My cable company giveth, my cable company taketh away. The good news is that I am getting more HD channels. The bad news is that putting more HD into the pipe means something’s got to give to make room for the new channels. The technical details (compression, reduced bit-rate, etc.) are less meaningful than the end result: loss of detail, video artifacts, and macro-blocking. The picture just doesn’t pop like it used to on certain channels.
I’ve gone back and forth between satellite and cable over the years, most recently based on the quality and quantity of HD programming, especially my local HD networks. I cannot get over-the-air, even though I live in a major metropolitan TV market, because of the long distance from the transmitter and several inconveniently located mountains.
So the question is whether to put up with the reduced quality, or put the dish back on the roof. The satellite providers have their own picture quality issues, so it’s not as though there is a clear answer for someone wanting the most channels of high-quality HD programming. The competition between cable and satellite (with fiber-based services playing catch-up) has accelerated the number of available HD channels, but the quality of HD programming seems to be headed in the opposite direction. As more consumers purchase HD sets, I expect (hope?) that the market will insist on higher video quality so we can get the most out of our new HDTV’s.
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