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#1 ·
Comcast picks Calaveras to try new technology


By Vanessa Turner

Sunday, May 22, 2005 5:55 PM CDT


Calaveras County Comcast Cable customers will soon be the first group in the country to experience the cable company's new all-digital technology.


Comcast will be contacting its "expanded basic" and "digital service" customers in Wallace, San Andreas, Valley Springs and Mokelumne Hill to schedule a visit to come out and install a new box, which houses the new technology.


Basic cable customers will not be affected.


The new box is about the size of a cigar box and brings new services, which include Comcast On Demand, a video on demand service with a new children's network and improved parental controls, according to Comcast representative Susan Gonzales. Eighty percent of the content is free.


Gonzales is working on getting the word out about the trial. There are 7,100 customers in the county, of which 2,000 will be affected.


But also, Comcast digital customers in Calaveras County that are outside the trial area will be given Comcast On Demand by the end of summer.


"Every customer is getting some new service," Farrell Moseley, Comcast Central Valley manager, said.


Trial implementation is set to begin on or after July 5 and will be complete by fall 2005.


Calaveras County was selected by the company for a test run because of its demographics, according to Moseley.


"Calaveras beat out Half Moon Bay," Moseley said. "Calaveras has a good cross section of the nation. Also, there's a large interest in advanced services."


Moseley also said that Calaveras has strong leadership in its county supervisors and citizens.


Comcast laid the groundwork for carrying the new technology back in 2003 after taking over AT&T's cable operations in 2002. It upgraded the cable system to a larger bandwidth to accommodate the additional services it wanted to bring into the area.


Those services, aside from Comcast on Demand, are high definition television (HDTV) and digital video recording, which will be available for customers in the trial area for $9.95.


What this means for customers in the affected areas, is they need the new technology to continue receiving Comcast Cable, Gonzales said. There's no additional charge but customers need to convert or they will be watching "snow."


"Expanded basic" and "digital service" customers in the affected areas will receive up to three boxes for free. Beyond that, there would be a $1.99 per month charge.


Once the new technology is installed, Comcast will conduct customer surveys to rate their satisfaction. The company will then determine the best way to offer its expanded services to other customers in Calaveras.


A demonstration van will be touring Valley Springs June 2 displaying the Comcast on Demand service.
 
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#1,481 ·
Have the "basic" questions been asked yet?

The first four items on the list below would be the top of my list of things to check, including hitting the "Info" on the TV remote while the TV is using the cable box as input since that will tell you useful information on what the cable box is sending to the TV. Also, since the cable box may be rescaling what it is receiving, double-checking that one is indeed tuned to a HD channel is important, such as "HD" in the program information for the program on that channel or if you have a printed channel line-up published by Comcast that that channel is listed as a HD channel. (Many HD channels have downscaled SD duplicates.)


These are "basic" questions, but, if overlooked, could explain reduced video quality.

  1. Are you tuning to an HD channel, or the SD downscale of that channel? (Most HD channels Comcast also sends as SD. For example, Channel 2 is our ABC affiliate, but on the cable box 2 is the SD downscale and 702 is the HD. Same with many cable networks, e.g., TCM here is 501 SD or 784 HD.)
  2. Are you using a HD-capable connection to the TV? (Generally the best is HDMI; sometimes component, with 3 video signals and 2 audio signals, work around a problem. Either composite (one video connection, two audio connection) or "coax" (typically using NTSC channel 3 or 4) will be SD.)
  3. Is the box configured to send a HD signal out through the connection method? Depending on the box and the TV, suggested choices include NATIVE, 1080p, 1080i, 720p. (Right now I have my cable box set to output 1080p.)
  4. Is there anything between the cable box and the TV that would either reduce the quality or interfere with the EDID information? Easiest test is to connect the cable box directly to the TV and then see what the TV reports for the signal it is being fed, typically by hitting the "Info" button on the TV remote.
  5. Is the firmware in the TV current? From time to time a TV manufacturer will update the software in the TV to fix problems, particularly with the HDCP handshake, and sometimes the factory-installed software is out-of-date. (My 50-in TV wanted to update its software the moment I connected it to the Internet.)
  6. Have you turned "overscan" off? Overscan is a slight zoom (2-5%), a vestige from the CRT days, but many TV manufacturers ship their TVs with this option set on. Not only does this lose a bit of the picture around the edges, but it also means no more 1:1 mapping of 1080p, which slightly reduces the sharpness of the picture.
  7. Have you configured the TV to neither "sharpen" nor "soften" the picture? Sometimes different inputs will have their own set of settings for sharpness and other controls, so one may have to do the adjustments with the Input set for the cable box. Sometimes adjusting a few parameters may improve the appearance, but it is best to start out with most, if not all, of the TV enhancements set to the least amount of tinkering as possible to the picture. Depending on the model, 0 does not necessarily mean no changing of the picture. (E.g., on one of my TVs a sharpness setting of 0 means soften the picture, i.e., I lose detail; but the factory reset sets the sharpness too high so people look like they are pasted onto a background.)
 
