When you order Hi-Def TV, you expect it to be on the shining Excalibur level, but it looks like Comcast is degrading the quality of some HD channels in order to make room for more channels. To test this theory out, Avsforum member bfdtv recorded the same shows from the same channel at the same time on both Comcast Hi-Def and Fios TV. The left is the FiOs. The right is the Comcast. As you can see, the Comcast signal looks like crap. The forum thread has more screenshots, a signal analysis, and some source videos. So far the Comcast channels receiving extra compression are: Discovery Channel, SciFi, USA, Food, NatGeo, UHD, A&E, HGTV, Starz, Cinemax, HBO, TLC, Animal Planet, Discovery HD Theater, and History HD.
Comcast HD Quality Reduction: Details, Screenshots [AVSforum] (Thanks to thedave!)
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@Mr. Gunn: sports are better & worse. a football game definitely looks much sharper in hd – you can just about read the logos on their socks from the blimp shot. however, if the broadcast doesn’t resolute well, or if your tv can’t keep up, it can make the game quite difficult to watch.
i used to go over to a friend’s house for sunday games, but after awhile i became fed up with the blocking & screen freezes. now they come over to my place & we watch it in good old sd.
This saddens me but is just another reason I haven’t gone out and spent big bucks on a nice HD TV.
Mainstream Consumer HD has been out for how long now? at least 5 years? And the only way to get the most out of your HD set now is Bluray.
I’ll dive in once all the programming I want to watch is uncompressed 1080p HD. Until then my 225lb 40″ CRT TV displays SD TV better than 90% of the LCD TVs
@suburbancowboy:
Those are compression artifacts.
Digital signal loss looks different. You see seemingly random blocks of solid colors, or blocks of the actual image in the wrong color, the entire image being completely the wrong color, or having the look of the color kind of doing one thing, while the brightness/contrast doing something else, or having parts of the image not moving quite right.
Compression artifacts just make things look “chunky.”
Comcast also just reintroduced the Program Guide banner ads in my area. They’ve replaced 20% of the guide with advertising, compromising user experience for a new revenue stream (while still raising my rates). Last time they tried this, it caused a revolt, and they had to remove it.
I just called to complain about the new ads, as well as the other problems I’ve been having with my service (including degraded high-def). They gave me free HBO and cut my digital cable rate in half for a year. Had they done any less, I’d be on the phone with Dish Network right now.
Nothing new here. Comcrap has always been about over compressing its lineup to the lowest common denominator’s standards for image quality. HD was nice for awhile as a specialist market but I knew it was too good to last.
@Mr. Gunn: oh i know. kind of a cop-out solution, imo. in any case, i meant that if theyd spend some money on their infrastructure, then they wouldnt have had to do that in the first place. (at least that was their excuse, as is the overcompression of hd signals)
Not so long ago, the dish companies had the same problem, Increasing number of channels and limited bandwidth to broadcast in. I switched from Directv to Comcast when I bought my HD set because Directv looked awful compared to the cable picture. I understand that problem is being resolved by launching more satellites and using newer compression and modulation schemes.
Last year I started to notice that my Comcast HD picture(specifically the HD broadcasts of my beloved Red Sox) started to have a lot of blocking. Coincidentally it happened at the same time they added HGTV and some others to their lineup. I switched to FIOS and have been much happier with picture quality.
So is anyone else going to ask what movie the screenshots are from? Ok, I will: what movie are the screenshots from?
On a side note, I absolutely love the AVS Forum – it is the single best resource for researching AV equipment, including HDTVs, surround sound systems, media computers, media providers, cable companies, retailers, and regular old set-top antennae. If you have questions about equipment, it’s a good place to start.
I have no affiliation with the site.
Comcast’s SD signals on the digital channels have looked like compressed crap for years. I’m unsurpised that the HD channels also look bad.
Shittily, Verizon has come right out and said “we have no plans to expand FiOS into Boston” (the actual city, not the metro area, where numerous cities and towns already have FiOS), so I’m stuck with the Comcrap monopoly. I fucking love this country.
What I really want is for Comcast and the networks to get their act together and start caring about their aspect ratios for Widescreen HD – For example, Extreme Makeover Home Edition gets broadcast in HD 4:3 with bars at the sides of the screen, but everytime they cut to a headshot interview, it is in widescreen, but letterboxed widescreen inside the already black-barred 4:3 picture, leaving a picture about half the size of the screen. It annoys the crap out of me – and its not the only show to do this kind of thing…
@suburbancowboy: sorry, there is nothing else that will cause that. Blotches, color blocks, black areas, and other artifacts, yes, but evenly degraded quality over the whole image? Low quality encoders and low bitrates are about the only culprits.
Dude just needs to slap some Monster Cables in his setup and all those artifacts will go away.
lol
@backbroken: No, no, he needs to use coathangers.
I’ll enjoy my free broadcast HD and save $75 a month. I various family who have direct TV and Verizon Fios. I found that there was still nothing on that I wanted to watch. Its a lot easier to surf through my 20 some odd broadcast station vs the hundreds of pay service.
