DirecTV HDTV - Page 446

My DirecTiVo is set to pass the original signal format, and is connected via HDMI. I have personally tested and confirmed that 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p24 are all functional and display properly. Therefore I do not believe that any scaling or reformatting of the signal is occurring in the DirecTiVo THR22.

If it was not obvious before, then follow this explanation of why the DirecTV locals are NOT THE SAME SIGNALS as the OTA versions. The OTA HD broadcast channel originates as an MPEG2 network feed but the local OTA broadcast is a multiplexed signal that includes the network HD channel and up to five 480i (digital modulation) subchannels. The channel bandwidth of the OTA signal, comprised of a multiplexed HD main channel plus up to five SD (480i digital) subchannels is 6Mhz. DirecTV is using MPEG4 modulation to save bandwidth, but they are also stripping the subchannel content before broadcast. So the total steps are as follows:

1) The Network HD feed is supplied in MPEG2 compressed form to the local affiliates. The signals are decompressed and multiplexed with one or more SD subchannels, plus music broadcasts, teletext, etc. content from the local station. The multiplexed signal is recompressed (again with MPEG2 lossy compression) and broadcast OTA.

2) DirecTV receives the OTA broadcast, decmopresses it, strips the SD subchannels and other local content, and recompresses the HD signal only with MPEG4 lossless compression for the DSS signal.

3) The DirecTiVo receiver decompresses the MPEG4 lossless signal as HDMI digital video.

THEORY SAYS that the OTA broadcast and the DirecTV signal should be the same quality, since both received two complete compression/decompression steps using lossy MPEG2 codexes, and the the DirecTV signal only received one additional compression/decompression step, using a lossless MPEG4 codex.

But I can see a difference, the DirecTV version of a local channel has compression artifacts including macroblocking, loss of contrast, and especially video noise in dark areas of the image.

This should not be happening, but it is. I blame DirecTV for the quality loss (it is their broadcast after all), but I don't know how it is happening.

MichaelLAX, I did check out the "Test Satellite Signal Strength" screen, and most of the transponders are in the 90% range with the lowest signal showing 82%. So I think the dish is aimed correctly and installed correctly.

Know nothing about the tech, but maybe there's a difference in how locals get the signal to DTV? That's a variable you're not considering - locals screw stuff up all the time. I'm picky about PQ and I tried to find a difference on OTA v DTV and couldn't. Do all your locals have the same issues?

Well, I'm doing a direct A/B comparison of the OTA signal via the HDTV tuner, and the DirecTV version via the DSS receiver connected with a digital HDMI interface, via the Picture-in-picture feature on my Samsung HDTV. When I hit the 'swap" button, the A/B signal sources swap and you see a quality difference. The DirecTV signal is lower quality, no doubt about it.

It's not just the local channels, either. TNTHD, SpikeHD, LifetimeHD, USAHD, and DiscoveryHD generally look pretty good. SpikeHD is also rebroadcasting old network material, some of which is ABC 720p source, which is softer than native 1080i when upconverted. I see average quality on ABC Family HD, A&EHD, and FXHD - but I notice many are 720p signals. SPEEDHD and ESPNHD look generally very good on live sports, but with variable quality on replays - and ESPN HD is still broadcasting some basketball games with SD cameras upconverted to HD - really unbelievable, it has been YEARS.

Ovation and Chiller look bad, but are still SD, so I don't expect much. TCMHD is variable quality, but they often show OAR, so I'm thinking it may just be the film prints they used - right now for example they are showing the delightfull David Niven/Shirley MaClaine (1956) version of Around the World in 80 Days, and the bright showy colors of Technicolor are there, the aspect ratio is the precise 2.2:1 of the negative, but the image is slightly soft.

SciFy continues to show a lot of SD upconverts and reality programming that is contemporary, but SD source (such as the current Haunted Highway which is a 4:3 SD upconvert but was originally broadcast on 7/17/2012.

A real mixed bag. I hesitate to blame DirecTV for the quality issues on the cable channels, but they are entirely responsible IMHO for the reduced quality local channels. Not to mention, they entirely omit the local SD subchannels, some of which offer more compelling content than the main HD channel.

There has to be something up with your setup. Perhaps sharpening settings or some other factor with your TV or box.

Either way, other than a bit of softness if I really look hard enough, OTA and the stations via D* look identical on my setup.

I can pretty easily see some softness between OTA and DirecTV at my parents place. I had to get them setup with an an OTA since I go over there to eat lunch and watch football sometimes and it was enough to bother me. It's actually impossible that there would be no difference between OTA and D* since they're taking the MPEG-2 stream from the local station and re-encoding it to MPEG-4 (at around 5 or 6Mbps I believe) which is lossy.

All I know is that when I watch an important football game on my AM-21 OTA receiver on my DirecTV DVR, i hear the cheering for a touchdown from my neighbors apartment about 2 seconds after I watch the touchdown...

That has nothing at all to do with signal quality. That's simply the time it takes to bounce the signal off a satellite and back to Earth.

I don't believe so. I think that 192kbps (Pandora One) is only available through the PC.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong...

As far as I can tell -No. I have about half a dozen Pandora enabled devices and I'd opt for the better quality sound, but when I checked it was only available via computer. Problem is I don't really listen on my computer, though I do have the sound networked throughout the house, just too inconvenient to manage stations.

What is the default pc pandora bit rate?

64k AAC+. The default bitrate for other in-home devices (DirecTV etc.) is 128kbps.

^^^Thanks for the answers.^^^

Before anyone starts getting worked up about bitrates, please read this article:
http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

16/96 is plenty for playback, and can yield a perfect replication of a source.

