Time Warner Digital channel 312 is called NBAHD, and shows "NBA All-Star HDTV Channel" in the guide. Right now it is displaying a 16x9 color bar pattern w/the words "InDemand NBA HD" in a small box in the center. My question is does one have to pay to access the programming that will start tomorrow? I know that DirectTV is offering the programming free if you subscribe to HD content, but what about Time Warner HD. I am not familar w/InDemand stuff, as I've never used it, so if anyone who has could please clue me in on what I need to do to get it, I would appreciate it. Thx in advance.

Click here for NC TWC press release (http://www.twc-nc.com/press_releases/1_31_03.html)

...on channel 312 on TWC. Seems as though it is being televised for free.

Originally posted by scaramastra
...on channel 312 on TWC. Seems as though it is being televised for free.

I think it is free to all the services offering it in HD. The D* channel 198 of it looks VERY good on my Sony 34XBR800 and my Samsung 160.

I'm not sure what you mean by the "D* channel"? Also, what did you mean by "198" ? I can't get channel 198, or aren't you referring to a channel with the 198?
Thanks.

Originally posted by era
I'm not sure what you mean by the "D* channel"? Also, what did you mean by "198" ? I can't get channel 198, or aren't you referring to a channel with the 198?
Thanks.

D* is shorthand for DirecTV and E* is short hand for Echostar also known as Dish Network.

Channel 198 has been a PPV channel since it started a month ago and this is the channel DirecTV chose to put the All Star programming on for free for DirecTV HD customers.

HDNet is free to HD customers on channel 199 on DirecTV and it is currently shared as a DirecTV PPV channel between 2 am and 10 am. Since HDNet has recently gone 24/7, the PPV should be moving soon and it was thought channel 198 might be it, but DirecTV hasn't move all the PPV's there yet.

Channel 312 on TWC looked really impressive last night - I am looking forward to tonight's action!

Pam

Thank you for the explanation. Also, thanks for you general enthusiasm and helpful information on this forum--I always look forward to reading your comments and ideas.

I wish that TWC would add HDNet, Discovery and any additional HDTV that comes along this year--such as ESPN.

Best, Era:)

Originally posted by era
Thank you for the explanation. Also, thanks for you general enthusiasm and helpful information on this forum--I always look forward to reading your comments and ideas.

Everyone thinks I only watch my own station, but I don't. I like variety myself! ;)

I wish that TWC would add HDNet, Discovery and any additional HDTV that comes along this year--such as ESPN.

HDNet has been running some ads that say they will be coming to cable soon, but it doesn't give a time line or which systems. I wish D* would add Discovery HD and the 2 other HDNet channels when they come up. It all takes time!

Any comments about the Bud Shoot Out?

Tonight's All-Star game on 312 on TWC was a pleasant surprise! Great quality picture. Almost makes up for the horrible picture on ABC during the Superbowl.

On another front, today I noticed that UNC's HDTV demo channel (501) has finally quit running those "Beautiful Maryland" and other insipid travelogues...and today they were running some good PBS-type documentaries ("The World of Crocs," My Life in Dance OR Some of them are Manly," "Canadian Bears with Ewan MacGregor & Wife"). Much better than the "Our Savannah" stuff that's been looping over and over since last year. There are two drawbacks, though:

1. In the upper left corner (where it's even harder to ignore than the lower right used by crass, vulgar commercial stations) UNC has its large nasty logo bug.

2. The picture quality can be pretty variable (the Bear thing looked like it was shot on VHS!), though the Crocs thing was fairly clear and the Dance was best). The travelogues were at least shot in digital--and were by far the best picture on HDTV to show people how good it can get. Even films on HBO didn't measure up...and HBO tries for quality. There must be something of a technical problem converting celluloid to HDTV? It's never as good as digital videotape sources.

Originally posted by era
Even films on HBO didn't measure up...and HBO tries for quality. There must be something of a technical problem converting celluloid to HDTV? It's never as good as digital videotape sources.

You are talking about two different mediums. Film is a "softer" look where video is more "harsh" but that doesn't mean it is bad. You get the details in film, but it doesn't look like "real life" like video does. I too was a little disappointed when I first started watching HD film thinking I was missing something, but the one movie that brought it home to me how much detail could be seen was Charlie's Angels.

I had a friend over and was showing him my new Sony 34XBR800 and I flipped it over to HBO-HD and Charlie's Angels was on. Now I have seen Lucy Lu on Ally McBeal hundreds of times and thought I knew her face pretty well, but when we were watching the movie, I shouted out, "My God, she has freckles!" I had never noticed it, but on HBO-HD it was VERY plain to see. That turned me around that I was biased that I really was NOT seeing the detail because it didn't look like video even though it WAS there! I have since looked at other HD transmitted films and depending on how the director shot it, the detail are always there, sometimes it is more noticeable than others. For a certain "mood" of a film, directors will fuzz or soften the PQ, or color it or something to make it stand out and you can get lost in that and miss the detail. My how the mind plays tricks on you!

In the business there are two distinct camps that are very vocal on which medium they prefer. It is kinda like the Miller Light spots, (great taste, less filling) Film will never look like video and video will never look like film, but they BOTH can have HD DETAIL.

When we were WGHPiedmont 8 (prior to FOX) we had a promotions director with a cinema background and if you remember the pretty pictures of the Piedmont that we always showed for station IDs, they were shot on 35mm film, then transfered to video tape. They never looked like the video stuff that was shot for everything else, and it wasn't suppose to. But that is what he liked. (he is in LA now now working for the FOX station there) Our current promotions director prefers video and we shoot most everything on video, but he will occasionally shoot film for a certain effect. (video is MUCH cheaper than film to produce, almost 10:1 cheaper)

Thank you for your enlightening contrast of video versus film. I'll take a look at films a different way, to see if I can discern what you're describing (detail being there, but less noticable). I'm no fan of that "edge enhancement" that creates a kind of junk detail...but I do like the eye-popping quality, the immersive visual quality, of digital video. Perhaps--given the economics if nothing else--film will eventually go away, like black and white movies did, once color was widely available.

WGHP-DT is off the air due to a loss of a power amplifier power supply. I will try and get one back in here as quickly as possible, hopefully by Wednesday.

Charles Layno
Transmitter Supervisor
FOX8 WGHP/WGHP-DT 35

Thanks for the info, Charles! Good luck in the repair...

Pam

Originally posted by era
Thank you for your enlightening contrast of video versus film. I'll take a look at films a different way, to see if I can discern what you're describing (detail being there, but less noticable). I'm no fan of that "edge enhancement" that creates a kind of junk detail...but I do like the eye-popping quality, the immersive visual quality, of digital video. Perhaps--given the economics if nothing else--film will eventually go away, like black and white movies did, once color was widely available.

I got thinking after my other post, a good example of the detail of film is "Hogan's Hero's". Here is a show that I remember watching as a child and all through syndication. Everyone has seen it and knows what it looks like.

HDNet has taken this show (along with others) and have transcoded them to HD. I saw a HD episode a couple weeks ago (the first time I had seen a HD transcoded show) and it looked just like Hogan's Hero's you see on 480i, EXCEPT, you had all this detail that was not viewable in 480i.

You could CLEARLY READ the name Robert Hogan on his name patch on his bomber jacket (something I had NEVER been able to do in 480i). You could CLEARLY SEE the Army Air Corp patch on his left jacket sleeve not just a colorful splash as in 480i. You could CLEARLY SEE the tear in LeBeau's sweater above the Free France patch (something I always debate if it was patch or a tear and it turns out to be both!) Klink's medals on his uniform STAND OUT and you can look and see EACH individual ribbon, not just a clump of cloth as in 480i. Burkhalter's scar was VERY FAKE looking! (OK, it looked fake in 480i, but it REALLY looked fake in 1080i!)

It still looked like Hogan's Hero's, but with so much more detail. It was almost like I was watching a new show but one that I had seen many times before, familiar but different. I spent the whole 30 minutes looking at it technically and it blew me away!

I sent WXLV ABC 45 an email from their feedback page today also. I'd really like to see the Oscars in HD. Is it more expensive or more difficult for the ABC affiliates to pass the 720p signal than the other network affiliates passing their 1080i signals? I ask because there seems to be a lot of talk of trouble with the ABC affiliates on cable systems.

Originally posted by foxeng
At this time, WXLV has no way to send ABC network HD material. It is all upconverted from analog. I know for a fact they have the digital microwave in (I have seen it), they run two streams on air all the time with the second having either color bars or like now, nothing.

