Voom satellite service and HD

[Fred Garvin]

My sister was in town the other day. She resides in Greenville, SC and has had HD for several years. She was watching my Toshiba rear projection when she mentioned "real HD."

Now I've read Nuts and others on here mention that Direct TV and other satellite providers have a better HD transmission than cable. But she was saying there is a difference among that category.

She started out with the now defunct Voom. They were an offshoot of Cablevision. They went out of business in 05. She says their Va Voom service and its picture was head and shoulders above her subsequent satellite providers. I was skeptical but noticed commentary on CNET that echoed what she was saying. I'm guessing this was a service througout the South. Any of you Southerners have experience with Voom?

[Cheesehead]

who cares if the service is now defunct? Man, you must be bored.

[nuts4xu]

Just to clarify Fred, I have said the HD programming and the abundance of HD channels with Directv is better than cable. I am not sure if the HD picture itself is any better, and in fact, I think cable can produce more of a "true" HD picture.

My understanding is the satellite providers can not transmit more than a 480p picture. You might be able to get up to a 720p, but the last time I checked, no satellite can transmit a 1080p or 1080i picture. I am not sure what the cable companys can do, but since it is a hard wire connection, I think it would be more likely a cable company can transmit a better HD signal than Directv.

[Jumpy]

Not true, Nuts. Satellite is more than capable of a 1080i signal. In fact, they have many more channels in 1080i than cable.

As most of you probably know, I recently switched to DTV from TW. I've noticed a huge difference in picture quality among all channels, HD included. I have a 46" LCD that was rated really high by cnet when I bought it 6 months ago. I sit rather close to when watching tv (about 12 ft.), and with TW HD, I could see pixelation in some of the dark areas of the screen. At first, I thought that the reviews I had read were false and the tv wasn't as good as some claimed, but once I got DTV, I realized that it was the signal transmission, not the tv. With DTV HD, the picture on screen is crystal clear with no pixelation, no matter what is on screen (fast moving, dark picture, etc.).

My fiencee summed up the difference between the two quite nicely. She likened the switch from TW to DTV as switching from regular gas to premium in a Ferrari. The tv was just begging for something more when we had TW.

[nuts4xu]

Thanks for clearing it up Jumpy. I haven't had a conversation about it in years, and I have had DTV for about 5 years, and would never change back to TW.

Glad to hear I was wrong. Even if I was right, it still isn't enough to make me change. TW sucks.

[Jumpy]

That they do, my friend. That they do.

You are theoretically correct about a better signal being able to come through a hardwired network, though. The problem with TW, and most cable companies, is that the network uses antiquated co-ax cable throughout most of it's wiring. On top of the finite amount of bandwidth available in co-ax, it is shared between users. With satellite, each dish gets it's own signal independant of any other user, which allows for a stronger overall signal to be sent.