Orlando, FL - BHN - Page 8

Greg: I believe you indicated the HD DVR was close and might be a week or two away. I believe you said that about 10 days ago. Anyway, how close are we?

For those of you who want to be on the bleeding edge of HD content you should consider VOOM as a supplemental service to what you have available now. They have changed their pricing so that you rent the equipment and pay nothing for install so there is no long term commitment.

Having said that, PLEASE don't start a discussion about how good or bad Voom is on this thread...there are other places for that, just thought I would point it out for those of you who keephow shall I say this nicelywhining to Greg for more content.

I vote against ESPN HD I have watched it on DTV. What a waste of band width. I think there is more HD sports programing on Broadcast TV than ESPN.

I do have to say that the pq of MLB on INHD is amazing! It looks as though you are at the game viewing it from a seat at second base. You can actually see the fans faces as clear as day that are seated behind the batter/catcher. ESPN HD would be a great addition, especially if more HD content is added.

Here's another solution until BH has a HD DVR. For those of you who don't want to deal with recording with a PC, LG makes an HD DVR that will record DV via IEEE1394. You can connect the 3250HD from BH to this DVR and record HD all digital. More info at http://us.lge.com/Product/proddetail...egoryId=010403

The cost is less than the HD TiVo and you get to keep Bright House.

Peter, you had the wheels turning in my head about the LG reorder, until I saw the $1000 price. Too bad that unit isn't a DVD player too, then we wouldn't have to swap DVI cables or get a DVI switch, and it would be more justifiable at that price. I know that cutting edge technology is not inexpensive, but my wallet has its limitations.

Gilley, if you or anyone on here is interested in that or any of the other LG receivers let me know, that price of $1000 is crazy, the MAP is $800 and we can do better than that.

There go the wheels turning again. Thanks.

Patience is a virtue, especially on your pocketbook. Greg has indicated the HD DVR is close to being released. Cost out the rental per month against the LG Receiver cost. Say the BHN HD DVR costs $12.00 per month or $144 per year. Anything purchased today may well be outdated before you get your money back. Just a thought.

Peter, do you use the 3250HD now? To what display are you connecting? In the past, I have indicated to Greg that I wanted one to go to my Mits 65909 through the 1394 port. The fact that he stated that there were problems with the 3250, combined with the fact that my wife has been b--ching to me about wanting a DVR, has moved me toward wanting a 8000. Is there any noticable improvement in PQ with the digital 1394 stream over component? I ask because I don't believe the 8000 will have a 1394 out.

The LST-3410A is intriging not just from a standpoint of being available now, but getting digital all the way. However, even at $800ish, I have to agree with ddeloach about ROI.

Thanks!

I don't have either so I can't speak for their operability. You do raise an interesting point, if you want a DVR and have to have IEEE1394 I looks like this would be the solution since the BH DVR will not have IEEE1394. I think Greg had said that while the 3250HD works, he thinks the Pace 550HD is better overall. Barry don't you have the 3250HD?

I added the INHD channels last night... and WOW! Incredible PQ!

Also, I see that TNT-HD is up and running today on BHN. I notice that the audio is slightly off on some HD channels, and fine on others. TNT and SHOW were both slighlty off... if some are fine, then it should be a signal/channel issue... not the box.

I re-booted the box, but that did nothing...

Any advice?

I have both the pace 550 and the SA 3250HD, and the 3250hd is by far superior in performance, and PQ. (and the firewire out is nice too....)

I'm curious, how is the PQ better on the 3250HD? Are you using DVI on the Pace? What about performance is better? Why did Greg say he did not like it? Hummm.

With all due respect, if the next guy is me, you definitely are not as much about ESPN-HD. Clearly, ESPN-HD provides limited programming and fails to provide many of the services it appeared to suggest it would when it became available to providers.

That said, the ability to watch college football every saturday night and the NFL every sunday night in HD is VERY IMPORTANT TO ME. Along with Sunday Ticket, this more than makes the switch to D* and away from BHN worth it for me -- which I did last august. I would love to switch back to BHN and would do so if they got ESPNHD. But it simply is not worth it to continue to only get one CFB game in HD (CBS SEC game) with BHN when D* gives so much more.

For everyone but rabid college football fans, BHN is sufficient -- but ESPN's value in this regard cannot be overstated.

I do have the 3250HD. I am using it to record HD via Firewire onto a G5 mac computer then open the file across a 100mbps Ethernet switch to playback in any room in the house including the projector.

This is the system I ultimately want with unlimited hard drive space and whole house distribution but for right now no one makes a fire-wire card that is 5C compliant so I can only playback the broadcast recordings which are flagged copy always. The content flagged copy once will not work but I would be willing to test your LG recorder to see if it plays the copy protected material.

