system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why does picture quality on Netflix appear to be of much higher quality than Cable TV even when both sources are outputting 1080p?

Both Netflix and Cable output 1080p, but the quality on Netflix is much clearer than that of cable which looks a bit more grainy. I've even rewatched shows that used to air on cable and it's not even close. Will cable TV quality ever actually catch up?
gpt
It depends entirely on how much *compression* the sender is using to save on data capacity. Your cable TV provider is probably compressing the picture transmission so they can carry more channels on the same wires.