Comcast or Verizon? (Pitt newbie) (Birmingham: transfer, purchasing, bars)

[Mugatu]

Originally Posted by greg42

I've heard varying opinions on whose HD picture is better, actually (and the boss would be a stickler for picture quality). Generally I've heard it's Comcast that's better, but that's not what people here on the forum are saying.

In my area (North Fayette/Robinson), the FiOS HD picture is noticeably better here than I had with Comcast. It's much sharper with less macroblocking/pixelation. I'd say FiOS is much closer to blu-ray quality than Comcast was.

Purplesque....not sure what to say about your experience lol. As people have said in this thread, both companies are epic failures at customer service apparently. The reason I was driven to Verizon to begin with was when I called Comcast to renegotiate my rates after my current offer expired. They quoted me one rate, which I found acceptable, but they couldn't adjust anything until my current offer expired in about a week, so they asked me to call then. So I called back, their "best" rate was suddenly $15/month higher than what I was previously quoted, and they had no record of my previous call. Farewell, Concast...

[KoobleKar]

Originally Posted by jay5835

You'll need to check whether you can get FIOS in Shadyside. It wasn't available as of May 1, 2010.

My Son has had FIOS in Shadyside (Denniston St) for over a year now.

[purplesque]

Originally Posted by Mugatu

I
Purplesque....not sure what to say about your experience lol. As people have said in this thread, both companies are epic failures at customer service apparently.

lol..I'm calling it Kafkaesque. Anyway, FIOS does not seem to be available at my new address on Fifth Ave, and DSL is probably not worth the hassle. Comcast it is!

[youngabe]

Originally Posted by purplesque

Wow. Sorry for the quick updates, but I will NOT be ordering from Verizon.

I called them trying to get information on when FIOS might be available in my area and to see if they have some international channels that I wanted. The 1800 number kept redirecting me, so I ended up live-chatting with a rep. He told me I would have to finalize my order before he would even tell me how much the additional International channels would cost

You will have to call, but I can't give you the phone number until you order. Go ahead and place your order NOW.

It was ridiculous! This, even before I am a paying customer. Its a good thing in a way because they have ensured that I will never be a paying customer at Verizon.

All I can say is, RUN NOW. These are my similar experiences with Verizon. Never had a good experience any time I needed to pick up the phone and actually deal with Verizon.

[BrianTH]

On picture quality, here is a rundown on what is happening at Comcast from some serious geeks at AVS Forum, complete with illustrative screen captiures:

Comcast HD Quality Reduction: Details, Screenshots - AVS Forum

As I noted above, cable doesn't have bandwidth to compete with FTTP when it comes to HD channels. So to keep up, Comcast is adding compression to its HD channels so it can pack more of them into its limited bandwidth, which ends up degrading picture quality. FiOS doesn't need to do that.

Of course you might not notice--you might not have a good HD TV, for example. But if you are looking for the best picture quality, you definitely have to go with FiOS over Comcast.

[airwair]

Comcast is pretty much the devil in my book. Verizon is not all rainbows and butterflies, but I'll deal with them over Comcast any day.

[KoobleKar]

....and Comcast and Versus is part-n-parcel to the Philadelphia Flyers!

[Aqua Teen Carl]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

On picture quality, here is a rundown on what is happening at Comcast from some serious geeks at AVS Forum, complete with illustrative screen captiures:

Comcast HD Quality Reduction: Details, Screenshots - AVS Forum

As I noted above, cable doesn't have bandwidth to compete with FTTP when it comes to HD channels. So to keep up, Comcast is adding compression to its HD channels so it can pack more of them into its limited bandwidth, which ends up degrading picture quality. FiOS doesn't need to do that.

Of course you might not notice--you might not have a good HD TV, for example. But if you are looking for the best picture quality, you definitely have to go with FiOS over Comcast.

Good post, just one of the issues I was going to talk about. If you go with Comcast (cable and internet), here's some lovely things that you'll run into:

- Hidden bandwidth cap. That "unlimited, high speed, Comcastic" internet is actually capped at 250 GB per month, after that they'll shut down your service. Do you like streaming HD content from Netflix? If so then you should watch out.
- Sub HD quality. This was addressed above in Brian's post. Pay for HD quality and don't get what you pay for.
- Sneaky internet practices. Look up sandvining, bandwidth throttling, reducing speed when using bandwidth, awfully slow DNS servers etc. Bottom line is that they will do anything in their power to make sure that you don't get the full use out of the service you pay for.
- Aging infrastructure. Everyone knows that your internet service's speed when using cable depends on everyone else who is also on the network. Since Comcast has no desire to update their ancient infrastructure due to the financial strain it would cause, you'll be stuck with slow speed. Ditto on the speed of browsing menus with their pathetic TV receivers.

I can't really comment on Verizon since they're not available "in my area", yet my friends who live a block and a half away can get their service. It's been like that for about 3 years now.

[greg42]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

On picture quality, here is a rundown on what is happening at Comcast from some serious geeks at AVS Forum, complete with illustrative screen captiures:

Interesting. From a couple years ago, so maybe my more general "I've heard" stuff dates back to earlier than that. They recently (last month) dropped a bunch of analog channels which use a huge amount of the bandwidth. Not sure if that will mean less compression or just that they want room to add more compressed channels.

I don't actually get any HD from Comcast so I can't personally see what it looks like except when I go to others' houses. That tends to be mostly in other areas anyway, and I tend not to be paying close attention to quality at those times. And the quality apparently can vary by area and by channel (i.e. some channels are given less compression than others, or even none).

I have an HDTV even without HD cable service. I watch DVD and Blu-ray movies (and swear I can see a difference, although it upscales the DVD very well), sometimes streaming internet stuff jacked into the TV, and HDTV with an antenna, which is of course the best way to get an uncompressed picture for the few channels that you can do that with.

[BrianTH]

I haven't seen much Blu-ray or OTA HD, but I can definitely see the difference between upscaled DVD and a decent HD feed on FiOS.

Anyway, the basic problem is the technology: cable has much, much less bandwidth than FTTP, and there are already enough HD channels available to swamp cable's bandwidth. I don't really see a way out of that problem for cable, and it is likely only going to get worse.