Comcast Puts the Screws To HDTV

Todd Spangler writes "Comcast, like every video distributor, compresses its digital video signals. But to fit in more HDTV channels, Comcast is squeezing some signals more than others. The cable operator claims it is using improved compression techniques, so that most subscribers won't see any drop-off in picture quality. But A/V buff Ken Fowler claims the differences between some of Comcast's more highly compressed channels and Verizon's FiOS TV are indeed noticeable. He's posted his comparative test results on AVSForum.com — and the results are not pretty."

Screws to HDTV? Not exactly

[JonTurner]

To be more precise, they're putting the screws to the consumer. Lower quality than Over The Air (OTA), all for a premium price.

No thanks. I'll stick with my Yagi antenna which pulls in 15 stations (many with subchannels) from 30 miles away. (Though I'm quite tempted to try a Gray-Hoverman Antenna as detailed here on Slashdot, just to see if it's better. http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/14/2021223 [slashdot.org] )

FIOS TV Has one HUGE Limitation IMO

[dreamchaser]

I have FIOS for Internet but I've kept Comcrap for my TV for one simple reason: Verizon requires you to use their crappy Actiontec router if you want to use FIOS TV.

OTA much better than Comcast

[kherr]

I use Eye TV to record over-the-air HD, and it's quite obvious to me the quality is much higher than Comcast's HD. That said, I can't get as may OTA HD channels as I can on Comcast. And the quality of, say, Sci Fi Channel HD shows beats the standard def Sci Fi Channel.

Still, it would be nice as a consumer to know what I'm really getting. Maybe Comcast (and anyone else) should be required to label their channels as "compressed HDTV".

Re:FIOS TV Has one HUGE Limitation IMO

[Xuranova]

Yes/no. Before the actiontec router (customers who got in early) use Motorola NIMs and dlink routers and they get full functionality. If you can get a hold of the NIM, you don't need the actiontec router.

Re:Perhaps we don't really need HDTV?

[DigitalisAkujin]

rtfa, if you don't notice a difference you gotta be blind....

Re:Not suprising at all

[muffen]

Basically, they need to run fiber to every home. Which they aren't going to do.

Why not? I'm Swedish but lived abroad for a lot of years. I recently moved back to Sweden (Stockholm) and was looking at buying an apartment. I didn't even look at apartments that didn't have a 100/100 fiber connection. I can tell you that around half the apartments listed in the area I was looking did in fact have a fiber connection. So... if Sweden can do it I'm certain it can be done in the U.S too. It simply has to be done!

As a side-note, I had forgotten how great Sweden was in regards to technology. I now have a 100MBit bi-directional internet connection with no download limits, and I'm paying $65 a month for it. Then, I have a 7,2MBit 3G modem for my laptop, again no download limit, price is $30 a month, and it works quite well. Went on a 3,5h drive to my parents and was able to stream internet radio in the car the whole way. Laptop + 3G modem + FM transmitter is the way to go :)

FiOS

[Slimee]

We dropped Comcast's internet and cable TV the moment FiOS came into the neighborhood....it came at a good time because their internet was blacking out on us all the time. It would just flutter for anywhere between a few seconds to a few minutes to a few hours and it was a real hassle playing games online and suddenly losing connection out of nowhere...And we ALWAYS had problems with artifacting with their cable. the picture always started getting these little green boxes everywhere during a program. Comcast had a pretty extensive On Demand list, and FiOS kind of lacks that, but there's more ups than downs.

Re:Screws to HDTV? Not exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Xvid is a MPEG-4 implementation, likely covered by a multitude of MPEG LA patents.

Re:Not suprising at all

[Cylix]

People might not have noticed up until now though.

The compression essentially scales dynamically with popularity.

So, you might have the home and garden channel, but if it isn't getting viewers it's getting it's compression slammed. SCI-Fi, in my old area, was awful on Saturday evening. I fiddled with my mythbox forever wondering why it was just so horrible and then caught it live one evening.

That said, once motorola releases an H264 based unit and not an mpeg2 receiver... there will be plenty of bandwidth. Well, assuming the rush to fill their service with tier 3 HD channels doesn't ruin it. This is all contingent on fast, affordable h264 decoding chips and I really haven't seen a good deal yet.

My big beef with FiOS is just wondering when the bait and switch will happen. I hear great things about it now, but I'm just wondering when they will turn to the cheap. Any FiOS guys want to tell us the diabolical plans in store? (I'll take made up ones too)

Re:what does this mean for 1080?

