Our old Comcast box had developed intermittent static in the left channel, so I traded it in on a new one. Comcast let's you do that for free if you bring it in yourself to a Comcast store. The box was two years old, and the replacement was the latest model. What an improvement! Native HD content has the same picture quality as Blurays. No kidding. The old cable box was decidedly inferior to Blurays on my Sony player. I have the latest top-of-the-line Roku connected with Cat6, and when playing the same TV shows the Comcast box is very noticeably superior. I wish I had traded up when this model cable box became available.
Just by chance I chose the movie My Cousin Vinnie to test the streaming resolution. Bluray quality. My wife noticed the dramatic increase in quality too.
Comcast also allows you to access Netflix on the X1 box. I tried it, but didn't notice better resolution than on the Roku (in HD mode). Apparently the superior resolution is only available from the Comcast servers. Perhaps Comcast is not using compression (difficult to believe), or perhaps just using a much higher transmission bit rate on compression.
My advice - if you have Comcast cable get the latest box. I've been watching just to see what certain shows look like. It's sort of like having a new set of speakers and going through your CD collection.
