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."

Comments

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 )

Re:Screws to HDTV? Not exactly

[Brian Gordon]

Here's a hint. How about they compress it with something less obscenely wasteful than MPEG-2? H.264 or even XVID would be multiple times as efficient, and the latter is free so you don't have to deal with this crap..

Re:Screws to HDTV? Not exactly

[dpilot]

I'm starting to fool with transcoding my MythTV to XVID, and it's pretty darned impressive. I realize I'm starting with NTSC, which isn't that hot to begin with, but then again in my usage so far it looks about as good as MPEG-2 in a whole lot less space.

Re:Screws to HDTV? Not exactly

[jtn]

Boohoo. That's the cost of business, you have to improve your product in a competitive environment. Sorry, no sympathies here for Comcast (which recently took over my local cableco Insight, and promptly sent out flyers saying how much better it was going to be, oh and by the way, here's your next price increase). AT&T and DirecTV use more advanced codecs now, why can't Comcast? Heaven forbid they spend some of the money they get from their constant price increases on improving service instead of squashing in yet another batch of channels and degrading the quality of existing channels. What happened to quality over quantity?

Re:Screws to HDTV? Not exactly

[jtn]

What? Consumers aren't allowed to criticize a service they pay for when they notice other competing services provide better quality? What world do you live in? Nowhere did I say it was *easy*, I said it was possible, given money and desire to provide BETTER service than your competitors.

And for your information, I have provided city-wide Internet, TV and phone service before. No, not millions, but Comcast doesn't operate at that level either, if you had any clue as to how they actually operate. Most of their services operate sub-regionally, in loosely grouped clusters of service areas. They are moving in the direction of combining their service zones, which according to anyone familiar with basic economic theory would understand should decrease their cost of service, meaning more money in their coffers which should enable them to perform service upgrades mentioned by myself and others.

Re:Screws to HDTV? Not exactly

[Kjella]

Why? because they invested hundreds of millions of dollars on mpeg2 equipment and commercial quality h264 and xvid equipment does not exist. That's strange, I'll tell everyone using the new terrestrial broadcast system using H.264 here in Norway that it doesn't exist. Never mind that almost the whole country is live (last go live in november) and that analog broadcasts are already shut down in some areas and will be gone all over the country by end of next year. Friend of mine has cable, AFAIK it's H.264 signals too. The US has standardized on MPEG2, but the rest of the world is moving forward.

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.

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:FIOS TV Has one HUGE Limitation IMO

[dreamchaser]

This is true, and it may be that if I got another Actiontec it would work just fine; however I use my network for a lot of various things and I prefer to choose the router that I use.

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

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:Who has what?

[lpangelrob]

We have Comcast, but not their HD service (although it's available - I just don't own an HDTV). Thanks to a recently enacted state law, AT&T will be coming in with U-Verse as its main competitor. So what does Comcast do?

Play 30 second commercials with dancing 7-foot tall VRAD cabinets. I guess they're supposed to be huge and in everyone's front yard. Obviously.

Why bother to have better services when you can just slander your competition?

In conclusion

[Midnight Thunder]

In conclusion by not upgrading to an HDTV, and using my bunny ears, I am getting the same quality as Comcast's digital offering. Sweet :)

Not suprising at all

[realmolo]

Anyone who has worked in the cable TV industry saw this coming a mile away. It's not like Comcast and pretty much EVERY OTHER "digital cable" providers wasn't already doing this.

Here's the thing: Coax cable networks, even hybrid fiber/coax cable networks, just don't have the bandwidth to handle very many HD channels without compressing the hell out of them. They just don't. It's not going to improve. The ONLY thing they can do is either drastically reduce the number of digital and HD channels they offer their subscribers, or bite the bullet and start massively upgrading their network. Basically, they need to run fiber to every home. Which they aren't going to do.

This is why I laugh at people who buy HDTVs and expect some kind of massive improvement. In most of the country, the infrastructure just isn't there to give people very many full-res HD channels over cable. Digital satellite has many of the same issues. There just isn't enough bandwidth.

