Originally posted by jbh613
I've seen people on here talk about their HD DVRs, so how do I go about getting one...$? I just so happened to have called TW yesterday afternoon and ordered new service, including their HD-DVR. I made it clear for the installer to NOT come if he didn't have one and I'd reschedule. I've got Dish Network currently, so it's not like we're living with TV....

What will happen come this Friday ?? :) Don't know ..... but I'll post back.

I did notice that WKEF actually remembered to hit HD for Monday Night Football.

Originally posted by buckeye1010
Actually, from 8-8:33, there was no audio at all .... (and the show "Benefactor" from 8-9 has yet to be shown in HD in Dayton).


Yes, I noticed no audio as well on WKEF-DT 51-1 between 8~8:30 .... Everything seemed fine with Fox HD on WRGT-DT for "North Shore" when I cheked it.

Benefactor has not been sent in HD by ABC to anyone ...

Originally posted by Nitewatchman


Benefactor has not been sent in HD by ABC to anyone ...

ah ha
I heard that it will eventually be shown on Mark Cuban's HDNet - I bet he's holding out on the HD versions for when *he* shows it!

This might be a dumb question, but does Time Warner rebroadcast the national feeds of primetime shows, and presumably (hopefully) free of glitches like "forgetting to turn on WS" vs rebroadcasting WHIO or WDTN and so on signals ??

Hall,

No such thing as a dumb question here ...

First the short answer --- You would get HD from the broadcast networks( ABC, CBS, Fox/etc.) via TWC Dayton/Western OH from the local stations(WKEF/WHIO/WRGT). It's exactly the same thing as what we get OTA.

Unless something has changed recently, TW does not currently carry NBC HD/WDTN-DT, as they don't have retransmission rights to carry WDTN-DT. I also don't think they carry the WB Dayton digital station(WBDT-DT), which doesn't have HD as of yet.

Now, the longer answer, that hopefully covers at least some of the how's and why's :

The local stations have the exclusive rights in this area to broadcast ABC/CBS/NBC/etc/etc programming, including HD programming. That is a big part of being, what say, a "NBC Affiliate" means. It is highly *unlikely a local station would allow a cableco to carry the national feed(without the local commercials and local news/info/etc), as that would be giving the hard earned revenue(eyeballs+thus advertising $) away which keeps the local broadcaster in business. Part of the agreements between the local station+its network of affiliation involve how much time during network programming the local affiliate gets to air local ads and promos(such as for local news/etc) ...

*In other words, it doesn't happen except in some, specific circumstances(such as the nat'l CBS HD feed which is available to SOME E*/D* subscribers in some areas), when :

1.)The local station is OWNED by the Network itself(There are None of those in Dayton Or Cincinnati - NBC does own NBC Columbus, and Viacom owns UPN/WB Columbus), and the Network has an agreement with the provider(such as say, D*, or TW ).

2.) If an area isn't served by a local affiliate, or if a individual satellite service subscriber can't get a signal OTA from the local affiliate, and can get a waiver(with SD analog anyway, presently) from the local station involved. Usually, if this involves a cable system in a given area, then the cableco may negotiate a deal with a somewhat "distant" station which they can receive via antenna(a nice antenna ;), or, perhaps more likely, they'll have a deal to carry a Network O&O station such as WNBC NY/etc ...

Anyway ... Again ... here in Dayton, everything you would see via TWC from the broadcast nets is exactly the same as we see it OTA(unless there are reception problems, of course), it's the same thing OTA viewers see, the same thing that comes out of the same MPEG2 Video/AC-3 audio encoders/etc. at the local station. Also, in addition to NOT getting NBC HD/WDTN-DT, or currently WBDT-DT --- what you also don't get to see via TWC Dayton/Western OH would be, say any Cincinnati or Columbus/etc. HD stations(except the following PBS digital stations(both with some PBS HD - WPTO-DT Oxford/Cincinnati+WCET-DT Cincinnati, both of which I believe TW Dayton does carry) which you may be able to receive at your location OTA, depending upon your location+antenna setup.

On the more "technical" side of things ... In some circumstances* -- While it is somewhat "technically" possible for it to be a little different PQ wise with HD/DTV for OTA/Cable (seperate encoders at the station for Cable/OTA viewers could potentially be used, which could Potentially mean a higher bitrate, and thus better PQ for cable viewers) - I know of no circumstances when this has ever occured, not to say it hasn't happened somewhere, for some strange reason. For one thing, this is very expensive equipment involved which the station must invest in, and it would probably be quite a "complicated" endeavor as well. For another thing, If anything, Cableco's generally want to use their bandwidth for MORE channels/services rather than use larger chunks of bandwidth to provide higher quality PQ for fewer channels/services ...

* - One exception involves the Way Fox is doing FOX HD -- in this case EVERYONE, no matter what Fox HD affiliate they are watching gets the same HD quality/ bitrate, as there is no decoding/re-encoding step that happens between the HD Encoder used at the network and Your STB, as is the case with HD from ABC/CBS/etc presently. With Fox programming, The only "HD encoder" is at Fox at the network level, and it sends a ASI stream-- through the splicer(which bypasses the station's encoder, but the switching from local to network(should be via the splicer, even for SD programming upconverted at network level to 720p -- but doesn't have to be, could be same SD from Fox thats feeding the analog station) is currently done at the local station level -- Although --- the splicer at the affiliate CAN and does insert local bugs(such as the Fox 45 bug) ....

So, technically speaking, the major thing that is different between OTA/Cable HD from the broadcast nets is how the RF signal which arrives to you via cable is modulated(this doesn't effect the datastream contaning the content(HD video/AC-3 audio/PSIP info)) during "last mile" delivery to your home. OTA DTV/HD uses 8VSB for OTA transmission, the cableco in this case is using QAM, the latter which doesn't need to use anywhere near as much data bandwidth for the error correction to send the signal over a wire which is required for a robust system in the harsher environment of wireless/ transmission reception. If we didn't need all that error correction for OTA, we would have around 36~38mb/s or so of data bandwidth available, OTA in a 6MHZ wide RF channel(6MHZ wide RF channels is what we use in the U.S.), instead of the 19.34mb/s we have via OTA ATSC. This is why cable can fit 2 digital "stations" in One 6MHZ channel's worth of RF bandwidth ....

Anyhow ---- Basically(without getting too technical) The cableco is either :

1# : Getting a fiber link of the MPEG2/AC-3/etc. datastreams from the station's encoders (usually Via a "format" which is pretty much becoming a standard known as ASI(which Fox also uses with their splicer system) -- usually directly from the output of the stations "HD" encoder(before multiplexing/channel coding for OTA transmission).
Or:

2# :The cableco is getting it(or distributing it through their system) via a microwave link,

Or:

#3). Receiving it at the cableco headend, OTA with a OTA antenna, just like we do.

And then modulating to QAM, and transmitting it to you via their "last mile" delivery system (the "wire" .. i.e. coax that comes into your neighborhoold/house) ...

#1+#3 are the most common ways cableco's receive the signals from the stations. My understanding is, the station usually provides the equipment(or fiber/microwave link) the cableco headend needs to get the signal from the station, but that may not allways be the case.

While it is possible for the cableco to add steps to "degrade"(and lower the bandwidth requirements) the quality of the picture you see at the cableco as compared to what we get OTA, my understanding is, I don't believe that is occuring in this area ... They are really not SUPPOSED to do that, anyway ...

Probably much more than you wanted to know, and I certianly left a LOT out ... but I think that's the "basics" of it ...

Originally posted by buckeye1010
ah ha
I heard that it will eventually be shown on Mark Cuban's HDNet - he's holding out on the HD versions for when *he* shows it!

Yes, it's airing on HDnet, but Nah, Mark wouldn't do that ... Didn't you know he is one of us?

From what I gather from the most recent thread concerning this issue, as well as Mark's posts(mcuban on AVSforum) in an earlier thread(links farther below) - I think it likely the missing HD from ABC for this is just some sort of "mixup", probably on ABC's end, but who knows -- It's certianly NOT the first time there have been "mixups" with this sort of thing, even at the network level ....

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=451230&pagenumber=1

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4296998#post4296998

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=404999&perpage=20&pagenumber=1

Jeff - thanks for your (as usual) informative post!

re: Mark Cuban - yes I know he's one of us. I just thought he wouldn't have allowed it to happen 3 weeks in a row! He/"they" made such a big deal about it being the first reality show in HD. Oh well - growing pains....

Unless something has changed recently, TW does not currently carry NBC HD/WDTN-DT, as they don't have retransmission rights to carry WDTN-DT. I also don't think they carry the WB Dayton digital station(WBDT-DT), which doesn't have HD as of yet. I don't know how quick they are to update this page or keep it up-to-date, but this is what they list "today":

711 14DT
712 14Learn
716 ThinkTV
717 Think16
718 16Kids
719 16Again
720 Think14
722 WKEF NBC 22 Dayton
745 WRGT FOX 45 Dayton
755 Discovery HD Theater
756 TNT HD

I realize their WKEF listing is out-of-date at the moment. Who is the agreement with though, the network or the local affiliate ??

No CBS (WHIO) listed.... That sucks. Any word on the status of the WDTN deal form any insiders ?? I would hope it's just a matter of time for both stations. I just looked at my wife and I's favorite shows (ER, 3rd Watch, the CSIs) and they're on either NBC or CBS.

So, what does Paige Davis from Trading Spaces look like in HD ?? :D

It is highly *unlikely a local station would allow a cableco to carry the national feed(without the local commercials and local news/info/etc), as that would be giving the hard earned revenue Yeah, I realized that, I just don't understand how the whole thing works. That's also why I spec'd "primetime" since I don't seem to remember many, if any, "local" commercials during that time. I didn't know if the local stations kinda "hand-off" to the national feeds for a few hours.

in addition to NOT getting NBC HD/WDTN-DT, or currently WBDT-DT --- what you also don't get to see via TWC Dayton/Western OH would be, say any Cincinnati or Columbus/etc. HD stations(except the following PBS digital stations(both with some PBS HD - WPTO-DT Oxford/Cincinnati+WCET-DT Cincinnati, both of which I believe TW Dayton does carry) which you may be able to receive at your location OTA, depending upon your location+antenna setup. Those Cincy stations are only available to people in southern Montgomery County or Warren County via TW. TW's website has a choice of "City of Dayton" or "South of Dayton". The nice thing about satellite HD receivers is how they incorporate OTA into them whereas cable boxes do NOT. Has anyone ever read or heard why Motorola, Scientific Atlanta, etc don't do this ??

I searched this thread and found a very recent post from browerjs, http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4335951#post4335951, that says TW-WOH is in fact carrying WHIO's digital channel.

I also checked over at Zap2It, realizing what it says is NOT set in stone, and they also list WHIO-DT when I tell it to list "Time Warner, Dayton, Digital".

I've contacted the cable-tv-overseer at the city of Dayton looking for any information on this. Now it only applies to WDTN though. I realize he has nothing to do with it, but sometimes they know stuff that's going on.

Originally posted by hall
Who is the agreement with though, the network or the local affiliate ??
...
I don't seem to remember many, if any, "local" commercials during that time. Retransmission agreements are with the station, which holds the exclusive rights to the network programming for their DMAs.

Local commercials don't have to all be from local advertisers. Depending on the program, local stations keep 8 or more minutes of avails each hour. But it can just as easily be a Swiffer commercial as a Watson's, thanks to spot-buying practices.

But net avails aren't nearly as important to the station as the promos for its local programming. Converting eyes to local programming (news, syndicated shows, etc) is how stations make most of their money.

Originally posted by hall
I just don't understand how the whole thing works.


And, you may not want to know - The details anyway ;) ... For that matter, I'm not sure anyone out there knows how it works in every given situation(Although if anyone here comes close it would be Doc), as the issues involved can sometimes get very complicated(especially with digital/HD presently -- more on that later), and of course we won't be "privy" anyway to many of the details concerning the agreements between a station+it's network affilate, or the cableco+the station for retransmission consent ... but, sometimes you can make educated guesses about some things ....

In general, though, and where our local stations/cableco's are concerned, it is an interesting subject, at least I think so ....

Originally posted by hall
I don't know how quick they are to update this page or keep it up-to-date, but this is what they list "today":


Well, if it tells you anything about that list, it was reported HERE back sometime in the Spring(2004) that TW began Carrying CBS HD/WHIO-DT ... Prior to that time, you'll find many posts from TW folks who certianly WANTED to see CBS HD ...(BTW, WHIO-DT has been on the air with CBS HD for pretty close to exactly 3 years now). I think TW Dayton has also carried WCET-DT, PBS Cincinnati for quite some time, according to WCET's website+posts here, anyway. I also see that WPTD/WPTO/WCET HD subchannels aren't specifically listed, but, I believe they have those as well.

They've carried WKEF/WRGT digitals (even long before WRGT had any HD or widescreen) for a couple of years now, and ThinkTV/PBS HD for about a year .. Since WKEF was NBC HD up until a month ago, it was NBC HD that TW subs got to see, not ABC HD as is the case presently ...

Originally posted by hall
So, what does Paige Davis from Trading Spaces look like in HD ?? :D


Hmmm ... I May have seen her on Tonight Show HD a year or so ago, but it might have been Letterman SD instead ... I did enjoy her 5/3 bank spots that used to run locally(see link below), and allways thought those would be nice to see in HD ...

http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/stories/2003/12/29/daily8.html

Is she on some other show(one that's HD), regularly, other than trading spaces on TLC?


Originally posted by hall

since I don't seem to remember many, if any, "local" commercials during that time.


Oh yeah, there are plenty, during prime time/network programming, and, other times as well. As Doc mentioned, they aren't allways for local businesses, though - For instance, WDTN ran a TNT ad just prior to 6pm evening news last night, and it would be hard to tell what's what with one of those during network programming.

If you can receive another network affiliate(such as CBS Cincinnati), and watch the Dayton CBS station(WHIO) at the same time as well(via PIP or 2 TV's), when the commericals are DIFFERENT ones during CBS programming, those are the ads the local affilates are inserting. There are some other ways to tell, as well - For instance, sometimes from some stations, when local ads are inserted when they are airing a Network HD show(or if they are using the HD feed, but it's SD upconverted at network level+sent over the feed to the affiliate), during the ad break and the switch from the network feed to the local spots, you'll sometimes get a couple seconds where audio will be missing, or other indications that the switch isn't happening completely "smoothly" as their equipment works to "sync things up" to the different A/V sources ... This sort of thing will likely get better as DTV/HD equipment the stations use improves ...

Also - a little tidbit ... It's only been within the last year or so that WKEF-DT, as well as WKRC-DT, CBS Cincinnati actually even inserted the local ads during HD, for "technical" reasons(besides the small HD audience). We used to get the CBS "it's all here" HD promo instead of local ads on WKRC-DT, and a NBC peacock+Olympic flag screen savers on WKEF-DT. Where the latter is concerned, it might seem strange, but personally I would have rather seen the locally inserted ads! When that peacock came up, it used to often seem like FOREVER until the break was over .... On the other hand, the CBS "It's all here" HD promo was nice to look at, and, as it was VERY bandwidth demanding, it also was easy to see if the station wasn't allocating enough bandwidth to HD ...

Originally posted by hall
Those Cincy stations are only available to people in southern Montgomery County or Warren County via TW. TW's website has a choice of "City of Dayton" or "South of Dayton".


I think that is true for analog stations, but not digital(but I could be wrong), besides HD from Cincinnati PBS stations, I don't think TW Dayton Carries any HD from Cincinnati stations -- You have to be in an area TW Cincy serves for that, currently. I do know that WCPO 9 Cincinnati(ABC - but "back then" they were CBS), and Fox 19 Cincinnati USED to be available via Dayton Cable as far away as near WPAFB+WSU, -- But, that's from back in the 80's ... We've discussed the Cincy/Dayton "overlapping" DMA areas and various issues involved before here somewhere in this thread ...

Originally posted by hall
The nice thing about satellite HD receivers is how they incorporate OTA into them whereas cable boxes do NOT. Has anyone ever read or heard why Motorola, Scientific Atlanta, etc don't do this ??

Well, for one thing they probably want to keep the costs down as much as possible .. Now I'll get back into some of that "complicated" stuff again, which necessitates(I couldn't figure out a way to write it out otherwise, sorry!) that in some places quite a bit of my personal opinions on the matter are included .... Anyhow ... For another reason, I think the Cableco wants to be YOUR provider for the local station's signal (including ABC/NBC/CBS HD/etc), but,they don't want to have to PAY the local station for that privilage, but they DO want YOU to pay THEM for the privilage of getting ABC/NBC/CBS HD from THEM, even though, you could be getting it for "free"(meaning no subscrption fees) OTA ...

So, broadcasters say, "Why should we let the cableco's distrubuite our HD for "free"?, and the cablecos say, "Why should we have to Pay(these retransmission consent "deals" can and do involve other things besides just $$ - directly btw) for HD which anyone(including their subscribers) can receive for "free" OTA ? Thus, we have in some cases, as they say, an "impasse" ....

On the other hand, in general, it seems Broadcasters *usually* want the eyeballs of cable subscirbers, and in a sense, that is mainly how they benefit from cable carrying their signals ... With HD however at this point there are #1). Few eyeballs to gain, and #2). and although it should be happening "soon", viewers of digital stations don't yet count in the all important ratings ... The latter is likely the reason why, for instance, NBC HD Olympics were delayed 24 hours from the SD coverage ...

On the other hand(do octopuss's have hands?) - while one might *think* it would be a reasonable assumption to assume that eventually(after analog shut off at least) the cableco's would carry the digital/HD stations that correspond to all the analog stations they currently carry, and I personally am pretty much assuming this will be the case(although it still might be a long while) ..... However ... -- If OTA HD/digital is ever successful in a big way -- Broadcasters could conciveably "get rid" of the cable middleman, and gain market share as well IF large numbers of viewers go back to OTA Only for their TV(I wouldn't count on it, but you never know) ... They've even cooked up subscription OTA services(USDTV) which allows them to use(unfortuently) a portion of their bandwidth to send "encrypted" versions of cable channels.

Interestingly enough, Sinclair(who owns and operates WKEF, and operates WRGT via LMA(local marketing agreement), and has Asked FCC to be allowed to purchase/own WRGT) is one of the companies out there whom have been well known around these parts(meaning AVSforum) for .. lets say, NOT coming to agreements with cablecos for retransmission consent of their digital stations ... Even as close as nearby Columbus, Ohio, TW Columbus and Sinclair have not been able to strike a deal for carriage of Columbus ABC HD+Fox HD stations ... I'm sure there is probably another area, but I personally don't know of ANY other place, presently, besides Dayton, where the cableco carries HD from Sinclair owned or operated stations -- And I don't know how much I would count on the current arrangement between Sinclair+TW for WKEF/WRGT digitals(ABC/Fox HD) being a "permanent" thing .... Sinclair is also Big on OTA, and recently launched a website(as well as putting together some PSA's) to promote OTA HD ... Which is a great, IMO ...

Then, there is a little thing called "must carry", which requires a cableco to carry the station's signal if the cableco headend in question is within the stations coverage area AND the station ASKS for/invokes must carry ... In this area, however, in practice, it seems to be a bit more complicated than that, and cable carriage agreements(whether by must carry or retransmission consent) - in some communtites also seems to involve agreements among Cincy/Dayton stations since all of Dayton is actually within most Cincinnati stations coverage area and vice versa.

Where digital/HD is concerned however, the current must carry rules state that a broadcaster can CHOOSE whether or not the analog, or the digital should "qualify" for must carry rights, but not both ... and still, remember that a station does not HAVE to invoke must-carry if they don't want ... generally, I think, for stations/services cable subscribers actually WANT to see which are offered by local broadcasters, deals between the cableco+station for Retransmission constent are done. And,(with likely some important exceptions) it's probably the stations with all infomericals/etc. that most people could care less about that are most likely to invoke must carry ...

With PBS stations, there is an additional "incentive" for cableco's to carry their services, as those services generally count towards a cableco's public interest obligations.

Which brings me to must-carry for multiple programming streams from a digital station, which is something many broadcasters are wanting, but cableco's aren't for what should be obvious reasons(they want to use their bandwidth to serve customers with services their customers WANT) ... However, if you notice, (at least in this area) they don't seem to mind at all about carrying multiple program services from the local PBS stations -- EVEN if it involves the exact same programming/programming services from seperate stations .... Hopefully, FCC will stick to the current must-carry rules(and this seems to be why at they are saying they'll do, presently), and must-carry for multiple streams won't happen .... My feeling is, IF a broadcaster offers compelling programming on a multicast service, the viewers will want to see it, and the cableco will want to carry it, and they can use the retransmission consent cable carriage rules instead of must carry ...

If all that is any clearer than mud, then there IS something wrong, somewhere<g>

Originally posted by hall
The nice thing about satellite HD receivers is how they incorporate OTA into them whereas cable boxes do NOT.


Besides Sat HD receivers, there are also OTA ONLY HD receivers out there which can be benefical to cable subcribers who wish to use OTA as well. There are also Integrated HD displays which have OTA Only HD/DTV receivers INSIDE the TV. In fact, a OTA DTV tuner mandate from the FCC began taking effect on 7/1/04 with 1/2 of all sets over 36" manufactured after that date required to have OTA DTV cabability "built in"(If it's a HD display, you can pretty much count on it doing HD, and not just SD DTV(digital television -- OTA NOT DirecTV -- D*= DirecTV here) which is being phased in by screen size. By 2007, ALL Tv's (and VCR's/etc) are required to have built in DTV reception capability. Also, all TV's that are labeled as "digital cable Plug+Play ready" must ALSO have built-in OTA DTV receivers.

