Comcast HD Quality Reduction: Details, Screenshots - Page 4  

Many, I would say most, of Comcast's customers have digital cable but don't have it on every TV in the house.

A growing percentage of people have HDTVs, yes. But what is the percentage of people who have only HDTVs?

i know what they are, i installed one - i'm saying the picture run through the box SUCKED compared to just the straight feed being decoded/authorized through the actual cable.

maybe it was just because i had one of the old boxes (not even S-Video out) but it was horrible.

Comcast, in this region has:

Digital Classic/Preferred A/O (with box): $8.90
Digital Starter A/O (with box): $4.95
Digital Box for Locals, Premiums only: $3.95

In reality, Digital Classic and above services and Digital A/Os include $3.95 Digital Box cost within their fees.

Regardless of service on the main TV, to get access to Standard service on the rest of the TVs, which is what people usually get without a box, one just needs Digital Starter A/O: $4.95.

So, four extra Digital Boxes is $19.80 more per mo., much less, but still too much $.

Comcast, in areas where they have gone Digital-only for Expd. service, has given free and discounted boxes for a year.

within 5 years i'd say almost every TV in every house will be HDTV's. the price will drop so low and the necessity will be too high to keep around old CRT SD's.

that's probably an overestimate. but peer pressure and general consumer knowledge will push it in that direction i think. especially with the necessity of down-conversion boxes on every tv anyway.

in Chicago the first box is free and the second is $2.99. since you have to have them now. my M-card was free too. so in reality i have three boxes for $3.

I had noticed this, but wondered if it was because I had switched to TiVo HD at about the same time as the "upgrade" to service. Good to know that it's not TiVo's fault, but I'm pissed off at Comcast which negates my relief.

patriot is working on that.

this last price increase they made all the HD channels free except HDNET, HDNET moveis, and wealth HD which are like 2 bucks more of an add on.

I assume those 3 will get jettisoned when comcast takes over. But maybe they made they their own package so they can keep them....

The left and right keyboard arrows allow single frame advance in MPC. You can capture the same frame for the last comparison by doing this.

Very interesting to see the comparison shots, and I Imagen very frustrating to the paying customer to receive HD resolution and format, but dramatically too lower of bandwidth.

In England the main HD option is "Sky HD" which is satellite. I obviously don't have the same shots, but I have some HD to SD shots from the broadcast, where you can see the HD quality.

I have never seen any compression / macro blocking on my HD signal from Sky HD.

The broadcast in H.264/MPEG-4 AVC at 1080i, no idea what the bandwidth is, but I think it's higher than Comcast, and maybe even Fios. I just thought I would throw it in for comparison sake.



Full size and more shots from this Sky HD Review

What a shame, Comcast's network is starting to show it's age and they don't want to spend the capital dollars to get it upgraded. Coax will only take you so far!! Fios will here in 2 weeks and I'm ready for the change!!! The Comcast monopoly is over here in MA. Honestly, watching standard def on comcast is like watching youtube, it's that bad!!!

there was an article the other day that by year end there will be 45 or so million homes PAYING for HDTV. If I remember there are only 85 million pay tv households. So by year end the MAJORITY of people will have HD.

comcast (and cable as a whole) can't just let DBS run away with quantity and have better quality. They need to act soon with either sdv or dumping analog.

The Sky movie channels are MPEG-4 1080p at 20Mbps. Yes, 20 Mbps. Twice the bitrate with twice as efficient codec. Yes, true 1080p with PAFF.

Simply put, US HDTV is a joke.

The majority of housholds having HD is not the same as the majority of TVs being HD. What percentage of households have only 1 TV? I'd be willing to bet that a large majority of houses that have an HDTV also have at least one old-style CRT SDTV. If they're feeding those second, third and fourth TVs with standard cable without a box, the system eliminating analog requires a box, which raises the bill (and is considered a PITA for some people who like to use their TV remote).

Comcast has FoodTV in high def? Anyone else in the bay area with comcast not getting this channel? I would love to stare at food and be hungry in high def...

There are also sometimes things to stare at on the Food Network besides food.

(BTW, Food HD is not a simulcast of the regular Food network. It's different programming at different times, but all of it is in HD).

I wouldn't say it's a joke. We've had HD for a few more years in the U.S. And from SkyHD's own website is says they broadcast in 1080i. When HD broadcasts started in the US, there was not a 1080p. As opposed to the U.K., in the U.S. HD started with the terrestrial broadcasters. In the U.K. they chose to go with multicasting instead of HD. If you want HD you have to have satellite or cable. They are just now contemplating re-allocating the terrestrial spectrum to be able to offer HD broadcasts.

Most people unless they have a huge screen or sit too close aren't going to be able to tell a whole lot of difference between 1080i and 1080p. If you must have 1080p, you can always just wait for the title to come out on Blue Ray.

OP,
Thanks for the time & effort, as well as sharing all this important HD info.

Now waiting for V...

AVS Forums makes it's mark

Hears an article about over-compressed HD channels on Comcast.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/03/20...y-up-to-snuff/

I have to say most satellite channels are not much better than good SD.
Especially since they started compression in January.

I'm glad I found this thread... I've also noticed the decrease in picture quality starting this month and was wondering if I was just imagining something.

I'm now seeing MUCH more artifacts on HD channels - even slow moving things with no action (such as talk shows like Conan O'Brien) have lots of macroblocking. Should've figured Comcast was doing something like this. Makes me want to switch to Verizon FIOS.

There has been no evidence of Comcast recompressing local channels (yet); everything discussed in this thread is geared towards national channels. Most PQ issues with NBC are due to low bitrate used for network distribution combined with the Weather+ subchannel most stations are multicasting.

That is not extra detail. What you see are more pronounced artifacts and blocking using VRD. Dscaler will reduce that signifantly to closely match what we see on our viewing set.

My workflow for my screenshots are:

Save image as BMP
Open in Photoshop
Save as PNG-24 lossless

and keeping the original image size unchaged.

In the end the HUGE PQ discerancey between FIOS and Cable (most COs that bitstarved and downrez) is so obvious that is no big deal. Nitpicking is not required

WE need more people like bfdtv to capture and post screenshots from their FIOS, cable and dish so we can see the difference and to see proof that the PQ degradation came from the signal NOT on our viewing set (many instances where Cx service will blame your equipment for crappy PQ when you complain about it).

You can't even watch a HD show, ANY show without artifacting and blocking everywhere. Try watching HDNET or HBO at 1280x1080 7 mbps from D*

It will be in ten days.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...highlight=food

bfdtv, you should also run your captured .ts' through MPEG2Repair, to get more accurate average bitrates.

Now I see the light. I have noticed that Comcast has gone down in quality and I am anxiously awaiting for FIOS to get within our area.

Chris

I have a sharp46-64 and comcast looks really bad some nights in hd.
I just got a psp 3 and spiderman looks bad so it must be the tv.

Same here... FiOS was supposed to be installed today, but somehow the order got messed up because of having the number ported... New install date is 4/3.

Perhaps someone from AVSForum or Engadget should contact Imagine Communications. I would do it, but I have no weight nor do I have authority to represent AVSForum. Perhaps they would be interested in the negative publicity that their fledgling company is receiving from consumers of their product???

Email
info@imaginecommunications.com
sales@imaginecommunications.com

Media Contacts
Terry May
terrymay@hightechpr.net
T 321-632-1690

Listing of investors
http://www.imaginecommunications.com.../investors.php

Interesting and good to know, thanks. As the posters in that thread said, it does look like they'll stretch out all the SD shows. Yuck. I at least hope they handle the "HD" flag correctly in the guide data.