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jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

jjeffeory

Member

That's too low

That "cap" has been the same for the last several years.
Wilsdom
join:2009-08-06

4 recommendations

Wilsdom

Member

And he generously envisions a 150GB increase in 5 years?! Guy is completely out of touch with the product, just sees it as a black-box money-extractor

anon1587
@50.188.155.x

anon1587 to jjeffeory

Anon

to jjeffeory
250GB since 2009 when it was conjured up. So it's 5 years from then where is this 500GB cap you're implementing in "test" markets Cohen?
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT
·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68

BiggA

Premium Member

For the areas that have it (I don't) it's 300 for the cheap plan and 350 for Blast! IIRC. Anyone who's using that much data has Blast! That being said, we chewed through 1.6TB last month. It will be interesting to see if they put the caps in place in northern Virginia or the Boston area, among other areas that have competition from Verizon FIOS. If the merger goes through, they will also have strong competition in NYC, with 3 major providers, them, FIOS, and RCN, in some areas...
46436203 (banned)
join:2013-01-03

46436203 (banned) to jjeffeory

Member

to jjeffeory
Several? That's being rather generous. Try SIX. Comcast has had that cap since 2008.

Comcast had the 250 GB cap in place when Bush was still president...

Nic
@70.82.72.x

1 recommendation

Nic to Wilsdom

Anon

to Wilsdom
Yeah, that was the worst part. 350GB isn't so bad but you think a 150GB increase over 5 years?! Data usage will probably have quadrupled by then if not more.
wispalord
join:2007-09-20
Farmington, MO

wispalord to Wilsdom

Member

to Wilsdom
I use that in a day
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT

1 recommendation

BiggA to Nic

Premium Member

to Nic
The caps are horrible, but data usage isn't just going to go up forever. There is only so much HD and 4K video people's eyeballs can consume in a day...
jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

jjeffeory

Member

You are correct, but we haven't even begun to approach that limit. Most people are not using HD streams, let alone 4K video. So data usage is going to being going up for some time, until the market is sufficiently saturated. Thing is data transit prices seem to be going down pretty quickly and data capacity goes up too, so there isn't really a need for caps other than greed.
46436203 (banned)
join:2013-01-03

46436203 (banned) to BiggA

Member

to BiggA
Which is why it will keep going up, because when we're tired of 4K video we'll move on to the true king of Ultra High Definition Video: 8K.
jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

jjeffeory

Member

....and the cable companies will bit starve that to death too. The physical media ( that they want to get us away from with streaming video) will be the only place to get TRUE 4K or even 8K video.
46436203 (banned)
join:2013-01-03

46436203 (banned)

Member

Well, as long as you keep supporting this cancer it will be.

A 300 Mbps line has plenty of bandwidth to deliver non-bitrate starved 4K and even 8K video.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT
·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68

BiggA to jjeffeory

Premium Member

to jjeffeory
If it's streaming, then the cable company doesn't control the bitrate. I could definitely see a use case for well north of 350GB, but the curve doesn't keep going up forever... In fact, it may dip back down in the future if HEVC is used for 1080p and 720p video.
BiggA

BiggA to 46436203

Premium Member

to 46436203
4K video on Netflix with HEVC is a 15mbps stream, which is pretty amazing. The best quality 1080p is around 9-10mbps on VUDU HDX.

I think caps on wireline are abhorrent (and not having caps on wireless is just as abhorrent), however, usage will not keep massively increasing forever as some people predict.
devolved
join:2012-07-11
Rapid City, SD

devolved to Wilsdom

Member

to Wilsdom
He sees cord cutters as mere dollar signs. They're the ones who will pay the overage fees. 150GB is more of a conservative estimate rather than a generous one, in the eyes of Comcast in regards to all the cord cutters still with Comcast.
jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

jjeffeory to 46436203

Member

to 46436203
Well, I try NOT to support companies that do this anymore. I don't pay for satellite, which is where I first learn of this practice when they were going to HD. I had DirecTV and learned on another forum what they were doing, I have FiOS, which I am told does it less; and they DO have the best PQ around to my eyes.
jjeffeory

jjeffeory to BiggA

Member

to BiggA
U-verse TV is delivered through Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), not QAM like FiOS or traditional cable TV service. Uses more bandwidth that way. You couldn't really do a uverse to QAM "converter" as uverse is switched tv and QAM is all channels modulated into a signal.

