I had the TV on for the entire game and sat and watched the last 15 minutes of the 3rd period and all the overtime periods. I did not watch the telecast between periods. I did not notice a single sound drop out nor any video freeze ups. I've certainly seen them in the past, especially on Fox Detroit and PBS, although not exclusively so.

I actually went out to see Game 5 last night in Standard Def at a bar, because I figured it couldn't be any worse than what I get in "High Def" at home with Shaw. I was right - the MTS SD signal, other than being stretched, looked pretty close to what I get at home. *sigh*

Well the audio drops are worse than ever lately for me...also getting video freezing periodically now too. Global HD is ALWAYS out of sync and tonight my DVR decided that instead of fast forwarding thru the first intermission commercials that what I REALLY wanted was for it to skip two hours ahead to the live Stanley Cup celebration!

Thanks for ruining the Stanley Cup, $haw!!!!!!!!!

Was watching Falling Down on EAHD last night and it looked like youtube...blocking visible on faces in static scenes and especially in darker ones.

I rarely watch this channel, is this common?

I've been watching a bit of the NBA Playoffs lately, and while the PQ has been pretty good, that "flashing" that we were talking about in the NHL games is becoming really distracting.

I'm still undecided if it is a technical glitch or if it has to do with lights or camera flashes at the event. Either way they really need to do something about it. I don't know what they can do if it's a product of lights/cameras at the game.

Sometimes you can clearly see a camera flash go off in the crowd and it doesn't drown out the whole frame like these other 'flashes' do. I've watched them in slow motion (and frame-by-frame) and the really bad ones appear to occupy 2 frames, starting out with a slight 'washing out' of the image coupled with some off color blocking, followed by a complete white out of the entire frame.

I've only seen it in hockey and basketball, although I'm sure they use the same cameras in the arenas for both sports and most of the arenas house both NHL and NBA games, so there is 'technical continuity' there as well.

The 'white flashing' is almost like a white balance problem with the cameras caused by a camera flash from the crowd. I wonder if this has been considered by the broadcasters.

In case you didn't see it, there was some additional discussion of the white flashes in this thread:
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=86801

Thanks, Mike.

I don't think I had seen that thread before but I do know there was discussion elsewhere here at DHC.

Cheers.

I doubt Detroit is better. If it was, they wouldn't be changing *from* Detroit *to* Rochester... :p ;)

My guess is the change is related to the audio drop out problem. The East feed of Bones and House were consistently ruined by drop outs. Perhaps a switch to a different source will reduce or even eliminate the problem with Fox East. Just a guess though.
Well, I have noticed that at least for me, the dropouts are more frequent on the FOX Rochester station. However, I haven't encounted the audio sync problem that used to happen on the previous FOX channel.

Hello everyone. First time posting here.

I purchased a Panasonic PZ77 a few months ago along with Shaw's 6412. Ever since I got the set I had doubts about the picture quality. I began to notice the pixelation and what I've since discovered is called macroblocking.

I was beginning to think that it was my HDMI cable as they are 25' long, inexpensive, and run next to my power cord although they are shielded. I didn't want to blame the TV because of a strong denial for making bad purchases so I convinced myself that it was the cable. Of course none of that made sense as the picture from the upconverting DVD player didn't produce the same effects.

Then I started to notice that some channels looked better than others and after reading this post it's making a lot more sense and at least making me feel better about my purchase. I'm in a new condo and can't switch to satellite. Otherwise I would in a heartbeat.

To the point about different cities getting different quality I can vouch for that first hand. One of the reasons for investing was because of the awesome picture that my buddy in Calgary gets. I was expecting the same but I'm very disappointed so far.

Shaw. You suck.

Shaw. You suck.

Welcome to the Suck.

I just can't believe how bad Shaw's HDTV service is! It's almost like a bad dream that I just can't wake up from.

To the point about different cities getting different quality I can vouch for that first hand. One of the reasons for investing was because of the awesome picture that my buddy in Calgary gets. I was expecting the same but I'm very disappointed so far.
Shaw. You suck.

I don't know how bad is picture you have, but HD picture in Calgary is far from what it can be. Moving scenes (panning in sports) and fast exchange of light/dark make me cringe every time. Sure, frontal shots of hosts in talk shows are very good, but do i really need to see every blemish there?

The pic isn't "bad" all the time. The best way to describe it is it's "visually disruptive". This speaks to the quality of service. It just isn't where it should be when I'm 'in the know' of the bandwidth issues.

What we are seeing here is the disregard to invest in the infrastructure to provide the service that the marketing department boasts. It's really that simple. In other words they aren't putting their money where their mouths are.

