I posted the following on another forum yesterday, but didn't get much of any feedback. Let me see if you folks here have any input on this:
I'm a Comcast subscriber in San Francisco. Last night, I noticed that a thin green stipe showed up along the entire right edge of the picture on all HD channels. The night before that, they had pushed an update to all devices (at least in my region) for an upgrade to the program guide (as far as they said). I'm certain that this green stripe wasn't there before that upgrade.
Here's a shot of the bottom-right corner of my image, showing the green stripe:
Has anyone else noticed this? It's worth noting that my display is set up with zero overscan and this stripe is only about eight pixels wide. (Shifting the image position eight pixels to the right on my display hides the stripe completely.) So, those of you whose displays have some overscan may never see this. Even a 1% overscan would hide it completely.
I called Comcast that same night. What I was told was that there were still some upgrades to be made that night and things were still in progress. So I should call them the next night if the stripe is still there after the upgrade is really finished. Fair enough...
Tonight, the stripe is still there. I called them again. In the end, they hadn't heard about it from anyone else, didn't have anything they could do about it, and didn't suggest anything. They said they would take note and would see if they hear from more people about the same issue.
For a moment, I thought this may be an issue arising from the image position being shifted out of place by the upgrade. There's a "Screen Position Setup" setting in the user setup menu of my cable box (a Motorola DCT3416 DVR). However, it doesn't seem to do anything. It changes the position of neither the image nor the menu/guide overlays (at least on HD channels). So much for that...
I don't want to change my display settings and introduce any overscan just to hide this stripe. Maintaining 1:1 pixel mapping is important to me.
The story doesn't end there...
Tonight, I noticed something else that's wrong with the HD image on Comcast and another piece fell into place: There are two vertical "tear lines" near the left edge of the image. This is much easier to describe with a picture than with words, so here is a photo:
What you're looking at is what's supposed to be a broad and smooth band of light in the on-screen image meeting the left edge of my display. However, as you can see, there is a big shift down very close to the left edge, and another lesser shift down a little further in.
This is actually difficult to imagine in action even by looking at the photo. So, this brief video may demonstrate it better:
Sample Video
Notice how the image looks like it goes through a couple of prism edges near the left.
Although I wouldn't bet my life on it, I'm pretty sure that this wasn't present before the recent upgrade either, and in all likelihood, was introduced together with the green stripe. I'm a stickler for image detail and quality, so I'm pretty sure I couldn't have gone very long before noticing this after it started to happen.
Thinking of these two symptoms together, it almost seems to me like the whole image is a little "folded" onto itself horizontally right near the left edge, creating these two "wrinkles", and leaving an empty green "background" to show through on the right edge. In other words, the eight extra green pixel columns I see on the right-hand side of the image may be the same number of pixel columns missing from the left-hand side to create those two tears, as a result of (almost) the whole image being shifted slightly to the left. But don't quote me on that, because especially the tear that is closest to the left edge seems to be much more vertically offset than would be caused by less than eight missing pixels.
So, why am I posting this? Primarily to see if I'm the only one experiencing it, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area and with the same equipment. If it could be that it's just my individual box that somehow experienced a fluke problem due to the upgrade, I would gladly have it replaced by Comcast and live happily ever after.
But if others among you experience this too, then this issue needs raised awareness so that it comes to the attention of Comcast in order to be resolved. And that would probably only happen if those seeing it actually call Comcast and voice complaints. So, please do that, if you're one such Comcast subscriber. This is unacceptable, in my opinion, and I can't wait to get rid of this problem!
To frame the issue a little better, here are some other specifics:
* The issue is present on all Comcast HD channels (numbered 7XX) and only on those channels.
* The issue is always present on any channel that exhibits it. If an HD channel goes to a commercial break and shows SD quality ads or switches to upconverted SD programming, the symptoms are still there.
* The issue is not in the broadcast that's being made since their upgrade two days ago. When I look at old HD recordings on my hard drive from months ago, I still see the issue. So, it's clearly an issue with the display hardware/firmware; not with the current signal. (I don't have any widescreen SD recordings from before the upgrade, so I can't say anything about those...)
* To give a sense of the scale of the tears along the left edge of the image, the first tear is about 4-5 pixels away from edge of the image, and the second tear is roughly another 35 pixels away from the first one. These are, of course, as counted on a full 1080p display (as is the eight-pixel width of the green stripe).
* I know this is not an issue with my particular display, because, when I try it with my HD DVD player (yes, I still have one of those...), the image is perfect; no stripe, no tears...
