This is ridiculous. Was excited to see WWE in HD.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v405/jfplay/ShawSucks001.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v405/jfplay/ShawSucks005.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v405/jfplay/ShawSucks008.jpg



What quality!!!! I stopped watching pretty quickly. It's a shame they get away with this.

The funny thing is....the station icon and the WWE symbol are perfectly in focus. I would believe that this is something with your TV not being able to process the fast moving action.

The funny thing is....the station icon and the WWE symbol are perfectly in focus. I would believe that this is something with your TV not being able to process the fast moving action.
I'm sure the TV may be a factor, but I was getting some pretty bad macroblocking on HDnet. I had just finished watching Shoot 'Em Up on Blu-ray, which has a lot of fast moving scenes, no problem.
So for me, that statement doesn't hold water.

HDTV cannot match HD DVD or Blu-Ray, for a combination of reasons:
- maximum bitrate of HDTV signals is much lower than HD DVD or Blu-Ray
- HDTV standard uses MPEG2, while most Blu-Ray titles and pretty much all HD DVD titles use more efficient video codecs (VC-1 or AVC)

Combine those factors, and HDTV doesn't stand a chance of matching the picture quality you see with Blu-Ray or HD DVD. The hi-def disc formats are simply capable of sending way more video info per frame, per second. This is especially noticeable on fast moving scenes, or in the fine detail of "regular" scenes.

Not saying that jfplay's screen shot is normal for HDTV or anything. Just trying to clarify that HDTV will always look worse than Blu-Ray or HD DVD. No matter the provider, no matter the content.

The funny thing is....the station icon and the WWE symbol are perfectly in focus. I would believe that this is something with your TV not being able to process the fast moving action.
The TV hooked up to my HD box is a Panasonic plasma, it handles fast moving action quite well, much better than the LCD that preceded it.

It's also the exact same TV my father in-law has with Bell. Guess which one looks better.

It's the newer/next model up from the Panasonic at work. That one's hooked up to BEV too. Guess which one looks better?

So I must have a lemon of a TV...except standard def, DVD's, HDDVD's and video games all look fine on it. Curious no?

So I must have a lemon of a TV...except standard def, DVD's, HDDVD's and video games all look fine on it. Curious no?

Your TV is fine, it's likely a bandwidth/signal problem.

Well, its being played back from the hard drive so could that be an issue. Also, are you running splitters any where? Does this occur when watching live? Are you stretching the picture? Is Friday Night Smackdown a true HD broadcast or an up conversion? Was this from channel 215?

What he sees is normal, I see stuff like this everyday, I stopped complaining and
at the end of the day the acceptable channels IMO are 211, 212, 218 and 221, the rest are garbage in terms of PQ. What we pay for is not good enough, paying for HD is another story all altogether which I wont get into. I had a laugh because my wife loves watching the First 48 and she was watching it in HD when the sound would drop out every couple minutes and be riddled with macroblocking, made watching the show impossible. I switched to the regular AE and it looked better than the "HD" feed and sounded better. Playing with a new Panasonic PZ700 series plasma and I am at the point I can't pay for crap like this anymore. The rest of the providers are not any better either.

Well, its being played back from the hard drive so could that be an issue. Also, are you running splitters any where? Does this occur when watching live? Are you stretching the picture? Is Friday Night Smackdown a true HD broadcast or an up conversion? Was this from channel 215?
It's true HD...channel 215, WGNHD.

No splitters, picture was the exact same watching live as it was during playback.

I've tried new cables, subtracting componenets from the power centre to try and isolate interference...nothing helps.

My sharpness is turned down, and I can reduce the contrast and brightness until the picture is unwatchable...nothing helps.

You cannot compare broadcast TV to DVDs (HD or SD). DVDs can be "rate shaped" to minimize macroblocking. Broadcast TV cannot, especially live programming.

I'm not saying your signal/PQ cannot be better, but you need to understand the differences between DVD and broadcast.

