http://www.skyreport.com/#article8

A DTV transition hiccup? On Wednesday, stations in North Carolina, including WRAL in Raleigh, conducted a soft test of their digital signals. The broadcaster said during the soft switch, DISH and DIRECTV aired the analog feed, which for that moment didn’t provide any programming. The station said the DBS services will turn on a digital signal by December

There'll be a lot of "glitches" like that in the coming months.

Please keep topic titles specific. See my edit.

How does the SD digital work with the sat providers? Will they be downconverting the HD ATSC signals to 480i (well SD-lite in the case of both) then uplinking them to their current standard def transponders?

How does the SD digital work with the sat providers? Will they be downconverting the HD ATSC signals to 480i (well SD-lite in the case of both) then uplinking them to their current standard def transponders?

That is so dependent on the provider and location we can't even give you a guess at all the permutations.

In the simplest cases - (DBS provider taking OTA analog signals off antenna, digitizing, then sending to their uplink center) - It will probably be something similar - using a commercial quality ATSC tuner, put that in place of their commercial quality analog tuner, with the output of the digital tuner taking the place of the output of the analog tuner, then carry on as before.

In larger cities - there may actually be a fiberfed line direct from the station to the providers equipment - no OTA required at all. In this case, it's a simple case of disconnecting from the "NTSC" channel and connecting to the ATSC main channel.

In both cases - I would imagine that the DBS providers will be doing down-convert to 480i , center-cut zoom for the main channel only, At least in the short term. They COULD surprise us and do 480i letterbox / widescreen, but I imagine alot of calls would go out "why isn't my screen filled with image" (words to that effect).

How does the SD digital work with the sat providers? Will they be downconverting the HD ATSC signals to 480i (well SD-lite in the case of both) then uplinking them to their current standard def transponders?

I'm not sure if D* and E* give the choice to each station whether to centercut or letterbox, but I do know at least in Milwaukee, they are already centercutting the OTA HD ATSC signal for most stations.

However, there are some exceptions to this. On Monday the stations in our area did a DTV readiness test. During the 5pm news, they talked about the cutoff, then they put up a slate for a minute on the OTA NTSC broadcast saying that your TV failed. The OTA ATSC and the HD/SD fiber links to cable/fios got the normal studio shot. For some reason D* (and possibly E*) was using the OTA analog feed of the NBC station for their signal. So all the people in the area with SD satellite watching NBC got failure messages.

http://www.skyreport.com/#article8

A DTV transition hiccup? On Wednesday, stations in North Carolina, including WRAL in Raleigh, conducted a soft test of their digital signals. The broadcaster said during the soft switch, DISH and DIRECTV aired the analog feed, which for that moment didn’t provide any programming. The station said the DBS services will turn on a digital signal by December

Better to find out now than on Feb17,2009 :D

As a person who was in the middle of the test, I can tell you that both D* and E* are FULLY aware of what they have to do. They have been in touch with stations since last May on the transition. In the larger markets and moving down the list, they have already started to take the digital signals and downconvert them to SD and the STATIONS are given the choice of letterbox, AFD or center cut. In North Carolina, Charlotte has already changed, but the other markets are still being worked on. The same goes for cable. TWC and those size cableco's are working to get the digital signals downconverted to SD. The smaller systems, it is a hit and miss right now. Because only NBC and FOX are doing AFD for network programming, most stations are going with center cut.

The whole purpose of the NC DTV Soft Test was to raise public awareness since this comes on the heals of the Wilmington Transition 10 days before the test which got HUGE coverage here in North Carolina. From what I can tell, it has done that. It has gotten people in the streets talking. If people are left behind, as Wilmington has shown, it will be due to their own inactivity. Many of the calls in Wilmington have been people who admitted that either they didn't think it would happen or they forgot or just didn't get around to do something. Out of the calls my station received after the test, only one person called who had not heard of the coming transition. That seems to be tracking the Wilmington numbers released by the FCC on a daily basis.

This is the first step to get us to February 17. I think more of these test will be done nationwide because they work to raise public awareness along with the other things the FCC is requiring stations to do.

How does the SD digital work with the sat providers? Will they be downconverting the HD ATSC signals to 480i (well SD-lite in the case of both) then uplinking them to their current standard def transponders?
In this market, D* E* Comcast, et al, are all fed SD via fiber from most of the stations. Those stations I've spoke with will continue to make the SD feed available to those outlets. No idea if it'll be center-cut or letterboxed. I'm guessing center-cut until the network stops framing graphics for 4:3.

How does the SD digital work with the sat providers? Will they be downconverting the HD ATSC signals to 480i (well SD-lite in the case of both) then uplinking them to their current standard def transponders?

Yes. They are setting up down conversions at the local collection points in each market they serve and uplinking the 480i and HD signals to Castle Rock and then on to their customers. The SD aspect format is determined by the station.

If they have already done Charlotte, then Raleigh isn't too far away (going from largest DMAs down). I would imagine that most people won't be too particular about what they get, as long as they continue to get the locals.

What is AFD, anyway ?

What is AFD, anyway ?
Active Format Description - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Format_Description.

Active Format Description - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Format_Description.

Thank you.

To be honest, to take a widescreen picture and centercut it so it'll fill a 4x3 screen is moronic. All it does is ruin the picture on shows that are meant to be seen in widescreen. As an example, someone told me recently they get a CW affiliate over satellite, and on the show SMALLVILLE, they get it in 4x3...even tho the show is aired in 16x9.

For cryin' out loud, even the opening credits get wrecked. The show title comes up onscreen as "MALLVILL". :rolleyes:

Our local CW affiliate used to have that problem. They solved it by letterboxing all HD-sourced programming on their analog channel for OTA and Cox. Not sure what's happening with their SD channel on D* since I'm using Cox, but I'll ask in our local thread and see what comes up.

Our local CW affiliate used to have that problem. They solved it by letterboxing all HD-sourced programming on their analog channel for OTA and Cox. Not sure what's happening with their SD channel on D* since I'm using Cox, but I'll ask in our local thread and see what comes up.

The one CW show I watch - it's looks like they did the same.