Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Tivo and Quality

I have Direct TV with a 35 HR Tivo. I've since added an additional HD to expand my recording time to just over 180. I have a standard, 36 inch class CRT TV, if anyone of you know what those are still....I hope to replace it within the next year.

Anyway, to my question. Many times--especially during NFL games--the picture is FAR from clear. It is almost like you can see the digital blocks not being completely filled in. Is that common? I am such a freak about quality sound that if my opinions regarding visual presentation were half of that I'd throw my TV and TiVo out the window.

I'm having a hard time believing that Satellite broadcasts such low-quality; however, I never noticed such low quality when I had Cable.

Anyone else have a similar gripe?

Is your TiVo set to the "highest" quality?

Mark, there are two types of Tivos, DirecTV and "stand alone". The DirecTivos don't have a selectable quality mode, but always record in the highest possibly quality.

TKHanson, I have two Tivos, an HD HR10-250 (upgraded to 70 hr), and a Hughes SD-DVR120 (upgraded to 220 hr). I have a 50" Samsung HLN-507W DLP rear project HD display.

Any "digital blocking" effect is typically not the Tivo recorder. It can be caused by several things: over compression by the content provider, cramming too many channels on a satellite transponder, or even poor signal quality (rain fade, antenna problems, etc).

There is a wide quality variation in different broadcasts, on both SD and HD. Some HD programs are so poor that the best SD broadcasts are nearly that good. The best HD is like a picture hung in space. Yet no hardware changes on my end -- it's all in the transmitted PQ.

Likewise standard def quality varies widely. If you have specific objections to PQ on certain programs, search or post on www.avsforum.com,
www.tivocommunity.com, or www.dbstalk.com There's lots of good info there.

In general you shouldn't see obvious, visible PQ problems like "macro blocking". If the PQ is much worse on some programs than others, that might indicate the problem isn't on your end or anywhere in the satellite system.

I think it depends on the quality of the signal. I have dishnetwork with a tivo like pvr and I get the worst picture/sound quality from the local broadcast networks-especially football games. Sometimes I switch over to ESPN to watch the next game and the picture quality is about a 100 times better on ESPN. As a matter of fact, almost all the other cable channels look better than the big networks. It's maddening.

Thanks, Joema. Will look into it. Good advice!

I second joema's comments regarding D*. From time to time, I'll see pixelation but it's intermittent and uncommon. Sometimes it's due to rain fade (though rarely), sometimes it's due to the source material (either from the original broadcaster to D* or D* itself), etc. Sometimes it also could be due to bad sectors on the hard drive.

Way to go joema, I have similar equipment. Just upgraded my HD Tivo to 70 hours of HD (550 GB btw), in time to get ready for 24, Enterprise, Lost, Carnivale, CSI:ad nauseam, Battlestar Galatica, Cold Case, Desparate Housewives, etc. all in HD. My old SD D*Tivo is up to 110 hours as well. I'm addicted to it...

You're probably noticing the problem most often on NFL games carried by your local network affiliates. Because D* has to carry the local affiliates for so many different cities, they compress them about as much as possible, resulting in a soft picture and problems capturing motion. So what you're seeing is normal and to be expected from NFL games on local stations. The good news is that because all your DirecTV Tivo does is capture the original satellite stream and store it, the Tivo preserves the original quality, i.e. there is no quality loss with the Tivo compared to the live signal.

In theory, analog cable can always deliver a better signal. In practice, many/most cable systems don't. Which is why DBS systems are around.

The right answer is to get an HD Tivo and an antenna, then get the HD signals from all the local stations....

Bruce