If you are in the business of providing a service and you need to maximize what you're providing next to the cost of actually providing it then you have to be lean about it... to get the profit. This is what we are seeing here. The marketing is boasting the fat meat but we are actually being sold the lean ground beef. In the bandwidth world lean is not a healthy choice for the consumer. It's a compromise we aren't told about.

I confess that I have not browsed all the posts in this thread. Too many.

Perhaps this has been covered.

When I watched the Stanley Cup games (sporadically, I admit) I did not see any pixellation at all. However, when I watch lesser sports on standard network feeds, they are rife with pixellation.

For example, today (June 14), I watched NCAA Track & Field and it had severe pixellation. Ditto with American Gladiators on NBC HD.

It appears to me that Shaw is using the DirecTV solution to bandwidth issues. They are using different compression rates for different channels (or events). They know people will scream if the Stanley Cup games are heavily pixellated and transmit them with less compression. With network programming, they assume that there is minimal action and increase the compression.

I noticed that the new HD movie channel, Superchannel on 228 in Vancouver, has virtually no pixellation. I wish that they would be smarter in their compression, or add more network facilities to increase their bandwidth.

I hope the upcoming Olympics will be artifact free. I don't recall any pixellation on the 2004 Olympics.

Interestingly, many network programs are also available for downloading. When I've downloaded such an HD network program, the pixellation has been absent. This confirmst that the problem lies with Shaw, not the source.

Hmmmm anyone having trouble specifically with the NBA game? I am getting quite a few audio dropouts as well the video is freezing intermittently?

Thanks

Oh I am watching it on WDIVD I believe.

To respond to springle the compression is not based on per show. Basically it is a set number of channels. This is not changed based on specifics shows coming on as it would take an engineering army to keep changing things around for each region of a company. If one show has less pixelation during the program it is most likely the network and shaw have worked out the majority of technical difficulties that may be causing the challenges. Some networks have more problems than others. There are also transmission challenges to take into account on the Shaw side of things but that is discussed in another thread.

To respond to springle with the details Shaw won't readily give you, the HD compression is dynamically assigned by a stat mux that is sharing limited bandwidth between 3 channels.

If there is a lot of action on one channel it will tend to starve the other channels of bandwidth resulting in more compression and more artifacts... the stat mux tries to achieve a balance between the 3 channels but the truth is that Shaw doesn't allocate enough bandwidth to ensure good quality on all 3 channels at once. So something has to suffer.

Yes, there can be other issues, but even when "the network and shaw have worked out the majority of technical difficulties that may be causing the challenges" (ha!), as long as Shaw chooses to compromise quality by choking the bandwidth there will always be compression artifacts. And with stat muxing between 3 channels you can never be sure when and where it will crop up. Hence the inconsistent macroblocking you mention.

p.s. I believe the stat mux settings can be tweaked to give preference or more bandwidth to particular channels, but I don't know if Shaw is doing that.

AMAZING.

I watched Law & Order: SVU last night, and for about 30 minutes - I THOUGHT I ACTUALLY HAD A HIGH DEFINITION SIGNAL!

Then I realized I was watching a downloaded DiVX. When I watched the actual SVU episode on CTVHD, there was so much macroblocking, I didn't realize the person with 5 personalities wasn't really a shapeshifter.

More and more, i realize that we are just 'spinninig our wheels'. The audio and video disruptions that we collectively wonder at, have been a part of my HIDEF? viewing life for close to a year. SHAW HAS DONE NOTHING USEFUL TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM AND, UNTIL THEY INVEST IN MORE BANDWIDTH, WILL NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM (ARE THEY ACTUALLY TRYING?).

The latest phenomenon that I suffer from is intermittent total sound and picture black-outs!

Last week some schmuck from Shaw phoned me, once again, to reassure me that they were working on the problem. He was checking on my experience of audio drop-outs. After I stopped yelling, i am sure that he was aware of my opinion of his employer. He actually offered to send a tech! Shaw is truly shameless: they continue to pretend that sending techs to do the same thing over and over, at the same locations, represents an attempt to solve the problem.

I haven't posted for a while, and nothing has changed; and I know that this is 'pissing in the wind', but it does provide a little catharsis.

I can't believe so many of you are still having problems. I have two HD PVRs. A 6212 and a 3416. I have just moved from South Edmonton to Spruce Grove and I have not had any audio dropouts (aside from the random channel outage) in probably 9 months at either residence.

On another note, I accidentally hit the SOD button on my remote last night while in bed and I noticed there was an HD option. I viewed some of the titles (there seemed to be a lot of hunting titles) but I didn't order anything. I was going to when I got home and the HD menu was gone. Did anybody else notice it?