Newsgroup: it.hobby.satellite-tv
Titolo: Poor Pic quality of USSB/Letter campaign

I sent the following letter to:
Patrick Milan
U.S. Satellite Broadcasting
(612) 659-7095
(612) 659-7088
 fax
pmi...@hbi.attmail.com
I bought and installed my Sony dish system 3 weeks ago and from the very
beginning I have been having a problem with pixelization(distortion) on the
screen. This usually happens during intense scenes such as during an
explosion or during a tornado. I understand that these types of scenes tax
the abilities of the MPEG compression being used but I purchased the system
for the laser disc quality that was promised. 
I have a signal strength of 78-79 which is supposed to be just fine for a
crisp and clear picture. I posted this complaint on the Internet Newsgroup
Alt.DSS and I received several responses detailing the same problem,
especially while watching the end of Patriot Games and Twister. I would
like to see this problem fixed before I purchase any programming on USSB.
Sincerely,
John Duncan
I would like some help in this effort to improve the quality of service.
Thank you in advance.


Good luck getting them to respond lucidly. 
Unless you are getting gross interference or data loss, basically, I
think you are experiencing the limitations of real time MPEG encoding.
Real time encoding uses a fixed bit rate and encoding algorythm, which
is intended to be a "best effort" scheme, and will not suit all types of
scene content. There is no adjustment you can make to improve this. One
thing to consider though, is that some providers like HBO are ANALOG
uplinked to a satelite prior to MPEG encoding at DSS or USSB. Others are
not, I believe, such as STARZ. The ones that are encoded directly off
the tape deck feed will display better video detail and color, and
better audio. But you will still see those digital artifacts sometimes.
So you may want to lose the USSB stuff in favor of 5-channel STARZ (and
Encore), I did. 
For variable bit rate, custom MPEG2 encoding that is truly "tits", check
out a Direct Ticket PPV. One day all content will be thus encoded and
transmitted from the source digitally. When that day comes, the DSB
systems will surely avail themselves of it, and the current systems now
support it. So the future is bright. 
I can see the artifacts of MPEG encoding too, but I still think DSS is a
far cry better than cable. I also run the digital optical audio from my
Sony DSS to the digital input of my Meridian surround processor and D/A
converter. The audio I get this way is completely in a class separate
from any other form of TV I've ever had. Again, the PPVs are really tits
in this respect.
Scott

Hope you folks will pardon my jumping in, but I'm really surprised to be 
reading comments to the effect that some DSS services have less 
pixelization than others.  My husband and I have watched the picture 
quality decrease across the board.  PPV, DirecTV, USSB -- they all 
look pretty awful to us compared to what we were watching just a few 
months ago.  (And, certainly compared to what we were watching 
when we first bought the thing two years ago.)
We are also experiencing "freezing" and the "Program Guide Being
Accessed" problems mentioned by other members of this ng.
NL and JS Clarke

when we first bought the thing two years ago.)
I agree, picture quality on the whole system has decreased across the
board.  It seems to me to be related to the addition of new channels.
I do not feel the quality is anywhere as good overall as it was in May
96 when I purchased the dish.  Even PPV is suffering.  Watching
Emma the other night I noticed alot of what looks like dropped frames,
something I have only begun noticing, where it seems during fast
motion rather than pixelating occasional frames would be dropped
resulting in jerky looking motion.
I would like to see DTV and USSB actually DROP some channels
like half of the rediculous news channels, the several self-promotional
channels like Platinum Presents and maybe five or ten PPV channels
in order to free up some bandwidth and increase overal picture 
quality on the other channels.
Robert F. Nee

 quality on the other channels.
This would be a customer relations nightmare.  Once you add a channel,
it is almost impossible to remove it and keep everyone satisfied.  How
many DirecTV subscribers are still upset about the removal of The
Travel Channel?  For every proponent of dropping the news channels, you
can find someone in favor of dropping ESPN, The Disney Channel, or
USA Network.  Who's ox will you gore?
DSS subscriber's have been spoiled lately.  How easily you forget the
way things looked in 1994 and early 1995.  You have control; if you
don't like the service try something else.
--
Michael Weber
m...@fast.net

...

