First noticed soft picture on ABC on the Emmys. Now on Dancing with the Stars (softer than Emmys; appears 480i at best). Videojanitor commented that he agreed the picture was soft on the Emmys and suggested it may be a network problem as AVS forum members in the East and Central made no comments about the poor picture quality. Since both Videojanitor and I are in Northern California, possibly problem isolated to that area? Observations/opinions? Thanks.

I have gathered more information since this past Sunday. Seems that there are a lot of people in the Pacific Time Zone who are noticing this severe lack of resolution. I've received reports of this problem from L.A, S.F., Sacramento, Portland and Seattle.

In another thread, I posted a couple of pics to illustrate the problem, but I'll post them here as well. These are screen caps of a commercial that aired Monday on both ABC and FOX. Since both are 720p, you would expect them to be quite similar -- but if you take a look, you will see that the one captured from ABC has a serious problem and is very soft.

The left image is from ABC. The right, from FOX.

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/3595/abchdoh0.th.jpg (http://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=abchdoh0.jpg) http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/4495/foxhdhi0.th.jpg (http://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=foxhdhi0.jpg)

I have gathered more information since this past Sunday. Seems that there are a lot of people in the Pacific Time Zone who are noticing this severe lack of resolution. I've received reports of this problem from L.A, S.F., Sacramento, Portland and Seattle.

In another thread, I posted a couple of pics to illustrate the problem, but I'll post them here as well. These are screen caps of a commercial that aired Monday on both ABC and FOX. Since both are 720p, you would expect them to be quite similar -- but if you take a look, you will see that the one captured from ABC has a serious problem and is very soft.

The left image is from ABC. The right, from FOX.

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/3595/abchdoh0.th.jpg (http://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=abchdoh0.jpg) http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/4495/foxhdhi0.th.jpg (http://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=foxhdhi0.jpg)


Wow, can certainly tell the difference. Thanks for the reply. You always have great info. Would be interested in any additonal info you may find while looking into the problem.

heres some screens from tonights dancing with the stars

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/4099/snapshot20080923223335lr6.th.jpg (http://img82.imageshack.us/my.php?image=snapshot20080923223335lr6.jpg)http://img82.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/9276/snapshot20080923223432ug8.th.jpg (http://img146.imageshack.us/my.php?image=snapshot20080923223432ug8.jpg)http://img146.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)

You always have great info. Would be interested in any additonal info you may find while looking into the problem.

Thanks. I try not to post anything unless I have some idea of what is going on. In this case, the only common thing I've found so far is that it seems to be isolated to the West coast. Not sure what else I will be able to find out, though I have alerted a friend who works at an ABC station, and hopefully if he calls the network BOC and reports the problem, it will be fixed shortly thereafter.

Yup, wayyyy tooo soft for HD.

And now for a twist, I was watching Nightline and it didn't seem to have the problem. Then a couple of HD commercials came on and it was more tha obvious that this feed was fine. I wonder if there's a different point of origin for the Nightline West feed vs. prime-time?

End graphic of an HD movie spot aired in Nightline:

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8343/abcgoodjb6.th.jpg (http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8343/abcgoodjb6.jpg)

And now for a twist, I was watching Nightline and it didn't seem to have the problem. Then a couple of HD commercials came on and it was more tha obvious that this feed was fine. I wonder if there's a different point of origin for the Nightline West feed vs. prime-time?

End graphic of an HD movie spot aired in Nightline:

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8343/abcgoodjb6.th.jpg (http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8343/abcgoodjb6.jpg)

I didn't even realize Nightline was in HD now. Will have to check it out. It's days could be numbered with Leno possibly moving into that time slot in January 2010.

Thanks for your hard work investigation guys. I was flipping through the channels yesterday and stopped on ABC 7 LA HD news for a sec, they showed a upclose pic of one of the newscasters, and thepic was definitely soft. I knew I wasnt going crazy. :) I said something to myself like what the hell is wrong the picture. Thanx.

And now for a twist, I was watching Nightline and it didn't seem to have the problem. Then a couple of HD commercials came on and it was more tha obvious that this feed was fine. I wonder if there's a different point of origin for the Nightline West feed vs. prime-time?

