Daily Blog - Ross Jones - May 1, 2008: FEELING THE HD PROGRAMMING BANDWIDTH SQUEEZE.
My cable company giveth, my cable company taketh away. The good news is that I am getting more HD channels. The bad news is that putting more HD into the pipe means something’s got to give to make room for the new channels. The technical details (compression, reduced bit-rate, etc.) are less meaningful than the end result: loss of detail, video artifacts, and macro-blocking. The picture just doesn’t pop like it used to on certain channels.
I’ve gone back and forth between satellite and cable over the years, most recently based on the quality and quantity of HD programming, especially my local HD networks. I cannot get over-the-air, even though I live in a major metropolitan TV market, because of the long distance from the transmitter and several inconveniently located mountains.
So the question is whether to put up with the reduced quality, or put the dish back on the roof. The satellite providers have their own picture quality issues, so it’s not as though there is a clear answer for someone wanting the most channels of high-quality HD programming. The competition between cable and satellite (with fiber-based services playing catch-up) has accelerated the number of available HD channels, but the quality of HD programming seems to be headed in the opposite direction. As more consumers purchase HD sets, I expect (hope?) that the market will insist on higher video quality so we can get the most out of our new HDTV’s.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Satellite providers have their own picture quality issues? Have you seen Directv’s MPEG-4 HD channels? There are no picture issues.
Yes, the old original HD channels in MPEG-2 definitely suffer from all kinds of compression artifacts but it is only a short matter of time before they are transferred over to MPEG-4.
All HD locals are in MPEG-4 already also. Did I mention that D*TV is cheaper per month than cable (at least it is in my area) and has more channels?
May 2nd, 2008 at 5:24 am
I suspect HD television broadcasts (however you get them–OTA, sat, cable, other) will go the way of music downloads–less quality for more quantity. Outside enthusiast sites like here, my conversations with people about HD are either “what’s the big deal”, “check out how good my TV looks (withOUT an HD signal)” or “this looks FANTASTIC (with a poorer HD signal or SD DVD scaled by the player or display). When people see my setup (a modest one, in terms of video especially–720p projector on 64 inch homemade 16×9 screen, calibrated with an SD copy of DVE), they are impressed with the PQ but assume it takes “too much work” for them to get the same or better picture. With a general attitude like that, and a continual flow of cheaper and inferior displays hitting the market (leaving aside any proper calibration)–HD-Lite will appear “good enough” for the masses–and “the masses” is where broadcasters aim.
I’m sure audiophiles feel the same about the general state of affairs regarding music options. I would love for hi-res MCH to be the new standard–but it will never be (sadly). Others who favour 2 channel would still rather see full-res/properly mastered music to be the norm. That ship has sailed as well.
For any A/V experience, like in many other hobbies, enthusiasts will do what they can to get the best they can within their means, but they will always be wanting for more because “the masses” (for entirely legitimate reasons–people are free to have different priorities in life) will always settle for “good enough”. I settle for “good enough” with computers while my nephew would NEVER do so. However, he’s more than happy with his iPod with lossy music tracks (he can carry TEN THOUSAND songs, don’tcha know) and cannot fathom the idea of sitting in a chair just to listen to music.
So, I wish you luck with getting the best HD programming you can, but I’ve resigned myself to accepting that broadcast HD will never be as good as possible, but merely good enough. That said, at the moment, the HD I DO get from Canadian cable (especially from Canadian channels as they don’t yet have to compete for “bandwidth” the same way as US channels do) is quite good. But I don’t expect it to stay that way (the cynic in me comes out).