I agree with this in some sense.  They could drop one of the Home Shopping
networks, one or two of the directv platinum channels and maybe 10 ppv
channels.

Robert F. Nee (
rn...@easyway.net
) wrote:
: I would like to see DTV and USSB actually DROP some channels
: like half of the rediculous news channels, the several self-promotional
: channels like Platinum Presents and maybe five or ten PPV channels
: in order to free up some bandwidth and increase overal picture 
: quality on the other channels.
How many "barker" channels does DTV have anyway?  Five?  They need to cut 
it down to one cause that's all they really need.  And they can get rid 
of that inane Beth and Pete (or whoever they are) on channel 218 and just 
mail color brochures of them out with the new access cards.

 mail color brochures of them out with the new access cards.
Geez, no kidding! My own personal image of Hell is being consigned to
listen and watch those two clueless dweebs for eternity....and they've
been on for, what, 6 months now? How long does it take to get everyones
damn cards changed. 
Don't even get me started on the horror story of my card swap with the
defective card and the hoops it took to get them to send me another
one...
-- 
Jeff Swauger - "Hi Fi, Lo Fi, No Fi's just fine with me, and if you 
	           want to give me stereo first give me vitamin E!"

quality on the other channels.
I've been yelling for that since the time I first got the dish 3 years ago. I
had trouble watching several sports on it. The odd thing is, as the quality
overall has gone down, the sports troubles have been reduced. Go figure.
Now it seems obvious to me that the time is right to remove the lower interest
channels. Do that many people REALLY watch Bloomberg Information Television or
the all the news channels and promo channels? Couldn't DirecTV and USSB keep
their adds down to a single channel and run different ones during the day? I
suspect we'd notice a slight improvement with every dropped channel. Come on.
They could cut out 4-7 normal channels plus 3-5 PPV channels with LITTLE
complaint.
That's 7-12 channels that could be axed. That'd MORE than get us back to where
we really liked the picture. Will they do it? I doubt it. I suspect they're
looking into other solutions, like better compression technologies or more
orbital space.
*** RTH ***                   
Rich Heimlich
Editor-in-Chief
ActionWorld
(
http://www.actionworld.com
)
Home of Inside Games and ActionZone
(
http://www.insidegames.com
)
(
http://www.actionzone.com
)

USA Network.  Who's ox will you gore?
DirecTV has the viewership numbers and would know exactly which ones would have
the lowest impact.


 orbital space.
That is the better solution, IMHO.  Look at what happened when TCI
dropped channels due to lack of channel space?  People howled in
protest.
Granted, I hardly watch the news channels at all, and I rarely order
pay-per-view programming.  But someone somewhere probably *does* watch
those channels, and IMHO, it wouldn't matter what channels you dropped,
you'd get people pretty hopping mad if you started dropping channels in
order to attempt to improve picture quality.
The better solution is for DirecTV/USSB to put up another satellite in
the coming years to "pick up the slack" and maybe even add more channels
to boot!
Better off to do that than start dropping channels.  Dropping channels
could prove to be a public relations nightmare for DirecTV/USSB.
Thanks for your opinion!  :))
Dean
mailto:
de...@nwiowa.com
http://elwood.pionet.net/~dean/index.html


...


order to attempt to improve picture quality.
The point I was making about the news channels is not that people don't
watch news channels but that we don't need 10 of them.  There is very
little difference IMHO between ANC, FNC, MSNBC etc.  I would hope that
DTV and USSB would drop some of these in the future.  How high can
the rating be for the umpteenth news channel out there?
As far as PPV channels go how many are there?  There is no real number.
as movies are added and dropped almost daily.  The AVERAGE number
of active channels could be trimmed without anyone really noticing.
Robert F. Nee