I have been told by those in the know, they have no way to get the ABC HD signal into the encoder at this time and that it is on their long range to do list (translated - when the money becomes available). This is SOP at all the Sinclair stations around the country. (and Sinclair owns both WXLV ABC45 and WUPN UPN48).

We should be a little happy since both Sinclair stations operate at relatively high power levels (WXLV around 450, 000 watts and WUPN at full power at 400,000) since most Sinclair stations operate in the 1-10,000 watt range. (WLOS the Sinclair station in Asheville operates at less then 10,000 watts and has no HD pass through either.)

I don't know if bugging the WXLV people will do us any good. If the money isn't there, there will be no signal. We can do our best to contact them on a regular basis to let them know we are wanting to watch HD on ABC, but other than that, I cannot see them giving the viewers a HD signal any sonner than the funds will allow...BTW, I emailed them the day after the Super Bowl and have not heard from them yet.

Pam:(

Originally posted by jacksonian
I sent WXLV ABC 45 an email from their feedback page today also. I'd really like to see the Oscars in HD. Is it more expensive or more difficult for the ABC affiliates to pass the 720p signal than the other network affiliates passing their 1080i signals? I ask because there seems to be a lot of talk of trouble with the ABC affiliates on cable systems.

I am totally conjecturing here since I have no first hand knowledge of how ABC is doing their HD, but from the point of view of what I have observed with FOX and the other networks, it does take additional equipment that could run as high as $40,000. Now with 720p you are not running 1.2gb rate of 1080i, and that does help on the cost a little, but to do a VERY elementary punch and switch with NO fancy stuff, you still are talking about over $10,000.

One nice thing about FOX only doing 480p is that this same elementary setup is less than $5,000 and is easier to swallow. (less microwave system)

Now if ABC is distributing 720p ASI data, and not SDI data, then that runs the cost up CONSIDERABLY and cuts down on what you can do. ASI is the transport stream (MPEG 2) out to the transmitter and it is more difficult to do what is needed to the signal than the SDI, which is the "studio" standard.

FOX distributes in SDI and it makes it easier and cheaper for the stations to provide pass through.

Just rambling. FWIW.

Please forgive my newbie question (just got my projector over the weekend), but I don't get any sound on the analog channels with TWC. I'm hooked up via component video and digital coax audio. Do I need to hook up a separate regular audio cable for the analog channel sound?

jacksonian,

Short answer...
Yes... you need analog audio cables as well as your digital audio coax.

Congrats on your new projector.

J. L.

J.L., Thanks. And what's up with NBC? I was hoping to watch Frasier and Kingpin in HD last night, but Frasier didn't even try and Kingpin was in the window pane and didn't look HD either? Is it just our local not passing it yet? They run ads on WXII that they were the first in the Triad with HDTV.

Originally posted by jacksonian
J.L., Thanks. And what's up with NBC? I was hoping to watch Frasier and Kingpin in HD last night, but Frasier didn't even try and Kingpin was in the window pane and didn't look HD either? Is it just our local not passing it yet? They run ads on WXII that they were the first in the Triad with HDTV.

They haven't been passing HD for the last few nights. I called over there Sunday night and was told NBC was having a problem, but other NBC affiliates were passing HD so either their master control wasn't switching it or they are having a HD net receiver problems and just left it on the SD receiver. Just a guess.

WXII was indeed the first in the Triad with HDTV, but they sure don't seem to be the most reliable. It seems like they frequently fail to switch things over properly when network programming changes to HDTV.

But, they'll probably get it right next week. At least it seems like they're trying.

WXLV ABC 45, on the other hand, hasn't even acknowledged the very polite email I sent them a couple of weeks ago asking about HDTV transmission. So, I'm done with them. I'm now bound and determined to get my ABC programming in real HDTV from WSOC in Charlotte. This week, I raised my antenna as high as I can safely get it, and tried a different pre-amp. I now get ocassional glimpses of WSOC. But, the signal is not nearly reliable enough for casual viewing. Next, I'm going to try some new pre-amp/antenna combinations. I may even break down and try to cut my own antenna, tuned to their frequency, and fixed on their position.

If that doesn't work, I may just drive over to WXLV and throw rocks at their building. Hee-hee!

Can you tell I'm frustrated?

Has anyone else been successful in reliably picking up WSOC in the Triad?

2 questions

First for Foxeng, sorry if you've been bugged about this before, but when you guys do your widescreen, I get a fluttering white border across the top of my screen and the picture doesn't come close to filling the screen. Any improvements coming? The jumping white line really makes watching the channel miserable.

Second, I'm trying to find a program schedule for the UNCHD demo channel. I saw a gorgeous piece on Greece and Italy and would love to know when some of this is coming on. I keep digging around on the UNC TV site, but I can't find it.

Thanks, Brent

Oh yeah, the Grammy's were great last night. 5.1 sounded very nice. A whole different experience.

Originally posted by jacksonian
2 questions

First for Foxeng, sorry if you've been bugged about this before, but when you guys do your widescreen, I get a fluttering white border across the top of my screen and the picture doesn't come close to filling the screen. Any improvements coming? The jumping white line really makes watching the channel miserable.

This is the first I have heard of this and I have not seen it at the station OTA or at home on my 34XBR800 OTA (I do not have cable at home, I have DirecTV). The only time we run widescreen is for network, so it must be something FOX is sending since our top of picture doesn't really change. It could be a VITC (vertical interval time code) in the signal, but you would see that on other programming as well. HHHMM. I will check it out.

Are you on cable or receiving us OTA? I know TWC is decoding and re-encoding our signal for channel 510. We do not have a way to look at the cable here at the station (I keep asking for a decoder box and I haven't gotten one yet) and they may be doing something.

Is anyone else seeing this?

Second, I'm trying to find a program schedule for the UNCHD demo channel. I saw a gorgeous piece on Greece and Italy and would love to know when some of this is coming on. I keep digging around on the UNC TV site, but I can't find it.

Thanks, Brent

I heard that they will not really start pushing the HD channel until they get all 11 transmitter sites up and Asheville is the last and is almost finished, so I would suspect that should be coming soon.

Originally posted by jacksonian
Oh yeah, the Grammy's were great last night. 5.1 sounded very nice. A whole different experience.

Yeah! I didn't really care about the show, but looked at it from the technical production standpoint. I have come to the conclusion that HD always looks good, but if the lighting is not right on a HD scene, it is like in a movie, the whole thing looks crappy. I don't know who was doing the production or lighting, but they had it down COLD! Gwen Stephanie looked great and Faith Hill looked stunning with the sweat rolling down her chest! I told my wife it was too bad that Faith forgot to wear a skirt with that top though! (My wife LOVES Faith Hill!)

I'm watching on TWC, so maybe that's where the artifact is coming in.

Originally posted by jacksonian
2 questions

First for Foxeng, sorry if you've been bugged about this before, but when you guys do your widescreen, I get a fluttering white border across the top of my screen and the picture doesn't come close to filling the screen. Any improvements coming? The jumping white line really makes watching the channel miserable.

OK, here is what I have been able to find out.

FOX is sending data on video line 22. This is what is called first line of active video or where the pictue starts. This is the normal place that the Nielson data that is sent to the STB's Nielsen uses in homes for overnight ratings. In the analog world, this is not a problem since NTSC TV's have quite a bit of overscan. (rock your horizontal in the analog world and you will see it there too) In the DTV world, overscan is a nasty word. We are not seeing here at the station because of our OTA digital receiver is covering it up.

I have put in a call to TWC to their head end tech to ask if there is a way to have the cable STB cover it up on output to the monitor and not interfere with the data that might be sent to any Nielsen boxes that might be connected, since this market has these boxes.

As soon as I hear back, I will let you know, but that is what's happening. You may need to tighten up your top overscan to cover it up if they can't help in doing anything.

Thanks foxeng, that's helpful. I'm not sure if I know how to play with the overscan on the projector, but I guess I could just zoom it or something. I'll play around with it.

