[mr. wally]

haven't seen any discussion about this lately. actually there have been a lot of posts about this on the new flat panel site on avs that should be occurring here.


last time i read comparisions, the consensus was direct had a slightly better overall pq tha dish, but the spread wasn't much.


with new satellite launches and others failing, i'm wondering if things have

changed and now direct is clearly better than dish as many of the posters have claimed.

 

[Indiana627]

I can't speak of E* quality, but I've been with D* for over 8 years and I can't see how anybody could improve on their HD PQ short of Blu Ray. I've done comparisons of local OTA versus the D* local HD and can't see any differences.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr. wally haven't seen any discussion about this lately. actually there have been a lot of posts about this on the new flat panel site on avs that should be occurring here. last time i read comparisions, the consensus was direct had a slightly better overall pq tha dish, but the spread wasn't much. with new satellite launches and others failing, i'm wondering if things have changed and now direct is clearly better than dish as many of the posters have claimed.

well on the RSN side Directv is a lot better.

 

[mdavej]

Nothing has changed. Dish HD is still a max of 1440x1080. So DirecTV HD PQ is still better. Dish appears slightly softer but not very noticeable to most. Dish has about 30 HD channels DirecTV doesn't. DirecTV has about 20 HD channels Dish doesn't, not counting PPV and RSN's. Dish SD PQ on the eastern arc is better than DirecTV.


Some may disagree, but IMO you should base your choice mostly on content as PQ differences aren't very significant. This is coming from a long time D* customer who switched to Dish last year who is more than satisfied with Dish's HD PQ.

 

[mhufnagel]

I've been with Dish now for over a year and a half and have to say that their pq is soft compared to OTA.


We rented a cottage a few weeks ago that had Direct TV and was very impressed with the pq (and the whole house dvr). But to be fair that cottage had smaller sets (32" and 22" compared to 46" and 37") than I do. So I'm sure that made some difference.


I went with Dish over Comcast and Direct TV because of price and over U-Verse over pq and haven't been disappointed with it at all.

 

[LithOTA]

Monday night, during the NFL game I was able to compare E*'s ESPN feed versus WLS-7 Chicago's OTA. Now, keep in mind that WLS carries an HD subchannel (LiveWell) and is the WORST PQ OTA in Chicago.

Watching the exact same broadcast on both sources, E*'s ESPN PQ was definitely better than WLS OTA. I also have a third source to compare- E*'s WLS feed, which was indistinguishable from the OTA feed.

E*'s HD feed on "cable" channels is generally very good, as long as the content actually is HD. The only way to really judge between E* and D* would be to have both setups running into the HDMI inputs of the same TV, so you could rapidly switch back and forth.

 

[Beerstalker]

A poster on DBSTalk recently switched from Dish to DirecTV and has made the comment that he doesn't notice much of a difference on most programming, but on stuff like sports, and action movies with a lot of fast action he does notice that DirecTV's picture quality is much better.


I personally also feel that DirecTV's picture quality at my house is better than Dish's picture quality at my mother in laws, but those are two completely different TVs, etc, so it's difficult to get a direct comparison.


As far as the receivers themselves while DirecTVs may be a bit slower than Dish's, I definitely prefer the way DirecTV has organized their channel line-up, and the features they have.


Really though this comes down to personal choice. If you aren't super picky about picture quality you probably won't notice a whole lot of difference between the two. However, you should look at the channels each offer in HD, and the features they have and base your decisions off that. If you are a sports nut, then DirecTV is a no brainer. If you have to have AMC, BBC America, or G4 then you might prefer Dish. Whole Home DVR is a great feature that I really enjoy so I like DirecTV, etc.


Be aware that there are rumors that some more HD channels will be added to DirecTVs lineup on September 7th, so if channels are your big deciding factor you may want to wait a couple weeks.

 

[el.]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Beerstalker /forum/post/20861632


(...)he doesn't notice much of a difference on most programming, but on stuff like sports, and action movies with a lot of fast action he does notice that DirecTV's picture quality is much better.

that's because static images (let's say most programming) don't put much 'stress' on encoder so the picture turns up really well, but when the same piece of equipment encounter sudden images change that, together with limited bandwidth allocated, will make in the end crappy picture.

 

[arxaw]

After 14 years of DirecTV, a while back, I switched to Dish Network, when DirecTV wanted to charge me for a replacement DVR they bricked with a software update. In my experience, PQ varies so little that it is not noticeable enough to base your provider choice on it. It also varies from channel to channel on each service.


In my experience, the Dish Network DVRs are faster and far more reliable than the DVRS DirecTV provides.