Going HD with Charter - round 4, the sucking
 

OK, Charter guys came out Monday and put in a box and DVR at my
parents house. DVR was not knowingly requested - for that matter,
it's not clear that the install was even knowingly requested, my Dad
had called in to ask some questions, and next thing we know there's an
appointment set up. OK, that's where we were going, anyway, but
especially talking to an older man, unless that DVR is free, there has
been some miscommunication.

But that's not why I called.

I finally got down there today to see wassup.

Box takes the cable, connects to the Sony 32S3000 via component
cables. OK, right? Wrong. We'll get to that. I mean, it works, but
the results are poor.

Bottom line: image quality sucks, I presume it's the cheapo decoder
that gets used instead of the Sony's own.

For the first week, Mom and Dad were watching analog signals in
stretch mode, and it looked pretty good to them, and frankly, to me.
Nice clean analog signals, and the Sony handled them pretty well.
Now, note that carefully: the SONY handled them prettty well. See
where this is going?

I paid a premium to buy the Sony - actually, got one for myself, I've
been running purely OTA, and another for the folks, running on
Charter. I've been *very* happy with the quality of the OTA images on
the digital and HD stations.

Now I've seen the quality of the HD images on the same set on Charter
cable and - they suck. You know just how they suck? The same way a
Vizio sucks sitting next to a Sony. Cheap decoding, I expect. I know
the Sony can do better, so it must be the tuner/decoder in the Charter
box, or an overcompressed signal, or ... whatever. Completely wastes
so much of the nice work Sony does. I suppose I can try fiddling the
color and gamma and whatnot, that should work even on the component
inputs, right? Well, we'll see. And as for the other channels, I
cannot even tell if they are now coming in digital or analog, but they
seem fuzzier than the analog when it came right into the TV! I think
they are digital, but again, the image quality is terrible. Mom says
she prefers the old analog in stretch mode, and I believe she has a
strong case.

Here's another thing. The cable box effectively lies to the TV, even
when the program is 4:3 digital, the TV reads it as 16:9 1080i. So
you can stretch it on the cable box or on the tv - or on both, not a
good idea. But, the box menu system to switch wide mode sucks, so I'd
rather leave the box on normal, and stretch it in the TV. Why not
just leave the box in wide mode? Because even if you switch to an HD
channel, it doesn't know to switch OUT Of wide mode! Stupid box.

I may have garbled some of this, and if color adjustments manage to
return clarity to the image, I'll owe Charter an apology. But right
now we're ready to pull it right back out, and the advice would seem
to be, if you buy a premium HDTV, Charter is not going to be an
adequate supplier of signal.


(If we switch back (Mom still needs cable for the Food Channel) I'll
want to add an OTA signal for HD, and I'll have to see if the Sony is
after all smart enough to remember one set of channels on cable
setting and another on antenna setting, using the coax switch the
manual shows - since when you switch between cable and antenna
settings, it seems to go right back into search mode, 30 minutes down
the drain.)

(Could also try Dish or FIOS, but don't they do just the same kind of
thing?)

J.

ps - doesn't anybody anywhere know how to design a remote control
following anything like ergonomic rules for the buttons and protocols?
Even the Sony's own control is really mediocre, when I rated it during
the product registration process I think I said it was OK, but I
didn't realize how often you have to hit tiny buttons and page through
multistate menus in two seconds and preferably with two hands. The
Charter cable box control looks like it controls the space shuttle.
The menu system isn't really so bad, just ugly, compared to the Sony's
menu system that uses xbox styles. But this rant is officially about
signal quality only.

Going HD with Charter - round 4, the sucking
 

On Dec 12, 10:29�pm, JXStern wrote:
OK, Charter guys came out Monday and put in a box and DVR at my
parents house. �DVR was not knowingly requested - for that matter,
it's not clear that the install was even knowingly requested, my Dad
had called in to ask some questions, and next thing we know there's an
appointment set up. �OK, that's where we were going, anyway, but
especially talking to an older man, unless that DVR is free, there has
been some miscommunication.

But that's not why I called.

I finally got down there today to see wassup.

