US Cable Support > Charter Internet/TV > [CATV] Charter's HD looks like trash

[CATV] Charter's HD looks like trash

I think it depends on the cable coming into the neighborhood the house and the t.v. I.M.O, my parents had Direct tv and now U-verse and I think my charter has better picture, sound and timing.

reply to watts3000
I respectfully disagree. My boyfriend has Charter HD and my daughter Direct Tv, similar size tv's. Movies with Charter HD are almost like being in the theater. To each his own!

NO WAY charter will ever be better than DirecTV or Dish.....

My sister in law was so excited when Charter TV, internet and phone came down here.

I commented on her Charter HDTV using a Vizio 40 inch 1080/120hz. it looked grainy, fuzzy, and like crap. And we have all new lines run down our street, and she got a total new install from charter....

she cancelled after about a month and a half, and went back to DISH network. WOW! her picture is stunning now...

No way Charter TV matches..

I've had it all, other then Verizon fios and Charter's picture quality is better. It must be how its hooked up or just that cable there. Now I know everyone else has way more channels then what I have here in TX, I might have 20 HD channels. Hopefully this year they do some upgradeing in TX since they left us out last year with upgrading. Heck I don't even get 100 meg or phone service if I wanted it.

I have seen two Charter HD hookups the first was where the guy had basic cable with no box basically ran a cable line into his had tv. The second one which was my friends yesterday he had an HD Cisco box with HDMI running back to the tv. IMO both of these installs had bad pictures they looked grainy and fuzzy I am yet to see a bad picture on Directv.

reply to watts3000
It depends on the market.
Each headend will take the digital feed and compress it x percentage as they combine it with other channels.
If they're doing 1-1 combining, then it'll look fantastic.
If (like in my area) they're compressing 3-5 channels onto a single RF channel, then those channels will look terrible when it's sports or something with a lot action or movement/colors.
Hopefully when Charter goes all digital, they can stop compressing the channels so damn much.

reply to watts3000
Terms of HD PQ:

DirecTv > Dish

Charter > Uverse

maybe DirecTV > Charter

reply to compuguybna

reply to haggler

reply to watts3000
They all look like trash , want to see real HDTV channels, use an OTA antenna.

Nothing can be done to fix the bandwidth available on coax. Coax cable networks are getting close to their capacity and having to support more and more internet users makes things even worse.

What would help is removing all the crap infommercial channels.

reply to ender7074

reply to mworks
Nothing can be done to fix the bandwidth available on coax. Coax cable networks are getting close to their capacity and having to support more and more internet users makes things even worse.

I think removing analog channels will greatly increase available bandwidth.

reply to mworks

Now I don't know if there is any truth to this but a cable installer told me that it can have a lot to do with the way the lines are coming into the home. For example, at my house I have one main cable line that comes in from underground it is attached to a two way splitter basically giving me 2 feeds that run into the house. He was saying that he likes to run one of those feed direct to the cable modem than run the other feed for tv purposes. I don't see how that would make a difference though.

reply to watts3000
I've had Charter for years, and just recently switched to DirecTV (had to due to relocation). I would agree that DirecTV seems to have a slight edge on picture quality, but I absolutely hate my DirecTV. It takes FOREVER to navigate the program guide, recorded shows, etc, in comparison to Charter. In addition, my 'Genie' system has to be reset at least every other week (my receivers in the other rooms will just grey screen and not load anything, requiring me to do the red button on the DVR). These are problems I never had with Charter.

So...picture quality slightly better on Direct, but I wouldn't say Charter's is 'garbage' either. The difference is minimal, and the tradeoff is worth it IMO.

reply to compuguybna
Compuguybna, you are correct. The HD picture is horrible in TN. I received a letter from Charter stating that this is the best they can do and not to call them about the picture quality anymore. They overload the QAMs causing the fuzzy, blocky picture; especially when action happens when the screen can actually freeze. Watch the beginning of the Big Bang Theory on TBS and see the opening credits freeze before they end.

reply to ve52001

While Charter used to suck in my market, it is now clearly superior to DirecTV now that they're using SDV. The bitrates I get with Charter are routinely 12-18Mbps, while DirecTV was 8-14Mbps, depending on the channel.