| reply to lorennerol
Re: [X1] Xfinity TV on X1 Platform and X1 Remote Control App! said by lorennerol:So I currently have three HD DVRs and one HD receiver in the house. It looks like we're paying Comcast about $30 more per month that I'd be paying DirecTV for their five-tuner DVR, three receivers, better HD quality, and a whole lot more channels, AFTER the two years of discounts ran out.
Aside from the hassle of switching and losing some saved recordings, I'm plum out of reasons to keep chugging long with Comcast.
Anyone see anything I'm missing here??
Nope and if you want to save $10 a month DirecTV for 10 months, we can do refer-a-friend. If truly interested PM me. We both would get that $100 value in bill credits.
My first child is coming soon and I could use all the help I could get. I'm in an unfortunate single income situation right now. |
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Russ
join:2011-03-17
Houston, TX
kudos:1 | reply to lorennerol
If you have Comcast Internet and decide to keep it, that cost will probably go up. You might still save enough money to make changing worth it. |
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kb1
join:2008-11-15
South Bend, IN | reply to cypherstream
said by cypherstream:said by lorennerol:So I currently have three HD DVRs and one HD receiver in the house. It looks like we're paying Comcast about $30 more per month that I'd be paying DirecTV for their five-tuner DVR, three receivers, better HD quality, and a whole lot more channels, AFTER the two years of discounts ran out.
Aside from the hassle of switching and losing some saved recordings, I'm plum out of reasons to keep chugging long with Comcast.
Anyone see anything I'm missing here??
Nope and if you want to save $10 a month DirecTV for 10 months, we can do refer-a-friend. If truly interested PM me. We both would get that $100 value in bill credits. My first child is coming soon and I could use all the help I could get. I'm in an unfortunate single income situation right now. cypherstream,
Did you notice a difference in HD picture quality between Comcast and Directv? Also, is there any lag when changing channels with Directv? |
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| kb1,
In my opinion I would say that the HD picture quality is better than Comcast. SD picture quality is worse, but HD has much less macroblocking and artifacting, especially during fast motion and around logo's. They are rolling out new encoders (I think manufactured by Erricson) which are more efficient than the older ones. It's MPEG4 so it takes less Mbps to transmit a comparable MPEG2 picture quality. Also less Mbps translates to more efficient storage on the DVR's hard drive. That's great if you have the standard 500GB Hard Drive, but even the Genie DVR has 1TB drive. I'm surpised Comcast's DVR's offer so little space, especially the fact they have to store MPEG2 transport streams (higher bitrate than MPEG4 transport streams).
The latest HD channels on DirecTV like BBC America and DIY are my favorites. I have to say the picture quality is excellent. I only really watch HD and I have SD duplicates hidden from the guide (it's the default). DIY is channel 230 for example, so if i type in 230 or scroll to it, I automatically see it in HD. That's REALLY cool IMO. Now when the in-laws come to visit, they are watching HD. Before with Cable they would always put the wrong channel on since cable operators have that wacky channel numbering scheme with HD content hidden way high up in the guide that people don't even make it up that far when browsing. |
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| reply to kb1
kb1,
It's true with any Sat provider, there is some lag when changing channels. It's the nature of the technology. Digital TV was slower than Analog TV in channel surfing, and Satellite is a little slower due to the receiver communicating with the dish telling it what sat to tune, what transponder frequency, polarity, and the sat tells the receiver what frequency it downconverts on. Then the receiver gets the stream and has to separate the program stream from it and run it through the decoder.
I would say channel to channel your looking at 2 - 3 seconds. I haven't old school channel surfed in awhile though. With so many channels, even with cable I normally would bring up the guide and browse it. I find something I like in the guide and tune to it and thats that.
Do I miss the old days of analog TV when the Jerrold cable boxes were milliseconds between channel changes? Sure. But that technology and A/V quality was so dated and there was little capacity for everything we have out there today. |
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1 edit | Comcast this is what a proper HD Channel Guide looks like-
»www.satelliteguys.us/attachment.···id=82022 |
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 markofmayhemWhy not now?Premium
join:2004-04-08
Pittsburgh, PA
kudos:5
 ·Comcast
| Yuck, there are no advertisements!
--
Show off that hardware: join Team Discovery and Team Helix |
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| reply to lorennerol
said by lorennerol:Aside from the hassle of switching and losing some saved recordings, I'm plum out of reasons to keep chugging long with Comcast.
Anyone see anything I'm missing here??
Done. Pulled the trigger. Five tuner DVR, three satellites/minis, install tomorrow, $80 less/month for than Comcast for the first year. |
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 telcodad
join:2011-09-16
Lincroft, NJ
kudos:2 | reply to JeepMatt
said by JeepMatt:said by mikedz4:Any information on western Pennsylvania area with the x1?