End graphic of an HD movie spot aired in Nightline:

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8343/abcgoodjb6.th.jpg (http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8343/abcgoodjb6.jpg)

This is in fact true. WC Primetime and Nightline are uplinked in two different places and to two different transponders.



http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/3595/abchdoh0.th.jpg (http://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=abchdoh0.jpg) http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/4495/foxhdhi0.th.jpg (http://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=foxhdhi0.jpg)

Not quite a fair comparison as FOX feed is passed through untouched to affiliate encoders. But, is striking.

I was flipping through the channels yesterday and stopped on ABC 7 LA HD news for a sec, they showed a upclose pic of one of the newscasters, and thepic was definitely soft. I knew I wasnt going crazy. :) I said something to myself like what the hell is wrong the picture. Thanx.

Actually, that's a DIFFERENT problem. The one we're discussing only affects ABC network programs. The problem with soft video on KABC's news has to do (as near as I can tell) with their studio cameras. Whatever those are, they just don't look very sharp. They must have got a package deal on them, because KGO in S.F. (another ABC O&O) has the exact same look.

^^ Ohhh. :) :( Thanks video janitor.

Just to keep this thread alive ... it's now Thursday night, and the ABC/West HD feed is still hosed.

Here is what I captured at 8:48 pm tonight on KGTV-DT San Diego, CA.
Does anyone get a clear image of this on ABC at some other location such as East coast?

http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/8858/kgtv2008sep25hf8.th.png (http://img516.imageshack.us/my.php?image=kgtv2008sep25hf8.png)http://img516.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)

Here's one from an ABC station on the east feed.
http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/356/abceast4oz4.th.png (http://img228.imageshack.us/my.php?image=abceast4oz4.png)http://img228.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)

Edit: found the exact same frame for a better comparison

Here's one from an ABC station on the east feed.

Hey, that's great work! Shows that the problem is, as suspected, only with the West feed.

My local ABC affiliate, KNXV, wastes ~5Mbs on a crappy, worthless, traffic channel so the PQ is always so bad that I haven't noticed a difference.

My local ABC affiliate, KNXV, wastes ~5Mbs on a crappy, worthless, traffic channel so the PQ is always so bad that I haven't noticed a difference.

Well that stinks, but does Phoenix broadcast the Pacific time zone feeds? I thought they recorded/delayed the East feeds?

Phoenix does get delayed east feeds. The PQ on KNXV isn't too bad during most shows, though the PQ is noticeably degraded on football compared to ESPN. The 13.3Mbit/s KNXV provides is still quite a bit more than the ~10Mbit/s provided by ABC O&Os thanks to their multicasting of 2 SD subchannels.

Phoenix does get delayed east feeds.

Thanks. I guess that explains why Mac The Knife hasn't noticed the problem. FYI, it's Friday night, and the West feed is still bad -- World News is mighty blurry. Now the last segment is in 4x3. Hmmm, it'll be interesting to see what happens at 6pm ...

Edit: 6pm -- The debate is blurry too ...

i dunno if the actual debate looks like this since i changed the channel to NBC

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/7840/abcqc7.th.jpg (http://img220.imageshack.us/my.php?image=abcqc7.jpg)http://img220.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)

i dunno if the actual debate looks like this since i changed the channel to NBC

That's what it looks like. Blech. I went to NBC too.

In the Sacramento area (KXTV) Sat night college football (Ill vs Penn St) finally looked really good for HD. We'll have to see if this was just a fluke or maybe prime time ABC HD will finally be sharp again.

The Illinois-Penn State game was coming from the East feed, while Virginia Tech-Nebraska was using the West feed and looked as terrible as primetime. A couple screenshots I took:
http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/4552/50yardmi7.th.png (http://img300.imageshack.us/my.php?image=50yardmi7.png)http://img300.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)
http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/5268/graphicsyk4.th.png (http://img529.imageshack.us/my.php?image=graphicsyk4.png)http://img529.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)
http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/5438/zoomdx2.th.png (http://img505.imageshack.us/my.php?image=zoomdx2.png)

Hey, that's great work! Shows that the problem is, as suspected, only with the West feed.
How many subchannels do the stations you are comparing run, and how much data do those subchannels siphon from the main HD feed?

