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Simon
I am so glad I have at long last come across someone who has had the same experience as me....... regarding a difference in picture quality even between receivers of the same make and model......
Ten years ago I bought an Echostar 8700 multi satellite receiver with a 1.2 Mtr Dish
The Pictures on it were the most incredible video pictures I've ever seen.... including anything I've seen since..... whether Analog or Digital.... and I still have recordings to prove it....
Everything was in rich Technicolor!!.... (and I mean everything)...
It was as if it was putting colors into the picture.
I've never seen such a range of colors in my life on a TV screen.... The strength of non primary colors (colors other than Red, Blue, Green) had to be seen to believed, there was no bleed, no smear, no noise, no moiré....... just outstanding Technicolor Pictures.
Pictures from the middle east with all the color and sunshine were a joy to watch..... it just didn't mater that you didn't know what they were saying.
I could never understand why "off air" pictures in "What Satellite & TV" magazine looked so poor in comparison.
(You have to bear in mind that I was a TV engineer for a while during my varied career......)
Unfortunately the receiver went faulty and was replaced....
While the replacement was good by normal standards it wasn't no where as good as the original.......
To cut a long story short my dealer supplied a number of replacements, but non came up to the standard of that first one....
I then got Echostar Europe in Holland involved and they were sending me one replacement after another to try.... I even spoke to the Boss of Echostar in the states...... but got no further with my quest to get my original receiver back.....
Seeing all these different replacements of the same model made me realize that there are more than just subtle differences in picture quality between each one...... there are in fact huge differences between them!!.......
In my days as a TV engineer there were lots of controls that one could tweak to get the best out of each peace of kit.......... and as a result you could get receivers of the same make and model performing much the same.
In these days of the microprocessor there are no controls to tweak...... its all decided by the characteristics of each chip and circuit board....... one would think this would narrow the variation between receivers down....... (not up) but to me this doesn't seem to be the case.......
In view of my findings above........ where does this leave the issue of hardware reviews in magazines like "What Video & TV" "What Satellite" etc.??................. certainly picture quality can be taken as very loosely applying and possibly as not much help at all, if you are a real connoisseur of video pictures.......
Kind regards to you JOHN CHOWN
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