DirecTV Picture Quality

I received an e-mail from a viewer complaining about poor picture quality of the KDFX signal on DirecTV's satellite service. I took a look at the signal and indeed it often broke into pixels, an indication of some kind of technical problem.

The issue is not KDFX's signal. It's the same signal we put out over the air on analog and digital TV, and which we send to the cable company. Actually the problem occurs in the DirecTV receive facility itself. DirecTV installed some very new equipment designed to capture local signals, turn them into digital signals, and then send them over fiber optic cables to their satellite uplink facility. They have had many problems getting all this high-tech gear to work right.

Now DirecTV is removing this troublesome equipment and installing new. It should be in operation well before the first of the year. When this happens DirecTV plans to offer local signals in High Definition once it concludes agreements with the local stations allowing them to do this. Meanwhile viewers who watch in SD should see fewer artifacts on their DirecTV screens.