You mean 24/96.

No, he meant 16/96, which is correct. Read the article.

Cheers
Edited by Ralarcon - 7/25/12 at 1:23pm

I'm getting sick of the banners that say "great news! The channel is back". The banners have been there nearly as long as the channels were gone. How can we get rid of them? And while we're at it, how about the other banners that advertise PPV, etc. Having them in the full guide would be one thing--but on my customized "favorites" channel listing I don't want them.

That article is about downloading music files (from the iTunes Music Store, etc.). Pandora uses streaming technologies.

Yep, those banners and ads are annoying, distracting and just plain stupid. People complain about how bad Time Warner’s EPG is, but I’ll take TW’s 4:3 guide any day over DirecTVs HD guide littered with that junk. It was great last week, there must have been a dozen banners promoting the new season of Damages. Unfortunately, there is no way to remove them. And that what kills me, the same junk that they clutter up the guide with, also comes in the form for a message.

I hate those banners in the guide, too. It breaks up the guide so I can't see as many channels. It's frustrating when I'm sifting through the movie channels and not seeing one in a group I want to view.

I agree very annoying and I have also noticed that on D* commercials my 30 second skip won't work

Commercials for DirecTV or their inserts on the cable channels?

If the former, I've skipped over several of their ads. If the latter, then I'm not sure if I've run into any local inserts by them to know if I can or can't skip them. So far, nothing I've watched has prevented me from skipping anything. Were you possibly watching D*'s original programming or maybe PPV or OnDemand?

I had my B-Band Converter so out in a bad Electrical Storm down here in South Florida.

4 days without HD was difficult, thankfully I got a replacement today.

For me, both. I've run into commercials for DirecTV that I couldn't skip, and I've also run into regular commercials that I couldn't skip. I hit a 21st Century Insurance commercial several times during different shows that I couldn't skip. There are others though...annoying to say the least. This wasn't D*'s original programming, OnDemand or PPV. I seem to run into it a lot on either Comedy Central or FX. Maybe both?

And yeah, those banners suck.

As far as I'm concerned, there's not many "ads" in the guide, except near PPV and Premiums, which I have disabled in my favorites list as well...

The HD GUI/guide is FAR better than any cable system's interface.

It’s all about viewable information. With my ‘crappy’ cable company guide I can see 90 minutes worth of programming across 5 channels. With DirecTV ‘wonderful state of the art beautiful’ guide I can see 90 minutes worth of programming across at most 6 channels, but quite often 5 due to the ads. I've used Time Warner under SARA and Navigator, I've been at peoples houses with Verizon Fios, I used to have Dish Network, the current DirecTV GUI is the worst I've ever used, second only to when I had DirecTV years ago and had those DirecTiVo things.

streaming, downloading.. same thing. it's all "playback." Read the article. The fact is, for any form of digital playback, 16/96 is all you need to produce a perfect replica of the source material. 24/192 for playback is a gimmick that plays to the "bigger is better" mentality of people with no understanding of digital audio engineering. 24/192 is something used for engineering and mastering an audio track.
Edited by GlassWolf - 7/27/12 at 6:08am

No, there are fundamental differences.

- With streaming, you seldom have more than a small portion of the content actually local to you. With downloading, it's all local. When you download, the need for compression is less of an issue since you don't have to worry about buffers running out.

- In the case of streaming, there isn't always a "rewind" or "fast forward". Downloading often gives you more control. Streaming can often disable basic controls and (in the case of video streaming) often adds preroll ads every time you start a segment. Downloading is a final product. While it's possible to disable some controls, that's rare (note I'm talking downloading, not recording, like normal TV recording on a DVR).

- Copy protection is easier to handle with a stream since there always has to be a connection to the mothership to play it and you never get the whole thing.

- Streaming means playback. Downloading means you store it with no guarantee you'll ever play it.

Technology wise, downloading is about the file while streaming is about the transfer. Further, streaming is about the content from bit one as opposed to downloading which is only about the content if you actually select the file and play it. Streaming always uses bandwidth. Downloading only uses bandwidth the first time you access it.

Ownership wise, streaming is about a rental, or a lease. There is no ownership. Rights are granted and removed without any say in the matter from the user. Validation is always required to play the content. With downloads, very often ownership is final. There may be copy protection to prevent duplication, but you posess a copy that you can play back at any time, any number of times in most cases, often without the need for an internet connection.

Can someone point us to the 3D channel listings for Direct TV's Olympic coverage?
i.e. What channels will the 242 hours of 3D programming be on for the Olympics?

The banner ads for the Viacom channels are annoying, but I would guess they will probably be going away pretty soon. They only left up the banners about the channels being lost for a few days, so my guess is the banners about the channels being back up will only be for a few days too.

As far as the banners near the PPV and HBO channels don't expect those to be going away any time soon. I guess that they are working pretty well to help increase customer usage of DirecTV's on-demand services, so DirecTV is more than happy to deal with the few calls they get complaining about them. Once people get used to the on-demand system being there, and the banner ads getting fewer click, then we might start seeing them go away. But I'm guessing were talking months or years before that happens. I believe most of those banner ads are attached to channels next to them, so if you can deal with removing whatever channel it is attached to you can get rid of them in your custom guide, but you will miss out on seeing what is on that channel. For example I think the ones near HBO are attached to channel 501, so if you edit that channel out of your guide they should go away. But then your guide will no longer show channel 501, so you'd have to either watch everything on 504 a couple hours later, or tune into the channel itself to see what's on.

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