cable and HD

[SaintsFan]

I just found out yesterday that my local cable provider is now offering HD. Forgive me for not being as knowledgeable as most of you, but I am skeptical. Is true HD even possible without a dish. They are coming this Saturday to install it ( its a 30 day trial free offer so I have nothing to lose). The thing that caught my attention is that they offer some of the networks in HD which I was previously unable to get with Voom because of my location.
They dont have as many HD channels as Voom but its worth a look to me just to compare the quality of both.

 

[Dvlos]

I think it's possible for cable at the moment to achieve good bandwidth or a total fiber-optic cable network, vurbano's link to that HDTV site seems to confirm that. My experience has been that cable is equal to all the other DBS providers at the moment- in a nice new fiber optic area, like South Orlando's Brighthouse. Now in an area like mine, where they claim to have gone digital but only go fiber op up to a certain point, and still have several analog trunks etc... the PQ is horrible. I was going to keep ComCast cable as a backup to Voom but I'd rather lose my signal in the rain and watch DVDs than ComCast.

 

[txdude]

As far as I'm concerned there is no compelling reason to choose cable HD. My experience with Comcast is that in spite of said bandwith advantage, the PQ was worse on Digital SD channels and terrible on the SD analog channels which they still force upon subscribers. (...and I'm less than 1/4 mile away from the main office) HD PQ was fine, but it was slim pickings and you think people complain about the Vooms STB, I went through 3 Comcast HD STBs all of which were excruciatingly slow in changing channels and locked up constantly. If you are seriously considering a switch and it is Comcast that you are thinking of, do yourself a favor and find some one with Comcast HD already installed and pay them a visit so you can test it out for yourself first.

 

[vurbano]

When cable offers things like digital telephone, internet and on demand movies it tends to suck up the bandwidth and the HD offerings are small. Just my observation.

 

[SaintsFan]

The cable company is Charter communications so anybody in southern Louisiana that has maybe tried their HD service or knows someone else who has then tell all!

 

[Dvlos]

Give their stuff a try it's no risk for 30 days right? Then post your findings here, adjust your TV as best as possible then do comparisons, as far as I know HD digital cable STBs are Component connections, so compare it to Voom's components, then post it here.

 

[txcruiser]

In my opinion their are many compelling reasons to choose cable HD.
The Comcast HD selection selection is getting better all the time (including all the locals here in Dallas/Fort Worth that offer it). INHD and INHD2 look really good along with any premium channel.
The non hd channels are not too good, but good enough for the rest of my family.
Be sure to check to see if your cable companies offers you a lease on an hd dvr. Comcast offers one for $9.95. If they do, by all means get at least one!

 

[Dvlos]

My god though, Comcast's menu system, and service is horrible, I'm surprised anyone gives them money.

 

[CDH]

Hi,

I don't have any kind of technical knowledge to offer on HD over cable, but I do have some experience with Charter Communications.

Check what your local Charter system offers in terms of programming HD. I had Charter HD cable in Greenville, SC for about a month before recently switching to VOOM.

Obviously in a different area the service may be very different, but in my area Charter's HD offerings were minimal. Only one local HD station (despite the fact that I can now pull in 15+ subchannels of digital programming OTA), HDNet, HDNet Movies, ESPNHD, Braves HD (Atlanta Braves games), and then the HD versions of HBO East and Showtime East if you subscribed to those premium services. The HD picture did look very good, with only occasional pixelling.

On the rest of the cable service, only channels above 100 were digital, so most of the SDTV programming that is digital on VOOM was actually analog on Charter's so-called "digital" cable. It was not very good picture quality. I know others are not terribly happy with SDTV PQ on some of VOOM's channels, but compared to what I was getting on Charter I see a significant improvement.

I had problems with On-demand services with Charter. They hardly ever worked, and when a Tech came out to look at my cable-box, etc he said that the problem wasn't on my end, but that they'd had problems with implementing the service.

When I called to (politely) report problems the CSRs were usually rude and very dismissive. I'm not surprised to hear that in my area Charter has extremely low ratings on customer service surveys. I had Time Warner when I lived in North Carolina and found them to be completely different: responsive and reliable, but YMMV.

I was very happy to return my cable box to Charter.

Best wishes,
CDH.

 

[txcruiser]

My god though, Comcast's menu system, and service is horrible, I'm surprised anyone gives them money.

If you want a basic menu system then get Voom (it doesn't get any simpler than that)

Voom CSRs are always nice but helpless.
Comcast CSRs are hard to understand. I usually have to call back till I get one I can understand.

Take your pick.

I base my cable recommendation over Voom due to (hd dvr availablity, all local channels, rain fade , local sports, stb lockups, the list can go on...)

 

[Dvlos]

Are you still getting lockups with the new firmware? I haven't had to reboot since 1.10 downloaded.

 

[txcruiser]

Are you still getting lockups with the new firmware? I haven't had to reboot since 1.10 downloaded.

Before I powered down my Voom STBs last week (for the last time) I started experiencing lookups when the program guide was displaying.