Other times I see like fuzziness around individual players when they are running, sometimes none at all.
Red color - I watched a movie last night named Das Boot (very good by the way). In some scenes when they switch on red infrared lights in the submarine, my picture became blurred. It could not clearly show the faces when the red light was on.
Are these is normal for digital tv or am I getting the shaft by DISH Network?
Thanks.
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Yes, this is normal for digital TV, because they don't use enough bits for the content on most channels (the bigger the channel, the more bits they get). And yes, you are getting the shaft by the DISH Network because of it.Are these is normal for digital tv or am I getting the shaft by DISH Network?
Sure, the static and interference are gone. But digital TV just trades one set of problems for another, and we pay for the priviledge. I was all for digital TV until I saw the implementations. Unfortunately, over-the-air digital TV will also eventually be whittled down from one nice HDTV signal to six or more of the same quality as (or worse than) you see per channel.
Xesdeeni -
Ugghhhh!!!! Thats not good. I am stuck for a year with these clowns, unless I want to pay a "cut-throat" rate to terminate service.
In that case, I would rather capture analog tv (AVI) and clean up the picture with VirtualDub or AVISynth, and others, etc.
Man.....am I upset
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i have directv which is just about the same, i get that sometimes but theres other reasons, check your signal to the dish sat. if its low you will get a poor picture quality with some pixilation. adjust your sat to get a stronger signal i would try to get 80 or better on the signal meter i got mine to 100 which is perfect if it contunes u should call dish they will fix it
Brand11 -
Look at my last post:
http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=85022&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=40&s...17bf19edd87ca8
Wish something could be done, sob...
Baker -
Baker,
You are crushing me, man. Read all the posts in the link. All I can say is something smells......and its not me. In essence these companies advertising themselves with digital cable service are actually ripping people off, by knowingly offer an inferior product. While the potential of digital broadcast is great compared to analog, it is definitely not there yet and analog is still a better bet at this point.
Boy, dont I feel foolish, stuck with my DISH Network and watching my English Premier League game featuring a heavily-pixelized/macro block version of David Beckham, ............... or who I think is David Beckham. I cant tell. He may as well be Emile Hesky for all I know (and they play for different teams).
Aggghhhhkkkk..... digital crap. GIVE ME ANALOG OR GIVE ME DEATH!!!!!! -
Brand,Originally Posted by Brand11
Since I am stuck with this thing, help me out. How do I test the signal strength? -
I saw "Bend It Like Beckham" on a flight a couple of months ago from the UK back to the U.S. Good movie.Boy, dont I feel foolish, stuck with my DISH Network and watching my English Premier League game featuring a heavily-pixelized/macro block version of David Beckham, ............... or who I think is David Beckham. I cant tell. He may as well be Emile Hesky for all I know (and they play for different teams).
It sounds like more people than me are p*ssed about the low quality of digital TV. Maybe I should float this idea here:
For analog TV, at least within a studio, there are instruments that test the quality of the signal. Unfortunately, those same tools are used often used for digital TV, and they make the digital TV look like it's better than any analog signal could ever be. But of course, they are testing for analog video problems instead of the digital video ones.
What I was thinking was creating a standard test suite to quantify the quality of a digital signal. It would measure the quality of the digital signal based on the digital signal weaknesses. Then we could use this as leverage to encourage competing digital TV providers to improve their quality and win our business.
Whatcha think?
Xesdeeni -
This is the future. Even large networks are loosing out to high compression rates, and it doesn't matter if they broadcast analog or digital as long as the feed to the stations are highly compressed video.
This proves the point there is no need for HDTV because the average coutch potato will never be able to see the difference in quality (or care about the difference). For most people, VHS video is excellent video quality. If high bit rate standard TV was used, there would be no need for HDTV at all.
The only hope for the video philes is to buy DVD's with high quality video. Broadcast video is getting worse and worse. -
X,
Thats a darn good idea, but I am somewhat skeptical. Why? Skittlesen makes a good point. I just believe with the overall standard of broadcast deteriorating, it somehow fuels the DVD market. You will not be able to copy a broadcast, because your video is going to be crappy. Alternative, go out and buy the DVD. Sports..... well the NFL, NCAA and others wont have to worry about copyright infringements. You just cant copy their games any more. Buy the DVD.
Speaking of soccer. I live in Northern Virgina and I get Fox Sports World. I was watching a soccer game from the English Premier League featuring Manchester United. It was horrible. The grass looked like astro-turf..... and bad astro-turf at that, like that at Philadelphia's Veteran Stadium. The pixelization, macro blocks and the blurred picture on close-ups was $h%&. What are they using to smooth the picture? My GOD it was terrible. It looks like they VirtualDub smart smoother and dynamic noise reduction at 10 times the acceptable level. -
A standard test sounds good, but how would it work??
