Why does ESPN HD on Mediacom look like crap?

[ISUCyclones2015]

I got a new T.V. for Christmas and hooked it up back home and all my channels look great, including ESPN.

I come back to school and hook up my T.V. and all the channels look great (in HD) except ESPN 55-5. What gives?

The audio is even out of sync with the video.

[FDWxMan]

I got a new T.V. for Christmas and hooked it up back home and all my channels look great, including ESPN.

I come back to school and hook up my T.V. and all the channels look great (in HD) except ESPN 55-5. What gives?

The audio is even out of sync with the video.

55-5 isn't HD it's only "digital". You have to have a digital box for HD. ESPN is 830

[3TrueFans]

55-5 isn't HD it's only "digital". You have to have a digital box for HD. ESPN is 830

What he said. 55-5 should look marginally better than 35 though in theory. I have noticed the out of sync sound when watching on my bedroom tv that doesn't get HD channels, but the HD channel in the living room doesn't have that problem.

[ISUCyclones2015]

55-5 isn't HD it's only "digital". You have to have a digital box for HD. ESPN is 830

Well that makes sense. This audio sync issue will tick me off though.

[iahawkhunter]

What he said. 55-5 should look marginally better than 35 though in theory. I have noticed the out of sync sound when watching on my bedroom tv that doesn't get HD channels, but the HD channel in the living room doesn't have that problem.

I've also noticed the audio sync issue on 55-5. Usually it isn't a problem since a slight delay in game sounds isn't a big deal. I ignore most of the talking heads anyway, so the sync issue wasn't too noticeable. Thankfully I could adjust my audio sync if it ever got too annoying.

I'd call the difference between 35 and 55-5 better than "marginal", though (just my opinion). Sure it's not high def, but it at least allows the picture to look decent on a large screen.

[AlleyAddict]

You can get a cable box from a place in ames for like $8 a month if you really want the HD.

[ISUCyclones2015]

You can get a cable box from a place in ames for like $8 a month if you really want the HD.

So $8 a month gets me all the channels above 100 or so? That isn't too bad of a deal. Same as Netflix, could just get rid of Netflix and do that instead.

[alarson]

So $8 a month gets me all the channels above 100 or so? That isn't too bad of a deal. Same as Netflix, could just get rid of Netflix and do that instead.

Not quite. You'll just get the HD versions of the channels youre already getting. A bunch of other channels in the digital plus\sports\premium packs without additional subscriptions.

[Clonefan94]

I love how this HD thing worked out for everyone. The government mandates that everyone must broadcast in HD, then the cable companies get to charge you extra to receive the HD signal that's already being sent out from the stations. Essentially, the cable companies are getting the signal, downsampling it, then charging you to upscale it again to HD. Beautiful. If it wasn't for my wife, I wouldn't be paying for TV at all.

[ISUAgronomist]

I love how this HD thing worked out for everyone. The government mandates that everyone must broadcast in HD, then the cable companies get to charge you extra to receive the HD signal that's already being sent out from the stations. Essentially, the cable companies are getting the signal, downsampling it, then charging you to upscale it again to HD. Beautiful. If it wasn't for my wife, I wouldn't be paying for TV at all.

Technically your statement is not correct.

The government made local stations go digital. Cable companies cannot scramble these channels and you can get them free OTA. If you have a QAM tuner in your TV you get the channels even without cable service (hook up to Mediacom line in house w/o paying).

The subscription channels were not affected by the government. They chose to offer HD service and you can choose to pay for it or not.

[Clonefan94]

Technically your statement is not correct.

The government made local stations go HD. Cable companies cannot scramble these channels and you can get them free OTA. If you have a QAM tuner in your TV you get the channels even without cable service (hook up to Mediacom line in house w/o paying).

The subscription channels were not affected by the government. They chose to offer HD service and you can choose to pay for it or not.

OK, never looked into it that far. Good info. Either way though, most channels are HD now. So why aren't we just automatically given them?

I was never blown away enough by HD to really get that involved in it. My first HD TV was purchased because there wasn't anything else available when I had to purchase another TV.

None the less, the whole HD and digital revolution has been more of a money grab by cable companies than anything else. I still don't find myself enjoying football games any more in HD than I did pre-HD.

I do notice a difference, don't get me wrong, it just doesn't really improve my enjoyment of the programming. The only real benefit I have to owning an HD TV, is with playing video games.

[HFCS]

I got a new T.V. for Christmas and hooked it up back home and all my channels look great, including ESPN.

I come back to school and hook up my T.V. and all the channels look great (in HD) except ESPN 55-5. What gives?

The audio is even out of sync with the video.

I watched Texas and Texas A&M in "HD" on ESPN3 or whatever they claim HD streaming is.

The Texas game looked pretty amazing for an online stream. The A&M game looked like standard def crap even though ESPN3 showed I had the highest quality connection speed and picture. Also the aspect ratio of the Texas game broadcast was 16:9 and the A&M game was the old square look.

I think maybe the crew at A&M didn't even shoot in HD. If they did the footage wasn't provided to espn3.

[alarson]

OK, never looked into it that far. Good info. Either way though, most channels are HD now. So why aren't we just automatically given them?

I was never blown away enough by HD to really get that involved in it. My first HD TV was purchased because there wasn't anything else available when I had to purchase another TV.

None the less, the whole HD and digital revolution has been more of a money grab by cable companies than anything else. I still don't find myself enjoying football games any more in HD than I did pre-HD.

I do notice a difference, don't get me wrong, it just doesn't really improve my enjoyment of the programming. The only real benefit I have to owning an HD TV, is with playing video games.

Theyre really just charging you for the box. If you want to provide your own box, you can get your own (like a TiVo) and only have to pay for the cablecard that accesses mediacom's network ($2\month). That's what i do.

Word is when mediacom goes all digital they'll be moving all their HDs to clear qam though, which is better than what most other systems are doing.

[jdoggivjc]

Technically your statement is not correct.

The government made local stations go HD. Cable companies cannot scramble these channels and you can get them free OTA. If you have a QAM tuner in your TV you get the channels even without cable service (hook up to Mediacom line in house w/o paying).

The subscription channels were not affected by the government. They chose to offer HD service and you can choose to pay for it or not.

I thought it was the government actually made the local stations go DIGITAL, not HD. First, the vast majority of HD programming a local station gets is from their parent network, not from the local station itself. Which means about the only thing a local station would be responsible for producing for air would be local programming, such as the local news. Second, if all stations had to be in HD, then WHBF would be noncompliant as none of their local programming is in true HD.

In fact, here you go:
Digital television transition in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[ISUAgronomist]

I thought it was the government actually made the local stations go DIGITAL, not HD.

Corrected. My locals all went HD but obviously not all stations could afford to do so.