Comcast Compresses HD - No One Shocked

[admin]

Comcast and other cable providers are compressing their HD channels up to 3:1. This means softer pictures, audio and video dropouts, and users on Internet forums exposing your bad signal for what it is. Is there relief on the horizon? Maybe...

Discuss "Comcast Compresses HD - No One Shocked" here. Read the article.

 

[gliz]

yea, kinda new that. I like the picture though

 

[jinjuku]

If Joe Consumer drops $5K on a tv and $500 on a HD Cable box, plus the HD surcharge, then they aren't getting what they paid for. This I could see as a class action lawsuit.

You aren't allowed to sell 800 berths on a ship with only 400 life jackets...

 

[gliz]

as far as I know the only uncompressed HD is broadcast OTA (Over The Air)

 

[smurphy522]

Class Action Lawsuit?

If Joe Consumer drops $5K on a tv and $500 on a HD Cable box, plus the HD surcharge, then they aren't getting what they paid for. This I could see as a class action lawsuit.

You aren't allowed to sell 800 berths on a ship with only 400 life jackets...

Class Action Lawsuit?....umm....I doubt it. I would hope that ATT/Sprint/Verizon, Etc would get a Class... first due to dropped calls and not having sufficient service. Oh wait there is a clause that protects them in the contract. Juct as Comcast and other HD or even non-HD providers have on their service contracts.

Anyhow yes it would be nice to "make" them provide better quality service but it ain't happening in our lifetime my friends.

Heck I've been waiting for 4 weeks to get a service guy out to the house to fix a signal problem to my non-HD box (the others are all HD boxes without issues). Well actually it is the feed, the box itself has been swapped 3 times with no avail. End of my rant.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I wrote about it a dozen times and I'll say it again - EVERYONE compressing the signal,only techniques and level of compression varies.
Cable uses old MPEG-2 while Fios/Sat using much newer AVC [aka H.264 aka Mpeg4 Part 10] codec, allowing them higher compression , while keeping artifacts out

 

[Biggiesized]

No.

FiOS doesn't recompress their signals when they send them down your pipe. And it doesn't transcode anything to MPEG-4.

 

[trnqk7]

I'll say, I know DishTV is using compression, but it looks much better than my brother-in-law's high def signal that's on Charter cable...I'll stick with Dish for now I think...

 

[Midcow2]

Switch to satellite or fiber if you want to love your picture!

yea, kinda new that. I like the picture though

Cable is like a friendship,you like the picture

Howevert satellite( DishNetwok or DirecTV) or fiber optics ( AT&T Uverse) is like a passionate love affair and you will be imersed in the reality of the picture.

The regular channels on satellite or fiber are like cable HD channels and the HD channels are awesome!!! Almost like being there. You can even see the sondwaves coming out of high level speakers

 

[stratman]

My friend swore up and down there was no PQ difference between Comcast HD and Direct TV HD, he goes and buys a 58" Panny, orders Comcast HD, compares my PQ (Direct TV HD) to his.......................he's getting rid of Comcast. He's not a techie or an A/V'er, just an attorney.........yet he could see the difference.

 

[trnqk7]

I can tell a big difference between cable and dish. My brother in law has a 46" and I have a 50" and his picture looks much "softer" and more compressed than mine. Still looks nice mind you-just not as nice. And I have noticed that several SD shows on Dish look almost good enough to be in HD (almost).

 

[gliz]

Cable is like a friendship,you like the picture

no I was refering to the subject of the picture here on the story

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

No.

FiOS doesn't recompress their signals when they send them down your pipe. And it doesn't transcode anything to MPEG-4.

Thank you!
My bad, You mostly right - all broadcast video is not compressed by fios, with only exception is vod

 

[Midcow2]

The reason he could tell the difference ...

My friend swore up and down there was no PQ difference between Comcast HD and Direct TV HD, he goes and buys a 58" Panny, orders Comcast HD, compares my PQ (Direct TV HD) to his.......................he's getting rid of Comcast. He's not a techie or an A/V'er, just an attorney.........yet he could see the difference.

....because now he can read the very,very fine tiny print on the advertisement legal disclaimers

 

[mtrycrafts]

Comcast and other cable providers are compressing their HD channels up to 3:1. This means softer pictures, audio and video dropouts, and users on Internet forums exposing your bad signal for what it is. Is there relief on the horizon? Maybe...

Discuss "Comcast Compresses HD - No One Shocked" here. Read the article.

3 HD ch in the space of one analog ch?
Analog is 6mHz wide. You squeeze 3 HD into that has to be more than a 3:1 compression, no?

 

[10010011]

Most consumers can't tell how much compression they are using.

Fact is, most consumers buy a HDTV hook it up to their SD cable box and stretch the SD picture to fit the wide screen and think they are watching HD.

As the different providers compete in this head to head race to see who has more HD channels quality will continue to suffer and in the end we all lose.

 

[Hi Ho]

I have one word for you Tom... SATELLITE! If FIOS is not coming to your house as you said in the podcast then I would seriously look into Dish Network or DirecTV. They are light years ahead of any cable service in both HD programming and hardware (DVR). I prefer the Dish DVR myself but DirecTVs DVR is still very good.

I noticed the worsening Comcast picture a little over a month ago. Most of my customers use Comcast mainly because it's convenient or they don't know better. I am in awe at how bad some of the Comcast HD channels really look. Midcow2 is right when he says SD channels on satellite look as good as many HD channels on cable. It's actually true.

Some of the Comcast SD channels look as bad as YouTube videos. The Science Channel, which is only SD on Comcast literally looks like a blown up YouTube video while the SD version on Dish looks like HD in comparison. The HD version on Dish looks 1000x better than Comcast.

as far as I know the only uncompressed HD is broadcast OTA (Over The Air)

OTA broadcasts are not uncompressed. They simply are not recompressed by a provider. OTA broadcasts use MPEG 2 compression. Virtually all providers use some form of extra compression to fit more channels in the provided space. FIOS is the exception. DirecTV and DishNetwork use either MPEG 2 or MPEG 4 and are quickly moving to an all MPEG 4 system as this allows them to add more channels without sacrificing picture quality. DirecTV currently has the most MPEG 4 channels but Dish is catching up. Cable is still using MPEG 2 exclusively and will be for a while as far as I know. When more compression is added to MPEG 2 video the results are never good.

 

[obscbyclouds]

You know, its funny how Satellite TV is the less compressed than Cable, but then you go listen to Satellite Radio, and oh boy, compression central!

I agree that Sat. rocks Cable HD picture quality, even on my medicore T.V. the difference when I switched was obvious. Although 10010011 is absolutely correct, J6P doesn't know or care, but he sure knows how many channels he can get. It's kind of analgous to how many songs he has on his IPod, all ripped at 64kbs.

 

[JJMP50]

CSI Miami in Pro Logic

Is this compression the reason why CSI Miami on A&E no longer decodes in Dolby Digital but just a stereo signal from Comcast? I've noticed several other examples of this and it seem like the time of day is some function of this although I have no hard data. TNT is consistantly Dolby Digital as are the Discovery family of channels.

 

[Pyrrho]

I think it is funny that people pay for a crappy picture when many of them could just hook up an antenna (rabbit ears would even work for some) and get a better picture for free. There really is a sucker born every minute. (Well, with the current rate of population increase, more than one, but let us not quibble over such details.)