Hello, I'm a new Greensboro HDTV user, using TW Cable and a Pansonic ED Plasma. I had a chance to try it out breifly the other night before my power went out yesterday and I was somewhat dissapointed with the broadcasts, hence a couple questions. I was surprised that all the networks with the exeception of nbc were broadcasting in 4:3 ratio. Is this common, particular to TW Cable, is the same signal received over the air? Even more suprising was NBC, when I checked it they were showing west wing which appeared to be broadcast in 4:3 format but then within the 4:3 signal was letterboxed so that the actual picure had black all around and only filled about 1/2 the screen. Is this a setting I need to change or is that how it is broadcast. I also have HD HBO and showtime, which are great in widescreen but of the four channels two were showing 4:3 format movies. Finally, whats with the unc logo on the UNC HD, is it always there or do they only show it occasionally. My daughter will be attending UNC next year but I don't want their logo burned permanantly into my screen.

Great to see a group here from Greensboro. Thanks for any info you can help me out with.

dtaylor,
I'm new on the HD scene also, but I've asked a few of these questions already so I'll see if I can help.

"I was surprised that all the networks with the exeception of nbc were broadcasting in 4:3 ratio."

It depends on which channels you were watching at which time. I assume you're looking at the digital channels 510, 520, 530, 540 for the networks. First, our local ABC station isn't broadcasting ANY HD yet. Second, FOX only does 480p widescreen occasionally, never any HD yet. Third, our NBC affiliate has been having problems lately and I haven't seen any HD on NBC yet, but I believe this is a temporary problem. You got the bars around all 4 sides of the WW because they broadcast it in widescreen on the regular analog feed, and that's what they were passing to you on the digital channel. That should be remedied soon, I hope. Last, CBS does most of their primetime lineup in HD, but not all, so it depends on what you were watching. You may want to check their programming schedule and see what's in HD.

"I also have HD HBO and showtime, which are great in widescreen but of the four channels two were showing 4:3 format movies."

Again, depends on what you were watching. I know HBO has on their website the programming list of what's actually in "True HDTV" as they call it. I think they also have some upconverted stuff. But you can be watching an HD movie, then it goes off and you get Bryant Gubel's sports show in 4:3.

"Finally, whats with the unc logo on the UNC HD, is it always there or do they only show it occasionally."

I do believe they show it all the time. If you'll read back a page or two in this thread you'll see some folks very upset about this. I find it annoying, but I'm using an LCD front projector, so it doesn't cause me any harm. I would encourage you to send an email to them at least asking them to rotate it's position for you guys with plasma and CRT RPTVs.

Originally posted by dtaylor
Hello, I'm a new Greensboro HDTV user, using TW Cable and a Pansonic ED Plasma.

Welcome dtaylor!. I am the Transmitter Supervisor for FOX8 WGHP and I may be able to shed some light on your questions.

I was surprised that all the networks with the exeception of nbc were broadcasting in 4:3 ratio. Is this common, particular to TW Cable, is the same signal received over the air?

Right now the only "non-analog" programming is either sports or Primetime. The rest of the time, all of the stations that transmit more than analog on their digital channel, use the side bars for 4:3: programming since it is directly converted from analog to digital for broadcast on the DT channel. WXLV-DT, WUPN-DT, WLXI-DT, and when they come on the air this month (March) WTWB-DT and WGPX-DT will/do upconvert their analog 24/7 and do not pass any HD or widescreen programming.

WLXI-DT stretches an obvious off the air rebroadcast of their channel 61 analog. (looks like a VCR plumbed into the DT transmitter) A lot of times you can see the analog signal fade in and out since their analog transmitter is at Kernersville and the DT is at Level Cross. They save money on an additional microwave link to the DT site since they are upconverting only anyway, and I guess they figure their viewers are not the types to have OTA digital receivers anyway if their DT is not on cable for distribution.

TWC is only offering WFMY-DT, WGHP-DT, WXII-DT, and WXLV-DT at this time. I have heard there is no immediate plans to add the other stations, but it is always up for revision.

WXII-DT and WFMY-DT pass through 1080i widescreen when it is available from their networks. The remainder of the time they upconvert their analog to their digital channel with the side bars. WXII-DT flips back and forth on having side bars and then other times stretching the analog signal to cover the full screen. WGHP-DT transmits 480p since that is all FOX makes available to us. But FOX has now started providing widescreen on just about 90% of all primetime programming except the animated programs and some of the sit-coms. The dramas and sports are all done in 16:9 widescreen including FOX News Sunday. The rest of the time we transmit the side bars with 4:3 programming. We too started out with the 4:3 stretch and later opted to not do that when people complained about how bad it looked on large screens. TWC just passes through what the stations transmit.

WGHP-DT, WXLV-DT, WUPN-DT and WLXI-DT are 24/7.

WFMY-DT is only on from 12:30p to 1:30p weekdays and 8p to 11:30p 7 days and when CBS provides additional HD programming.

WXII-DT is only on from 4p to 12:35a 7 days a week.

Even more suprising was NBC, when I checked it they were showing west wing which appeared to be broadcast in 4:3 format but then within the 4:3 signal was letterboxed so that the actual picure had black all around and only filled about 1/2 the screen. Is this a setting I need to change or is that how it is broadcast.

West Wing is the only NBC program that is in widescreen and NOT in 1080i. I don't know why. I have seen others in other markets complain that it is shown in 4:3 letterbox and not in true 16:9. I believe it is sent from NBC that way, according to what I have heard, and this makes no sense. I did notice on this weeks WW that the feed was in widescreen with the peacock bug in the extreme lower right location (denoting widescreen) and the program was in 4:3 letterbox with side bars. Then the peacock bug shifted to the visual field of the 4:3 center cut (where it would be on an analog feed with the black bars remaining as before. This may confirm that NBC IS feeding it this way, but I have no independent confirmation.

I also have HD HBO and showtime, which are great in widescreen but of the four channels two were showing 4:3 format movies. Finally, whats with the unc logo on the UNC HD, is it always there or do they only show it occasionally. My daughter will be attending UNC next year but I don't want their logo burned permanantly into my screen.

I do not have cable just DirecTV and there HBO-HD shows its movies in 16:9 and most of their non movie programming, sports shows, "G String Diva's," etc are 4:3 with side bars. Their "prime" series like Sopranos, and now "Six Feet Under" will be shown in 16:9 HD also. I do not have Showtime, so I can't comment.

The secondary UNC channels; PBS Kids, PBSYou, and CPB-Annenberg channel, keep bugs up all the time. Only the main channel that is upconverted from the analog feed has the rotating on and off screen bugs.

Great to see a group here from Greensboro. Thanks for any info you can help me out with.

Also checkout www.triad-hdtv.org and www.nchdtv.com. I hope that helps.

Jacksonian & Foxeng,

Thanks for your replies, looks like HD television is not quite ready for prime time yet. It's great being on the cutting edge of technology, kind of reminds me of windows 3.x.

If I ever get my power back I'll get a chance to check it out some more.

Thanks again.

Originally posted by dtaylor
Thanks for your replies, looks like HD television is not quite ready for prime time yet. It's great being on the cutting edge of technology, kind of reminds me of windows 3.x.

Well it isn't quite that bad. I CAN watch HD programming just about anytime I want on SOME channel. When color came along in the 60's around here (well the eastern part of the state where I grow up), there were many nights color programs were not available at all. I remember very well our first color TV. It was 1963 and the local TV store didn't have any color TV's in stock and my father went to the next town over and bought an RCA color console and had it delivered on a Tuesday and we had to wait until Sunday night for any color (none of the local stations did local news in color or any locally produced programs in color, and there were LOTS more locally produced programs than now) to watch "The Wonderful World of Disney" in color on NBC. We only had one station transmitting ANY color and it wasn't every night and it was network pass through only.

It was a few years until we got color every night and a few more until color was 99% of the schedule. Remember, color started in 1954 and it was the early eighty's before the NBC peacock stopped announcing programs in color and became just a corp symbol. The reason being all the shows had been shot in black and white and since most syndicated shows started life on the major networks, it takes a few years to get those shows into syndication, hence the prime time only for HD (and color in those days).

I know of NO first run syndication (shows like Baywatch or VIP, some show that never ran on network but was made for syndication only) that is distributed in HD right now. I am sure now they are being shot in HD, but not distributed. That will come in a couple of years.

Take WGHP for an example. We went on the air in 1963 as a back and white station and around 1967 added color to the transmitter to pass what ABC network color programming their was, but it was the early 70's I hear before we got the first studio color cameras. Since NBC developed color, the NBC stations went color MUCH earlier than the CBS or ABC stations. Those networks hated to compete against NBC and then pay RCA (who owned NBC at the time) on the equipment purchases. It was the late sixties that others got into the color equipment game, such as Norelco and CBS and ABC bought mostly non RCA equipment. A lot of the non NBC stations followed suit as well.

