Who Has The Best HD Picture?
One question I get asked all the time is my opinion on which satellite company offers the high quality HD signals. If you ask Dish Network they will say they are the best, if you ask DirecTV they are the best.
It is known that Dish Network lowers the resolution on most of its 1080i channels from 1920×1080 down to 1440×1080. Reading the resolution of the Dish Network channels has been easy as Dish Network uses the DVB standard and thus its resolution can be read by a piece of software called TSREADER. However DirecTV uses its own transmission method so no software exists, which can report the resolution of DirecTV’s HDTV signals.
Because of this I need to go by eye, and for the past 2 years I have been watching Dish Network HD and DirecTV HD. And in my opinion the picture quality between the two is a tie.
With that said, something’s look better on DirecTV, while at other times they look better on Dish Network.
How could this be?
The answer is that both providers use variable bit rate encoding (VBR). Now on a satellite transponder there are 6 or 7 HD channels, which are all encoded together onto that one transponder. With the VBR the encoder must decide which HD video stream to give more bandwidth to. On some of the video streams there could be static or slow moving content, these streams require less bandwidth, while on other video streams there could be fast moving action that requires more bandwidth.. Because of this the encoders must make decisions on the fly on what channels get the most bandwidth. Most of the time it looks good, but sometimes it might not.
Because of limited satellite spectrum the satellite companies must compress their HD channels. Both Dish Network and DirecTV now use MPEG4 compression. MPEG4 is a more robust technology then the older MPEG2 technology. Dish and DirecTV is now able to fit 6 MPEG4 encoded HD channels in the space where only 2 MPEG2 HD channels use to fit.
If you have been a HD satellite customer since the beginning you will notice that the HD quality does not look as good as it did back then. Back when the satellite companies started carrying HD channels they only had 2 or 3 HD channels in their lineup. At that time they were able to dedicate full bandwidth to the HD channels. Now with over 140 HD channels they need to compress them down so that they still look as good as possible with the limited amount of spectrum they have.
So where can you find real HD? If you are lucky you live in one of the areas where Verizon FIOS serves you. FIOS serves its HD channels to customers without using any additional compression. Unfortunately FIOS is only available in a small amount of areas.
The other place to watch pure HD is with a C Band satellite system, there are are number of HD channel up there available via C Band which are in the clear. The issue with C Band is the size of the dish and most of the popular channels are not available to home viewers via C Band.
This weekend I was playing with my new C Band system and caught a number of HD feeds, I was amazed at how good the HD looked on these feeds, and compared them with what was being shown by Dish Network and DirecTV. The C Band feed was lifelike and the colors almost seemed to pop off the screen.
While the HD picture quality from both DBS providers might not look as good as the masters it still looks a hell of a lot better then standard definition. As more channels add HD feeds the satellite companies will need to work to fit the new channels in, its just the nature of the beast. I feel that for DBS satellite customers the satellite HD glory days are a thing of the past.
But with that said satellite gives you more HD choices then most any other medium. The HD quality from both providers ultimately is about the same, so if your satellite shopping choose the one that offers the channels and sports packages that you really want to watch.
Douglas commented:
I would second the motion for OTA (over-the-air or terrestrial); our local PBS station uses 15 Mbps, and offers much better quality than from the cable or satellite systems.
The 1440x1080 raster is used by some VTRs (Sony XDCAM, for example); the horizontal size (1440) is double the number of standard-definition active video pixels, allowing use of a lower bitrate with some loss in horizontal resolution.
Soulwhat commented:
FIOS best PQ by far but Motorola rcvrs are junk.
Sheepdog commented:
I been very happy with DirecTv. But the moment
I see any reduction in HD quality I'm gone.
They are starting to act like my old cable provider with the fee's for everything.
RichR commented:
I remember the "Glory Days" when I had VOOM HDTV and a 34" SONY CRT HDTV. That picture quality will probably never be duplicated by anyone in the programming business. Unfortunately, VOOM didn't obtain a customer base that was financially sustainable. I still have the Motorola VOOM receiver, which gives a very good HDTV picture from my off-air antenna.
Reaper commented:
dvrman: The key here is that DirecTV and Dish Network ADD compression, and Dish even down-rezes the channels. FiOS does neither.
vurbano commented:
C-band>FIOS>Directv>Dish~Cable
dvrman commented:
cable and FIOS use MPEG2 compression while DISH and DIRECTV are using H264. This makes it hard to compare based on bit rate. Many local stations have terrible encoding so a real comparison should look at National Channels especially sports that require higher bandwidth.
Bob commented:
What about adding in cable to the comparison. I sure notice a difference between networks and channels.
jerryez commented:
Scott, you forgot to mention OTA channels. Most people can get them and they are the best. Also, the tv that the person is using is paramount. All tvs sould be adjusted for best picture. And extra large tvs should not be compared to the under 40 inch tv on picture quality.
bdvick commented:
I agree with Scott. I was with Dish for a long time and then I switched to DirecTV and stayed with them for about 2 years. Now I am back to Dish, and I can not tell much difference at all.
The movie channels seem sharper on Dish (HBO, Cinemax, etc..,)
Local channels seemed to be a bit sharper on DirecTV as did some sports channels.
Over all though, both providers offer quality that is on par with each other.
Reaper commented:
Dissappointed: Not quite. The resolution is still greater than 720 so you might have a better picture with a higher resolution TV. However, depending on the size and type of TV, the difference may or may not be discernable.
disappointed commented:
Doesn't this article effectively say that watching HD from Dish or DirecTV on a 1080i TV is no better than watching on a 720p TV. So you should buy a 720p TV, you'll save some money.
Reaper commented:
I agree that Dish Network's and DirecTV's HD quality is about the same, and both are probably better than most cable systems. I switched to FiOS TV a while back and it's awesome - they have the most national HD channels and, as Scott notes, they do not add additional compression to their HD channels (fiber to the premises gives them a lot of bandwidth). In fact, the quality is very near Blu-ray quality.