# Xfinity



## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

I hate how Xfinity dropped all their channels to 720p just as I bought a 4K monitor.
It appears their streaming app on Roku is the same resolution.

I really cannot afford DirecTv since I retired, since they add so many nickel and dime charges, and Dish cuts resolution as well, although not as much as Xfinity.

Are the streaming services which have cloud DVR services also bit-starved or do they provide full 1081i/p ?


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

HD channels on Xfinity are still 1080p here.


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## WestDC (Feb 9, 2008)

Yeah Comcast -Doesn't nickel and dime ya one bit


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## Phil T (Mar 25, 2002)

I occasionally see artifacts or blurring on Xfinity/Comcast but not often. After 20 years with satellite, both Dish and DirecTV, the picture quality of Xfinity is fine for me.
So glad not having to brush snow off a dish anymore. We get a lot of that here. Savings with a DoublePlay package and TiVO's keeps me happy.


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## MysteryMan (May 17, 2010)

Phil T said:


> So glad not having to brush snow off a dish anymore.


I live in the northeast and have been a DIRECTV customer for twenty five years and can count the number of times I had to brush snow off my dish on my hands and have fingers left over.


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## compnurd (Apr 23, 2007)

Nick said:


> HD channels on Xfinity are still 1080p here.


No provider expect some streaming ones use 1080P Channels are either 1080i or 720P Comcast went further and bit starved there channels


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## compnurd (Apr 23, 2007)

He 


MysteryMan said:


> I live in the northeast and have been a DIRECTV customer for twenty five years and can count the number of times I had to brush snow off my dish on my hands and have fingers left over.


is up there that dish probably is angled like a soup bowl


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## MysteryMan (May 17, 2010)

compnurd said:


> He
> 
> is up there that dish probably is angled like a soup bowl


Wet, heavy snow regardless of the amount will block the signal. I've had inches of powdery snow accumulate on my dish and not block the signal.


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## eletric chicken (Dec 28, 2019)

WestDC said:


> Yeah Comcast -Doesn't nickel and dime ya one bit


nope not at all. i talked to a friend of mine that's paying comcrap 100.00 a month for a crappy 30 meg connection!!! nope they don't nickel and dime you to death.. i hear cox is just as bad as well with the charges. and these morons wonder why people are cutting the cord


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## eletric chicken (Dec 28, 2019)

MysteryMan said:


> I live in the northeast and have been a DIRECTV customer for twenty five years and can count the number of times I had to brush snow off my dish on my hands and have fingers left over.


i lived in boston many moons ago i never had a problem with snow ice or rain fade... though move out to taxiforina and it rained so hard not even i could see where i was going and whata you know i lost signal.


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## billsharpe (Jan 25, 2007)

I had DirecTV in Southern California for about seven years and never got rained out. I gave it up mainly to get Internet service, plus the Verizon FiOS picture quality was better.


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## NR4P (Jan 16, 2007)

Davenlr said:


> I hate how Xfinity dropped all their channels to 720p just as I bought a 4K monitor.
> It appears their streaming app on Roku is the same resolution.
> 
> I really cannot afford DirecTv since I retired, since they add so many nickel and dime charges, and Dish cuts resolution as well, although not as much as Xfinity.
> ...


How do you know Xfinity dropped all channels to 720p?


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

eletric chicken said:


> nope not at all. i talked to a friend of mine that's paying comcrap 100.00 a month for a crappy 30 meg connection!!! nope they don't nickel and dime you to death.. i hear cox is just as bad as well with the charges. and these morons wonder why people are cutting the cord


$50 for 30 Mbps, $50 for unlimited (more than 1TB per month). Not $100 for 30 Mbps.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

NR4P said:


> How do you know Xfinity dropped all channels to 720p?


He read it on the Internet. It must be true.


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## Phil T (Mar 25, 2002)

MysteryMan said:


> I live in the northeast and have been a DIRECTV customer for twenty five years and can count the number of times I had to brush snow off my dish on my hands and have fingers left over.


Our Winters are so unpredictable. This year we got tons of snow in October and so far none in December and January. Dry powder is never an issue. Heavy wet snow is.

In 20 years subscribing to satellite I found the small dishes were not much of an issue. The bigger slimline dishes were a PITA especially after DirecTV insisted on mounting mine on the roof. I broke down and got a dish heater and that worked fine for many years, but a few times I had to climb on the roof and remove snow before I got the heater. Scared myself a few times on the icy sloped roof and ladder.

Finally about 5 years ago I got the Slimline relocated back to the side of the house where I could just brush it off as needed. DirecTV wold not remove the old dish, even though they put it there. They left it up to me. We get occasional 12+" dumps that is not fun hiking through to clear a dish. I always kept a antenna connected so I could still get locals during a snow storm.

Typing this reminded me of the bird fade I got once with Dish Network. I had no signal and went out to look at the dish. I had a dove sitting on the LNB arm. 

Anyway, I am thankful for cable now whenever we get a big dump of snow. One less thing for this old guy to worry about!


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

NR4P said:


> How do you know Xfinity dropped all channels to 720p?


Because that is the resolution my Tivo is receiving, except I believe for two locals that are still 1080i. They slowly changed from 1080 to 720 at the same time they changed from mpeg2 to mpeg4.