Man, if I were one of the premium channel guys (HBO, Showtime, IFC…), I’d do some MAJOR behind-the-scenes screaming at Comcast, including threatening to go public, boycott, etc. Consumers don’t care who’s fault it is if their $30/mo sub looks like a LiteBrite display, they simply cancel. Then tell their friends how crappy The Tudors looks on their TV.
@Mr. Gunn: yeah i can see that on sports, but your talking to a colts season ticket holder that doesn’t mind nosebleed. i’m obsessed with the colts. black and white, hd or not, heck i’ve listened to them on the radio and everytime get that same edge of my seat feeling. no matter the format. my point was simply that spending gobs of money on hd seems silly. i’ll wait for it to become such a standard, that it’s dirt cheap.
DOCSIS 3.0 will resolve this. Tell Comcast to stop spending on anything except for getting DOCSIS 3.0 out ASAP.
@QuantumRiff: Huh? Come again? 720i? as in interlaced? Sorry, no such thing:
[en.wikipedia.org]
@johnarlington: You’re lucky. All I get on broadcast is ION and religious channels.
@Toof_75_75: I think you’re right. Many of those channels produce a lot HD programming.
I hate Comcast. But I have no other choice.
Axiomtic is right DOCSIS 3.0 will solve a lot of the problems. Having “switch digital” is nice and all but if the lines outside suck(especially the aerial lines) there is nothing that can help that besides physically replacing lines. I know in the midwest the cable drops take a beating like no other.
@axiomatic: Comcast DOES plan on rolling out DOCSIS 3.0, and soon: to 20% of its footprint by the end of 2008, and half of the Comcast network by the end of 2009.
So a solution may be at hand soon for you FiOS-deprived citizens (fortunately, I’m not one of them).
Tough to watch sports without cable or satellite. Would be great if OTA had everything but you just miss too much. In my area or building at least, ESPN is almost unwatchable due to pixelization. Cablevision plays stupid every time you call.
If anyone out there is considering whether or not to make the switch to HD, I’d suggest waiting. I recently purchased a new tv and decided to get an HD one as it was only $100 more for a flatscreen LCD HD than a standard definition one (it’s only 19″). What you never seemed to see mentioned in all this HD ranting is that while the HD channels do look nice, the old standard definiton looks TERRIBLE on an HD tv– and I don’t mean in comparison. It’s much worse than on a standard def tv. With my cable network there are still a lot more regular channels than HD ones, so I feel like overall it represents a drop in quality.
It is because of this that every time I get a call from Comcast trying to upsell me to internet and phone I tell them “No thanks, as soon as FiOS TV is available in my area you’ll be losing me forever entirely.”
I’ve been noticing the HD compression for a long time, but it definitely got worse this weekend – the National Geographic channel in HD specifically was horrendous – huge artifacts, but Discovery Channel is pretty grainy too.
@QuiteSpunky:
That depends entirely on the TV. A good HDTV will also give you good SDTV images. You just have to be willing to pay for it.
O.K. my head is starting to spin off its axis. FIOS, analog, digital, 720i, 720p, 1080HD, compression, DOCSIS 3.0, holy crap Batman, what does all this mean? Can’t the damn cable companies just come up with something that is user friendly and will not cause my head to explode. I pays my money and I wants my stuff to work when I punch the clicker button. Too much to ask I wonder. By the way, how come my video store don’t carry my Beta tapes anymore, anyone else having that problem?
So basically they picked channels that would have shows or movies with really awesome visuals…you know the sort of thing you’d like to see in high definition. Good job Comcast.
Keep in mind, too… lots of the “HD” channels that are delivered to the cable companies are just upconverted SD feeds, using only 9-ish megabits in bandwidth. Most “real” HDs will use almost twice that. Universal HD & Starz, for example, are like that.
I’m in the industry, and I can safely tell you that Comcast isn’t the only cable company that employs this “technology”. It’s called rate-shaping and/or clamping. Basically, digital channels comprise of RF channels which are limited to 38.8mbits. Rate shaping allows you to fit content at much greater amounts than that on one carrier. This is being done more aggressively now since the cable companies are trying to provide more HD content to compete. A lot of cable operators have run out of space in their spectrum, and have almost no choice but to do this to add more content.
In my market, Cox is so desperate, they put 3 HD’s on a single carrier. If you do the math, that’s 57mbits of video on a 38.8 alotted space. Needless to say, I don’t subscribe to digital cable.
They’re doing this to compete with DirecTV, who just launched yet another HD satellite. They already have 80-90 HD channels and will launch more later this year. In fact, they’re adding a couple this week. Comcast only has about 30-35 HD channels and needs all the bandwidth they can get.