I too wish there were more HD distribution, but I plunked down my money knowing what I know (and MY network doesn't EVEN pass HD, just 480p 16:9!) and I am trying to enjoy what i can because I remember the "color revolution" and this is moving MUCH faster than that, and people WANTED color then and most people don't even know now there is a "digital revolution" underway. My wife and I was in Red Amber Brewery last night eating supper and I over heard a party at another table talking about HD. One couple had a HD and the other didn't know anything about it and one was trying to educate the other. Most of the info was correct, but some wasn't, but I thought, well maybe it is starting to catch on if you can now start to hear about it in public.

All in all, digital is ahead of the color revolution, but it all takes time and I think we are doing well. Just hang in there. There is more HD programming every day. It only gets better from here!

Hello,

I am a complete novice, and I am babysitting my brother's Sony 36" widescreen while he attempts a thru-hike of the AT beginning next week. I have a bow-tie antenna (I think), and so far we have been able to get WFMY and ABC-45 (which from reading I now know is not broadcasting in HD-and my brother had me excited about seeing the Oscars!).

My brother suggested I read this site and see if anyone could help me in getting WXII and whatever PBS station I can (4 or 26?). You guys have mentioned that WXII has been having troubles, so perhaps they were just not broadcasting tonight, but if they were, could someone suggest what we could do to receive the signal? Also would it be possible to pick up anything out of Raleigh or Charlotte? (I am in Northern Guilford County off 150 East). We know that we can get at least Roanoke's CBS affiliate also.

Sorry for my ingorance, but everyone has to begin somewhere!
Thanks!

Originally posted by frenchmoon
Hello,

I am a complete novice, and I am babysitting my brother's Sony 36" widescreen while he attempts a thru-hike of the AT beginning next week. I have a bow-tie antenna (I think), and so far we have been able to get WFMY and ABC-45 (which from reading I now know is not broadcasting in HD-and my brother had me excited about seeing the Oscars!).

My brother suggested I read this site and see if anyone could help me in getting WXII and whatever PBS station I can (4 or 26?). You guys have mentioned that WXII has been having troubles, so perhaps they were just not broadcasting tonight, but if they were, could someone suggest what we could do to receive the signal? Also would it be possible to pick up anything out of Raleigh or Charlotte? (I am in Northern Guilford County off 150 East). We know that we can get at least Roanoke's CBS affiliate also.

Sorry for my ingorance, but everyone has to begin somewhere!
Thanks!

An indoor Bow Tie will not get you much from up there. All the stations towers are south of Greensboro along 220 except WXII-DT and WUNL-DT which are on Sauratown Mt. WXII-DT is channel 31 and WUNL-DT is channel 32. Charlotte and Raleigh are out with a indoor Bow Tie. Just too far for and indoor antenna. I did see HD on WXII-DT Sunday night so they seem to be running again. WFMY-DT is channel 51 and is only on the air from 8pm to 11:35pm nightly.

Depending on where in the peaks and valleys of 150, you may get some of the locals better than others with the Bow Tie.

Wish I had better news, but if your brother had cable, sat or an outdoor antenna, DT life would be MUCH better! (Hey as a thank you, get him one of those and use it for yourself while he is gone!)

All in all, digital is ahead of the color revolution, but it all takes time and I think we are doing well. Just hang in there. There is more HD programming every day. It only gets better from here!

That's exactly right. I waited until TWC started showing the locals to get on board, that was my threshold. But things are really picking up speed this year. I think '03 will really be the big transition year where people start to find out about HD. ESPN should play a big part in that awareness since men are usually the technology buyers as well as the sports watchers. I watched them plugging the Grammys on ESPN, making some connection between jocks and rock stars because the parent company owns CBS. So I'm sure they will do a lot to promote HD this year.

My wife said last night, "once you go HD, you can't go back." And she was talking about the difference between HD and the upconverted (and pretty good looking) stuff, not the difference between SD and HD. After just 2 weeks with HD, she'll accept nothing less than 1080i. I'm hoping most people will feel the same way and that the competition will really push networks (like FOX :)) to get their act together. Right now I'll watch shows I've never even heard about on HD stations rather than watch SD versions of shows I like.

Originally posted by jacksonian
Right now I'll watch shows I've never even heard about on HD stations rather than watch SD versions of shows I like.

That's pretty much the way I see it, too. Thank goodness for CBS!

Pam

During last Thursday's ice storm, one of the first things to go in my neighborhood was TWC. My neighbor, a true CSI junkie, was in a panic. I told him, "Relax. We don't need no stinkin' cable. I've got over-the-air HDTV! Come on over to my house tonight. You've never seen CSI until you've seen it in HDTV! It'll blow your socks off! "

I should have never bragged like that. Mother Nature punished me.

My antenna was no match for the 70-year-old oak that crashed down on my house:
http://dumbsoutherner.com/ice/tree.jpg

Thanks to the quality work of Bill Davis Antenna Service, my mast mount remained securely attached to my house. Good work Bill!:
http://dumbsoutherner.com/ice/antenna1.jpg

But, my Channel Master rotor is a goner. The mounting flange broke:
http://dumbsoutherner.com/ice/antenna2.jpg

My poor Channel Master 4228. I really liked than antenna. May it rest in peace (or, in pieces):
http://dumbsoutherner.com/ice/antenna3.jpg

On the bright side, with that tree out of the way, my reception may improve. I can now use a much taller mast.

And, I won't need to buy fire wood for years to come. Heh.

My sincerest condolences on the loss of your antenna.

Originally posted by MrPhred
On the bright side, with that tree out of the way, my reception may improve. I can now use a much taller mast.

And, I won't need to buy fire wood for years to come. Heh.

:D There's nothing like turning lemons into lemonade, is there?:D

Pam

Originally posted by jacksonian
Right now I'll watch shows I've never even heard about on HD stations rather than watch SD versions of shows I like.

I am still a content person, but if I have a choice of a really BAD SD show and a HD show I would normally not be interested in, I will watch the HD show. But if the only way I can get a fix of a certain show I like is SD only, I will watch it over a HD show that is of little interest to me.

Originally posted by MrPhred
My poor Channel Master 4228. I really liked than antenna. May it rest in peace (or, in pieces)

It didn't look that bad in the picture. It could use some rebending, but if you act real sweat to it, I bet it will receive again!

The little $19.95 RS UHF only antenna I put up at the transmitter to pick up other DT's is toast though and it had NOTHING to do with falling trees!

I have been working at WGHP for 11 years and in radio for 12 years before that, so I have seen damage ice storms will do around towers. I have never seen anything like this.

We took about 3/4 of an inch on the tower (which isn't unusual) but when it melts and falls, the wind is usually blowing and it disperses it over a large area and you get minor damage at best. Well this storm, the winds were calm and EVERYTHING came STRAIGHT DOWN. It all fell in a 75 foot radius of the tower. Within this zone is the back third of the transmitter building. We use a system of wood pallets placed on top of a flat wooden roof that absorbs the impact and they work pretty good. In the 11 years I have been working at the transmitter, we have never had roof damage due to an ice storm, until now.

About 70% of all the pallets in this area are now kindling wood at best and will have to be replaced. And over the back wall I noticed a bad leak in the roof. (luckily the affected area is over the back carport) The front of the building sustain the usual couple of busted boards on a few pallets that get repaired every year. The ground around the tower in this "hit zone" looks like someone took a garden tiller and hit and missed the ground. I guess the best way to describe them as mega sized golf divots a couple of inches deep and 6 to 12 inches wide. The whole area is littered with them. The impacts were so intense it threw mud on the building! I will need to pressure wash the entire building now!

I will try and get some pictures this week and post them before they start to wear away. I suspect we will not have grass in that area for a year or more.

At home I am more fortunate. I only lost my 15 year old metal storage building that was rusting away when a tree limb hit it. Life goes on!

I originally thought I'd be able to fix my 4228. But, upon closer inspection, I discovered about half of the insulator blocks that hold the bowties are broken, and one of the bowtie elements snapped. I'll just hand it to the insurance adjuster (if he ever shows up) and tell him to fix it :p

I'd love to see some photos of the ice damage from your tower, foxeng. I'd be scared to get anywhere close to that thing after an ice storm. I heard one of the guys from WFMY lost his windshield to tower ice.

Originally posted by MrPhred
I'd love to see some photos of the ice damage from your tower, foxeng. I'd be scared to get anywhere close to that thing after an ice storm. I heard one of the guys from WFMY lost his windshield to tower ice.

