Worse HD = More HD! - Andy the Cable Guy #2
- 0 Comments
Have you ever wondered why you don’t get ESPN3, but your relative in another city does? Well, that’s because the channels you get in your lineup is limited, and it’s your provider’s choice as to what channels you get. This is important because instead of getting another informative Discovery channel we instead get a pay-per-view channel, because they make Comcast (or Time Warner, cox, and the like) more money.
Currently, cable providers are limited to how much bandwidth they can send to you at any given moment (hence the lame regional choices), and unlike DirectTV, who can add new satellites to add more channels, cable is held back by it’s wired network. Thanks to Cable’s stranglehold on communication (TV, Internet and now Phone) with the advancements in technology over the years, the amount of TV channels we have access to really hasn’t blossomed like most have hoped. Look at HDTV for example; it has been mainstream for years now and on average, only 15-25 HD channels are available on cable. This is because there is already so much going over the cable lines, there’s not much they can do to add more channels without rewiring the networks (like they should be doing).
Oh wait! Yes there is! Comcast, for example, found a new way to add more channels… by lowering the quality of other HD channels! That’s right, according to Gizmodo, a user at the AVS forums ran some tests, to find that Comcast has lowered the bitrate at which it dedicates to certain channels. By lowering these on non-vital HD channels, it can then add another HD channel or two.. The problem is, people pay extra to get HD channels, only to have those channels be of poor quality. That isn’t exactly High Definition.
This is one of the many drawbacks to Cable over DirectTV. DirectTV and the Dish network both only have to add more Satellites in order to add more channels. Granted, the cost is probably comparable to completely rewiring America, but it doesn’t take nearly as long or as much manpower. DSL has been using the old lines all along, and with FioS, Verizon is already rewiring everywhere. If you have access to FioS, you have fairly new hardware in your neighborhood.
So keep this in mind for now. If you haven’t dropped the bomb on HD, you should still consider waiting, the price drop in HD TV’s is still expected in the near future! So between channel limitations and pricing, there’s still a valid argument for not jumping the gun.
There is hope for the future, but you’ll have to wait for it (Specifically, 1 week). Until then!