How many subchannels do the stations you are comparing run, and how much data do those subchannels siphon from the main HD feed?

One subchannel here, and it occupies less than 2 Mb/s. Definitely not a bit rate issue, as it just started a few weeks ago and is affecting every ABC affiliate in the PT zone. And feeds (such as NIGHTLINE) from other origination points are fine. Also when the station goes to local HD content, it looks great.

The Illinois-Penn State game was coming from the East feed, while Virginia Tech-Nebraska was using the West feed and looked as terrible as primetime.

Yep, looks like the same problem. There's a NASCAR race on right now, and it looks bad too ...

Hopefully they get it fixed. I live in Sacramento and its still bad.

One subchannel here, and it occupies less than 2 Mb/s. Definitely not a bit rate issue, as it just started a few weeks ago and is affecting every ABC affiliate in the PT zone. And feeds (such as NIGHTLINE) from other origination points are fine. Also when the station goes to local HD content, it looks great.
How did you determine that Nightline was fed from some place other than where the rest of the network programs originate?

How did you determine that Nightline was fed from some place other than where the rest of the network programs originate?

I took the word of the fellow in this post:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14729494#post14729494

Seems to be good information, as Nightline looks fine every night, while prime-time does not.

This is in fact true. WC Primetime and Nightline are uplinked in two different places and to two different transponders.

Yep, Nightline is fed via the ABC East transponder for both east and west. The east transponder is pretty much up 24/7. Guess they didn't want to pay for keeping the west transponder alive, when at that time of night, wasn't necessary.

Reading that post, it seems to support that the West Coast feed (Prime Time and Nightline) is uplinked to a different transponder than the East Coast feed. That would make sense.

It did not say that Prime Time is uplinked differently from Nightline. All ABC programming is uplinked from NYC, though obviously using different equipment, hopefully set to the same parameters.

It does seem that the feeds look different. I'm not sure that the real reason has been found yet.

Reading that post, it seems to support that the West Coast feed (Prime Time and Nightline) is uplinked to a different transponder than the East Coast feed. That would make sense.

Because of ABC World News being in HD, it required ABC to start using a separate transponder for the east and west feeds, other than just on Sunday. I don't know of anyone complaining about ABC Sunday programming in the past. I also do not know if the new feed configuration resulted in a change of equipment, even for Sunday feeds.

It did not say that Prime Time is uplinked differently from Nightline.

Well, it is. While primetime uses two transponders, one for east and one for west, Nightline is fed via the east transponder for both east and west feeds.

The quality of the college games on ABC looked off over here on the east coast yesterday.

While primetime uses two transponders, one for east and one for west, Nightline is fed via the east transponder for both east and west feeds.

If ABC is using the east coast feed transponder at 2:35am ET to send Nightline to the left coast, then what bird are they using for the east coast feed of the "all-night news" (its name escapes me)?

You know what's funny here the Sacramento area, again Sun night primetime was awfully blurred but after the 11pm news the syndicated "Desperate Housewives" HD picture was quite sharp. Interesting?

You know what's funny here the Sacramento area, again Sun night primetime was awfully blurred but after the 11pm news the syndicated "Desperate Housewives" HD picture was quite sharp. Interesting?

That's because the syndicated episodes don't go through the ABC network distribution chain.

If ABC is using the east coast feed transponder at 2:35am ET to send Nightline to the left coast, then what bird are they using for the east coast feed of the "all-night news" (its name escapes me)?

I do not think that "World News Now" (I think that is the name of it) is in HD yet.

That's because the syndicated episodes don't go through the ABC network distribution chain.

That makes sense...thanks.

Up until now, posters have been comparing apples and oranges, i.e., someone has an image from their local affiliate on the east coast and another has an image from their local affiliate on the west coast.

Well, I'm here to compare apples to apples by going directly to the source.

The following images are directly from the east and west ABC HD transponders. I never noticed until now, but they are using CBR and not VBR. Also the west coast has two extrra audio streams (both MPEG-2 layer II).