Each TV in your home that you want to use with U-verse service is hooked up to a set-top box (receiver). Your high speed Internet connection is plugged into the set-top boxes
The set-top box assembles transmissions from your phone line into video and audio signals that are broadcast in both standard definition and high definition. So there is one example where "the cable company" controls the bitrate after they get the raw signal from the source. Now they don't control what the TV stations put out for sure, and maybe we should expect more from them.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT

BiggA to jjeffeory

Premium Member

to jjeffeory
FIOS doesn't compress further, although they have to transcode some MPEG-4 feeds to MPEG-2. D* does the best job of the providers that do re-compress their signals.
BiggA

BiggA to jjeffeory

Premium Member

to jjeffeory
I know how U-Verse works. Comcast re-compresses, as does U-Verse. Comcast uses MPEG-2, while U-Verse uses MPEG-4. U-Verse's picture quality is just worse than Comcast, as they are using a pathetic and crippled infrastructure that doesn't have a lot of bandwidth to begin with.

U-Verse does NOT transmit TV over the internet. Their video signals are transmitted over a private IP network, which is effectively separate from the internet to the VRAD, combined with internet and phone at the VRAD, and then split back out via the RG, all the while using QoS so that the experience is tightly controlled by AT&T.

However, you have to compare U-Verse to Comcast's QAM cable product, not OTT streaming. My point, which you totally ignored, is that OTT video is not controlled by the cable provider, so if you are using a good quality source, like VUDU with HDX, Comcast can't screw it up in the process.
jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

jjeffeory

Member

I didn't read your point that way, so I didn't ignore it. Also, Uverse may not transit over the internet, but they us IPTV going over an IP network. They can have QoS assurances that way over using the internet. ...and to my eyes, Uverse looked better than Comcast, but not as good as Verizon. Verizon looks the best, and I've seen examples from cable tv from about 10 different states across the country to compare from. I don't have bit rates and numbers, only the eye test. I think I mostly agree with you, just point out some facts here and there.
46436203 (banned)
join:2013-01-03

46436203 (banned) to BiggA

Member

to BiggA
said by BiggA:

FIOS doesn't compress further, although they have to transcode some MPEG-4 feeds to MPEG-2. D* does the best job of the providers that do re-compress their signals.

...that is the very definition of "compressing further."

And not just "some," 90% of all their channels are re-encoded from their source feed.
jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

jjeffeory

Member

...and yet they have a better PQ than anyone else by far and bar none. Really, trans-coding could involve compression, or it just involve going from one format to another. This isn't an AVS forum, so it's not the correct venue to go into great detail on the topic.
46436203 (banned)
join:2013-01-03

46436203 (banned)

Member

Going from "one format to another" IS adding additional compression unless you are going from a lossless format to another lossless format.

H.264 is a lossy codec. MPEG-2 is a lossy codec. Going from one to the other WILL introduce quality loss. You cannot re-encode a lossy video to another lossy format without introducing quality loss.

Verizon's bitrates can vary wildly by channel as well. A lot of their stuff they re-encode to MPEG-2 @ ~12 Mbps which is the same bitrates as most cable providers. Only on a few things do they allocate ~17 Mbps of bandwidth.