What about OTA, you say? Yeah, OTA broadcasts only have to be *digital*, not HD.

Re:Not suprising at all

[ScrewMaster]

That's not the only problem, either. The people that own the shows precompress the video stream before transmitting to the broadcaster (cable, satellite, whoever) to save transmission charges. That means the broadcaster has to take what he can get, and if he wants to recompress it even further ... well. Occasionally I'll watch an old Stargate re-run, and honestly they're so heavily compressed as to be almost unwatchable. I mean, you're paying these people good money each month to watch video that's little better than YouTube after clicking on the full-screen button. We're not even talking Hi-Def here, either.

Ridiculous.

Re:Not suprising at all

[asuffield]

The problem is, of course, that they are trying to transmit all of their hundreds of channels to your TV simultaneously, and let the decoder pick out the interesting bits. If they only sent the one that you were watching, there wouldn't be a problem.

Of course, then they'd have to discard their outmoded business model. So that won't happen. They'll just be marginalised and discarded in favour of internet distribution. It's the same thing that's happening to newspapers and bookstores - still around, but becoming less relevant every year.

Cue their attempts to get laws passed to ban the new competition...

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 :)

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:Not suprising at all

[turbofisk]

I wouldn't say that's true... Your coasts are densely populated, so you have the ability to give a huge portion of the population fiber, ethernet etc... Do even 10% of New York apartments have fiber-connection? Why not one might ask? My belief is that US companies do not invest in new technology in the same manner that some other countries do. The US (instead of competing) is using protectionism to keep industries competitive. Corn-syrup vs Sugar is an example... Heavy tariffs. Iron, Car-industry and Lumber are some of the industries that aren't doing so well (last time I checked) either... And FYI, more than 50% of Sweden is not densely populated at all. Mostly pine forest... However, every time something is replaced, say new power lines, new sewage lines etc, fiber are also installed. The municipally, powercompany etc then rents them out. The extra cost is nearly null... Basically every small village now has fiber running to it's town's phone exchange, which in turn gives you the ability to at *least* have 8Mbpbs if not 24 Mbps ADSL2+... In Stockholm, when a apartment building is changing water pipes or putting in new electric wirings they also add ethernet in the house... The extra cost is small... You then call ISPs and say, "Hey, we are 50 apartments and we just need you to pull in a fiber to get us to sign upp...". Which is exactly what we did in our complex. I pay $41 for my 100/100 connection... You then have the ability to choose the ISP you want and change if they screw around... It works great!

Re:Not suprising at all

[billcopc]

Why not ? Because Sweden is not in North America.

I honestly don't know much about Sweden (despite a few visits), but I think it is safe to assume your telecommunications providers are nowhere near as enormous, corrupt and heavy-handed as American ones. There is no competition at all in North America, everyone just gouges like mad, and when an independent tries to push out better services and/or lower prices, they get sued into oblivion or often times bought out and destroyed.

If there were some form of harsh punishment for such blatant abuse of the capitalist system, maybe things would be better for everyone here, but the people drafting the rules are on the receiving end of significant lobbying from the telecoms, so it won't happen anytime soon.

Re:Not suprising at all

[Original Replica]

Do even 10% of New York apartments have fiber-connection? Why not one might ask?

Speaking as someone who has lived in NYC for the past nine years and lived in five different apartments so far: You would not believe how poorly patched together New York City is unless you are reading this from a former soviet-block country. From the subway to apartment repairs to the roads to phone and cable infrastructure, NYC is a collection of barely good enough, cheapest, fastest repairs and hacks. NYC hasn't been able to even put in a new subway line since 1919 and you think we should be able to roll out fiber to any but the most expensive apartments? In Stockholm you may be able to convince landlords to actually do things like put in new pipes or electric wiring and to add fiber while they are at it. Here in Manhattan, my water comes out of the faucet rust brown and I only have electrical outlets on two walls of my apartment. Landlords do the least amount they can legally get away with, as there is always someone who will step in a rent the apartment as is. (The vacancy rate here is below 1%) I would expect fiber to be run to most of the surrounding commuter towns well before it becomes common in households actually in the city. Seriously the infrastructure here is FUBAR

Re:Not suprising at all

[DarkProphet]

MOD PARENT UP!