Box takes the cable, connects to the Sony 32S3000 via component
cables. �OK, right? �Wrong. �We'll get to that. �I mean, it works, but
the results are poor.

Bottom line: image quality sucks, I presume it's the cheapo decoder
that gets used instead of the Sony's own.

For the first week, Mom and Dad were watching analog signals in
stretch mode, and it looked pretty good to them, and frankly, to me.
Nice clean analog signals, and the Sony handled them pretty well.
Now, note that carefully: the SONY handled them prettty well. �See
where this is going?

I paid a premium to buy the Sony - actually, got one for myself, I've
been running purely OTA, and another for the folks, running on
Charter. �I've been *very* happy with the quality of the OTA images on
the digital and HD stations.

Now I've seen the quality of the HD images on the same set on Charter
cable and - they suck. �You know just how they suck? �The same way a
Vizio sucks sitting next to a Sony. �Cheap decoding, I expect. �I know
the Sony can do better, so it must be the tuner/decoder in the Charter
box, or an overcompressed signal, or ... whatever. �Completely wastes
so much of the nice work Sony does. �I suppose I can try fiddling the
color and gamma and whatnot, that should work even on the component
inputs, right? �Well, we'll see. �And as for the other channels, I
cannot even tell if they are now coming in digital or analog, but they
seem fuzzier than the analog when it came right into the TV! �I think
they are digital, but again, the image quality is terrible. �Mom says
she prefers the old analog in stretch mode, and I believe she has a
strong case.

Here's another thing. �The cable box effectively lies to the TV, even
when the program is 4:3 digital, the TV reads it as 16:9 1080i. �So
you can stretch it on the cable box or on the tv - or on both, not a
good idea. �But, the box menu system to switch wide mode sucks, so I'd
rather leave the box on normal, and stretch it in the TV. �Why not
just leave the box in wide mode? �Because even if you switch to an HD
channel, it doesn't know to switch OUT Of wide mode! �Stupid box.

I may have garbled some of this, and if color adjustments manage to
return clarity to the image, I'll owe Charter an apology. �But right
now we're ready to pull it right back out, and the advice would seem
to be, if you buy a premium HDTV, Charter is not going to be an
adequate supplier of signal. �

(If we switch back (Mom still needs cable for the Food Channel) I'll
want to add an OTA signal for HD, and I'll have to see if the Sony is
after all smart enough to remember one set of channels on cable
setting and another on antenna setting, using the coax switch the
manual shows - since when you switch between cable and antenna
settings, it seems to go right back into search mode, 30 minutes down
the drain.)

(Could also try Dish or FIOS, but don't they do just the same kind of
thing?)

J.

ps - doesn't anybody anywhere know how to design a remote control
following anything like ergonomic rules for the buttons and protocols?
Even the Sony's own control is really mediocre, when I rated it during
the product registration process I think I said it was OK, but I
didn't realize how often you have to hit tiny buttons and page through
multistate menus in two seconds and preferably with two hands. �The
Charter cable box control looks like it controls the space shuttle.
The menu system isn't really so bad, just ugly, compared to the Sony's
menu system that uses xbox styles. �But this rant is officially about
signal quality only.

A.) We're getting HD from DirecTV and the quality is excellent.
(Charter sucks here too, judging from a relative's experiences with
them. He discontinuted them and got DirecTV when he saw our picture.)

B.) TIVO has the most ergonomic remote I've ever used. All the
controls come "right to hand", and the software is supurb.

I'm not a shill for either of them, just a happy customer.

Going HD with Charter - round 4, the sucking
 

JXStern wrote:
Now I've seen the quality of the HD images on the same set on Charter
cable and - they suck. You know just how they suck? The same way a
Vizio sucks sitting next to a Sony. Cheap decoding, I expect. I know
the Sony can do better, so it must be the tuner/decoder in the Charter
box, or an overcompressed signal, or ... whatever. Completely wastes
so much of the nice work Sony does. I suppose I can try fiddling the
color and gamma and whatnot, that should work even on the component
inputs, right? Well, we'll see. And as for the other channels, I
cannot even tell if they are now coming in digital or analog, but they
seem fuzzier than the analog when it came right into the TV! I think
they are digital, but again, the image quality is terrible. Mom says
she prefers the old analog in stretch mode, and I believe she has a
strong case.

