I think the picture would start to break up if it was a signal issue. I don't think telus (or shaw) have a system in place that downgrades the resolution if there are signal issues. I think they have their signal, and either it works or it doesn't?

Digital signals aren't like analog. They break apart and become pixelated/freeze when there are signal issues.

You mentioned shaw can install a booster which is true. They only do it when the signal is too weak to deliver a strong signal. If the signal is to week the shaw box won't display the channel (it doesn't get softer). Even though telus doesn't simulcast, I believe it would be similar.

Is it happening on all of telus' channels or just one? Maybe the signal telus is getting from the broadcaster is of poor quality. Or possibily all telus customers are affected, and something is wrong in the re-transmitting process? I'd call telus.

 

I have two newish LCD televisions connected to Telus' modem via coaxial cables, which are split with a run-of-the-mill splitter at the source.

Please clarify this statement as I assume you have STBs connected via coax, but then component video or HDMI to the TV?

Zod is right about signal strength not really affecting PQ - you either get the channel or you don't with picture breakup or massive pixellation occurring at the point where the signal is not strong enough.

Here's an FAQ on macroblocking vs pixellation: http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=17715

And here's a post useful for those new to the forum - FAQs, Search Tips, Optimization, etc:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=57741

 

Thank you for your responses.

I got back on the phone with Telus, and after a long wait, they connected me with a specialist who was refreshingly honest. He explained to me that my complaint is quite common among people with high-end TVs who have recently switched from a cable or satellite provider.

He said that Telus compresses its signal considerably more than cable (Shaw) and satellite (Bell and/or Telus Satellite) due to less bandwidth, and that the increased compression results in more artefacts on the screen, considerably less sharp images, and blurred motion sequences. He also pointed out that "blacks" often appear "grey," edges will often appear fuzzier, and so on.

He pointed out that as far as image quality goes for HDTV, satellite is always best, cable is second, and Telus' Optik third, but few people notice the difference because of the type and quality of their televisions.

In any event, he said there was little I could do to improve the image quality. He suggested there may be some after-market upconverters that might assist somewhat, but that he was pessmistic that they would help all that much. All in all, he said that it is what it is.

Like I said, refreshingly honest!

 

No customer service rep from any company is going to say "other companies offer better products and services" over a recorded telephone conversation because they wouldn't be working at that company very long.

I'm always highly suspect of first time posters like this.

 

A Telus technical support person told you that Telus PQ is third after Satellite and Cable. This shocks me, I am not disputing what you are saying but I am surprised they would say that.

 

I know, right? In fairness, however, this was the third time I called, and after two visits by a technician. Moreover, it wasn't a technical person of first instance with whom I had this conversation. The person of first instance referred this up the pole to (what he called) a "specialist" who was clearly far better versed in these matters than anyone with whom I spoke before, and I only got to speak with said "specialist" after waiting for nearly an hour and refusing to hang up.

I should also point out that the specialist made clear that 90% of the population wouldn't even notice the discrepancy, and that only people with televisions of certain quality or type would notice (although, I'd say my TVs are only middle-of-the-road).

Truthfully, I'll probably still stay with Telus Optik notwithstanding the poorer image because the interface and functionality of their Cisco system is miles ahead of what Shaw or Bell provide (to say nothing of the headache of getting out of my contract). If the image becomes truly bothersome, I suppose I can always shift over to Telus Satellite.

 

Personally I found the HD experience to be significantly better than Shaw, some of the SD channels are a lot poorer than Shaw but then I don't watch too much in SD.

 

I suppose there are a lot of variables that come into play, but for me, if I were to rank Shaw's HD quality a 10 out of 10 (which it wasn't, but I'll use that as a point of reference), I'd rank Telus' system at a 6 or 7.

(And for the record, I don't watch SD either -- just HD).

 

I have had poor HD picture on one of my tvs ever since the 2.x upgrade. We have one tv which uses an XBOX as the receiver and the picture is excellent. The second tv, which has the Telus box directly connected has poor blacks and looks bad in low-light scenes. Prior to the upgrade I felt that the picture was really good (as good or even slightly better than what I had with Shaw). Since then there is no comparison. It seems odd that the XBOX picture would be better, given it accesses the content on the Cisco box. I am hopeful that they release an update someday, but it has been a long time in coming...