I'm a Comcast subscriber in San Francisco. Last night, I noticed that a thin green stipe showed up along the entire right edge of the picture on all HD channels. The night before that, they had pushed an update to all devices (at least in my region) for an upgrade to the program guide (as far as they said). I'm certain that this green stripe wasn't there before that upgrade.
Here's a shot of the bottom-right corner of my image, showing the green stripe:
Has anyone else noticed this? It's worth noting that my display is set up with zero overscan and this stripe is only about eight pixels wide. (Shifting the image position eight pixels to the right on my display hides the stripe completely.) So, those of you whose displays have some overscan may never see this. Even a 1% overscan would hide it completely.
I called Comcast that same night. What I was told was that there were still some upgrades to be made that night and things were still in progress. So I should call them the next night if the stripe is still there after the upgrade is really finished. Fair enough...
Tonight, the stripe is still there. I called them again. In the end, they hadn't heard about it from anyone else, didn't have anything they could do about it, and didn't suggest anything. They said they would take note and would see if they hear from more people about the same issue.
For a moment, I thought this may be an issue arising from the image position being shifted out of place by the upgrade. There's a "Screen Position Setup" setting in the user setup menu of my cable box (a Motorola DCT3416 DVR). However, it doesn't seem to do anything. It changes the position of neither the image nor the menu/guide overlays (at least on HD channels). So much for that...
I don't want to change my display settings and introduce any overscan just to hide this stripe. Maintaining 1:1 pixel mapping is important to me.
The story doesn't end there...
Tonight, I noticed something else that's wrong with the HD image on Comcast and another piece fell into place: There are two vertical "tear lines" near the left edge of the image. This is much easier to describe with a picture than with words, so here is a photo:
What you're looking at is what's supposed to be a broad and smooth band of light in the on-screen image meeting the left edge of my display. However, as you can see, there is a big shift down very close to the left edge, and another lesser shift down a little further in.
This is actually difficult to imagine in action even by looking at the photo. So, this brief video may demonstrate it better:
Sample Video
Notice how the image looks like it goes through a couple of prism edges near the left.
Although I wouldn't bet my life on it, I'm pretty sure that this wasn't present before the recent upgrade either, and in all likelihood, was introduced together with the green stripe. I'm a stickler for image detail and quality, so I'm pretty sure I couldn't have gone very long before noticing this after it started to happen.
Thinking of these two symptoms together, it almost seems to me like the whole image is a little "folded" onto itself horizontally right near the left edge, creating these two "wrinkles", and leaving an empty green "background" to show through on the right edge. In other words, the eight extra green pixel columns I see on the right-hand side of the image may be the same number of pixel columns missing from the left-hand side to create those two tears, as a result of (almost) the whole image being shifted slightly to the left. But don't quote me on that, because especially the tear that is closest to the left edge seems to be much more vertically offset than would be caused by less than eight missing pixels.
So, why am I posting this? Primarily to see if I'm the only one experiencing it, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area and with the same equipment. If it could be that it's just my individual box that somehow experienced a fluke problem due to the upgrade, I would gladly have it replaced by Comcast and live happily ever after.
But if others among you experience this too, then this issue needs raised awareness so that it comes to the attention of Comcast in order to be resolved. And that would probably only happen if those seeing it actually call Comcast and voice complaints. So, please do that, if you're one such Comcast subscriber. This is unacceptable, in my opinion, and I can't wait to get rid of this problem!
To frame the issue a little better, here are some other specifics:
* The issue is present on all Comcast HD channels (numbered 7XX) and only on those channels.
* The issue is always present on any channel that exhibits it. If an HD channel goes to a commercial break and shows SD quality ads or switches to upconverted SD programming, the symptoms are still there.
* The issue is not in the broadcast that's being made since their upgrade two days ago. When I look at old HD recordings on my hard drive from months ago, I still see the issue. So, it's clearly an issue with the display hardware/firmware; not with the current signal. (I don't have any widescreen SD recordings from before the upgrade, so I can't say anything about those...)
* To give a sense of the scale of the tears along the left edge of the image, the first tear is about 4-5 pixels away from edge of the image, and the second tear is roughly another 35 pixels away from the first one. These are, of course, as counted on a full 1080p display (as is the eight-pixel width of the green stripe).
* I know this is not an issue with my particular display, because, when I try it with my HD DVD player (yes, I still have one of those...), the image is perfect; no stripe, no tears...
