If I'm not mistaken, Rainbow Communications has added a second channel (don't know which one) broadcast on the same bandwidth feed as AMC. That's probably why the picture has become less-than-optimal. Commercials are a different matter. Some commercials (particularly local, regional ones) are inserted by the local provider and are not part of the original feed. That is why sometimes, you'll see a commercial start, then be cut-off and replaced by a DIFFERENT commercial. Or, when one commercial ends, you might notice the tail-end of another commercial that you did not see.
AMC, IFC, WE, and Fuse are the four that were combined by Rainbow to fit in one QAM.
For the heckofit, I sent messages to AMC and Rainbow. I am curious as to whether I will get a real response. I wonder why the producers of The Killing and the Walking Dead don't step up and take a stand. The poor video feed doesn't do justice to these quality shows. Ditto to producers of Breaking Bad which doen't exactly look stellar either. Mad Men is the only AMC show that looked good on my FIOS.
@kennyboy2 wrote:. I wonder why the producers of The Killing and the Walking Dead don't step up and take a stand. The poor video feed doesn't do justice to these quality shows.
And I wonder why filmmakers don't step up regarding how their films are altered by HBO and STARZ! Guess they are just happy to get financing.
I have to disagree. AMC picture quality is so bad I first thought something was wrong with my Tivo, then I thought I would switch to Comcast.
I have watched Rubicon and The Killing recently on AMC "HD" and they are both great shows but the quality is just awful. The picture is blocky, there is massive banding in any gradients, anything that moves is blocky and then sharpens up when it stops moving. The effect on people's faces is most disconcerting..! Both shows have a lot of dark scenes that have awful banding in what should be smooth gradients around bright features in a dark scene.
There is no way this is better than a normal SD show. It might be better than these shows in HD because they probably have all the same artifacts.
I downloaded a couple of episodes of Rubicon from iTunes when I'd missed recording them when they went out and it's like night and day the difference in picture quality. Someone somewhere has access to a high quality source...
Given that many of the shows I like are on compressed channels and that channels that I'd like to see in HD never arrive (BBC America HD anyone?) I'm seriously questioning why I pay $150+ a month for TV & internet. I can buy a lot of seasons on iTunes for that kind of money. If only HBO didn't tie their online access to having the channel in my cable line up. I'd much rather give the $25 / month to HBO directly for online only access and kick Verizon into touch.
It's the triumph of marketing over reason yet again. They can claim these are HD channels because of a pixel count, but it says nothing about the quality of the picture. When it's being compressed to hell, it's not worthy of being called HD.
I have been complaining about the poor quality of the AMC channel since December.At first, nobody in technical support knew what I was talking about. Finally, they sent a technician to my home to investigate. He got back to me and said they have the same issue when they try it "back at the office"!
Why can't this be fixed!!?? We did not have this problem last year when we were watching Mad Men and Walking Dead. This is a new problem, and there should be some way to fix it. Someone in an earlier post referred to the problem as "solarazation". That is an excellent description of this almost unwatchable picture. I have friends that have Comcast HD and they don't have the same problem. I would think that Verizon can find a way to fix this.
By the way... This problem does not occur in the "on demand" area.
This really bothers me to be paying almost $200 per month for poor picture quality and have technicians "scratching their heads"!!
It can't be fixed because the supplier (Rainbow Media) lowered the quality. Take a look at THIS THREAD over at DSL Reports. Once it has been overcompressed by the provider (so much that 4 "HD" channels would fit into a single QAM slot) there's nothing Verizon can do to restore the quality. Yout beef is elsewhere.
I am actually stunned by the low quality of AMC's feed. My ATI video card upconverts standard analog better then AMC's "HD" It's pathetic. It reminds me of bad internet porn from the early 90's - dithered, artifacted, artificial gradients, etc. I wish Verizon would either make those clowns step it up or ashcan them. I see no reason to pay for AMC in any way shape or form.
I think more of us need to complain and demand some monetary credit for poor quality. Every time I see ads for the "crystal clear picture" that Verizon FIOS offers....I cringe!
I have been talking with "supervisors" and "account managers", and they say they are "working on resolving the issue". I just think more voices need to be heard.
The thing I don't understand is that I never had this problem on Comcast which I just recently switched from. Are we sure this is a Rainbow problem vs. a Fios problem ? Stuffing 4 channels into one QAM sounds more like something Verizon would be doing. Is QAM compression even used on satellite channels ? Why would Comcast get a better feed ? Something is fishy about this....
-Ken
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