#1,485 ·
I'm saying the TVs at the Pizza Joint could be set up different than yours or they may be using component (analog) connection or a signal processing distribution system or they might just have better TVs than you do. That the 'problem' appears on your set and the CableCo's doesn't surprise me. The Cable Company probably uses Hi-Sense or Insignia or other bargain TVs. They buy lots of them and I have no doubt they also break a bunch of them, hence cheap to replace.

Unless you're wrong about the topology of your local Cable system there really is no way I can believe that you and the Pizza Place are getting different encodings of the same program. Different signal strengths and noise levels yes. But neither signal level nor noise level can affect a digital cable signal. Anyway go on believing they are cheating you of PQ. I'm out of this discussion.
 
#1,486 ·
As I mentioned in a previous reply it is a pizza place that I worked at 5-6 years ago. I personally know the owner. He is pretty cheap. There is no way he would spend money on high end TVs. They are fairly cheap Samsung LCDs. Certainly not the $2,300 I spent on my LG OLED. And he sure as hell wouldn't spend money on a " or a "signal processing distribution system". Also, they are hooked up with HDMI. Yes, Comcast's test TV was some cheap brand but mine is not. The issue is the same on both TVs. Plus, any issue with the TV would show up on other sources. It's just the cable from the X1 box.

I never said Comcast is trying to cheat me out of good picture quality but there IS a problem.

I'm here because I'm looking for real possible answers to why my picture quality is so awful while other places in town look great. I wouldn't be here just wasting my time if it wasn't a real issue.

If all you're going to do is come up with stuff like "it's the lighting" then I don't want you as part of the discussion anyways.
 
#1,489 ·
Regarding the Comcast "switchover" on 9/27, what exactly is going to happen? I just received my new set-top box, but I'm not ready to install it because I have a bunch of stuff on my current DVR that I want to dump to VHS to keep it. I won't be able to do that before 9/27. Will I be losing all channels or just HD channels?
 
#1,490 ·
Only HD channels. Also, the switchover is done in small steps. Usually a dozen or so channels at a time. On an MPEG-2 only STB, an H.264 channel will still have audio, but a black screen.

Here in the Bay Area, it took Comcast forever to do the switch. I had my replacement STB in the closet for months and just hooked it up last week. You probably have plenty of time to get the content off your DVR.

Ron
 
#1,502 ·
Do any of you regularly use the Comcast DVR Manager to program multiple devices? I have effectively used it and now find all has been 'upgraded' to Xfinity and find that once I spend minutes in delayed screens what is presented is worthless. Numerous interactions with customer service has resulted in nothing more than frustration.

Any experience or advice on fixes, alternatives, or course of action?
 
#1,513 · (Edited)
This site may be of interest. It maps a lot of European SD and HD digital TV OTA and cable muxes and satellite transponders :

http://en.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?liste=1&live=9&lang=en&mux=BBCB

This should show you the UK main national HDTV multiplex. This is a 40.25Mbs DVB-T2 mux (in an 8MHz RF channel) that carries :

BBC One HD 1080i
BBC Two HD 1080i
ITV HD 1080i
C4 HD 1080i
C5 HD 1080i
CBBC HD 1080i (This is a part-time kids channel that now runs a very compressible graphics loop 2100-0700 which will help statmuxing)
Film Four+1 576i (It's incorrectly reported as 1080i in the grid)

As you can see - most HD 1080i channels peak at 17Mbs, but average around 4.8Mbs. (The joy of statmux!)

Also - ignore the 'scantype' report on this mux. UK OTA HD encoding flips dynamically between 1080p25 and 1080i25 at the encoder level based on whether the source content is detected as interlaced or progressive.

BBC One/BBC Two/ITV/C4/C5 are the 5 main terrestrial networks. They share a single mux in HD. (Kind of like ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and PBS all in 1080i in a single channel in the US - though we have 8MHz not 6MHz channels, and are heavily networked with no real affiliates)
 
#1,517 ·
Clearly the Diagonal Line was an intentional "TRANSITIONAL WIPE" between scenes...and the double images are clearly NOT Digital Artifacts, but probably also a part of the original source material....
 
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#1,520 ·
Just a few more images comparing Comcast's signal vs streaming using my TV's screenshot feature (not a camera).

As you can see Gotham(FOX) is very bad between cable and streaming while Timeless(NBC) isn't as bad but still noticeable.

And just to be clear, there was a time, not too long ago, where Comcast was putting out a picture just as good as streaming.

*Just a note, the image names are appended with "Comcast" if the screenshot was from the X1 box and "Streaming" if they were from a streaming app (FOX app, NBC app, Comedy Central app and Netflix).
 

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#1,524 ·
This honestly sounds completely normal. Without a photograph to judge it myself, I'd say you simply have too high of expectations for the increasingly compressed (but fully functional) cable delivery system.
Nice screenshots. Now with photos to judge myself, I'd definitely say you simply have too high of expectations for the increasingly compressed (but fully functional) cable delivery system. As I've mentioned previously, streaming is getting better quality every year. Comcast is getting worse every year. If you don't like it, cut the cord. OTA currently (and always has) offers the best "live TV" picture quality, and with ATSC 3.0, that is expected to only get better. Even OTA looks awful compared to streaming.
 