There are two rules in broadcasting for transmitter people:

Rule One, WATCH WHERE YOU PUT YOUR FINGERS IN TRANSMITTERS
Rule Two, IF ICE IS FALLING OFF THE TOWER, STAY AWAY!

Well we have had a whole NEW transmitter installed for WGHP-DT. Well really it is the same transmitter with all new guts put in it. We have spent the last week or so having the transmitter manufacture in checking out a lot of little goofy things that I have been noticing on our DT transmitter. After two visits by the factory rep, he decided the needed to replace ALL the RF power modules! SO HE DID! That improved performance quite a bit. Last night I was checking things out at home and I was getting a MUCH higher signal than I have. I usually run a 35 and I was getting a 54 last night. I don't know if it had anything to do with the weather or not, but I will keep an eye on it. Those with OTA receivers, if you would keep an eye out, I would appreciate it. Those on the fringe may see an improvement, as well.

Secondly, The months of March and October bring what is called sun outages. Simply, it is when the sun moves directly behind a satellite and the solar noise is so intense, the satellite signal is overridden. This effects every satellite, but different times due to the location in the sky and the receiver on the ground. It usually runs about 10 days and the signal slowly gets worse for about 15 minutes over this 10 day period and at the height, it gets so bad you lose the signal completely for a couple of minutes. If you watch the cable or sat channels during the day, you may have seen this and wondered what was going on.

For FOX this is usually not a problem since the weekend is the only time it affects them and all the networks transmit their signals on two different satellites all the time anyway and they provide the affiliates with two receivers so when the signal goes bad on one, you switch to the other for the duration of the outage and then switch back before the second one goes out. With DTV, only one receiver is provided at this time and when sun outage happens this Sunday during the race, we will have to switch to the analog feed for the duration of the outage.

So those of you watching the race on WGHP-DT will see it start in widescreen then around 1:30 it will go to 4:3 and then when the next local break occurs, it will go back to widescreen. (or so we have planned it! ;) )

Just thought I would let you know so you don't think we screwed up!

hi FoxEng,

quick question, I notice end of last week, the HD on Fox was convert back to 4:3 when I watch a show Friday night. Last night I check, it has gray bars on the left and right hand side now. Is the gray bars going to stay? I am on TWC here.

Talos

Originally posted by talosman2
hi FoxEng,

quick question, I notice end of last week, the HD on Fox was convert back to 4:3 when I watch a show Friday night. Last night I check, it has gray bars on the left and right hand side now. Is the gray bars going to stay? I am on TWC here.

Talos

Since we mostly send 4:3 material, it was decided to try and help those with burn in problems with something besides your basic black so we (me) put up the gray bars. Network will send black bars when they send 4:3 and there is nothing we can do about that. Of course when network sends 16:9, there will be NO bars of any color! ;)

If the gray doesn't suit you, I can change it to any color you want. Anyone for a hot pink? :p

Hmmmm.....pink....

Nope - I don't think so - boring gray is quite alright by me!

Pam

gray is fine with me, just didn't know why sometimes it is black and sometimes it is gray. So black can burn screens? BTW, the week before, the shows are in 4:3 only for some reasons. I am glad the widescreen shows are back this past Friday night. I really like that show "John Doe". Sad Farscape is gone thou... for my Friday night lineup.

Originally posted by talosman
gray is fine with me, just didn't know why sometimes it is black and sometimes it is gray. So black can burn screens? BTW, the week before, the shows are in 4:3 only for some reasons. I am glad the widescreen shows are back this past Friday night. I really like that show "John Doe". Sad Farscape is gone thou... for my Friday night lineup.

During the war coverage provided by FOX last week, the bars were black since we were getting that from the network directly. When we run FOX News Channel on its own, you will see the gray bars.

You can tell if we are taking FOX News Channel direct if the bug in the lower left is the red white and blue rotating FNC bug. The network feed will replace that bug with a static red black and white bug that says FOX News and black bars. We will usually carry more coverage than FOX network provides and so we will take FOX News Channel direct to air and that is when you will see the regular rotating FNC bug and the gray bars.

HI all,
Haven't checked in for a while. I was just checking out channel 520 on TWC and "king of queens"...hmmm...never mind, it wasn't HD for a while, now it is...do they have to flip a switch or something?
Ron

Originally posted by Edisto
HI all,
Haven't checked in for a while. I was just checking out channel 520 on TWC and "king of queens"...hmmm...never mind, it wasn't HD for a while, now it is...do they have to flip a switch or something?
Ron

I have no first hand knowledge, but for what I have observed, both WFMY and WXII have an "external HD" switch. It is my understanding that NBC and CBS do not put up 4:3 versions of their programming on the HD channel so the local station has to switch between the SD and HD versions when available thus this external switch and they miss it sometimes. This is not just a local problem, but nationwide. I had heard that NBC was going to start sending 4:3 on the HD channel, but from what I have heard around the country, that doesn't seem to have happened yet.

Technically what is happening is the type of encoder they use has a built in 2 source switcher so they take the up converted analog signal in one input and the network into the other input and switch between the two, a very common practice around the country with that type equipment. If NBC and CBS sent 4:3 on the HD channel, they could take this switch and wire it into their analog switcher and you won't have this problem, but until their networks do, it is going to be a problem.

FOX sends the 4:3 on the 16:9 channel so we don't have an external switch. When we punch up NETWORK on the analog switcher, it changes to the 16:9 receiver on the DT side so if FOX sends a 4:3 version instead of a 16:9 program (which they have done!) it is out of our control. FOX has even had different programs on the analog and digital receivers during prime time. That didn't stay that way for long! Our encoder doesn't have a built in source switcher like the equipment WXII and WFMY is using so we have to do it externally and it is much easier for us since we use a multi input switch to switch between network, our local commercials, our local news and the up converted material. To my knowledge, we are the only station in town to send a pure digital signal straight from our studio cameras and commercial playback as well as network to your digital TV. This will be short lived because as time goes by, everyone will start to change over to digital switchers and it will be the norm.

Looks like WFMY-DT has expanded their operating hours and has added full time weather radar on 2-2. In doing some checkings, they are coming on at 12:30pm and staying on till 12:35AM so a 12 hour schedule appears to now be in effect.

I was playing around with my 8VSB tec receiver at the transmitter and noticed WXII-DT was on at 2:30 this afternoon. I also saw them sending PSIP data for virtual channel 81-1. NBC net was on the air at the time and I am assuming that NBC has chosen virtual channel 81 for those stations not passing their own PSIP like PBS uses VC 80.

Has anyone with OTA noticed this also?

My local Fox station is transmitting a digital signal now but is only transmitting a 4:3 picture. Does it cost a Fox station a great deal more money to transmit Fox Widescreen and DD5.1 than just transmitting a 4:3 digital picture?

Originally posted by chopkins
My local Fox station is transmitting a digital signal now but is only transmitting a 4:3 picture. Does it cost a Fox station a great deal more money to transmit Fox Widescreen and DD5.1 than just transmitting a 4:3 digital picture?

I am assuming you must be talking about channel 27 out of Roanoke. To pass FOX wide screen in the studio is not that much more, (about $10,000 for the video and $15,000 on top of that for the DD 5.1) but it takes a more expensive encoder to do the 480p that FOX likes to do over 480i. The cost difference of the encoders can be as much as $30,000 to $40,000. ($60,000 total) You also have to add a digital microwave link that could cost as much as $200,000 so you are talking about $300,000 to just pass the FOX wide screen in 480p with DD 5.1 for less than 1% of the current viewers on top of the several million to install the new transmitter and antenna system.

Thanks for the info. Actually talking about channel 21 out of Lynchburg which is the same as channel 27 in Roanoke. Fox 21/27 digital is being broadcast out of Bedford on channel 20. The WB affilate is also on channel 20. Channel 27 digital is not supposed to start broadcasting until this summer.

Dubbadon posted on the Triad HDTV list that WB20 is up on DT-19-1 as of this afternoon. They are low power, but I am getting them good at my house north of GSO. They are transmitting 9000 watts at 500 ft from the same tower as WXLV-DT, WUPN-TV, WUPN-DT and WTWB-TV at Level Cross.

If Don wants to put out more, I will not spoil it all for him!

Thanks, FoxEng!