In a nutshell, the west coast feed is a mess. The two images that really show the problem are #5 and #7 (both from commercials because of the text).

So, here they are:

East 1 (http://vidiot.com/images/ABC-HD-DesperateHousewives-080928-01a.png) West 1 (http://vidiot.com/images/ABC-HD-DesperateHousewives-080928-01b.png)
East 2 (http://vidiot.com/images/ABC-HD-DesperateHousewives-080928-02a.png) West 2 (http://vidiot.com/images/ABC-HD-DesperateHousewives-080928-02b.png)
East 3 (http://vidiot.com/images/ABC-HD-DesperateHousewives-080928-03a.png) West 3 (http://vidiot.com/images/ABC-HD-DesperateHousewives-080928-03b.png)
East 4 (http://vidiot.com/images/ABC-HD-DesperateHousewives-080928-04a.png) West 4 (http://vidiot.com/images/ABC-HD-DesperateHousewives-080928-04b.png)
East 5 (http://vidiot.com/images/ABC-HD-DesperateHousewives-080928-05a.png) West 5 (http://vidiot.com/images/ABC-HD-DesperateHousewives-080928-05b.png)
East 6 (http://vidiot.com/images/ABC-HD-DesperateHousewives-080928-06a.png) West 6 (http://vidiot.com/images/ABC-HD-DesperateHousewives-080928-06b.png)
East 7 (http://vidiot.com/images/ABC-HD-DesperateHousewives-080928-07a.png) West 7 (http://vidiot.com/images/ABC-HD-DesperateHousewives-080928-07b.png)

In image 5, look at the "clock". Blow it up and you'll see the drastic difference. In image 7, enlarge any of the text and look at the pixels that make up the text. Sharp on the east feed (OK as sharp as can be for video), but fuzzy on the west feed. Specifically look at the Columbia Pictures text, and little logo, on the right.

Also notice the black vertical bar on the right side of all the west images. The video isn't being shrink, the pixels are just plain being replaced with black.

It seems that ABC is recording the east feed on some kind of inferior deck and then playing it out for the west coast.

Engineers on the forum that work at west coast ABC affiliates need to complain to ABC engineering about what they are doing, as it just plain sucks. You can use these images as proof (just don't tell them where you got them :D ).

Mr. Video ... thanks so much for going to all trouble to gather and post those images. That should put to bed any blame on the local station(s) for messing things up -- they are simply sending out what is coming in, and it's not good.

Your theory about them recording the East feed and then replaying it is a good one, but I don't think that's the case since when the Presidential debate aired last Friday, it was also hosed (and that of course, was live). When "another network" had a nearly identical problem some time back, the problem turned out to be an incorrect setting in an encoder.

Mr. Video ... thanks so much for going to all trouble to gather and post those images. That should put to bed any blame on the local station(s) for messing things up -- they are simply sending out what is coming in, and it's not good.

You are welcome.

Your theory about them recording the East feed and then replaying it is a good one, but I don't think that's the case since when the Presidential debate aired last Friday, it was also hosed (and that of course, was live). When "another network" had a nearly identical problem some time back, the problem turned out to be an incorrect setting in an encoder.

Ya, after sending out a piece of e-mail about it, I thought that maybe it was a piece of gear that was added to the recently created separate west feed. That piece of gear is either inferior or set incorrectly.

Keep in mind that ABC has had a separate west feed on Sunday nights for years and years, yet no one complained about it then. So, it is whatever they have added to the new west feed chain that is causing the problem.

I have TWC in Los Angeles...local HD ABC programming looks great, but when we switch to primetime is loses all resolution. "Ugly Betty", "Desperate Housewives", etc. just don't look like they used to.It's the same OTA. I read in another thread that there was Pacific Coast feed problem. FGS! Let's get this fixed! Anyone else have any info on this? Thanks!

Topic merged.

Topic merged.

Thanks! I hoped this gets addressed soon! :eek:

Possible progress -- "World News" looks OK tonight.

Definite progress -- West coast prime feed is back to normal tonight. Let's hope it stays that way and is not a fluke.