There is another thread that others have discussed this issue in. It could be you are experiencing the same thing.

 

There is another thread that others have discussed this issue in. It could be you are experiencing the same thing.

Do you have a link to that thread? I can't seem to find it.

 

I would also question the comment that Telus compress the signal more than Shaw, surely as Optik is totally fibre and Shaw is not, with the extra capacity fibregives there is no need to compress the signal as much as through copper.

 

I would also question the comment that Telus compress the signal more than Shaw, surely as Optik is totally fibre and Shaw is not, with the extra capacity fibre gives there is no need to compress the signal as much as through copper.

Telus HD is streamed in MPEG 4 @ 5.6mbps and SD is 2.25mbps bitrate. It is a myth that Optik is totally fibre everywhere, it it were true than more than 3 simultaneous HD live channels could be watched at the same time. Telus uses Tanberg 8090 (pdf link) video encoders. Compression doesn't always lead to lower video quality it is basically the back end and the real time encoders that play a huge part. To see how the low bit rate can play out try watching the free VOD Aquarium channel on Optik. The aquarium has lots of details and motion, and the bitrate Telus has selected just can't handle it. Higher bitrate would allow for more information to be allocated for the frames between the i-frames, and their resolution would not suffer so badly in this situation.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought some Optik was still FTTN (node) and not FTTH (Home)

57, you could take Hugh's article here and apply the word 'Optik' instead of 'Fibe' and be spot on in my opinion (nothing against either company). Telus is ahead of Bell Fibe in FTTH, Telus has been deploying FTTH in Greenfield sites in AB and BC for the past couple of years (soon in parts of Quebec) and again in my opinion, if you take Vancouver, Edmonton & Calgary as 3 big cities (main service areas) less than 1% of Optik homes passed qualify for FTTH and only 85% qualify for 25mbps as of Telus Q3 according to their CEO. Even in an Optik FTTH set up Optik Internet is still limited to 25mbps and FTTH has no play on picture quality as the MPEG 4 streams are still capped at 5.6mbps bitrate. Shaw uses to my knowledge VBR MPEG2 encoding, with statistical multiplexing which gives typically twice the bitrate (and fills QAM )

 

satellite is always best, cable is second, and Telus' Optik third

I suggest you read the Bell Satellite PQ thread! Since he made that statement, I would not believe much else he said.

He also pointed out that "blacks" often appear "grey,"

Not true on a properly optimized TV/system. Your black levels on the TV are probably simply too high. If you cut them back, you should see something resembling blacks, unless you have really poor LCDs, as long as you don't view from too far off axis since LCDs suffer from poor off-axis colour and black levels. Here's an FAQ on Optimization.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=76161

surely as Optik is totally fibre...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought some Optik was still FTTN (node) and not FTTH (Home). Also, if Telus gets (all or most of) their signals from Bell, then they've all been converted to 720P and you have all the issues associated with the Bell PQ thread.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=102020

 

Personally I found the HD experience to be significantly better than Shaw, some of the SD channels are a lot poorer than Shaw but then I don't watch too much in SD.

I totally agree with this statement. HD looks phenomenal but SD is average at best. Sorry if this is a little off topic though. I find if i watch SD, the picture does not fill the screen. When i set TV option to fill the screen, the guide no longer fits the screen and is chopped off at both left and right.

 

I have two newish LCD televisions connected to Telus' modem via coaxial cables, which are split with a run-of-the-mill splitter at the source.

If this was installed by Telus, you should have a special HPNA splitter to properly handle the frequencies that HPNA uses for the digital signal.

I've seen several posts where people were initially disappointed with the picture quality from Telus and were able to adjust their TV settings to make the picture comparable. Most good TVs should allow you to set each input individually. I would make a note of the settings before making changes.

If black levels are a problem, try changing the "color space" in the TV settings if you have that option.

 

I've seen several posts where people were initially disappointed with the picture quality from Telus and were able to adjust their TV settings to make the picture comparable. Most good TVs should allow you to set each input individually. I would make a note of the settings before making changes.

If black levels are a problem, try changing the "color space" in the TV settings if you have that option.