I mean how do u say if a digital broadcast is good enough? Looking for macroblocks is no good as they are already there and everybody is getting away with it.
By the way sky digital ruined my christmas. Being a quailty freak I couldn't wait to see all my old channels in great digital quailty. Then when it was installed I near stabbed the guy when he turned it on the picture was so bad. It ruined my christmas.
HOW ABOUT SUEING ALL OF THESE COMPANIES FOR FALSE ADVERTISING!! WE WOULD BE MILLIONAIRES!!
Baker -
This is all about marketing.
True enough, but the average listener cant hear what a CD has to offer, much less these new enhanced CD and DVD audio offerings, and they are pushing this crap onto the market.This proves the point there is no need for HDTV because the average coutch potato will never be able to see the difference in quality (or care about the difference). For most people, VHS video is excellent video quality. If high bit rate standard TV was used, there would be no need for HDTV at all.
The point is to provide an "expert rating" that even uneducated viewers can point at as their point of reference, even if they don't know why.
That's part of the problem. I am a big fan of a particular college's football and basketball teams. More than half of their games are on TV every year, some years almost all of them are. But there are absolutely no DVDs available with any of their games. There are also no VHS tapes with full games, although there are some highlights from special years, like when they one the national championship in basketball.Sports..... well the NFL, NCAA and others wont have to worry about copyright infringements. You just cant copy their games any more. Buy the DVD.
I don't have a choice but to work out with other fans to trade tapes of the games. But even these are beginning to degrade badly. My copy of the national championship game has dropouts on nearly every frame and sections of the video that skew to the right over a few lines all over the place. Even new though, the quality was fairly poor on an SLP VHS tape from an over-the-air broadcast. I would gladly pay for a DVD of this game. Since that's not available, I have to deal with what I got over the air. But even the old analog copy of the analog broadcast is better than I would get with most digital broadcasts today. So even if I could capture it digitally and put it on a DVD today, it would still be very poor.
I've been thinking about this for several years, ever since I first saw how crappy the digital broadcasts were.A standard test sounds good, but how would it work??
I mean how do u say if a digital broadcast is good enough? Looking for macroblocks is no good as they are already there and everybody is getting away with it.
When you test analog video, you provide a known test signal and feed it into analog test equipment designed to look for the flaws. I don't know if a similar setup for digital video would actually work, but that's where I'd start.
We create a test loop that is very hard on MPEG. (It would have to be a loop, because still images look wonderful on MPEG, even at extremely low bit rates.) Then we analyze the digital output at the other end, comparing to the original, and measure the error. We would of course have to create algorithms that would quantify mosquitos, macro blocks, and the other MPEG artifacts.
Then we publish the results and start the networks competing with one another. Pressure from their advertisers to improve the quality of their channel so more people watch it (and thus the ads) would probably be the most effective way to push them to improve the quality.
The one caveat is that we'd have to be careful that they didn't adjust their quality for the test loop to get a good score, but then crank up the compression for the actual content.
I actually considered this in a way. The problem is that they only claim to be better than analog in the ways in which even poorly encoded digital video is: color purity, sound quality, etc. Of course they neglect to tell you of the areas it will be worse, but then that's what advertisers do for a living (tell you only the good things and avoid the bad about their products).HOW ABOUT SUEING ALL OF THESE COMPANIES FOR FALSE ADVERTISING!! WE WOULD BE MILLIONAIRES!!
This seemed to be a better long-term solution. And if I could ever get anyone to foot the bill to put it into place, maybe I'd also get a cushy video job out of the deal
Xesdeeni -
well x
Just tought I would give this post an udate.
If you can programme why don't you make a video quailty test programme and then sell it!!!$$$
Why not capture and convert to vcd, should save them a bit longer.don't have a choice but to work out with other fans to trade tapes of the games. But even these are beginning to degrade badly.
Baker -
WOW! you people knock dishnet but marvel over DVD which uses the same MPEG2 technology, I have said it before and I'll say it again MPEG2 is not there yet, just compare a laser disc that uses analog to the same DVD I was very upset with most of the DVD's I replaced from my Laser discs. You settle for the inferrior DVD's why not just settle with dishnet also, most digital is crappy compared to analog anyway, I tell a digital picture any day over a analog, they all digital have some pixelation to an a degree, some are very very little a very good(hard to come by) DVD to pretty bad, like most channels on the dishnet, sports are the worst, or any high moving scene.
