Question about On demand PQ vs. PQ on HD channels

[vdogamer]

Hi all, I'm hoping someone can help me with this. The wife and I were going to watch Transformers on Comcast on demand last night but I decided to check out the preview of it before spending the $5.99, well the preview looked like absolute crap on our screen.
So then I started checking out previews of alot of the other hd movies available and they all looked horrible. So i'm wondering if the movies will look as bad as the previews did and if so is it just because of the compression needed to stream the PPV movies.
All our HD channels look great, some nearing the quality of blu ray when showing good source material.
If what I was seeing is what downloaded movies will look you'd have to be blind to accept that. Thanks for the help

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by vdogamer

Hi all, I'm hoping someone can help me with this. The wife and I were going to watch Transformers on Comcast on demand last night but I decided to check out the preview of it before spending the $5.99, well the preview looked like absolute crap on our screen.
So then I started checking out previews of alot of the other hd movies available and they all looked horrible. So i'm wondering if the movies will look as bad as the previews did and if so is it just because of the compression needed to stream the PPV movies.
All our HD channels look great, some nearing the quality of blu ray when showing good source material.
If what I was seeing is what downloaded movies will look you'd have to be blind to accept that. Thanks for the help

They allocate bandwidth to the networks, that isn't allocated to specific addressable customers. Movies you order and sandwiched into the bitstream, at a much lower rate; not only is the bandwidth lower, you can wind up with artifacts, lockups, and all kinds of nonsense when you're trying to order an On Demand movie.

My provider (Time Warner in my area) finally stopped delivering HD for On Demand altogether; while I live in a fiber optic community, most of their customers don't, and there just wasn't room to send the signals out. But On Demand - even with standard def movies - just looks horrible.

I don't even bother, but my wife will watch any "chick flick" on On Demand, even if it's not in letterbox format (and most aren't). It's horrifying.

[Sylin]

We watched Superbad on HD OnDemand and the quality was "decent", but still a lot of compression. It did NOT look as good as our regular HD channels like HDNet or TNT HD.

Trivia Tip: I recently discovered from a 3rd party tech who came out to fix my cable cards that most cable companies place their OnDemand, HD tiers, and VoIP services on the same frequency. So if you buy into their "bundles", you're really just gimping your signal quality.

[blu2]

Originally Posted by vdogamer

Hi all, I'm hoping someone can help me with this. The wife and I were going to watch Transformers on Comcast on demand last night but I decided to check out the preview of it before spending the $5.99, well the preview looked like absolute crap on our screen.
So then I started checking out previews of alot of the other hd movies available and they all looked horrible. So i'm wondering if the movies will look as bad as the previews did and if so is it just because of the compression needed to stream the PPV movies.
All our HD channels look great, some nearing the quality of blu ray when showing good source material.
If what I was seeing is what downloaded movies will look you'd have to be blind to accept that. Thanks for the help

I can't speak about Comcast, but I did purchase Transformers via PPV from my local cable operator (Rogers in Canada) and the PQ was on a par with their usual HD offers. Not quite Blu Ray quality, but a suitable substitute for titles not yet on Blu Ray.

[dv8pdx]

so here is another question in regards to this... for example, star wars movies have been on Cinemax in HD for a while, maybe not anymore, but I will use them as an example. If I watch the HD version on the Cinemax HD channel will it be better than if I watched the Video OnDemand from Cinemax HD for the same movie?

[Geech]

I just watched the preview and is looks like the preview is in SD. Check out the Free HD On Demand movies. They look much better than the previews

[Sylin]

Originally Posted by dv8pdx

so here is another question in regards to this... for example, star wars movies have been on Cinemax in HD for a while, maybe not anymore, but I will use them as an example. If I watch the HD version on the Cinemax HD channel will it be better than if I watched the Video OnDemand from Cinemax HD for the same movie?

My initial thought would be "yes". Live streaming of a movie usually results in the cable company "dumbing down" the quality to keep the stream up. Although the results might be negligible for most viewers. Just my opinion, of course.

I just dislike how cable companies brand anything in 720p as "hi def". It's like saying that all paintings are Michaelangelo's, or all sodas are Coca-Cola. There's a lot of Monet's and RC Cola's out there.