I calibrated my TVs when I first purchased them, and they have generally been great (and still continue to be great with Blu-Ray, DVDs, and Xbox). It is just with the Telus PVR and STB that the image quality is poor, albeit in different ways.

On the PVR, there isn't much artefacting, but poor black levels and generally soft edges. On the STB, the black levels are fine, but there is more artefacting.

In any event, I can try to re-calibrate by eye to see if I can't fix the problem.

 

The OP has not responded to 57's query about how the TV's are connected to the OPTIK "modem". If they are connected, as the OP stated, via coax (RG-59 or RG-6) and a typical F connector cable splitter it is no wonder that the PQ is so bad. Unless there is a ATSC modulator at work here (which is doubtful) the coax is carrying an analog RF SD channel 3 (or 4) signal which will look no better than old fashioned analog SD TV. If this is the case, a simple upgrade to component video cables will bring a huge improvement. A component splitter will be necessary to feed the second TV. And that TV will not be able to select a different channel than the primary TV. Please clarify your actual connections and don't settle for the "honest" tech's excuses.

 

Forgive me as there a lot of acronyms there that I don't understand, but I'll try to describe how itis connected.

There is a coax that comes out of the Telus-supplied modem, into a splitter, which splits out into two coax cables: one to the PVR upstairs, and the other to the set top box in the basement. Both the PVR and the set top box are connected to their respective televisions via HDMI cables.

Is that not the best way to connect? I tried component cables out of the PVR and set top box, and the picture quality was even worse.

 

@ac, you can try changing the color space setting on your TV as I mentioned in my previous post. If the TV setting doesn't match what the STB is sending, you will see lack of detail in the blacks (crushed blacks). Your TV documentation may refer to YCbCr/Ycc vs. RGB or 0-255 vs. 16-255.

 

@NYCanuck, it's strange that you are seeing more compression artifacts on the STB. I'm fairly certain the chipsets in the PVR and STB are identical, so it could be differences in the TV settings. If you are seeing the picture breakup on the STB, then you probably have a problem with the coax cable from the splitter to the STB.

If you don't have the above-mentioned cable problem, then your wiring is fine. The signal is being transmitted digitally from the PVR to the STB using the HPNA protocol, not the old-fashioned analog method that snorlax was referring to.

The general rule of thumb is that MPEG-4 is about twice efficient as MPEG-2. In other words, it takes about half the bandwidth to produce the same picture quality as MPEG-2. Since MPEG-4 is more modern, it allows a lot more customization of the compression techniques than MPEG-4, resulting in a picture that looks slightly different than MPEG-2, particularly at lower bandwidths. Some of the picture enhancements that TVs use to improve an MPEG-2 picture may actually make an MPEG-4 picture worse, so you may want to play with those to see what the effect is.

 

I'm noticing HD quality issues more lately. Watch an episode of Grimm or something and there is a lot of artifacts in low-light scenes. Before it seemed only black levels were affected, now it seems more issues are popping up. I have the PVR hooked up via Ethernet to the Actiontec, and via HDMI to my TV.

 

I think the TV's have a lot to do with it, my POS Dynex 22" LCD TV connected to one STB makes SD channels look pretty good, but the same channels look poor on my better quality 42" LG.

Overall I do rate the Telus picture quality in HD better than Shaw, with the added consistency of the internet connection I have no plans to move back to Shaw.

 

I did an install for a customer yesterday and he said Telus HD is no where near the HD quality on Shaw. He said on Shaw he could see the pimples on a persons face whereas HD on Telus look a little muddy, washed out. I told him different TV sets affect PQ but he wouldnt admit it. His TV is old, some Maxent brand.

 

What exactly is the customer supposed to admit? That the TV he previously used for Shaw (that displayed acceptable PQ) is now useless with his Optik setup?? That makes no sense. If that's the case, then Telus should release a list of acceptable television sets that their service is compatible with.

I find Telus has a problem with over-compression. The motion artifacts in fast moving/low light scenes are atrocious. I really hope they fix this problem soon!

 

MPEG 4?

General question for IPTV/Satellite compression: When referring to MPEG-4, is this MPEG-4 Part 2 (i.e. what DivX/Xvid implement) or MPEG-4 Part 10 (H.264/AVC)?

