New guy here with a question

[rottonj]

My NESN in HD says it's coming in at 480 and it doesnt look nearly as good as the other hd channels. Why would this be? The other hd chanels are 720 or better. Thanks for all replies in advance

 

[swampman]

I may be wrong here but I think 480 is SD not HD.

 

[Brewer4]

I may be wrong here but I think 480 is SD not HD.

You are correct. Only 720p and 1080i are considered HD. Of course, you start lowering bit rates and dimensions and it becomes, wait for it........., HD Lite.

 

[Brewer4]

My NESN in HD says it's coming in at 480 and it doesnt look nearly as good as the other hd channels. Why would this be? The other hd chanels are 720 or better. Thanks for all replies in advance

to the forum.

It should be coming over as 720p unless Directv has changed it again. I shouldnt be 480p. Check your receiver settings or turn native off. Maybe something is accidentally telling it to go 480p or you are grabbing the SD version of the channel.

 

[atp1313]

Yeah, when my new HR20 was installed yesterday, the tech defaulted all formats to active. So when I turned on ESPN HD, the signal came through as 480p. I went in and activated NATIVE mode and unchecked 480i/p from the available passthrough signals and voila! The signal immediately switched over to 720p and looked much better....considering where I was coming from...

 

[vicw]

Yeah, when my new HR20 was installed yesterday, the tech defaulted all formats to active. So when I turned on ESPN HD, the signal came through as 480p. I went in and activated NATIVE mode and unchecked 480i/p from the available passthrough signals and voila! The signal immediately switched over to 720p and looked much better....considering where I was coming from...

Is it possible that the source on that channel was actually 480p, and you have forced it to upscale and output 720p? I would expect native mode passthrough to pass on exactly what it detects, or is the D* passthrough capable of downrezing 720p input to 480i/p, despite 720p having been defined on your setup as a compatible output? If so, having to disable 480i/p it seems to contradict the purpose of using native mode.

I'm currently considering a switch from cable to either D* or E*, and consistent native mode passthrough is an important consideration for me. Are there issues with the implementation of native mode passthrough on D*?

 

[putterboy]

nesn

Greetings, It could depend where you are located. NESN is our RSN, i'm in Western MA, but its not in HD yet. Only Boston addresses are getting the NESN HD feed. Don't be confuses by the NESN HD logo thats all over the screen during Sox games.

 

[atp1313]

Is it possible that the source on that channel was actually 480p, and you have forced it to upscale and output 720p? I would expect native mode passthrough to pass on exactly what it detects, or is the D* passthrough capable of downrezing 720p input to 480i/p, despite 720p having been defined on your setup as a compatible output? If so, having to disable 480i/p it seems to contradict the purpose of using native mode.

I'm currently considering a switch from cable to either D* or E*, and consistent native mode passthrough is an important consideration for me. Are there issues with the implementation of native mode passthrough on D*?

At the time that I was tinkering with my NATIVE mode yesterday, there was an HD football game on. So I know that at that time, the signal that was coming from ESPN through D* was in 720p. But my box was defaulting to the lowest common denominator (480i). When I disabled the 480i/p options and turned on NATIVE, suddenly the image was much nicer and crisper and brighter and cleaner and was actually shown in HD and not dowrezzed.

I don't know why the box would "force" the downrez to 480i instead of allowing the HD signal. But I guess if you turn off native mode and tell the box to only show 480i, then it does what it is told to do. So if you have a TV that is capable of 720p and 1080i, just turn those on and let the Native mode switch the signal as it leaves the box for the TV, and let the TV decide which it should display.