[CATV] Cox HD quality suffering from increased channels? Page 3
Links: home · search · speed test · login · more ·
Links: Reply New Topic
Forums » US Cable Support » Cox HSI » [CATV] Cox HD quality suffering from increased channels?
page: 1 · 2 · 3
anon @ 11th Oct 12:49AM:
msg deleted
deleted by a moderator
reply
nweibley @ 24th Oct 05:22PM:
Re: [CATV] Cox HD quality suffering from increased channels?
Bump. Today things are looking _worse_ especially noticed FX channel is looking utterly terrible. Periodic chroma glitches happen in gray textures about every 3-4 seconds...
Feel like nobody at Cox is getting the picture on this. (No pun intended)
reply
m8trix @ 24th Oct 05:59PM:
Re: [CATV] Cox HD quality suffering from increased channels?
did you have a tech come out yet since asked 2 post ago
reply
nweibley @ 24th Oct 06:27PM:
Re: [CATV] Cox HD quality suffering from increased channels?
No, as BillRoland and I have clearly articulated having a tech out to look at the signal is almost certainly going to solve nothing. IME if anything it is a stalling tactic, and extremely frustrating to boot.
An inside wiring signal problem explicitly cannot explain the phenomenon's simultaneous presence at multiple locations throughout the city and into neighboring Ocala. That is the crux of my frustration with the time-wasting tech visit...
With that said I have also asked if having a tech out is the only way to get some attention on this issue at a regional level... I'm still not clear on that. I worry that a tech will come out, foot drag about upstream signal problems which have absolutely nothing to do with downstream video feeds, and nothing will get done about this.
reply
needforspeed59 @ 24th Oct 06:47PM:
Re: [CATV] Cox HD quality suffering from increased channels?
At any given moment people across any given community can be having similar issues. It doesn't mean it is systemic. I may be. it may not be. You need to get a tech out first. Complaining here is not going to get anything acomplished. I wish you luck and hope whatever it is gets resolved.
--
Great success! High five!
reply
m8trix @ 24th Oct 08:29PM:
Re: [CATV] Cox HD quality suffering from increased channels?
as stated it may not be systematic you are 1 person out of god know how many customers and if every person was having the same issue im sure cox would of dealt with it but as it seem to be just a few people you know that by chance are having same issue it can still be related to your residence and need to have a tech go out.if your not going to have a tech out there is no point in posting in here help
reply
anon @ 24th Oct 08:46PM:
Re: [CATV] Cox HD quality suffering from increased channels?
Every TV is different. From refresh rates to Tv settings. All sports are filmed in 720p because of the fact that most TV's cannot keep up with the fast movement causing a blurred trail affect.
I have in my Home a Samsung 240 LED and a sharp Aquos. Both TV's display differently, and yes I prefer to watch on my LED because of the resilience picture quality. I also take in consideration that these TV's are meant to watch HD not Standard Def. and most shows are not in the 16:9 format today so when the box adjust for it you can tell the pic quality is distorted, but tell you the truth I don't watch anything but HD.
Lastly you have to remember Cox is the distributor, so in most cases they are just putting out what they get from the network.
I will lay it this way. I live this world of RF. I am in the industry and understand it to a tee. People have to remember signal quality and TV's performance all play a factor.
Not all TV's are created Equal...
reply
nweibley @ 24th Oct 08:56PM:
Re: [CATV] Cox HD quality suffering from increased channels?
You're going to have a heck of a fight convincing me a Panasonic V10 is the problem.
reply
cableguy619 @ 25th Oct 02:04AM:
Re: [CATV] Cox HD quality suffering from increased channels?
thats macro blocking
I have seen that more to be on the network side from my expereince. networks changing the rate shaping of their signals and not telling the MSO's they made the change causing issues at different times of the day. What I would do is write down the channels with issues and have Cox see if there is anythign in common.. Like 6 channels all in the same Freq or what not..
reply
anon @ 30th Oct 02:50AM:
Re: [CATV] Cox HD quality suffering from increased channels?
After looking at the picture posted on page two, that picture looks like the issue my household was having with our 3250HD receiver a few days ago. A technician came out and meticulously checked this and that. He finally determined that we had a faulty cable box and swapped that one with another box of the same model that he had in his truck.
That replacement box works 100%.
Maybe your box is dying ?
Also, every once in a blue moon we'll experience the video becoming a blocky mess; we've had to unplug our boxes from the power outlet and then re-plug them into the outlet to fix that problem.
reply
BillRoland @ 30th Oct 04:08AM:
Re: [CATV] Cox HD quality suffering from increased channels?
Well, not to stir up the hornets nest here, but I think what what is getting missed here is that nweibley and myself are not rank amateurs who are here to just complain about something. We both understand the basics of an HFC cable system, we both understand how to read and interpret signal levels, and we both know what we're seeing. What I think we both want is for our "High Definition" service to actually have high quality definition. nweibley obviously has a Panasonic Plasma HDTV, I myself have a Sony Trinitron CRT HDTV (and before anybody says "that's not an HDTV," yes it is, 1080i resolution), and my parents have a Samsung 1080p at their house. What I can say is that the FDC, RDC, and Tuner signal strength are all well within spec as is SNR. The problem I have is mostly with motion scenes macroblocking, and just a total lack of definition sometimes with even low motion scenes. The worst offenders for me are SciFi, History, CBS, ABC, NBC, and ESPN/ESPN2. I have also seen it on USA. I would also point out that this problem seems to have grown as the HD lineup has grown. I've observed the same issues on my CRT HDTV and on my parents LCD HDTV at their home. Believe me if I thought this had anything to do with signal problems I would have called for a truck roll long ago. I also find the explanation that its all the broadcaster's fault to be a little difficult to believe, but I'm sure I can go over to the DirecTV forum and find out, since their picture should be equally bad. Somehow I doubt I will find that.