Also, they are now re-encoding AXS.TV and HDNet Movies - two of the few channels left being distributed to providers as MPEG-2 - down to bitrates of ~12 Mbps, instead of passing them through untouched like they used to. AXS.TV/HDNet Movies are both distributed on the satellite mux to all providers as 1080i MPEG-2 @ 17.5 Mbps so Verizon is introducing additional compression to get them down to ~12 Mbps.
jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

jjeffeory

Member

I agree totally. Going from one lossless format to another lossless format wouldn't be adding compression. Other cases, there would be artifacts introduced. Ah, I don't watch those channels much anymore, so I didn't notice that Verizon was doing that. Great. They do it less than the others, but that sounds a little like bit starving, which is sometimes worse than compression. Ugh.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT
·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68

BiggA to jjeffeory

Premium Member

to jjeffeory
I talked about streaming and cable. The cable company doesn't stream video (other than a few cable everywhere initiatives), so I was clearly talking about OTT.

U-Verse's quality is crap. It's gotten less bad, but it's still worse than Comcast... although they use MPEG-4, so it may withstand certain situations, like a lot of motion, better. Overall though, it's just a mess. They have all sorts of weird artifacts that show up.

Verizon or a cable provider that doesn't re-compress/ uses 19mbps MPEG-2 will always look the best (except for Google Fiber, that passes on the MPEG-4 streams directly).
BiggA

BiggA to 46436203

Premium Member

to 46436203
True, a lot are MPEG-4, and I acknowledged that. Some of the MPEG-4 streams are at really high bitrates, so in that case, they are compressing more, but they are still, for the most part, keeping true to the 19mbps MPEG-2 that HD was originally designed for, but few providers use anymore.

For stuff that's still MPEG-2, they are, by and large, passing the full ~19mbps streams on with re-compression.
46436203 (banned)
join:2013-01-03

46436203 (banned)

Member

HD was not "originally designed for" 19 Mbps MPEG-2. That is bitrate starvation. HD had to be shoehorned into MPEG-2 but it was always designed to be @ 30+ Mbps. MPEG-2 requires bitrates in excess of 30 Mbps to look good.

And they aren't - because there are very few feeds being distributed as 19 Mbps MPEG-2.
jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

jjeffeory to BiggA

Member

to BiggA
I look at it as streaming, if it's IPTV based like U-verse. Even getting stuff off of mbone is streaming. A data stream is used to broadcast the content, and it's not being played back from a disk. So it's not clear what you meant, I guess. Oh and you should wiki OTT (»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ov ··· _content) and OTT versus IPTV (»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co ··· and_IPTV), as these two entries support my thinking and the reason I classified as I chose to do so versus QAM. So if it's crazy to think about what you wrote the way I did, I have company.

....and I moved from a U-Verse area to a Comcast area, and the difference in PQ was startling on the same TV, in FAVOR of U-Verse. The Comcast images were crap and compressed and very softly focused compared to what U-Verse images looked like. Combine that with the Comcast GUI that was terrible compared to U-Verse. Finally the channel lineup and numbering system on Comcast didn't make sense compared to U-Verse or pretty much any other system I have been on including TWC ( 4 markets), FiOS (2 markets), Charter (2 markets), Cox (2 markets), DirecTV, Dish, and a couple of small local market cable systems. U-Verse was too expensive though.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT
·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68

BiggA to 46436203

Premium Member

to 46436203
The original HD standards were all based on the 6mhz channels that give 19mbps MPEG-2. That's not bitrate starvation. Yes, you can have higher bitrate streams, but you get past the point of diminishing returns.

Then they're transcoding from MPEG-4 for those channels that aren't delivered to them as MPEG-2.
BiggA

BiggA to jjeffeory

Premium Member

to jjeffeory
My point was that the cable companies don't control the bitrate of [OTT] streaming. You're nitpicking that fact that I clearly implied an OTT stream instead of stating it explicitly. Give it a rest.

U-Verse's compression artifacts are HORRIBLE, somehow even worse than Comcast. It's just a horrible service overall.

The Comcast GUI is irrelevant as they support TiVo via CableCard, where other systems except FIOS don't.

Since when has a channel line-up ever made sense? At least the 1000-series system makes more sense than their old system with different channels numbers on every single system and no rhyme or reason to where the channels go. At least now it's pretty clear that you've got 10xx locals, 11xx news, 16xx sports, 17xx premiums, etc.