I recorded the east coast ABC feed for the first 15 minutes of Dancing With The Stars earlier this evening on a Panasonic D5 tape machine. The D5 machine is a very high quality HD video tape machine as in $100K. I played the tape back three hours later and compared the picture with the west coast feed on a professional quality CRT HD monitor. I could see no difference between the two. I think whatever the problem was has been fixed by ABC.

Rory at KXTV Sacramento

I think whatever the problem was has been fixed by ABC.

It certainly seems like it. I've got the west Boston Legal up on the computer and the first thing I looked for was the black line along the right edge. It was gone.

Definately looks normal.

Yes..."Boston Legal" looked good last night; as did "The Nightly News".

The blur in the examples above are only on vertical lines and not horizontal. That implies a possible bandwidth issue. ABC uses Tandberg encoders, and I've seen that occur with the prefilter set to soft. It should be on sharp or auto. But they fixed it so that's history now.

The blur in the examples above are only on vertical lines and not horizontal. That implies a possible bandwidth issue. ABC uses Tandberg encoders, and I've seen that occur with the prefilter set to soft. It should be on sharp or auto. But they fixed it so that's history now.I still don't feel that it is totally fixed yet. Watching "Ugly Betty" Thursday...it just wasn't as detailed as I remember it from previous seasons. Something is still not quite right, IMO.

I still don't feel that it is totally fixed yet. Watching "Ugly Betty" Thursday...it just wasn't as detailed as I remember it from previous seasons. Something is still not quite right, IMO.

If wanted, I could do some more comparisons tonight, maybe. If ABC sends out two different college games, as it appears they will be doing, I won't be to do anything until Sunday.

That said, From what I could see Monday night, the problem was solved. That means the issue is with the source material. Keep in mind, they moved production to NY, so completely different equipment is being used to produce this show.

Here is a subtraction of East 5 and West 5 from above. The vertical edges (horizontal detail) shows the softened differences while the horizontal edges (vertical detail) are not affected. Horizontal detail is affected by bandwidth while vertical is not. Since HD video is pretty much all digital in a professional environment (cameras and monitoring are exceptions), this would imply a deliberate filter. The "prefilter" found in many encoders acts in this manner. MPEG encoding softness tends to be in both axis as the quantizing matrix tends to be symetrical:

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/5231/abcw1xx8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

(http://g.imageshack.us/img222/abcw1xx8.jpg/1/)

KOMO 4 here in Seattle has a very soft picture on all of their local programming as well as World News Tonight. I have not noticed the soft picture on sports broadcasts or other network programming. It is also hit or miss whether or not World News is actually in HD. Some nights it is, others it is not. Sometimes it switches to HD in the middle of the program. I have compared feeds from both Dish Network and OTA and they appear to be identical.

KOMO 4 here in Seattle has a very soft picture on all of their local programming as well as World News Tonight. I have not noticed the soft picture on sports broadcasts or other network programming. It is also hit or miss whether or not World News is actually in HD. Some nights it is, others it is not. Sometimes it switches to HD in the middle of the program. I have compared feeds from both Dish Network and OTA and they appear to be identical.

I'm trying to watch the USC / Oregon game, on Komo 4 and 4-1 right now. 4-1 has a signal so weak, my TV keeps dropping it.

Kinda dissapointing.

I just checked and KOMOs OTA signal is too weak to even come in. I'm not in a prime signal location but it usually works OK. They did mention the other day that they were going to be working on their transmitter so maybe that has something to do with it.

Here is a subtraction of East 5 and West 5 from above.

You did Photoshop subtraction between two images? Strange. I capture east and west B&S tonight and did not get a gray result when doing the subtraction of the gray channel.

In any event, comparing three mages, one of which was the same iPhone commercial, results in zero differences in the quality of the characters and the images on the iPhone. All three pairs looks exactly the same... except.

There is an except that ABC might want to look into the cause thereof and that is that the far right 4 pixles are replaced with black. That results in a black vertical line along the right edge.

The interesting part is that when the encoder was set wrong and the video was getting blurred, the left edged was also blurred. Now that the encoder is fixed, it is a solid 4 pixels of black. It goes from video image to black.

So, as far as sharpness is concerned, between east and west feeds, one is just like the other.