So -- While it's not the case presently, in the very near future, Cable subsribers who buy a new HD display will have everything they need to receive OTA HD if they want BUILT IN to the set itself. Hopefully, they'll actually put two RF inputs on the Digital cable PnP sets, so one can easily hook up their digital cable AND an antenna, unlike the current situation in most cases with OTA NTSC tuners and "cable ready" sets, which pretty much all analog sets are ....

I think it will be interesting to see, in the future, HOW many folks who use cable will also hook up an antenna for OTA HD HD/DTV to their "new" set which should, truly be, "HD-ready" in a "HD built in" sense ... or at least "DTV built in" .....

I think that is true for analog stations, but not digital(but I could be wrong), besides HD from Cincinnati PBS stations, I don't think TW Dayton Carries any HD from Cincinnati stations -- You have to be in an area TW Cincy serves for that, currently. I do know that WCPO 9 Cincinnati(ABC - but "back then" they were CBS), and Fox 19 Cincinnati USED to be available via Dayton Cable as far away as near WPAFB+WSU, -- But, that's from back in the 80's ... We've discussed the Cincy/Dayton "overlapping" DMA areas and various issues involved before here somewhere in this thread

Fox 19 is available on cable but only during non-network times. Exceptions are if the station is not carrying Fox programming during primetime (such as running a UC basketball game instead of Fox primetime) or carrying Fox programming not shown on WRGT (happens sometimes during NFL weekends where Fox does not have the doubleheader and the early or late slot is blacked out on WXIX because the Bungles actually sold-out a game).

Unfortunately WCPO is no longer available on Time Warner in Fairborn. It went away several years ago when some deal was signed between them and WDTN to split which areas the two would be seen on cable due to the overlapping DMA's. (I guess without such an agreement, cable could carry both due to how close the markets are?)

Personally, these stupid DMA boundaries mean nothing to me since I can use an antenna and watch out-of-market stations (WBNS, WKRC, WLWT) who I prefer due to various reasons (i.e. not multicasting/better PQ, passing Dolby 5.1).

Originally posted by 1450kHz
because the Bungles actually sold-out a game).


Oh no! we're back to calling them THAT again ... LOL ... I guess 78 "Oh my's" from Lapham during the radio broadcast last Sunday DOES qualify them for that "honor", at least temporarily ;)

Originally posted by 1450kHz
(I guess without such an agreement, cable could carry both due to how close the markets are?)


I don't know, but I'd think so .... I can't think of any other reason, anway ( affiliate agreements with the nets, in some cases perhaps?) Perhaps they might not want blackouts occuring during network programming/etc from the more "distant" station if a station in the "local" DMA is a network affiliate.

I suppose for the most part, having those "agreements" between stations could be advantagous to both, where cable/sat LIL coverage is concerned -- in most circumstances, so they "stay out of each other's way" so to speak as much as possible where ratings, and the various issues which may pertain to the DMA "boundaries" and advertisers/clients/etc a concerned ... You'd think that would have been pretty much A moot point of course back in the days when EVERYONE was using OTA for TV, and for us OTA people now who recieve stations in different markets as well.

But, then again ... Besides the Syndicated/local programming that might be of interest to viewers in the "other" market, there are those times when say, WRGT or WHIO carries a different NFL game than WKRC/WXIX ... (In the past, WRGT has often seemed to carry Pittsburg games when WXIX has had a game of usually more "national interest", which i could probably generally care less about, personally) ....

My understanding is, To qualify for cable carriage rules, the cable head end involved just has to be within the "Grade B" contour of the station's coverage area ... In other words, IF you can pick it up with a outdoor antenna with good signal quality at that location, then it's likely to qualify for cable carriage in your area. That certianly applies to Must carry, although I'd think that with Retransmission consent, if a Station, and the cableco WANTS cable carriage, they COULD even carry it if they were outside of a stations coverage area, as long as they could get the signal to the cableco for distribution. And, I believe this does happen in some areas sometimes if the headend isn't actually within any say, NBC/CBS station's coverage area, but they do have a way to pick up the more distant station's signal, reliably ...

I'm using "Grade B" a little loosely here, as that specifically applies to analog. A Analog station's "grade B" coverage area, is the area covered by a 47dbu signal for VHF-lo(ch 2-6), 56 dbu for VHF-HI(ch 7-13), and 64 dbu for UHF.

For DTV -- the general equivelents(DTV "theoretically" works with about 12db less signal than is necessary for "snow free" analog reception) - they are currently using(and I personally think this is a little optimistic, although that's probably a GOOD thing since FCC uses this to define a station's service area for interference protection for that station's service area as well) are 28dbu for VHF-LO, 36dbu for VHF-Hi, and 41 dbu for UHF.

If I recall correctly, these signal strengths/coverage areas assume a station can be received with good results(such as at the "fringe" of the coverage area) with an antenna 30Feet above ground level(outside of course), and I *think* the antenna is supposed to have 10dbi(or 10dbd) of gain on the frequency of operation for the station involved(obviously, a UHF, or FM antenna isn't going to have 10db of gain on VHF channel 13, nor is a improperly aimed antenna that isn't aimed at the station involved/etc), but I could be wrong about how much gain is "specified" ... Nevertheless, aside from difficult terrain issues, generally the signal should be receivable from within the specified coverage area ....

In any event, FCC has recently added coverage maps to its site, which would give those interested a good idea of just "how big" station's coverage areas are.

Here is a link to WKRC-DT's coverage map(41 dbu contour) :

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DT554632.html

WSTR-DT's Current map, with their current STA(41 dbu contour) :

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DS618160.html

You can find the rest at : http://www.fcc.gov/mb/video/tvq.html
Be sure to choose "detailed info+CDBS links" for your query, a link to the coverage map of each station(among other useful+informative links) that meets the criteria specified in your query will be present in the "links" area below each station's engineering info. Searching by radius+a certian distance, as well as Putting in the exact Lat/long coordinates for your location will give you add'l info, such as True bearing, reverse bearing, and distance ....

Originally posted by 1450kHz
Personally, these stupid DMA boundaries mean nothing to me since I can use an antenna and watch out-of-market stations

Yeah, same here. Funny story about that. Strangely enough, My location(pretty much right on Butler/montgomery co line) is IN the Cincinnati DMA(Cincy/N KY TV Towers 27~39 miles distant). BUT, I'm only 12 MILES from the Dayton antenna farm. Well, a few months back, one of my neighbors added D*, with locals. OF course, he is only "eligible" for the Cincinnati LIL over the dish. Well, the thing is, he prefers to watch the DAYTON stations, primarily for the local news. Being that the D* installer removed the "in house" portion of his feedline run from his outdoor antenna to his TV for some, strange, odd reason, He had NO IDEA that he could actually still hook up his antenna(s)(he actually has 4 of them he WAS using for Cincinnati/Dayton, and getting better PQ I might add) to his TV and still receive the stations OTA ... So, what he was doing was using a 2nd, small TV w/antenna to watch the Dayton stations .... LOL ....

Originally posted by hall


So, what does Paige Davis from Trading Spaces look like in HD ?? :D


Oh man! ALMOST good enough to make me watch the show - but not quite.....

;)

Originally posted by buckeye1010
Oh man! ALMOST good enough to make me watch the show - but not quite.....

;)

The ONLY reason for watching Trading Spaces is Paige. I just love that girl!

:cool:

BTW...TW WOH has carried WHIO-DT on channel 707 since the Super Bowl.

So after Jeff's latest novels, I'm still left with a few questions. So if I can, and I know its a big if, get the HD DVR from Time Warner, it will not be able to record OTA broadcasts? For the most part the shows I want to record would be CSI and others on CBS, so if they are not offered by TW,then how could I record them.

Iguess this brings up a bigger question I have always had. Since like you mentioned, I have a set with a built in HD tuner, I can receive OTA digitals. Now I have recently been looking into the most cost affective way of recording HD feeds, and have really drawn a blank. I do have a firewire out on my set, but I dont know if I want to record onto tapes, seems dated to me. I also looked into OTA DVR, which come in at a modest $700 large. I really cant justify that purchase. So maybe someone here can enlighten me on the ways of recording HDTV.

Well, just for a point of reference, I know that Digital VHS decks can be had for less than $400 and they work with Firewire. So it can be reasonably cost effective for the hardware.

Another method is to use a dedicated computer to do the job. The software is mature, from what I understand.

Originally posted by jbh613
...it will not be able to record OTA broadcasts? No, you will not. The set-top boxes from TW have no OTA capabilities. For the most part the shows I want to record would be CSI and others on CBS, so if they are not offered by TW,then how could I record them. In the case of WHIO (CBS), contrary to what their website says, they do appear to carry them. Numerous people here with TW-HD have stated so. My disappointment now, or soon, is the lack of NBC (3rd Watch, E.R., Law & Order: SVU)...

WHIO is there. Channel 91.1 if you are using a QAM tuner card.

HD versions of Paige Davis :) and Trading Spaces are shown on Discovery HD Theater.

I sent a message through WDTN's website asking about WDTN-DT being available through Time Warner. None of the "To" choices were very good and I ended up picking "Engineering". That was a few days ago and no reply yet... :(

Today, I ran across a Howard Nathan "investigation" regarding WDTN not being on DirecTV's Dayton locals (since changed I believe) for some southern Montgomery County residents. I thought that's a good tie-in to why their DT station isn't available for TW customers. This is what I sent:

================================
Subject: How 'bout some investigation on this ??

I was looking around WDTN's website hoping to find some information or
a contact name/e-mail address/phone number with no luck. I looked on
your page and saw this story,

"Dear DirecTV, I Want My WDTN, And Local Dayton TV Too!",
http://www.wdtn.com/index.cfm?action=dsp_story&storyid=37185,

and thought it's very similar....

What am I referring to ?? Let's title it "Dear WDTN, I want NBC in
High-Definition through Time-Warner !".

I can get WHIO and WKEF in High-Def via Time Warner, but not your
station. How do I watch E.R. or 3rd Watch or Joey in HD ?? Currently,
I can't.

I don't expect you can or will look into this story though.... There's
lawyers and contracts and negotiations and most importantly, $$$$$
involved. It sure would be nice to see it happen (SOON) though.

Thank you and regards
Hall
================================

I expect no response on this either....

Hall,
How did the install go yesterday? Were you able to get the HD DVR?

It went fine and yes, I did get the HD-DVR. The installer even showed me the notes on the work order, via their WinCE handhelds, that said to the effect "if no HD-DVR available, reschedule". :) He mentioned that the employees normally get equipment like this but I'm guessing the demand is so high, they're going to customers first (still). He said that no employees, at least in general, have these yet.

With my Dish DVR/dual-tuner setup, I had wiring run from outside to my sat receiver. From the receiver, it has a TV2-out that goes upstairs to the bedroom. He simply cut that line, did some splicing, and that part was done. Maybe a 2-hour install....

The boxes did stop working this morning and I thought I hope that's not a common occurrence. When I called in, they mentioned "work order". I'm guessing when he calls in the box numbers they need a matching work order (paperwork) within "x" hours or they deactivate the box. The exact same thing happened when I got RR (Earthlink Cable) installed a year ago. Just under 24 hours later, it turned off.

I'm going to make a 2nd post shortly with my experience so far.

Okay, now for my comments regarding TW's cable tv service...

As it is, I do NOT have TW's "HD Tier". It included InHD, InHD2, HDNet, HDNetMovie, and ESPN-HD. I get WHIO-DT, (5) PBS-14 channels, (5) PBS-16 channels, WKEF-DT, WRGT-DT, DiscoveryHD, and TNT-HD. Since I've got TW's DigiPac 2000 package, I got my choice of (2) movie-channel packages and chose Showtime and HBO, both of which include an HD channel.

PBS-14-HD and PBS-16-HD both are listed as "Off Air", by the way. Any ideas ??

DiscoveryHD is without question, stunning !! And yes, I've got some "Trading Spaces" episodes marked for the DVR to record.

Right now, CBS is showing a football game. I have to believe it is *not* in HD though. It also has sidebars that I can't get rid of, either with the TW box or with my Toshiba. The TW box tells me "This program's picture matches your TV type, Widescreen 16:9". My TV tells me "Not available" when I try and change picture size. According to the TV manual, if it senses either a 720p or 1080i signal, the picture isn't adjustable. ABC has PGA Golf on, FOX has MLB Baseball on --- same things apply as with CBS.

I realize that not everything on the -DT channels will be in true HD format. Tonight, ABC has "Lost", the pilot, 2-hour episode, replaying, and it's listed as HDTV (http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/index.html). CBS has "CSI: Miami" on and it is in HD also. Luckily for us, the HD-DVR box is a dual-tuner so I can record both of these shows at the same tonight. :-)

Off-topic for this thread, but so far, TW doesn't touch Dish's picture quality. Dish's digital to TW's analog is no comparison obviously. But even Dish's digital looks quite a bit better than TW's digital channels. I've never seen Dish in HD (well, at HH Gregg once, but it wasn't my TV, etc, etc) so I can't compare those.

Originally posted by hall
PBS-14-HD and PBS-16-HD both are listed as "Off Air", by the way. Any ideas ??


16 HD Only Has HD 12 hours a night - From 6pm~6am - It is the PBS HD channel national feed schedule.

14 HD only runs HD programming on Sat+Sunday Nights, From 6pm~11pm. It is a different schedule from what is on 16HD, as they time shift stuff like HD "Clifford's Puppy Days", which airs during the Day on the Nat'l feed.

ThinkTV's schedule for all their Digital programming services can be found here: http://www.thinktv.org/program/program.php -- Click on "customize", and you can get the schedule for up to a week ahead for just all the HD stuff if you want.

Are you getting anything on Ch 748~752 from WCET-DT, PBS Cincinnati? It used to Say those were the Dayton TW Cable channels on its website, but now it shows TW Western OH instead (see here: http://www.cetconnect.org/television/channels.asp ) If you are getting them too, They run PBS HD channel(should be on 748,) nightly from 7pm~11pm -- The PQ is a tad better than from 16HD,(I think they are using Statistical Multiplexing), but it is still chock'full o' compression artifacts, as they are also multicasting 2 SD subchannels during HD. WCET-DT also sends DD 5.1, It's been rare for WPTD-DT to send anything besides DD 2.0.

Originally posted by hall
[Off-topic for this thread, but so far, TW doesn't touch Dish's picture quality. Dish's digital to TW's analog is no comparison obviously. But even Dish's digital looks quite a bit better than TW's digital channels. I've never seen Dish in HD (well, at HH Gregg once, but it wasn't my TV, etc, etc) so I can't compare those.

I just picked up E*(SD only) a few weeks ago(for the CNN's and HN's/Cspans to "supplement" our Main OTA/DVD viewing a little) and I was pleasantly surprised that the SD PQ wasn't as bad as I figured it would be, for the most part. Seems like movies on the TNT's/USA's/TBS's/etc. though look especially soft and blurry for some reason, although there's pretty much no way I could stand to watch a panned and scanned movie anyway, though ...

Still, As SD goes, it doesn't look as good as OTA analog(given good reception+the station sending good video(Not like the 3AM movie on WRGT last night, LOL). I've yet to see anything SD wise from cable or sat look that good, and of course, SD analog OTA can't beat SD Digital OTA(when it is done RIGHT, that is -- WSTR-DT Cincinnati probably has the best SD digital pic out there presently in our area, and the upconverted stuff from some of the area stations looks pretty good too), and of course HD PQ is far above all of those, as long as its given enough bandwidth.

Originally posted by hall
Right now, CBS is showing a football game. I have to believe it is *not* in HD though.

No it's not. At 2:45pm, WHIO-DT Dayton isn't carrying a CBS game, it's MSU Vs Iowa from ESPN Plus ... WKRC-DT, CBS Cincinnati however is currently airing a game from CBS, the ARK vs FL game.

The following 3:30pm SEC Game SHOULD be in HD on WHIO-DT/WKRC-DT, however -- Unless either station decides to run a different, non-HD game, or they neglect to switch to the HD feed. It says in Today's paper here WHIO/WKRC-DT is carrying the following game:

October 2
LSU @ GEORGIA
3:30PM ET in HD
Sanford Stadium, Athens, GA

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
Are you getting anything on Ch 748~752 from WCET-DT, PBS Cincinnati? It used to Say those were the Dayton TW Cable channels on its website, but now it shows TW Western OH instead No, my channels jump from 745 (WRGT FOX 45 Dayton) up to 755 (Discovery HD).

http://www.timewarnercable.com/CustomerService/CLU/TWCCLUs.ashx?CLUID=119&Zip=45410&Image1.x=16&Image1.y=4&Image1=submit

I'm inside the city limits of Dayton. Sadly, TW has (possibly) different lineups all over Montgomery, Miami, Warren, etc, etc counties. If you're "South of Dayton", and I'm guessing Springboro, Franklin, and so on, I'll bet you get those CET channels. Try this page, http://www.timewarnercable.com/CustomerService/CLU/TWCCLUs.ashx, to see all of their areas.

Thanks. I was just curious as I knew that was the case with most of the services they offer, but Since we are still pretty "early" in the DTV/HD transistion, I didn't realize TW Dayton/TW Western Ohio was sending different lineups to different areas they serve where the digital OTA/HD stations are concerned. Maybe in this case it might have something to do with ThinkTV/WPTD-DT Being IN Dayton and serving the "area" as well.

Perhaps the TW Dayton/W OH folks on here in different areas might want to try to put some sort of "list" together so folks can get accurate info concerning what they'll get in their area ... Just an idea.

Anyhow, cable does not serve my rural location, anyway. Which is fine with me, really. I doubt if I'd subscribe to cable if it did serve my location, unless I could get the few channels(mainly HD) from them that I'd want to "add" to my OTA viewing for a few bucks a month, and that would be even more unlikely now that I'm doing E* in addition to OTA+DVD, which is WAY more TV than I have time to watch -- Heck, I don't really actually sit down and watch much now that ISN'T OTA HD(Or PBS widescreen) ...

BTW, I'm in Cincy DMA, and would be in TW Cincinnati's service area. TW Cincy Cable service area stops about 1/2 mile from my house,(The Montgomery County line+"boundary" to where it would be TW S Dayton's service area(I think that's what services Germantown, Cable wise If I recall correctly) would also be about 1/2 mile+ away). It was about 6~8 years ago TW Cincy expanded their area to get anywere near that close, and I doubt they would expand their service area in the future to just serve a few, widely spread out households, as it would be quite expensive for them to do that I believe ...

Funny thing is though ... even though I have a Middletown address, my Phone service comes from Germantown(a local telco there) -- They DID run fiber out here a few years ago, but AFAIK, all they are doing with it(if anything, it might still be dark) is DSL/etc, and the last I looked(and that was a while ago) it was quite expensive, something like 60 bucks per month for 64kb/s ...

Enough blabbering, back to the HD game from WKRC-DT ... As usual, The compression artifacts when anything moves/etc. just look awful on WHIO-DT since they are not allocating enough bandwidth to HD ...

I was having some reception issues on WKRC-DT today (not sure if my "A" input antenna is misaligned or what) so I flipped to input "B" and WBNS for GA/LSU.

Full bandwidth HD and Dolby 5.1. WBNS knows how to do HD right. :)

Anyone noticing some issues with the graphics though? Seems like the scorebox animations are a bit slow (like an overloaded computer) and it keeps jumping in and out of the 4:3 safe area.

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
The following 3:30pm SEC Game SHOULD be in HD on WHIO-DT/WKRC-DT, however -- Unless either station decides to run a different, non-HD game, or they neglect to switch to the HD feed. It says in Today's paper here WHIO/WKRC-DT is carrying the following game... Just checked it out and I LIKE IT !! :) I still have Dish hooked up and my goodness, switching between the two, you wouldn't believe it's the same game. The on-screen graphics look like a computer screen.

My wife FINALLY admitted to seeing a difference too. She in fact kept commenting that the HD (DiscoveryHD) looked "the same" as on satellite. I had to get something to clearly show a difference and this did.

You mention artifacts or blurring (??) on fast-motion.... Since you're watching OTA, you're only seeing compression from WHIO, right ?? In my case, I'll get compression from WHIO *and* TW, assuming TW compresses.

All this sounds promising. If you dont mind me asking Hall, how much do you pay a month for those services with the DVR? I just might pull the trigger.

i had my install done today

guy showed up without HD DVR..although i made it clear that's what i had wanted over the phone..

just installed it and then left and then i called the tech and she said "well the work order clearly says you asked for an HD DVR"

i then ran to the office in Kettering, where there were 2 other people behind me waiting to swap their HD DVR because of problems and waiting to swap because they rec'd a std def DVR

the line at the kettering office looped to the outside of the building..people were yelling at the ladies working at the desk and rightly so..there were 5 counters and 2 people were working it with lines going outside

finally waited there and got my HD DVR..got home hooked it up and did not get the HD Tier but i was getting all sorts of crap like starz and encore which i didn't need

got that straightened out and made sure i got some sort of credit..$10 fwiw

what a mess..maybe Comcast isn't that bad after all...no 15 min wait on the phone, no 2 week wait for install and no local office where lines loop to the parking lot

Originally posted by hall
Since you're watching OTA, you're only seeing compression from WHIO, right ?? In my case, I'll get compression from WHIO *and* TW, assuming TW compresses.