Also, people are talking about connections, signal strength, recording to HDD, etc. All of those have no impact because signal strength doesn't affect the PQ, unless you have a marginal signal and then you'll get pixellation, not macroblocking:

See: http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=17715

Recording to the HDD is a bit for bit process, so that also should have no impact.

Even the best station will contain some macroblocking when there is a lot of movement on-screen - this is simply a limitation of the 19.4 Mbps broadcast rate and MPEG2. If the service provider further compresses the signal, of course it can be worse. If you pause the programme at just the right time, you'll get the image as presented in post 181. One would hope that the moving image looks better. Some people notice it more once they know what to look for, or if the TV is large, or if they're sitting close to the TV, etc. I believe this has all been discussed earlier in this thread, but perhaps is worth repeating.

Again, Shaw may be worse for this - I haven't seen it personnally obviously.

I'm not expecting broadcast TV with all its inherent weaknesses to compare to film.

It shouldn't be this bad though. The moving image looked as bad as the first image I provided.

Even my girlfriend, who usually talks me off the ledge during my rants has been complaining about how bad it looks...she never notices stuff like that.

For what it's worth I work in "the industry" with friends who work for Shaw, Bell and Rogers. (the latter in management)

Shaw's compression issues are well known by the competition.

It's just frustrating when they are making record profts every quarter and are unwilling to invest in infastructure upgrades.

They do a great job with their internet, and I hear good things about their phone service too...not impressed with the core business though.

I think I'm going to try and schedule a service call, the only theory I have that could improve things is my living in an older building their could be some interference with the power or something.

Whoever made the comment about the "logos" being in perfect focus obviously doesn't get compression. Of course a static part of the screen would be in focus when the rest of the screen macroblocks. Sheesh.

It's simple - Shaw HDTV is not really HD. It's compressed so poorly that it no longer qualifies as HD. Shaw HDTV is suffering so badly that it will only take a little while longer before word gets around that their infrastructure is so poorly maintained, and the competition will take advantage of that. Bell is already moving to new technology, so after their growing pains with MPEG4, Shaw will either have to improve this or be a second-rate provider (which, after experiencing their picture quality, I already believe they are).

Google is picking this thread up as one of the top hits when you search for "Shaw HDTV". Just sayin'.

Those pictures that jfplay has posted are not unusual at all. That's what Shaw 'HD' is like at this point. I'm glad I have a Tivo HD and can record a large percentage of my HD viewing OTH. Huge difference.

BTW, for any of you math genius's out there, my Tivo can tell me how big the files are and a 1 hour file from either CTV HD or CBC HD is about 13 gb. Anybody know what that means in terms of MB/sec?

Mozza as I have said before, your problem isn't everyone's problem so you can't make blanket generalizations about Shaw's HD and compression. Shaw's HD is excellent for me.

So what explains that picture above, or the other pictures I posted earlier in this thread?

Tivo can tell me how big the files are and a 1 hour file from either CTV HD or CBC HD is about 13 gb If gb stands for Giga Bytes, this is not possible, as the maximum broadcast bitrate is 19.4 Mbps - which gives 19.4 x 60 x 60 / 8 /1000 = roughly 9 GB (Giga Bytes) - the rough maximum possible in an hour of HD programming. If gb is Giga bits, then you've got roughly 3.5 Mbps. Something seems amiss in your 13 number.

I'm going to try using my TV (Pansonic TH42yaddayadda) and see if that helps.

Fact of the matter is Shaw HD in Vancouver was more than acceptable 2 months ago, macroblocking was a rarity and it was pleasure to watch any HD channels. Those pictures are pretty true to what I and friends around the lower mainland are seeing. Pretty sure Shaw is hitting the compression bottle pretty hard out here these days.

Mozza, that's the big question. I'm thinking its an issue with your neighbourhood or area of the city. No doubt Shaw has to work things out, but you gotta know its not system wide.

Something seems amiss in your 13 number.

I was at work when I posted so I took that number from memory. I'll check again when I get home tonight.