Poll: Are you satisfied with your HD service?
By Darren Murph 
posted February 9th 2008 12:00PM
posted February 9th 2008 12:00PM
posted February 9th 2008 12:00PM
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Hellz no I'm not satisfied. I'm friggin' stuck with Time Warner cable and their pathetic HD selection. And because I don't have a line-of-sight south in my apartment, I can't get DirecTV.
I very rarely leave the HD section of channels on my cable box, yet I'm forced to get hundreds of SD channels (even some duplicates) that I never use. TW should use their bandwidth better and at least try to rival DirecTV's vastly superior selection.
Im stuck on Comcast here, they haven't been releasing many HD channels and keep jacking up the price on our service. If I could get fiber, I'd be happy to trade in my comcast box for a direcTV box, but I may just get a box from BELL in canada so I can get CBC.
Comcast sucks. They should be fined for false advertising.....the most HD, my a$$.
If you are lucky, a handful of HD channels that work. And then, the picture quality does not come close to that of Directv HD.
Not to speak of their unhelpful, idiotic and rude 'customer' service.
If you have a choice.....avoid Comcast and go with Directv.
I had a similar experience watching Lost on RCN in Chi-town. Blurry, iffy, Bleh. certainly not what I am paying out the yin-yang for ...
Comcast here. Great picture, but the overall experience stinks. First of course is the limited number of HD compared with Direct. And no, VOD does NOT count. Their HD VOD is clearly compressed with blocking and a 'grainy' feel, and no 5.1 audio - and to count it as a linear channel is deceptive anyway.
So, with limited BW to carry channels, Comcast chooses to pick many that stretch 4:3 and SD to widescreen, fooling no one and making the shows unwatchable. Not Comcast's fault per se, but they could pick better.
But the kicker of all this is the damn Mototola set top box. It is the biggest POS ever to be placed in front of tech savy early adaptors. It's slow to change channels, the guide sticks with LARGE font (not needed on a 50" plasma!) and no way to change it. Big ass screen, yet only 5 lines of guide can be shown at once. Yet they found room for advertisements!
All this of course assuming the STB is not throwing one of it's fits, where remote commands are ignored for a while (but stored!). Then, when it wakes from doing something with itself, all the stored commands are executed.
The spontaneous resets are also real fun right in the middle of a show (or a recording) - taking up to 5 minutes to recover and a full day to re-populate the guide info.
If not for the hassle of wiring for a sat service (and the many installation horror stories over there), I'd jump. DTV is a a lot cheaper for more HD (at least today).
If this STB (my 2nd) resets one more time in the middle of a show though, I just may do it. I'm sooooo close right now........
Funny that Comcast thinks adding Tivo code on top of the hardly functional STB is going to make it all better. It won't. And they want to charge you more for something that's likely going to work WORSE?
I have directv and I have side bars on both sides of the screen when I watch ESPN or when a channel shows something in slow motion.I constantly see tons of white flickers when I watch a Cartoon Channel also when I watch the movie The Godfather on A&EHD channel.I also see swiggly lines on the top of certain channels.I see a row of dead pixels on channel 4.I had my 46XBR4 replaced with a new 46XBR4 and they both have the problems I mentioned.The tvshows look horrible in dark scenes.I see a long green line on the side when I played a game trailer from PS3 in 1080p.Also there's two green lines on both sides of the screen when a game loads on my 360 but goes away after a 2 seconds.Directv has promised 100 HD channels by the end of 07 and they haven't there's only about 70 in my area.
I'm not satisfied; some issues are just little irritants like 4:3 and 16:9 material not being properly compensated for. Some are programming related -- the satellite service I use doesn't have a huge number of channels, and of course, not all that it does have appeal to me or my family. We like discover and the like; we laugh at the martial arts channel (we're martial artists, so it is double-funny to us); we completely ignore all the pay-per-view content (we pay about $100/month for our service, that's all they're getting out of us.) We enjoy the HD news channel, but the loop is very short and there isn't much content; the best content is concerts, usually found on HDNET or the dedicated music channel, the next best content is some of the SF and fantasy trying to be SF -- nothing like CGI to really exercise a 1080 DLP engine.
But I imagine it'll get better. First we have to get rid of all this NTSC crap that clogs up the satellite. Looks terrible.
Comcast's HD lineup in Northeast PA is a joke. Most of it is on-demand, and most of what's on-demand is independent garbage nobody likes. I currently get locals over QAM, and when I looked at what more I can get with a box, most of them were premium channels and the locals I already have. There were mainly two or three non-premium cable channels. So, if I got a box, I get two more HD channels. Yay.
However, the quality of the locals is outstanding. So, I'm not complaining about the quality, but the selection is terribly small.
I have TWC in Los Angeles and they are horrible. They only have a few HD channels and haven't added any in ages and there boxes are very slow. I also hate their cheap interface.
Anyway..Perhaps one of the writers can publish a story updating us about TWC in Los Angeles?
I TWC sux in any state. I'm out East, and yes, they suck. FIOS where are you?!
TWC in El Paso is the worst... They only have a small number of channels in HD and have not upgraded in who knows how long. They have a stranglehold on the market here and their service sucks. I haven't gotten away from it only because of the Road Runner.
I have TWC with TivoHD which was great until TWC went with SDV so I don't get half the channels I'm supposed to. But I hate their set top boxes so much I could never go back. TIVO FOR LIFE
I have Comcast service, which has a good selection but a downright crappy DVR.
I can't stand how each channel has a different audio delay on DirecTV. This problem affects cable users too. It's just annoying as can be...
I bought a Samsung 56" about a year ago and I haven't gone HD yet. Main reason was because the picture quality I have now is damn good! From what I hear people say, you pay $300 for an HD DVR then $10/mo for the HD channels and most of the time, the "HD" channels may not even be broadcasting something filmed in HiDef. That's just a total rip off if you ask me, complete false adertising.