Uncompressed HD video is approx 1.5 Gigabits(Gb/s) per second. CBS sends its HD feed to its affiliates compressed, at about 45 Megabits(Mb/s) per second --- The Affiliate(WHIO-DT) then gets the feed at 45mb/s, decodes (uncompresses) it, then feeds it into the WHIO-DT MPEG2 Encoder, which in the case of WHIO-DT, from the way it looks --- is probably set for compressing HD video(There are also AC-3/DD 2.0 audio stream, PSIP+other metadata as well) down to something like 14~15 Mb/s. What gets sent from WHIO-DT's HD encoderis the SAME datastream that gets sent to BOTH of our STB's, OTA or cable. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the only thing that is different is the signal that the datastream is "piggybacked on" to reach OTA(8VSB), or Cable(QAM).

I don't think TW should be adding another decoding/encoding(uncompressing/recompressing) step. We should both be getting exactly the same quality, OTA or cable.

19.34Mb/s is the Maximum Bitrate an station such as WHIO-DT can send, because that is the max payload available within a 6MHZ RF Channel via ATSC(the system we are using for HD/DTV). Instead of giving that full 19.34mb/s to HD(Minus Audio+PSIP/etc, there would be approx 18mb/s that actually would be available for HD video if a station isn't multicasting/datacasting/etc) -- In addition to the HD you see on 707, WHIO-DT also sends out(multicasts) a SD digital subchannel(just a 4x3 simulcast of the analog station), and it uses up the rest of their bandwidth. WKRC-DT Cincinnati/WBNS-DT Columbus on the other hand currently devotes ALL their available bandwidth(19.34mb/s) to a single HD service, and it definitely shows.

The folks who developed the HD, Digital TV system we are using, did extensive tests (at the ATTC - a big test center for HD that operated when they were developing+testing "the system") and recommended that stations which are sending 1080i allocate ALL their bandwidth to 1080i HD(especially during bandwidth demanding programming such as NFL/SEC HD football). They also recommended that 720p would work well with ONE SD multicast service. From what we have seen in this area at least, so far -- Their recommendations seem to be "right on target" as you might imagine.

Originally posted by Rakesh.S
...there were 2 other people behind me waiting to swap their HD DVR because of problems and waiting to swap because they rec'd a std def DVR So far, so good -- knock on wood. My wife is the DVR master of our household and she moved around our Dish DVR just fine. The one from TW is similar enough that she's picking up on it fine. It prompted her one time about something and she looked at me like "what do I do ??" but it was nothing major.
...people were yelling at the ladies working at the desk and rightly so ... what a mess..maybe Comcast isn't that bad after all... The "desk" people, if they're anything like the ones at Leo St, are rather customer-unfriendly in the few times I've dealt with them. The phone people I've dealt with in the past week or so have been very, very good. I called one day during my "research" and spoke to a woman for 15 minutes. At the end I told her "I'm not ready to sign up yet and was just asking questions....". She replied that it was fine and that it "was her job" to help me out. :)

When I called yesterday morning because the box(es) were deactivated, the girl was very pleasant.

There is also an employee who posts over at DSL Reports who's helped me with various questions too.

just a quick note about the DVR from the one show i recorded and watched yesterday

wkef surprisingly switched to HD right at the start of primetime so my recording was HD all the way through

BUT, during playback, the whole screen glitched and it kicked the video and audio way off sync..this was not a wkef problem..it is a DVR problem

i basically had to rewind back a few seconds to just after the glitch occurred and then everything was fine

in a 2 hour recording, this happened twice..things can only get better from this point or at least that's what i'm hoping

Perhaps the TW Dayton/W OH folks on here in different areas might want to try to put some sort of "list" together so folks can get accurate info concerning what they'll get in their area ... Just an idea.

This is the lineup for TW Hi-Def in the Sidney/Anna/Jackson Center Area:

AVAILABLE WITH BASIC

707 WHIO-DT CBS
716 WPTD-DT6 PBS
717 WPTD-DT2 PBS
718 WPTD-DT3 PBS
719 WPTD-DT4 PBS
720 WPTD-DT5 PBS
722 WKEF-DT ABC
745 WRGT-DT FOX
755 Discovery HD
756 TNT HD

AVAILABLE IN HD-TIER

760 INHD1
761 INHD2
762 HD NET
763 HD NET MOVIES
765 ESPN-HD

ADDITIONAL HD CHANNELS AVAILABLE

314 HBO HD
358 SHOWTIME HD

Originally posted by Vader
AVAILABLE IN HD-TIER

314 HBO HD
358 SHOWTIME HD Are you sure that you have to pay for the HD Tier to get those two ?? I'm betting that if you get the HBO "package", you'll get HBO-HD (and same with Showtime). The programming page for your area -- though we've seen that's it not terribly accurate already -- does *not* list HBO/Showtime-HD in the "HD Tier".

If you subscribe to HBO or SHO you get all of the HBO/SHO channels including the HD ones. This has nothing to do with the HD Tier.

Hall I noticed you said you weren't getting the HD Tier, you are able to get it at no additional cost w/Digipic2000 if you drop the Digital Value Tier and get the HD Tier instead. Usually the CSRs don't ask you what tier you want with the digipic2000, they just sign you up for the Value Tier (which IMO is worthless).

Also I have seen HD-DVR commericals this weekend so as far as i know everyone should be able to "easily" get them now.

I have very few problems with my HDDVR but here are the problems i get occasionally.

I have my 4:3 content to stretch. If i turn off the box on an HD station it tends to stretch the 16:9 HD when i come back. All i have to do is change the channel to fix this.

There are occassionaly audio dropouts while watching HD. A reboot of the box(holding down power on the unit itself) fixes this for awhile.

I rarely have problems with playback of recorded material, but every once and a while it will freeze the box when i start to play something. This seems to be only after deleting something else and immediately playing another show, i'm not sure if this translates to some sort of hard drive accessing or what. But it rarely happens.

Originally posted by browerjs
If you subscribe to HBO or SHO you get all of the HBO/SHO channels including the HD ones. This has nothing to do with the HD Tier. That's how I understood it also. I know it works this way with DirecTV and Dish Network. Hall I noticed you said you weren't getting the HD Tier, you are able to get it at no additional cost w/Digipic2000 if you drop the Digital Value Tier and get the HD Tier instead. ...they just sign you up for the Value Tier (which IMO is worthless). No, I "chose" the Value Tier myself. IMO, the HD Tier is worthless. :) Value Tier has Speed Channel, all the extra Discovery Channels, G4TechTV, etc. To each his own. :)
Also I have seen HD-DVR commericals this weekend so as far as i know everyone should be able to "easily" get them now. Haven't seen any myself. Of course, with a DVR, we hardly ever watch commercials anymore !!
I have very few problems with my HDDVR but here are the problems i get occasionally. Would you mind joining the thread I started here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=453804 ?? There's a HUGE thread for this box already but 1) you'll never catch up with it and 2) it deals with both software versions that are possible with this box, SARA and Passport. I'd prefer to see one of each.

Originally posted by Rakesh.S
just a quick note about the DVR from the one show i recorded and watched yesterday

wkef surprisingly switched to HD right at the start of primetime so my recording was HD all the way through

BUT, during playback, the whole screen glitched and it kicked the video and audio way off sync..this was not a wkef problem..it is a DVR problem

i basically had to rewind back a few seconds to just after the glitch occurred and then everything was fine

in a 2 hour recording, this happened twice..things can only get better from this point or at least that's what i'm hoping

It is a known issue with the box. You can expect future firmware upgrades to fix this. I have found if I hit the 10 second back button (looks like a half circle on the left hand side of the controller) it takes care of the issue. If you run in to this during live TV they recommend you watch the video on a few seconds delay.

This seems to be quite common with DVRs in general I'd guess. It happens on numerous Dish DVRs also and as you mention, a quick rewind or pause/play a time or two usually fixes it.

So I just got off the phone with two Time Warner CSR's, and wow ,what a joke! I was treated like a piece of trash for having a few questions regarding service, and not being overly zealous to sign up for service. On top of the rudeness, both CSR's told me I WOULD NOT be able to request an HDDVR unless I was a current cable subscriber. I explained to them both the reason i want to switch from DirecTV to TW for programming was for the DVR, and that if I couldnt get one I wasnt interested in switching. Then they informed me there was a "list" that people were on waiting for the HDDVR. I said, " ok put me on the list, and when I come up, I'll do the install." They refused, and got really snappy with me. My overall tone was pleasant and nothing more than inquisitive, and I felt like both CSR's were completely rude and unwilling to work with me.

It seems like the others on here have had more "luck" dealing with TW than I have, but at this point I'm not sure I even want to deal with them, DVR or not.

Does anyone know a better number to call than the 800 number on their website?

Edit: I trieed looking up the Rogers SA8000 and couldn't find any info. Does the unit have DVI out, and if so, has anyone tried it?

In my experience TW customer service has been horrible......Thats why I switched to Dish. The thing that kills me the most is that whenever you'd call they always had a prerecorded message "due to a high volume of calls.....," every time! Regardless of the date or the hour! How is that fast, friendly customer service. Having roadrunner, TW increasing their number of hi defs, and having had some hd box issues with dish I often toy with the idea of moving back to TW, but then I remember how crappy their customer service was...... Dish's CS is far from perfect, but much better than TW IMO.

That being said (sorry for the rant) I guess that the grass is always greener... All I want is 100% digital, lots of hd, good CS, and a box that always works. What can I say, I'm a dreamer:rolleyes:

jbh613: I'm betting you got transferred to a call-center, probably in Florida, that handles *all* TW locations. I got sent there once and they were worthless. They in fact told me that the HD-DVRs have been on-hold since February and still weren't available. I finally asked "where are you located ?" .... "central Florida". I told her I'd call back later....

I called 294-6400. Since I'm an Earthlink Cable customer, technically I have an account with them already (at the time). Regardless, just push buttons as if you are a customer. Get into "customer service" and that should be local. They can place a new order, upgrade, etc, etc.

The box is made by Scientific Atlanta, not Rogers. Rogers is a cable company in Canada. :) The box does in fact have DVI output .... but it's not working yet. Apparently 'browerjs' can fill in answers on that part. I have no plans to use it if and when it's enabled anyway.

Originally posted by jenkinswoody
The thing that kills me the most is that whenever you'd call they always had a prerecorded message "due to a high volume of calls.....," every time! Regardless of the date or the hour! I've certainly seen that myself.... I don't want to sound like I'm defending TW by any means either. I dropped them years ago and went DSL and satellite. At this point, they are my "best" option ("best" being *my* definition based on various factors).

Anyway, a few times I've called they tell you the approx hold time and give you an option to have them call you back. I've done it two or three times and each time it's worked perfect. It's not a scam to get you to hang up and call later. They do call back. Is it in the right time-frame ?? I don't know as I don't keep track. I don't have to walk around with a phone stuck to my head on hold though.

I like my OTA service's customer service rep(me) ... Took about an hour to Put the latest "main" TV antenna up on the tower 12 years ago, and it still just keeps working just like new .... Dropout free DTV reception, including NBC HD from WDTN-DT/WLWT-DT ;)

lol Jeff, one question though........How's the DVR ;)

What kind of pre amps are you guys using? I need a good one for UHF.

Thanks,
tom

Hey, I like what FCC chairman Powell is saying about HD on MNF tonight :)
---------------------

jbh613,

First off, A DVR wouldn't work for me as I would need the capabilty to archive recordings to removable media.

Secondly, they make DVR's that work with OTA, or OTA+Sat as well(for that matter, all it would need is a HD capable input to use with a OTA HD receiver.). Although right now, if I were to plunk down the bucks for HD recording capability I'd prefer D-VHS, anyway. Currently as a stop-gap solution, I use S-VHS and the "squeeze mode"+S-Video output on my STB to record 16x9 NTSC video from HD sources and "stretch it" back out with my display's stretch mode. Certianly not HD, but is pretty much on par with DVD quality(I've directly compared to the Alias Widescreen DVD's, and you can't tell much of a difference) -- S-VHS having twice the resolution of standard VHS, and of course you can use the S-VHS tapes for HD with D-VHS decks as well ...

I don't know what will end up being the best solution for recording to removable media in the future -- I'm pretty much waiting to see how it all pans out before "making the plunge" ... But, hopefully it will involve a device with internal ATSC receiver along with implementation of EPG via PSIP, when the stations actually get around to fully implementing the off-air guides properly, that is .... IF there is any non-PPV or premimum channels LEFT at that time, as, if everyone DVR's and skips watching all the commericals, there won't be much point in Advertiser supported TV programming(Not only via OTA, but via SAT/Cable as well ... Granted, we've had VCR's in widespread use for a long time, but a lot of them are still flashing "12:00", and fortunetly a lot of people are too lazy to set the timer/etc .... With DVR's and program guides, it's just all too easy ..... Which seems to be a GOOD thing for the consumer, but in the end, it might not turn out that way .....


Jenkinswoody,

I'm using a 20+ year old Blonder-Tongue "Suburban II" Mast mount, here For my location, it works great as it doesn't do "too much", and doesn't overload too easily, although it gets awfully close to having "problems" when I aim antenna at dayton. -- It does about 20db UHF/15db VHF "gain" They have a updated model/series of Suburban III's now with different input(VHF/UHF/etc) configurations which you can find here:

http://www.starkelectronic.com/btk1-1.htm

Channel Master+Winegaurd make some nice preamps as well, the specs are available somewhere on that starkelectronic site ...

Just noticed that WRGT-DT 30-1 is currently sending Local/syndicated programming in its correct Aspect ratio, instead of sending it as "stretched" to 16x9 .... Thanks WRGT/WKEF folks! And, Thank goodness, now that the AR issue with the "old" Fox digital feed+Fox WS IS no longer any sort of issue with the Fox HD system/HD splicer ...

----------------------------------------------

I'm curious though ... I'm still getting dropped frames during some syndicated programming(Not any Fox programming) on 30-1 on the Zenith HDV420, but not on the RCA DTC-100. I've seen some posts from other areas involving other stations that seem to have this "Reciever model specific" issue as well.

Noone seems to have an answer that I can find --- Just a WAG would be it is related in some way to their encoder, perhaps likely a specific model of MPEG2/HD encoder and the firmware on the HDV420 .... In all cases/reports I've seen so far, the station involved is sending 720p -- WSYX-DT Columbus is another station for which viewers(besides me, who has seen the issue on WSYX-DT as well) with a Zenith box(and perhaps some other recievers as well) have seen this issue ...

So, I'm wondering, is anyone else getting this(or not getting it with a Zenith HDV420 - Mine was manufactured 11/02) with the use of a HDV420 or any other receiver model ? I do recall jbh613's problems with 30-2+his receiver, but I'd think that would be a completely different(but similiar in the regard that it seems to be receiver+encoder specific) issue, since they would have to be using a seperate, SD encoder for 30-2 anyway.

Thanks,

quote from 8/31/04:

Originally posted by Rakesh.S
emailed wb64 out in cincinnati since most of you guys are able to pick up their stations

here's their response to "Do you plan on offering the WB in HDTV?"

Yes, we are currently purchasing equipment to do this. We hope to be on
in HDTV
soon. 1 or 2 months if possible.

certainly good news...

WSTR-DT/WB64 switched from sending 480i to 1080i sometime today, as reported on Cincinnati thread ... Hopefully Smallville will be HD tonight :) , or at least soon we'll have WB HD from them --- BTW, they aren't multicasting ...

BTW, What did you use to contact them? Many of us have tried and tried over the past few years and have never gotten a response -- As soon as they do send HD, I'd like to drop them a note(that someone there will actually read) to say thanks as well as let them know I'm out here watching ....

Thanks

Yeah, you guys are correct. Showtime HD and HBO HD aren't part of the HD Tier.

I got confused because I get them as part of the DigiPic2000 package in which I've opted for the HD Tier. I've corrected my original post.

Thanks for catching that error.

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
quote from 8/31/04:



WSTR-DT/WB64 switched from sending 480i to 1080i sometime today, as reported on Cincinnati thread ... Hopefully Smallville will be HD tonight :) , or at least soon we'll have WB HD from them --- BTW, they aren't multicasting ...

BTW, What did you use to contact them? Many of us have tried and tried over the past few years and have never gotten a response -- As soon as they do send HD, I'd like to drop them a note(that someone there will actually read) to say thanks as well as let them know I'm out here watching ....

Thanks

i just used the email form on their website

i wish i could get cinci stations..unfortunately i haven't been able to...columbus was a longshot and that didn't come through..at the least i had hoped to get cinci

oh well

by the way smallville is on Wednesdays at 8 ET

if you guys get a chance to see it in HD please post and let us know if it macroblocks like hell during strobe lights and fast motion scenes

multicasting on the WB would make HD unwatchable..they only send out 14 mbps..it would reach PBS levels

Thanks, I guess someone actually does read those these days ... Guess I'll try the Engineering/Technical and the programming selections in the drop down box next time ....

I don't know anything about WB's HD distribution system/etc, Fingers crossed they've either got a autoswitcher that works nicely, or missing the switch" to/from HD doesn't turn out to be a big issue with them ...

Hopefully, we'll see HD from WB Dayton(WBDT-DT 18/(26-1 remap)) soon as well. Last I heard around this time last year they said they were looking at equipment for HD passthrough, and that they WOULD have WB HD at some point, but didn't have a set timeline for HD, but you know how that goes, especially since, if I recall correctly I think ACME is big on USDTV ... I haven't gotten a response from them lately, but for the heck of it, I just sent a note to their "questions" email address on their website. Contact info for them is here if anyone else wants to try :

http://www.wb26tv.com/StationInfo/

Edit: oops, I thought today WAS Wednesday ... LOL -- Guess I'll have to see(hopefully anyway) what HD Gilmore Girls+One tree Hill looks like ...

WSTR must still be at flea power, I'm getting blinky-blinky on the green light but not enough for a lock.

what the hell is the deal with WKEF? do they ever switch to HD on time at primetime?

does anyone else even watch this station other than on monday nights?

I don't know how long It took them, but George Lopez is HD on WKEF-DT at 8:30 EDT ... You should have been here before they got their autoswitcher ...

No WB HD from WSTR-DT yet tonight, just a 4x3 upconvert to 1080i for Gilmore Girls ... We'll see how long it takes them, hopefully not 2 more years ;) - I think they are still on their 17.1KW ERP STA, but it seems to get out quite well for the most part ...

nitewatchman,

I called them at 8:02 because i watch my wife and kids in HD every week

otherwise, who knows when they might have switched it..

i usually watch teh shows at 8 pm on tue,wed and sundays..i will keep calling if i have to..i hate when they switch to HD 20 mins into a 1/2 hour show

Originally posted by Rakesh.S
I called them at 8:02 because i watch my wife and kids in HD every week


Good man! It's often been a necessity to call them, and somehow I'm guessing the autoswitcher doesn't automatically switch to ABC HD feed as it did with NBC HD(I believe NBC sends a signal to trigger the autoswitcher, I don't know if ABC does something like this or not) after they got it installed earlier this year.

called them again today to switch to HD for Lost...i guess i'm the only one in dayton that watches this show

what a sucky affiliate

Anyone messing around with the ATI HDTV Wonder in Dayton?

Ever since WHIO started sending their PSIP remapping I can't tune in that channel (the software crashes everytime). Still can't get both fox subchannels too.

Anyone?

Originally posted by Rakesh.S
called them again today to switch to HD for Lost...i guess i'm the only one in dayton that watches this show

what a sucky affiliate

Yeah, I was getting ready to call when the switch happened. I also wish that they could somehow automate the switching, because it gets messed up every time. Oh, well. Thanks Rakesh, you seem like a good "addition" to the local boys here in Dayton.

Originally posted by jbh613
Yeah, I was getting ready to call when the switch happened. I also wish that they could somehow automate the switching, because it gets messed up every time. Oh, well. Thanks Rakesh, you seem like a good "addition" to the local boys here in Dayton.

not a problem

got those suckers on speed dial..i actually expected it so i had my phone ready to try and catch them before scenes from the previous episode faded

if this happens again the next time i'm watching(sunday), i will be sure to let them know that i'm sick of calling everyday and that a trained monkey could do a better job

I used to call them on it regularly, but got tired of doing it because it's a toll call for me.

Originally posted by Vader
I used to call them on it regularly, but got tired of doing it because it's a toll call for me.

i can try my best to catch them on tuesday,wednesday and sunday if no one else does..it is a local call for me

of course there will be more people ready to call on mondays until football is over so i'll leave that to the other folks

FYI, WSTR-DT Cincy is sending WB HD for the first time tonight.

Hopefully, they will increase power soon ... There is good reason to be optimistic, IMO -- See here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4322242#post4322242

If anyone is after an HD-DVR from Time Warner, not counting offices in places like Piqua, Lima, and so on, you'll need to wait. My box has gotten to the point of almost being unusable as a DVR and TW wants my box back (supposedly Scientific Atlanta does also). I went to the Kettering office this morning to swap it and was told they're out of HD-DVRs 'til Friday....

Fellas,

The folks are finally diving into HDTV. I will be helping them set up. They live in Centerville around the high school. What type of coverage can they expect with a CM 4 bow tie chimney mounted antenna ? How is the Time Warner offering ? I have read the last couple of pages in this thread and I am getting the idea that the DVR from TW may be a problem, is everyone having the same issues ?