I wonder when it'll be available on time warner cable.....

pam

I went by WB20's transmitter site yesterday to see their new DT transmitter. It is a bigger cousin of the one FOX8 has. Don is real proud of it, as he should be. Looks like his biggest problem is being able to receive it at the studio. Everyone else gets it, except there! (I think it is his antenna system, and I think he thinks so too! He gets it at his house which is further way!) Never a dull moment!

I am not sure what TWC is planning on the remainder of the DT stations. Right now PAX is the only one not on the air around here and from what I have been told, it may be August at the latest before they get on. I am sure that TWC will have to put them on soon since they have the big four on.

I was reminded as I was looking through some FCC permits that next Tuesday, April 29, marks the one year anniversary of WGHP-DT signing on the air. WGHP-DT officially signed on at 5pm on April 29, 2002.

Even though to just be looking on air, it would appear that not much has changed in 365 days, but from the inside, I can tell you MUCH has changed and I suspect the next 12 months will show much more behind the scene activity as all stations move closer to shutting down the analog stations and relying more on the digital stations.

When WGHP-DT signed on, there were only around 300 stations on the air, now there are over 825 and more coming on everyday. In the next few months, that number should jump dramatically since the second and final extensions expire.

When WGHP-DT signed on, WXII-DT had been on only for 6 months and operating from 4pm to 12:30am, WFMY had just signed on and was only operating from 8pm to 11:30pm, WXLV-DT and WUPN-DT had just signed on and all DTV reception was OTA only.

Now, 12 months later, WFMY-DT and WXII-DT have increased their operating schedules from 12 noon to 12:30am, WTWB-DT and WLXI-DT have signed on and operate 24/7 along with WGHP-DT, WXLV-DT and WUPN-DT. Only WGPX-DT remains waiting in the wings to sign on. WFMY-DT, WGHP-DT, WXII-DT all pass their networks "higher res" offerings when available and TWC along with some of the other smaller cable companies have at least the "big four" networks on their systems.

There are some markets where their first stations are just coming on air. Is there much left to do! ABSOLUTELY, but we are on our way!

Amazing what just 365 days will yield. It will be interesting to see what the landscape looks like in another 365 days.

What is the deadline for low power stations to construct their full power transmitter. Does it vary from station to station?

Originally posted by chopkins
What is the deadline for low power stations to construct their full power transmitter. Does it vary from station to station?

That is being discussed at the FCC as we speak. There is a proposal on the table that in the top 100 markets, the "big four", ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC stations would have to go to full power by July 2005 or loose full power protection.

There are other rules being considered, that but that seems to be the biggie.

This has to be one of the most quietest (is that a real word?) threads on AVSForum. Either you folks are very happy with the DTV offerings (really?!) or you don't care (REALLY!?)

I must admit I get some really nice calls about what is happening in the DTV world at work, and it is gratifying that most people understand what is involved with all this changeover. I had a nice call from a guy in Asheboro asking about FOX's digital offerings. My boss spent some time on the phone with him and then I spent some time with him. We didn't have to do it, but it is good for us to know what you guys are thinking too.

SO WHAT ARE YOU GUYS THINKING OF, HUH?

What have you seen on (H)DTV that you liked, didn't like, some show you never watched before until it was available in something over that 480i?

I must admit I participate in the some of the other threads and really have to to put my game face on just to get through some of these posts. Not that I am wanting fist-a-cuffs to start here, far from it, but I know more people are buying HD sets and it is good to know how we are doing beyond the normal "how come FOX doesn't do HD" stuff.

The floor is open.

Well I guess I can pass one piece of (hopefully) good news along. For the longest time, I have been fighting a closed captioning issue on WGHP-DT. It only works on certain OTA receivers! It appears that a certain close captioning (CC) encoder and a certain MPEG2 HD encoder (HD model only of course) was not passing the CC correctly to the Samsung receivers. After spending MANY months on phone and several visits from the factory and talking to other stations, I had pretty much given up hope of fixing it anytime soon. Well on a lark, Thursday I updated the firmware in the CC encoder. On the Sammy 150 at work, nothing. No CC. I go home and in scanning over WGHP-DT om my Sammy 160 to see if MAYBE CC was there, (I wasn't betting on it, I have been down this road too many times in the past), IT WAS! HHMM. I had seen it work on occasion before only to have a reboot of the system at work and it never to be seen again. So Friday I went to work and rebooted the whole system. Still nothing on the 150, but on the 160 IT IS STILL THERE!

So, if you folks could check your closed captioning and see if you see it and let me know here, that would be a great help. Oh yeah, let me know what type receiver you are using, even if you are on cable. Cable needs to be passing it also and if they aren't, I need to know it and get on them!

Thanks for your help.

Oh yeah, you will not see any CC on the news until I move a couple of cables to route the studio into the closed captioning system. I was holding off on doing that until I knew I had it all working. Network, local shows and some commercials will have CC on them.

I always check this thread to see what you have to say. I am a little north of you and am not in your viewing area though. I think even an SD picture that is done right is a very noticable improvement over NTSC for OTA reception. I wonder why so many stations do not even acknowledge that they have a digital OTA signal. In the Roanoke/Lynchburg area we now have FOX21, WB, NBC, PAX, CBS and PBS with OTA digital. Except for WDBJ7(CBS) there has been absolutely no advertising that DTV even exists. WDBJ and WSLS(NBC) are transmitting HD but WSLS has never mentioned on the air that it even exists. The WB staion has been On the air for 13 months with no mention that I can find that it even exists. WDBJ is the onlly local station that actively promotes their digital transmissions. Do these stations not want people to watch their digital signals? It seems for all the money they have spent they would be actively promoting it. Maybe since our local Fox, WB and NBC stations are all low power, they think viewers will be disappointed with DTV if they promote it and then many local viewers cannot receive it. From my location I get great reception from all the local DTV stations.

Originally posted by chopkins
I wonder why so many stations do not even acknowledge that they have a digital OTA signal. In the Roanoke/Lynchburg area we now have FOX21, WB, NBC, PAX, CBS and PBS with OTA digital. Except for WDBJ7(CBS) there has been absolutely no advertising that DTV even exists. WDBJ and WSLS(NBC) are transmitting HD but WSLS has never mentioned on the air that it even exists. The WB staion has been On the air for 13 months with no mention that I can find that it even exists. WDBJ is the onlly local station that actively promotes their digital transmissions. Do these stations not want people to watch their digital signals?

Short answer, NO, they don't. And it isn't for the reason you think. One of the minor reasons is if the station is low power, but the real reason is ratings.

Nielson currently doesn't count viewers who watch the DT stations. So if you are watching, say "CSI:Miami" on WDBJ-DT, and you have a Nielson diary or STB, WDBJ doesn't get the credit. No one gets the credit. It would be the same as if you were not watching TV at all. Since stations use the ratings to sell advertising, if there are enough people watching the DT station, it could COST the station advertising dollars in the long run. Until Nielson gets this fixed, stations are a little gun shy. As more people get HD TV's (remember less than 1% of the TOTAL viewing audience has a digital display of ANY kind) Nielson will have to get on board and I think you will see more stations promote their DT channels when there are actual larger numbers of DT viewers.

foxeng,

Believe it or not, I read all the posts any time there are any on this thread - it is the only one I subscribe to. However, since we are "in process" of building our dedicated HT, we aren't watching much HD. Our RPTV is in a much smaller room right now while we construct, and you would not believe how difficult it is to watch a 64" screen only 6 feet back!! Painful cannot begin to describe it.

I enjoy keeping up with all that is digital and High Def - we really are paying attention!

pam

Originally posted by PamW
foxeng,

Believe it or not, I read all the posts any time there are any on this thread - it is the only one I subscribe to. However, since we are "in process" of building our dedicated HT, we aren't watching much HD. Our RPTV is in a much smaller room right now while we construct, and you would not believe how difficult it is to watch a 64" screen only 6 feet back!! Painful cannot begin to describe it.

I enjoy keeping up with all that is digital and High Def - we really are paying attention!

pam

How long have you been working on that room? If I remember correctly, you were starting work on it last year this time weren't you? If it takes this long, it MUST be out of this world! You can send my HT warming party invite to WGHP,HP 8, High Point! ;)

We've been planning it for over a year - began the actual work in October - took from Thanksgiving to Christmas off - weathered a few (?) ice storms, performed in one play(Chicago in WS), choreographed another (Music Man currently running), car pool two boys, etc, etc....

Yep, we'll be really happy to get this baby completed. Husband is upstairs now mudding drywall. Rough in electrical is complete. Stage is built. False procenium is finished. Riser ready to be filled and finished. Then acoustical treatments, fabric, paint, carpet, load-in of equipment. I hope we finish soon!

