[ken36]

Never noticed it.

 

[Febs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canman The artifacting and macroblocking on all channels, including HD is awful. Watching the Phillies game in HD last night, I was disappointed to see that it was worse than the last Phillies HD game I watched over a $25 Radio Shack antenna.

Off-topic, but does the Comcast HD Phillies broadcast have huge discrepancies in audio level between the level of the game and the level of commercials? I have RCN, and the levels are terrible. Plus, there is a very poor, slow compressor somewhere along the line that creates some nasty volume pumping. I'm just wondering whether this is an RCN issue or if you notice it as well with the Comcast HD broadcast.

 

[Hunterboy55]

Personally I have a Rear-projection HD tv (with no HDMI because my family was an early adopter), with the time warner cable set-top box.

And in the early daysI did notice a lot of distortion when it comes to movement. But fairly recently the picture on almost all of the channels is great, especially ESPNHD.

Although as edwood pointed out... there is a fair amount of distortion and stuff on PBS HD.

There was an article on wired recently that talked about each 'picture problem' with HD and they broke it down as to wheter it was your tv's fault or your provider. Most of the time it is the provider.

 

[dan1son]

HD has the same problems as MP3s. The more feeds they try to squeeze into the small amount of bandwidth they have the worse the compression artifacts. Another problem is some local stations (network affiliates) will re-compress their feeds to add graphics or to manually convert the feed from the resolution used by the network itself down into what they broadcast locally.

MOST of the local stations will not change resolutions but a few of the more obnoxious ones do. Fox in Austin does and it's horribly noticable watching sports because they take the fast 720p feed and turn it into a 1080i feed. Most fox stations will broadcast the sporting events in 720p and everything else in 1080i.

It is probably also the case that some cable companies and satellite companies compress the feeds even more than they get them just to fit a couple more channels in their bandwidth. I'm not sure which ones do it but it is said that some do.

Also some HD boxes will automatically convert from one resolution to another which can cause some funk depending on how good their algorithms are. Check the menus and set them to "pass through." Basically causing the TV to convert the resolution if it has to. Some TVs will show everything in one resolution while others are capable of showing more than one resolution relatively natively.

 

[Canman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Febs Off-topic, but does the Comcast HD Phillies broadcast have huge discrepancies in audio level between the level of the game and the level of commercials? I have RCN, and the levels are terrible. Plus, there is a very poor, slow compressor somewhere along the line that creates some nasty volume pumping. I'm just wondering whether this is an RCN issue or if you notice it as well with the Comcast HD broadcast.

There is some slopy audio compression going on and off but its not too bothersome for me.

On a happy note, artifacting seemed to improve today. It is possible that Comcast increased the signal strength to my building. Plus, I forgot that the picture settings for each input are controlled separately. The input had defaulted to "Vivid" which is exceedingly bright and unnatural.

 

[Canman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Febs Off-topic, but does the Comcast HD Phillies broadcast have huge discrepancies in audio level between the level of the game and the level of commercials? I have RCN, and the levels are terrible. Plus, there is a very poor, slow compressor somewhere along the line that creates some nasty volume pumping. I'm just wondering whether this is an RCN issue or if you notice it as well with the Comcast HD broadcast.

There is some slopy audio compression going on and off but its not too bothersome for me.

On a happy note, artifacting seemed to improve today. It is possible that Comcast increased the signal strength to my building. Plus, I forgot that the picture settings for each input are controlled separately. The input had defaulted to "Vivid" which is exceedingly bright and unnatural.

 

[tyrion]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canman I'm reviving this thread because I finally was able to get Comcast digital cable this week. My condo building was rewired with a new distribution block to the units. The artifacting and macroblocking on all channels, including HD is awful. Watching the Phillies game in HD last night, I was disappointed to see that it was worse than the last Phillies HD game I watched over a $25 Radio Shack antenna. Even on HBO, the artifacting is out of control. Facial tones come in pasty and in one color. I am pretty upset because I've been looking forward to this for over a year.

Brian, you shouldn't be getting that much artifacting. I've had Comcast Digital for a couple of weeks and it happens once in a while. I have four boxes in my house so the cable guy suggested a line amplifier on my main tv which is the LCD/HDTV. I've been surprised at how good the digital picture is. The HDTV picture is amazing. In addition, all four boxes are dual tuner dvr's.

 

[Canman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tyrion Brian, you shouldn't be getting that much artifacting. I've had Comcast Digital for a couple of weeks and it happens once in a while. I have four boxes in my house so the cable guy suggested a line amplifier on my main tv which is the LCD/HDTV. I've been surprised at how good the digital picture is. The HDTV picture is amazing. In addition, all four boxes are dual tuner dvr's.

There is some macroblocking on fast action scenes, but overall it is now excellent. It must not have been working properly the first 24 hours. According to the guy at the front desk of my condo building, there were numerous complaints of low signal level. Since everyone got digital cable at the same time, the Comcast servicemen must have taken notice.

The INHD channel had an IMAX film called Stormchasers on last night, which was disgustingly awesome. It was also great watching the Phillies anhilating the Mets for a second night in a row.

Tyrion: can the DVR record HD channels?

 

[MCC]

Sometimes you'll get motion artifacts w/ an interlaced or highly compressed signal. PBSHD in Des Moines is one of those stations, since they have 4-5 subchannels but only use two. The end result is less bandwidth for the channels they actually use and lots of blocking and lost signals. This is with the largest rooftop HD antenna American sold, btw. The Dish 942 HD PVR picks up signals much better than the LG non-dish HD PVR that's a shorter run from the antenna, which is sort of counter-intuitive. You'd think the Dish reciever would have a mediocre OTA HD tuner since it's primarily a satellite box. In case anyone is wondering, the dish is hooked up to an old sony VPL-VW10HT 720p LCD projector w/ 105" widescreen (had it for ~6 years now, and an even older almost-hd projector before the spec was finalized) and the LG is paired w/ a sony 34" 1080i CRT. The projector is still going strong w/ vibrant colors and good contrast. Of course, LCD technology has improved quite a bit since then. Now only if everyone would boost their HD signal...