Thanks in Advance

Doug

I'd avoid the HD-DVR for the time being..... I've never heard anything bad about TW's plain, old HD boxes though.

Originally posted by Doug888
What type of coverage can they expect with a CM 4 bow tie chimney mounted antenna ?
Doug

Dayton+Cincinnati digital stations(except probably ABC/WCPO-DT Cincy which is on VHF 10, CM4221 is a UHF only antenna) Should be fine. It's hard to say, but with 90 degrees or so difference in heading between Dayton+Cincy towers from Centerville, for best results they'll probably need to aim antenna differently for Dayton/Cincinnati stations so a rotor might be a good idea as well.

Columbus is probably a long shot, but you never know ... depending upon the nearby terrain it's possible ...

Thanks Fellas,

I have had success with the higher VHF stations with my CM 4228 (? 8 bow tie) but I am in a condo at about 150 feet and my targets are only 20 miles away, here in Ft Lauderdale. Do you all use VHF/UHF antennas ?

I would like to get the parents on D* so dad could watch all the NFL games. Although, keeping him in the house for even the Bengals games is hard enough. (Can't say as I blame him much for that, as a Bengal fan since Greg Cook and a Sunday Ticket sub since 96, I get restless too).

HD DirecTivo seems fairly reliable. (don't have it for myself yet) I have a clean sheet of paper to work with so I have some flexibility.

Thanks Again.

Doug

wkef..is it just me or does the audio go low and then kick back up every now and then?

dvr is fine..if it crashes, reboot...gotta live with the bugs till the update comes out.

We just watched Extreme Home Makeover from Sunday night. It's on ABC (WKEF) and yes, I also noticed the volume go up and down. It wasn't enough that I had to turn up the volume though.... It only seemed like it lasted seconds (10 ??) also.

The occasional video freezes on WKEF are still around as well. I'm getting them via cable (QAM) and OTA, so it must be a station-related problem.

Station-related, VERY annoying problem!

Yeah, I thought those were gone from WKEF-DT about a week ago, but they are still there ...

Some nice tropo tonight From the NE, Among other things, WEWS-DT 15 Cleveland(ABC HD MNF) is currently booming in here ...

Originally posted by hall
I'd avoid the HD-DVR for the time being..... I've never heard anything bad about TW's plain, old HD boxes though.

My HDDVR box works perfectly... what kind of problems were you having, Hall?

TW had a conflict (I think that's what it would be) with DiscHD and TNT-HD and something about a "common QAM" channel.... ????? If I had an HD channel on, usually DiscoveryHD, and attempted to play back a recording from the "List", it locked the box up. TW engineers confirmed and duplicated it. They did figure out that if you were tuned to a non-HD channel, it wouldn't happen. Thing is, if I had the TV on, for one, my "power-on channel" was DiscHD, I had it on one of the (few) HD channels. :) I could repeat this problem at will.

They fixed that locally as it wasn't a box problem. You should have gotten an update last night though I'm not sure exactly what all it fixed.

Originally posted by hall
TW had a conflict (I think that's what it would be) with DiscHD and TNT-HD and something about a "common QAM" channel.... ????? If I had an HD channel on, usually DiscoveryHD, and attempted to play back a recording from the "List", it locked the box up. TW engineers confirmed and duplicated it. They did figure out that if you were tuned to a non-HD channel, it wouldn't happen. Thing is, if I had the TV on, for one, my "power-on channel" was DiscHD, I had it on one of the (few) HD channels. :) I could repeat this problem at will.

They fixed that locally as it wasn't a box problem. You should have gotten an update last night though I'm not sure exactly what all it fixed.

i think one other bug that i've experienced is that if you start recording a show and then try to switch to that channel, the box crashes

Yes, I've seen that one too

douchebags missed HD on Lost again

called em and had to tell them to hit the switch

I'm curious, who do you tell and how do they react ?? Do they act like it's a big deal or urgent ?? I just think they (whoever answers the phone) doesn't or wouldn't consider it that big of a deal.

Originally posted by hall
I'm curious, who do you tell and how do they react ?? Do they act like it's a big deal or urgent ?? I just think they (whoever answers the phone) doesn't or wouldn't consider it that big of a deal.

Last time i called with the no audio problem on WKEF, the guy who picked up was pretty impatient about the whole thing...sounded like an engineer or a guy who had gotten too many calls on the subject

today,
"i'm not getting Lost in HD on the HD channel..can you tell someone in the control room?"

the guy didn't know what the hell i was talking about..i repeated myself and he said he'd let them know

sometimes they act like they're in a hurry or in a rush..but sometimes they're patient

it's annoying as hell to call every single week..if i were able to get cincinnati or columbus, i wouldn't even bother with WKEF

if you were one of the guys in the control room that gave a crap about HD you would say "automated switcher isn't installed, maybe we have to do it manually when primetime starts".....i don't know what the guys at WKEF are doing though

thank god FOX has a splicer or you'd be dealing with the same crap on fox45

LOL ... oh me. I called them the 2nd DAY they were on the air about missing NBC HD olympics coverage from SLC ... I was on the phone with the girl who answered the phone for 15 Minutes, but, a few minutes after I hung up, they switched to the NBC HD feed ....

The more their switchboard lights up(as would certianly occur if the analog had problems), the more they realize there are people(other than rakesh<g>) out here watching .....

Sooner or later, perhaps if enough people call+contact them in "non-realtime", perhaps the MCO's will either get the idea that they need to pay more attention to what they are doing or, go back to flipping burgers, something that they might not end up having a choice about ..... Of course, if they make more $ flipping burgers, even though that is certianly no excuse for not doing your job(and, a MCO's job can involve a LOT of multitasking) ...... Well, you know how it goes ....

--------------------------

Anyhow, noticed that WBDT-DT is currently off air, the analog is fine. It's the first time I can recall seeing them off-air since they signed on with the digital in feb 2003 ...

I also called WKEF tonight, and asked when they would be looking into either A)getting an auto switcher, or B) Paying for a good technition. I wasn't rude, but it does get old. Every time it finally switches I have to do a channel change because there are audio sync problems. The whole ordeal is just pointless.

Originally posted by hall
TW had a conflict (I think that's what it would be) with DiscHD and TNT-HD and something about a "common QAM" channel.... ????? If I had an HD channel on, usually DiscoveryHD, and attempted to play back a recording from the "List", it locked the box up. TW engineers confirmed and duplicated it. They did figure out that if you were tuned to a non-HD channel, it wouldn't happen. Thing is, if I had the TV on, for one, my "power-on channel" was DiscHD, I had it on one of the (few) HD channels. :) I could repeat this problem at will.

They fixed that locally as it wasn't a box problem. You should have gotten an update last night though I'm not sure exactly what all it fixed.

I'm glad they finally got that bug fixed, had to keep hearing about it from my wife. I regularly turn off the TV with the boxed tuned to ESPNHD, and when she goes to playback her recorded material it would tend to crash the box a lot. I think i finally got her in the habit of switching to SD before playback just in time for the bug fix. Oh well.

I did email my engineering contact at TWC about the Passport 1.5.159 firmware upgrade asking what bugs were fixed. His reply: "The DVR video glitch bug. This is seen as a freeze frame or minor tiling with an associated audio drop out. The upgrade has corrected this issue. Take a look."

If this stops all the occasional audio drops i'll be happy as I won't have to switch over to my OTA box.

On another note. As for calling into stations having to tell them to switch the HD feed, I usually call into WHIO when the miss the switch right away on the weekends for football or over the summer for golf. I simply say to the person in the newsroom to tell the control room to switch to the HD feed, usually within a matter of minutes or sometime seconds HD is there. WHIO seems to be very good in primetime about making the switch but sometimes drops the ball on the weekend, they have definately gotten a lot better. As for WKEF, I rarely call in because i don't watch much of ABCs primetime shows, (with the exception being according to jim, which i haven't seen missed yet, probably thanks to everyone calling in complaining at 8)

I was told they had an issue with Discovery HD and TNT-HD, but no mention of ESPN-HD. I think it may have been affecting more than just those two though. We watch as much as possible on the HD channels, including WHIO, WKEF, etc. We don't often just turn the box on and go right to the DVR menu.

Surprise! After being off air for a couple of Days :

WBDT-DT 18 (26.1 psip remap - WB Dayton) is presently sending 1080i :)

Hopefully they are also ready to pass through WB HD, or soon will be ...

Assuming they will be passing through WB HD soon(if not immediately) -- Out of 15 DTV stations on air in SW Ohio, that would leave only WKOI-DT(TBN) Without HD ....

Yahoo :) :) :)

Any idea of what HD shows they (WB) have planned? I just scrolled through the HDTivo and I didn't see any, yet.

The WB has been sending some programs such as "Everwood, Smallville" and Reba" in HD since Fall 2002 ... But, up until last week the only station in the area that was able to pass through WB HD was WWHO-DT Columbus(Which is also a UPN HD affiliate, BTW) ...

For 2004-05 season, In addition to LOTR:FOTR in HD in Nov and the remaining LOTR trilogy over the next couple of years(They're saying LOTR:FOTR will be the first time WB sends DD 5.1 as well), as well a Made for TV HD movie this year, Follows is the list of WB's HD offerings for regularly sceduled programs for 2004-05 season :

Monday - EVERWOOD
Tuesday - GILMORE GIRLS; ONE TREE HILL
Wednesday - SMALLVILLE, THE MOUNTAIN
Friday - WHAT I LIKE ABOUT YOU, COMMANDO NANNY, REBA
Sunday - ONE TREE HILL (EasyView), THE MOUNTAIN (EasyView), JACK & BOBBY

I didn't get a chance to check the "Easyview" airings or "Commando Nanny"(whatever that is) this past week, but otherwise all the rest of those were HD from WB Cincinnati(WSTR-DT 33) in the past week.

More info straight from WB's press release concerning 2004 WB HD programming here:

http://www.thewb.com/PressRelease/Index/0,8341,181627,00.html

----------------------------

I would expect it might be a while before the various "guides" show WB HD programming for WBDT-DT or WSTR-DT. For instance, WPTO-DT Oxford-Cincinnati has been on the air for months now(with PBS HD on weekends), but TitanTV still shows them as "testing" ...

Of course, we don't know for sure yet if "everything" is ready for WB HD passthrough at WBDT-DT ... But, since they are sending 1080i(4x3 upconvert presently of course) now instead of the 480i 4x3 SD that has been the case since they first signed on in Feb 03, I would assume (unless they run into "difficulties") that they will probably be doing WB HD "soon" ... Last week, for example it was 2 Days after WSTR-DT Cincinnati switched from 480i to 1080i that they started sending through WB HD, and they had some audio problems which seemed to have been worked out by 9pm Tuesday ....

But of course, we all know about that "ass-u-me" word ...

-----------------------

I haven't noticed even a SD airing of the syndicated HD-one movie package from either WBDT or WKRC lately, but I just may have missed them ... So, (especially since WKRC has mostly dropped the ball on the HD airings lately - The last one I caught in HD from them was ST:TMP about 5 or 6 months ago) I also wonder if WBDT-DT will have the HD-one HD airings? -- (WWHO-DT has HD-one as well, BTW) ...

Jeff - Forgive me for my lazy post! But thanks for the answer! I went back to the HD Tivo, and the new HD stuff is now listed for 26.01! Got a season pass for Jack & Bobby - good show! But I'll still do a backup on the SD Tivo, just in case!

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
Surprise! After being off air for a couple of Days :

WBDT-DT 18 (26.1 psip remap - WB Dayton) is presently sending 1080i :)

Hopefully they are also ready to pass through WB HD, or soon will be ...

Assuming they will be passing through WB HD soon(if not immediately) -- Out of 15 DTV stations on air in SW Ohio, that would leave only WKOI-DT(TBN) Without HD ....

Yahoo :) :) :)

you have got to be shitting me.....well all i want is my weekly smallville in HD..and i'm all set

hmm i wonder if my 3 emails in the last few weeks influenced them at all

i also mentioned in the last one "i know you guys don't like to reply but i hope someone is reading this"

good news here as well. Lets see how their bandwidth is allocated though before we get too excited. Any sub channels, 26-2?

Originally posted by jbh613
Any sub channels, 26-2?

No, not currently.

At 8:03pm, WBDT-DT is airing "What I like about You" in HD!

Be sure to contact them to say thanks+let them know you're watching .... That's the only way they know for sure that we ARE out here watching their HD/DTV station ...

Contact info here:

http://www.wb26tv.com/StationInfo/index.asp

looks good jeff

we gotta get this sucker on TWC now..so the tivo can do its job

i hope my emails at least gave them an idea that someone cared about HD

Audio during WB HD feed+"Reba" on WBDT-DT presently is a bit strange however ... dialogue+most everthing else is via Left Channel only ... With some music and some effects(but no dialogue or audience "laugh track") coming out of R channel presently ...

Deja VU --- The Exact SAME thing happened during WB HD from WSTR-DT earlier this week, although they started out WB HD last week with WB HD in straight "mono"(but coming through both DD 2.0 channels) ..

Presently -- From WSTR-DT Cincinnati +the WB HD feed It's "proper" stereo/DD 2.0 -- PLII decoding also seems to be working fine, as has been the case since they "fixed it" during Gilmore girls on Tuesday ..

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
Audio during WB HD feed+"Reba" on WBDT-DT presently is a bit strange however ... dialogue+most everthing else is via Left Channel only ... With some music and some effects(but no dialogue or audience "laugh track") coming out of R channel presently ...

Deja VU --- The Exact SAME thing happened during WB HD from WSTR-DT earlier this week, although they started out WB HD last week with WB HD in straight "mono"(but coming through both DD 2.0 channels) ..

Presently -- From WSTR-DT Cincinnati +the WB HD feed It's "proper" stereo/DD 2.0 -- PLII decoding also seems to be working fine, as has been the case since they "fixed it" during Gilmore girls on Tuesday ..

I just flipped over to check the PQ and was happy they flipped at primetime...i guess they were able to get a trained monkey faster than WKEF

used to be a fan of reba..as with all sitcoms, shows just lose "it" after a while..i quit watching..but i'll be tuning into smallville on wednesday..thank god..i've been watching the first 4 in SD :P

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
Deja VU ---

Attached graphic is a visual aid to help illustrate my attempted humor :

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
Attached graphic is a visual aid to help illustrate my attempted humor :

Looks like the guy on the right could use some help getting his needle up?

But anyways, I was too busy to turn on he tv inprimetime, but it sounds like it was a fairly decent first showing. I bet I speak for everyone here when I say that hopefully TBN will be next..... Attached is a photo portraying my sense of humor.

fired off a thank you note to the folks at dayton's WB

also sent them a suggestion to possibly put up an announcement on their webpage saying that they have gone HD

During HD Easyview this evening, I'm not getting any audio during WB HD feed from the station's "primary" audio stream (audio is there during commercials/etc ..)

So, DTC-100 can't get any audio during WB HD at all ..

With Zenith HDV420 however, if I push the "audio button" to switch to the "secondary" stream(stations can send more than one audio stream for the same program - for instance the second stream could be sent w a spanish language track/etc), I am now getting proper DD 2.0/Stereo audio during WB HD tonight from this 2nd audio stream being sent by WBDT-DT, but the receiver of course "defaults" to the "primary" stream anytime you change channels/etc.

Jeff, same here. I too noticed the lack of audio and tried the secondary audio with success. The PQ was very nice though, obviously benefiting from thr lack of a sub.

They must be "on the ball" up there :) --- (it is likely difficult for them to monitor audio for both the analog+DT), as "Primary" audio is back at 9pm for HD Jack&Bobby ..

BUT the "primary" audio stream is back to mostly just coming out of Left channel, with just some effects+some music(no dialogue) coming out of right channel ... Secondary audio is still proper 2 channel stereo+, if I turn on Pro-logic decoding, proper PLII decoding seems to be occuring for he surrounds+center channel ...

I would also note that the primary audio stream has been fine when I've checked during everything except WB HD programming.

Does anyone know when the Dayton locals will begin including 5.1 with their HD broadcasts?

WDTN-DT, NBC HD Dayton sends DD 5.1 during NBC HD programming produced in DD 5.1, as was the case when they were the Dayton ABC HD affiliate from the time they first came on the air - Jan 2003. WCMH-DT, NBC Columbus also sends DD 5.1 for NBC HD programming that is produced with DD 5.1 audio...

WRGT-DT, Fox HD Dayton Sends DD 5.1 during Fox HD programming that is produced in DD 5.1. As does WXIX-DT Fox cincy,+WTTE-DT Fox Columbus.

WPTD-DT, PBS HD Dayton Has (VERY rarely) sent DD 5.1 -- Only time I noticed it was during a couple of the 2003 season's HD soundstages. One of their people posted about their DD 5.1 "test" either here, or on Cincy thread at the time. WCET-DT PBS HD Cincinnati+WCVN-DT, PBS HD in N KY pretty much allways send DD 5.1 when programming is produced w DD 5.1 audio.

I believe WBNS-DT, CBS Columbus also has DD 5.1(Some live events are produced in DD 5.1).

That's about it in Central or SW Ohio at present AFAIK.

I had read that WB will first send DD 5.1 for the first time for their upcoming airing of LOTR:FOTR this November. I guess we may find out then whether or not WBDT-DT/WSTR-DT has DD 5.1 capabilities.

In Columbus, WBNS-DT has 5.1 (during CBS live events). WCMH-DT has it for NBC HD that has a 5.1 soundtrack. It's possible that WSYX-DT has it for ABC HD but I can't pick them up so I cannot confirm this.

I'm not positive, but I think WSYX-DT has DD 5.1 capability. I didn't include them in my list above as users on Columbus HD forum are reporting not getting DD 5.1, at least "occasionally" as of late. Anyhow, I'll try to remember to check next time I see them during ABC HD, I'll also try to remember to check WOSU-DT next time I see them when they're running a DD 5.1 PBS HD program to see if they are passing DD 5.1 as well.

FWIW, WSYX-DT 13 seems to be the easiest Columbus DT to receive from here(80 miles), I see them most often of all the Columbus DT's, and get a indication of signal from them most of the time. Also, I have been seeing WTTE-DT 36 more often lately, I suspect they may have increased power. They were quite rare back when they were running a low power STA, but I did see them a couple of times ...

You probably need to use a VHF antenna that has some sort of gain on 174-216(TV ch 7-13) MHZ for WSYX-DT, or WCPO-DT Cincy. A UHF antenna(designed for 470-806MHZ) will have no gain on VHF-HI, and won't work as well as "rabbit ears". A VHF antenna designed for broadcast FM(88-108MHZ), or solely for lo-VHF TV(ch 2-6 - 54-88MHZ) or even 2 meter ham FM (144-148MHZ) also won't have any gain on Hi-VHF TV band. Winegaud makes some nice VHF-Hi band TV antennas, but most VHF TV antennas are broadband and are designed for Ch 2-6, FM+ Ch 7-13. The VHF sections on VHF/UHF combo antennas are designed for 2-6, FM+ Ch 7-13. Yes, some people are able to pull in VHF stations with UHF antennas ---- but that is just because Any "paperclip" or coathanger will work if there is a strong enough signal present ..

Also, indoor antennas, weak signals+sources of RFI/impulse noise don't often mix well, especially with VHF signals -- Although this sort of thing is generally much more of a problem on VHF-lo. Harmonics from nearby FM transmitters can also be a problem on VHF Hi. I can't think of any that should be a problem for you for 13, though. If you are using a preamp, probably best to turn on the FM trap, as not only can harmonics from FM transmitters cause "direct problems", strong, nearby FM signals can easily overload preamp+cause intermod products, especially on VHF-hi ...

Anyone have TWC setup with a DVHS deck? I'd like to do the same. Right now I have the pioneer hd box. The one I need is the 3250, right? I have read that some 3250s support firewire, but not others. Does the local TW office have a 3250 with firewire. As usual the phone reps are clueless.

WBDT-DT is now sending proper Stereo/DD 2.0 Audio during WB HD tonight(tue).

lookin forward to smallville tonight

curious to see if they have a newer encoder that prevents the macroblocking

i'll tell you what..that was an impressive HD showing of smallville..no multicasting and no pixelation..the way it should be done

they must have a really really new and good encoder...either that or we'll have to wait a little more for a scene with lightning or strobe lights

Also, To my surprise, wkef didnt miss the switch tonight. Maybe they looked around in this forum a bit.....(looks left......looks right)

Originally posted by jbh613
Also, To my surprise, wkef didnt miss the switch tonight. Maybe they looked around in this forum a bit.....(looks left......looks right)

they did miss it by about 20 seconds but that's if you're looking for perfection

Yes, WBDT in Dayton is doing a superb job with their digital channel! It goes to show how good things are by simply devoting the full bandwidth to the one HD channel! I hope other Dayton stations can follow suite! Great job WBDT!

Come on TW and WB -- hell, you're owned by the same parent company !!! -- get WB-HD on TW's cable service.

WB/Tribune doesn't own WBDT. They are an Acme owned WB affiliate. All but One of ACME's stations are WB affiliates. See here :

http://www.acmecommunications.com/pages/stations.html

If you hadn't noticed, The "Daily Buzz", an Acme produced syndicated program WAS done from WBDT studios in Dayton until recently when the Show moved to Orlando, FL. The original press release on the show is here:

http://www.acmecommunications.com/pages/news.html?d=31399

I enjoy that show occasionally(its on WBDT from 6am-9am), but wish they could have stayed in Dayton. looks like a number of non-acme stations run it as well:

http://www.dailybuzz.tv/stations

During 3pm WBDT-DT TOH ID, they actually promoted their digital station's HD capability a bit, noting that you could now see WB HD from them ... think that's a first for Dayton or Cincinnati area that I'm aware of ... Way to go WBDT!

