[savedbygrace]

How much of the video artifacts you perceive depends on the size of your set, your viewing distance, your expertise at seeing the artifacts, and the channel you're watching.

DIrecTV, like Dish Network, will shift bandwidth from one channel to another, depending on a formula known only to them. Some channels will look pretty good, while others are almost unviewable.

MPEG2 is the video compression scheme they all use, and it is lossy, meaning the image degradation can be noticable. Most viewers don't notice the degradation, partly because their eye has never been trained to see it.

Then there's the audio. I'm pretty sure this applies to DirecTV also, but with Dish, the audio compression is combined with a peak limiting scheme that causes voice levels to rise and fall depending on the peaks of the music and sound effects.

Network sports and action shows suffer ther most, IMO. 24 is really impacted by that when they play the theme and bumper music while characters are speaking.

There's more, but I'll start sounding like a whiner (might be too late.)

[MikefromOhio]

I will say that my Father in Law's DISH network SUCKS.

My DirecTV is 10000% better.

Maybe I just don't see it, but I have their HD package and generally watch TV on a 42 inch screen (Sony WEGA).

[BigSkyFreeper]

24 is really impacted by that when they play the theme and bumper music while characters are speaking.

Never had a problem with that particular show.

The algorithm that you speak of is pretty simple. They allocate most of the bandwidth to shows and channels with alot of action, and to the most popular channels. I guarantee you, if you have a DISH receiver and go up to those college channels in the 9400-9500 range, you'll notice that those channels look more "pixelated" than the rest of the channels on the dial, because fewer people watch those channels consistently.

For the record, the network channels, like FOX, the picture is actually pretty sharp, and the sound is really clear.

Then there's the audio. I'm pretty sure this applies to DirecTV also, but with Dish, the audio compression is combined with a peak limiting scheme that causes voice levels to rise and fall depending on the peaks of the music and sound effects.

That's called normalization, and actually occurs on a downconverted 5.1 Dolby Surround audio to 2-channel speaker audio. If you had a 5.1 Dolby Surround audio system, and are receiving a 5.1 Dolby signal, you wouldn't notice the peaks and valley's of the music and dialogue.