Tata Sky + HD --Quality sucks

[no1lives4ever]

Just wondering how come so many issues are there with the HD+ box, as i am using the HD box and pretty happy with the same.

Frankly, I am extremely happy with the TS+ HD box. The overall experience and the SD picture quality for me are significantly better than what I had with the Dish TruHD service. I would recommend getting a TS HD connection over Dish TruHD any day.

I had a Dish TruHD service around 7-8 months back. The last thing I saw on that was Wimbledon and after that I never bothered to renew that service.

When I see channels like NatGeo HD or Discovery HD, there are clear quality differences between what I remember seeing on Dish TruHD and what I see on the TS+ HD box. There are simple ways in which I can compare the quality differnce. e.g. There is a program on Discovery HD that shows a sky shot from a helicopter of Rio. And I remember very clearly about being wowed by the smooth motion and quality of the scene on the Dish TruHD service. When I see the same on the TS+HD box, those very same scenes look nowhere near as smooth. The only thing that has changed is the STB and no other part of the setup. I can see similar artifacts on the HD broadcasts of the world cup matches too. e.g. see when the camera pans while a player is getting back to pavilion.

Now I am sure that if someone can do a side by side test of the Dish TruHD & TS HD service, they will find tons of finer quality differences. I am only using 8 month old memory to see some major quality differences here.

These quality differences are not related to the STB. They are clearly there due to lower bit rates used to compress the channel content. The STBs that we use are not advanced enough to actually introduce these kind of compression artifacts.

I am certain that these would also be present in the regular TS HD service also. Here are some things you can check out:

1. On cricket matches, try observing the quality of the background around the areas where a player moves. You will see compression artifacts, etc.

2. See scenes with a lot of panning motion. You will notice that the scene turns blurry for a while. This is very clear on the Discovery programs where they take sweeping aerial sky shots.

-- no1lives4ever

 

[prankey]

I suggest you try renewing Dish HD for once and compare the SD picture and sound quality. Its actually the other way round then what you have perceived. You are looking more at the "cleaner" picture with very less blockiness and pixellation while Dish HD gives more details while carrying those artifacts. Without those artifacts on some content, it looks quite superior on Dish HD. Sound is much better on most of the channels as even when using digital output, high frequencies are completely missing (infact some of the music instrument sounds do not come on TS when Dish TV reproduce them very well).

 

[Dushie]

Frankly, I am extremely happy with the TS+ HD box. The overall experience and the SD picture quality for me are significantly better than what I had with the Dish TruHD service. I would recommend getting a TS HD connection over Dish TruHD any day.

I had a Dish TruHD service around 7-8 months back. The last thing I saw on that was Wimbledon and after that I never bothered to renew that service.

When I see channels like NatGeo HD or Discovery HD, there are clear quality differences between what I remember seeing on Dish TruHD and what I see on the TS+ HD box. There are simple ways in which I can compare the quality differnce. e.g. There is a program on Discovery HD that shows a sky shot from a helicopter of Rio. And I remember very clearly about being wowed by the smooth motion and quality of the scene on the Dish TruHD service. When I see the same on the TS+HD box, those very same scenes look nowhere near as smooth. The only thing that has changed is the STB and no other part of the setup. I can see similar artifacts on the HD broadcasts of the world cup matches too. e.g. see when the camera pans while a player is getting back to pavilion.

Now I am sure that if someone can do a side by side test of the Dish TruHD & TS HD service, they will find tons of finer quality differences. I am only using 8 month old memory to see some major quality differences here.

These quality differences are not related to the STB. They are clearly there due to lower bit rates used to compress the channel content. The STBs that we use are not advanced enough to actually introduce these kind of compression artifacts.

I am certain that these would also be present in the regular TS HD service also. Here are some things you can check out:

1. On cricket matches, try observing the quality of the background around the areas where a player moves. You will see compression artifacts, etc.

2. See scenes with a lot of panning motion. You will notice that the scene turns blurry for a while. This is very clear on the Discovery programs where they take sweeping aerial sky shots.

-- no1lives4ever

Agree with you on the same, i don't think its the hardware but the bandwidth and compression that is the culprit here

 

[Debapriya1976]

I got my Tatasky plus HD installed on friday. From my expriance with tatasky i can say there is no detoriation in quality of SD chanels as discussed in this thread. I would suggest all those who are facing this problem to contact customer care in order to rersovle the issues.

 

[manu79]

I got my Tatasky plus HD installed on friday. From my expriance with tatasky i can say there is no detoriation in quality of SD chanels as discussed in this thread. I would suggest all those who are facing this problem to contact customer care in order to rersovle the issues.

Which TV do you use, and what is the screen size ???

 

[prankey]

I got my Tatasky plus HD installed on friday. From my expriance with tatasky i can say there is no detoriation in quality of SD chanels as discussed in this thread. I would suggest all those who are facing this problem to contact customer care in order to rersovle the issues.

You might be happy with the quality, however I am unable to return Dish HD for the same reason due to SIGNIFICANT difference in quality.

