HD signal on RCN vs. Comcast

[duffless2323.livejournal.com]

I seem to notice that HD looks better at friends houses that have comcast, however they may have different tvs etc than me. Have any of you had both Comcast and RCN on the same HD tv in the davis area? If so, did you notice one provided a better picture?

Comments

[ominousspectre.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this is directly linked to RCN or if there's something wrong with our TV but we've been noticing that at random points during a show, our HDTV randomly switches from 1080p to something lower (something in the 400s) and then back to 1080. It straddles the line between being annoying enough to complain about, but not annoying enough to actually call RCN about.

[duffless2323.livejournal.com]

What do you mean switches to 400s, how do you know, is there a setting that tells you that?

I have noticed that when I fast forward through some shows I DVR the screen seems to jump out of HD while forwarding, the screen even goes black for a second and then switches back, it didn't used to do that, ad from what I can tell it only seems to be certain channels.

[ominousspectre.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a little box pops up on the screen showing the new pixel count (I think it's 480p) and the picture stretches a bit. I think it mostly happens when we're watching Project Runway or HIMYM reruns from Lifetime. But I'm pretty sure it's happened on other channels as well.

[duffless2323.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I've never seen a box pop up that told me the pixel count.

[smammy]

I think it's a TV feature, not a cable box feature.

[emannths.livejournal.com]

What's happening is that some commercials as still in 480i. Your cable box is currently set up to send the native resolution to the TV (so if it gets 480i in, it sends 480i to the tv). If you're watching a show in 1080i, and a commercial comes on in 480i, there will be a hiccup as the tv and cablebox have a new handshake and the TV switches resolutions.

If you have a Motorola DVR (and maybe cable box too--I don't know), you can change this setting so that the cable box converts all material to a single resolution. Turn the cable box off and hit menu to bring up the setup menu. Change the HDMI/YPbPr setting from "Native" to your desired resolution (1080i if you have a 1080 line display, 720 if you have a 720/768 line display).

[lizzielizzie.livejournal.com]

Completely off-topic - your icon reminds me that Leslie Nielson is dead. :-(

[duffless2323.livejournal.com]

Aww, :-( I've been quoting him all day on facebook.

All I can say is I hope they bury him with his whoopie cushion.

[jamiesquared.livejournal.com]

We have RCN HD and a friend has Comcast HD- looks exactly the same to me. It could be your box...do you have an older HD box? We just got the new Tivo RCN boxes a few months ago but to be honest I didnt notice a difference when we had the Microsoft HD box.

[ringrose.livejournal.com]

My problem isn't so much pixel resolution as digital static. Periodically I'll have sound dropouts and/or large-scale pixelization.
We had it worse with Comcast than RCN. I haven't noticed it on other people's TVs, but I don't watch theirs as much.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

i will note that "HD" on comcast or RCN is kind of a joke. Just compare it to a regular (non-Bluray) DVD in an upconverter: the DVD will beats the pants off it. Cable channels compress the hell out of their content. Netflix "HD" is even worse. Another sad comparison: iTune standard definition downloads generally look better than the same show in HD through comcast (I tested this via an "oops" with battlestar galactica)

That said, the TV plays the biggest part in it all from my experience, and it could be that RCN has some sort of weird backup system but I'm just guessing at this point.

[liryon (from livejournal.com)]

Sound dropouts and/or large-scale pixelization sound like a borderline singal strength issues. With HD television signals, you do not need to get 100% of the digital data in order to get 100% of the
picture/sound because some of the data sent is redundant. This is done because it would impossible to ensure that everyone gets the signal perfectly. If you aren't getting enough of the data to
reconstruct the whole picture or sound stream, then this sort of thing will occur.

If this occurs on broadcast tv, adjust your antenna. If it occurs with cable, you should try removing cable splitters, as they reduce signal strength, or install an amplifier before the first
splitter. You'd want to install the amplifier as far away from the tv, as close to the cable drop from the street as possible. You should only really have to do this, if your cables inside or from the
pole to the house are particularly awful/old.

You may want to get Comcast/RCN to identify the bad cable instead of just amping up the power level. They will also sell you and install an amplifier at the cable box for $20 (Comcast). I had them do
this, and then a couple years later they had to come replace the cable from the pole to that box, which resulted in no longer needing the amplifier.

[derekp.livejournal.com]

I've recently had both and noticed no real difference in PQ. However, I also have an antenna and the HD stations I receive with it do seem to have a slightly higher quality. I'm told that back when OTA signals were analog this difference was even more pronounced. Now that everything is digital it's all compressed like crazy.

Over The Air HD

[bostonartist.livejournal.com]

I Don't have cable TV but I do watch all the local channels in HD with a simple $40 indoor HD antenna. The picture quality is amazing and much better than cable (from what I have been told) because over the air broadcasting is not compressed like cable.

Re: Over The Air HD

[emannths.livejournal.com]

Actually, OTA broadcasts are compressed as well. It's just that cable retransmission can be compressed even more.

More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cable
http://hd.engadget.com/2009/05/08/hd-101-what-is-atsc-psip-qam-and-8-vsb/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATSC_%28standards%29

[emannths.livejournal.com]

There's very little difference. I thought the compression was a little more noticeable on some Comcast channels (usually cable-only channels like USA, FX, etc), but I think that's all in my head. I don't think you'll be able to tell any difference in picture quality if you switch.

[rethcir.livejournal.com]

I had a friend with a really nice Sony plasma who had RCN and switched to Comcast and mentioned he thought there was less crompression/artifacitng on Comcast. If high-quality picture is your priority I'd go with that or directtv. I personally get more utility from the internet part of my RCN package though and seems to be better on RCN.