The DISH on HDTV

James Troutman

Date: 2003/04/14
Last revised: 2003/11/11

New information about the DISH HD PVR is available here.

Note: the following discussion of HDTV refers to the HDTV options available through the DISH Network satellite system in the Philadelphia area.

-----Original Message-----
>From: Frank
>Sent: Friday, April 11, 2003 1:28 PM
>To: JT
>Subject: RE: HDTV's Acceptance Picks Up Pace
>
>Okay, you've had yours for a while... How do you like it?
>Is the picture really that much of a step up?

Is the picture really that much of a step up? In a word: yes!

I sometimes find myself watching shows that I have little interest in simply to gawk at the beautiful picture. The High Definition picture is so crisp, so detailed, so real, that it gives the feeling of depth--almost a 3-D style image, not in the sense of leaping out at you, but a depth that draws you in. I'm convinced that if a High Definition tv were camouflaged to look like a window and set up to display a suitable outdoor scene, that most people would believe it was real.

So, yes, the HD picture is really that good.

In fact, even though I have a progressive scan DVD-player, the difference in quality between even the best DVD picture and HD is breathtaking.

Now the caveats.

Local stations:

The Dish 6000 receiver lets you set up the local stations so they are seamlessly integrated with the satellite stations, so I don't have to switch to a different tuner, etc. To set up a local digital station, you just select that option from the receiver's menu and it will scan the airwaves, adding whatever local digital stations it finds and label them accordingly. Apparently, part of the digital signal identifies what the station is, so although WPVI channel 6's digital channel is 64, it shows up on the receiver guide as WPVI and appears sequentially after WPVI's low-def station (so I can tune in either channel 6-00 (low-def) or 6-01(digital)).

Although all the Philadelphia stations are supposed to have their digital channels on the air ( see http://100kwatts.tmi.net/tv/DTV.html) I've never been able to get 29's, so I have to watch 24 (and Firefly when it was still on) in low-def (and I'm still angry at Fox for cancelling Firefly without giving it a fair chance--but I digress). What's worse is that tuning in to a local digital station can be problematic, because if the signal fades for whatever reason, it doesn't just degrade (there's no snow on digital), it just drops out to a blank screen; one second you're viewing a great HD picture, the next it drops to black. Sometimes the picture will freeze while the audio continues normally.

When you tune in to a digital station, the tuner shows a percentage grid; if the signal is at least about 70% strength, you usually get a great picture; if it's less than that, forget it. When I first got my HDTV on 9/10/2001 (wonder why I can remember that date?), the only local digital stations I could get with any reliability were WPVI and WHYY (6 and 12). Then some additional HD antennas were installed (I live only a couple miles from the antenna farm, but there are some trees inconveniently blocking direct line-of-sight), and the situation improved tremendously. Still, it's not perfect, and it's obviously very annoying when the picture drops out. DISH offers the CBS HD station from NYC, and the reception from that has been excellent, so at least I have consistant CBS HD reception, and CBS does have the most HD in their lineup, although CSI (the original one from Vegas, not the cheap imitation from Miami with the most overrated actor on TV) is the only CBS series that I watch regularly. WPVI's reception is usually good, but WCAU's is still touch and go. WHYY's is excellent, and their digital station is always on the air, but it diverges from their regular programming, usually showing some travelogue or other.

One other caveat with the local digital stations: the technology is still so new and there are apparently so few viewers with digital receivers, that the stations are a bit cavalier about their digital programming. One night I had to finally call WPVI about 15 minutes into The Practice to let them know that although their analog station was doing just fine, their digital station was broadcasting the program without the sound (to add insult to injury, the sound would come on for the commercials, which are still broadcast in low-def). OTOH, sometimes this works out in my favor, as a couple times I've watched Mr. Sterling on WCAU where most of the commercials were not broadcast at all; the screen just shifted to one of those holding patterns during the commercial breaks. (Irrelevant aside: I finally stopped watching The Practice after last season when I belatedly realized that I hated all the recurring characters and the plots no longer had even the slightest grounding in reality.)

Satellite stations:

I've already mentioned the CBS HD station that Dish offers. The others are a couple of the premium stations like HBO and Showtime (which I don't subscribe to because I have no interest in sopranos who don't sing or things that are six feet under) and Discovery HD Theater (which I do subscribe to and which offers pretty decent prograrmming although a bit repetitious). I think they also offer an HD sports channel; details are vague.

Recording:

Currently there is an HD VCR available (which can also play back regular VHS tapes), but I think that's going to be an orphan product (the real action will be in DVD recording), so I've avoided it; anyway it costs way too much. So I've been doing my recording on the Panasonic DVD recorder with DVD-RAM discs. The Dish 6000 receiver has an option that lets you pick whether your recorder is HD or regular-def, so I've found that recording an HD show on the DVD-RAM at the next-to-best quality (which lets you get two hours per disc) is a reasonable trade-off among picture quality, convenience, etc. While it's not in the HD league, it is several leaps above the best quality you can get with a convential VCR. Recording at the best quality (which gives you one hour per disc) is noticeably better, about par with the best commercial DVDs.

Sometime this year, Echostar is supposed to come out with an HD PVR. That's what I'm waiting for. I have the Dish 500 PVR in my living room (the HD big screen setup is down in my basement), and it's been frustrating not having the same capabilities on my big screen.

To summarize:

Once again, yes, the HD picture is really a dramatic improvement over the conventional picture, and yes, it really is worthwhile, but local reception, while improving, is still problematic, and ditto for HD program offerings. Bottom line, if you are interested in HD, I'd recommend waiting for DISH's HD PVR to become available (perhaps you could join me in bugging them about it.)