If it is the former, than I would assume that Telus IPTV should naturally have lower PQ than Shaw, which uses the less efficient MPEG-2, but has more than twice the bitrate than MPEG-4. According to Shaw Champ, Shaw also uses VBR (vs ABR/CBR).

 

I've personally have had Bell and Shaw.. let me say shaw was garbage, always macroblocking\pixelating. Bell was day and night compared to shaw imho.. I switched to Telus as they offer more hd selection than bell does. Telus looks supperior to bell from when i left, bell was overcompression the heck out of its hd channels. I'm quite pleased with the hd quality of telus,
sd is soft but who really cares now a days...

That rep you talked to should be fired, to say nothing but bad things about his own product, company is sensless.. must have frustration issues against his position at telus..

 

Telus PQ vs Bell

I was looking at consolidating my accounts (home phone and slow internet-Telus, TV- Bell satellite) save some money and get higher speed internet by going with Telus. Before I made the final decision I was searching for a Telus installation so I could see the remote, channel guide and recording in action. I finally came across a Telus store with Optik TV and I was satisfied with the PVR. I started channel surfing and something just didn't look right.

I then found the President's Cup coverage and I was shocked. I've watched and recorded the coverage (I was away this weekend so didn't see the final round), so I was familiar with how it should look. I noticed a lot of smudged (macro-blocked?) areas when the players were moving and a lack of definition. This was especially apparent in the players faces and Jim Furyck's and Bill Haas's bald heads. There seemed to be no definition in the player's noses and large areas of the greens ended up with no apparent texture. These fine details make watching an HD feed enjoyable, otherwise it almost looks like some cartoon-reality hybrid. If it looks poor on a small Telus demo TV how would it look on my larger TV?

Just down the mall was a Bell store, and they amazingly had the TSN coverage playing. I reversed to the same spot that I had watched on Telus, and it looked quite a bit better, with more definition. Both stores were using smallish (36"?) Samsung TV's. I'm now at home watching the recorded coverage on my 56" Samsung (optimized settings for color) and the picture looks great.

I'd really like to change to Telus and save quite a bit of money, but the PQ would be a deal breaker. I don't think I could get used to it, if that is what I would receive. Could this be an artefact of the telus store set up? The Bell guy said they broadcast in 1080p, whereas Telus was 720p, however I thought both would be 720p. It seems to me it would be a video compression issue (macroblocking due to compression?).

Is satellite that much better than Optik?

 

The Bell guy said they broadcast in 1080p

Wrong, it's 720P, except for "On-Demand". Here's the FAQ:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=76129

There are lots of things that can play into different PQ - Make, Model, size of TV, TV optimization (or lack thereof), connection to TV, STB setup (1080i or 720P), etc. It's almost impossible to compare unless everything is identical.

One thing I have found is that the PQ on Bell (sat) tends to be a bit "soft", therefore you do not notice the compression artifacts as much. There is a thread in the Bell Sat forum on PQ.

 

Telus PQ

Well it looks like I'll need to find an optimized Telus set up to make a comparison. I have a very good AV system and I've calibrated my plasma television; most people seem to be satisfied with over saturated images. I certainly find Golf HD a good channel to make comparisons. Lot's of detail and the players don't wear layers of makeup to soften the image! Soccer and football might also work.

You would think a telus store that wants to sell you their product would try to put their best image forward as an example!

 

I mostly watch sports programming and I definitely notice the "soft" picture on Telus compare to my other provider Directv.

So it must be coming from Telus side.

I would be interested in seeing Shaw as I almost jumped on the tv/phone/internet bundle which I think the deal expired.

But Telus guide/speed etc was way better than the Pace box I had running via Shaw.

Tough call. I guess nothing is perfect. It's just too bad Telus Optik picture isn't much brighter and not so soft a picture. My only complaint.

I am still on Telus. If Shaw offered there deal minus phone i would have switched.

I only watch HD the majority of time. Plus Shaw offers NO east cdn feeds that I can find in HD.

 

Comparisons using the same model of TV is only gets you part of the way there. The calibration settings make a huge difference. The only valid comparison is an A/B comparison using the exact same program on a calibrated TV. Otherwise there are too many variables.

Different TV's at different times and different programs with who knows what settings, there's really no basis for comparison.