Comsumer Reports. PQ on D better then PQ on E.

[Scherrman]

https://mcappliance.com/

I believe Magic Chef is another Whirlpool name brand.

 

[Bobby]

I believe Magic Chef is another Whirlpool name brand.

It actually owned by CNA dba MC Appliance Corporation...

 

[Scherrman]

It actually owned by CNA dba MC Appliance Corporation...

Seems to be. It was owned my Whirlpool before. Magic Chef does a lot of small appliances and from what I've seen most major brands don't care for the smaller ones.

 

[Hall]

It actually owned by CNA dba MC Appliance Corporation...

The production part can still be done by another 'name' or even a 'contract' builder. Just north of where I grew up is an appliance (freezers) manufacturing plant, owned by now-bankrupt W.C. Wood. They made products for a few different brands, including Haier. More recently, Whirlpool bought them and in that plant, they now produce Whirlpool, Maytag, and Amana branded freezers.

A number of years ago we bought a new clothes dryer at Home Depot. We picked, I think, a Maytag (for no particular reason). I watched one of the employees take a fork lift to get one down from the racks and he grabbed one in a Haier box. Yes, it had the Haier logo on the cardboard box, but Maytag stickers and a Maytag unit inside.

 

[navychop]

"...If you're in the market for a new carpet sweeper wouldn''t you like to know what brand and model does the best job and what that model sells for?..."

Considering their poor testing of vacuums, it just reduces their credibility. They downplayed the Dysons. In my previous job, we went thru MANY models of vacuums. Most lasted maybe six months. Then we got a Dyson. It lasted longer than the business did. And it never lost suction. Years later, beat up, scratched, gouged and with stains on it, it was still working fine. CR is a guide, and certainly not a definitive one.

 

[inazsully]

Who says their testing of vacuums is poor? I have found their results to be spot on. I'm certainly not saying CR is never wrong or that they test any product long enough to really give a reliabilty record over a long period of time. Certainly not long enough to compare to a industrial or business use. But, let's face it. They may not be the definitive guide but they are the only guide for a broad range of products. They do not accept advertising and all products are bought off the shelf just like we do. Several major TV calibrators have toured CR's test facilities and have been very impressed.

 

[klang]

"...If you're in the market for a new carpet sweeper wouldn''t you like to know what brand and model does the best job and what that model sells for?..."

Considering their poor testing of vacuums, it just reduces their credibility. They downplayed the Dysons. In my previous job, we went thru MANY models of vacuums. Most lasted maybe six months. Then we got a Dyson. It lasted longer than the business did. And it never lost suction. Years later, beat up, scratched, gouged and with stains on it, it was still working fine. CR is a guide, and certainly not a definitive one.

Have you checked lately? Just looked at the current ratings online and Dyson scored quite well.

 

[edisonprime]

Direct does not use 1920x1080i. Did you read Scott's post comparing both side by side?

Read what Hall said above.

 

[harshness]

It actually owned by CNA dba MC Appliance Corporation...

Hence the mystery. If you look up CNA, it doesn't seem to exist.

How about China North America?

Don't they know that Mexico builds most of the appliances?

 

[navychop]

Dyson vacuums hold up for years and don't lose suction.

 

[inazsully]

My Panasonic, a best buy from CR eight years ago for $88, was finally handed down to my son. Never a problem and did a great job on carpet and hard floors. Just like DR reported.

 

[DishSubLA]

IF there is a differnce in PQ, it may boil down to "philosophies" or subjective decisions as to which data will be reduced to allow for other data that, as a compromise to the limited bandwidth for both DirecTV and Dish, results in the best PQ possible according to WHOever makes that judgement, and that is incredibly subjective.

For example, we are all a bit guilt of speaking in imprecise terms when we say the picture has too much compression, as if the level of compression is a single gross, macro application compressing all data parts of a picture and SOUND equally (if we want more data for the best possible DD 5.1, then the PQ is going to have to decrease, even if harldy noticable in order to get what we want, which is why MVPD's use a lower bit rate for audio and often have inferior 5.1 sound to, say a Blu-ray's 5.1 stream).

There are data components to a moving picuture that any MVPD can choose compress to different degrees, especially with MPEG4, such as luminance, chromanance data and more. Dish seems to be crushing the luminance data as of late on HD, including the premium movie services, more than I have ever observed (while the VOD of the same movie had more luminance data and was, overall, a touch superior in PQ), and it can look ugly at times, but a subjective decision has been made that it is better to have higher banding in a few dark scenes than suffer, say, inferior color data or other compression artifacts in, say, high action scenes. Maybe DirecTV doesn't need to compress as much of the data as Dish and that is why some consider their PQ better, or is it that DirecTV has made different choices of what to compress to have a subjectively more aesthetic apperance than Dish.

It can be something like the disagreement if film grain is unavoidable if one truly wants the highest detail in a picture, or is the grain noise, an unaesthetic distraction to what is supposed to be the immersive and beauty of the picture quality? One person will believe accepting the compromise of film grain in order to have the highest detail is preferred, while others will believe the reduction of the detail--or a "softer" picture--is a worthy compromise to eliminate the distracting, unaesthetic "noise" of film grain. Some people LOVE film grain, while others hate it. I am in the later camp, but I know more than a few in the former camp.

