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moldypickle
Premium Member
join:2009-01-04
Haughton, LA
ARRIS SB8200
Ubiquiti UDM-Pro
Ubiquiti UniFi UAP-nanoHD

moldypickle to mtrot

Premium Member

to mtrot

Re: [Digital TV] Any news on the possibility of improving HD vid

Just have basic, lol, no hdnet here. But I'd still have to disagree for everything I can get on hd at my house. Even 720 streams on Vudu look miles better on most shows. Maybe it's in part just being literally end of the run on the cable plant and things get wonky out here a lot.
mtrot
join:2006-03-26
Tyler, TX
Netgear CM600
Netgear R7000

mtrot

Member

Hmm...that is strange. Must be something wrong with the signal at your house, or with the local suddenlink service there. There is no way any kind of streaming should be as good as cable HD.

I am not familiar with Vudu, but we do stream some Amazon Prime HD programming here, and it looks good on bright images, but whenever there is a dark scene, there is all kinds of macroblocking and smearing.

moldypickle
Premium Member
join:2009-01-04
Haughton, LA
ARRIS SB8200
Ubiquiti UDM-Pro
Ubiquiti UniFi UAP-nanoHD

moldypickle

Premium Member

I've quit honestly just let it go being I go DAYS without even turning on the tv other than the morning news. Starting to think that's a good reason to OTA it, lol

I get the blocking on actual black colored scene items sometimes w/ Vudu. If I pay another dollar for the 1080 stream though I haven't seen the blocking.
stevenwalter
join:2012-03-23

stevenwalter to mtrot

Member

to mtrot
mrtrot, I assure you that it's Suddenlink that is the problem. I actually live in Tyler myself, so we're seeing the same signal. Motion artifacting is absolutely awful. I was watching the Patriots/49ers game sunday night, and I cringed anytime the NBC sports logo flew onto the screen before commercial breaks or replays, it turns into a blocky mess. This type of artifacting is visible in practically any scenario that has fast motion.

I have witnessed the very same problems on any person's TV that I've ever watched Suddenlink cable on. I've personally experienced it in both my old house, and the house i recently moved into, which has a brand new drop connecting to a brand new outlet.

While my comparison to streaming might have been exaggerated to some extent, I've definitely seen plenty of instances of HD streams matching Suddenlinks quality.

My main beef is that the HD quality hasn't changed, ever. This is the problem with cable monopolies, they have no competition to drive serious improvements. They make changes at their own leisure, and can institute crap like bandwidth caps, knowing that people aren't going to jump ship, simply because they have no place else to go.
mtrot
join:2006-03-26
Tyler, TX
Netgear CM600
Netgear R7000

mtrot

Member

You may be right, but two things:

First, back when HD programming became available in Tyler, Suddenlink stated they were passing on the local broadcast station's signals as is, with no compression or alterations. I don't know if that was ever true, or if it was true and later changed.

Secondly, I do have an outdoor antenna. Again, it was back during the days when our local stations first began broadcasting in HD, but I did compare the OTA quality to what I was seeing on Suddenlink and I could not tell any difference. I have always noticed(both on Suddenlink here in Tyler, and pretty much anywhere I watch HD programming) the pixelation and blocking on fast moving sports like football, especially when it is something like a close shot of football players moving around on a field. It seems like I see more of this pixelation on networks that broadcast in 1080 like CBS as opposed those who broadcast in 720P like ABC.
stevenwalter
join:2012-03-23

stevenwalter

Member

That might be interlacing that you're seeing on the 1080i signals. I actually force my box to 720p because interlacing definitely does degrade scenes with high motion, though it's a different kind of artifacting, more of a blurriness as opposed to the pixelated blockiness that I'm talking about.

Pay attention to the Sunday night game this week, the main NBC football logo is probably the worst instance of it that I can think of. At first I thought it was the DVR cutting out for a split second it was so bad. But It happened every time.