720p on all channels?!

In the Phoenix area here. I'd been noticing recently that my picture quality looked really bad - lots of pixelization, digital noise and just general harshness. Whenever I noticed that, I'd click "info" on my TiVo remote and see that it was a 720p channel and say "oh, ok." But the other day I realized that pretty much every channel looked like that now, and I started scrolling through all the channels with the info turned on and ALL of them are now 720p! That includes major networks like CBS and NBC that I know broadcast in 1080i at about 18-19mbps and they should (and did) look great.

I had gotten a bunch of messages in the mail about changes coming to the signal since I'm a CableCard user. I am guessing that's because Cox has now switched to mpeg4 instead of mpeg2. My devices handle that just fine and it *should* allow for the same quality at lower bit rates (or better quality at the same bit rates), but I can't believe Cox would downgrade every channel from 1080i to 720p at the same time! That's insane. It's 2021 - the only TV's really even on the market now are 4K TV's (and if they're not 4K, they're 8K). The trend is and has always been to go to bigger TV's and higher resolution and bit rates, not smaller and lower. This is a drastic and noticeable reduction in quality, Cox. It made my wife ask me "do you want to get rid of cable?"

Honestly, if I watch something on Cox and then go on Paramount+ or HBO Max or something and watch the same show on streaming, the quality difference is night and day. It does make me question why I still have Cox. Why did you guys downgrade the picture quality this way? On a big 4K TV, it is like watching in SD.

I've seen other comments about picture quality where you guys reply that you haven't had any complaints about it... well, consider this one.