Seeing it was to be released here in DE/PA in September, i'd say they are behind schedule...and seeing that the P'burgh area wasn't even previously mentioned, I'd say you're probably well into 2013 for your area Mike. Here's the latest info on the X1 deployment schedule, taken from an article (»www.lightreading.com/document.as···lr_cable) on the Light Reading Cable site today:X1 update
Comcast has launched its next-gen video service, X1, in four markets (Atlanta and Augusta, Ga.; Boston; and Chattanooga, Tenn.), with two "major markets" set to launch in the next couple of weeks, said Neil Smit, president and CEO.
:
Comcast isn't identifying where X1 is going next, but Denver and the company's Freedom Region -- a cluster of systems that serve greater Philadelphia, New Jersey and northern Delaware -- are among the markets that could be next in line. |
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| where does this put pittsburgh? |
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Russ
join:2011-03-17
Houston, TX
kudos:1 | said by mikedz4:where does this put pittsburgh?
Read JeepMatt's post that telcodad quoted. |
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| reply to lorennerol
said by lorennerol:said by lorennerol:Aside from the hassle of switching and losing some saved recordings, I'm plum out of reasons to keep chugging long with Comcast.
Anyone see anything I'm missing here??
Done. Pulled the trigger. Five tuner DVR, three satellites/minis, install tomorrow, $80 less/month for than Comcast for the first year. FYI- Installed Friday. Installer was GREAT- replaced all the terminations he could, not in a hurry, and was a direct employee of DirecTV, not a contractor. He was here almost five hours for the dish install, the five-tuner whole house DVR, and three satellite receivers. So far so good, with one exception:
As I feared, the DirecTV chat-drone that told me that all of their HD content is 1080p was dead wrong. I'm glad I snipped and saved the chat window because that was one of the reasons I switched. |
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| The only thing Direc-TV broadcasts in 1080p is select pay per view movies. No broadcaster broadcasts in 1080p.
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Yesh |
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telcodad
join:2011-09-16
Lincroft, NJ
kudos:2 | reply to telcodad
said by telcodad:said by JeepMatt:said by mikedz4:Any information on western Pennsylvania area with the x1?
Seeing it was to be released here in DE/PA in September, i'd say they are behind schedule...and seeing that the P'burgh area wasn't even previously mentioned, I'd say you're probably well into 2013 for your area Mike. Here's the latest info on the X1 deployment schedule, taken from an article (» www.lightreading.com/document.as···lr_cable) on the Light Reading Cable site today: X1 update
Comcast has launched its next-gen video service, X1, in four markets (Atlanta and Augusta, Ga.; Boston; and Chattanooga, Tenn.), with two "major markets" set to launch in the next couple of weeks, said Neil Smit, president and CEO.
:
Comcast isn't identifying where X1 is going next, but Denver and the company's Freedom Region -- a cluster of systems that serve greater Philadelphia, New Jersey and northern Delaware -- are among the markets that could be next in line. According to this article on the Philadelphia Business Journal site today, Comcast "plan[s] to roll [X1] out to customers in Philadelphia in the coming weeks.":
Television in the cloud: Comcast guru says X1 will be here in weeks
The Philadelphia Business Journal - November 16, 2012
»www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia···page=all |
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| Any information on the pittsburgh area yet? |
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| reply to gate1975mlm
Just curious. Does this new X1 box enable you to record more than one program while watching a live program all in the same time slot? I have Uverse, and as an example, I can record two HD and one SD program while watching a live HD program, all in the same time slot. |
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telcodad
join:2011-09-16
Lincroft, NJ
kudos:2 | From earlier posts in this thread, it appears that, while the Pace XG1 box is equipped with 6 tuners, Comcast has (had?) only enabled 3 of them.
See: »Re: [X1] Xfinity TV on X1 Platform and X1 Remote Control App! |
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telcodad
join:2011-09-16
Lincroft, NJ
kudos:2 | reply to gate1975mlm
An article on the FierceCable site today listing/comparing their "top 10 most compelling connected TV interfaces," basically the competition for Comcast's X1 interface/guide/platform: Looking at the top connected TV user interfaces
Top 10 connected TV interfaces: Do Apple, Google, Microsoft make the cut?By Steve Donohue, FierceCable - November 19, 2012 » www.fiercecable.com/story/lookin···12-11-19and: » www.fiercecable.com/slideshows/t···make-cut |
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telcodad
join:2011-09-16
Lincroft, NJ
kudos:2 | reply to cypherstream
If what the latest post in that thread (»forums.comcast.com/t5/XfinityTV-···5#M59637) says is true, then there are some interesting new developments coming to the X1:
I spoke with the local comcast rep and he said hopefully by superbowl the x1's were going to the cloud with the dvr recorded shows so they will have the anyroom functionality. I also spoke with him about the remote and he says they are aware of it and coming out with a new remote not the r2 but a different one, supposedly it's going to have a slide out keyboard and possibly backlit (with the abilty to switch between tuners on the tv).
So I say hang in there people we are the early adopters of this new box. Its only going to get better. |
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| reply to telcodad
Thanks telcodad. I was hoping for the recording 3 while watching 1 live option. Oh well I guess I'll stay with what I've got for now. |
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