Comcast looking to compress HD even more

Oh Comcast we understand you're always looking for new ways to increase the capacity of your network, but we'd hoped you learned by now that bit starving HD wasn't one that would go un-noticed. Some providers wean off analog channels, others deploy SDV and still others move VOD to IP or start using more efficient codecs like H.264. Now all of those have their drawbacks, and we appreciate you always trying to find a better way. But testing out ways (that appear to be snake oil from Arris, BigBand Networks, Harmonic, Imagine, and others) to fit four quality HD channels in one 38Mbps QAM channel while still using MPEG2 seems about as likely as our dear old grandma winning the lottery. So while we want you to keep on keeping on the good fight to improve your infrastructure, we just hope you don't forget that not everyone who watches Comcast HD doesn't mind if it looking like a mosaic.

[CaseyVincent Posted Mar 20th 2010 2:18PM]

I think we should make the "HD" moniker not only mean a resolution, but as a bitrate. I can't stand to watch football on our local NBC affiliate, because every pass does look like a mosaic.

And when my friends and family start to notice the over-compression, well then you know you have a problem.

Also, Comast - I will gladly take LESS channels, if you provide quality HD channels that I actually want to watch. I don't need 500 stations, there is only so much TV a Media Center can record.

[iPaul Posted Mar 20th 2010 3:49PM]

You think TIme Warner Cable are any better?

You cannot watch HD on a big screen TV with TWC, HD it's soooo crappy looking with TWC @ 65".

The more channels they add the worse they keep looking.

[glugglug Posted Mar 22nd 2010 2:43PM]

@iPaul

Are you sure its TWC crapifying the quality? I have TW as well, and while I agree that when there is any motion the artifacting sucks, I can see from the recordings on my media center PC that the bitrates are in the 15-16Mbps range, which is near the maximum that broadcasters can use (especially when some is used for the subchannels). I think the HD quality may be just as bad OTA. It really sucks that the U.S. only uses MPEG-2 for digital TV.

Now if you are talking about the SD digital channels from TWC, I'd have to agree they are bitrate starving them. Thank god they finally got Comedy Central HD here, the SD version was below YouTube quality.

[ScienceProUSAcom Posted Mar 20th 2010 4:58PM]

It's all about OTA...quality looks amazing in comparison. I ditched TWC because I rarely watch TV anyway. When I do, I don't want it to look like crap.

[iPaul Posted Mar 20th 2010 7:04PM]

OTA is 100x better.

TWC HD should be called low bit, high compression HD, or something reflective of the image definition we pay for.

The HD standard is too broad to make any sense of what we are paying for with from our providers.

[vgsmike Posted Mar 20th 2010 8:20PM]

@iPaul The apt nickname for this is "HD Lite".

My cable co sucks too. There's no buzzkill quite like movies with a lot of special effects turning to crap with every explosion.

Switching to Fios soon. Can't wait.

[10nisman94 Posted Mar 20th 2010 7:08PM]

Or you can get FiOS :D

[iPaul Posted Mar 20th 2010 8:55PM]

@10nisman94 not avaliable :(

[10nisman94 Posted Mar 20th 2010 10:05PM]

@iPaul That's too bad :(

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 21st 2010 1:15AM]

What's the drawback of h.264? My cable box already has support for it. And for those boxes that don't, just pop up a message telling them that they need to get a new cable box to view that channel.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 21st 2010 7:37AM]

@(Unverified)

The problem with H.264 is only the newest cable boxes support it. All the older boxes need to be replaced as well. It is much easier for the provider to swap out the equipment at the head-end than to replace everyone's cable box.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 21st 2010 9:31AM]

@(Unverified) Also, it breaks compatibility with Cablecard DCR devices as they have no H.264 decoders.

[Fanfoot Posted Mar 22nd 2010 1:07PM]

@(Unverified) As others pointed out, virtually all of the installed based of cable boxes has no support for h.264. They support only MPEG-2 and AC-3 audio. Nothing else.

As far as cablecard compatibility though, I don't think that's true at all. Whether they use h.264 or MPEG-2 video, cable transmissions ALWAYS use MPEG-2 transport streams to carry the multiplex of audio and video and all of the encryption schemes work at the transport stream level, not the elementary stream that MPEG-2/h.264 lives at. I'm pretty sure that STBs which ship with cable cards and have h.264 decoders in them would work with both.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 22nd 2010 5:32PM]

@(Unverified) How can that be? My cablebox has a cablecard (it's clearly visible through the vents on top), yet it's user manual and tech specs say it support mpeg-4/avc/h.264. I'm bound to believe it is like Fanfoot said, and it can handle the transport streams just fine regardless of codec used for video.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 22nd 2010 5:37PM]

@Fanfoot That's why I suggested that you just pop up a message telling them to get a new cable box. Sure the cable company will have to pay for the new cable boxes, but when I went in to replace my broken cable box, that's what they gave me : A new one that supports h.264. So it seems they're already in the process of doing that anyway. If they just had a couple premium hd channels (like hbo and showtime) it would speed up adoption without disrupting too many people's services. Or bring in new channels as h.264, so no channels would be lost, but to get the new channels you'd have to upgrade. Just slowly transition more and more channels to h.264, until everyone's upgraded.

[Gorgula Posted Mar 21st 2010 3:36AM]

They are too busy focusing on the 3D gimmick. Try getting me more than 10 HD channels first you F ers!

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 21st 2010 7:45AM]

Nothing really to see here. If anyone bothered to read the article this is just a bakeoff to see if the vendor's claims are true. The article even states that CMC has not decided if it will be deployed and even if it is deployed it's not like every HD channel will be on a 4:1 mux. In fact, not every Comcast HD channel is on a 3:1 mux now, sports and locals are still on 2:1 muxes. News channels, for one, would be perfect for 4:1 muxing as a good part of the screen is somewhat static information wings on the sides and bottoms.

Besides do you really think MPEG-2 encoders don't get better every year? If you can get a "good" 4:1 mux, that will be an even better 3:1 mux which just means more HD capacity, faster Internet, 3D, etc.

[John H Posted Mar 21st 2010 12:38PM]

@(Unverified)

I think we've hit the upper limit for MPEG-2, so no I don't think it's going to get much better with another year than what we have now. DVDs have been around for about a decade and a half now, which is more than enough time for the industry to optimize MPEG-2 encoders and gain familiarity with what the codec can and can't do. MPEG-2 is tapped out; MPEG-4 is the new frontier that the industry will have to embrace, become familiar with, and start optimizing.

[tamahome02000 Posted Mar 23rd 2010 11:31AM]

Gene Dolgoff doesn't even believe 1080 resolution exists on cable. The compression is completely unregulated.

http://twit.tv/htg12