Dish Network VOD vs. Blu-ray: 1080p shootout
Sound & Vision magazine's Brent Butterworth conducted a test comparing the video quality of Dish Network's 1080p video-on-demand service with that of a Blu-ray movie, and found very little difference.
Dish Network's 1080p version of Speed Racer looks nearly as good as the Blu-ray.
(Credit: Amazon.com)Dish offers a very few select VOD movies in 1080p resolution, the highest-definition available today, only one of which was available at the time of the comparison: Speed Racer. Comparing the 1080p Dish VOD version with the 1080p version on the Blu-ray disc, Butterworth "could detect only subtle differences" from a normal seating distance, reporting that both "looked fantastic."
Dish overcomes bandwidth constraints by sending each 1080p movie directly to the hard drives of its ViP-series DVRs in the wee hours of the morning, when there's less demand. When a user select one of the movies and pays the VOD surcharge ($6.99 per movie), it plays directly from the hard drive. One apparent downside to this method is scant selection: only Speed Racer is available now, and another title isn't expected until November.
The video quality of Dish's 1080p service bodes well for future iterations of high-quality downloadable/on-demand content. We reported similarly high quality when comparing the 1080p/24 versions of movies from Vudu to Blu-ray discs. For its part, DirecTV has also said it will offer 1080p VOD movies, although neither cable providers nor Verizon's Fios service have announced any plans to do so.
David Katzmaier reviews HDTVs for CNET. E-mail David.
How exactly does this work? Do you choose a VOD movie that you want to watch tomorrow, and it downloads to your DVR over night? Does it automatically download VOD movies to your box without asking, so the movie can start whenever you want? How does this effect DVR space?
Considering all the options for how this is described, it does not sound like a good deal. I don't want to sacrifice DVR (or need to have a certain amount of available space) to watch an "On-Demand" movie.
I checked with Dish to confirm and expand, and they basically said that yes, every VIP DVR across the country currently has a 1080p copy of Speed Racer (and copies of whatever other 1080p movies Dish is offering, if any) on there right now. To "unlock" it for a 24-hour period, you pay the $6.99 and it's available to watch immediately.
This doesn't affect how many hours of recording time is available on a given DVR. There's a separate partition devoted to the "push" movies and other content that's separate from the advertised capacity of the unit.
According to Dish's rep: "DUE TO THE SIZE OF 1080P MOVIE FILES, WE ARE LOOKING TO EXPAND OUR IP VOD PULL TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM TO ALLOW ACCESS TO MORE 1080P TITLES. RIGHT NOW, IT?S UNCLEAR AS TO THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF MOVIES WE CAN PROVIDE VIA PUSH VOD."
(forgive the all-caps, that's to differentiate their replies from my questions in the email I sent)
My guess is that since those "push" 1080p movies are so big, Dish will never be able to offer more than one or two at a time with this method.
Hope this helps clarify,
Katz
Either that or they have an extra hard drive placed in their DVRs just for this service, driving up the cost. Neither option sounds too good to me.
Because the way I read it, the literal meaning is what the jerk above posted. BUT, what needs to be defined is whether that is by choice or not. (Which is what the first poster is getting at)
If it's by choice, I support it. But, if they just stick it on in hopes you select it....I can't support that.
And I love the way the writer of the article says that both 1080P movies almost look as good!
Excuse me? why wouldn't they? Aren't they both 1080P?
As far as I am concerned a well made 720P copy of a movie is fine enough to be considered High Definition, anything else is a numbers game to fool idiots.
At 480p it's blurrier.
At 720p and 1080i it's about the same, except for full quality 1080i, then it's undeniably better than 720p.
At 1080p it's smoother looking, and more lifelike. The depth is astounding, as is the added detail and realism. Full detailed 1080i looks close to 1080p, but just slightly blurrier.
The movies wouldn't look as good because of the compression factor. Bluray disks have the image uncompressed in 1080p, Dish VOD looks slightly compressed, but you can't tell back from the couch.
It's only to fool idiots if it's a small TV. Big TVs, particularly those over 48 inches, 1080i looks notably better than 720p, and 1080p is just excellent.
-
by rafalink
January 27, 2009 11:34 AM PST
- I order/downloaded "The Beast" and while playing it, my TV indicated that the signal from the box (ViP722) was 1080i, so I chat with DishNetwork to find out what was the problem. Scott from DishNetwork told me that their boxes check if your TV can accept 1080p/24Hz, and if it thinks that it can't sends the signal at 1080i/60Hz.
-
Reply to this comment
-
(17 Comments)My TV can take 1080P/24Hz, but still the signal from the box comes at 1080i/60Hz. What this means is that the 1080p video is processed to 1080i by the box and back to 1080p by the TV.
Anyway, it seems that film, that is encoded at 1080p/24Hz, is then interlaced to 1080i/60Hz for broadcasting, but with metadata tags that allow for a perfect deinterlacing process back to the original 1080p/24Hz. Therefore, it doesn't really makes much difference if the input to the TV is 1080i or 1080p, as what you see is 1080p/24Hz anyway.
Conclusion: DishNetwork should update the firmware of their boxes so they can be forced to deliver a 1080p signal if chosen, at least so people feels better seeing that the input to their TVs is Full HD.