Change in SD quality when going from DVR 501 to ViP622

Hi,

Just replaced my Toshiba 36" picture tube TV with a Toshiba 50" plasma HD TV. I currently have Dish's DVR 501. It was such a let down to see all our SD channels look so bad on this new TV. We were seriously thinking about returning the plasma before I came across this forum. I've couple of questions that hopefully someone, especially a dish customer, can help me with:

1. Would the SD picture quality improve if I upgrade to the ViP622 receiver? Has someone done that and seen the improvement? Is it a minor or significant improvement?

2. My talk with a Dish person and their website suggests that I still need an antenna to get the local HD channels. Is this true? If yes, would I still be able to record them on the ViP622?

3. Some of my DVDs also look pretty bad on this TV as well. Would getting a DVD player with an upconvertor significantly improve the picture quality?

Thanks you so much in advance...
-- dinesh

1. Would the SD picture quality improve if I upgrade to the ViP622 receiver? Has someone done that and seen the improvement? Is it a minor or significant improvement?

If I understand correctly, the 501 is not an HD satellite receiver. The best output you have from it is S-video.

I would say that the SD quality may well improve with the upgrade to the 622. Also, that's the only way you can get HD content and a DVR...

2. My talk with a Dish person and their website suggests that I still need an antenna to get the local HD channels. Is this true? If yes, would I still be able to record them on the ViP622?

Considering the 501 is not an HD reciever, then both are true. If you subscribe to your locals through Dish, AND your particular locals are carried on Dish in HD, you should get them with the 211 or 622.

The 622 has the ability to record using the ATSC (aka terrestrial or over-the-air broadcast signal, or free tv) antenna input on the box. The other advantage is that you can do that recording right off the program guide!

3. Some of my DVDs also look pretty bad on this TV as well. Would getting a DVD player with an upconvertor significantly improve the picture quality?

You don't mention how you are connecting the DVD player to the Plasma. If your DVD player has Component outputs, use those to connect to the Plasma (which should have them as well). Or, if your Plasma has an HDMI connector, you might want to look into upgrading your DVD player to one with HDMI out. I did that with my Sharp, and the difference was very noticeable.

The Plasma will upconvert to its native resolution. It has to. Or, it will downconvert. As an example, the native resolution on my Sharp is 1366x768. Any signal sent to it, whether it's 480, 720 or 1080 has to get converted to this resolution to display.

You don't mention how you are connecting the DVD player to the Plasma. If your DVD player has Component outputs, use those to connect to the Plasma (which should have them as well). Or, if your Plasma has an HDMI connector, you might want to look into upgrading your DVD player to one with HDMI out. I did that with my Sharp, and the difference was very noticeable.

The Plasma will upconvert to its native resolution. It has to. Or, it will downconvert. As an example, the native resolution on my Sharp is 1366x768. Any signal sent to it, whether it's 480, 720 or 1080 has to get converted to this resolution to display.

I'm currently using component video to connect my DVD player to the plasma TV. Still many of the DVDs look really bad. So you think getting a DVD with HDMI output would improve the picture quality?
My new TV does have two hdmi inputs.

If I understand correctly, the 501 is not an HD satellite receiver. The best output you have from it is S-video.

I would say that the SD quality may well improve with the upgrade to the 622. Also, that's the only way you can get HD content and a DVR...


I've gone over tons of posts looking for an answer from people who have actually done it. Results seems to be mixed. Sadly, some people have written that it didn't make ANY difference to the SD quality, while few have said it did.

Seems like Dish doesn't have a refund policy. So once you order the HD receiver/service you're stuck for 18 months no matter how bad the SD quality is. I was hoping to get a more definitive answer. Sigh!!!

Hi,

Just replaced my Toshiba 36" picture tube TV with a Toshiba 50" plasma HD TV. I currently have Dish's DVR 501. It was such a let down to see all our SD channels look so bad on this new TV. We were seriously thinking about returning the plasma before I came across this forum. I've couple of questions that hopefully someone, especially a dish customer, can help me with:

1. Would the SD picture quality improve if I upgrade to the ViP622 receiver? Has someone done that and seen the improvement? Is it a minor or significant improvement?

