Tonight I compared 2 SD broadcasts of Globe Trekker (cool PBS show). I have Dish Network FYI. The picture on the OTA SD (I made sure and checked it was 480) was significantly better. Via the Dish, whenever they moved, the picture went out of focus for a second and then cleared up. It gave me a headache. The SD via the OTA antenna looked decent, like regular SD should.

Any guesses? One thought, I am using RCA (red/white/yellow) cords as that is all the Dish box has. Another, I use my stereo receiver to get surround sound and the video signal goes through there as well (I mean if I turn the receiver off I will have no sound AND no picture). Long story why it is set up like this but it is basically because the house was wired for a TV niche.

Any guesses?It's caused by the excessive compression that the satellite companies use.

I thought that all SD Dish tuners had s-video output. If so, I'd use that, as it's better.

Sometimes, running the signal through an A/V receiver will degrade the quality a bit. If you can run it directly to the TV, it might improve some. At least try it.

Also, try turning the sharpness down on the display, and maybe apply some noise reduction if your TV has the capability.

Use the OTA for your locals....you can't get any better than the original.

Rammitinski hit some good points.

But yes - a decent OTA will generally look BETTER than Dish or DirectTV's MPEG2 compressed. Some areas (like mine) - the difference isn't quite as noticeable, but it is still there.

Things to check for to get a better DBS picture

#1 - The larger the screen, the worse your picture. DBS (SD) seems pretty well optimized for a 27-32 inch screen , preferrably an SD screen. Surprisingly - SD DBS looks best on a SD TV display. A Large HDTV display will serve to really magnify the picture faults of the DBS compression.

#2. Connections to get DBS picture to screen, worse to best
RF, composite (yellow plug), S-Video (4 pin din), component (both SD and HD), HDMI (HD)
Obviously, this doesn't apply to OTA. The difference between composite and S-Video is really dramatic on an older TV with a poor comb filter, less so the newer the TV.

#3 - Acquire and learn how to use a copy of a A/V DVD like Video Essential / Digital Video Essentials, Avia, etc. These will walk you through using the controls that you as a consumer has available to make your picture the best it can be. Even without these - start off by turning the Sharpness control all the way down.

#4 - Sit BACK from your display - the rule of thumb is 3 to 5 times the diagonal measure of the screen. For a 27 inch, that's 81-135 inchs (almost 7 feet to 11 feet+).

It seems to me that each new generation of Dish receiver keeps getting better - some of this maybe that they are using better technology at the transmit end.

Great suggestions. Yes, you are right there is an S-video out on my Dish box. I had read a few reviews that did not favor the S-video connection so I did not try it. I just got my TV last week (if you couldn't already tell from my beginner questions). I have the sharpness down (it was at 4 and not it is zero) and will look into the disks you mention. Bummer about the Dish SD as it is most of what my kids like to watch, but what you said makes sense. Thanks.

In case you do want to try bypassing the receiver - you can still run the audio through the tuner without the video - just hook the video from the Dish tuner up directly to the set. You *might* get a slight audio delay, though (although I don't with mine, which is set up that way).

If you have a recording device in the mix, just run both the A & V to the recorder, and then out to the receiver and TV separately.

You may even have to try turning down the sharpness more than that to really smooth out that "blurring" effect. I actually have mine set at -12 (out of -15) on my SD Dish input. And I usually have the noise reduction set at high for a lot of the stuff I watch. It has to be that extreme for it to be tolerable for me. I also have something called a CTI sharpness control, which I turn on, to bring back some of the outline sharpness. It really doesn't look that bad at all now.

I thought that all SD Dish tuners had s-video output. If so, I'd use that, as it's better.


I don't know if that is strictly true. S-Video was developed as part of the old analog S-VHS video tape system, and served a useful purpose there, but I don't believe it offers any real benefit in other applications.

Analog video is recorded on tape as two separate components, luminescence - the black and white portion of the image, and chroma or color part of the signal. When the TV signal is received by your VCR the two parts are separated and each is recorded on the tape in a different manner. When you play the tape the two parts are recovered and recombined and the resultant composite video is fed to your TV set.

Your old analog TV set also handled the luminescence and chroma portions of the signal in different ways. The TV contained a circuit that separated the two and sent each signal to the appropriate circuits in the TV.

The process of separating, combining and separating the two signals again added some subtle distortion to the image on the screen.

S-Video simply keeps the two signals separate, eliminating that distortion.

I'm not sure that the same principles apply in the case of digital video coming from a satellite receiver or DVD player. Assuming the luminescence and chroma are not received as separate data streams, the satellite receiver or DVD player will have to perform the separation to feed the two parts to the S-Video connector. All that does is move the separation from the TV to the satellite or DVD box.

In this case the S-Video probably does no harm, but I doubt that you will see any appreciable improvement in video quality between S-Video and composite video.