What are the settings on the DVR? Is it outputting 1080i or 720p for
the HD channels? Charter may re-compress the HD channels, but they stil
should look far better than the SD channels. I suspect your setup is
incorrect.

Here's another thing. The cable box effectively lies to the TV, even
when the program is 4:3 digital, the TV reads it as 16:9 1080i. So
you can stretch it on the cable box or on the tv - or on both, not a
good idea. But, the box menu system to switch wide mode sucks, so I'd
rather leave the box on normal, and stretch it in the TV. Why not
just leave the box in wide mode? Because even if you switch to an HD
channel, it doesn't know to switch OUT Of wide mode! Stupid box.

Many TVs and setup boxes do not provide stretch or zoom for the HD
signals. I don't follow your description of the stretch and zoom modes,
but I wonder if the DVR is set up to upconvert the SD channels.

What brand and model DVR did Charter provide?

Alan F

Going HD with Charter - round 4, the sucking
 

On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:03:37 GMT, Alan F
wrote:

Many TVs and setup boxes do not provide stretch or zoom for the HD
signals. I don't follow your description of the stretch and zoom modes,
but I wonder if the DVR is set up to upconvert the SD channels.

What brand and model DVR did Charter provide?

Y'know, I only glanced at it, but might be Scientific Atlanta? Has a
big blue time display on the front, dark brown plastic. And my
parents didn't even realize the DVR function was there. I assume that
it's a DVR, as the first menu item that pops up says, "Start
recording", and the box is rather large if it doesn't contain a disk
and a couple of hamsters.

And this morning Mom reports something has gone wack, she was watching
ABC on HD, and when she switched to channel 7, it went "no signal".
Could be cable problem, probably cockpit problem, maybe switched the
input somehow. Oy.

J.

Going HD with Charter - round 4, the sucking
 

JXStern wrote:
OK, Charter guys came out Monday and put in a box and DVR at my
parents house. DVR was not knowingly requested - for that matter,
it's not clear that the install was even knowingly requested, my Dad
had called in to ask some questions, and next thing we know there's an
appointment set up. OK, that's where we were going, anyway, but
especially talking to an older man, unless that DVR is free, there has
been some miscommunication.

But that's not why I called.

I finally got down there today to see wassup.

Box takes the cable, connects to the Sony 32S3000 via component
cables. OK, right? Wrong. We'll get to that. I mean, it works, but
the results are poor.

Bottom line: image quality sucks, I presume it's the cheapo decoder
that gets used instead of the Sony's own.

For the first week, Mom and Dad were watching analog signals in
stretch mode, and it looked pretty good to them, and frankly, to me.
Nice clean analog signals, and the Sony handled them pretty well.
Now, note that carefully: the SONY handled them prettty well. See
where this is going?

I paid a premium to buy the Sony - actually, got one for myself, I've
been running purely OTA, and another for the folks, running on
Charter. I've been *very* happy with the quality of the OTA images on
the digital and HD stations.

Now I've seen the quality of the HD images on the same set on Charter
cable and - they suck. You know just how they suck? The same way a
Vizio sucks sitting next to a Sony. Cheap decoding, I expect. I know
the Sony can do better, so it must be the tuner/decoder in the Charter
box, or an overcompressed signal, or ... whatever. Completely wastes
so much of the nice work Sony does. I suppose I can try fiddling the
color and gamma and whatnot, that should work even on the component
inputs, right? Well, we'll see. And as for the other channels, I
cannot even tell if they are now coming in digital or analog, but they
seem fuzzier than the analog when it came right into the TV! I think
they are digital, but again, the image quality is terrible. Mom says
she prefers the old analog in stretch mode, and I believe she has a
strong case.

Here's another thing. The cable box effectively lies to the TV, even
when the program is 4:3 digital, the TV reads it as 16:9 1080i. So
you can stretch it on the cable box or on the tv - or on both, not a
good idea. But, the box menu system to switch wide mode sucks, so I'd
rather leave the box on normal, and stretch it in the TV. Why not
just leave the box in wide mode? Because even if you switch to an HD
channel, it doesn't know to switch OUT Of wide mode! Stupid box.

