Which is better for HDTV?

Question

I have heard a lot of talk about how many companies are cramming many HD channels on a small bandwidth which decreases the overall quality. So the more HD channels you have the worse each one looks. At least that is what I got from it. Anyway, Direct TV claims to have up to 95 HD channels available. Dish Network and Cable companies supposedly (I read this off another website) only have up to 73. Supposedly the latter (or maybe just the cable companies) are having trouble balancing quality with the amount of channels. If this is true how is Direct TV able to have 95 HD channels. Does their picture just look terrible or is their another reason.

Answer 1

Your understanding of the situation is basically correct. The limitation is in capacity, generally referred to as bandwidth. The capacity of different cable suppliers varies from area to area. Some have updated their systems in the past few years and have the capacity to carry good quality HD. Others haven't, and so have to compress the signal more, which decreases the quality.

The satellite systems have been adding new satellites, thereby increasing their capacity.

So, the answer to your question of, which is better, depends on where you live.

One thing you should consider is that comparing suppliers by the number of HD channels they supply is less meaningful than comparing them by the number of channels you will actually watch.

Answer 2

I have Directv HD, and the picture is amazing.  It is certainly better on some channels than on others, but I think that is the actual network, not Directv.  Overall, I am impressed with the quality of the HD channels.

Answer 3

You are correct about the issue of compression to fit more channels in a given bandwidth.

Traditional cable systems only have so much bandwidth on their systems.  They are implementing techniques to improve this, though.  

Satellite systems only have so much bandwidth on a transponder (satellite channel).  However, satellites have many channels and they can launch more satellites.  That's why, if you look at the Dish Network and DirecTV dishes now, they have multiple LNBs (the things in the center of the dish) to look at multiple satellites.  So, satellite systems can "make" more bandwidth to use.  

That said, they still compress the signal because satellites are expensive resources.  However, they don't compress it as much as a cable system typically would.  That's how they can carry more HD signals.

Over The Air signals are compressed the least and therefore look better, still.

I hope this helps.