This stupid dickering over population density and whatall manages to totally miss the point. In the U.S. there IS NO FREE MARKET for telco. Not even close. In which case, inertia is the biggest culprit, which explains why a very significant minority of the populous STILL can't get anything better (bandwidth/latency-wise) than freakin' dialup. The 'last-mile' problem exists for the same reason. When there is one telephone company and one cable company in town (in some cases they are one and the same), there is absolutely NO reason why that company would roll out last-mile fiber. The CEOs of those companies would be flogged by the shareholders for even suggesting what would be perceived as an unnecessary and costly venture. It is a chicken-and-egg scenario for a lot of companies. For the majority of internet users, anything beyond bare-bones 1024/256 DSL is really not necessary. People would likely find a use for it if it existed, but don't demand the upgrade in infrastructure because it is a white elephant ATM.

For example, I live 18 miles from the nearest town, and get 1024/256 DSL by pure accident because I live on a well-traveled highway. Us lucky folks get to watch streaming video without hiccups. Our modem-bound neighbors a mile to the north have no such luxury. :-/

Re:Not suprising at all

[zerocool^]

This stupid dickering over population density and whatall manages to totally miss the point. In the U.S. there IS NO FREE MARKET for telco. Not even close. In which case, inertia is the biggest culprit, which explains why a very significant minority of the populous STILL can't get anything better (bandwidth/latency-wise) than freakin' dialup.

I would argue that free market isn't the only solution. In fact, pretty much any system other than the one we have now would be better for ISP's in the USA.

For instance, free market might solve some of the problems, except that the established companies already own the cable. A startup can't put in cable without negotiating with the town and without a huge startup capital investment. In this situation, a socialized internet provider would work, too, like water. Buy your internet from the government, which runs a nominally third party entity that handles the technology but that has service requirements and price caps.

Honestly, the fact that right now we have a government-granted monopoly, and that it's essentially unregulated, is what's causing the problems.

~X

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. 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, and start putting return-capable modules into their TV's, it's tough titties for all of us.

Comcast sucks balls & hates netflix

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, considering that comcast is my 3rd biggest bill (behind, rent and insurance), you would think they could upgrade their network after all these years of collecting billions of dollars off people like me. Instead they just keep pocketing the cash, and turning out crappier products and hindering any competitions.

I don't have the wherewithall to prove it, but I am pretty sure that they are throttling netflix watch-it-now services. When netflix first released that service my downloads were speedy and ran great. Now that netflix is starting to offer some real titles comcast is throttling them, I'm sure of it. Case in point, I've been very sick this week and in bed a lot. I've turned to netflix for entertainment. I can watch my first episode with no problem, 2nd, a few minutes of buffer but no big deal. Now that I have been using it for a day or two it can take 20 minutes to start a show with several buffer sessions in the middle.

Contrast this with the fact that I can take my laptop to school on a SLOWER connection and get uninterrupted downloads. Their legalized monopoly they have is complete bullshit. If somebody offered another service in my area you can bet I would be there tomorrow. I despise writing that check every month to those fuckers. I hope they get what's coming to them in the form of a class action law suit to the tune of billions.

Re:If they really want more bandwidth....

[DigitalisAkujin]

Yea cause the amount bandwidth taken up by a thousand spam e-mails isn't equivalent to 10 frames of 1080p. :P

Re:Perhaps we don't really need HDTV?

[DigitalisAkujin]

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

Is *this* HD? DO NOT WANT!

[jonaskoelker]

FTA:

In response to competitive pressures from DirecTV and Verizon FiOS, Comcast recently decided to sacrifice some quality to improve quantity. Isn't this just great? In response to competition, comcast gives you a crappier product. This also illustrates that Comcast oversubscribes its bandwidth to the point where they have to not deliver the service you expected, just as for their internet services.

