Comcast's compressing destroys its picture quality

[Timmie]

I just posted the article Comcast's compressing destroys its picture quality.

Comcast recently compressed its HDTV-signals and now consumers say that the American provider destroyed their picture quality. To fight its competitors Comcast added an extra amount of...

Read the full article here:  [http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/14446-Comcasts-compressing-destroys-its-picture-quality.html](http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/14446-Comcasts-compressing-destroys-its-picture-quality.html)

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[neo1918]

“It’s crazy that a company like Comcast chooses quantity over quality.” That’s been the norm ever since digital cable came out years ago. And consumers ate it up. The odd thing here is that Comcast (and everyone else) are not cramming 4-5 channels into the a single QAM channel.

[DukeNukem]

Digital cable is shit. I don’t have HDTV digital cable, just the SD version. I hate the pixelation. That’s why we desperately need x264 players in stores, so we can download Blu-ray/HD DVD rips and burn them to dual-layer DVDs. That’s what we need, boys and girls. Hip hip HORRAY !! Hmm… now where did I put my meds?

[DukeNukem]

Oh yeah. What’s with the above pic? It isn’t clickable, so we can’t see a larger version and, therefore, can’t compare. Very odd, indeed.

[CDan]

12 Mb/sec isn’t all that bad, for MPEG-4, but for MPEG-2 it will be pretty evident. The satellite providers have been compressing HD channels in much the same way for years, but they don’t use much 1080 anyhow - mostly 720. So all this is really non-news. Bit-starved video is the norm, not the exception.

[ivid]

Ahhh the biggest secret in broadcast: how much are my channels compressed. Good luck finding the answer. I work in broadcast. I can tell you one thing, the broadcasters will NEVER tell you how much each channel is compressed. I hate digital cable. The HD channels are compressed to crap. But here’s another fact, Comcast can’t just do that without permission, they can’t change the compression on channel X without the permission of the content provider because the provider PAYS for the level of compression that their show is broadcast at. At least that’s how it worked previously. That’s why Discovery channel HD in Canada became a new channel last year. Discovery found that a certain provider was compressing more than allowed by them and it became a debacle. In the end they created a new Discovery channel on HD cable that is compressed much less than the previous one. And guess who pays for it… the customer ! We are charged more because Discovery takes more of a percentage of the “pipe” than the other channels we subscribe to. BTW, 1080i and 720p are about the same amout of data when transimtted.

[guest]

I just got digital cable through Comcast… I use a regular TV, not HD or anything. The compression is so bad that in low light scenes I can see a clear gradation where shadow changes to light. Sometimes faces look like bad CG instead of an actual film. I had the regualr basic analog service with Comcast before ($13.99/month) and the quality was great. Course, I didn’t have 1000 channels of nothing to watch, or a menu function, but at least the TV was watchable. I’m probably more picky than the average TV viewer, but I can tell you that I’ve decided not to even have cable. If this is my only option, than it’s not an option worth having. When Verizon finally decides to do something in my neighborhood, then I’ll give them a try.