HD enthusiasts crying foul over cable TV's crunched signals

April 21, 2008 By CHRIS WILLIAMS, Associated Press Writer

Brent Swanson sits in front of a screen projection in his basement home theater in Minneapolis on Thursday, April 10, 2008. He and other HD viewers question whether they are getting the quality they paid for, as cable providers pack more HD channels into a limited bandwidth. (AP Photo/Janet Hostetter)

(AP) -- In Brent Swanson's basement home theater, there should be nothing drab about "Battlestar Galactica." He's got a high-end projector that beams the picture onto a wall painted like a silver screen, and speakers loom in the corners, flanking two big subwoofers.

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• Corvidae - Apr 21, 2008
  • Rank: 5 / 5 (9)
  They degrade the signal on the SciFi channel and expected not to catch flak about it?!?! There's probably room for compression amongst the channels, (Food network in HD?!?!) But to downgrade the geekiest channel in the line up is going draw attention and complaints pretty quick.
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• Nikola - Apr 21, 2008
  • Rank: 5 / 5 (5)
  Well said Corvidae. And also, once again, sports gets preference over science at all times in the media in this country. There are hundreds of channels of 'ball' but only a few science channels. Kinda like the Romans who became more concerned with entertainment (coliseum) than with keeping their civilization from collapsing. No wonder we're in this sorry shape.
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• mrlewish - Apr 21, 2008
  • Rank: 4 / 5 (4)
  hmm would this not be breach of contract? If I subscribe to a channel should I not get it as the orginal broadcaster intended? What if they showed only the left or right side of the screena and cut out half the sound? Could they still charge me full price?
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• Glis - Apr 21, 2008
  • Rank: 4.5 / 5 (4)
  Digital TV was always crap. They took advantage of the compression the day it rolled out. Half the SD channels on Dish look like they are youtube streams, while the HD channels look slightly better than what uncompressed SD should! They've purposely been degrading the SD channels to make the HD look better, even though they've compressed the HD into an artifact saturated mess.
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• zevkirsh - Apr 21, 2008
  • Rank: 1 / 5 (1)
  stock ticker bbnd....solution to all these problems and more.
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• deepsand - Apr 22, 2008
  • Rank: 3.7 / 5 (3)

  hmm would this not be breach of contract? If I subscribe to a channel should I not get it as the orginal broadcaster intended? What if they showed only the left or right side of the screena and cut out half the sound? Could they still charge me full price?

  
  
  Well, you might think so.
  
  But, if you read the fine print in your contract, it almost assuredly contains something along the lines of your provider providing service on a "best possible" basis; i.e., no guarantee.
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