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## techguy88 (Mar 19, 2015)

Actually Comcast/Xfinity is known for starving their channels when the opportunity presents itself. Back when HD was starting out and DirecTV was touting that it was the leader in HD and FiOS was adding more HD channels, Comcast began to compress its HD channels to fit more onto its systems. There was one thread on AVS where a guy was in the process of switching from FiOS to Comcast because Comcast had just launched his area's RSN in HD and he had to keep FiOS for a little bit to finish out a contract so he had both of them overlapping. 

He noticed on some channels Comcast was severely compressing them to the point it was very noticeable. Using two identical TiVos with CableCards he was able to get bitrates from both FiOS and Comcast for the same channels and in some cases like A&E HD FiOS bitrate was 18.66 Mbps where Comcast's was 14.48 Mbps for the same program a whole 28.9% difference. The cause of this was when Comcast started to squeeze 3 HD MPEG2 encoded channels on 1 QAM frequency. His comparisons even made news on industry websites at the time. 

They are now putting as many as 4 HD channels on 1 QAM frequency. Starting in 2015 they started their MPEG4 transition in what they call "HD Enhanced"  however some users are noticing that during the MPEG4 transition 1080i channels are being converted to 720p. Comcast's X1 boxes don't tell the customer the resolution Comcast is transmitting the signal in but TiVo will.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Like some here, I had directv for close to 25 years, from 1994 onwards (customer number in the very low 5 digits) but when the monthly cost started nibbling at $300/month (yes, I had 3-4movie channels, mlb exinn, and if course the 'ticket') for well past 15 years past early retirement, but the rediculous multiple reciever and HD fees (I note that dish just dropped the reciever fees and had minimized the hd fees long ago) I dropped the whole pack over a year ago, as I was paying comcast/xfinity for internet as well. Had a load of roku's already, netflix (with discs) and Amazon prime, added hulu and psvue (now yttv) and Disney+ and have mlb streaming as well, for some $150/month less.

But now xfinity just raised their internet fees 10-15%; I already have two flyers from wireless providers (us cellular and verizon), and I put in for the tmobile internet as I have them for cell service, but they never got back to me although both my two closest tmobile towers have been recently upgraded to both 600mhz and 2500mhz as well as 5g. 

I don't think the corporate folks in philly realize what is going to happen now in 2020, i can't believe they are so dense. I used to know a bunch of folks in the business, especially as my father helped start a couple of cablecos back in the 50's and I spent my career after government service working for equipment manufacturers and doing worldwide customer service. But wireless including LEO sats are going to provide more than reasonable speeds at 1/4 the price as wireline. The cablecos are going to be squashed. Their stock is going to crash. 

This is going to be fun to watch.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Well, Comcast did it again. The kid watches the Nick channels in the 1700's here. Yesterday, they started showing black screens, then today not available on the Tivo. Checked the Xfinity stream app, and they are all still there in HD, so apparently, they removed them from the linear lineup and moved them to the X1 IP channels. Since Tivo doesnt do IP, I just get nothing.
They are still available in the SD portion of the linear lineup though, so it looks like Xfinity is going to push everyone to their X1 platform eventually or lose all their channels. I have a lot invested in Tivo equipment here, and this is really sad.


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## JoeTheDragon (Jul 21, 2008)

Davenlr said:


> Well, Comcast did it again. The kid watches the Nick channels in the 1700's here. Yesterday, they started showing black screens, then today not available on the Tivo. Checked the Xfinity stream app, and they are all still there in HD, so apparently, they removed them from the linear lineup and moved them to the X1 IP channels. Since Tivo doesnt do IP, I just get nothing.
> They are still available in the SD portion of the linear lineup though, so it looks like Xfinity is going to push everyone to their X1 platform eventually or lose all their channels. I have a lot invested in Tivo equipment here, and this is really sad.


File an FCC complaint they are braking the laws for cable cards


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## Phil T (Mar 25, 2002)

This week I ordered a X1 XG1v4 4K box for my main Sony 65" 4K TV. 

I moved my Tivo's to the basement and bedroom and to use as backups for recordings.

TiVO adding pre-roll ads to their recordings, dropping VOD, the useless TiVO+ crap and their terrible guide data pushed me to try the X1 box again.

To my surprise the picture quality on the XG1v4 is better then my TiVO Bolt Vox. I keep my settings at 2160p60 4K UHD.
I think the picture quality and colors are better then I could ever get on my Tivo and possibly better then my DirecTV HS17/C61K days. 

I know many complain about Comcast using 720P for most channels. I still have some locals coming through at 1080. This has really been a non issue for us. All channels look extremely clear.

My wife has also adapted to the Smart Resume commercials skipping very easily. I was afraid losing the Auto Skip on the TiVO would be a deal killer but Smart Resume works very well.

Having VOD back, Netflix, Peacock and many other Apps back in one box is nice also. With TiVO the Apps have not worked well, rebooting the Bolt and messing up recordings in the process. I have been using a ROKU and Apple TV as a work around for the TiVO.

Sad that I invested so much in TiVO hardware three year ago when I dropped DirecTV. I thought the payback for not renting from Comcast would be worthwhile. 
I didn't envision the TiVO service going downhill as much as it has. 

Since my Bolt Vox has lifetime service and Comcast refunds me $5.00 a month for the cablecard, the $10.00 a month X1 rental is do-able. 
The Tivo will work fine for the bedroom and basement.

One issue with the XG1v4. I use a Harmony remote with the Harmony Hub. The IR is not very sensitive and requires me to use an extender placed directly in front of the tiny window on the XG1v4 to control it reliably.


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