Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (
More info?)
On Fri, 01 Jul 2005 19:05:44 GMT, "bbodin" <nospam!bbodin@airmail.net>
wrote:
>
>"Jeff Rife" <wevsr@nabs.net> wrote in message
>news:MPG.1d2e6e5ae8bb4c12989e28@news.nabs.net...
>> bbodin (nospam!bbodin@airmail.net) wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:
>> Well, if that's the way they were going to do things, then, yeah, it'd be
>> a problem. But the reality is that you won't get a $100 SD-only receiver
>> to replace your $800 HD receiver. It may only be a $250 HD receiver
>> because that's all they cost now, but that's not DirecTV's fault.
>>
>> Anything with MPEG-4 will be HD-capable, so your comparison isn't valid,
>> anyway, because DirecTV *won't* be giving away HD-capable receivers to
>> people who don't already have them...at least not for quite a while.
>
>I don't get the comparison here. I was speaking only about HD recievers.
>
>> If both users get the "top of the line" receiver, then I wouldn't say
>> "A" has lost anything, but rather that "B" has gotten something for free.
>
>That's assuming the replacement is "top of the line". My whole argument is
>based on the fact that it won't be. The example is when I bought my
>reciever, the top of the line HD reciever would have been an HD200 and a
>lower end would have been the Hughes HD reciever (the $800 to $100 analogy I
>used). There is a definite quality difference between the 2 even though both
>are HD. You plug both in to the same TV and the picture quality is much
>better on the HD200 because of the better encoder.
Why does the HD receiver need an encoder? The HD signal is compressed
at the source.
>
> I'm suggesting that if DirecTV is forced to do a reciever swap they will
>take the cheapest route and in the scenario about everyone would be getting
>the Hughes HD equivalent reciever. That's great and it does do HD, but the
>person who had the HD200 (and paid $800 for it) will plug in his new "free"
>reciever and say "This looks like HD-lite to me...where was that 'looking
>through the window' feel I had". Regardless of how many channels they roll
>out, that person has lost and will be upset...that's all I'm saying.
>
>Now the person who had the cheaper Hughes will get the new one and not know
>any difference so he won't complain (just like those people who joined D* in
>the past couple of years are satisfied with their SD quality while those
>that saw what it was like before the compression started are continually
>pissed).
>
>
....
DirecTV signals have always been compressed. The compression
technology has been improved over the past 6 years.
I have owned a total of 4 DirecTV receivers. The first one cost about
$350 in 1999, a Sony SAT-A4. The second one was a Hughes model
costing $49. There is no difference in picture or sound quality
between these two receivers.
Both of these receivers were retired in favor of two DirecTV DVRs
which cost a total of $200 including a free dish. The DirecTV DVRs
have better picture quality than our older DTV receivers.
That might be a result of improved picture quality from DirecTV
since the old receivers were retired. Our largest TV screen size is
27 inches.
The one feature the Sony has which is missing from the later boxes
is the RF remote. I fixed that omission with a purchase of the RF
Remote Extender from Bluedo.com...
http://www.bluedo.com/bluedocgi/product.cgi?model=RR-X300
I'm looking forward to a $99 HD DVR from DirecTV, not for HD
but for higher recording capacity on standard definition programming.
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