Satellite Dish Resolution

[neo]

I capture from my satellite dish. I have been doing some research. I use S Video out. As I understand it, they used the same resolution as DVD using MPEG2 at a resolution of 720x480. If one captures in less than the resolution the detail is lost (I use my PC monitor for viewing). If one captures in a higher resolution then file size is larger than needed.

I suspect they are now using some form of MPEG4 since the TIVO like receivers can hold 100 hours of full resolution with no loss of quality.

Any help?

[Denman007]

I catpure from my satellite dish. I feed the signal from my VCR to my MiniDV(passthrough), then to my laptop via firewire. My camera doesn't have S-Video. I don't appear to have any quality loss when capturing as DVD format. It's takes roughly 1 meg per second.

I can capture in VCD format, but the play back is of a considerable less quality. However, the file size is much smaller.

I'm not sure about the TIVO/Mpeg4 stuff.

[gimp]

from my understanding Dish Network & DTV use 480X480 res. from the one of the tech guys told me its almost near to a SVCD but the bitrates are a little higher!

[SHS]

gimp as a ponit that some what ture on some channel are low rez where other have a much higher rez and bitrate.

[neo]

I called Dish Network and they said they try to match NTSC. This sort of makes sense since their signal has to be received by NTSC TVs. NTSC only specifies the vertical scan lines and the frame rate since the horizontal signal is analog and does not have a specific resolution. The NTSC vertical resolution is 526.

He also said they vary the bitrate depending on the type of show (e.g. cartoons vs. sports).

It seems like the best resolution to use would be that used by digital VCRs. This is 640x480 isn't it?

[dvdnew]

DTV uses 480x480 mostly
Dish uses 544x480 mostly

bitrate changes a lot in different channels, I believe the most bitrate are the networks from NY in DTV.

[Megahurts]

neo

I've compared Dish Network to Direct TV and came to the conclusion that Dish Network is close to a 2nd generation VHS tape. I've seen on Direct TV (CMT), a near distant shot with a man with a pinstriped shirt, but on Dish Network there was no pinstrips and it looked muddy. It does't appear on one chanel but most. I have'nt checked the pay channels so I don't know how they compare.

Sure, they both have the same vertical res, but the horizontial res determines the detail wich determines the download bit rate. So I suspect that Dish Network uses a lower data streem than Direct TV.


dvdnew

Where did you get the info on the Direct & Dish res. Would like to check it out.


Chas

[neo]

Chas

I have a book on compression. I also called the Dish Network tech dept. The problem is that nothing is current and most know little. I suspect MPEG4 has much higher compression but MS and the movie industry are trying to keep it secret. The only people that seem to support MPEG4 for the people are DivX.

[dvdnew]

dvdnew

Where did you get the info on the Direct & Dish res. Would like to check it out.


Chas

From some other forums they say that the units with drives the video is recorded mostly at those resolutions, like more than 95% of the time. Some locals and PPVs sometimes are at other resolution, like 640x480.

Higher resolution is not equal to better quality, you need to take bitrate, encoder type and some other things into account. At the end all is in the eye of the beholder.