#1,523 ·
When I had a Dish Hopper, setting my resolution from 1080i to 720p improved my picture. On 1080i, the scrolling words at the bottom of the screen say like on CNN were not clear. 720p fixed that.

My tv is 2007 Sony.
 
#1,526 ·
Some questions on my mind about PQ:

1) Why does streaming often have better PQ? Does encoding for streaming video compress better than encoding for cable delivery even at the same bitrate?

2) The Xfinity TV app: Does Comcast pass the original stream as provided from the source, or do they compress these as well? I don't know if it's just my eyes, but it does seem that the streams from the app are worse than directly from the source. This definitely seems to be the case with FS1 compared to Fox Sports Go but not so much with ESPN vs. WatchESPN. CBS Sports Network stream looks very soft (unfortunately, don't have a source stream to compare it to).

3) Are the TV Go version of streams better than the In-Home version (or at least no worse), or is it just my eyes. I wonder if the TV Go version (for contractual reasons or whatever) must be passed through without alteration while the In-Home versions can be altered/compressed as Comcast sees fit.
 
#1,529 ·
1. Offline encoding and VBR without the constrains of a fixed channel. So yes, you can get much better quality at much lower bitrates.

2. Heavily compressed. It's different from the TV stream, but it's heavily compressed. They're not passing you a 15+mbps stream over the internet. Not even close.

3. They are all heavily compressed. TVGo, live TV, and XoD all use different compression.

2. DirecTV is owned by AT&T and AT&T has terrible internet. In my area it's unreliable and maxes out at 18Mbps. Because of that I'd have to stick to Comcast for internet. That means not getting a bundle discount. The Triple Play has 250Mbps internet which is $199.99/month on its own. Even going down two levels to 100Mbps is $77.99/month or about $85/month with taxes and fees. Add in the price of DirecTV(after the 3 months free of HBO, ShoTime, etc) and it's like $60-70 more than I pay now and I can't stand the DirecTV DVR UI.
I got to play with Genie the other day, and it's not that bad. It's surely no TiVo, but still leaps and bounds better than X1, at least in my limited time with it. Aside from their DVR, however, yes, the bundling is an issue. Comcast is highly anti-competitive the way they price things, as they want to leverage their broadband monopoly.
 
#1,528 ·
^
The bundle deal is why I went to Comcast. I miss my Dish Hopper. Was paying 70$ a month just for Comcast internet. As far as picture quality, I'm happy with Comcast. To me, I can't see any difference between Dish and Comcast. But I also have 65 year old eyes.
 
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#1,537 ·
Was looking at Comcast Labs. There was a announcement saying Netflix is coming soon. This will make it easier to access for us since we will no longer have to juggle remotes and switch inputs. We presently us a PS3.

One thing I'm curious about is will the audio be 5.1. I had this app on my Dish Hopper and the audio was stereo. The audio was 5.1 on the PS3.
 
#1,538 ·
Was looking at Comcast Labs. There was a announcement saying Netflix is coming soon. This will make it easier to access for us since we will no longer have to juggle remotes and switch inputs. We presently us a PS3.



One thing I'm curious about is will the audio be 5.1. I had this app on my Dish Hopper and the audio was stereo. The audio was 5.1 on the PS3.


Yes, it's in DD 5.1. Electronics Text Technology Electronic device Scoreboard



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#1,540 ·
Comcast Raises Speeds in Northeast

Bumps max downstream of Blast! tier to 200 Mbps, Performance Pro jumps to 100 Mbps

Comcast this week increased the speeds of what it says are its most popular Internet tiers – Blast! and Performance Pro – for new and existing customers in its Northeast division.

The free speed upgrade sees the max downstream of Blast! rising from 150 Mbps to 200 Mbps, while Performance Pro rises from 75 Mbps to 100 Mbps. Comcast said it started to roll out the faster speeds on October 18, noting that customers need to re-start their modems to get them, and that it is notifying customers who might need a new modem to get the increased speeds. Customers who lease modems from Comcast can get upgraded modems at no additional charge, the company said.

The latest speed boost is for systems Comcast serves in 14 northeastern states from main through Virginia and Washington, D.C., and follows a similar speed bump the MSO brought to California in March.

“As customer demands and technology evolve, we continue to increase our broadband speeds to deliver the fastest and most reliable Internet experiences possible, both inside and outside of the home,” said Kevin Casey, president of Comcast Cable’s Northeast Division. “We’re always looking for new ways to meet and exceed customer expectations, and have built a state-of-the-art network capable of continuing to deliver best-in-class speed and capability as the Internet world progresses.”

Comcast is also testing 1-Gig services using DOCSIS 3.1 in Nashville, Chicago and Atlanta, with Detroit and Miami on deck.


http://www.multichannel.com/news/distribution/comcast-raises-speeds-northeast/408563
 
#1,541 ·
The Netflix app appeared today. Some of the audio is 5.1
 
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