Verizon FiOS TV → Re: Annual Rant - Ditch the SD feeds already, it's (almost) 2019

You're living in a fantasyland. Meanwhile, the adults in the room will discuss when/how Verizon should move to MPEG-4 HD and whether they should eliminate SD.

I will have to object to your figure of 5 Mbps H.264/MPEG 4 providing excellent video quality with HD video because my personal experience shows that such a low bit rate with H.264 ruins the video quality. I used to despise watching TV at my parents' house after they switched from Time Warner Cable to U-Verse, which provided just under 6 Mbps H.264 per HD channel, to lower their bills. Video quality was so rotten that only the lowest action shows like news and some non-action movies looked acceptable. Sports shows became depressing artifact-filled trash. Many things that used to have details looked as smooth as a baby's skin due to losing their details. This ruined the video quality so hard that watching TV literally saddened me at the time and I complained many times, so I had to quit watching most of cable TV. My parents could not see the problem because their eyes were injured or aged in ways that damaged their vision. I hooked up my personal TV to an antenna to bypass that worthless junk. I would say that you need 7-8 Mbps H.264 for acceptable video quality and 9-10 Mbps H.264 for excellent video quality. I am just glad that a new job required me to move out to an area with Fios. I am glad that I can finally enjoy cable TV with Fios after 5 years of that rip-off known as U-Verse.

... I'd like to remind you that Verizon is a company that built the largest 3G network, largest LTE network, the fastest home internet network, and it's been pretty much the industry leader for more than two decades. Why should we all of a sudden expect the mediocrity from them?

As for bitrates, I'm in the camp that MPEG4 should be 8-9mbps (4:1 stat mux) to best retain the look of 16-18mbps 2:1 MPEG2 QAMs.

I'm guessing (and that's all I'm doing here) is that they're trying to figure out how to converge those two strategies. IP is IP. Whether you feed the data over a 5G wireless network or over fiber is really a distinction without a difference in my opinion. I'm guessing they've realized that it would make more sense to converge the two and that that's why they're retrenching. In the meantime, like we agree, they need a bridge to prevent them from losing business until they can develop that architecture.

As for cord-cutting - here's the thing. The market-place IS changing. But I think these MSOs are going to adjust just fine.

For all this death, why is everyone (and I mean everyone except Netflix) getting into the subscription business? I guess every business in this country is stupid.

You are 7 years too late coming to a rant thread to discuss whether or not the MPEG-4 is the obvious next step. Of course it's the easiest step, but I'm not here to argue what's easy.
In the process you're trying to convince us all how a multi-billion dollar corporation doesn't have enough muscle to create a three year plan to replace all legacy boxes with HEVC capable cheap-ass FiOS One boxes.

DirecTVNow streams at 1080/60 at 8.3Mbps, and the PQ is a step above the rest of the streaming services, and head an shoulders above QAM based providers. There is a lengthy thread on PQ from a year ago where I posted some comparison: »imgur.com/a/wqKI0

I don't think anybody's said Verizon doesn't have the muscle to spend $1 billion. There's just straight up no point for the purposes of this discussion. I know you don't care, and "they're Richie Rich rich, so do it just because" might be good enough for you to waste a billion dollars, but shareholders will disagree.

These discussions aren't even in the same zip code. You can cheerlead the dream, but it's not a viable alternative to the discussion here. When they map out their IP plan, then we can talk about mass box swaps and romanticize the latest technology.

As for bitrates, I'm in the camp that MPEG4 should be 8-9mbps (4:1 stat mux) to best retain the look of 16-18mbps 2:1 MPEG2 QAMs.

MPEG-2 looks great at 12mbps stat mux and OK at about 8mbps stat mux, so if Verizon wanted to, they could get really good looking HD at 5-7mbps MPEG-4 AVERAGE bitrates with stat muxing.

No it doesn't. Right this very second I'm looking at ~12Mbps MPEG-2 stat mux, and it looks average on a 1080p TV, and it looks even worse on a 4K OLED. A ton of macroblocking, soft. Calling this "great" is a monumental stretch by all means.

Then the station you are watching needs a better encoder. 12mbps isn't 12mbps, older encoders will look like crap, newer ones look great.

I just did this a few months ago. Although I just dropped down to Custom TV. And kept Gigabit INternet and Phone service. So my monthly cost after all taxes, fees, and cable cards is now $96.

I'm cancelling my TV service in June when my contract runs out for a single reason. Quality. I can throw a dart at the wall and hit an OTT provider with higher video quality on EVERY SINGLE CHANNEL

Yeah, that's what I got things down to awhile ago. My monthly cost with FiOS (internet and TV) after all taxes and fees including cable card is $90.25. Though that doesn't include TiVO service cost.

But, like I said, it's not about money. I've been cycling through the OTT providers (bouncing between DTVN, Hulu with Live, and YTV) and I'm just so impressed at the rate they are improving and they have leapfrogged FiOS in quality about 18 months ago.

In all truth, I actually just prefer purchasing shows outright from Amazon and Vudu and I may not even have a live TV service after I cancel FiOS TV service (or might for just a few months out of the year). No commercials, no network bugs, only a slight step below blu-ray, and I own them forever.

I also agree that it's not just bitrate that's the issue here. Their encoders are JUNK or they are configured wrong. I've been saying all along that it looks like they are applying a heavy dose of DNR followed by a sharpening pass, likely in an attempt to lower bandwidth requirements and reduce macroblocking.

Right on point on the financial side of things. I would note, however, that encoder technology has gotten WAY better. Comcast's 3.8mbps CBR is actually fine for MSNBC, CNN, etc, it looks like baby puke for sports, however. Stat muxers can crank out stunning MPEG-2 at 12mbps and acceptable but slightly flat and lacking detail MPEG-2 at 8mbps. If they can do that, putting 6-7 HDs on a QAM, similar to how DirecTV is compressing today, shouldn't be an issue.

Verizon is making a conscious choice of "good enough" when they could be so much more. All for keeping 15 year old STBs in the field that have been depreciated and off the books for over a decade, succeeded 3x over by newer equipment.

Meanwhile, Verizon (Wireless) will become an ISP with its 5G service, and will probably also be the only provider of wireless video service in the country. That could become very profitable for them.