However, unfortunetly, the HD-one movie for the month, "ST VI: The Undiscovered Country" is currently airing on WBDT-DT as a SD upconvert ... albeit a A very good looking upconvert .... Maybe they don't have the capability to record/playback Syndicated HD from the HD-one package yet ...


----------------------------------------------

WHIO-DT Update 3:50pm : Noticed WKRC-DT had Ala vs Tenn in HD, but WHIO-DT didn't so at 3:49:03 called WHIO's newsroom and asked them to ask control room to switch to HD .... 7 seconds later they switched to HD ...

I guess it's just because it's during the day on weekend+the MCO on duty isn't as used to doing it or some similar thing, but I still wonder why it's often necessary to call them for HD football on the weekend, but it's very, very rare to see them miss HD diruing prime time .... or, For HD Y&R at 1pm weekdays either for that matter ... I also assume they have some sort of autoswitching capability, as "smooth" as the local ad inserts/etc. are during HD.

WRGT is currently passing the SD feed of the World Series pre-game. I called the newsroom and the girl told me that i should call my cable company. I told her i was having the problem OTA (eventhough it's the same on cable), and she said she didn't know, anyways, i asked her to pass the message to the control room. Still no HD :(

Noticed WRGT-DT switched to HD at 8:20pm.

Thanks for calling them Browerjs, I was watching FOX HD on WXIX-DT and hadn't checked it yet. I guess we aren't calling WKEF/WRGT enough if one of their employees is still responding with the completely wrong response(about calling the cableco) which you received ;)

i've been meaning to post this but i keep forgetting

i've noticed that there is a significant difference between CBS-HD ota and CBS-HD on TWC

OTA, i get three streaking blue lines on the left side but on TWC these are magically gone.

Is TWC altering the signal?....there seems to be an ever so slight difference in the OTA and cable signals..OTA seems a little crisper but the quality is still bad with the bit starving due to multicasting

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
Noticed WRGT-DT switched to HD at 8:20pm.

Thanks for calling them Browerjs, I was watching FOX HD on WXIX-DT and hadn't checked it yet. I guess we aren't calling WKEF/WRGT enough if one of their employees is still responding with the completely wrong response(about calling the cableco) which you received ;)


Still SD for me, i was in the other room and i heard the sound drop (probably around 7:20) so i was hoping they made the switch, but when i came back it was still SD for me, that's via cable though. I'll switch over to OTA and check it out.

EDIT:
Just switched to OTA, and it is in HD. Very strange that they are passing the SD to TWC. Oh well the OTA box just keeps paying for itself :)

Originally posted by Rakesh.S
OTA, i get three streaking blue lines on the left side but on TWC these are magically gone.


I'm guessing the Blue lines from WHIO-DT must be be a receiver model specific,(possibly a specific encoder/de-coder related combination/etc? Is it outside of the "safe title area", and in the area which would be "overscan" for most CRT based sets?) or display/etc. specific issue or something really "odd" along those lines.

Even though I've looked+looked for them(even when I've had Overscan set to 0%), I've never seen them here OTA, but, If you search this thread for "Blue lines" (Or Blue line, maybe even "blue"), You'll run into plenty of posts reporting some folks are getting the blue lines from WHIO-DT, and have been for years now ...

Originally posted by browerjs
Just switched to OTA, and it is in HD. Very strange that they are passing the SD to TWC. I guess that means TW receives CBS (WHIO) by some other method that OTA...

Originally posted by hall
I guess that means TW receives CBS (WHIO) by some other method that OTA...

I'm guessing you mean WRGT?

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
I'm guessing the Blue lines from WHIO-DT must be be a receiver model specific,(possibly a specific encoder/de-coder related combination/etc? Is it outside of the "safe title area", and in the area which would be "overscan" for most CRT based sets?) or display/etc. specific issue or something really "odd" along those lines.

Even though I've looked+looked for them(even when I've had Overscan set to 0%), I've never seen them here OTA, but, If you search this thread for "Blue lines" (Or Blue line, maybe even "blue"), You'll run into plenty of posts reporting some folks are getting the blue lines from WHIO-DT, and have been for years now ...

jeff i've got a mits built in OTA tuner on my tv

they are quite visible if you watch CSI..since the whole show is so poorly lit, you see blue lines in almost every scene..

it isn't outside the safe area..i'm pretty sure about that

also I think i saw just one blue streaking line on TWC the other day during CSI..i was flipping back and forth and there was one on TWC and at least 3 on OTA

still waiting for the day, if ever, that the cable companies get a full bitrate feed from the networks

I used to see those lines all the time via both OTA and TWC, although I haven't really noticed them at all in the past couple of months. Do a search on this thread for "blue lines" and you'll find a bunch of posts on it in the past. Might give you some more info.

Originally posted by browerjs
Very strange that they are passing the SD to TWC.

That does seem odd ... Are you still getting 720p format on 745 with the SD as an upconvert? or is it 480i now? If it's 480i, I suppose its possible TW has switched(for some reason) to using WRGT-DT's SD subchannel (or the analog for that matter) presently to feed their plant for 745 instead of WRGT-DT's HD(HD coming from the Fox splicer of course)/Upconverts from what we see OTA as 30-1.

Also, Does the SD from TWC during the game have a sort of "crease" all the way across the screen(near bottom of screen) around the spot where the SD Fox bug usually is? If it does, then if nothing else at least that tells us its coming from the same video source/"path" at WRGT(and I don't know, but assume that whatever is causing the crease is "something" between the Fox Sat receiver+the Exciter(for the analog) or SD encoder for 30-2 for the digital) that feeds the Digital SD (30-2) encoder as well as the analog transmitter. For those who haven't noticed, that crease has been there on the analog+SD digital during Fox programming(only fox programming) for something like 2 years or so now ...

Originally posted by hall
I guess that means TW receives CBS (WHIO) by some other method that OTA...

Not necessarily. But, for at least the "greater Dayton area", I would guess they probably get WHIO-DT/CBS HD via Fiber, probably via ASI stream coming out of the HD encoder at the station.

It's still not correct this morning... We are seeing the crease like we do on the analog station and it's coming 480i

I called TWC and the CSR knew of the problem the second i brought it up. He said it may be until Monday until it's fixed. Something to do with the way they are receiving the signal.

really weird.....thanks for calling TWC about it

I didn't feel like being on hold for 15 mins

Again, would this even be an issue if they dropped the multicast?

Rakesh,
I too have always seen the blue lines you mentioned. They are way above the overscan area, and during darker scenes are very distracting. You mentioned that you had a built in STB, and I do as well, so maybe that has something to do with it. I hate to say it, but HD for the masses seems further away than we would like.

Originally posted by browerjs
I'm guessing you mean WRGT? Yes, I think so.... Rakesh mentioned WHIO but it was a different issue and I got confused... :)

A few days ago I asked a question re: TWC and firewire output to a DVHS. I'm glad to say I have it up and running. I can now record most HD programming directly onto my computer from the cablebox-- I decided not to get a DVHS. Here is what I learned -- I hope it might help someone else.

First of all, the SA3250HD is the only box that has is capable of firewire output -- but only a very samll percentage of the SA3250HD boxes have firewire enabled. According to TWC-WOH, there are only 16 or so SA3250HD boxes that have it enabled. In order to get one, you have to specifically request it from a tech. The phone reps and people up front in the officer do not know the difference.

After hooking up the firewire to my computer and installing the drivers, I am able to capture/record the HD feeds from all of the OTA stations that Time Warner carries, plus Discovery, TNT, and INHD1 and INHD2. HBO-HD, SHO-HD, ESPN-HD, HDNET and HDNET movies are all flagged through 5C copy protection by TWC as "copy once" and thus cannot be recorded through firewire.

I am curious to know what ESPN HD cannot be recorded through firewire, considering Discovery and TNT can be recorded through firewire. I suspect it is somewhere in the carraige agreement bwtween TWC and ESPN.

On a side note, it looks as if the copy protection battle lines are being drawn. I refuse to get the HD-DVR because there is no way to offload the material from the DVR to permanently archive it -- and the content providers are doing everything in their power to keep it that way. TWC is in the middle, but my gut feeling is they are not adequately looking out for the consumer's interest -- especially the law abiding consumer that simply wants his/her fair use rights.

the whole broadcast flag (hopefully) will become a huge issue.. you are right dc10 - an hd dvr is great, but it does nothing for archiving - something the content providers dont want.. hopefully more people will stand up on this issue!

jim

Finally a Bengals game in HD and it's unwatchable on TWC. Nice...

J

well.. wcpo-dt looks like crap tonight.. and I didnt spin the antenna to get wkef..

Originally posted by HJustin
Finally a Bengals game in HD and it's unwatchable on TWC. What do you mean "unwatchable" ?? As in blacked-out ?? It's on for me right now, with TWC.

I mean, audio breaking up and broken and pixellated picture.

J

I think the last poster is referring to the frequent video freezes on WKEF-DT.

I have to watch them OTA because whatever they're doing really screws up my Fusion3 QAM card when it happens. My Samsung T165 OTA tuner acts like they've momentarily dropped off-air when it happens. Video freezes, stays like that for a couple seconds, then screen goes black with no video or audio and then the 51-1 indicator comes back up along with video and audio.

Okay.... I was flipping channels and left it there for a couple of minutes (2:00 minutes for the half and saw a little of the halftime "show"). I saw no problems during that short period though.

I saw the freezes all night as well, although it wasn't unwatchable, just annoying. I don't know if anybody else runs into this or not but when watching WKEF HD and having my receiver on when they switch to local broadcasting (i.e. local commercials last night) I get a loud screetch (though my digital inputs on the receiver). Does anybody else have this problem?

Most MNF football games this year from WKEF have had the video freezes while the audio keeps going. Everytime it happened last night(that I can remember), the freezes weren't during actual plays and it happened infrequently enough where it wasn't annoying to me.

On my receiver you can definately hear a little "clicking" type sound when it switches to local broadcasting, but not very long or loud.

What's the deal with WKEF-DT? I haven't been able to keep a close on the forum lately.

J

Hmmm ... Don't get the audio screeches during the WKEF-DT Switching between HD net+local here, just occasionally a few seconds of silence after the switch to local. and as browerjs noted you can often hear a little "click" when the switching occurs, as the case with most other stations in the area as well(except the Fox and WB affiliates)

As for WKEF-DT the video Freezes, I had quite a few of them last night(one was during a commercial BTW), However, I didn't notice any in any important parts, or during any of the plays, which was just a matter of luck I'd say ...

I was watching with DTC-100 last night, and I had the same experience as browerjs ... It sounds like different hardware is handling the problem differently in some cases, however. During First half, I did notice an occasional bit of screen data loss(but not much, it didn't happen very often, and was just effecting small portions of the frame with "green blocks") --- I'm not sure if the latter was a a WKEF problem or a Issue at ABC or the sat feed, or even with the production/uplink/etc from PBS.

The video freezes where the audio continues have occured occasionally during NBC HD or ABC HD(not just MNF - But only during HD, not local/syndicated programming) on WKEF-DT for about 2 years or more now. Probably on average once every 15 minutes, but sometimes that's more like 2 or 3 of them within a 5 minute period+the rest of the hour is fine.

Anyhow, other than the freezes and small bit of data loss in 1st half, I thought the PQ was Excellent for MNF on WKEF-DT last night. But, maybe that's because it looked so bad on WCP0-DT because of their weird jaggies issue ....

On my setup, you lose a couple seconds of audio when WKEF switches to local. The R/L/S channel lights go out and then come back on.

One constant gripe I have with WKEF and WRGT is that they both do a terrible job of keeping audio normalized. Local breaks on WKEF are louder than the network feed and I keep having to turn my receiver down during the breaks and then back up when the game is back on. WRGT used to be the same way. Now Fox network volume level is much louder than the local stuff. I don't know what sort of audio processing (if any) those stations are using, but it would be nice if they could deal with the volume level inconsistencies. I installed a new audio chain at the college radio station when I was working on my MSEE....it's not that hard to keep levels consistent...

We've noticed the excessively loud commercials in the past and luckily our TV has a setting to tame it down a bit. It does work too.... Recently, it got reset to "off" and a commercial came on quite loud. Checked the setting and sure enough, it had gotten reset. Turned it back "on" and all is well.

It's a shame that the engineers from the stations don't use this forum to *help* them. I think everyone here would consider what "we" are saying as constructive criticism, not outright b*tching. I'd bet the engineers do lurk here though....

Yeah, I don't intend to gripe. I'm sure the average viewer who isn't as in to the technology as we are doesn't appreciate having to crank his TV volume up and down either.

Anyone hear when/if TWC will be carrying the WB in HD? I finally gave in and got TWC, installs on the 6th. I'm hoping to have the ability to record LOTR on my nice new HDDVR. That might be asking too much though.

Supposedly it's "in negotiations".

Originally posted by hall
I think everyone here would consider what "we" are saying as constructive criticism, not outright b*tching. I'd bet the engineers do lurk here though....

First and foremost --- Just a suggestion --- I would suggest to anyone NOT to let this forum be your "outlet" to inform station personel of issues you are noticing -- CONTACT(or at least attempt to do so) them directly - Even sending them a thank you note for HD, or a signal report/etc can be useful. You might not allways get a response, but that doesn't necessarily mean they didn't pay attention. But, If only one or two people contact them about a problem, then the info might not get through.

Anyhow -- I know that, at least in the past(even the quite recent past), Engineers at local stations(among others)have monitored this thread. Some have even posted here. In many cases however, company policy prohibits station personel from posting on internet forums -- In an "official capacity" at least -- Which is definitely understantable.

It is generally a "no, no" to post private correspondance here -- unless they ASK you to, or unless the info they are providing is obviously OK to post publicly -- but, I'll make a bit of an exception in this case as I think it might be benficial in order to give you, hopefully at least a little bit of an idea of where they are coming from. And, also because I'll keep it anonomous - note that I had to leave out some comments which were more specific to this thread which might make it a little less "anonomous" .... But I should note that his "thanks" comment was not just personally addressed to me, but also to other posters on THIS thread which were discussing the issue "at hand" here ... So, here are some (edited)comments I received a few months back concerning AVSforum from a station engineer in the area :

"We are working on the problem......

.... I try to stay up with the forum, especially when we make changes to our routing system, add new equipment, ect. ....

....The simpler the explanation the better ...

The forum can get real heavy into techno-babble and it's time consuming
to wade through. That's a major reason the TV stations take the forum
with a grain of salt. But I'm learning which threads to read and which
ones to ignore.

Again thanks for your help.

:end quote

Anyhow -- Concering the B*tching you mentioned .... I understand as much as anyone else how frustrating some issues can be ... but, Personally -- -- And sorry, I don't know how to put this "nicely" -- But -- IMO , unfortunately I think there *is* a lot of just outright b*tiching going on here at AVS these days - Although I don't think that is the case for the most part in THIS thread. Then, there is often(IMO) uniformed opinion stated as fact, or, just plain incorrect facts stated as fact. *I* can't put up with it at times, I can only imagine what someone at the station might think of some of this stuff.

While it is true there is no such thing as a stupid question here, IMO there IS such a thing as a stupid comment. And, for some of us "older" members at least, its sometimes frustrating to have to go over issues which have been rehashed over+over+over again. Especially when a question is asked or comment is made that is either answered in the AVSforum FAQ, or even in a post on a immediately previous page in any specific thread/etc. To a certian extent, it's just going to happen because you can't expect someone to go back and find info that was posted in some 100 page thead 3 years ago -- BUT In most cases, It's best to READ and research first, and THEN post any relevant comments you may have in the appropriate thread.

I suppose it's just the "price of progress", though -- and of course, as far a s "complaining goes", to some extent it's just part of the "nature of things". We ALL likely do it to some extent, regardless of our actual intentions.... IMO, I think it might at least help if we all at least try to put ourselves in their posisition when we address issues related to their station, as well as at least attempt to keep a "professional air" to our comments.

And, it's not so much even "constructive criticism" that is helpful to say, a station engineer -- I think accurately reporting your observations concerning any issue that might arise is the sort of thing that helps these folks, as well as the rest of us who are trying to figure out what is going on with this stuff for that matter.

Another problem for them, as you can gather from the anonomous comments posted above, is the time consuming task of sifting through our comments to find the comments that are relevant to issues concerning a(the) local stations. I don't know what we can do about this, as even though "Dayton Ohio HDTV thread" is specific to Dayton area, there are other worthwhile topics that we discuss which are for the most part, probably not of interest to station personel -- And, it is sometimes necessary to go into "excruciating detail" in order to address an issue or get your "point" across, or to accurately describe a "issue" that is occuring.

And, personally, I don't think it would be best to try limit our discussions to issues solely involving problems the stations are having/etc, as I think anyway, it would "dilute" the discussion too much, as well as the usefullness of this thread to anyone who might have interest in the various subjects we discuss...

But, on the other hand -- one possibility could be -- say, if station personel from the area stations could/would want to participate here more -- we could I suppose have a seperate thread Just for posts concerning anything THEY would want to discuss. There is, in fact a thread from another area just like this on AVSforum -- Just about all the station engineers in that area particpate on the thread, and the engineers "create" the thread and make up the "ground rules" for posting in the thread. Now, that is far beyond the "call of duty" for them to do such a thing, but, if engineers/station personel in this area were so inclined, personally I think it certianly is/would be an excellent resource for both viewers+the engineers/station personel in that area. It's also a very interesting read, and may help folks even here gain a bit more of an understanding concerning DTV/HD issues in general, as well as hopefully gain more understanding concerning what DTV/HD is "like" for the stations -- Here's the recent, 4Q 2004 "Norfolk, VA Broadcast Engineering thread" I refer to :

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=452656&perpage=20&pagenumber=1

I've found that using the Ignore list gets rid of posts from the more vitriolic members that I'd rather not hear from. :cool:

Today, WHIO TV was reported off air due to a failure in their transmission line for the analog plant. (Was reported in the Cincinnati thread as well as on the Dayton Daily News website). The DDN was reporting that they were running at low power as of 5:30pm. Cincinnati thread says that the DT is not affected.

Ah. I suppose the transmission line failure could also explain why the analog was intermittantly, "apparently" going on and off air at first when the analog first came back up at around 2:30pm or so. And yep, the DT was just fine all day when I checked it, even with local coverage from Hara while the analog was completely off air.

The analog certianly was(and perhaps still is) still booming in here at "low power" though ... I did notice during 5 or 5:30 newcast they were having problems with the audio levels - they'd run a story and audio would be WAY down in the mud, with the stuff from the studio being fine --- so I imagine they had their hands full .... HD from them seemed fine tonight, at least when I checked it as well ...

Called WKEF-DT Newsroom during last commercial break(at approx 8:36pm) and(being in a hurry to get to the fridge, I even forgot to mention I was talking about ABC HD/WKEF and not WRGT, LOL) all I said was, "I've got HD from Cincinnati, But not from Dayton --- Could you please ask control room to switch to HD" .... They said thanks, I said thanks -- and just after the break at 8:38pm, We have "Monsters, Inc" in HD from WKEF-DT ...

Sorry about the "delay" in calling them, but I was enjoying the movie in HD from WCPO-DT ....

update: Oh, forgot to mention -- There was a ABC game that went past 8pm, so I suppose that might have had something to do with why WKEF missed the switch to HD at first ... As either they've gotten better over the last couple of weeks when I've checked it, or they've been getting calls ...

i might have called but i'm not watching this movie again..thought it was okay the first time around but not something i could sit through again

Did anyone watch "Everybody Loves Raymond" last night on WHIO ?? Seems they had no audio in HD mode... For the first 3-4 minutes, I had to turn on closed-captioning. Then the picture shrunk to 4:3 and audio came back. A few minutes later, they tried it again in 16:9 mode .... oooops, there went the audio again. They must have went back and forth more than half a dozen times.

Is "2 1/2 Men" on after that?

I toggled over to WHIO while MNF was in commercial and that was on in 16:9. My receiver was showing 5.1 audio. However, it sounded like the front channels were being echoed in the rears.

To check, I toggled back to WKEF, and I was getting 2/1 channels (L+R front and a single surround channel). WKEF isn't 5.1 capable.

I wonder if WHIO has a new Dolby encoder and was playing around with it. I thought CBS primetime was not in 5.1. Didn't think it was with my equipment (my sound card sometimes forces 5.1 on things). I was watching via Time Warner cable on QAM channel 91 using my Fusion card.

I'm not sure what comes after it. We had recorded "E.L.R." and were watching it around 10pm or so.

This list, http://www.dolby.com/consumer/home_entertainment/tv_listings.html, only has NFL Football as being in DD, though it might be changing.

WHIO appeared to be running 2.0 for football last weekend, but I'm not sure. I watched on WBNS instead where the late game was 5.1.

Originally posted by 1450kHz
Is "2 1/2 Men" on after that?


Yes, Funny show.