--
"Don't steal. The government hates competition."
Beyond AM. Beyond FM. XM
reply
planetlowe @ 30th Oct 10:24AM:
Re: [CATV] Cox HD quality suffering from increased channels?
They always try to blame the broadcaster but that argument can quickly be alleviated by plugging in an antenna and seeing a true HD signal that hasn't been compressed numerous times to try and and squeeze as many channels as possible into a fixed amount of bandwidth.
The HD channels on Cox have definitely gotten progressively worse. I love the fact that they are adding to their channel lineup but the decrease in quality is getting so bad I wish they would stop.
reply
nweibley @ 30th Oct 12:35PM:
Re: [CATV] Cox HD quality suffering from increased channels?
Thank you Bill.
DirecTV got into hot water when their customer base started noticing they were applying heavy handed compression to their feed. There is a detailed thread over on AVSForum that demonstrates the phenomenon which is extremely similar to what we're seeing here.
The difference is so far this seems to be mostly affecting the Cox Ocala/Gainesville market and the customer base is tiny compared to DirecTV's national audience, so the number of people who actually notice this is relatively small in comparison.
It's frustrating, and if I wasn't moving in a year or two I'd go through the hassle of switching to a sat provider. To put it bluntly I care most about college football, and it's pretty distracting to watch a runner's legs turn into little MPEG squares every time they get going. Not to mention our local Cox offices pump the volume on the channels up intolerably loud, on every single local commercial (Cox ads or Cox produced ads, they are all the same).
Really all I want is a Cox engineer who can get in touch with the headend and just ensure they're intending to do this and it's not a misconfigured encoder or modulator problem. I have seen these same feeds on my FIOS DVR from Tampa and I can confidently say the Cox feed doesn't hold a candle to the FIOS feed, so blaming the broadcaster is a crap excuse. The problem lies elsewhere.
reply
anon @ 30th Oct 07:53PM:
Re: [CATV] Cox HD quality suffering from increased channels?
I don't see the same issues you describe on the video side (using a Hitachi 51" HDTV and Philips HDTV 47" in VA).
The audio side I talked directly to someone about and was told the volume increase is part of marketing and it isn't going away. Basically the local adds will have the volume increased so if you are in another room you will still hear them.
This isn't too bad if you are using the speakers on the TV but when you are hooked directly from your STB to a digital audio receiver the extra sound is ridiculous.
I didn't believe this at first but then started noticing it not only with local Cox spots but also local car commercials, restaurants, and other businesses so for me this checks out.
reply
planetlowe @ 30th Oct 09:00PM:
Re: [CATV] Cox HD quality suffering from increased channels?
said by DDR329 :
I don't see the same issues you describe on the video side (using a Hitachi 51" HDTV and Philips HDTV 47" in VA).
The audio side I talked directly to someone about and was told the volume increase is part of marketing and it isn't going away. Basically the local adds will have the volume increased so if you are in another room you will still hear them.
This isn't too bad if you are using the speakers on the TV but when you are hooked directly from your STB to a digital audio receiver the extra sound is ridiculous.
I didn't believe this at first but then started noticing it not only with local Cox spots but also local car commercials, restaurants, and other businesses so for me this checks out.
That won't last long.
»www.insidescience.org/policy/red···f_tv_ads
reply
anon @ 9th Nov 07:54PM:
Re: [CATV] Cox HD quality suffering from increased channels?
By any means, I'm not an engineer, nor am I an expert in the Video field. I've only worked at Cox as a CSR Video tech for about 1 yr 3 months. I've seen your problem in a few situations. Here in the east coast, particularly in NOVA I've heard of this and in the aptly named SOVA area I've heard of this. Although our areas have been upgraded, there are still some of those that still have issues like this. I'm going to have to agree -- if you want something done, you need to complain to Cox DIRECTLY. Log the service calls (we log EVERY service call here as long as you've placed a call in and requested a tech out -- I get numerous customers that state that they've had tech after tech and I go to my work order screen, to see that they've either only had a tech out *once* and it was last year, or they haven't had a tech in the last 2 or 3 months for the same problem). What I'm saying is if we're not out there, we won't know. Our techs here if we've had 2 to 3 service calls for the same issue, it gets escalated to a field tech or maintenance to check out the feed and monitor it. You would have contact with the field supervisors or the head end (I have had customers in DIRECT contract with our engineers and our head end people). If we don't get out there, we won't know. If you have that much of a problem, call us and get us out there so we can fix it, get the ball rolling, whatever we need to do. Its not going to do you any good speaking your problem on the forums --wait let me take that back--it does because you're at least getting the word out that you have a problem, just not to the right channels. I really hope you have already gotten this resolved...
reply
CoxTech1 @ 10th Nov 08:58AM:
Re: [CATV] Cox HD quality suffering from increased channels?
Please remember who is authorized to post on behalf of Cox:
»Cox HSI Forum FAQ »Who are the authorized Cox employees that provide support on this forum?
reply
Thank you for using lo-fi dslreports.com - report bugs
© 99-2009 silver matrix LLC