I also have the PACE 550 hooked of via DVI but have yet to test the 3250 DVI output. I would assume no difference in output picture quality between a PACE and SA box via DVI unless you ask the boxes to scale or deinterlace the images. If viewing the analog component outputs then picture quality could be wildly different.

When I am performing ISF calibrations the number one question I get is "how should I set the output of the set top box?". The answer is whatever device has the best quality scaler determines the settings for the stb. If your projector or rear screen does a nice job of scaling an image then pass thru is the correct setting but if your display does a poor job then it might be better to leave the stb in full time 1080i.

I too am using it direct to PC and distribute it via 100mbit wired. I was looking at the ROKU for playback, but for now am using PC's. A decent playback machine with vga or dvi out can be built for around 350. Thats not too bad.

Personally I could care less about the copyprotected stuff. I mainly use it for archiving series and time shifting. Although it would be great to get some IMAX or HBO content I feel better quality originals with xtra content will be availabe eventually from the studios. My replay can pick up a 480p anamorphic copy from the PACE svideo for DVD which will hold me over till i can buy HD-DVD.

The 3250 has better component ouput even unscaled. by better I mean significantly brighter, Truer colors, etc. Very little calibration required to get a decent picture. Both the PACE and 3250 have good DVI.

Was the NBA game on TNT in HD last night? How was the PQ?

the PQ on TNT-HD for the western NBA finals was pretty good via BHN friday night. saw no macro blocking/pixelation at all. it looked like most cameras were HD with the exception of the "end zone" shot. I would say it was on par with the basketball games that I've seen on INHD. we are using the SA3200HD STB via component on a sammy dlp.

my only complaint (albeit minor) is that TNT-HD is apparently showing non-HD content (including commercials) in wide AR -- the PQ is pretty good for non-HD stuff, but the squattyness of people in various scenes takes a while to get used to. I typically watch SDTV in standard AR mode (i.e. vertical sidebars present).

Some commercials are zoomed and some are stretched. What is wierd is that shows that are HD like law and order are streched as well..... Will the sports be the only HD content on this channel?

PQ was just as good as Sunshine's HD Magic games.

For me, the audio for TNT-HD is off. Not that bad for the game, but other shows are virtually unwatchable since it's so annoying. Anyone else have this?

The half time show for the game was like watching an old Bruce Lee movie.

noticed the audio was noticably off also during the game ~ 200-300 ms. odd though, the audio actually lagged the video -- usually, it's the other way around when out of sync on other channels. watched 20 minutes of an old episode of NYPD Blue on TNT-HD Friday afternoon as my inaugural experience with TNT-HD -- the audio/video sync was fine, although the picture was stretched and zoomed.

Lightning game looks great tonight on ESPN HD.

GO BOLTS!!!!

Sorry if this seems a little off topic for this thread. I'm moving to Orlando next month and I'm trying to get a rate card from Brighthouse and it's like pulling teeth. I want to see all the packages they offer, but they keep referring me to their website. Does anyone have a rate card that the companies usually put along with their billing statements? I'd appreciate it very much if you could scan it for me. Thanks!

Trying to decide to go the route of BHN (if they release the 8000) or possibly buy a HD Tivo and use OTA. Trying to see which packages are better for me. Thanks again.

I wanted to watch some of the NBA playoffs tonight on TNT HD on BHN and was plagued by massive video problems! Was anyone else watching around 10:45 to 11pm? I was getting lots of macro blocking and the screen would go black as often as every 3 or 4 seconds! It was really painful to watch. No problems with the audio, though.

I thought it could be my box, so I rebooted my SA3100HD and the same problem kept happening. It didn't seem to be an issue on any of the other HD channels though (DISC HD, INHD, HDNET).

Yeah, it wasn't you. I tuned in for about 10 minutes, saw the score and turned it off because of the visual issues.


As for the Hockey game looking great on ESPN HD, I will just have to take your word for it .

Last night was the first time I noticed the new channel. How cool to see the NBA in hi-def!! Too bad about the video dropouts though. I would see screen-wide distortion every 6-10 secs, and little localized crap every couple of secs.

Greg: any updated information for the group?

I also have been experiencing problems with TNT HD, and after it was happening both on Sunday and Tuesday nights, I decided to send an email to customer service @ BH. I expected a canned reply, but they were extremely helpful, and actually pointed me to this thread to let me know that others were experiencing similar problems and they were working on it! (I knew about AVS, but not this thread.)

The last word I got from customer service was, "We received later this morning that this is an issue with the signal that TNT is sending us. Our engineers are working on it, and it should be rectified soon."

I am also experiencing signal issues with Discovery HD. Anyone else?

Gator, thanks for rubbing it in