New Member
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10 Messages
Picture quality issues
Hi
after 15 years of having directv, i find the picture quality of the DIRECTV STREAM service very underwhelming - weird saturation of colors and image not giving the right “feel” on my 4K TV. I thought that the streaming was supposed to be 720p or 1080p all the time so should be same as directv. I do have a 1 GB fiber connection
any thoughts? I also noticed that i have to adjust my TV color settings to make it at least a little better compared to my settings for directv
i dont see any picture options on the DIRECTV STREAM box itself
Also how do i see the source quality - whether it has UHD, 720p vs 1080p?
Scottm118
New Member
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11 Messages
4 years ago
I knew I spent big bucks on that high-end Oppo Blu-ray player for a reason. It's one of the few with an HDMI input so when I feed the box into the Blu-Ray I have an option to disable all metadata of HDR. That immediately does the trick...however it's not a permanent solution as it takes up my only HDMI input on the player. Since I have an all analog system that's my *only* digital input so no place to connect a PlayStation or similar later on.
But at least I can now watch it the way it was intended and it looks fantastic!
Someone at DIRECTV STREAM needs to hook this up to a high-end TV and see what we're talking about.
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Kaks
New Member
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10 Messages
4 years ago
It does play 5.1 from DVR - i can confirm that. However, as i previously said the picture quality (Edited per community guidelines) from the DVR. CAn someone from DIRECTV STREAM explain why?
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mark_mt
Employee
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74 Messages
4 years ago
How noticeable is the drop in picture quality? Are we talking major difference or something that's more grating if you're an AV buff? And on what devices?
Haven't had this come up in calls yet, but if you can give me some (basic, for forum rules) details I can run it up the chain.
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Scottm118
New Member
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11 Messages
4 years ago
As for the DIRECTV STREAM box HDR issue....I tried it on 3 different 4K HDR TVs and all of them had the HDR feed no matter what the signal. However, the newer TVs I tried had modes that helped to mitigate the picture issue (HDR Dark/Light/Sports/Theater/etc), while my 2016 Sony basically has one HDR mode with no real options to speak of. That may be why this isn't being greatly reported to DIRECTV STREAM since as mentioned above on some of the TVs you have to be an AV buff to see the difference, but not on mine.
I was actually watching on a 2020 Hisense Android TV last night on the Smithsonian Channel and HDR10 showed up in the top corner every time i tuned to the channel. That is not right--there's no way that channel/ show is in HDR since about the only thing streaming in HDR is Netflix or Disney. Maybe the box design causes that and that's why a 2.0 version is rumored to be in the works...
DIRECTV STREAM tech support thinks 4K resolution and HDR are the same thing and are blaming it on my TV saying it's forcing the box to send that signal. I don't think so--maybe the 4K part (why i can't go below 4k resolutions on the DIRECTV STREAM box) but certainly not the HDR part. Just because the TV can handle HDR doesn't mean the box should send it 100% of the time!
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Kaks
New Member
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10 Messages
4 years ago
Mark,
The drop in picture quality is very noticeable for recorded shows. More than AV geek
Colors are also a bit too saturated on ipad. For Samsung TV with UHD setting, it works great after a lot of tweaking.
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mark_mt
Employee
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74 Messages
4 years ago
I recorded some things to test it on mine (don't watch much TV besides live sports so had to get some samples) and I'm noticing it on both of my TVs (one LG and one Vizio). Not a huge drop in quality on mine, but I have cheap TVs and it was still noticeable.
So...seems like it's a compression thing.
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Chuey
New Member
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1 Message
4 years ago
Yesterday I switched from Spectrum to DIRECTV STREAM. I did not cancel Spectrum yet. The DIRECTV STREAM picture seemed "dull" and colors looked off. After watching DIRECTV STREAM/Internet for about 20 minutes I switched the DIRECTV STREAM/Internet back to Spectrum TV/Internet and picture issues were gone. Live college football comparison was off the charts. Played with them both today and no improvement. I'll be staying with Spectrum.
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Iristine
New Member
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3 Messages
3 years ago
I am experiencing the same issues. The picture does not look like it’s true colors and more of a washed out image. It is not the tv. Picture was great until the switch. Very disappointed.
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Iristine
New Member
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3 Messages
3 years ago
We just switched to DIRECTV STREAM and we are noticing that our picture does not look true to its colors. Also it looks the screen is somewhat faded similar to being in a smoky room. Very disappointing as we are streaming the APP via fiber 1000 megabytes.
it is definitely not the tv as it was working perfectly fine prior to our switch.
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bcbsncjlj
ACE - Expert
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6.2K Messages
3 years ago
I have had the service since conception. Using mainly Roku and Fire Stick. Honestly no issues with the picture quality. It's not cable and not at cable prices.
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Iristine
New Member
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3 Messages
3 years ago
Response to bcbsncjij - Well good for you. It appears plenty of other users ARE having the same issue as I am having. Paying less for a service does not mean I should settle for less of a quality. This is not how it was advertised.
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Jrandomuser
ACE - Expert
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1.2K Messages
3 years ago
There is a compatibility issue between the DIRECTV STREAM branded streaming device and at least some 4K TVs with HDR. Some people have recently indicated that the problem went away for them after an update, and some can resolve it by settings in their TV.
That said, the problem isn't with the service - it is with that particular device. If you use any of the other supported TV devices - Roku, Amazon FireTV, or AppleTV - you won't have the problem (and most of those are less expensive). As a downside, on the other devices there are no channel numbers or voice control. To my eye on the devices and TVs I use, I find the picture fine. But I don't use the DIRECTV STREAM device on a 4k HDR TV, so I've never actually encountered that issue.
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Kaks
New Member
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10 Messages
3 years ago
With fire tV stick, you cannot pause live Tv - very useful for sports. Controls (channel switching etc.) are pretty useless too.
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Jrandomuser
ACE - Expert
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1.2K Messages
3 years ago
They've added pause to a couple of the other devices fairly recently - it may eventually come to FireTV also.
As far as channel navigation - there are a number of things they could do that (at least I think) would improve things for the commodity streamers. But given the lack of a keypad (or many buttons at all) on their remotes, those devices are always going to be at a disadvantage relative to devices with more functional remotes. That said, I haven't found using either the "What's on Now" tiles (for recently watched things) or the EPG to be that much of a problem, but perhaps I don't switch channels that often.
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RAJHI
New Member
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2 Messages
3 years ago
Just received boxes today. Same exact white washed issue on my 3 year old Roku TV. The DTV Stream app is much more clear. It’s definitely the box itself. We really only wanted the remote. Is there a universal remote option that allows the same functionality with the app? We’ll return the boxes, if so.
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