rw2516

Dispute is just negotiation. Always settled. Never ever ever ever in the past 35 years has a channel been dropped or temporarily blacked out on my Comcast. Did find an example of Comcast dropping a regional sports channel, Avalanche Sports. Premium sports channels, that require subscription, maybe, don't know, but that's in pay per view territory and shouldn't count.

whotony

rw2516

The Xfinity platform runs off the wi-fi. When you are watching live tv you are watching the cable signal but all remote functions, on demand, dvr operate off the wi-fi. If the internet or wi-fi goes out you are stuck on the last channel you were watching but picture is perfect.
Box reboots every day. Usually around 3am.
Use the dvr instead of on demand for shows off commercial networks. You can fast forward recordings but not with on demand.
No weather issues.
This may be local but TvLand, Cozi, Antenna TV, and the Encore movie channels are SD only. But if you watch Encore movies/shows on demand they are HD.

melasnus

whotony

TGM

I have DTV and during bad storms will get disruption of service. It doesn't happen often, but it happens.

The Cow

Yeah, for sure it would go out in big storms or if the dish got covered in snow. But it was very minor blips compared to what I had from Time-Warner/Spectrum prior to having DTV.

I did give up DTV a year ago - tired of playing the yearly games to reduce the cost - and haven't missed it one bit.

melasnus

Very strange...sorry you had the problem.

Once in a great while I'll have a momentary signal drop during a rain/wind storm, but it's only for a second or 2.
I have had the snow/ice buildup problem when I lived in a climate known for nastiness in the winter.
Usually a broom and some cussing would do the trick...

Josh-da-man

I have noticed that, for the past couple of months, DirecTV does this weird thing where the image will freeze for a half a second or a second, then will "speed up" to catch up with the audio. It only does this while watching "live." The DVR recordings don't do that. In fact, if I'm watching something live and the freeze/speed-up happens, I can rewind back to that part and that part will play normally. I don't watch much tv live; I mostly timeshift, so it's not a big deal for me.

Another pixelation issue I've had with DirecTV is that during commercial breaks, the screen will break up and freeze for thirty seconds or so, then resume normally. I can also FF through this on a recording or live. I'm guessing they're trying to insert commercials and failing.

DJariya

Apparently the Lower 3rd crawl warning has been removed from ESPN, so signs point to the crisis being averted.

https://awfulannouncing.com/espn/cri...zA1tk_ieGOL-TM

JeffTheAlpaca

I watched football night in America on KNTV NBC 11 on Directv and the picture quality looks terrible on a 4K 82" TV.

It is probably a 1080i signal but HBO and Showtime are a lot better when it comes to picture quality.

fujishig

I'm curious if you cut the cord entirely, because I'm pretty sure cable does the same shenanigans of threatening to cancel, switching out, becoming a new customer and then treated like royalty for a year.

melasnus

Your display should have a button that reveals the source format...

Jeremy517

If you have the old-style Directv remote, you can just push the format button. There is also a button that changes it on the front of the Directv receiver.

Josh-da-man

I think all of DirectTV's HD content in 1080i, but the quality of the encoding/compression can vary a lot depending on the source.

Generally, I think this is out of DirecTV's hands; some of my HD channels look much better than others. My local Fox Network affiliate has a generally poor picture quality (the X-Files reboot, in particular, looked very sub-par, worse than DVD) and its programs take up less space on my DVR. But other local channels, like CBS, ABC, and NBC, look much better. I notice the same variation with cable channels as well.

Jeremy517

All of their content might be 1080i but you still have to tell your receiver/DVR which formats your TV can accept, and even after that you can still accidentally set your receiver to output something less than ideal. I'm not saying that is his problem for sure, but it is definitely possible to do.

Bill Needle

HD broadcast content on DTV is available in either 720p or 1080i, depending on what the source material it is broadcast in. You can limit what the receiver will output by telling it what your display supports, for instance if you set your output to 1080i only (uncheck 720p) the receiver will convert 720p to 1080i for your display. You can also choose 'native' which means the receiver will output the source resolution (1080p, 720p, 1080i, 480i, etc) unchanged as long as your display settings say it supports them.

JeffTheAlpaca

It shows up as 1080i but I think FOX and ABC still do or did 720p for a long time though it says 1080i on the display.

Josh-da-man

My local CBS and NBC stations broadcast over the air at 1080i (I think, could be 1080p) but the ABC affiliate has a 720p signal. Last I checked, though. It's hard for me to pick stuff up with an antenna, and I haven't tried on in years.

Don't know if this means my local ABC is also in 720p on DirecTV, but it shows up at 1080i so it's either 1080i native or they're upscaling it. The picture does look a little soft sometimes.

I do notice that my DirecTV image on all of the locals isn't nearly as good as it was on over-the-air, so I'm assuming they're compressing the signal.

whotony

melasnus

Assuming that is the case, I will never opt for Xfinity until "native" is offered.
Having Xfinity STB tech doing the scaling is a horrible situation for a videophile.

JeffTheAlpaca

Directv is dropping ESPN Classic on Nov 30

whotony

Bill Needle

I've seen some interesting stuff listed on the channel's program guide at times but the SD feed was always a deal-breaker. So yeah, if they can't bother to carry it in HD then get rid of it.

dvd-4-life

I think they might get it back because I talked to customer service from Direct TV and they said it was up for renewal.

I watched it a lot back 10 years ago when they showed wrestling late every weeknight(mostly AWA then the subpar Global Wrestling Federation).