Should I Switch From Cable?

[clovett]

H.264 is only about twice as efficient as MPEG-2 under optimal conditions. Real-time re-encoding are not optimal conditions.

A 4-6 Mbps bitrate using H.264 is still inferior to a 12-14 Mbps bitrate using MPEG-2.

The only thing "stunning" about DirecTV's picture quality is how bad it is.

Again, your spouting specs is great. However I see you also mention "under optimal conditions". I guess if I lived near the main Charter feed in town I'd be getting those conditions. But I live at the outside edge of town. Apparently conditions are not optimal for me because out here HD Charter is grainy and looks like crap. They came out and ran new cable twice over a 17 year peroid, it didn't help the picture but my internet feed is great.

So, as I see it, I can't get Charter to do what it takes to provide the optimal condition you base all your assumptions on.

However I can get a fantastic, compared to the Charter picture I get, feed from a satellite.

The bottom line is you can talk about how great something is all day from a perfect world perspective, but I get to give my money to which ever service is actually best for me. Charter gets my internet money, Directv gets my video money. What the heck, I even gave you my two cents worth.

 

[raoul5788]

Now that there is FUNNY!

 

[ncted]

Your experience is incorrect and/or biased because the technical specs just don't back that up.

Most cable providers are using MPEG-2 and packing 3 HDs to a QAM resulting in an effective bitrate of 12-14 Mbps on most of their channel lineup; in addition, they typically pass through the local affiliates untouched. Some channels uplinked as MPEG-2 they can pass through untouched because their bitrates are sufficiently low enough and they've been designed for cable providers to pack them 3 to a QAM.

DirecTV and Dish Network on the other hand, re-encode everything on their channel lineup to H.264 @ ~4-6 Mbps. This is an incredibly low bitrate and the definition of bitrate starvation. Dish Network adds an additional quality ruining step of down-rezzing 1920x1080i channels to 1440x1080i in the process.

AT&T actually seems to be using similar bitrates for their HD channels but for some reason they just look like pure ass. They must have incompetents running them with sub-optimal settings because I don't see why they should look worse than DirecTV but they do.

I agree that U-Verse clearly doesn't know what they are doing. For the rest, I wholeheartedly disagree.

My experiences with cable are mostly with TWC in Raleigh/Durham, Upstate NY, and Myrtle Beach as well as Charter in Jackson, TN and Charleston, SC. In the case of TWC, locals are bitstarved, but since it is MPEG2, it really looks like crap, unlike MPEG4. Non-locals are even worse, and most are pushed over SDV, not standard QAM. Not entirely sure what Charter is doing, but it also looks like ass compared to satellite. FIOS in DC area is the best I've seen, but most people don't have the option. Even if cable looked as good as FIOS, it wouldn't be worth the money to deal with them and their inferior STBs, cable cards, tuning adapters, 30-second channel tuning times, etc.

It doesn't matter technically how E*/D* do it, what matters is that their product doesn't look like a YouTube video from 2005, unlike what I have seen from cable. Maybe it isn't noticeable on a smaller TV, but on my 64" plasma, my cable options are clearly lacking in the PQ arena.

 

[raoul5788]

Picture quality varies greatly on cable around the country. My Mom is in Ft Lauderdale with Comcast. The pq there is very good, on a par with Directv. The dvr, not so much!

 

[ejb1980]

Whoa, what happened? I can't read this jumbled mess anymore. How do I fix it?

 

[raoul5788]

Fix what? We are on a new software now, did you know that?

 

[ejb1980]

Yeah, I saw that, but this is very difficult to navigate! I didn't really have time to look much at it until today. It's hard to see where one post ends and another begins. I am sure I will eventually get used to it.

 

[raoul5788]

Yeah, I saw that, but this is very difficult to navigate! I didn't really have time to look much at it until today. It's hard to see where one post ends and another begins. I am sure I will eventually get used to it.

Try some of the different skins. In the lower left corner click on Satguys default. It will give you several options.

 

[mdavej]

Upfront equipment costs?

Sent from my RM-927_nam_vzw_100 using Tapatalk

Of course. A couple hundred bucks. Payback within a year or two depending on how much you have to buy. Long term, I'm saving at least $500 per year.