Your invitation will be in the mail...

Pam

Here is something that might be of interest to those of you who are into antennas.

I had the RS $19.95 UHF only (digital ready) antenna at the transmitter to do some surfing for the other stations. This antenna was so poor, I had to put a pre-amp on it and it still would not pickup the Raleigh DT stations or the Charlotte DT stations, which are all well within limits from our transmitter. We know this since before the satellite delivery days, when we were the ABC station, we would loose the network microwave and have to rebroadcast WSOC or WRAL (who was ABC at the time) until the network link came back up. Nor did channel 2, 45 or 48's DTs, all within 5 miles of the transmitter, would not be stable all the time either.

I bought out of my own pocket the CM 4228 and with NO pre-amp, I now get all the high power Raleigh DT stations and most of the Charlotte high Power DT stations and channel 2, 20, 45, 48 and 61's DTs are all stable now. The antenna is 20 feet off the ground with about 50 ft of RG-59 into a not so sensitive professional DTV receiver. (they never are as sensitive as a home receiver even though they are MANY thousands of dollars!)

Moral of the story is that the CM 4228 works when others will not. I debated on putting a pre-amp on the 4228, but I think I will wait.

FWIW

I am located near lake brandt and getting 2, 45, 31, pbs, 61, all at 95% signal strength. I can not get fox 35 or wb 19 at all. My question is when those stations power up to 100% I should be able to get them since they are located at the same locations as the other stations I am getting. It does not make since to raise my antenna now to possibly get them when they offer no HD at all now..or should I be getting them. who knows the power they are transmitting??

Originally posted by jrtree
I am located near lake brandt and getting 2, 45, 31, pbs, 61, all at 95% signal strength. I can not get fox 35 or wb 19 at all. My question is when those stations power up to 100% I should be able to get them since they are located at the same locations as the other stations I am getting. It does not make since to raise my antenna now to possibly get them when they offer no HD at all now..or should I be getting them. who knows the power they are transmitting??

FOX does send 16:9 at 480p. WGHP-DT transmits this when FOX sends it. WGHP-DT is at 4200 watts with the antenna at 900ft. WTWB-DT is 9000 watts at 500 ft.

If you are into NASCAR or other sports that FOX has, you might be interested in the widescreen. WTWB-DT does no HD or widescreen.

thanks, please give me watts and height of 45 and 2 for comparision..

Originally posted by jrtree
thanks, please give me watts and height of 45 and 2 for comparision..

Both are considerably higher. Channel 2 is right at 2000 ft with 450,000 watts and channel 45 is right at 2000 ft with 400,000 watts. My whole tower is only 1255 ft and the FAA will not let us go any higher, so our only hope in the future is power.

Foxeng,
Thanks for the frequent updates. I'm a Winston-Salem resident and lurk here often. Just finishing up my own basement theater -- those NASCAR races on Fox look great with my new front projector!
Just wanted to say thanks for keeping us posted on what's going on.

Originally posted by bhaddock
Foxeng,
Thanks for the frequent updates. I'm a Winston-Salem resident and lurk here often. Just finishing up my own basement theater -- those NASCAR races on Fox look great with my new front projector!
Just wanted to say thanks for keeping us posted on what's going on.

Thanks. I hope one day in the near future to offer those races in HD. We all keep our fingers crossed on that one that FOX will start offering their programming in HD.

I talked to the FOX Network Operations Center earlier today about MLB in 16:9. Here is what they said:

Due to demand for the limited number of digital production trucks verses analog trucks, MLB will NOT be in 16:9. But the All Star Game and the World Series WILL be in 16:9. Also there will be more 16:9 NFL games this season, but the exact number has not been set yet.

Its a step in the right direction!

Thanks for the update!

pam

I have heard from several of you on the brightness of the FOX8 bug that appears in the lower right corner when we are not in network programming.

Due to technical reasons, (our old bug keyer died) we have had to run the bug in this lum key mode. I know those of you with plasma's have been concerned about this. We have purchased a device (a much more improved bug keyer) that will allow us to keep the bug on the screen but it will become transparent unlike the solid bug we have been running the last year or so. It will still be in color, but a transparent color. I am sure in certain high luminous pictures, you will not be able to see the bug at all, or so the tests we ran yesterday showed and everyone signed off on. Hopefully it will stay that way by the time it goes on air.

The idea is to run it like a color watermark. We have been playing with this for the last month or so and are now in the final test stages and it should be on line in the next couple of weeks if all continues to go as planned so those of you concerned about burn in, we have been listening, it has just taken time to get all our ducks in a row.

Originally posted by foxeng
I have heard from several of you on the brightness of the FOX8 bug that appears in the lower right corner when we are not in network programming.

The new bug is on line as of Friday. You may notice that it "fly's in" and then goes to a transparent color watermark and stays that way until it is removed for commercials or network programming. You may also see it just fade in if a segment is very short. Hopefully those of you with high burn in sets will see some relief.

Do you know why stations are using bugs? Aside from the burn-in problem, it's just a terribly annoying distraction. When they tried adding bugs to TV stations in England, there was such an outcry that the bugs were quickly removed. Now that Showtime/Cinemax has decided to add bugs to movies(!) that we subscribe to--I'm going to cancel my subscription. I don't watch channels that use bugs.

Have you seen the desecration of the UNC HDTV Demo loop? It's often got the sharpest HDTV picture that you can show friends to impress them (given that digital tape was the source, not film). But then they see that "UNC@HD" up in the top right corner (and sometimes yet another bug in the lower right identifying the other PBS group that filmed the travelogue) and it's hard for them to enjoy the pristine beauty of the signal. I guess we just have to put up with these stupid bugs for a while until people realize that, like dogs marking their territory, or people defacing their bodies with tattoos, BUGS ARE UNPLEASANT!:rolleyes: :eek: :confused: :(

The UNC HD bug used to be at the very top right of the screen. A couple months ago they moved it more into the screen. From what I've heard it was in "overscan" territory, but I agree it's very annoying. If they won't remove it I say move it in the corner at the bottom of the screen.

Originally posted by era
Do you know why stations are using bugs?

Stations use them for identification. With so many channels now, the theory is that as a person surfs past, you know what channel it is and that branding will hopefully get you to stop long enough, sample what is on the air and stay there for a while, long enough to get a rating, if you have either the ratings box or diary, it shows up.

Stations are becoming more aware of burn in and try to make them as transparent as possible to not cause burn in or be obnoxious. We have it to the point that if a scene is somewhat bright, you will not see the bug, so we are trying to walk that fine line.

Each time UNC sends me letters asking that I continue to send checks to support PBS, I write on their form "I won't send any more money until you wake up and remove the logo/bug from your HDTV demo." If enough people did this, they'd wipe the bug off in a flash. By the way, they can't put their bug on the lower right of the screen because that's reserved for other bugs from other PBS stations! Most of the time you get two bugs. Why not take TV to the next step (as FOX does during NASCAR races) and start selling ad space on the screen during the program? The crawler that tells you the current racing order has an ad for Pepto Bismal, motor oil, deodorant and so on always onscreen. What's to stop them from pasting ads in other locations onscreen, until the actual show itself is just a little fraction of the screen, among the various ads--like magazine pages?

Originally posted by era
Why not take TV to the next step (as FOX does during NASCAR races) and start selling ad space on the screen during the program? The crawler that tells you the current racing order has an ad for Pepto Bismal, motor oil, deodorant and so on always onscreen. What's to stop them from pasting ads in other locations onscreen, until the actual show itself is just a little fraction of the screen, among the various ads--like magazine pages?

There was some talk when digital first started to not do 16:9, but continue with 4:3 and use the side bar areas of 16:9 with advertising, but that idea was killed pretty quickly since it was decided most people won't put up with it.

I am afraid that bugs are here to to stay for the foreseeable future. They have been around long enough, and everyone does it now, that the few people who complain are lost in the silent majority.

I'm not surprised that the busy little talent-free vice presidents sat around figuring out ways to use the extra screen space for ads. I worked for a big network for several years and I know that for many execs in that business, when they cook up their schemes--the viewer, aesthetics, even common sense and quality are often the LAST thing they are concerned about. People who don't have a talent or skill to sell usually substitute hard work and ruthlessness. And they divide their decision-making into two categories: 1. (98% of the decision) Will it make more money for the company in the next quarter? 2. (2%) If it doesn't bother me, then why should it bother anyone else? I'm "strong," and isn't that better than being sensitive and consequently bothered by things?

