Compression

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@Rdarling18 wrote:
Why in 2019 are we still watching a 720p strengh signal for all comcast channels even their hd ones, ive really recently noticed while at a friends house that watching sports there looked signifcantly better even though we have the same tv calibrated the same way. Did some research and most of comcast stuff is compressed down to 720p which looks god awful on the newer bigger 4k tvs. Just curious if this is being worked on or if i should switch providers.

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no broadcast channel is in 1080p or higher. 720p is HD. local channels are in 720p or 1080i. cable channels are provided in HD at 720p. 

If you re in a metro. area; you would be better off installing a good amplified antenna and watch the 1080i channels over the air.

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@Rdarling18 wrote:
Why in 2019 are we still watching a 720p strengh signal for all comcast channels even their hd ones, ive really recently noticed while at a friends house that watching sports there looked signifcantly better even though we have the same tv calibrated the same way. Did some research and most of comcast stuff is compressed down to 720p which looks god awful on the newer bigger 4k tvs. Just curious if this is being worked on or if i should switch providers.

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There was a change a few years ago.

Before, Comcast would send out whatever the origional HD was (720p or 1080i).

But a few years ago, this was changed, and now on Cable Channels, HD that is 1080i is converted by Comcast to 720p before it's sent out.

The ONLY 1080i is for Local HD (NBC, CBS, etc), FOX and ABC have always been 720p I believe. Alotof people were not happy about this, as the Premium Movie Channels (HBO, Show, etc) don't look as good being converted by Comcast from 1080i to 720p.

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@FAUguy wrote:

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@Rdarling18 wrote:
Why in 2019 are we still watching a 720p strengh signal for all comcast channels even their hd ones, ive really recently noticed while at a friends house that watching sports there looked signifcantly better even though we have the same tv calibrated the same way. Did some research and most of comcast stuff is compressed down to 720p which looks god awful on the newer bigger 4k tvs. Just curious if this is being worked on or if i should switch providers.

---

There was a change a few years ago.

Before, Comcast would send out whatever the origional HD was (720p or 1080i).

But a few years ago, this was changed, and now on Cable Channels, HD that is 1080i is converted by Comcast to 720p before it's sent out.

The ONLY 1080i is for Local HD (NBC, CBS, etc), FOX and ABC have always been 720p I believe. Alotof people were not happy about this, as the Premium Movie Channels (HBO, Show, etc) don't look as good being converted by Comcast from 1080i to 720p.

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actually the change was from mpeg2 to a uniform mpeg4 cable channels. the feeds to comcast are in HEVC (informaly called mpeg5 or mpeg-g). the equipment at comcast puts it out to devices and stremaing in different formats and streaming rates (to smart devices for example). Hopefully we will have HEVC sent directly to us, too.