How come TSN isn't on the list or did I miss it?

So what form of compression is Rogers going to employ? MPEG-2, or MPEG-4?
Will Rogers also be downsampling the picture resolution (i.e., 1920x1080i downsampled to 1440x1080i)? The article only mentions compression being employed.
Both downsampling and compression will result in a poorer picture quality, but obviously a lower bitrate to save on bandwidth.

The signals are already MPEG-2 compressed. Rogers will be increasing the compression ratio. It is similar in concept to changing the compression ratio of a JPEG still picture.

So the picture resolution is not changing, but the level of detail in the picture will be reduced and there are more likely to be compression artifacts (eg. macroblocking).

If MPEG-4 uses half the bit rate, will Rogers be switching to this in the future? Is MPEG-4 quality wise a lot worse than MPEG-2 for TV signal distribution? I know it has better compression algorithms (like motion estimation and object recognition, and also using less I-frames).
I guess the key question is, would a further compression in MPEG-2 like Rogers is doing be worse or better than switching to MPEG-4?

They'd get a better picture at the same bit rate by using MPEG-4 instead of MPEG-2, but the problem is the lack of MPEG-4 support in the currently deployed set top boxes.

And the MPEG-4 compression hardware is likely much more expensive as well.

If they want channels, why don't they compress their analog offerings. I don't know how many French-speaking people there are in the GTA (certainly less than most asian languages) but I could live without these channels in analog:

TV Guide
Crossroads
CBLF
TFO
Shop TV (why is this around at all? it's a complete waste of bandwidth)
The Shopping Channel
TLN
Fairchild
Vision
APTN
101 - CFTM
102 - RDI
103 - TV5
104 - CPAC
105 - Ontario Legislature

Now I know they'd never move some of those, but I see NO reason to keep 101-105 around in analog form (how many people have analog sets that tune that high clearly anyways?) I figure you could easily get rid of 5-8 of the above...

And there are those who say Blu-Ray will never reach its potential due to, among other things, HD PPV and HD channels....

Today, we read about compression of HD signals and ISPs doing traffic shaping which slowdown large file downloads.

Trust me, BD has nothing to worry about.

Perhaps now that virtually all major providers compress HD signals, Canadians can unite and fight this.

+1 Totally agree. Physical media ain't going anywhere for a long time. Infrastructure just isn't there and we don't have the population to currently support fibre to the curb at this point and what are the rural people going to do?

If they want channels, why don't they compress their analog offerings.

Many analog channels in the basic tier are mandated by the CRTC. Once Rogers gets a certain percentage of customers on digital boxes (I think 85 or 90%) then they can get rid of the analog offerings.

If they want channels, why don't they compress their analog offerings.How do you compress an analogue channel?

... I could live without these channels in analog:Crossroads is UHF Channel 36. CBLF is a VHF channel. How can one remove these? Vision is a regular English-language cable channel - seems more watchable than many cable channels. Personally I watch CPAC from time to time, and even the Ontario Legislature when something interesting is going down (which I admit isn't often). TV5, RDI, and CFTM are all interesting channels - presumably anyone who got through school in Canada has enough French to understand these. That, and they are required by the CRTC - for good reason, there are a lot of French people in the GTA. Ditto for Chinese in Markham from what I read in the newspaper. I agree about the TV Guide and shopping channels.

Ultimately the answer is to shift all the channels to digital. But that will take time.

So thats what between channel 100 & 107?

I always wondered, Here in Ottawa its goes 100/107/109/etc

Not sure whats at 108 though.

FYI, 101 to 105 are analogue channels in the GTA that are a part of basic cable. AFAIU, 100 and 107 in Ottawa are digital channels only. FYI the GTA line-up is here (http://your.rogers.com/store/cable/ptv/programming/channel_lineups2.asp?SystemID=1&province=ON&cityName=1).

I think all the Rogers Ontario systems use the same numbering scheme for Digital. 108 is CKCO (CTV Kitchener) - so it's missing in Ottawa. 112 is CFCF (CTV Montreal), and is missing from the GTA line-up.

So why are there duplicates in the 100 series and 500 series on the Rogers guide, with the 100 series HD channels being duplicated in the 500 series? Isn't this a waste of bandwidth?

No, remapping uses no additional bandwidth. It's the same channel, simply mapped to different locations, as happens for many channels in the various "themes" like sports, news, kids, movies, etc..

The signals are already MPEG-2 compressed. Rogers will be increasing the compression ratio. It is similar in concept to changing the compression ratio of a JPEG still picture.


Of course we know what happens when you re-compress already compressed media: additional artifacts are introduced beyond what you would see if there was only one round of compression applied.

Bingo!

Is it me, or is Roger's already doing this on some of their SD channels. Space for example never looks as crisp as it should - but YTV looks excellent.

MPEG-2 streams are opened and closed repeatedly in CATV signal chains. MPEG-2 is lossy, meaning that the more it is opened and closed, the more artifacts are introduced.

I would love to see the pure SPACE network master signal because I have never seen that channel show up clearly on any BDU.

Space has been reported as awful many times on this forum.

Obviously SD channels are compressed as indicated in the article linked to in post 1. Currently there are roughly 10 SD channels per QAM, depending on the viewership - premium and sports channels usually are assigned a bit more bandwidth. Channels like Discovery or TMN have excellent SD quality, while other channels (MuchMoreRetro for exampe) don't.

SD channels seem to be compressed almost based on popularity. For example, before BBC Canada was moved to the VIP tier, its quality was horrible. But now it's quite watchable. Some of Rogers' SD channels look quite good.

However, I think some channels start off pretty bad - you know when the analog broadcast version looks as bad and fuzzy as the digital version (ie. Space) then Rogers isn't getting a very good version to begin with.

Is Rogers QAM network 750MHz or 860MHz? Wonder if in the future, if fiber isn't deployed, if they'd look at 1000MHz?

Space has been reported as awful many times on this forum.Heck, I've reported it as awful many times - at least in Battlestar Galactica threads ... :)

Obviously SD channels are compressed as indicated in the article linked to in post 1.Perhaps I'm being dense - but the article linked to in post 1 (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=725911&postcount=1) is: http://www.digitalhome.ca/content/view/2426/206/ which doesn't seem to discuss SD compression.

Currently there are roughly 10 SD channels per QAM, depending on the viewership - premium and sports channels usually are assigned a bit more bandwidth. Channels like Discovery or TMN have excellent SD quality, while other channels (MuchMoreRetro for exampe) don't.What kind of quality does one expect with 10 SD channels per QAM? Is there a breakdown of what YTV gets compared to other channels?