24.10.11

Macroblocking - Why Does It Always Happen during Your Favorite TV Show?

By Cynthia R. Hooper


Did you ever come home after a tiresome day at the office with the boss screaming from the top of his lungs, and you crashed on your couch, turned on the TV to watch your favorite show only to see these big blocks of images destroying the entire video? This will probably ruin your entire experience and you'll be boiling with anger at the thought that you pay for a service that's supposed to be of high quality and you're not being delivered those promises.

As an HD device is capable of receiving a large amount of information, the source is not yet enhanced and updated to handle all that data being transmitted and so the extra positions where the macroblocks have appeared are not uncompressed fast enough. Macroblocking is the popular term for those blocks of image you can spot when the image is in motion and it happens due to a compression error. It happens but it shouldn't, especially because if it occurs during your favorite show, it will completely ruin the experience for you.

So you are maybe wondering what's there to be done? Can you do something about it or should you assume this role of victim of the system, even if you're paying big bucks for a service that doesn't deliver on its promises? Customers who complain about these problems are not either refunded, or credited. The cable television macroblocking is beginning to affect more and more people who simply want to watch quality television and don't get their money's worth.

Many people are complaining about the macroblocking phenomenon, the image blackout, the loss of signal and many other problems, but the cable companies don't seem too eager to solve their problems in a timely manner.

On the contrary, it usually takes days until the Time Warner service delivery takes into account that some clients are experiencing these unpleasant problems. It is sometimes outrageous to pay for a service with the money you earn and not be delivered the tall promises and claims they make at the signing of the contract.

You should fight for your rights as a consumer, especially when you're paying the full price for a service that's supposed to be of high quality, but it's not, so it's your duty to make anything in order to signal these errors and find solutions to these unpleasant problems.




About the Author: