By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
SvennoJ on 05 October 2016
Edit Thread
Trunkin said:
SvennoJ said:

Afaik hdtv broadcasts are still in 720p or 1080i. My cable box doesn't have a 1080p option, 1080i is the highest. At the start (2006) we got the full 15mbps channels, yet after they started adding more HD channels they reduced the bandwith to half to squeeze more in. It's something like this: Channels are received at 21mbps, it used to be 1 HD channel packed with 1 SD channel, now 3 HD channels are packed together and SD channels have been compressed even further. There's only a maximum amount of total bandwidth, more channels = lower quality.
If you know how big the HDD is in your pvr it's not that difficult to caclulate the average bandwidth. The more fits on, the lower the bandwidth gets.

And yeah HD cable looks like a joke during fast action scenes. Analog tv looked better during fast action. However analog has been axed completely to make room for more 'HD' channels. (You need a digital adapter now for horrible quality SD channels)

Damn, I had no idea. I would have thought they'd have increased the total bandwidth by now, or is that some kind of inherent limitation of the technology? Makes me wonder what on earth they're plannign to do when 4K gets more mainstream. Just give up?

Actually, doesn't this mean that services like PSVue and Sling could theoretically provide higher quality than standard cable right now?

There's a limit to what you can push through a coax cable, it's always transmitting everything at the same time, hence a direct internet connection can provide better results. That only travels a short while over your cable, you don't receive everyone's internet at home :)

For 4K they mandate a new digital box, which means they can use h.265, 4x more efficient than mpeg2. I don't know how they will deal with 4K and HD next to eachother when 4K becomes popular. For now it's just a few channels with a few sports broadcasts in 4K. Perhaps they'll finally upgrade all the 10 year old boxes that can only do mpeg2.

Fiber to the home would be best ofcourse, get rid of that old coax cable. Eventually.