Comcast adding new HD channels in Charleston, SC
By Darren Murph 
posted Oct 31st 2008 9:26AM
posted Oct 31st 2008 9:26AM
Charleston, South Carolina is the latest locale on the mind of Comcast, as subscribers in the area are about to receive a few new channels on the EPG. Reportedly, FOX News HD, Disney Channel HD, Science HD, SPEED HD, FX HD, Versus HD and AMC HD have already popped up for some folks, though the go-live date isn't scheduled until November 1st. We know, it's only a handful, but it's better than suffering through next week with the same 'ole lineup, isn't it?[Thanks, Gus and Carlton]
WHY DO WE CARE!?
Comcast in Charleston looks HORRIBLE. They've compressed the crap out of their channels. Any movement at all has severe macroblocking. Now we get more crappy channels. Great.
Yeah, it's pretty bad unless it's a big game or something. Comcast seems to give the bandwidth to Sunday/Monday Night Football, Saturday College games, etc.
Well they're putting 3 HD channels in a multiplex, so that means each channel only gets ~ 12-14 Mbps bitrate, and they need 20.
That's not what causes Macroblocking though. That is caused by mpeg packet loss, which is caused by many factors but most often it's crappy networking on the IP distribution side. I'm not sure if their Charleston office has gone to IP yet though so I can't tell you for certain.