HD picture quality on Alien 2

What do people think of the HD picture quality on the Alien 2/Triplex receivers ?
I had been led to believe that SH4 receivers had better picture quality than Mips based receivers but I prefer the picture on the Dm800 .
On my Triplex it outputs a very dull and lifeless picture on my high end plasma.Whites looks cream and the picture doesnt look HD .

If I flick between a HD and an Sd version of the same channel on the Triplex the difference in quality isnt as noticeable as on my Dm800 .
On the Dm800 you can see the pores on a persons face ,the detail is excellent but on the Triplex it looks smoother and less detailed.
Spark picture quality isnt much better than E2 .
I have to turn the contrast up very high on my high end plasma to get the picture bright enough and even at that HD is still poor ,skin colours look off,and the picture is lacking detail seen on my other HD receivers.
I have tried alot of setting changes but the picture just isnt good enough.

I have it on the correct HD settings ,1080p and have tried a number of hdmi cables to rule that out .
Its outputting a hd picture to the set but its just a disappointing picture .
What do other owners think of the picture quality ?

Quote from nano

I never noticed that much difference between my Gigablue and my Amiko Alien 2 in the 2 weeks i had the Alien2 before it packed up. In certain aspects it was better than my Gigablue, in others it was worse, although all round it wasn't a patch on the Gigablue.

To be honest i found the Alien 2 a disappointing box all round, at first glance it appears a better made box than the Gigablue, but the fact that both of my Gigablues are getting on for well over 2 years old now speaks volumes when both my Alien SHD-8900 and Alien 2 both packed up within weeks of each other. The fact that there are so many second hand Alien boxes floating around also speaks volumes to how good they are, or should i say how bad they are.

Nano

Thanks for replying Nano.
You had the Alien 2 when enigma 2 on it was in a very early stage and it was unstable and buggy.
It has improved alot and it pretty decent now .

The 2 main issues I have with the Alien 2/Triplex now are the HD picture quality which looks washed out and the uneven audio levels on different channels.
There is an audio adjustment level plugin but that only partly resolves the issue,some channels are too quiet and others too loud.
I have to turn the volume up very high on my tv on some channels whereas on the Dm800 ,I only need to have it at ~35% volume and its very loud.

In what way did you find the Gigablue receivers better Nano ,I am half thinking of getting a Quad or one of the new UE plus models ,they look like a cheaper alternative to the Vu+ receivers.
How do you find the software on them ?
Many thanks

Quote from pheonix

Im just pointing out that no one actually broadcasts in this format in case the OP did not know. There is no need for you to turn it onto another witch hunt.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

1080i or 1080p the picture is the same ,its lifeless in HD .

I do realise that nobody broadcasts in 1080p ,1080i is the best I can hope for and even at that the quality varies greatly due to bitrate.
I have the Dm800 and Triplex set up on the same set now and I am going to see how I can get the picture to match .One is dead the other ,vibrant.

Quote from musogeek

Once I sorted out the juddering on my NBOX receiver (mentioning it because it is an SH4) then to be honest I didn't notice too much difference between that and the quality I get from my other two receivers which are proper mips ones. As I mentioned before, the issue most get on these type of receivers on HD channels is juddering, which can either be fixed (albeit a dirty fix as it presents other picture issue) by setting your receiver to 1080p 25hz, or by flashing with judder fix image or possibly replacing a couple of system files. It is a an idea if there is any tweaks you can do in order to improve things, either on your TV set, or if you look at the video options to see if you can mess with some advanced video settings, I know you have probably tried this, but I myself have spent hours before I was happy with the picture results. From what I read most people get better picture results with spark than they do with E2 images on this receiver.

Thanks Musogeek.
I am running Hyperion on my Triplex with recent updates so it has the judder fix ,and I am running it in 1080i @50hz .

If I'm honest I didnt see much if any difference between Spark and Enigma 2

I've tried varying the contrast,brightness,colour and sharpness on the tv as well as the gamma levels.
It seems to be a low contrast issue on the receiver .If I had an LCD or LED set that wouldnt be an issue but as I have a plasma its not as bright.

Actually I watched some tv tonight in Spark and the picture quality is way better than in Enigma 2 .The HD channels looked superb .
Enigma 2 doesnt do my 50" Plasma justice .

Well I must take back what I said about the poor picture quality .
Imanaged to improve the picture dramatically by simply changing the color balance on the tv,a Panasonic St50.
I changed it from Warm to Normal and that brightened up the picture alot and made the colours more vibrant and natural unlike the dull picture before.
Enigma 2 seems to output a very low colour balance ,whites look cream, its much darker than Spark .

The only drawback with the low colour balance is that I cant really use the Tv's optimum setting True Cinema mode as that has a fixed Warm balance.
It looks like you are watching the tv through tinted glasses.

I can however use Cinema mode and that is very good too .
Picture looks very good now, probably better than the Dm800 I previously used so very happy.