Also, output at 720p is seriously flawed on TS+HD (if we conclude that 1080i is okay) as interlacing artifacts are quite visible. Such issues are not there in Dish HD box where scaling to 720p makes both HD and SD channels look best on a HD ready TV with hardly any deinterlacing issues.

Talking about customer care, even if you feel that we are LAME enough to take help from them to do their magic, I am waiting for them to OFFICIALLY confirm the issue since past more than 15 days.

My latest interaction with TS customer care was frustrating - the person after learning from me that its not an installation or a specific issue with my STB, requested me if he could CLOSE THE COMPLAINT!!! Could you imagine that I am repeatedly following up with CC INCLUDING NODAL officers and the TS engineer is still not turning up till date. Now I am travelling for 10 days, not sure what will improve after I return. Its VERY FRUSTRATING while some of us not understanding the issues we are reporting. It is ESTABLISHED and CONFIRMED by several of the members here that TS has BELOW PAR SQ
and PQ as compared with MOST of the COMPETITION.

Such comments by you does NOT prove anything here when we talk in TECHNICAL TERMS in educating our fellow forum members and subscribers of WHAT IS WRONG with TS+HD connection. If you could not contribute towards improving the service and resolving the issues, such posts do not add any value!

 

[rajniiish]

You might be happy with the quality, however I am unable to return Dish HD for the same reason due to SIGNIFICANT difference in quality.

Also, output at 720p is seriously flawed on TS+HD (if we conclude that 1080i is okay) as interlacing artifacts are quite visible. Such issues are not there in Dish HD box where scaling to 720p makes both HD and SD channels look best on a HD ready TV with hardly any deinterlacing issues.

Talking about customer care, even if you feel that we are LAME enough to take help from them to do their magic, I am waiting for them to OFFICIALLY confirm the issue since past more than 15 days.

My latest interaction with TS customer care was frustrating - the person after learning from me that its not an installation or a specific issue with my STB, requested me if he could CLOSE THE COMPLAINT!!! Could you imagine that I am repeatedly following up with CC INCLUDING NODAL officers and the TS engineer is still not turning up till date. Now I am travelling for 10 days, not sure what will improve after I return. Its VERY FRUSTRATING while some of us not understanding the issues we are reporting. It is ESTABLISHED and CONFIRMED by several of the members here that TS has BELOW PAR SQ
and PQ as compared with MOST of the COMPETITION.

Such comments by you does NOT prove anything here when we talk in TECHNICAL TERMS in educating our fellow forum members and subscribers of WHAT IS WRONG with TS+HD connection. If you could not contribute towards improving the service and resolving the issues, such posts do not add any value!

True, I have been experiencing the same torture by them, no confirmation/update from them so far, and its been more than 2 weeks

 

[dinkyboy]

OK so here is the update after the tata shy technician looked at the picture. he agrees that the quality sucks. they suggested that i put in an amplifier in the signal path to the TV. i told him that it would not work. finally after checking everything they have accepted that the quality sucks which according to them is due to the bad signal but not the box. Moreover this s the best we can get.

Now what?

 

[sanjay0864]

OK so here is the update after the tata shy technician looked at the picture. he agrees that the quality sucks. they suggested that i put in an amplifier in the signal path to the TV. i told him that it would not work. finally after checking everything they have accepted that the quality sucks which according to them is due to the bad signal but not the box. Moreover this s the best we can get.

Now what?

It seems that Tata Sky is now again selling the non 'HD +' set-top box. You should ask them to replace the set-top box with the Tata Sky HD (without the +) set-top box.

 

[prankey]

It seems that Tata Sky is now again selling the non 'HD +' set-top box. You should ask them to replace the set-top box with the Tata Sky HD (without the +) set-top box.

Sanjay, I don't think it will help much particularly on the SQ which is quite LoFi if we compare even with Dish TV.

Can you do a quick check on TS HD outputting at 720p if it also have the same deinterlacing bug as in TS+HD which shows interlacing lines and moving horizontal lines (in logos, etc)? I would appreciate if you could share the results.

Another UPDATE - I am currently travelling and day before received an SMS stating to recharge by the same day to avoid deactivation. Yesterday I got the confirmation SMS that my account is deactivated and that I recharge and keep the STB ON to receive channels. HAS ANYONE ELSE FACED THIS ISSUE??? TS SUCKS BIG TIME IF THEY DO NOT KNOW WHEN THE COMPLIMENTARY PACK EXPIRES!!! THEY ARE UNNECESSARILY HARASSING THE CUSTOMERS LIKE THIS.

 

[sgajjala]

Even the guy who came to my place accepts that quality on SD channels is not good. He says this is the signal received from satellite so as a technician, he could not do anything either in TV or in STB. I asked him to update the same in my complaint and I will take it forward..

Now as dinkyboy asked what next?????????????????????

 

[sanjay0864]

Sanjay, I don't think it will help much particularly on the SQ which is quite LoFi if we compare even with Dish TV.

