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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 HD-channels to their packages, but since the introduction many clients say that the picture quality is lower. It seems that some channels show a pixelated image, which definitely shouldn't happen to an HD channel.
An AVS-forum visitor started his own little investigation and compared the picture quality of Verizon with the offered quality of Comcast. The self-proclaimed researcher at AVS' forum calls himself 'Bdftv'. He says that Comcast sends three HDTV signals per qam-channel, where others send two. One qam-signal has a bandwith of 38.8Mbps, which is enough for two HDTV-signals of 19.4Mbps. Because Comcast pushes three channels into one, you only have a bandwith of 12.9Mbps available per channel... This is the main reason for Comcast's recent quality loss.
It's crazy that a company like Comcast chooses quantity over quality. If you've subscribed to Comcast please try to change to Verizon... Or will they make a change quick?
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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.
Hmm.... now where did I put my meds?
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.
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.