That goes to the very compressed audio on a DVD also, laser disc blows that away also, can't tell you how many times that the DVD I replaced from Laser the sound was flat compared to the THX Laser disc, by the way this is all played back on a THX Home Theater System. -
great post-don't have much to add, just that I was a DirecTV customer for almost 2 years...and I captured quite a bit of stuff...and I can say that sports do always look terrible...I tried to capture some things off of ESPN Classic (the best sports channel
) and I just ended up deleting them. But honestly...the other things I captured (mostly movies and MST3K) were quite good.
This post just makes me want HDTV service to cheapen that much quicker. Maybe RCA will continue to degrade DirecTV to push more consumers to start HDTVing it...End of Line. -
Bloody hell!!! I cannot believe somebody here can say that!!!WOW! you people knock dishnet but marvel over DVD which uses the same MPEG2 technology, I have said it before and I'll say it again MPEG2 is not there yet, just compare a laser disc that uses analog to the same DVD I was very upset with most of the DVD's I replaced from my Laser discs.
Laserdisk vs dvd!!
how can liserdisk look better!!!!!!
Baker -
Easy,Originally Posted by baker
Due to thier "Collector" status people expected quite a but out of LD's. DVD's OTOH are often rushed out and maximized for quality on crap 25" sets. Often DVD's in the past were created by using the LD as the source. DVD are tecnologically heads and sholders above LD technology and reproduction capability, but hardly any DVD's reach the standard because it's easier to put out crap.
I will second the fact that often in side by side examples LD is as good as the DVD and in some cases the LD is much better. The tender loving care put into each LD was amazing. Untill the studios stop treating DVD's like VHS this situation will never improve ( in fact it seems to be getting worse ). -
DVD picture quality has gradually degraded because content producers are pressured by consumers to put large amounts of programming onto a single disc, yet still charge $20 for the thing. Most films for sale today do not use the full 9.8Mbps maximum for one video track and one well compressed audio track. Suddenly you have Spanish, French, Portuguese and god-knows what else audio tracks, commentary tracks from the director separate from the actors seperate from the craft services people ... a skidillion subtitle tracks ... multiple angles on concert films and useless full-motion menus (who buys a DVD to stare at the MENUS?).
All I need on a DVD is a high-quality compression of the film, one frickin' audio track and logical chapter stops. I don't need 2 additional hours worth of flubs, laughter, behind the scenes shenanigans, and non-scripted director commentary that just shows how much of an ass the "talent" really is. -
Couldn't agree more about the dvd quailty thing. Metro golden mayor are doing a good job and I hope it stays that way. Anyone here have t2 collectors edition? Wooo every dvd should look like that!!
Baker -
thxkid, you are confusing the implementation with the technology. I can show you plenty of crappy Laser Discs. But they aren't crappy because LDs suck, they are crappy because the source was crappy...the processing was crappy...the equipment was crappy. The same holds true for DVD. A quality DVD will blow away a quality Laser Disc for video. A Laser Disc can actually have better audio...but we're talking about video here.
AntnyMD, actually I like all the extras on a DVD. I think they are one of the major reasons DVDs are selling to the masses, who can't tell the difference between a VHS copy of an over-the-air broadcast and a high quality DVD transfer. However, I agree that often the actual movie content suffers.
But it is just as likely that the "Compressionist" (apparently that's the official name for this occupation) is new and/or poor. He may encode the video as full-fledge interlace, complete with 60 fields per second, even though the source is film. Even if he's smart enough to reduce the frame rate to 24 frames per second (or 25 if he's in PAL land), he may still encode the fields separately. He may also not be supplied with a quality print, or a clean transfer of the film. Jutter, scratches, noise, film grain, generational color variations, and lots of other things make the quality of the compression worse.
But don't either of you confuse the message with the messenger.
therick, I hate to break it to you, but the HDTV broadcasts don't look much better. They are already squeezing the bitrate for the video down to fit more video and other stuff over the air, which is steadily eroding their quality. And the encoders being used are the same ones as the satellite and digital cable guys are using, just working on about 9x the data, so they aren't getting any better.
If we're lucky, we'll end up with poor HDTV that we can watch scaled down to standard resolutions so we don't have to see the artifacts. But more than likely, when stations realize they can send 6 or more SDTV digital channels at reduced bit rate, with the applicable 6x advertising $$$$, they'll drop HD like a hot potato, and the over-the-air picture will look just like DirectTV and Dish Network look today.