But what I find the most frightening is looking at the pictures in the article I quoted, and then realising that "These images were rescaled to half-resolution". Imagine how coarse they must look at twice the size if a downscaling doesn't produce anything more smooth than that.

I'm starting to rediscover my love for that ~15 year old 14" CRT thing I have in my room.

Re:comcast

[griego]

Your bill.

Re:Who has what?

[dpilot]

YOU get the dancing 7-foot cabinets?

Lucky!

We just get the turtles in the lawn, turtle dinner parties, turtle this, turtle that.
Oh, and the fake new reports, and the guy squirting silver stuff on his shoes to run faster and jump higher.

But it all amounts to "slander your competition" except perhaps the vats of silver stuff.

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.

Should redefine "HD"

[yabos]

HDTV only defines the resolution AFAIK. At least I've never seen any minimum for HDTV bit rates to still be considered HDTV. Just because it's 1080p it shouldn't be considered HD if it's 2Mbps. HDTV specs should define a bit rate that has to be required to have HD. I don't see how Comcast can call what was shown in the link as HD with all that macro blocking.

Re:Perhaps we don't really need HDTV?

[argent]

Except people do notice.

Do they? Not if someone had to compare screen caps to prove it.

in the compressed images, you can see the artifacts.

Artifacts in screen captures don't necessarily mean noticeable artifacts in moving video. Screen captures in NTSC look like crap, far far worse than you "really" see when watching TV, thanks to the persistence of vision.

This point, by the way, was also in TFA.

FIOS testimonial

[emacs_abuser]

Lots of people saying, "if only FIOS was in my area".

As a former Comcast customer, what can I tell you but keep checking.

When FIOS reached my block, I called Verizon the next day. The install went smoothly and all the contacts I've had with Verizon have been great.

I'm done with those thieves at Comcast.

Internet is unbelievable, I shelled out extra money for higher speed. Downloading a distro used to be an overnight undertaking. Now it's more like 20 minutes.

I got a bunch of new phone features I don't need and the TV signal quality is great.

Best part is I'm paying a little less than I used to pay Comcast for TV and internet but
I'm getting TV, Internet, phone and long distance with the price locked in for 2 years.

I'm still waiting for my free 19inch LCD TV from Verizon, but to make up for the delay they sent me a $20 gift certificate.

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.

Please fix the headline

[HangingChad]

Please fix the headline by dropping "Puts the" and "To" from the sentence.

Thank you.

The FCC should set quality standards...

[dpbsmith]

...and prohibit providers from calling it "HD" unless it meets all of those standards--not just pixel count.

Let the marketplace decide, but make sure that consumers know what they are actually buying.

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" (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.

Re:The Comcast guy whas at my house yesterday!

[Belial6]

The statement was still a lie. He may be repeating the official company lie, but he was stating as fact something that was untrue, and somewhere along the line someone intentionally made that untrue statement and trained other people to repeat the lie. Actually, if the person was just repeating a trained lie, then not only should you believe nothing the individual says, but you should also assume anyone else in his position will be telling you lies.

Just because the person you are speaking to is dumb as a box of rocks, don't assume that they are not just the mouthpiece for someone smarter that is intentionally trying to deceive you.

Adolf's Third Law

[adolf]

I would like to state the following:

Any time an individual searches the Internet hoping to find negativity on any topic, no matter how innocent, they will not be disappointed in that effort.

To wit:

Linux sucks. Windows sucks. Dell sucks. HP sucks. Driving sucks. Mercedes-Benz sucks. Kia sucks. Harley Davidson sucks. Furries suck. Google sucks. Indoor plumbing sucks.

I'd go on, but Adolf's Third Law states that I don't have to.

Re:since when does popular mean crap?

[Thugthrasher]

Popular brands have more failures. You are reading it as "Popular brands have a higher failure rate" which is not necessarily true and not even close to what he was saying. If I sell a product with a 1% failure rate and sell 6 million units I am almost definitely going to have MORE FAILURES than the shitty product with a 50% failure rate if they only sell 5,000 units