2. My talk with a Dish person and their website suggests that I still need an antenna to get the local HD channels. Is this true? If yes, would I still be able to record them on the ViP622?

3. Some of my DVDs also look pretty bad on this TV as well. Would getting a DVD player with an upconvertor significantly improve the picture quality?

Thanks you so much in advance...
-- dinesh


1. I recently upgraded from the 921 to the 622, and the SD PQ is better on my 62" Mitsu DLP. I still have the 501 in use on an older tube TV, and have not compared directly, however, on the 921 (that I paid $600 bucks for for 14 mos worth of use!!) I did have the SD output connected via S-Video to the 62", and any SD channel looked MUCH better via DVI-out than it did via the S-Video. That said, the 622 SD PQ is not bad, and much, much better than any S-Video feed. This is because you set the output from the 622 to match the resolution on your TV, so SD programming is upconverted in the 622 to the HD resolution (not HD quality of course, but I find it very watch-able).

2. Locals depend on whether Dish has yours or not. They do have mine in HD (Sacramento area), but I also get them via antenna. The 622 has an OTA tuner, so, yes, you can record locals in HD OTA. However, it is my understanding that without a local channel subscription (HD or not), you will not get the channel info in the on-screen guide, and therefore can't use all the Tivo-like functions. Even before locals were available in HD via Dish, and with the local channel subscription from Dish, I got the channel information in the on-screen guide, FYI. And yes, with 1 OTA and 2 Dish tuners, you can watch a prerecorded HD program, while taping 2 Dish channels and 1 OTA channel, all in HD!

3. Tricky question...but first: is your DVD player progressive scan? And, if it is, are you operating it in PS mode? Some have a physical switch in the back, and would not have been in PS mode connected to your old CRT. Without a lot of details, the PQ could be better with a good upconverting DVD player (see the "Secrets of Home Theater" DVD benchmark here: http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_7_3/dvd-benchmark-introduction-9-2000.html)

PQ gets better because the DVD player may do a better job of de-interlacing and upconverting the signal than your TV does (note: your TV and all digital TVs can only display in one resolution equal to the number of pixels, and all is displayed in Progressive Scan mode, the "p" in 720p, so all inputs except those in the TV native resolution are either upconverted or downconverted). Typically, you get better upconversion externally because to keep the price of the TV down, the upconversion hardware included in the TV is not the best.

Whether HDMI will make it better or not is subject to debate since some HDMI outputs clip the video signal (read all about it on SOHT website on above link). However, you should be using either component or HDMI to get a decent picture. If you DVD doesn't support at least component, get a new one. DVD's should look pretty darn good on your TV.

I am in the same boat. I have the 508 and connected through S-Video and my 622 will be here in 2 days. I will be hooking it via HDMI. The PQ of this box and S-Video is 50/50. Some channels look good and others look horrible. I know when I hooked up my Gamecube through S-Video and then went to Component the difference was night and day. Picture had more colors and the image was sharper. S-Video looked like a real washy picture. Just drab.

I have my sony dvd player recorder connected to my 51 inch hd tv and it is feeding the tv via the component video in.
I am also renting the 1st two years of House MD from netflix and the pq is almost as good as the show is live on hd from minneapolis fox which broadcasts the show live in hd. It is fed from the 622 via the hdmi.
Most of my older dvds do not look as good on the 51 inch off the same player as my 36 inch tube set. When I got the tube set I paid more for it than a 50 inch crt projection set would have cost but the drt 36 inch had a superior picture.
Now days you can;t compare to the old tube sets as they are not around. For some reason there must be something going on in these new big screen sets that do not all a super good pq on sd, or so many people would not complain.
Do any of you have a large screen tube set you can set next to the wide screen and put the same channel on both. Does the sd look better on a big screen drt set thatn a hd projection set?