Okay, I'll get off my soap box! Well, I was at a friends house for the Super Bowl and during the entire game, we would see compression artifacts. My sister just upgrading to Directv's HD programming and she's been reporting the same problem.
Before I go and dump some money on HD, I need to know who I should go with, stay with Directv or switch to Dish Network. Or, is this something ALL HD users experience???
I have a question that I hope someone can answer. Anyone know of any professional reviews comparing HD picture quality between Dish and Directv? I don't care about channel lineup. I just want to know which satellite provider can provide me with the best service.
It's a love-hate thing...I have Charter in North Texas and the content just sucks. The new HD channel is Discovery HD and other than that the only other HD offerings are the standards (HDNet, TNT, HD Theater, etc.) and premiums. The worst part is that they are the only HD provider outside of moving to satellite. However, without S3 TiVo support and such high startup costs for equipment I'll never own puts me off signing anything with DirecTV.
I live in southeastern NC (wilmington to be exact) and the HD service with Time Warner is abysimal at best. Only Showtime and HBO have HD in term of premium sofferings. If you like ESPN you're in luck cause espn and espn2 are in hd. If you like regular station offerings ie abc, nbc cbs & fox (sorry no cw) you're good to. They add about maybe 2-3 channels every 6 months but compared with DirectTV and Dishnetwork, its a total joke. It is free (if you have a digital cable) which is nice but I'd be willing to pay extra if i could get other stations in HD, like FX, USA, CN, G4 and i'll even resubsribe to starz, cinemax etc if the premium offerings were up to par. Another issue i have with my HD (more so equipment) is the the 8300HDC w/e suck. My box will either NOT record or it locks up and i'll have to reboot (and by reboot unplug the box) to get it to work correctly. Luckily i haven't lost any important dvr shows but at the same token I've missed recordings (which begs why am I paying for something if it sucking at what its supposed to do).
Oh well if you realy want me to rant about my dealings with time warner, brew some coffey and cigerette.
Direct TV is horrific.... Their HD service is about as HD as a Betamax player...
I live in NYC and jumped to them for all their promises of free this and that, and it was all BS!!
The box cost me more money, wasn't there on arrival, and once I got the service it was muddy and dark.
I am now back to Time Warner Cable and these douch*tards don't have USAHD or Sci-Fi HD which means that WWE television is not in HD yet in THEIR HOME MARKET!!
They should all be required to switch over to HD completely because we aren't going to have doubles of every channel forever anyway, this whole transition is taking way to long
I have comcast here in Michigan...the number of HD channels available for the price is simply poor. On top of that...the fact that I need to upgrade to a completely different package in order to get the channels I already have in SD in HD and not just have to pay a HD box premium is just horrible. Furthermore...in their conversion of the SD analog channels to digital to transmit over HDMI made the SD channels unwatchable.
I have Cablevision on Long Island. I find that channels sometimes go black, and have serious MPEG'ing artifacts during prime time. Meanwhile the SD channel works fine. it's very annoying when trying to watch sports. To add insult to injury, they don't have enough HD channels for all 3 hockey teams. When the Ragers, Islanders, and NJ Devils all play, one of them gets broadcasted in SD while the other two enjoy HD. (usually channel 14, which is below standard definition quality!)
Have Bright House Networks (formerly known as Time Warner) in a fairly small Orlando suburb built in '01. It's cr*p, mostly because their infrastructure in my neighborhood would take it as a compliment to be called cr*p. Side note: When we moved here, we got their high-speed Internet service, and we had to cancel after daily, hours-long outages that 5 tech visits could not solve; it is a regular occurence in this neighborhood to see 1 or 2 trucks out here working on a problem somewhere. But back to topic...
Bought new HD set in summer (late adopter, yeah), got new job shortly thereafter, decided to kick off football season with HD tier including ESPN and DVR. Guy won't install it the way I want him to -- wanted him to devote more bandwidth to HD box, which would have involved changing 2 wires at a splitter set up by earlier tech trying to solve failed Internet problems. He ripped out that splitter and put in an equal 4-way. Mistake, IMHO. Anyway...
First game, alma mater Clemson beats Florida State and picture looks awesome.
Not long after, box starts sh*tting bed. Set it to record a show, we get hour of black screen instead. Try to change channels, it locks up. Continual reboots, and they take 10 minutes to restore full function. Literally, I timed it.
Call Bright House, tell them about problem. They send tech to swap box. He gets here, admits all their boxes have same problem, and though he's happy to swap it the same problems are going to persist. I take chance on new box.
Tech knows his stuff, new box sh*ts bed too (less at first, then problem grows).
Also, between charges for DVR, plus first HD tier, plus extra HD tier (for espn), plus taxes/fees, I'm spending $30 a month to add about 14 channels. Not worth it.
Called Bright House and told them to cancel service, credit previous month's HD charges and come get box. They complied, though it took them a month to pick up box.
Bought Philips DVR with digital tuner and dvd burner instead. Still shut out of extra tier of channels, but at least I can record downconverted HD programming, and it'll make for a handy converter box at some point.
Still enjoying included broadcast HD channels in my basic service. But we won't pay extra for HD until we move to a new 'hood at the end of the year.
Every day, I hear about "Comcast adds more HD" or "TWC get more HD". Guess what? Charter gives us exactly 14 HD channels. 14!!!!! And includes 4 locals and the movie networks. That leaves 6 "special" channels. TheaterHD, TWCHD, HISTHD, and few useless ones plus ESPN(2)HD. That's it. No FoodHD, no DiscoveryHD.
That is still quite a few more than Comcast provides!