Comcast bitrates. Live, DVR, VOD?

[Golem]

I'm curious if anyone has insight as to Comcast's bitrates. I don't mean actual bitrate but more-so whether their bitrate differs when comparing live transmission vs DVR recorded content vs VOD. I seem to be getting much softer captures from VOD and DVR content than I do from live transmission. Have to think this is just perception to some extent as I would expect DVR content has received no transcoding during the process of being recorded to disk. On the other hand, I highly suspect VOD content is being served at a much reduced bitrate.

Sadly it seems Comcast's effort to add more and more channels (most not wanted) to justify continually rising rates is taking its toll across the board as TS bitrates have taken a nose-dive over the past year or so.

Insight much appreciated.

[Brad]

It's a safe bet that no cable company DVR includes an encoder chip, since it would be an unnecessary expense. Consequently, it would be impossible for the recordings to be anything other than straight copies of the incoming AV stream.

VOD bitrates do have no relation to live bitrates. Sometimes the on-demand version is actually much-improved.

[Golem]

Thanks for the reply vaporeon800!

That verifies my expectation on the DVR side. As for VOD -- Now I have to wonder if they might just tier VOD bitrates. Newer and more popular movies receive the higher rates while the older and less popular get relegated to lower rates. Again, this could simply be perception as older content is most naturally of lesser quality to start with.

What I'd be interested in is a stand-alone app capable of providing insight as to pre-capture bitrates. I've not seen any way to determine this value.

[usually_quiet]

I'm curious if anyone has insight as to Comcast's bitrates. I don't mean actual bitrate but more-so whether their bitrate differs when comparing live transmission vs DVR recorded content vs VOD. I seem to be getting much softer captures from VOD and DVR content than I do from live transmission. Have to think this is just perception to some extent as I would expect DVR content has received no transcoding during the process of being recorded to disk. On the other hand, I highly suspect VOD content is being served at a much reduced bitrate.

Sadly it seems Comcast's effort to add more and more channels (most not wanted) to justify continually rising rates is taking its toll across the board as TS bitrates have taken a nose-dive over the past year or so.

Insight much appreciated.

I am a Comcast customer too. I think any recent reduction in bit rate has less to do with the number of new linear channels and more to do with increased use of VOD services (including the X1 cloud DVR service) and more Internet customers opting for the higher service tiers.

I don't believe the older DVRs transcode while recording, but I'm not sure about the X1.

A CableCARD tuner can record the transport stream for most regular Comcast channels directly to your PC's hard drive. (Most regular channels are not copy-once protected.)

[Golem]

Appreciate the reply usually_quiet!

Absolutely would not disagree with your reasoning for bitrate reduction. I know I'm guilty of making use of those services.

I do recall some time ago you mentioning a switch from Colossus to CableCARD. Almost convinced me (without even trying) to do the same but my requirements included a desire to DVR flagged content hence Colossus+splitter. I noticed just the other day that Comcast has recently placed no-copy flags on MGM-HD and ENCORE-HD leaving only IFC-HD as the last of the premium movie channels I'm able to record via Firewire+CapVHS using an older RGN150 I retained. That box is in another room so a bit inconvenient to swap out on a regular basis.

It's clearly time for me to go CableCard as the RGN150 no longer provides advantage. I'm fine with H.264 (Colossus) for temporary movie recording since if I like it I'll likely purchase the BRD for best quality. Conversely, by far the bulk of my recording is no-flag (classic SD content) and destined for DVD format archiving therefore benefits greatly from a 1-to-1 MPEG-2 TS capture.

[usually_quiet]

I don't have any premium movie channels, just plain old Digital Starter. The only copy-once protected channel I have found in my package so far is MPLEX (Movie Plex ) and it is SD. I don't record many SD channels, In fact I only included those SD channels which have no HD equivalent in my channel list.