Comcast and HDTV...

TechHead87

Senior member
Sep 18, 2004
738
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Is it just me, or is their HD tier compressed to the point where you could argue that it's not really HD?

I was watching Sportscenter tonight, and the image quality is just puke-worthy. Good grief.
 

Shawn

Lifer
Apr 20, 2003
32,236
53
91
I was going to sign up for Comcast HD but they required me to sign up for the whole digital package if I wanted any more than the locals. Even the locals would have been $6 + the box per month. I ended up just getting an antenna and put it in the attic and I can pick up all of the locals. They look much better than the crap that comcast was trying to charge me for too. Not worth it to spend all that money just to get a few extra channels like ESPN, especially when the quality sucks anyway.
 

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
31,516
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It's compressed, but I'd still take it any day over the atrocity that is DirectTV's compression. At least Comcast doesn't overly compress the picture and downres the image.

Edit: Shawn, Comcast doesn't compress local channels AFAIK
 

Cerpin Taxt

Lifer
Feb 23, 2005
11,940
542
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Originally posted by: ViRGE
It's compressed, but I'd still take it any day over the atrocity that is DirectTV's compression. At least Comcast doesn't overly compress the picture and downres the image.

Edit: Shawn, Comcast doesn't compress local channels AFAIK

More that that, the FCC explicitly prohibits them from doing it. If they are, get the FCC on their asses.
 

SearchMaster

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2002
7,791
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Originally posted by: Garth
Originally posted by: ViRGE
It's compressed, but I'd still take it any day over the atrocity that is DirectTV's compression. At least Comcast doesn't overly compress the picture and downres the image.

Edit: Shawn, Comcast doesn't compress local channels AFAIK

More that that, the FCC explicitly prohibits them from doing it. If they are, get the FCC on their asses.

Why? I don't think the FCC has any requirements about the quality of the signal provided by the private industry. The reason they forced local stations to broadcast in HD was to free up the analog spectrum, not because they cared about the quality of the feed.
 

SoulAssassin

Diamond Member
Feb 1, 2001
6,135
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I was watching something last night in HD and I was thinking that it really looks like they're compressing the image more than they used to.
 
Mar 10, 2005
14,647
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there are 2 HD channels per 6MHz QAM256 carrier, regardless of what the channels are. there are about 12 SD channels per QAM256. the reason ESPN looks terrible sometimes is many of the clips aren't shot in HD.
 

sciencewhiz

Diamond Member
Jun 30, 2000
5,885
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I've noticed with college football on ABC OTA, when they broadcast SD that is upscaled to 720p, it looks worse then when I watch SD and my TV does the upscaling.

It may have to do with the fact that my TV is 1080P, so when I watch SD on an 720P broadcast, it gets upscaled twice.