On Sun, 2002-01-27 at 19:30, Trevor Boicey wrote: > Roger wrote: > > also, as with any cox cable (or any DIGITAL cable tv provider), ... When > > i switched to digital satellite service, i was obtaining the signal straight from the > > satellite adn the signal was only being pipped over ~25ft of cable to my > > digital cable box and then onto my tv or computer. > > I realize this is pretty off-topic, but digital is digital > is digital. > > If you have digital cable or digital satellite, no amount of > cabling is ever going to change your picture quality, except > if it gets so absurdly long that you actually start to lose > picture information (aka: image freezes, goes blocky, loses > sound, etc) > > There are no "subtle distortions" in digital television, it's > either exactly the way it was sent or it's very very obviously > distorted and basically unusable. but once the digital signal is passed the box, it *does* make a differnce because that signal is no longer digital. atleast with the testing i performed on this theory in the past several years. One thing i haven't tested is the diffence between using gold cable and standard cable from the satellite dish to the satellite digital box (decoder). One thing that i have noticed is that that the digital decoder box is more sensitive to a loss of voltage by using a longer cable, or incorrect RG cable (thinner cable). But usually, if you're <25-50ft from the satellite to box, and using an RG-58 cable instead of the recommended RG-6 (?) cable, you probabely will not register any voltage loss at all. think about it. running a cable 100miles, you're bound to see some voltage loss. plus, i the cable company had to install an amplifier on that particular line for the isp part of it (for tx). so it's probabely quite obvious that i was on a line that was seeing some voltage loss (to come to think of it). > Although I obviously haven't flown to every city and > set up both, in general most people seem to get better pictures > from digital cable than digital satellite these days. It > just comes down to bandwith, cable companies have more of > it so can compress less. i've been all over the US with the same equipement i'm using now. The only difference is the source of my cable signal (using digital satillite service Dishnetwork now and was on COX digital cable in another city). it's weird, but i've noticed a difference in capture quality. you can't see the differnence on the a tv, but you can notice it over a computer. And if a person doens't relocate allot, they probabely will never know this. also, i've been on both dishnetwork and directv. i have yet to experience HDTV. Too rich for my blood & the cost to solution ratio is just too much.