Gee, I am a programmer. I wonder why I never thought of that. Maybe because I don't have the capital to start such a lofty venture while paying my bills, nor the connections to allow me to get in the door at the networks to install the test loops and start measuring the quality. If you run across either or both of these, let me knowIf you can programme why don't you make a video quailty test programme and then sell it!!!$$$
DVD not VCD, but it's already being done. But garbage in = garbage out, so all I can hope for is to salvage the quality that the tapes still have today and keep the video from degrading any more. Of course, if I had been able to capture them digitally at the time....Why not capture and convert to vcd, should save them a bit longer.
Xesdeeni -
I don't think to create this pogramme you would need such expensive equipment. Right you would need some but not that much. First you would need a good pctv card with rgb in for starters then a source, dvd player I suppose.
Baker -
"the HDTV broadcasts don't look much better"
all I can say to that is cripes cripes cripes. well all I watch are movies anyway , so I'll just buy DVDs then. I was just wondering the other day whether HDTV programming would have allowed me to just have the ESPNs, Comedy Central, and the movie channels...all I watch anyway...
End of Line. -
Member
- Sep 2001
- Northern Ireland
If you don't like the picture quality of the current crop of DVD's then look out for the new SuperBit releases. These discs use a much higher average bitrate and drop all the extras from the disc. I have read some very good reviews of these. Maybe they will satisfy your quest for the perfect picture.
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SUPER BIT DVDS
I really like the sound of this althoguht think maybe its uncalled for.
Apart from the second disc, disc one of T2 has loads of extras,special scenes,commentrys etc and still looks great!!
Superbit may be not required but insted a bit of work from the authors.
Baker -
Superbit DVD are worth the money if you have a system that can benif from it. byjorn ray ( www.avsforum.com ) has many comparisons between the non-sb and sb version of various titles and there is a striking diffrence once you know what to look for. They also tend to carry full bitrate DTS and DD5.1 tracks that are NOT cooked down for playback on cheap systems.
I just wish more titles were superbit. -
Well look at the matrix, I always tought that that film was badly encoded.
Would like to see that in superbit.
Where can i purchase superbits from anyway?
Baker -
Evening all.
baker,
I have seem them in Walmart. In fact, I got first SuperBIT DVD of
The Fifth Element from them about ~9 months ago.
I've done quite a bit of extensive comparison testing w/ SBIT DVD vs.
Reg DVD... but I'll spare you all the details and only SUM up what
I have noticed for those most common to be picked out:
* Quality, well, on my 13" TV, it looked just like my regular DVD
of it, but on some scenes, it's a bit distorted, due to the high res./quality/
bitrate, etc., though not so bad, once you get used to it.
But, maybe in larger screens like 27"-60", you'll notice some differences
in better quality.
* Color, was not so blochy or when too rich in color, ie RED, you
do not notice bloches or SquareHatches or something like that.
* Color, again, all scenes are much more Clear, Clean and Smooth.
...in some, almost like looking at it via a photographi in a good
quality magazine.
These are just some of the obvious, if you know what to look for, as
snowmoon said.
My recommend, would be to start your purchases of this SBIT DVDs. But,
if you already have titles in regular format, don't waist your money!
-vhelp -
Can you be a bit more certain as what distortion is? I mean ecactly what happens?it's a bit distorted, due to the high res./quality/
bitrate, etc.,
By the way you havent posted at that capture forumk in a while.
Baker -
Morning peoples.
baker,
>> By the way you havent posted at that capture forumk in a while.
Sorry, but you lost me here. And, I dont know what forumk is
Distortion:
>> Can you be a bit more certain as what distortion is? I mean ecactly what happens?
I can't. ie, in The 5th Element, certain complete scenes get almost
Interlaced looking - no, it's not interlaced, but it looks sort of that way.
I can't post a picture of it, as it's on my TV, and not something that I can
re-create. Sorry!
But, if I can figure out a way, I will I suspect that it's due to my
13" TV. Perhapes it doesn't do this on much larger ones -so, try not to
too dissapointed.
Trust me, the quality IS much better though. Just not worth going out an
replacing all your current DVDs. Only pick up what you don't have, but in
SBIT instead.
-vhelp -
Well I had Direct TV. I did not watch it all that much so I stopped service. MPEG 2 is great but they have to many channels on Direct TV and Dish Network, so what you are seeing is a picture w/o enuff' pixels. I'm not saying the pic is all that great on some channels it is good others not so good. But I have seen plenty of cable channels and the video noise is pretty horrendous as well as bad signal quality etc. For Townies going cable is great, but when you don't live in town and can only get 3 channels what is your option? Best Regards..P.S. Direct TV and Dish Network was designated for people who could not get cable or wanted a second choice.
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