[interiot]

There's a bunch of things that end up degrading the usefulness of 1080 unfortunately:

• half the stations broadcast in 720p instead
• it can be hard to tell the difference between a 720p station and a 1080i station except when the source material has been done really well
• the distance from your couch to your TV can limit the resolution you can see (for instance, I had *one* dead pixel on my 1080p TV, and I decided to not return it because even when I knew exactly where to look, and had a white motionless feed, I still couldn't see it from the couch)

If you're ever thinking of hooking your computer up to it though, then 1080i/p can be great.

Re:OTA much better than Comcast

[maxume]

That's a bit problematic, as all HDTV is compressed. You want the codec and the bitrate.

Re:Screws to HDTV? Not exactly

[phorm]

I think that XVID requires a bit more CPU-power to compress/decompress though. Depending on if they could update the firmware of existing decoders, that might mean rolling out new boxes to subscribers, or upgrading the broadcast hardware.

Re:FIOS TV Has one HUGE Limitation IMO

[Grapes4Buddha]

I have one too, and it's really not all that bad, as much as I have been suspicious of it. My main problems are:

1. Verizon has a back-door into it, ostensibly for doing firmware upgrades, etc. But I worry that they could use it to break into my home network.
2. I needed to renumber my home network because the router was set to 192.168.1.x, but that subnet is also used by my employer and it was causing me issues when I started my VPN sessions. I could not for the life of me figure out to do that coherently with the Actiontec router. I finally wound up dumping the router configuration to a text file, doing a global search-and-replace in the config file, then loading it back in. (Which worked perfectly BTW).

If I was really paranoid, I would treat the Actiontec as a semi-DMZ and put my own router behind it. As previously mentioned, the set-top boxes need the MoCA access for program guides and on-demand access. But I just haven't bothered.

Re:FIOS TV Has one HUGE Limitation IMO

[jakedata]

Use a fast Ethernet switch (100 megabit) between the ONT (optical network terminator) and the Actiontec router.

Plug your TV cable into the Actiontec but use the router of your choice for your Internet access connected to the ONT via the Ethernet switch. Verizon will issue IP addresses to both boxes. I am not guessing about this, this is how I have been running since I added 802.11N support and didn't want to stack routers. You will still only be accessing the Internet via one MAC address, but your program guide, PPV and on demand will come through the other. You should see the packets fly between the ONT and the Actiontec when you fire up an on-demand HD program.

Do not connect both the Actiontec and your other router to the private side of your LAN unless you want to see what dueling DHCP servers do to your connectivity.

Re:FIOS TV Has one HUGE Limitation IMO

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect. You can still roll your own router with the Actiontec. All you need to do is disable DHCP on the Actiontec and release the WAN's IP.

There's lots of great FIOS/FIOS TV help over at BroadbandReports: http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/vzfiber [broadbandreports.com]

Captain Google to the rescue!

[Spy der Mann]

but it is important to note that most people tend to have biases towards hardware based on one or two bad experiences.

So are you saying companies should be forgiven when they give you crap that dies when it shouldn't die in the first place?

I agree, one bad experience is too small to be considered statistically significant. However... googling for "actiontec routers suck" [google.com] (without the quote) gives us these results:

"Fix For Mysteriously Rebooting FiOS Actiontec Routers - Verizon ..."
"RE: Need to replace dead Actiontec router... options ..."
"Help! Verizon FIOS and Actiontec router keeping me from MetaFilter ..."
"Verizon sued over GPL code in FiOS routers - Engadget"
"ACTIONTEC M1424WR Router Problem - [H]ard|Forum"
"SmallNetBuilder - Small Network Help - Actiontec MI424WR Review ..."
"Verizon: FiOS Router Constantly Rebooting? Here's The Fix"

Just FYI, Google returned around 700 hits. And for "Actiontec router problem" (without quotes), I got 13,600 hits. Significant enough for ya? :)

Finally, that GPL violation Issue tells me that Verizon isn't an example of honesty... I'd stay away.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Not suprising at all

[teebob21]

Actually, the cable co's are trying to get away from sending ALL the available channels at once, using switched digital video [wikipedia.org]. However, the consumer electronics industry is railing against this change because (for the short-term) it will break compatibility with the current end-user decoding, CableCARD. Until TV manufacturers and the FCC get on board with OCAP [wikipedia.org], and start putting return-capable modules into their TV's, it's tough titties for all of us.