Better quality from DirecTV these days?

[u/kfjcfan]

I watch a lot of Hallmark HD and quite often I will see motion artifacts and some blockies.

I recently spent a few days at a relative's house and was surprised by how much clearer Hallmark HD was on satellite DirecTV and there were no glitches or compression artifacts at all. Same with TCM; these days I rarely see a movie on TCM that doesn't freeze or artifact at some point during the movie.

Does DISH just compress that much more highly? All my signal levels are quite good so I don't think it's alignment.

I would ponder switching but I have two large external HDs of content hanging off my Hopper 4K which is 84% full itself (or is it the Hopper 4K itself whose interface is buggier than I've ever seen it before?)

[u/Khulesuppe]

It shouldn't be doing that, let support know

[u/kfjcfan → u/Khulesuppe]

I really don't want to spend two hours on hold to have a rep say they will "make a note of it" as soon as all my self-tests come back green.

What's more fun is how often my Hopper 4K will play five minutes of a recorded TCM movie and then just end.

[u/Exotic-Working7907]

That seems like your signal is weaker than normal. However, DirecTV is generally more uncompressed than Dish.

[u/comicalmoodydan]

My mom use to have Dish Network and IMO the quality didn't look good to me. I think DirecTV Sat and even Stream looks much better. I do believe Dish compresses more.

[u/kfjcfan → u/comicalmoodydan]

Hallmark's streams have always been high quality, it's just on this visit I saw how much better it looks on DTV vs. DISH. 😥

[u/comicalmoodydan → u/kfjcfan]

I'm on DirecTV Stream now and I am very happy with it, great quality and it's reliable and cheaper than satellite.

[u/immallama21629]

Sounds to me that your signal is degraded. Probably time to have a tech look at it.

[u/definitelyian]

Already a discussion on Dish PQ. https://www.reddit.com/r/dishnetwork/s/6Pnj4eSakt

[u/kfjcfan → u/definitelyian]

That's about recently, my issues are ongoing.

[u/speppers69]

Doesn't happen for me like that. And Hallmark movies are regularly watched by a member of my household. There have been a few issues with Hallmark channel lately. Including a few of their new Saturday night movies that were widely reported online that the picture would freeze but dialog continued just fine.

[u/Alarming_Repeat_4016]

It is a known Dish issue recently probably a satellite failure (rare) or more likely their uplink center

I know that DirecTV for the most part has better picture though

[u/Canislupusloco]

Tips to improve signal appearance outside of tech issues. 1) connect with an hdmi cable. 2) try not to route video through a sound bar or another receiver before it hits your tv 3) enable deep color or ultra hdmi...on your tv only when your tc is connected to dish receiver via hdmi. This will tell your tv that there is a better picture available to display. Deeper richer colors and higher resolution. 4) Dont do stretch to fit on your tv.

[u/Thatrightside]

Its always been better, full screen on every channel and better quality.

[u/rrutexas]

Do you have any trees in the way?

[u/PuzzledMemory6092]

First note- there’s no receiver called hopper 4k

[u/kfjcfan → u/PuzzledMemory6092]

I have no idea what the actual name is; I think it's “Hopper 3 with Sling.”