**Need suggestion on Direct TV receiver**

[Yourself]

Ok...

I just purchased an a Sony 34XBR800 TV. It's a sweet 16x9, direct-view flat TV. DVD's look amazing on this thing. One problem that I have run into is the quality of my picture using my Direct TV system. I currently have a mult-satellite oval dish using all Hughes silver edition receivers. The picture-quality at times is just awful. My signal strength is in the high 80's, so that's not a problem and I have tried all three Hughes receivers without any improvement. Just today, I ran very-high quality coax directly from the dish output to my receiver to eliminate the question of a cable problem somewhere in the house and the quality remained the same. I was reading somewhere that picture quality can vary greatly from brand to brand of receiver. I guess I'm looking for some feedback on your system/receiver setup and picture quality....anything help or suggestion would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!

Self

 

[Yourself]

get up...

 

[Tominator]

Is your system grounded properly?

Five to ten foot copper rod in ground and all components wired to it?

 

[Yourself]

yep...five foot, 3/4 inch diamter grounding rod. Plus, I'm using monster power 1000 to reduce EMI and RF interference and using all monster cable.

Self

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: Yourself
Ok...

I just purchased an a Sony 34XBR800 TV. It's a sweet 16x9, direct-view flat TV. DVD's look amazing on this thing. One problem that I have run into is the quality of my picture using my Direct TV system. I currently have a mult-satellite oval dish using all Hughes silver edition receivers. The picture-quality at times is just awful. My signal strength is in the high 80's, so that's not a problem and I have tried all three Hughes receivers without any improvement. Just today, I ran very-high quality coax directly from the dish output to my receiver to eliminate the question of a cable problem somewhere in the house and the quality remained the same. I was reading somewhere that picture quality can vary greatly from brand to brand of receiver. I guess I'm looking for some feedback on your system/receiver setup and picture quality....anything help or suggestion would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!

Self

Several questions:

What type of coax did you use, RG what?
Is there anything in front of the dish?
Do you have a signal strength in the 80's on all transceivers?

 

[Yourself]

High Performace RG-6 is the coax I'm using. As far as transponders, I just did a test and Transponder# 4,12,20, and 26 show 0 and the rest avg out to around 80. Finally, I have a clear path to the satellite and it's sunny and 71 here north of Seattle


Self

 

[Yourself]

BTW, do you guys responding have direct TV? If so, how is your picture quality and what type of receiver do you use?


Self

 

[tigerbait]

Why do you say the picture quality is bad? Is it artifacts from the line doubler in your TV? It could just be a poor video source on Directv. My father has the Sony KV36XBR400 and Directv, and some channels look really good, and some look poorly.

 

[Yourself]

I say the quality is poor and what I mean is that there is ghosting, artifacts and blockiness. Is it the resolution provided by the receiver, or artifacts from the line doubler, or artifacts from Direct Tv compression? My Sunday ticket subscription starts soon, so I'm trying to figure this thing out.


Self

 

[RossMAN]

We have the RCA DRD430RG and have been very happy with it.

 

[tigerbait]

Originally posted by: Yourself
I say the quality is poor and what I mean is that there is ghosting, artifacts and blockiness. Is it the resolution provided by the receiver, or artifacts from the line doubler, or artifacts from Direct Tv compression? My Sunday ticket subscription starts soon, so I'm trying to figure this thing out.


Self

That's the problems with Hi-Def TV sets. If the source has any blemishes, they get magnified big time by the line doubler. Try to hook an a conventional TV to the same receiver and see how the picture looks.

 

[Muadib]

I have both an old RCA AC-3 unit, and 2 of those Hughes silver edition receivers. My RCA has the better picture, but only because I have S video connected to it.

You say you have an oval dish? Do you mean one with 3 lnbs that can receive HDTV? If so, set your receiver to the dual satelite setting, and run the tranceiver test again. I have a dual lnb dish, and I get a reading on all 32 transponders. Number 4 and 26 are my worse, only going to the low 60's. The fact that you don't get any reading might not mean anything though because you have the 3 lnb dish.

 

[Yourself]

Thanks for all the help...however I think I'm taking the set back and going with an analog set until I have more options for High Def in my area.