While lack of bandwidth seems to be more of a problem at Dish, I really do think it is more a matter of subjective philosophies as to what results in a preferred PQ by both the MVPD and the viewer. It sure seems as if CR didn't really set out to answer the question to their own supposed high standards. A survey of PQ, especially when Dish and DirecTV are not grossly different in PQ, seems a bit lazy of CR. I know people who think SD and foggy images are GREAT TV PQ and don't see much difference with HD compared to SD. So, what are we to expect from a lot of folks who may have no standards of what PQ is answering a survey. It would be far more valuable to the consumer if CR would approach this interesting subject that may be the primary or near the primariy factor in choosing Dish or DirecTV, in the way it does its other product review: with some degress of objective data and some subjective impressions.

 

[DishSubLA]

Since Sears sells both LG and Kenmore, it isn't difficult to identify many striking similarities. There are only a handful of companies out there that make appliances outside of the stupid money brands (Viking, Miele, Thermador, Sub-Zero and Liebherr).

Whirlpool is the company behind Amana, Jenn-Aire, Kitchen Aid and Maytag as well as four or five other brands.

Electrolux is behind Eureka, GE (appliances), Gibson, Kelvinator, Philco, Tappan, White-Westinghouse and a couple dozen other brands.

Bosch, Haier, LG and Samsung are the big brands that aren't in bed with Whirlpool or Electrolux.

Magic Chef is a mystery.

Just because the same parent company is behind them, it doesn't follow that they are all clones of each other. It is more like Chevrolet vs. Buick where one company will take the high road and the other not so much. I think it a safe bet that Sears demands more than LG does in terms of quality yet most all of the Kenmore branded equipment is built by LG.

It is important to note that while the DIRECTV picture quality was rated higher, both companies were given the same overall score (probably weighted heavily on ease of use) and both were rated as poor values. Whatever advantage DIRECTV has in picture quality, Consumer Reports believes they piss away somewhere else.

Perhaps the most damning fact behind the survey is that it is conducted using a sampling of Consumer Reports subscribers. This is contrary to what I said earlier. My bad.

Yes, and while two products are from the same company and have the same specs, it is often the diffence is in the QUALITY of the PARTS, which can affect performance and almost always durability. There are cheap capacitors that will bulge in a heartbeat just sitting on the shelf and start to give you performanced problems before they eventually DIE, and more expensive capacitors that won't bulge or give you problems for as long as you use it.

I remeber Toshiba went with a vendor of HDD's for its DVD Recorders and had them FAIL in almost every unit in less than 6 months. They had to roll out a press release and try to fix the mess they were announcing that owners of their device should move the progamming OFF the HDD as soon as possible, and yes, they would replace the OEM HDD with, presumably, a superior one. This is the very common experience today with almost every device being sold today: great specs, but cheap parts. Meanwhile Panasonic did NOT go cheap and the HDD's in their DVD recorders seemed to last to the very day of the DVD recorders obsolecence. It's not just about what's under the hood, but the QUALITY of the parts under the hood.

 

[Hall]

Yes, and while two products are from the same company and have the same specs, it is often the diffence is in the QUALITY of the PARTS

In many cases, the products are literally 100% identical except for the branding though. Even using your example of capacitors and using cheaper ones, but you also have to look at it another way: The manufacturer can buy twice as many "better" capacitors and possibly get them for the same price (because of volume pricing) as the cheaper capacitors.

 

[harshness]

When you enter into an OEM agreement, you get to specify many things that may differ from the baseline whether it makes contributes to economies of scale or not.

 

[harshness]

Maybe DirecTV doesn't need to compress as much of the data as Dish and that is why some consider their PQ better, or is it that DirecTV has made different choices of what to compress to have a subjectively more aesthetic apperance than Dish.

I find that DIRECTV's gamma and chroma are considerably jacked but it does help whack the dark greys that cause problems for DISH. Not being a seared retina type, I dislike the DIRECTV profile.

DIRECTV gets 6 channels per 32MHz transponder while DISH gets up to 8 channels per 24MHz transponder. The differences between Ku and Ka comprise most of that difference.

 

[TheKrell]

DIRECTV gets 6 channels per 32MHz transponder while DISH gets up to 8 channels per 24MHz transponder. The differences between Ku and Ka comprise most of that difference.

Interesting comment. I thought 32MHz or 24MHz was a bandwidth. Shouldn't that tell us what they have to work with? Ku or Ka should be the center frequency, and not a bandwidth.

 

[inazsully]

How much difference do those numbers equate to the end product? Better PQ?

 

[harshness]

Interesting comment. I thought 32MHz or 24MHz was a bandwidth. Shouldn't that tell us what they have to work with? Ku or Ka should be the center frequency, and not a bandwidth.

The numbers represent the bandwidth of the transponders. The frequencies of Ka are in the 18-20GHz range while Ku is in the lower 12Ghz range.

Owing to differences in modulation schemes, possible because Ku travels better, DISH probably gets more usable data capacity out of less bandwidth.

There are many factors other than bandwidth that come into play so it isn't reasonable to make the call on bandwidth alone. It will likely always come down to a personal audition.

 

[inazsully]

Harshness, can you possibly explain the path a signal takes from initial dispersment to the end product received at our TV and what happens to the signal at it's various points of possible signal degradation?