said by cypherstream:It's for the most part 3:1 QAM now.
Some cable systems receive AMC Networks 4:1 however. AMC Networks broadcasts:
AMC HD
IFC HD
We HD
Fuse HD
All in one MPEG2 transport, traffic shaped to 38.8 mbps to fit in one 4:1 compressed QAM.
I know a few providers that have a handful of 4:1 compression, but last I've heard Comcast generally uses 3:1 compression.
Going MPEG4 would improve this rate to 5 or 6 HD per QAM.
But would HD picture quality suffer going to MPEG4 and 6HD per QAM?