For 16 months I have had a Comcast / Xfinity TV account with HD TV and it has been Macroblocking and Video tiling - on and off. I have never had a Reliable Video Picture on a variety of local channels and many of the digital and HD channels.
Comcast has come and done service calls 5 times. A 6th is scheduled for this week. And the problems continue unabated.
I had Macroblocking of the video during the World Series for instance, and during the PBS NewsHour 1 or 2 or 3 nights out of every week.
Comcast has done a dozen resets from their head end. They asked me to swap out to a new CableCard, which I did. Then they came and removed and re-installed the Demark wiring and it's ground - 2 or 3 times.
Comcast techs have installed amplifiers and new cables and splitters and then more amplifiers and attenuators, and two different RG's (Residential Gateways). MacroBlocking continued unabated.
And of course, Comcast techs periodically blame the in-house structured wiring - which was designed and installed by Silicon Valley's top professionals. In point of fact, Comcast has never been able to show any issues with the structured wiring. Continuity and SNR are perfect every line, every time. Their iPad meter Apps told the tale.
At the same time, I have frequently been able to use Comcast's CableCard Diagnostics menu and to show wide ranging signal strengths - from 90 to 70% to 33% - up and down. And Signal to Noise Ratios = SNR's of 37% down to the tens and 20%.
The MacroBlocking and Signal Strength and fluctuating SNRs all happen periodically - not constantly nor predictably.
In the last several months Comcast Field Technicans have found "intermittent shorts"and "sucks" in Comcast's Multi Taps connecting their coax network to the fiber. This is the second mutli-tap that resides in the old Pac Bell Vault just outside this apartment in a 80 unit complex that has gone bad.
In addition, Comcast finally found and corrected an unrelated power supply problem that was causing Internet Outages, in a more distant vault. All to no avail as far as MacroBlocking is concerned.
But nothing Comcast has done, has improved the intermittent MacroBlocking issue, ever.
On the other hand, when we replaced the Comcast provided Cisco RG / Modem with a Comcast authorized ARRIS TM822G modem - we suddenly saw Bufferbloat scores of D and F improve to scores of A and B. The internet instantly became Quick and Responsive again.
This is all documented with months of DSLReports Tests and posted online. For anyone truly interested, I can attach the DSLReports Tables and Graphs which show the history of very poor "Minimum Latency" and F and D BufferBloat scores, - until the simple swap out to this community's preferred Arris modem.
BUT the MacroBlocking and Video tiling remain - no matter what I or Comcast has tried so far.
Enough!
I finally stopped paying my Comcast Bill to see if I could get Comcast's Executive Escalation Team to wake up and get this diagnosed and finally fixed.
I have been billed for 16 months for Digital Cable TV service that I have reported and then documented as "out of order": Complete with months of DSLReports speed tests, and Photographs of the MacroBlocking on the HD channels of CBS, PBS, CNN, ESPN and CNS.
Is anyone else experiencing similar issues and "Quality of Service" from Comcast?
How have you gotten this fixed or your money returned?
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