Self

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: Yourself
Thanks for all the help...however I think I'm taking the set back and going with an analog set until I have more options for High Def in my area.


Self

Well, that is your choice, but I think you are making a mistake. You have a really sweet TV there, one of the best IMO. However, it can't work miracles. If you feed it a bad source, well what you see is what you get. The fact that you say DVD's look amazing, pretty much says it all. It's not the TV that's causing your woes man, it's your dish. Changing your TV won't solve the proplem. It may minimize it, but it's still going to be there.

Have you tried playing with your TV settings? Try lowering your sharpness control. There's a setting called ClearEdge VM, turn it off. Set your DRC Palette to the lowest setting that you can stand. Try changing your picture mode to either movie or pro. You should also pickup a copy of Avia or Video Essentials to make your picture the best it can be without getting a pro.

Good luck!

 

[ScottMac]

The HD Satelllite receivers are getting pretty cheap now (~half off) because the new generation is on the way. Shop around and get a Mits, Toshiba, or Hughs (even Sony, if you can find 'em). They'll be at or under $500.00, and even the regular (non-DH) channels look much better.

DirecTV has their three HD channels now (HBO, Showtime, and HDNet) ... with Discovery HD and others on the way. Add to those the over-the-air stuff .... it's a wunnerful thing.

Check out AVSforum.com. There'll be links and other posts about what's avalable in your area.

Keep the TV, you'll be glad you did.


JM.02

Scott

 

[Yourself]

I understand what you're saying and I agree...the TV is great. But, 90% of my viewing is on an analog signal that's pumping in 4:3. It's my fault for assuming my Direct TV would provide a half-way decent picture and it kills me to sit and watch sports and such on what amounts to a crappy picture. HDTV implementation is moving at a snails pace and with more analog channels being squeezed on to DTV's satellite the quality can only go down. I have a buddy w/ a 36FV300, so I may be able to check the picture on an analog set before my 30 day return period is up.

Self

 

[Queen of Hearts]

<whispers in background> Ditch the dish.... go cable. I've had dish before, it was a living nightmare I wouldn't wish on anyone. <shudders>

 

[Yourself]

I would ditch the dish if cable offered Sunday Ticket


Self

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: Queen of Hearts
<whispers in background> Ditch the dish.... go cable. I've had dish before, it was a living nightmare I wouldn't wish on anyone. <shudders>

cable is a joke. Why pay damned near double the price of direcTV for digital cable?

 

[BDawg]

I have a Hughes Gold and Silver receiver and I'm consistantly in the upper 90s. Sounds like you should re-align your dish.

 

[ScottMac]

The dish, the cables, the hardware-in-general is OK. The dish is aimed OK .. additional signal strength will not improve the picture....newer, better receivers with newer, better decoders WILL help the picture. The receivers are working to spec.

Maybe you're right, take the TV back.

At this point, you'll never be happy with it while driving it with your existing DTV receivers. An external scan converter would help alot, but they cost as much or more than an HDTV-capable sat receiver.

Good Luck


Scott

 

[Mutilator]

If you're having problems now... you're probably going to be hating sunday ticket. Read last week as I was looking around at HDTVs that directv is compressed... but their sports packages are even more compressed and look pretty bad on HDTVs.
Couple things - Have you tried realigning your dish to see if you can get higher than 80s? Mine stays on 97-99 all the time. Maybe I'm just lucky.
I know on my RCA reciever it has an option to use 4:3 or 16:9 does yours have that? Does it actually work on a widescreen TV? I tried switching on my 4:3 but it didn't do anything... maybe it knows if you have a widescreen or not?

 

[BDawg]

And just for the record, my recievers are 3 years old and I'm watching one of them on a Mitsubishi WS-55859 16:9 HDTV. Sure, things don't look as sharp as on my 27V36 Sony, but they still look very good.

 

[Linflas]

I have a Sony Dual LNB 1997 vintage SAT-A2 & B2 receivers and they work fine. I have signal in the upper 90's on the even and odd transponders. The cable from the dish to the receivers is RG-6. I see none of the things you describe on my Toshiba 32 inch set.

 

[wedi42]

i thought a bunch of geeks would know better.
since Direct TVs signal is digital the signal strength will not make a difference in picture quality.
60% will look just like 100%
i will look for a link to this on their website.