This has been coming for a while. FiOS fiber should allow for much more HD content. I switched from Comcast TV to FiOS TV about 4 months go… I don’t miss Comcast at all
A few months ago, I noticed that HD channels on Dish Network were taking less storage space on my DVR than they used to (when I recorded the same Soundstage program with Tori Amos about six months apart, the latter recording was half the size in MBs!). It isn’t as bad as Comcast’s from that screen capture, but still!!??! I have decided to drop most of my channels (keeping the locals and HBO and Showtime) and waiting for Blu Ray or DVD for the programs I want to watch – with Netflix, I will be saving about $55 a month!
I’m in Southern New Jersey, and unless you have cable/satellite, you aren’t getting anyting OTA from New York City broadcasts.
We also have another problem: Comcast has decided to move regular cable networks (Turner Classic Movies and The History Channel) to digital subscriptions exclusively. This meant that I got a flurry of calls from my parents confused about their new digital cable box they were forced to get.
It sucks, but until something better comes along (no FiOS in our area) we’re stuck.
@IrisMR
“Ahhh, comcast. Wonder why some folks still pay for them.”
Because some of us don’t have a choice. Fios is still not available in my area (Daly City, Ca) and satellite has more expensive packages than Comcast and not better quality. I would use an outdoor antenna but the San Bruno mountain just blocks all the signals.
And I don’t really see this as improving anytime soon unless Comcast rips out ALL of it’s existing cabling and replaces it with something that can handle the bandwith.
Honestly, it’s not just Comcast here. ALL large cable company’s are/will be having the exact same problems. There simply isn’t enough bandwidth currently available for telephone, on-demand, video, and internet.
The biggest help would obviously be to dump the analog channels which, in most systems, are about 70-80 channels that take up nearly 40-50% of the bandwidth. (About 8-9 SD digital channels or 2 HD channels in the space of one analog channel.)
As someone mentioned above, most cable operators run on a HFC network. The fiber is usually only from the Headend to the hubs and then to nodes, with coaxial plant making up the last legs. Unfortunately, in most decent sized systems, the nodes are overloaded and need more fiber lines ran to them in order that they may be “split.” (Often, problems with overcrowded nodes are refereed to as “contention issues,” and splitting basically means having fewer people running on each fiber line.) Even with the widespread arrival of DOCSIS 3.0 in 2010-2011, bandwidth will still be an issue. FTTx is where things are heading, and unfortunately the cable guys are falling behind.
Actually, all the cable companies ~want~ to go all digital. They want everyone to have a nice digital converter box on their TV. On Demand is a major revenue stream for them.
@oakie:
Here are some things to consider: Are both cable boxes the exact same during this test? Are the connections the same? Are the tv’s the same? This seems a little far fetched. I have Comcast and HD as well. With a Sony 32 Bravia using both HDMI and Component connections. My picture has NEVER looked like this. Yes, Comcast is expensive but you get what you pay for. Once analog channels are dumped bandwidth will increase and more channels will be offered as well. let’s get some answers to the following questions then maybe I would consider this. Who is conducting these tests AVS with an anonymous source? Sounds a little strange. Just saying.
I work for Comcast. Im not a big company man or a fan of them but there are a few statements that are incorrect here.
First native resolution of HD is set by the stations that broadcast the channels not the provider. Comcast broadcasts in 1080i and 720p depepending on the channel.
Second comcast signal is overcompressed and can look a little shady at time. But keep in mind that when you are watching matrix reloaded in HD on TBS that these “normal” movies in HD are not true HD and simply upscaled DVDs.
Third thing all video you watch anywhere is compressed – FIOS, Comcast, DirectTV all of them besides antenna service which will be gone next year.
People need to keep in mind that all HD broadcast are not created equal as well. Just because your food network looks shitty compared to monday night football in HD, doesn’t mean big bad comcast is screwing you over. There is a huge difference between good HD cameras that shows are recorded in and the cheap ones that look barely different from SD video. Watch the superbowl in HD and then watch Fox primetime you’ll see what I mean.
Comcast does screw people over on pricing though and I wouldn’t have there service if I didn’t get it for free.
You cares how he testes this?! Ever since we got “Comcrap” our audio and video has been going out on HD channels so much that we have to have caption on just to know what the heck is being said! A tech guy just came out and blamed us for the 2nd time that it was OUR problem the way my husband hooked up the cables! Why then only on HD channels are we having a problem? If they continue to blame me I think I may have to write a story to the news so the truth comes out!
uncompressed single link HD = 1.5Gb/s = 1500Mb/s (dual link, or 4:4:4, is closer to 2.5Gb/s)
The ATSC spec allows HD DTV a maximum over the air broadcast data rate of 27Mb/s
The best any of us can expect is a signal that’s been stepped on ONCE by a factor of 50,
which is actually less signal quality than a BluRay disk (35Mb/s).
Cable steps on that, and Satellite steps on it even more, to make the channels fix in their pipes.
The best we can expect in the home is over the air via antenna, and its actually not terrible.
But all that assumes the hops the signal takes are pure. FOR LIVE SPORTS TV, IT IS NOT.
Live studio TV is the best quality potential, then prerecoded (but compressed tape) TV shows.