Direct TV HDTV system on its way - ?

[K_cin_az]

I have just upgraded my direct tv to hdtv system for the upcoming football season. I have a panasonic 53 inch widescreed hd tv, not very high end, price tag was about $2k. I have no idea how good of a picture to expect. When I watched football on it regurlary the images werent all that sharp, no where near dvd quality. Am I really going to get DVD quality picture on a live football game?

[DJRumpy]

Depends entirely on the signal, compression, and bitrate supplied to the channel. Signal is easy to figure out. Compression artifacts and low bitrate are also easy. You'll get pixelation on high motion scenes. HDTV, when supplied with enough bandwidth, is a beauty to behold. I prefer the 720p modes to the 1080i modes though.

[BJ_M]

when you get a nice HDTV unit -- normal cable 90% of the time seems to look like total crap ....

my problem now - as i dont feel like springing big big bucks for hd cable ($100+ a month here for a fairly full package) -- and i hear that digital cable doesnt look much better than normal cable anyway ..

anyone notice that lately they seems to be compressing the crap out of most channels - more than before ..

rogers -- you look like crap ...

hmmm -- wonder how a dish will look ...

[DJRumpy]

I made the switch to digital. Don't listen to everything you hear. There is no comparison, although I chose the cable tv route, and not the dish route. The digital channels look beautiful! The INHD channels always get the full monty so to speak with no skimping on bitrate. So far, the ones that look the worst, are the local, over the air, channels. I suspect this is from simple upscaling in their broadcasts, rather than filming in true HD. Done right, it's like looking out the window on some broadcasts. Certainly better than dvd. You get the full ac3 5.1 sound too on video's that come with it. All if costs me is 5 dollars more a month for the HDTV cable box. The analog channels look just as they always did. The nice thing about cable, is that you can ask your neighbors about quality if you need to.

Make sure turn down the sharpness if you go the HDTV route (and 'picture' settings if you have that option). It only exagerates the 'noise' in an analog signal.

[K_cin_az]

Just thought I would update this post to show my findings after about two months of having HDTV. HDTV is amazing on my set up. I have it through direct tv with a samsung hd reciever. I have it hooked up to a 53 pannasonic hdtv through component cables. The picture quality is amazing! Makes is very hard to suffer through regular digital tv.

[FT Shark]

The analog stations look shitty on my HDTV. The digital are 480p and look 100 times better. But noting compares to the HD channels. The only problem I have is the cable companies are not putting enough bandwidth to their HD stations. I get a lot of pixels blurbs and the sound drops out every now and then. Some stations are worse than others. But some stations like Discovery are flawless.

I am thinking about switching to Direct TV and I have a question for satellite HD viewers. Do you ever get the above problems? I wouldn’t think there would be bandwidth issues through the air.

[Shocker Milwaukee]

The NFL package (Season Ticket) is not HD. Football games broadcast in HD have amazing quality, but 1080i tends to have momentary blockiness during high-motion scenes.