I may have garbled some of this, and if color adjustments manage to
return clarity to the image, I'll owe Charter an apology. But right
now we're ready to pull it right back out, and the advice would seem
to be, if you buy a premium HDTV, Charter is not going to be an
adequate supplier of signal.


(If we switch back (Mom still needs cable for the Food Channel) I'll
want to add an OTA signal for HD, and I'll have to see if the Sony is
after all smart enough to remember one set of channels on cable
setting and another on antenna setting, using the coax switch the
manual shows - since when you switch between cable and antenna
settings, it seems to go right back into search mode, 30 minutes down
the drain.)

(Could also try Dish or FIOS, but don't they do just the same kind of
thing?)

J.

ps - doesn't anybody anywhere know how to design a remote control
following anything like ergonomic rules for the buttons and protocols?
Even the Sony's own control is really mediocre, when I rated it during
the product registration process I think I said it was OK, but I
didn't realize how often you have to hit tiny buttons and page through
multistate menus in two seconds and preferably with two hands. The
Charter cable box control looks like it controls the space shuttle.
The menu system isn't really so bad, just ugly, compared to the Sony's
menu system that uses xbox styles. But this rant is officially about
signal quality only.
I use a tivo hd on charter with no problems. I have to use a antenna to
get cbs hd. The cable cards are 3.00 a month for 2

Going HD with Charter - round 4, the sucking
 

Have you checked to see what's coming in directly from the cable? My cable
company (Cablevision) carries all the major New York stations as they are
received OTA. So without any converter box, we can still get (e.g.) Channel
4 (SD), Channel 4.1 (HD) and other digital SD content on Channels 4.2 and
4.4. (I don't know why there's no Channel 4.3.) If you're getting something
like this, then you should be able to put a splitter on your coax and run
one of the outputs directly to the TV and still get the OTA channels
unmucked-with, as well as analog versions of many of the SD cable channels.
This would let the Sony circuitry do what it does so well. A good HD set can
do amazing things even with an analog signal.

Letterboxing and pillarboxing are probably going to be an issue for several
years. Stretchovision probably can be seen as catering to the new American
demographic. We hear reports that Americans are becoming more obese than
ever. It's easy to imagine a correlation between obesity and hours spent
watching TV. Now they can see people on TV who "look like us" (as long as
they're standing up and not lying down). The owners manual for my TV (an LCD
model) warns against leaving it in pillarbox mode for too long as this could
result in burn-in. Cablevision seems to have come up with a reasonable
solution for this. They put gray bars in the pillarbox area.

If you think all of this is bad, read a little bit about the early years of
TV (B&W in the late 1930s and color in the early 1950s). One thing that's
different now is that a lot of lo-def content is being foisted off on us as
HD simply because it was encoded to HD specs at some point during its
journey from the camera to the screen. Some people even seem to think that
using a 16:9 aspect ratio makes it HDTV. In the early days of color TV, you
knew right away whether something was in color. Adding a color subcarrier to
B&W content didn't fool anyone. Actually, it made everything look brown,
thus making it even worse.

I hope that one day, digital broadcasts will have headers like email, so you
can see the specs of the content each step of the way. I have a feeling that
a lot of the accusations of overcompression will turn out to be unwarranted.
I also have a feeling that some guilty parties might fight strenuously
against this.

Going HD with Charter - round 4, the sucking
 

JXStern wrote:
On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:03:37 GMT, Alan F
wrote:

Many TVs and setup boxes do not provide stretch or zoom for the HD
signals. I don't follow your description of the stretch and zoom modes,
but I wonder if the DVR is set up to upconvert the SD channels.

What brand and model DVR did Charter provide?

Y'know, I only glanced at it, but might be Scientific Atlanta? Has a
big blue time display on the front, dark brown plastic. And my
parents didn't even realize the DVR function was there. I assume that
it's a DVR, as the first menu item that pops up says, "Start
recording", and the box is rather large if it doesn't contain a disk
and a couple of hamsters.