FWIW, If I recall correctly, I think I've seen that happen on WHIO-DT before. It was probably over a year ago or more last time I noticed it) with the decoder indicating DD 5.1 for short periods(also looking like they were "playing around with something/etc), but the audio not really being DD 5.1(In fact, I'm not sure there was any audio at all during those periods). If they do have DD 5.1 capability, they haven't used it so far that I've noticed -- (including during the 1pm Colts HD game last weekend, or the SEC game on Saturday).

AFAIK, there are currently only 2 AC-3 audio(Dolby digital) "modes" DTVstations can use. DD 2.0 (with Prologic II decoding used for the "matrixed" center+surround channels - this can work quite well if the audio is properly encoded/etc.), and DD 5.1 (5.1 discrete audio channels). They could of course use DD 5.1 but just send L+R audio channels only. WCET-DT Cincinnati used to do this for programming(it was just sent to front L+R channels) which was not produced in DD 5.1, last I checked though they were switching between DD 2.0+DD 5.1 based on the source material, as WDTN-DT does.

hall,

Noticed your posts on another thread concerning WLIO, Lima. Their DTV station on channel 8(analog is on 35) currently transmits under STA(special temporary authority) at 250watts ERP. They do NOT offer NBC HD at this time, it's SD only. TW Western ohio subscribers in Lima are probably receiving Dayton or FT Wayne HD stations, obviously not WDTN-DT, since they don't have an agreement with TW Cable. (don't you have that OTA box+antenna set up yet for NBC HD+WB HD? ;)

In any event, WLIO has a nice web page set up with info(some of it is out of date though, such as the "on air" Dayton/Cincinnati stations) on their digital station :

http://www.wlio.net/wlio8/

They also have a very nice WLIO "history" site, if you want to check it out :

http://www.wlio.org/

WLIO "Engineering" pages are here :

http://www.wlio.net/

I recall, back in 87~88 or so, They were one of the first stations in the area to broadcast Stereo Audio. I used to often see them via a little enhanced propagation down here+tuned to them in the "early days" of stereo TV in order to get stereo during Tonight Show(Carson at that time)/etc., but WLWT-DT 35 Cincinnati needs to be off air for me to have any luck with them now -- Last time I saw them (occasionally) was when WLWT-DT was off air for tower work during most of summer 2002. They also do(or at least did) something unique with their analog SAP, offering Short Wave broadcasts/news over their SAP audio channel.

Noticed your posts on another thread concerning WLIO, Lima. Their DTV station on channel 8(analog is on 35) currently transmits under STA(special temporary authority) with less than 500 watts ERP. They do NOT offer NBC HD at this time, it's SD only. According to the guy who started that thread, he gets *no* NBC in HD, not Ft Wayne, Columbus, or obviously Dayton. And no one can inform him of this, other than via PM, 'cause someone felt it necessary to lock that thread... His question is to be discussed in Lima's HD thread, as if one exists !! :)

Funny thing about WLIO -- as I said, I grew up in Lima and in fact, lived about (5) blocks from the station ... we also played football in their field under their tower -- is watching it now, they just appear to unprofessional or "small". I have read a lot of those pages you linked to before. I often wondered where they got funding for that !! :)

Originally posted by Nitewatchman

Noticed your posts on another thread concerning WLIO, Lima. Their DTV station on channel 8(analog is on 35) currently transmits under STA(special temporary authority) with less than 500 watts ERP. They do NOT offer NBC HD at this time, it's SD only. TW Western ohio subscribers in Lima are probably receiving Dayton or FT Wayne HD stations, obviously not WDTN-DT, since they don't have an agreement with TW Cable. (don't you have that OTA box+antenna set up yet for NBC HD+WB HD? ;)


I was asking about NBC in that other discussion... (I made it here)

Now that I've arrived at page 84 Dayton Area, since I'm in Lima let me share the programming choices from TWC, CBS WHIOHD, ABC - WTVGHD, WTVGDT (extra channel) - WBGUDT, PBSUKids, PBSYou, BGULocal,
Fox WUPWHD..

Network - Discovery HD, TNT HD
Pay - Tier HD Channels - INHD, INHD2, HDNet, HDMovies, ESPNHD
Pay - HBO HD, SHOWTIME HD

I thought you can't or "can't" aren't supposed to use an HD cable box to pickup outside signals. Correct or what could I do to ge more channels? Though according to your statement my Lima Station can't even send HD anyway.

Lima is possibly in range of Ft Wayne, Toledo, Dayton, and Columbus with Lima being about 79 straight line miles from Columbus. What is the actual range to pickup signal?

Originally posted by hall
According to the guy who started that thread, he gets *no* NBC in HD, not Ft Wayne, Columbus, or obviously Dayton. And no one can inform him of this, other than via PM, 'cause someone felt it necessary to lock that thread... His question is to be discussed in Lima's HD thread, as if one exists !! :)


Well, for one thing he posted in the wrong area to begin with -- The thread/post should have been put in the local reception area(in a new thread, or in Ft. Wayne or Toledo thread or this thread) instead of in the programming area. It *is* important to post things in the appripriate spot, with approrpiate(and descriptive) thread titles, otherwise it can be difficult for readers to find it. Except for WLIO+WTLW though, Lima is pretty much in the middle of nowhere where broadcast TV is concerned.

I do recall seeing a couple posts on a thread concerning a lima thread(last summer probably), but, there isn't a Lima thread in the list of local threads which are here :

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=453241

Ft. Wayne thread would probably be the place to go,as I think I've seen a couple of posts from Lima area posters there :

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=269203

Of course, the only stations in Lima are WLIO, and WTLW(religious, but with local sports coverage as well).


Originally posted by hall
Funny thing about WLIO -- as I said, I grew up in Lima and in fact, lived about (5) blocks from the station ... we also played football in their field under their tower -- is watching it now, they just appear to unprofessional or "small". I have read a lot of those pages you linked to before. I often wondered where they got funding for that !! :)

WLIO is an excellent example of just how hard the DTV transistion is, not to mention Cable+Satellite -- financially on "mom&pop" TV stations+small group owners. I hope they are able to stay in business throughout the transistion, and at some point begin offering NBC HD to their OTA viewers in West-Central Ohio.

Originally posted by rontruex
I was asking about NBC in that other discussion... (I made it here)

Now that I've arrived at page 84 Dayton Area, since I'm in Lima let me share the programming choices from TWC, CBS WHIOHD, ABC - WHIOHD, WTVGDT (extra channel) - WBGUDT, PBSUKids, PBSYou, BGULocal,
Fox WUPWHD..


Interesting mix of stations from Dayton, Toledo and Bowling Green(PBS) ...

Originally posted by rontruex

Lima is possibly in range of Ft Wayne, Toledo, Dayton, and Columbus with Lima being about 79 straight line miles from Columbus. What is the actual range to pickup signal?

Generally speaking, in our area at least given the tower heights and topography 55~65 miles is about the limit for "full power" stations. Given a "high spot", or antennas high up on a tower, it's possible to do better(A cableco headend with a antenna OTA WAY up there may be providing your signals from Ft. Wayne, Dayton+Toledo, or they may be getting them via fiber or microwave via TW's distribution system/etc.)

I would guess, Lima, Fort Wayne, possibly Bowling Green/Toledo stations may be receivable over the air from your location, but except for lima and maybe Bowling green, you would probably want a VERY good antenna setup(tower, BIG high gain antennas, preamps/etc). I used to know some folks in Celina which watched the Lima, FT Wayne+Dayton stations OTA -- They used a 40Ft tower, a LARGE Blonder-Tongue VHF antenna for 2+7 Dayton, and a CM4251(6 ft diamater UHF parabolic dish antenna) for UHF, with Preamp+rotor of course. They unfortunetly took all that stuff to the dump when they began subscribing to E*(Dish network). It did work exceptionally well, though.

Originally posted by rontruex
II thought you can't or "can't" aren't supposed to use an HD cable box to pickup outside signals. Correct or what could I do to ge more channels?


You would need a OTA HD (DTV) receiver(either STB or "built in" to your HD set -- few HD sets have built in receivers for HD/DTV, but some do) and antenna -- Probably a very good antenna system. Dayton/Columbus is going to likely be out of range for you, so you might want to check the Ft. Wayne and or/Toledo threads to see what stations are broadcasting HD/etc from those markets. - You might be able to get some "extra channels" that way -- WNWO-DT 49, is NBC, and If I recall correctly, I think they provide NBC HD. I could be wrong, but I think the Closest WB digital station is Dayton, which now has WB HD, but again, would likely be way out of range for you, especially given their current power levels. Maybe Toledo or Ft Wayne has a WB digital station on the air?

Some people might find this page helpful to see what might be in range so I can contribute something.

Lima
http://www.ersys.com/usa/39/3943554/distance.htm

Dayton
http://www.ersys.com/usa/39/3921000/distance.htm

Other cities
http://www.ersys.com/index.htm

Look for a link about travel distances on the left margin after selecting the city.

I'm adding the Lima, OH DMA into this thread. If those of you in Lima, or picking up Lima stations, believe there is enough activity to justify your own thread, let me know and we can setup a new thread just for Lima.

Cpanther,

Good idea, thanks.

My only suggestion would be, until such time they may have their own thread, Lima folks might want to keep tabs on Toledo/FT Wayne/columbus/etc. thread as well as this one, and post comments approriate to the stations they are receiving from those cities in the appropriate thread that generally "covers" those stations. I didn't check, but I expect WBGU, Bowling Green, Ohio is probably "covered" in Toledo Thread.

rontruex,

Concerning the distance list at link you provided -- Keep in Mind, The Dayton Towers are in SOUTH Dayton -- Quite near Kettering, which is a couple miles to the East of the Dayton TV transmitting tower farm. Depending upon your exact location, you could be a little closer or farther away from the Dayton towers which would be(accoring to the "kettering" figure) 72 miles or so from Lima. Same thing for Toledo(it says 69 miles from lima)+Ft. Wayne(it says 58 miles) should be the Closest stations, besides WLIO/WTLW Lima, and WBGU, Bowling Green. As I mentioned earlier, the coverage area for most full service, "full power" stations in this area is about 55~65 miles.

To further illustrate:

Here is a coverage area map from FCC site of WHIO-DT, CBS HD Dayton(which you are receiving via Cable), The most powerful DTV station in dayton currently(1000KW ERP - Which is the max FCC allows on UHF) :

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DT997869.html

WANE-DT 31, Fort Wayne current coverage map for their current 40KW ERP STA:

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DS685398.html

WANE-DT 31 - CBS HD - Fort Wayne "full power" coverage map - Note - I have heard they were planning on moving to full power(1000KW ERP) relatively soon, if not already. See Ft. Wayne thread for more info :

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DT987967.html

WTVG-DT - ABC HD - Toledo Full power(They are close to "full power" now I believe) coverage map :

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DT657055.html

WBNS-DT - CBS HD (1000KW ERP) Columbus Coverage area :

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DT617732.html

Although it may be possible to receive some of these stations from lima area with a "super" antenna setup(especially depending upon exact receiving location), even though it's outside the coverage area of all stations except WLIO/WTLW Lima, and WBGU Bowling Green --- The above are pretty much the "best case" coverage areas for OTA reception from stations from Toledo, Ft. Wayne, Dayton and Columbus -- The Closest markets to Lima.

You can look up more stations here - Be sure to specify "Detailed info+CDBS links" for your query(Which you can run by callsign, or Search radius given your lat/long coordinates(It has a link to a list which should have lima's coordinates), that will give you links to the coverage area maps(among other things) :

http://www.fcc.gov/mb/video/tvq.html

Hope this helps --

Dayton / Lima, OH thread? Hmmm....let's see...they're 90 miles apart. Doesn't really roll off the tongue like Dallas/Ft. Worth...Minneapolis/St. Paul...

Eh ... I think one of the best is WGTZ's 92.9 FM's clever "legal ID" -- "WGTZ, - Eaton Dayton Alive ;) ... Of course, WGTZ's Community of license is Eaton, Ohio, and that's where their tower is ...

Anyhow, personally doesn't matter to me, but on the distances -- Not quite Paul. More like 69~70 miles from Downtown Dayton. WLIO Lima tower is only 82 miles from My location, Just North of Middletown. Remember, "straight line" distance is usually much shorter than driving distance.

The problem is, I think :

#1). Lima Has 2 TV stations. One is religious, the other NBC, the latter not currently providing NBC HD. Lima is also within WBGU-DT(PBS HD/Bowling green University) Coverage area, a station which is out there "on its own" but covers Toledo market as well.

#2). Ft. Wayne, Indiana is a tad closer to Lima (about 60 miles), otherwise no other markets are any closer than Dayton. Usually, besides the Three Lima/Bowling green stations -- I think Ft. Wayne stations are the most often received stations OTA in Lima area -- And, I think there are some posters from Lima area who have posted in Ft. Wayne thread. Which makes sense for OTA people if Ft. wayne stations are being discussed but : (see #3 below)

#3). If you noticed rontruex's first post here, his cable system(TW Western Ohio, which as you may know covers much of the Area North of Dayton) is currently carrying HD from stations in Dayton(WHIO-DT), Toledo(WTVG, WUPW), and Bowling green(WBGU - PBS). You would think they would want to carry Ft. Wayne stations as well but (just some thoughts, guesses and ideas)perhaps it has something to do with :

a) The "Indiana" time difference in the summer months, since Indiana doesn't switch to EDT, and sticks on EST year around.

b) Retransmission consent deals TW Western Ohio could get to serve their Lima service area.

c). I do know, that at least at first, the Ft. Wayne digitals were at very low power, and potentailly difficult to receive from a cablehead end in Lima. I'm not sure of the Situation with the Ft. Wayne digitals currently.

----------------------

In any case --- besides a seperate thread for Lima(Which, as Cpanther noted may be a good idea if there is enough Lima posting activity) I think Dayton/Lima thread makes as much sense as anything else at this time.

As I mentioned above however, I still think it would be a good idea for the most part for Lima area posters to post comments in the appropriate thread concerning the station being received. For now, I think that just means that comments concerning Lima stations(again there are 2 - WTLW+WLIO), or TW Western Ohio service in Lima are appropriate here as is discussion of Dayton stations.

Just my 2 cents FWIW.

If you look in the Fort Wayne thread, there are frequent complaints about certain stations in that market that either run the DT's at flea power or don't pass HD during EDT season because network requires them to delay it to local primetime hours.

i'm noticing that WHIO is sending 5.1 audio even though it is just upconverted

Originally posted by 1450kHz
If you look in the Fort Wayne thread, there are frequent complaints about certain stations in that market that either run the DT's at flea power or don't pass HD during EDT season because network requires them to delay it to local primetime hours.

Yep. I'd done some reading of that thread just after the time change in the spring and saw the same sort of posts. Sure, the Dayton/Cincy/Columbus stations have had their share of problems, but this area(until you get too far North or NW of Dayton) is really probably ahead of the curve a bit, OTA HD+DTV wise IMO.

Originally posted by Rakesh.S
i'm noticing that WHIO is sending 5.1 audio even though it is just upconverted


Yep, just checked it a bit ago after seeing your post -- just coming out of L+R Front channels of course, given the source is a 2 channel audio production. Which, for the most part is fine with me.

It makes no sense to lump Lima into this thread. As you say Jeff, people in Lima probably can only pick up Dayton stations with "a super antenna". The *only* commonality is that Time Warner Western Ohio covers both Dayton and Lima. Nonetheless, the stations offered ARE NOT THE SAME.

I lived in Lima and besides the (2) stations you mention, people watch WHIO (Dayton), WBNS (Columbus), and a Toledo station. PBS is out of Bowling Green. Of those, only people with "big" antennas, and rotor controlled, could pick up the Dayton, Columbus, and Toledo channels.

Face it, it will be a long, long time before Lima can justify it's own thread. Lumping it in this one really serves no benefit to Lima residents or Dayton-area residents. I do hope we're allowed to disagree with mod's decisions...

Originally posted by hall
Face it, it will be a long, long time before Lima can justify it's own thread. Lumping it in this one really serves no benefit to Lima residents.

While I wouldn't disagree that it does seem a bit odd(well unless you live in Celina or something) ... Sure it has some benefit. It gives Lima folks a place to post about Lima "issues". There are also folks just north of Dayton who are within the Lima station's coverage areas, moreso of course, DTV wise whenever WLIO-DT increases power.

Since you're saying :

#1). Lima Can't justify having it's own thread.
#2). Lima issues don't belong here.

Then where do you propose it DOES belong?

It's not perfect, but if you can think of something better, then tell us -- or even better, send the Mod's a PM telling them what you think.

In any event, You're making too much out of this, IMHO. In practice, I doubt you'll see much difference in this thread -- at least for the time being. And, as noted they'll make a Lima thread if there are enough posts.

Also -- another point -- This thread is not restricted to Dayton "residents". For instance we have folks in Northern Ky and even Southern Indiana who receive the Dayton stations and contribute here, rightfully so.

If you feel every city and town needs "represented" here, so be it. I just hope that as time goes by and the lack of Lima interest is clear, the thread is re-titled.

As for the people living in Southern Indiana or Northern Ky, they "receive the Dayton stations", as you say. That's the key. People in Lima probably can't.

Now, I'm off to send a PM to the mods to rename the Ft Wayne thread to "Ft Wayne/Lima" and the Columbus thread to "Columbus/Lima" and .... :)

Originally posted by hall
If you feel every city and town needs "represented" here

I didn't say that. I don't think we need to add "muncie, IN" to the thread title when WIPB-DT(PBS Muncie) gets on the air(if ever) and/or Muncie posters, or anyone else in such and such city within, or near Dayton station's coverage area start posting here either because they are receiving a station in our area.

What I said was, I think you are making too much out of it.

But yes, I think everyone should have a place to post about their local issues, and Lima is probably a big enough town to deserve some sort of "representation" in a thread title. But that's just MY opinion.

I agree that Lima should be taken out of the thread title. The title of the thread should let users know what stations are discussed. So if a user from Lima can pick up a Dayton station and has a question about it they go to the Dayton thread, if they have a question about a Toledo station they pick up, they go to the Toledo thread. The last thing we want is people that live in Lima to ask questions about Toledo stations etc in this thread. I do understand that Lima does have a couple of stations of their own, but because they don't broadcast HD they don't really belong in the "Local HDTV Info and Reception grouping".

Just my 2 cents :)

It's important (to me anyway) that everybody that comes to the forum has a "home" thread that they can discuss local issues. The thread titles are reflecting the DMA (and the affiliates within that DMA) not the persons place of residence.

If a Lima resident is picking up a Toledo station, and they are curious when that station is going HD, etc. they should post in the Toledo thread. The fact that Lima can't justify it's own thread is precisely why it needs to be combined with a nearby DMA. When searching for Lima info on the forum, this thread yielded the most hits, so it was the most logical place to contain any Lima affiliate info.

Think of it as your public service for the AVS forum to allow the Lima folks to stay current on their DTV affiliates - and have access to you kind Dayton folks to pick your brain on other HD related issues. :)

Originally posted by browerjs
The title of the thread should let users know what stations are discussed.

It does.

Originally posted by browerjs
I do understand that Lima does have a couple of stations of their own, but because they don't broadcast HD they don't really belong in the "Local HDTV Info and Reception grouping".


Well, DTV stations which aren't sending HD(such as the Lima NBC affiliate) are as worthy of discussion as those which are sending HD. As you know, WRGT-DT and WBDT-DT didn't used to send Fox HD/WB HD either. BEFORE they did start sending WB HD/Fox HD, or for that matter Fox WS -- The most typical subjects of discussion here concerning those stations was WHEN they would send HD, as well as info from station personel which was posted here.

WHIO is in 5.1 for me here tonight. It's good to see them finally step up on this one. I'll have to see what CSI sounds like tomorrow though before I get overly excited. Tonight is Lost for me though. Anyone else as hopelessly addicted to this show as I am?

Not quite "real" DD 5.1 from WHIO-DT currently I don't think. More like Mono being sent through 5 channels, currently during HD "King of Queens". As has been mentioned earlier, -- And there may be some exceptions(if not already, then in the future) --- But, currently I think CBS is only sending DD 5.1 during Live events.

Sounded like mono to me when I first checked it, but had to compare it to WKRC-DT CBS HD Cincinnati+put on Headphones to make sure, as there's not a lot to tell for sure currently, except from the laugh track ... WKRC-DT is sending stereo though ... Prologic II/Surround decoding from WKRC-DT's DD 2.0 is still working nicely, as allways too :)

if they got rid of that wretched multicast and get a new encoder, everything would be perfect because live events look terrible

Hi everyone! I'm new to OTA HD - basically wanted to be able to see the Packers on Fox in HD, and we all know the situation with TWC and Fox... So, OTA was the only way to go.

I got a Samsung SIR-T100 box off Ebay. I was pleasantly surprised that it actually works, considering the horror stories I have read on this and other forums concerning these older units.

My location is in Mason, Ohio... Right behind the 700WLW tower.

I hooked up the Samsung unit and an old non-amplified indoor set of VHF/UHF rabbit ears, with the wheel in the base of the unit that you can turn to help with reception... I was able to get about 3/4 of the stations out of Dayton (all 25miles + from my house) with about a 25% signal strength, including the Fox channel that I was mainly trying to get. I couldn't get squat out of Cincinnati.

So, I figured if I was doing that well with the Dayton channels on a non-amplified antennae, if I got an amplified one I would do even better. So I went to Walmart and bought a Philips 45db amplified indoor antenna. Much to my dismay, my reception absolutely tanked. I couldn't get anything at all!!! I tried sticking the antenna in the window that faces north towards Dayton, and moved it other places, but I got nothing. Switched back to the old non-amplified antenna and was back to receiving the same stations I got before. Any theories on why the amplified antenna didn't work or help matters?

