Channels and Programming

[endorice]

I've been a HD subscriber for a number of years, and have generally been happy.  Most often, my HD channels are beautiful.

However - motion pictures (such as football) have terrible compression artifacts.  It is so bad, I honestly don't want to watch the event.  During a game, when there is little movement, it's beautiful.  During movement, the picture looks like it's being constructed with square Lego blocks.  Really disappointing.

Here are a couple of samples snapped with a camera:

Sample 1

Sample 2

Is this the best I can expect?

[Pharrell]

During the UNC Wisconsin game I saw stormy showers guess it was the espn feed and not comcast *shrugs*

[demomanMLS]

Looks like you might have some signal issues coming into the house.

[endorice]

If I were having 'signal issues coming into the house', would I be having problems during all HD content?  Why is it just limited to motion video?

[rog286713]

does this happen on the SD channel also?  fox and espn have noticable hd problems during sports broadcasts in my opinion, from what I see on Sundays during the games.

[ComcastKeisha]

endorice--

Sorry for the issues you are experiencing. Can you check all your connections to your box, wall outlets and any splitters that you may have connected. Make sure the connections are tight and secure and has no physical damage by checking the inside wire of your coax cable at the input. We may need to send out a tech because what you are describing is a signal issue. I am sending a signal to refresh and reset your box. Your boxes will turn off and you will have to turn them back on. Your guide and Ondemand may take up to 45 minutes to fully restore. I will have someone from your local market follow up with you soon.

[demomanMLS]

High motion video such as NFL games run at an higher bitrate which might be where you are having issues. I used to have signal issues and saw similar artifacts until the tech crew in my area fixed the wiring in my area. Now I see far less compression artifacts.

[endorice]

Thanks to everyone for the replies (including Comcast!).

I spent the day in airplanes and airports, and received a voice mail from a local Comcast rep.  That was encouraging!  I'll work with them and hopefully get to the bottom of my issue.

[endorice]

Here's an update of my experience for all of those that google and come across this thread.

Initially, the technicians thought something was wrong with my signal or my home equipment.  We went through everything, eliminating one piece of equipment at a time, even replacing the TV.  The problem persisted.

Then, finally - the technician called into the local Comcast office, and they were seeing the same compression artifacts!  I was told they would look further into the situation, but went 'radio silent' after that.  I can therefore conclude that my initial suspicion was correct - attempting to highly compress to compensate for bandwidth produces compression artifacts in moving images.

Since then, Comcast was nice enough to raise my HD price (again).  So - I'm paying premium rates for pictures that look like this.  Don't get me wrong, I'm willing to pay, but I shouldn't be paying HD rates for pictures that look so poor.

That's just my experience.  Since I can't resolve this issue, it's time to move on to another provider.