Actually I have no idea what problems you guys are facing related to audio/video quality on Tata Sky HD+. I personally do not see the problems with the TataSky HD set-top box.

 

[sridhar78]

After reading this thread, I did a comparison of picture quality of TS HD+ with that of Hathway Digital STB and I could not make out any noticeable difference...

 

[madhurshankar]

Guys,
Be patient. HD is gonna take over SD so why should we worry about the old SD. I myself own TS and their HD performance is very impressive:yahoo:.

 

[no1lives4ever]

Actually I have no idea what problems you guys are facing related to audio/video quality on Tata Sky HD+. I personally do not see the problems with the TataSky HD set-top box.

The SD picture quality from the TS+HD box is the same as what I get with the older SD STB.

And the HD picture quality is clearly worse than what I remember the quality was on Dish TruHD box around 7-8 months back. We have discussed this multiple times that the quality problems we are discussing here are caused due to lower bit rates used for compressing the channels.

If you want some examples of the BAD PQ of TS SD channels, check out any program on TLC or Discovery Science and notice scenes where there is a lot of subject movement. You will notice that the background around the subject in motion is blurred. Also scenes where a lot of panning happens will show with a lot of blur. Both of these are simple examples of low bit rates used for compression. You can also see the same artifacts on the HD cricket channels and the HD Natgeo & Discovery channels.

Also try to do this test by sitting real close to your TV. That will show you the quality issues very clearly.

I do not remember the PQ of SD channels on the Dish Box, because to me it was worse than the TS SD box and I used it only for the real HD channels. And I very clearly remember the panning scenes on the Dish TruHD box. They were smooth and clear. One scene that you get to see pretty often on Discovery HD is that of a sky shot of Rio, when the camera pans over the christ statue and after that the houses. On Dish TruHD, the scene showed clean panning and would display as expected. On the TS+HD box that I have, these scenes look plain bad. Now if you find what you see on these scenes as acceptable, then please try to demo a Dish TruHD STB somewhere.

Actually the quality problems on TS are quite easily explained. They are out of bandwidth and because of this they have to use lower bit rates. They even bought some new head end compression equipment from Ericsson to lower the bit rates at which they could transmit. Now no matter what Ericsson might claim, if you use a lower bitrate, then quality will go down. This is plain simple fact. The MPEG2 standard is quite flexible in terms of how compressors are implemented, but the standard is not as flexible as to allow 20% more bandwidth to be extracted by a different compression engine w/o any quality loss. Maybe the ericsson compressors look better than the others being used by TS when used with lower bit rates, but I doubt if they do any real magic.

-- no1lives4ever

 

[prankey]

And there is a day and night difference in SQ when compared to Dish HD on some of the SD channels (particularly Hindi SD channels). Not sure why some of us are unable to distinguish as its easily identified on Zee TV and Sony. Also, the Vocals issue on Nat Geo HD is not there in Dish HD.

 

[prankey]

After reading this thread, I did a comparison of picture quality of TS HD+ with that of Hathway Digital STB and I could not make out any noticeable difference...

Check SQ as well, BIG DIFFERENCE in most of the channels if you compare with Hathway STB.

 

[prankey]

Bandwidth is also an issue for Dish TV and it only offers 3-4 (Discovery HD, Nat Geo HD and sports channel event based) true HD channels. Its claim of 30 HD channels includes rest channels upscaled so more of upscaling is done by Dish TV. India needs to broadcast more of HD channels in the first place. Both Dish TV and Tata Sky started off with MPEG 2 technology at that time Tata Sky had highest number of transponder (12). Bandwidth consumption will be more of a problem when more true HD channels will be broadcasted. Yes indeed the bit rate for TATA SKY/DISH TV will be different as live sports events will obtain the bandwidth as they need it by reducing the data rate for other services that do not.

Those upscaled HD channels on Dish HD use similar bandwidth of a real HD channel as its "technically" HD only (though source is SD). So Dish TV is actually WASTING bandwidth by converting to 5 times the original picture and then compressing it to broadcast. However, Tata Sky seems to have been wasting bandwidth broadcasting DD Direct+ channels through their transponders after RECOMPRESSING them hence, wasting about 50% of the bandwidth towards these FTA channels. Dish TV on the other end do not use their transponders to broadcast DD Direct+ channels and instead broadcast ALL of them through their original transponders. Hence with same number of transponders with equivalent Symbol Rate, Dish TV has always been saving about 50% of the bandwidth (or in other words had about 200% bandwidth available for paid channels as compared to TS). Hence Dish TV do have AMPLE BANDWIDTH, however even their COO seems ILLITERATE in understanding how to broadcast these SD channels with better PQ.

 

[Debapriya1976]

Which TV do you use, and what is the screen size ???

Well I Have Samsung LA40C550J1R.

 

[manu79]

Well I Have Samsung LA40C550J1R.

Well then good for you my friend, If you don't notice the pq difference at that size. Transmission quality of SD channels is below expectation, where is that DVD like quality they promised ???