Anyone out there have any tips on a better indoor antenna I could try, or are familiar with the Mason area and have pointers on how to get better reception without going through the pains of sticking an antenna in the attic? If no one has experience with the Mason area, I'll be more than happy to continue tweaking/experimenting and post my results to help guide others in the future.

I'm going to do some more testing throughout the week, as I have read that weather can have an effect on your reception....

Thanks everyone for taking the time to read this and your replies. I've already gained alot of good info from this forum, and I appreciate the time and effort everyone is putting into the forum and contacting the various broadcasters in the area to help improve our HDTV!

The fact that you got a signal at all with a non-amplified set of rabbit-ear antenna is a good sign, I think. One antenna that I've read lots of good things about is the "Silver Sensor". It costs $30-40. I've never seen one at Walmart, but I have at Sears (http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product.do?BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&vertical=ELEC&pid=05768514000)

I've also read good things about this Radio Shack antenna, http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F003%5F001%5F001%5F000&product%5Fid=15%2D1880.

I have the silver sensor (bought at Best Buy) and it works great for local stations. I'm unable to pick up the Cincy stations from Beavercreek, but pick up all the Daytons w/o a problem.

Also I assume the Fox problem with TWC you are refferring to is with TWC Cincy. I have no problems with WRGT-HD through TWC WOH (Dayton).

I'm betting that he's covered by TW's Cincy division being in Mason.... TW-WOH goes south as far as Franklin (I think).

Just checked http://www.timewarnercable.com/cincinnati/ and they do list Mason.

Hello,
Haven't been to this topic for quite awhile (although I started it!).

My question is: What local Dayton HD's is TWC currently carrying? (or maybe an easier question, are there any it doesn't carry?) I am currently a DirecTV subscriber getting local HD OTA, but my neighbor's tree is growing and I'm tired of rain fade. Also, my OTA is spotty at best.

Unless something has changed very recently TW Dayton currently doesn't carry Dayton Digital locals WDTN-DT(NBC HD), Or WBDT-DT(WB HD starting just a few weeks ago). They have the other 4.

I don't know if anyone has posted this but if you go into diagnostics mode on channel 1001, you can see that TW will soon be offering Movies On Demand in HD.

what box do you have? Isn't Diagnostics on channel 611?

On the SA 8000 boxes it *is* channel 611. He may be referring to other HD boxes though....

gindie: I get WHIO-DT, WKEF-DT, and WRGT-DT with TW. You also get Discovery HD Theatre and TNT-HD. These are not add'l cost either. Any HD-capable box will get them. Regarding The WB, I was told by good sources that "it's just a matter of time" and that "I understand we're close". Will it happen before tomorrow and Monday's showing of Lord of the Rings in HD ?? Many people wish.... :) Of course, they could *tease* us with it. WB and TW could agree to show this to see what kind of reaction they get.

Originally posted by hall
gindie: I get WHIO-DT, WKEF-DT, and WRGT-DT with TW.

PBS HD Channel(from 6pm~6am nightly - Includes SD widescreen upconverts+HD programming) from WPTD-DT should be on there as well, I believe. Of course, the PQ from WPTD-DT suffers during bandwidth demanding portions of programming since they aren't allocating enough bits.

Ooops, forgot about the PBS channels. I get both WPTD (Dayton) *and* WPTO (Oxford).

Important thing to note: It depends WHERE you live in the Dayton area as to what channels you will get. "North Dayton" (what does that mean ???) doesn't get WPTO, but do get WCET. "South of Dayton", again, no idea what that really means, get WPTO, WPTD, and WCET. This is all based on the "Programming" link at TW-WOH's website too. How accurate is it ?? In some cases, not very... According to it, I don't get WHIO-DT - but I do.

Just a FWIW for those of us using antennas -- The digital station for WPTO-DT doesn't actually transmit from Oxford like it's analog on 14 does. WPTO-DT transmits from WXIX(fox) Tower in Cincinnati. -- Which I like, since I don't have to aim the antenna towards Oxford -- Just for ONE station(I really don't watch TBN/WKOI Oxford(No it's tower is not in Richmond, Indiana, their community of license) to get them.

And yes, PBS/PBS HD affiliates WCET-DT, WCVN-DT(KET/PBS N KY) and WPTO-DT are all on towers less than 6 miles apart ...

Rant mode On:

I'm still trying to figure out how we can have FOUR local PBS HD affiliates in Dayton/Cincinnati area, including 3 of those stations running CBS/Annenburg channel much of the time +2 with PBS Kids/etc/etc, but we can't have ONE PBS affiliate that allocates enough bits to HD ...

WCET-DT DID run single channel HD when they first came on the air for a couple of months ... and it looked BEAUTIFUL ... I was about ready to get out the checkbook, but I'm glad I waited a little longer as it wasn't too long before it turned into so-called "macroblocking" whenever there was too much movement or detail/etc .... WCET-DT probably does have the Best PBS HD PQ in the area currently though(at least IMO), as it looks like they are implementing Statistical multiplexing with the HD getting the priority and Almost all the bits it needs most of the time -- It doesn't do a lot for the SD multicast services though, at times) WCVN-DT is better "compression artifact wise", but it's also WAY soft IMO. Both WCET-DT/WCVN-DT pass through DD 5.1 when available.

Granted, I know the PBS/non-comm situation is "different"(but then again, even WHIO hasn't "figured it out" yet either for instance where HD bitrate during bandwidth demanding portions of programming is concerned ), and they certianly do great things with educational TV/datacasting/etc/etc ... but still ... Why do we need so many duplicate program services/programming from PBS affiliates that are so close together .....

Rant mode off -- sorry -- back to your regularly scheduled programming ...

Originally posted by Nitewatchman

Rant mode On:

I'm still trying to figure out how we can have FOUR local PBS HD affiliates in Dayton/Cincinnati area, including 3 of those stations running CBS/Annenburg channel much of the time +2 with PBS Kids/etc/etc, but we can't have ONE PBS affiliate that allocates enough bits to HD ...

WCET-DT DID run single channel HD when they first came on the air for a couple of months ... and it looked BEAUTIFUL ... I was about ready to get out the checkbook, but I'm glad I waited a little longer as it wasn't too long before it turned into so-called "macroblocking" whenever there was too much movement or detail/etc .... WCET-DT probably does have the Best PBS HD PQ in the area currently though(at least IMO), as it looks like they are implementing Statistical multiplexing with the HD getting the priority and Almost all the bits it needs most of the time -- It doesn't do a lot for the SD multicast services though, at times) WCVN-DT is better "compression artifact wise", but it's also WAY soft IMO. Both WCET-DT/WCVN-DT pass through DD 5.1 when available.

Granted, I know the PBS/non-comm situation is "different"(but then again, even WHIO hasn't "figured it out" yet either for instance where HD bitrate during bandwidth demanding portions of programming is concerned ), and they certianly do great things with educational TV/datacasting/etc/etc ... but still ... Why do we need so many duplicate program services/programming from PBS affiliates that are so close together .....

Rant mode off -- sorry -- back to your regularly scheduled programming ...

In Dallas, we never even got HD programming on the PBS HD channel. They didn't really care to switch to HD.

I just stopped watching PBS altogether

HDDVR from TW is finally here, and finally working. After a few resets,and some minor tweaking I am happy to say that I am up and running. After some brief A-B comparisons, I am happy to also report that I see no picture softening on the STB verses my OTA signal. Others have mentioned that the PQ from their HDDVR box was "soft".

As for the WB on TWC in HD:
The tech that did the install for me today said that he had a good feeling that they'd be online before LOTR was on tomorrow. Just his OPINION though, not an inside fact. We'll just have to see.

Originally posted by jbh613

As for the WB on TWC in HD:
The tech that did the install for me today said that he had a good feeling that they'd be online before LOTR was on tomorrow. Just his OPINION though, not an inside fact. We'll just have to see.

if it happens, that'd be great because with NBA season now here, I'm watching games during the weekdays so having the option of tivo'ing smallville would be great

I'm in Fairborn and get all the PBS channels from WCET, WPTO, and WPTD on my cable. The duplication of programming does make me understand why people use "taxwaste" and PBS in the same sentence sometimes. With simulcast rule waived right now, I don't understand why they don't just run full bit rate PBS HD. CET does something really silly.....who the heck is watching PBS kids at 10:00 at night? Drop that sub!

Granted I'm using a PC based QAM tuner card, so they are organized by RF slot. I don't get the "virtual channel numbers" like you do when using the Time Warner box. That also could mean that some channels are just deleted from the box listing in certain areas but their signals are still available.

My current lineup:
91.1 WHIO
93.1 WRGT
93.2 WKEF
108.1-5 WPTD
108.6-10 WPTO
109.1-4 WCET
114.1 Discovery HD Theater
114.2 TNT HD

I'll scan the channels when I get back in town tomorrow and see if I can uncover a signal from WBDT.
;)

an off topic non HD question

Does anyone know what channel the Cleveland Cavaliers games are televised on here in Dayton? League Pass blacks it out because they are our local team

Fox Sports Ohio. But, the games are few and far between. Btw, it's complete horse crap that we pay $160 for League Pass and don't have access to our home teams games because some channel in Cleveland that isn't even offered by our cable company.

The Cleveland Cavaliers Web site lists OTA station WRCX-LP 40 as an affiliate of the Cavaliers TV network...

I'm presuming that WRCX-LP is not offered on cable there.

You are correct. WRCX-LP is supposedly on cable in South Dayton (ch. 22 I think), but in Fairborn it's WWRD-LP which is a complete waste that broadcasts nothing but infomercials 24/7.

I can get a fuzzy picture out of WRCX but it is easily blotted out by WHIO-DT on adjacent channel 41.

I assume the Cavs games are on WRCX because no other OTA operator in the market would carry them.

Update: I did some checking, and it appears WRCX is on TWC Dayton on cable channel 22, throughout the area. 1450, are you at Wright State? They apparently have a cable system that does list WWRD-LP on 22...

Originally posted by Inundated
I assume the Cavs games are on WRCX because no other OTA operator in the market would carry them.

Update: I did some checking, and it appears WRCX is on TWC Dayton on cable channel 22, throughout the area. 1450, are you at Wright State? They apparently have a cable system that does list WWRD-LP on 22...

i checked there last night and the cavs weren't on

as mentioned above it shows as WWRD and there are infomercials or whatever all day long

TWC people say that UPN is available to me but it is combined with some other channel on 17 on TWC..I did notice that they were showing Enterprise on that channel last night but no Cavs games.

pretty lame if you ask me

Attached farther below is a pic showing my OTA reception quality of WRCX-LP 40 from approx. 13 miles Southwest of their tower, and from a couple miles outside their predicted coverage area.

BTW, WWRD-LP 55 is about the same at 18 miles(reqiures a bit different antenna aiming from here though, since WWRD stick is near Bellbrook, with WRCX being at the Antenna farm with the other Dayton stations).

I do get quite a bit better reception from The Cincinnati LP stations(27~32 miles) - WBQC-CA 25(UPN), WOTH-LP 38(independant), and W61DE(TBN translator). WBQC has a CP to move to 38+increase power(to 140KW ERP), WOTH-LP has a CP to move to 25 + use WBQC's current facilities.

As long as we are discussing the Dayton area LP stations ... Also, WWRD has a recently granted Construction Permit from FCC to move from 55 to channel 32. W47BC (TBN LP Translator on 47) Springfield has a CP to move to 20, as they have overlapping contours with WTLW-DT 47 Lima's Full power CP(WTLW-DT is on the air now with STA BTW). WRCX-LP has asked FCC to let them raise their antenna up the tower a bit, that app has been sitting on FCC site since april. WKEF-DT displaced WRCX off 51 in 2002, they didn't make it back on the air on 40 until late dec 03, or early jan 04. Who knows when these stations will go digital, but FCC just recently issues rules for LP stations to convert to digital.

Originally posted by Rakesh.S
TWC people say that UPN is available to me but it is combined with some other channel on 17 on TWC.. Channel 17 on TWC is supposed to be UPN-17 (http://www.whiotv.com/upn17/index.html) but it seems they share the slot. That website mentions a 10pm news broadcast, but I've never seen it on TW Cable.

Just checked the WB channels on my "City of Dayton" TW Cable lineup. Channel 22 is WRCX. Just checked their website.... Can't say I've ever *heard* of this channel before.

next game according to nba.com/cavs is on tuesday, Fox Sp Ohio and NBA LP

LP will be blacked out so the only option is to watch on FS Ohio. TWC wants me to pay 8 bucks a month for fox sports and nba-tv. Now NBA-TV's HD games are all broadcast on InHD, if i wanted to drop the HD Tier and add the sports tier, i wouldn't get the HD games.

8 bucks/month isn't worth it to me.

WHIO is sending 5.1 for the bills jets game but it is upconverted. Getting the same audio in all the channels.

Anyone know if this is being done from the truck that can't do 5.1 or is it a WHIO issue?

Update: I did some checking, and it appears WRCX is on TWC Dayton on cable channel 22, throughout the area. 1450, are you at Wright State? They apparently have a cable system that does list WWRD-LP on 22...

Nope, I'm not at Wright State....I'm on the eastern edge of Fairborn. However, the cable system in the Wright State dorms and apartments is Time Warner just the same as all of Fairborn. Only the cable in the classroom buildings is different, that's run off an antenna at the useless "TV Center" on campus that runs the WSU educational access channel (bulletin boards and 1970's Annenberg tapes).

Could someone get screen grabs of the football game on WKRC and WHIO? Preferably one with motion artifacting galore to do a comparison.

I have heard back from the WHIO engineer and he said that they can't do anything with the video signal and when i described macroblocking, he thought i was having signal strength issues

I still have his email address, so I can send him the screen grabs and see if I can educate him a little bit.

No WB in digital/HD showed up on TW Cable Western Ohio systems this evening... That was rather wishful thinking, but it would have been nice.

Not seeing WBDT on Time Warner right now. LOTR is on with 5.1 on the OTA signal though! Not OAR, however.

yeah, bummer about TW. From what I've watched OTA of LOTR, I really cant see much difference between this HD version and my Extended Edition through my momitsu. there are small differences, but overall the detail is lacking. All IMHO.

Originally posted by jbh613
yeah, bummer about TW. From what I've watched OTA of LOTR, I really cant see much difference between this HD version and my Extended Edition through my momitsu. there are small differences, but overall the detail is lacking. All IMHO.

one reason for what you're seeing:

cropped

looks like they're sending an upconvert through..it isn't the extended version either because iirc, peter jackson only created 2.35:1 transfers for the extended versions - at least that's how they were shown on starz

I believe you are right concerning the upconvert. Just because I'm a nerd, and a big fan of the movies, I matched up my dvd to the OTA broadcast, and my DVD looks better. Granted my DVD player is an upconverting DVI player, so I'm sure that has a lot to do with it. I'm actually kinda glad that the transfer isn't all that great, because I dont feel bad about not being able to use my new DVR for the WB. Optimist I guess?

Did anyone else find WHIO's "5.1" audio during the 2 games yesterday extremely annoying? I hate hearing the announcers out of my rear speakers.

On another note anyone else hate the fact when a Bengals game is in HD it's basically not possible to watch the HD broadcast and listen to the radio for the announcers (I can't stand the television announcers on most Bengals games) due to the HD delay?

I was just glad they won. It was an interesting game, to say the least.

Hey, how about those Steelers! :)

I can see where the audio sync would drive you crazy. It's really strange when you've got an analog TV playing in another room.

I only read part of this thread, but here's one with other people talking (complaining ?) abou the delay: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=465641

Yep, I like listening to Bengals radio too ... Lapham and that "other, New guy"(Ok, hes' been there few years) do a great job IMO ... I'm just suffering through the network announcers(ESPN+MNF games weren't TOO bad this year though) when the delay is too much during HD ... Same thing for analog for that matter ,sometimes you'll get an intolerable delay there too(but not usually enough to be intolerable) -- It's just too much for me to hear the END of the play before it happens ...

Originally posted by 1450kHz
LOTR is on with 5.1 on the OTA signal though! Not OAR, however.

Yes, good to see WBDT-DT doing DD 5.1 :)

I wonder when WHIO-DT will figure out how to do DD 5.1 properly ... Maybe when they figure out they aren't allocating enough bits to HD for NFL HD football/HD sports/etc? ;)

On the LOTR:FOTR OAR issue -- My understanding is, it was shot with Super35 process(generally meaning, 2.35:1 "OAR" was "cropped out" of a 4x3 frame(The film negatives themselves have a 4x3 frame in this case ) and from what I could tell, it looked like they "opened up the matte" for the WB HD presentation and we actually got "more" on top+bottom instead of it getting cropped off the side(a very small amount may have come off the sides though, I didn't reduce overscan to 0 to check it) - Which I don't really mind too much ... see my comments here for a way to "check" the OAR issue/etc for yourself if you want: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4627171#post4627171 )

On the PQ issue, I have to disagree with earlier posters. As I posted on the LOTR thread in programming area, I thought it looked like a VERY GOOD transfer to HD, and there is NO WAY it was a upconvert from SD/etc. (either night). Probably most evident at most times in "background details"(if they were in focus in the shot) -- Yes, there was some "soft looking stuff", but, I'm thinking that had more to do with how various scenes were shot/produced/etc ...

Yeah, I can see where in some cases, some folks might not be able to tell much(if any) of a difference between a "good" DVD(or upconverted SD) and HD, or, might think that it's not "much" of a difference ... but for some odd reason, those "details" are usually not all that "small" to my eyes .... I'd say I could see one mistaking some of the Fox HD NFL games for upconverts this year much more so that WB's HD FOTR ...

And, a disclaimer ... Of course ,PQ issues are often VERY subjective -- and not to mention are sometimes heavily influenced by display type, display calibration issues, other "equipment" issues, or even room lighting/etc ....and the above(and my comments concerning PQ on the LOTR thread in programming area) is just MY opinion, and that's all I have to say about that ...

Briefly off topic: I don't care for Johansen on Bengals broadcasts, and Lapham is more "over the top" than I remember. I liked it better when Paul Keels was the Bengals announcer (and Terry Smith was still calling Ohio State games).

I wonder when WHIO-DT will figure out how to do DD 5.1 properly ... Maybe when they figure out they aren't allocating enough bits to HD for NFL HD football/HD sports/etc?

WHIO is clueless. I watch WBNS when I want the correct 5.1 audio and good looking HD video. WKRC if I can't get WBNS. I only watch WHIO if it's an SD program so I don't have to look at that stupid "Local 12" bug. (Although you can even see pixelation in SD upconverts on WHIO.)

We have WKRC on analog cable...I wish Time Warner would carry WKRC-DT on the digital lineup as well (since they give us WCET-DT).

No movement on WBDT with Time Warner yet. Last night, I flipped through all the QAM carriers I get and no dice.

Originally posted by 1450kHz
I liked it better when Paul Keels was the Bengals announcer

I agree ... But, I think(if you're a bengals fan anyway) what we have from them still beats what we usually get from the TV announcers ... then again, If I'm watching the game, I don't really need to hear the plays called at all ....

Originally posted by 1450kHz
(Although you can even see pixelation in SD upconverts on WHIO.)


Yep, I've especially noticed that during sports programming.

Originally posted by 1450kHz
I wish Time Warner would carry WKRC-DT on the digital lineup as well


Yes, and maybe something like THAT would wake WHIO up to the Poor PQ during bandwidth demanding programming on WHIO-DT(and now poor audio) ....

I think it is probably going to TAKE something like that(I.e. them finding out the Hard way) -- or a advertiser complaing about the PQ when their car ad turns into "little blocks" on WHIO but not on other stations, or the GM, or someone at the station actually starts WATCHING their station IN HD on something larger than a small monitor -- It wouldn't hurt if they had a signal from WKRC-DT or WBNS-DT to compare it too during say, HD NFL or SEC football and then, they should easily notice how much worse WHIO-DT HD PQ is during bandwidth demanding programming.

Of course, I wish the PBS affiliates in the area would pay attention to their "too low HD bitrate" as well, but I have a feeling they already KNOW how bad the HD from them looks whenever there's too much motion/detail -- even a little trickle of water running down a stream is a problem for their encoders at such low HD bitrates as they are using with 2 SD subchannels(and who knows what else) alongside HD ...

Originally posted by 1450kHz
[B]Briefly off topic: I don't care for Johansen on Bengals broadcasts, and Lapham is more "over the top" than I remember. I liked it better when Paul Keels was the Bengals announcer (and Terry Smith was still calling Ohio State games).

Interesting, all of the big OSU fans I know hate Keels. The constantly talk about how he calls a play and never mentions penalties or if they are waived off, then at the start of the next play says something along the lines of "I guess he didn't catch that ball". They say they can play drinking games based on his inconsistent statements about what happens in play. Plus, he always drives them nuts with the line "it hit him in a bad place, the hands".

I personally like Johansen and Lapham because I feel like they are fans like me.

-----

Now to make this post legal... has anybody notice WRGT-DT locking up in the last day or so? I was watching their upconverted syndicated Simpsons episodes last night at 6 and at 7 and it kept locking up on the HD channel. I eventually just switched to the SD channel and watched them there.