And this morning Mom reports something has gone wack, she was watching
ABC on HD, and when she switched to channel 7, it went "no signal".
Could be cable problem, probably cockpit problem, maybe switched the
input somehow. Oy.

J.

You should double check the setup for the cabling, the TV, and the
DVR. Your parents may have gotten a tech who doesn't know much about
setting up for HD.

Alan F

Going HD with Charter - round 4, the sucking
 

On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:29:05 -0500, "Nick Danger"
wrote:

Have you checked to see what's coming in directly from the cable? My cable
company (Cablevision) carries all the major New York stations as they are
received OTA. So without any converter box, we can still get (e.g.) Channel
4 (SD), Channel 4.1 (HD) and other digital SD content on Channels 4.2 and
4.4. (I don't know why there's no Channel 4.3.) If you're getting something
like this, then you should be able to put a splitter on your coax and run
one of the outputs directly to the TV and still get the OTA channels
unmucked-with, as well as analog versions of many of the SD cable channels.
This would let the Sony circuitry do what it does so well. A good HD set can
do amazing things even with an analog signal.

An interesting idea, but I suspect nothing has changed on the signal
down the cable since before the box was installed, which means all the
good stuff is encrypted.


Letterboxing and pillarboxing are probably going to be an issue for several
years. Stretchovision probably can be seen as catering to the new American
demographic. We hear reports that Americans are becoming more obese than
ever. It's easy to imagine a correlation between obesity and hours spent
watching TV. Now they can see people on TV who "look like us" (as long as
they're standing up and not lying down). The owners manual for my TV (an LCD
model) warns against leaving it in pillarbox mode for too long as this could
result in burn-in. Cablevision seems to have come up with a reasonable
solution for this. They put gray bars in the pillarbox area.

If you think all of this is bad, read a little bit about the early years of
TV (B&W in the late 1930s and color in the early 1950s). One thing that's
different now is that a lot of lo-def content is being foisted off on us as
HD simply because it was encoded to HD specs at some point during its
journey from the camera to the screen. Some people even seem to think that
using a 16:9 aspect ratio makes it HDTV. In the early days of color TV, you
knew right away whether something was in color. Adding a color subcarrier to
B&W content didn't fool anyone. Actually, it made everything look brown,
thus making it even worse.

I hope that one day, digital broadcasts will have headers like email, so you
can see the specs of the content each step of the way. I have a feeling that
a lot of the accusations of overcompression will turn out to be unwarranted.
I also have a feeling that some guilty parties might fight strenuously
against this.

Well sure, I suspect things will improve even at Charter, if you hold
your breath for three years.

And while I don't remember the early days of B&W, I do remember a 10"
screen, and the early days of color. I'm perfectly happy with my OTA
signal, all things considered. Even when channel 13.1 broadcasts
StarGate on a digital channel with a letterboxed image (probably shot
in full HD) in the middle of a 4:3 screen, the image so fuzzy it is
probably an NTSC tape of the original HD program. You need an
engineering degree just to understand what kind of garp you're looking
at.

J.

Going HD with Charter - round 4, the sucking
 

On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:42:45 -0500, "Jim" jimmy AT hotmail.com
wrote:

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/C...r-Honors-90181

I think you would agree with the 'Really?' part.....

Ha.

J.

Going HD with Charter - round 4, the sucking
 

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 03:09:22 GMT, Alan F
wrote:

You should double check the setup for the cabling, the TV, and the
DVR. Your parents may have gotten a tech who doesn't know much about
setting up for HD.

Yeah I should have thought to check for color settings etc on the box.

The only instruction manual they left was about six pages long and no
help at all.

But they did manage to get it connected, programmed the remote to
match the Sony, and apparently gave a decent tutorial on basic
operation.

Dang, I meant to call Charter today to ask their opinion. Well, maybe
I should wait until I've hacked around on it, probably this weekend.
I'm curious if the Food Channel is even coming in on digital, ... but
come to think of it, it may come in on digital and still be converted
by Charter from NTSC upstream. But I suspect it's being converted to
digital by our cable box. Blech.

J.