GatorDeb

Are HD movies on DirecTV the same as if I was watching their HD-DVD counterpart? I.e. is the HD-DVD version of Happy Feet any better than the HD HBO version?

Thanks!

bunkaroo

The conventional wisdom has always been that disc-based HD is much better than cable/dish/OTA HD.

I have landline cable, and I'm not crazy about the bandwidth. I have some very nice looking HD recordings from HDnet, but my HD and BD discs always look better on my setup.

Jray

Yeah, what bunkaroo said. No doubt that HD from any source is great, but it still suffers from the same problems that SD has when you talk about cable or dish. I question whether DirecTV has enough bandwidth, in general, for all their HD channels. It seems that I can always find at least one channel that is "sputtering".

A disc version should generally be at least a little bit better than what you get from the dish.

namja

On smaller TVs, maybe it'll be pretty close. On my 42" LCD TV, there is a noticeable difference between DirecTV's HD programming and HD disc.

There is also a noticeable difference between OTA HD broadcast and cable/dish HD broadcast. You will generally get a much better picture with OTA, which is why many dish people use an external antenna to get OTA for local HD channels.

GatorDeb

I tried a $50 plug-in OTA antenna from Best Buy and the few channels I got sucked in quality.

I was wowed away by Happy Feet on HBO HD and I've heard it's a reference disc. If the network version looks that good I can't wait for the disc version !

I have a 40" Sony Bravia 1080p. Happy Feet was being shown in 720p.

namja

Maybe the content wasn't in HD? During prime time, turn to one of the network channels. Compare CBS OTA to CBS on DirecTV. You should notice a difference with OTA being better.

I'm not saying that DirecTV's HD quality sucks. For television, I like DirecTV best. Just that OTA is generally better for watching network TV, and that HD discs should always be better for watching movies.

GatorDeb

I don't think it was the quality of the channels, I think it was my reception of them. I went to that antenna channel listing website and was able to receive about a quarter of what it shows is being broadcasted in my area. I don't really want to run a huge cat cable all around my room so that the antenna can be next to the window.

Admiral7

With HD OTA channels, you don't get poor reception that compromises the quality of the image. You either get the channel or you don't.

GatorDeb

Ah. I wonder why some channels showed more snow than the other ones. If you either get the channel or you don't how come they suggested moving the antenna? (which helped). What am I doing wrong that I only get a quarter of the channels on antennaweb?

Jeremy517

If you saw snow, you were watching the analog channel, not the digital channel.

PerryD

If you get a weak reception, you'll get some pixelation or sometimes if you lose the signal, the image will freeze up occasionally. You'll never get snow.

Regarding Happy Feet on HBO, HBO-HD is 1080i, not 720p as you had mentioned. The only issue with HBO-HD and Starz-HD is that they crop 2.35:1 movies, so in almost all of those cases, the HD-DVD version will be better for OAR reasons alone. But if the OAR is correct, the picture quality difference is much subtler between HD cable and HD-DVD. The bitrate of HD-HBO is probably at most 14Mb/s mpeg2 which isn't enough to keep up with very active camera movements. I watched Chicken Little on Starz-HD and the picture quality was perfect for the whole movie until just at the end when all heck was breaking loose with the alien invasion and the image became a pixelated mess.

GatorDeb

I DID select analog because I had selected digital first and the auto-find didn't find any channels. This is what I did: Plug antenna into the wall, hook up coax to TV. I wonder what I did wrong that I didn't get any digital channels?

Jeremy517

Probably either pointed your antenna wrong, had too weak of an antenna, or configured your TV wrong. If you are just using a small set-top antenna, try the $20 Silver Sensor. It is one of the best. Also try manually tuning into one of the channels (use the numbers from antennaweb) instead of doing auto-find.

Note: You can't and won't get HD from analog.