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
Of course, I wish the PBS affiliates in the area would pay attention to their "too low HD bitrate" as well, but I have a feeling they already KNOW how bad the HD from them looks whenever there's too much motion/detail -- even a little trickle of water running down a stream is a problem for their encoders at such low HD bitrates as they are using with 2 SD subchannels(and who knows what else) alongside HD ... I've watched the PBS HD channels a few times and IMO, they shouldn't be calling it "High definition". :) One show, about different locations in Ireland, hosted by a "Tommy" guy (my Mom says he's an Irish folk singer...) was pretty good. That's about it though.

Jeff, you should see Discovery HD Theatre ! You mention trickling water and streams... DiscHD has numerous "nature" programs all the time and they're truly beautiful. From what I've read, Discovery uses the full allotted amount of bandwidth too. Time Warner supposedly doesn't "touch" the signal either.

Originally posted by Nitewatchman

On the PQ issue, I have to disagree with earlier posters. As I posted on the LOTR thread in programming area, I thought it looked like a VERY GOOD transfer to HD, and there is NO WAY it was a upconvert from SD/etc. (either night). Probably most evident at most times in "background details"(if they were in focus in the shot) -- Yes, there was some "soft looking stuff", but, I'm thinking that had more to do with how various scenes were shot/produced/etc ...

Yeah, I can see where in some cases, some folks might not be able to tell much(if any) of a difference between a "good" DVD(or upconverted SD) and HD, or, might think that it's not "much" of a difference ... but for some odd reason, those "details" are usually not all that "small" to my eyes .... I'd say I could see one mistaking some of the Fox HD NFL games for upconverts this year much more so that WB's HD FOTR ...

And, a disclaimer ... Of course ,PQ issues are often VERY subjective -- and not to mention are sometimes heavily influenced by display type, display calibration issues, other "equipment" issues, or even room lighting/etc ....and the above(and my comments concerning PQ on the LOTR thread in programming area) is just MY opinion, and that's all I have to say about that ...

Have you seen the HDNet trailers for the LOTR DVD Triology? They absolutely destroy the PQ of the WB broadcast on Sunday.

That is what I based the PQ comment on. It honestly looked like a washed out upconvert to me. Watch the HDNet ads and you will be amazed.

Hall/Rakesh,

PBS HD was beatiful when WCET-DT was giving it the entire bandwidth possible in Nov/Dec 2002 and Early Jan 03. At that time, PBS was running HD demo programs(shot on HD Video) much of the time on their 24/7 HD feed --- lots of flyovers and "nature scenes" and such much of the time, the occasional program such as "Nova" Under antartic Ice IN HD, and of course stuff Like Tracks Ahead/etc.

I stand by my comments concerning HD PQ of LOTR. I saw what I saw.

Don't worry I've seen "Eye popping" HD before, so I highly doubt I would be "amazed" by anything at this point, not to say I wouldn't enjoy it. I didn't say WB's HD FOTR was the BEST thing I've ever seen, but there is no way it was an upconvert, and it WAS very good HD PQ.

Now, I have no idea *why* you saw what you saw, nor would I want to speculate, but if you want, you can take my comments for what they are worth and leave it at that ....

Interesting, all of the big OSU fans I know hate Keels. The constantly talk about how he calls a play and never mentions penalties or if they are waived off, then at the start of the next play says something along the lines of "I guess he didn't catch that ball". They say they can play drinking games based on his inconsistent statements about what happens in play. Plus, he always drives them nuts with the line "it hit him in a bad place, the hands".

I personally like Johansen and Lapham because I feel like they are fans like me.

-----

Now to make this post legal... has anybody notice WRGT-DT locking up in the last day or so? I was watching their upconverted syndicated Simpsons episodes last night at 6 and at 7 and it kept locking up on the HD channel. I eventually just switched to the SD channel and watched them there.

I guess I haven't listened to many OSU games lately....I'm usually in front of a TV (or in the case of Penn State this year, actually at the game!) Personally, I wish Terry Smith was still doing OSU games. He has a MLB gig, I think he is radio announcer for Anaheim now.

Haven't seen any lockups on WRGT lately, but I guess I haven't watched them lately either.

Rakesh S. must've just called WKEF-DT ;) .... which was 2 minutes late for HD Lost ... 1st time I've gotten switched over from WCPO-DT BEFORE Rakesh(or someone else) called, or the MCO caught it ...

jeff,

wasn't me tonight..i'm on IR right now for calling WKEF :)

i'm watching smallville these days because i have no means of recording it so if i miss it, i can't get it in HD again

WKEF otoh, i can record with my TWC DVR :)

WKEF chicken-shitted out of playing "Saving Private Ryan" after all.... They're showing "Born on the Fourth of July" instead.

I wasn't gonna watch it anyways but still pissed me off, censorship at it worst, especially when ABC told it's affiliates they would pay any fines if they came. I might have to toss the DTS DVD in this weekend.

It's one of those movies I'd like to buy on DVD but never get around to it.... Finding Nemo or Shrek 2 seem to get priority. :)

It was supposed to be commercial-free and best of all, in HD. I was gonna DVR it.

IMO, "Saving Private Ryan" being MIA from some stations is about sending a message to FCC, and possibly the fine folks on Capitol Hill. Hopefully, they will listen because they need to spell out a "clear posistion" on this "indecency" thing that at least makes SOME sense to the folks who need to decide whether or not it is OK to air a program, with say the "F*" word in it.

IMO, Certianly, stations *knew* they weren't going to get fined for airing this movie uncut, even without having to call FCC. And, they know if they air "Behind the Green Door" they are going to be in trouble. But, there is a LOT of stuff in between that is not so clear for them, and(again, IMO) this was an oppurtunity for them to make a statement about it. Having followed The commission's actions+meetings and such the past few years, I can't say I disagree with these stations' "message", and at the same time, I'm very aware this sort of thing definitely puts the commission in a difficult posistion, involving a difficult issue.

And yes, the HD version, which has been aired by ABC at least two times, maybe 3 over the past few years on Vetrans today was/is uncut, with very limited commercial interuptions. I only remember 1 short break when I saw it, but there may have been two. There was a introduction as well as I recall, probably the same one they ran this year with Senator McCain. Excellent PQ as well, BTW.

Anyhow, Here's link to Sinclair's(owns WKEF) Press release concerning their decision not to air SPR tonight(unless ABC would have let them run it post-10pm, which evidently didn't happen :

http://www.sbgi.net/press/release_20041111_90.shtml

Even if the individual stations were trying to send a message to FCC it's not a good choice of when or what to send. From what i've heard the use of the "F" word and the violence in SPR were not deemed indecent by an FCC hearing in '02. Therefore IMO there is nothing to get across to the FCC. The FCC was doing absolutely no censoring here, it was the individual stations (or the companies that own them). But not only are they censoring what the average American might want to see, they are basically slapping the face of all the great Veterans our country has. Summing up the words of the Great American Bill Cunningham: "They will show the act of F'ing on Desperate Housewives every Sunday at 8PM, but when a soldier fighting for the country says the F word twice in a 3 hour movie on Veteran's Day, they preempt it."

Browerjs;

Why did CBS get fined when Bono said the F-word on the air at the music awards show earlier this year then? It definitely wasn't said in a "sexual" or "violent" way (violent was deemed acceptable, I believe). The FCC is full of hypocrisy and I can say (shockingly I might add) that I am happy with Sinclair and the other stations who decided not to show it. Yes, it might be a disservice to our veterans, but maybe this will help get them involved with the censorship that is going on in our country due to the FCC.

It is a sad day when the FCC tries to decide what is ok for me to view.

The problem is in this case the FCC has said it is ok, and now the individual stations are doing the censoring. If it goes two tier like this it could really get bad. The problem with a live show such as the grammy's or superbowl is that the rating isn't M and if the censor's miss the bleep or black bar for whatever reason then a person who might be offended could get offended easily cause they weren't expecting it. With a M rating at least a parent can use their discretion as to whether or not their child should be allowed to watch or not. I'm definately not for the fining in either of the two cases because it really isn't any worse then hearing a football player using explicit language which is caught on tape. But the FCC can be caught between a rock and a hard place considering a line has to be drawn somewhere to keep live television under control.

Originally posted by browerjs
Even if the individual stations were trying to send a message to FCC it's not a good choice of when or what to send. From what i've heard the use of the "F" word and the violence in SPR were not deemed indecent by an FCC hearing in '02. Therefore IMO there is nothing to get across to the FCC. The FCC was doing absolutely no censoring here, it was the individual stations (or the companies that own them).


Again, this isn't really about SPR. The message to the FCC is that the stations want CLEAR guidelines concerning what they may or may not be able to air without getting fined. And, considering the content of SPR(and the introduction by Senator Mccain) I think they are also making a good point about the ridiculousness of legislating what content is or isn't "indecent" based upon the utterance of the "F*" word, or it's intended conotative meaning. Stations don't like the gov't telling them which content is OK for them to air any more than we do.

Originally posted by browerjs
The problem is in this case the FCC has said it is ok, and now the individual stations are doing the censoring.


As far as FCC goes, It has ALLWAYS been Ok for stations to run other programming if their management/etc. finds it objectionable/etc. But, that's not the case here -- it's about their new "indecency" rules. Part of the issue here is that FCC has said they may not rule on whether or not a fine is warranted until AFTER a program airs. The stations want clear guidelines, and, stations really don't want FCC regulating content either, and especially through "fines".

Originally posted by browerjs
But the FCC can be caught between a rock and a hard place considering a line has to be drawn somewhere to keep live television under control.


While I wouldn't quite put it like that, I agree with your premise here. Noone has any easy, or good answers for how to regulate "indecency", and I doubt there ever will be.

Originally posted by browerjs
From what i've heard the use of the "F" word and the violence in SPR were not deemed indecent by an FCC hearing in '02.


Originally posted by mlbUC
Why did CBS get fined when Bono said the F-word on the air at the music awards show earlier this year then?


As I said, the stations want clear guidelines on the rules.

This was all brought to the boiling point by the boob flash during Superbowl 1/2 time show. Regardless of what you or I think about it, People went crazy, and what do you expect other than for the FCC to respond in some way. Any way you look at it, everyone isn't going to like what they do on this issue, as it means they will either go too far, or not far enough.

Personally, I don't think the Gov't should be in the "business" of regulating content at all. Content advisories, ratings+the "v-chip" should be enough --- Well, except for incidences such as the superbowl 1/2 time show ... we know to expect anything can happen with live TV, but, to purposely pull such a stunt(without a content advisory/etc to boot) is just beyond ridiculous, IMO. I'm not so sure, however, that fining the CBS O&O affiliates was the right answer.

Originally posted by mlbUC
I can say (shockingly I might add) that I am happy with Sinclair and the other stations who decided not to show it.


I agree that it was good for the stations to send this message out. But, I do think it is unfortunate for those who wanted to see the movie, because all in all the whole thing IS just stupid IMO .....

Originally posted by browerjs
Summing up the words of the Great American Bill Cunningham: "They will show the act of F'ing on Desperate Housewives every Sunday at 8PM, but when a soldier fighting for the country says the F word twice in a 3 hour movie on Veteran's Day, they preempt it."


As I said ... the whole thing is just stupid, and mostly the current mess is all thanks to what occured during 2004 superbowl halftime show .... Seems like I recall Bill having some choice words about that one too ... IF anything, if this really were about the *F* word uttered by a serviceman while serving our country and any possible fine, if there is any company out there which I would expect to air it, it would BE Sinclair(owns WKEF).

IMO, FCC should really be in the business of regulating the technical aspects of our airwaves, not legislating morality, or being in the business of politics. Although, there is probably no getting away from the latter to some extent -- Hence the hypocrisy mlbuc mentioned.

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
As I said, the stations want clear guidelines on the rules. They should force the FCC and one easy way is to take them to court. They should have showed 'Saving Private Ryan', and if the FCC came down on them, appeal the ruling or fine or whatever the FCC does. I do hope the FCC is part of our govt's checks-n-balances system.

CBS is doing this in regards to the Super Bowl boob incident. They aren't just writing a check -- a measly $500,000 ... chump change to a company the size of CBS -- and moving forward.

In regards to WKEF, what did they do exactly last night ?? It seemed to me that they started "Born on the 4th of July" late and not just a couple of minutes. I know they had that 'statement' regarding not showing SPR, to contact the FCC or our congressman, etc, etc.

I just think this was a bad choice and time to make example. If a network really want to get the bulk of the public upset at the FCC they need to pre-empt the entire Super Bowl or the Academy Awards. Pre-empt something that would no doubt be #1 in it's time slot (I haven't seen the ratings, but i'm taking a guess Survivor, Apprentice, and CSI beat SPR last night) that could "possibly" have some indecent content. Taking a big live event that people can't just go and rent the next day if they want to see it bad enough will get the point across.

(I haven't seen the ratings, but i'm taking a guess Survivor, Apprentice, and CSI beat SPR last night) Considering quite a number of stations ended up not showing SPR, it's safe to say it's ratings did suffer... :)

Originally posted by browerjs
I just think this was a bad choice and time to make example.


Well, I agree with you on this part, and, I was a little surprised that Sinclair especially decided not to air it. However, then again, this was probably the perfect oppurtunity for them to send a "message", considering the issue involved, and the subject matter involved.

Originally posted by browerjs
If a network really want to get the bulk of the public upset at the FCC they need to pre-empt the entire Super Bowl or the Academy Awards.


This wasn't about the network, nor do I think was it an attempt to sway public opinion against FCC, although it may have had that effect to some extent. The network OFFERED to pay any fines, if any of their affiliates WERE fined, which of course they knew they wouldn't be. They ran a piece about it on ABC Nightly news last night, BTW.

Originally posted by hall
In regards to WKEF, what did they do exactly last night ?? It seemed to me that they started "Born on the 4th of July" late and not just a couple of minutes. I know they had that 'statement' regarding not showing SPR, to contact the FCC or our congressman, etc, etc.


I don't know, I just did a quick check a bit after 8 to see what they were doing, and it seemed fairly early in the movie -- It has been so long since I've seen that movie, it took me a while to realize what it was. Otherwise, I didn't pay much attention as I was either watching bits of HD "O.C.", or "Wonderland" which I recorded from E*'s Free preview of their HBO/Showtime packages last weekend.

I *did* check back after 11pm, just to see if ABC changed their minds+let Sinclair air SPR after 10pm as they wanted(the indecency rules "expire" each evening at 10pm), say off the West coast feed. Didn't happen.

Originally posted by 1450kHz
I'm in Fairborn and get all the PBS channels from WCET, WPTO, and WPTD on my cable. The duplication of programming does make me understand why people use "taxwaste" and PBS in the same sentence sometimes. With simulcast rule waived right now, I don't understand why they don't just run full bit rate PBS HD. CET does something really silly.....who the heck is watching PBS kids at 10:00 at night? Drop that sub!

Granted I'm using a PC based QAM tuner card, so they are organized by RF slot. I don't get the "virtual channel numbers" like you do when using the Time Warner box. That also could mean that some channels are just deleted from the box listing in certain areas but their signals are still available.

My current lineup:
91.1 WHIO
93.1 WRGT
93.2 WKEF
108.1-5 WPTD
108.6-10 WPTO
109.1-4 WCET
114.1 Discovery HD Theater
114.2 TNT HD

I'll scan the channels when I get back in town tomorrow and see if I can uncover a signal from WBDT.

Considering that WCET's web site says that PBS kids is only available on time warner digital cable, then why are they broadcasting it.
;)

libertytwp,

See my response in Cincinnati thread concerning WCET-DT/PBS kids/etc.

BTW, The Dayton PBS Digital/HD station is WPTD-DT /ThinkTV. Their website is here if you want to check it out :

http://www.thinktv.org

the whole pbs situation is a mess around here

again, it would be great if someone just gave the cable co. a feed of the pbs HD channel 24/7 at full bitrate. It would actually be worth watching

Originally posted by Rakesh.S
again, it would be great if someone just gave the cable co. a feed of the pbs HD channel 24/7 at full bitrate. It would actually be worth watching

Now, that would NOT be right, not that it hasn't happened before in other areas for various reasons. SOMEONE needs to give BOTH OTA viewers AND cable viewers PBS HD at 19.34mb/s. And, that is possible now since FCC dropped the analog simulcast requirement, and ESPECIALLY Possible in our area, given ThinkTV has TWO stations WPTD-DT/WPTO-DT. WPTD-DT could be set up with all the multicast SD services 24/7, and WPTO-DT could send HD at 19.34mb/s(inlcuing audio/PSIP). KET has pretty much done this in KY, with their statwide network sending all their services(which does include PBS HD in the evenings, but transcoded to 720p) +2 SD subchannels) and their 2nd Louisville Transmitter(WKMJ-DT) sending PBS HD 24/7 -- I'm not sure if they are running 1SD sub+HD, or just flat out HD.

What comes from the OTA stations is, and should be the same thing you get from them via cable. And, you're asking cable to devote extra bandwidth to a single station -- For the multicast channels AND the 19.34mb/s HD. GOOD LUCK with that.

The cableco's want the "PBS Kids"/etc. -- Not only because of their "public interest" obligations, but in the case of PBS Kids anyway, because its something their viewers want, and they don't have to have a HD box/HD set to get it. One of the REASONS we do NOT have adequete bitrate for PBS HD, is because Stations want to be the SD providers of PBS kids/etc. to cableco viewers. If not for Cableco carriage of those services, my guess is, it is much more likely we might HAVE adequete bitrate from HD OTA from at least one of the 4(5 if you count columbus too) PBS station's in the area.

I have it on good authority that if WB HD isn't already being delivered on TWC systems it will be within the next month. Also look forward to TV One, a channel targeted at african american families and MTV Hits a channel from the MTV digital suite that features videos by some of the most popular artists in recent memory.

Originally posted by Rakesh.S
Could someone get screen grabs of the football game on WKRC and WHIO? Preferably one with motion artifacting galore to do a comparison.


Well, in addition to other various reasons concerning taking a shot of a screen with digital camera its really difficult to make a comparison in this case(whearas it wasn't so difficult with WCPO-DT/WKEF-DT and WCPO "jaggy" issue, as in that case, certian things that are affected by WCPO-DT's "Jaggie" issue(not bitrate related, I don't think) -- such as the score bug -- remain "constantly" the same throughout the game), as :

#1). I don't have the capability to capture the exact same frame from each station at the same time, and that is really what would be needed to do the best comparision, since otherwise, there's probably no way to convince anyone who hasn't seen it that it never looks as bad on say, WKRC-DT or WBNS-DT as it does from a frame captured during "fast motion" and a lot of detail/etc from WHIO-DT ...

#2). Since all I have here is a digital camera, it's also difficult to open the shutter at the exact "right" time when the artifacts are occuring at their worst(especially when they are not there, or barely there at all from WKRC-DT/WBNS-DT), and since things are going to be moving in most cases when the artifacts happens, there is also in many cases going to be a "blur" which is going to mask the artifacts somewhat anyway, as with my camera at least, if you set the "simulated" ASA Film speed too high(which is needed to get "enough" light given a fast enough shutter speed so things aren't too dark otherwise), your going to get a lot of "grainyness" look from the camera, which isn't going to help either ... I settled for a shutter speed of 1/30th of a second,(f stop 2.2) and simulated ASA film speed of 200ASA.

#3). Taking a picture with a camera of a CRT based display makes for very difficult focusing, as the "camera lens" in many if not most cases is going to likely "see" a moire pattern with proper focusing(meaning the camera needs to be manually "defocused" a bit - thus "blurring" the details and making it look more like SD than HD), even though the eye does not, and that "moire" pattern can "look like" its contributing to the artifacting.

#4).Also, maximum pixel size to attach to a message here is 640x640 pixels -- Nevertheless -- even though I'm capturing a frame at 2048x1536 pixels(4x3+then cropping it) with the camera there is NO WAY it's going to be high rez enough for HD, for that matter, even at 2048x1536 from the digital camera it looks nowhere near as good as it looks on the screen with my eyeballs.


----------------------------------------------

All that being said, I gave it a shot --- Attached to this message is a Frame From WHIO-DT from Todays UGA Vs. Auburn game, which I did manage to capture when it was full of MPEG2 compression artifacts galore :

And, Attached to this message is a shot from WKRC-DT, which I believe would probably look a lot like the pic attached to the last message "compression artifact wise"(the blockiness in the foreground -- faces/etc) if it had been coming from WHIO-DT instead of WKRC-DT. (The motion blur here is because of the movement(of the CBS camera or the "subjects") occuring while digital camera shutter was open.

Personally, I think it's a good set of comparison shots, but it probably isn't enough to demonstrate for someone who has not seen the difference between say, WKRC-DT/WBNS-DT and WHIO-DT during HD football -- So, would be better if you can find a way to compare the SAME frame from both stations.

Note that the camera settings and JPG compression settings were kept the same for both shots. I also cropped+resampled/sharpened both images in exactly the same manner via photo editing.

thanks for the camera shots....I was looking for actual screenshots from someone that might have a card

also i don't think i ever posted the response i received from WHIO..here it is

*******

At this point in time I can not change the bandwidth on the DTV signal due to other commitments with the signal. We will explore possibly making changes in the future. A question that I have is, "Were is your location of reception of our signal?" I would like to investigate other possibilities to this pixelization problem.

As for the 5.1 audio issue. Equipment is on order that will address this signal.

Thank you and feel free to contact me in the future.

*****************************

This was in response to me telling them that their HD signal looks horrible and that most of the dayton HD viewers are watching Cincinnati's station