I think Discovery HD looks pretty bad, shows have a lot of changing scenes and you can see the pixellation all over when the picture changes.

A few weeks ago I called up tech support and mentioned this. I was told that the audo drop-outs should be a thing of the past (hah!). If I experience them, a tech will need to come over to my place.

What is with Shaw and being so freaken eager for a tech to come? They must get their kicks knowing you have to wait for hours for the tech to arrive.

It's probably twofold, it gets you out of the CSR's hair before you get angry and one of Shaw's calling cards is it's tech support/service calls. They tout that compared to Bell's shoddy service quality.

Was watching Late Night w/ Jimmy Fallon tonight. The opening title has a lot of fast motion in it, it was basically macroblocking throughout the whole opening :rolleyes:

Encore HD has been bad last couple of days here.

I just bought a place and I just ordered Shaw HD. Now having my doubts... :(

Last night plain old SD Battlestar was horrible - clicking audio the whole time.

My HDPVR has been here a week and I want to cancel. I have no contract or obligation right?

When I called to cancel Bell they offered me 50% for 6 months or 30% for a year with a new HDPVR and a free regular terminal rental.

Is it just me, or has the PQ the last few days been horrible? I cleaned my LCD screen recently and thought it may be smeared etc as the HD channels in particular haven't looked as good. Watched the baseball game from Toronto today, and it wasn't very clear and the onscreen graphics were blurry/pixelated etc.

Even the bikini clad girls on Get Out on HDNet weren't looking as detailed.....:cool:

Anyone else noticing the same?

Has anyone in Calgary noticed that the west feeds of the major broadcast channels are much better than the east time shifted feeds? I used to record all the east feeds and as a test last week switched to the west feed (channels 200-203). I did not get a single audio dropout while watching CSI.

Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this.

From what I seen at Costco and other retailers, Bell HDTV is the way to go, if you can. We can't because we live in a rental apartment and because we don't face the right direction.

I really don't understand Shaw charging as much as they do for their premium HD channels considering all the audio drop-outs and the macroblocking going on. Thank you whomever mentioned this, I learned a new term. If everyone cancels their HD programming, Shaw will be forced to improve or expedite their repairs to the PQ.

From what I seen at Costco and other retailers, Bell HDTV is the way to go, if you can. We can't because we live in a rental apartment and because we don't face the right direction.

I really don't understand Shaw charging as much as they do for their premium HD channels considering all the audio drop-outs and the macroblocking going on. Thank you whomever mentioned this, I learned a new term. If everyone cancels their HD programming, Shaw will be forced to improve or expedite their repairs to the PQ.

Ah it's always a tossup between everyone. But in-regards to the audio drops that's probably on thing that might be a plus on the Bell side. Picture Quality, hard to say as they compress pretty highly as well.

Also by going Bell you avoid the Green Line (Right side) or Pixel Shift (Left Side), unless you get a Pace box from Shaw. Dish network equipment is probably superior as well, however I don't think Dish's DVRs have buffer dump, meaning if you are tuned to a program and halfway through you decide to record the program it won't record the buffered portion.

Has anyone in Calgary noticed that the west feeds of the major broadcast channels are much better than the east time shifted feeds? I used to record all the east feeds and as a test last week switched to the west feed (channels 200-203). I did not get a single audio dropout while watching CSI.

Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this.

I'm in Vancouver but I'll check it out. I have noticed previously that sometimes the Detroit feed of NBC reverts to SD. But i haven't seen it happen recently.

The only problem though for us is we get Simsubs of CTV/Global when watching the western feed.

Hi, I'm on week two of my Shaw test.

So far, the glaring problem, and there's only been one, is CBS HD East (WWJHD)

Last night:

4 audio drops on Amazing Race (WWJHD)
0 Audio drops on The Apprentice (WDIVHD)
0 Audio drops on Big Love (HBOHD)
0 Audio drops on Brothers and Sisters (WXYZHD)

Mark

Paradise:
Agreed about HD PQ of late. Really, really blocky.

Never had a 'green line' or 'pixel shift' issue with Shaw. That has to be your TV setup (or lack thereof).

MarkD, I agree the channel that CBS HD is now coming in on was problematic before. I think Fox Detroit was on it at one time, before they shifted to Fox Rochester. Other than that audio drops have been very, very intermittent.

Nanuuk,

Agree about that. I've actually been pleasantly surprised with the lack of audio drop outs. I'm going to go a couple more evenings of pvr'd material before making my final decision, however, right now, its looking good.

Actually with Bell's PVR's, if you are watching something and decided to record it half way through, you can easily hit the rewind button on the remote to go back to the start of the show, hit record, and fast forward to your live point and you have the show from the beginning. Bell's HDPVR has a one hour buffer on it where you can rewind up to an hour back, as long as you've been on the same channel for an hour or more.

Never had a 'green line' or 'pixel shift' issue with Shaw. That has to be your TV setup (or lack thereof).

MarkD, I agree the channel that CBS HD is now coming in on was problematic before. I think Fox Detroit was on it at one time, before they shifted to Fox Rochester. Other than that audio drops have been very, very intermittent.
The Pixel Shift/Green Line issue only happens when:
1) Motorola DVR Box (not sure about NON-DVR)
2) You are using HDMI
3) Default HDMI Color Setting (green line only)
4) Your TV does 1:1 Pixel Mapping <--Essential, it's close enough to the edge that any overscan will crop the Pixel Shift and Green line off.

If you use Component the issue is not there. Also Pace boxes are not affected by this issue either. This started with the last software update, the Green Line and Pixel shift were not there in previous versions.

Actually with Bell's PVR's, if you are watching something and decided to record it half way through, you can easily hit the rewind button on the remote to go back to the start of the show, hit record, and fast forward to your live point and you have the show from the beginning. Bell's HDPVR has a one hour buffer on it where you can rewind up to an hour back, as long as you've been on the same channel for an hour or more.

Thanks I will give that a try, I was wondering if you could do that I'm just used to Motorola boxes automatically dumping whether you rewind or not.

Paradise:
Agreed about HD PQ of late. Really, really blocky.
Thanks. I had used Monster Screen Clean on my LCD and thought it had affected the screen.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nanuuk View Post
Never had a 'green line' or 'pixel shift' issue with Shaw. That has to be your TV setup (or lack thereof).

The Pixel Shift/Green Line issue only happens when:
1) Motorola DVR Box (not sure about NON-DVR)
2) You are using HDMI
3) Default HDMI Color Setting (green line only)
4) Your TV does 1:1 Pixel Mapping <--Essential, it's close enough to the edge that any overscan will crop the Pixel Shift and Green line off.

If you use Component the issue is not there. Also Pace boxes are not affected by this issue either. This started with the last software update, the Green Line and Pixel shift were not there in previous versions.

This is true. It wasn't a problem until the last firmware update. It's not fair to blame us for not being able to set up our TVs correctly Nanuuk. Is your set up exactly as quoted above? All 4 points, especially #4 as stated above?

HDMI from DVR to TV, optical to AVR. No issues. DVR set to 1080I. Haven't farted around with any TV settings.