1080i vs. 720p

[Chip Chester]

BBTV wrote: "I thought it would be better with DirecTV or Dish..."
In part of my pro video work, I've had to monitor various differences between terrestrial over-the-air broadcasts (probably the best signal a consumer can get except for file-based) and DirecTV. The big hint is: It takes 9 seconds for a local's signal to make it to, thru, and up and down (2x round trips) from the local to DirecTV's receiver. Only a second of that is spent in-transit to and from satellites. The rest is bandwidth-preserving squishing to a hopefully-not-to-apparent degraded signal to squeeze in a few more pay-per-view movie channels. Even with spot beams for locals, the quality is not there when compared to OTA. Granted, not all is sweetness and light within the TV station either, but if there's no intermediate studio-transmitter link, what comes out the big stick is better than most other options.