Comcast criticized for HDTV quality

There's a good piece by Saul Hansell over on The New York Times' "Bits" blog.

Hansell describes how Comcast is being criticized for low picture quality on certain broadcasts. That's interesting, especially in light of the contention between Comcast and DirecTV on this very issue, but it isn't the most important point in Hansell's post.

Hansell goes on to give a reasonable explanation of the basic issues involved, and mentions the likely future of cable TV: digital video distributed over Internet-like network switches. Instead of always sending every TV channel to every house, a switched system sends only the data for the channels that are being watched. (While it's fair to say that the capacity of such a system has no arbitrary limits, it isn't "infinite" as Hansell said.)

But there is a big practical difference between a system with hundreds of channels and one with, at least potentially, millions. With switched video, every channel is "on demand"--and anything that customers demand can be made available. Imagine YouTube in true HD, for example. That's impossible today, but with switched video, it's merely expensive. :-)

I wrote about switched-video technology back in 2001 in my column for Electronic Business magazine, and honestly I thought this technology would be in use by now, at least in test markets.

Verizon's Fios service has most of the necessary characteristics, but even Fios carries video in pretty much the same way copper-based cable systems do, except using an optical carrier over fiber. (Wikipedia has a decent explanation here.)

Well, there's no hurry. We'll get there eventually.

[Wes#1]

And in the meantime, there's Blu-ray...

[Shaun822]

How about the fact that Comcast in general is just an inept company that cares about nothing more than the bottom line. Ther internet service is shoddy and best, and for what you get the TV service is horribley overpriced. As a matter of fact the only reason they still have any business in most markets is because they are the only option.

[inachu]

Watching TV using comcast looks like all the video is low rez jpeg/mpeg animation.

There are amny system burps that throw pixels off and missing while watching comcast and I am not impressed at all.

[Throttlebody1]

I wonder why the 480 source content transmitted on HD channels (Verizon FiOS and COMCAST HD) displays a horizontal line (the CC so say Verizon Tech.) on the newer TVs (Panasonic 50PZ85U - A & Olevia). Verizona and Comcast Is there a technical standard conflict between the transmissions and the TV playback?
Both Verizon and Comcast say "use other picture size option on your TV."
If you don't want to have a distorted picture, you're out of luck.
The horrizontal line also appears on split screen transmissions (480 pic on one side/Lists or tickers on the other - ESPN for one uses this technique).