Originally Posted by nittfan

Thank you VideoMonster for the useful information. I do, of course understand that with a larger screen the image is stretched. I guess the SD broadcasts were meant for that small box t.v. that is becoming a relic. Anyway, my biggest issue is the diminished picture quality on my smaller (42") 2007 Panasonic which is located in the same place as it always was - the only difference is it is now hooked up to a VIP 612 receiver/DVR. When it was hooked up to an old (600?) SD receiver/DVR I had a beautiful picture. Now that it is capable of playing SD and HD, only the HD looks good; SD looks like crap! In both instances (with the old SD receiver and now with my new 612 receiver) the picture still had to be stretched to fit my 42" screen, right? But now with the only difference in this t.v. being the HD receiver, the picture is much, much worse when I try to view SD channels. Maybe I am in a small minority of people who bought a very good HDTV set but did not immediately upgrade to HD programing? My square box t.v. died, so I saved up and bought myself a widescreen, HDTV. I continued to view SD broadcast on an plasma that is/was HDTV capable, and I thought it looked pretty darn sharp! I did not rush into HD programming because I was not too thrilled with the limited channel line-up. So, then my old receiver started having issues, and I thought well maybe it's time to upgrade to an HD receiver/programming. Now I know why so many posters use the tag "how can anyone watch SD" - because once you switch out to an HD receiver your SD pictures are worse. This is a fact in my house .............. I am not imagining this. My 3 year old, SD Dish Network receiver/DVR delivered a picture with such beautiful clarity that most people asked us if we had HD. Now, on that same 42" t.v. (with HDMI cables and proper calibration) the SD programs are almost unbearable to watch .............. blurry, soft edges, and blotchy skin on facial close-ups! The only change here was the receiver!

Our 50" plasma has even worse SD picture quality, and I do understand that part of this is the size of the screen and the viewing distance. But, the signal strength needs improved (from the mouth of the Dish tech, not me). I am encouraged to know that there are indeed more HD channels coming soon, and my locals will be HD in February. In the meantime, I will try to make sure that both the sat box and t.v. are not set to 1080i; not sure how to do this on the t.v., but I will try.

To Oljim - I do not know why there is so much mis-information out there regarding the satellites and the "proper" hook-ups of the dish(es) themselves. I do know that the 2nd Dish tech told me he was a supervisor who works directly for DISH, and he covers a large service area; that was why he could not guarantee that he would be the one to come back. I suspect that the first installation guy, however nice he was, is either a "sub-contractor" for DISH or has not done installations for long. The second Dish guy told me that the 3rd satellite that was locked in - the 119 satellite - was not used much anymore for HD. Maybe he meant for the maximum amount of channels for the "platinum" package .............? Who knows. I do know that he showed me that the signal strength was low. I do know that the dish that they replaced my Dish 500 with is noticeably smaller and he put it on an extender rod. This in itself was puzzling to me, because we live in a very rural area and have a totally clear "line of site" in the sky.

I, like the rest of you, will be clamouring for more HD channels!

Thank you again.

Bonnie