 

[cypherstream]

For those with windows media center... a few questions...

I have a Windows 8.1 PC in the office. No TV in there, just dual dvi monitors on a dell precision t3400 PC. Cable, phone and Ethernet jacks on the wall.
In family room I have an xbox 360, Yamaha avr and 40" westinghouse TV. Two Ethernet ports too (one to AVR and one to xbox).
In main living room I have Ethernet ports there as well, along with two coax (right now one is DirecTV and one is Cable clearQAM), and another port is phone line to DirecTV for caller ID.

If I would go media center, what would I need? Already have an xbox in the family room, and a logitech harmony controls it. But nothing in the living room. Would I need another xbox, or is there something smaller and more silent (that xbox fan is noisy). Also wouldn't the xbox use more power than a DirecTV box?

With Windows 8.1 PC in the office, can that still run Media Center? I thought Microsoft discontinued Media Center after Windows 7. I thought no more development has been or will be going into the platform. Do you see an issue if this happens?

If cable starts to roll out MPEG4, will the Ceton and Media Center / Extenders be able to tune and record the feeds?

If I hook a phone line to a dial up modem in the media center PC, would it be able to display caller ID on all TV's / extenders?

Can you customize the channel lineup on media center? I would want to replace all SD equivalent channels with the HD ones where available. The nicest thing with DirecTV is you type in the channel number and its automatically in HD. No seperate set of numbers to remember. No nagging the wife or guests to "put the TV on the correct, HD channel!". I would want to ensure that if I typed in "3", or "10" or "32" or whatever... I would see the HD feed. Basically eliminate all SD duplicates from the guide. In my area HD is 500+ the channel number... but instead of typing in 503 I want to just type in or select 3 in the guide.


Our cable provider is going to roll out an Arris home gateway in the next month or two. It's 6 tuners in one huge box that also contains a DOCSIS 3 modem, eMTA, 4 port switch, router, wifi. Basically its an all in one gateway that does the tuning with its cable cards and creates a moca network on the coax. The TV's get smaller boxes with a blue LCD on the front that connects to this moca network and via IP gets to watch TV. Its using the Moxi interface which kind of looks like Media center (not the guide, but the whole crossbar like look in the first media center menu). Not sure if I want to go this route because again, don't think you can customize the guide like DirecTV. Paul Allen from Microsoft had a huge investment in Digeo, the company Arris acquired... so maybe thats why it looks kind of similar.

 

[wabbleknee]

I would like to read up on your cable provider and learn about this system. Can you provide a linky?? My cable provider has fiber in front of the neighborhood, the telephone company put fiber into the neighborhood about 13 years ago, then they use a fiber to twisted pair converter card to feed the house (What a waste) Wish those guys could get together.

 

[osu1991]

You would have to upgrade to windows 8.1 Pro to get windows media center and you would need an extender of some sort in the living room. The rest I will let some current users reply. I use Nextpvr with my Silicon Dust HDHOMERUN tuners for OTA only on my Win 8.1 box.

Posted Via The FREE SatelliteGuys Reader App!

 

[cypherstream]

You would have to upgrade to windows 8.1 Pro to get windows media center and you would need an extender of some sort in the living room. The rest I will let some current users reply. I use Nextpvr with my Silicon Dust HDHOMERUN tuners for OTA only on my Win 8.1 box.

Posted Via The FREE SatelliteGuys Reader App!

What's this I hear non Microsoft extenders don't work with windows 8.1? So no media center extender by Ceton, Linksys or dlink?

 

[mdavej]

Don't use 8.1 or do use Xbox extenders. Ceton Echo technically works with 8.1 but your only interface is via smartphone. Kind of a pain, but works fine. I ran that way for a few months.

Caller ID only on main PC, IIRC, with 3rd party software.

MP4 should be no problem.

Channel numbers are completely customizable. I simply remove all SD channels completely rather than re number. It's not a huge leap to understand that old 3 is now 503. I could change 503 to 3, but I haven't used the SD numbers in about ten years, so it's not an issue on my house.