Best HDTV Deal Quality Quantity Price

[antman59]

What is the best deal for HDTV? What are you using? Who are you with. Personaly Rogers impresses me with Price but dissapoints with Quality. Bell impresses with Quality but dissapoints with price.

[Kreez]

The disappointing thing about HDTV is that all of the quality control rests with the networks, not the providers.

Any cable provider can offer Movie Central HD1 and HD2, but of Movie Central airs a bunch of non-hd stuff on those channels, or worse, HD Stereo instead of HD 5.1, then the end user has little to no recourse about the offered service.

[WalnutCrunch]

The disappointing thing about HDTV is that all of the quality control rests with the networks, not the providers.

That's not totally true. The providers compress the streams to fit their bandwidth. Different providers apply different levels of compression so you will see differences (sometimes 2 channels on the same provider have different bitrates); they usually show up as macroblocking on the screen. I'm not up to date on who uses what bitrate, but you can probably find out at digitalhome.ca.

[Kreez]

That's not totally true. The providers compress the streams to fit their bandwidth. Different providers apply different levels of compression so you will see differences (sometimes 2 channels on the same provider have different bitrates); they usually show up as macroblocking on the screen. I'm not up to date on who uses what bitrate, but you can probably find out at digitalhome.ca.

You misunderstand.
Quality of signal carried to the home and compression rates are indeed a responsibility of the cable provider carrier.

Quality of programming shown on an HD Channel is the responsibility of the TV Network producing the station.

[zoolander]

The future of current FTAs and Nagra3...

[SAN66]

This is a very subjective question.

For the price ($free) OTA offers the least compression with an equivalent lineup if you're not looking for specialty channels. The cost of equipment is equivalent to either buying or renting the equipment with the other providers.

Unfortunately with OTA you need to be in the right area. I've heard that you can get upwards of 20 channels some places in Toronto. Unfortunately I'm in Ottawa and can only get 2 channels. If I could get all the standard channels in Ottawa, I couldn't justify the cost to myself in paying $60 a month just so I can have the specialty channels.

If you want specialty channels then you have to go with one of the other services. I really hate that they charge extra for these and that you need the sd channel to get the hd equivalent. Either do one or the other but not both, jerks.

[ppl4golf]

Rogers' package is the worst IMHO, everything you don't want/need is included in the package, things you need is extra LOL.

For Starchoice and Bell, you can customize your HD package better and not paying for a bunch of stuff you don't watch.

OTA HD pwns all of the above.

[SAN66]

I think people in the poll might be confusing OTA and FTA. There really isn't much available FTA in HD on this continent as far as I know, unless you want your public access stuff, which you can usually get OTA.

[antman59]

So far OTA is winning. If discovery channel was available....

[y_me2]

I think people in the poll might be confusing OTA and FTA. There really isn't much available FTA in HD on this continent as far as I know, unless you want your public access stuff, which you can usually get OTA.

in GTO I'm sure you can get about 5-6 HD channels.. someone will confirm

[ppl4golf]

I think people in the poll might be confusing OTA and FTA. There really isn't much available FTA in HD on this continent as far as I know, unless you want your public access stuff, which you can usually get OTA.

LOL

I am big on OTA-HD and get good results with a 4221. I voted FTA-HD in error LOL!!!

[RaidZero]

Of course, Over The Air is a lot less compressed than Rogers/Bell ExpressVu, so the quality is highest.