I think the last time I posted a message here was last February, shortly after an ice storm brought a huge tree crashing down onto my house, smashing my antenna (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=1948886#post1948886) .

Since then, I've jealously read messages posted here by foxeng. He's been saying he can pick up HDTV stations as far away as Charlotte using a Channel Master 4228 antenna mounted only 20 feet up with no pre-amp. I'm ashamed to admit there have been times I've actually doubted the truthfullness of some of his reception reports. After all, I also had a 4228 (before the storm smashed it) feeding a Samsung SIRT-151 STB. I had the antenna mounted more than 30 feet high, and pre-amped with one of Winegard's best pre-amps - an AP-8275. Still, my reception was pitiful compared to foxeng's. I could never pick up any Charlotte stations. As a matter of fact, I couldn't even reliably receive foxeng's local FOX station!

Anyway, I finally collected on my insurance claim, and bought new gear this week. I purchased equipment identical to what was destroyed in the storm: a 5 foot mast, topped with a Channel Master rotor supporting a 10-foot mast, and Channel Master 4228 antenna. Even though my Winegard pre-amp had not been damaged in the storm, I decided to also purchase a Channel Master 7777 pre-amp. I figured I could give it a try. If it didn't significantly out-perform my Winegard, I'd sent it back for a refund.

I honestly didn't expect I'd be keeping it.

I'd originally chosen the Winegard pre-amp over the Channel Master because its "average" UHF gain specs were better (28dB versus 26dB). But, much to my surprise (and glee!) the Channel Master pre-amp is kicking the Winegard's butt! I'm now receiving all kinds of stations I could never receive before! I'm pulling in WSOC out of Charlotte just as rock steady as if it were right down the street.

(Being able to receive WSOC makes me *especially* happy. The local ABC affiliate, WXLV, ticks me off. I hate the crappy looking up-converted analog they try to pass off as HDTV. It ain't! And, I never have been able to get them to so much as acknowledge any of the emails I've sent them. Their web contact form is a joke. So, they can kiss my butt. I'll watch WSOC instead. Last night WSOC was transmitting beautiful 720p video with full 5.1 Dolby surround sound. It rocked!)

Although I'm now reliably pulling in all the local stations, many stations in southern Virginia, and one as far away as Charlotte, I still can't receive any of the Raleigh stations. But, I'm hot on the trail. Look out, foxeng. I'll catch up with you one of these days! (And, I no longer doubt your reception reports. Shame on me for doubting them to begin with.)

I'm still not sure why the Channel Master pre-amp is working so much better for me than the Winegard. Both are great amps. It may be that the Channel Master just has some gain bumps in its frequency response curve that correspond to the frequency of some of the stations I've been trying to receive. (I'm not disparaging Winegard in any way, so please don't sent me hate mail.)

That brings up a sore point with me - why hasn't the FTC (or FCC, or some other government agency) standardized the way antenna pre-amp gain is measured and stated? The way pre-amp manufacturers currently state their gain figures makes it impossible for a consumer to sensibly compare pre-amps. Because no consumer pre-amp on earth has a flat frequency response across the entire UHF band, a figure like "average UHF gain of 28dB" is completely meaningless! I wish they'd just publish the curve. Or, if they're going to state an average, they need to at least state how far from the average points along the curve stray - something like "28dB +- 6 dB".

I'll bet that if I hooked up a signal generator and meter to both my pre-amps I'd discover that their stated "average" gain is pretty accurate. But, I'd also bet that both pre-amps have huge peaks and valleys in their response curve. Where those peaks and valleys fall (and how deep they are) could have a huge impact on what channels I'm able to receive. I just wish I could have seen this data before plunking down the money for two pre-amps.

End of tirade. Sorry for the length of this message. I guess I got carried away ;)

I'm just happy to have an antenna back on my roof. I loves me some HDTV!

Originally posted by MrPhred
Still, my reception was pitiful compared to foxeng's. I could never pick up any Charlotte stations. As a matter of fact, I couldn't even reliably receive foxeng's local FOX station!

WELL!?!?!? You never said if you can NOW get WGHP-DT? :D

Why would he want to get FOX..They don't do HD! (YET!)

Originally posted by foxeng
WELL!?!?!? You never said if you can NOW get WGHP-DT? :D

Tee Hee:D

I get a kick out of reading this thread, ya'll!

MrPhred,
I agree with you on the local ABC thing - it strinks!

foxeng,
You rock!

As for me, I (along with my handyman husband) am finishing up our dedicated Home Theater. Had the carpet laid last Saturday. I'll post a pic so you can get an idea of what we're doing. We've been enjoying watching HD thru TWC, although I know it isn't as pure as OTA. We're still pretty impressed. I can't wait to get my set calibrated - can you imagine how good it'll look then???

Here's a pic before carpet and finished electrical...

pam

OK, one more! This is of the procenium - no we don't have the window covered yet. We need that light for construction right now - It'll get covered up and linacoutic RC placed all around this weekend.

Pam

Originally posted by bdfox18doe
Why would he want to get FOX..They don't do HD! (YET!)

Best damn 480p 16:9 around!! :p

Are there any one in Greensboro or Raleigh area that has the Pioneer 3510 STB with TW?

Bump

foxeng,
I just saw the announcement about FOX carrying HD soon. Can you keep us posted on the progress you guys will be making? Or are you guys owned by Sinclair like ABC?

Originally posted by jacksonian
foxeng,
I just saw the announcement about FOX carrying HD soon. Can you keep us posted on the progress you guys will be making? Or are you guys owned by Sinclair like ABC?

I will be happy to. Right now there is no info to give out. All we know is what has been posted on the board here. I even saw an inter company memo posted in another thread. I hope who ever leaked that still has a job. FOX doesn't take too kindly to leaks.

For us to go HD is not a great stretch. We will need to add one, maybe two pieces of equipment, depending on how FOX will be feeding the signal. We have been told that info will be forthcoming soon.

The big ticket items, we already have are on line now, you are watching them daily (I hope daily! ;) ). We currently send 480p and our encoder will handle 720p and 1080i. I have personally tried them all and they do work. If I can get away with it, I might push the encoder to 720p ahead of schedule, but if you are OTA and you see your receiver pop up with HD, don't take that to mean anything other than me playing. You may see it go back down if I get caught before it is time!

I truly believe we will not see our first HD program from FOX until Fall 2004. I do not know when we will start considering equipment purchases. Our capital year runs July to June so we will not even start talking about capital upgrades until after the new year starts, so to say definitively if we will be ready to go will depend on many issues. If past experience is any indicator, being a station that is owned by FOX, they will do something to make sure we are ready to go when it is time. Sometimes these things are delayed from the corporate level and not the station level so if something weird happens and we are not up by the time the first FOX HD airs, know that it is hung up higher than us, but shortly after it starts, I would think we should be passing FOX HD. This is what happened when FOX began widescreen. We didn't make it when it first started, but we were on line with it a short period of time later.

Thanks! I'm on TWC, so I won't get to see any flashes of HD. I hope the snowball picks up speed, it's hard to wait.

Fox - the initial information came from a link to USA Today so based on that would the memo really be that big of a deal if it conveyed something already published?

Think we are all excited for each and every new HD Channel since they at this point really are helping each other and the technology. HD in Sportsbar and and every Store is what will get this thing rolling...well and a better economy :)

Thanks for all the info!

Originally posted by mhdiab
Fox - the initial information came from a link to USA Today so based on that would the memo really be that big of a deal if it conveyed something already published?

The info published in NYT was from a letter sent to the Chief of the FCC Media Bureau from News Corp President Peter Chernin and it was FOX's report on its transition to DTV that was requested for all networks by the FCC so it was a public document.

In a different thread, an internal network memo, called an "EasyLink" (internal designator) on when the technical specs for 720p would be out. That is the one I am talking about.

How do I get Channel Master equipment--and get it installed--in Winston-Salem? Thanks much.

Originally posted by compson
How do I get Channel Master equipment--and get it installed--in Winston-Salem? Thanks much.

Much earlier in this thread (from me) is the name and address and phone number of a guy who installs in the Triad. Sorry I don't remember his name. He installs CM equipment if that is what you want.

Is anyone watching HD via Time Warner here in GSO? I haven't gotten anything in DD 5.1 in quite a while. Even Star Wars in HD on HBO hasn't been in 5.1. I know I got the Grammys in 5.1 but I can't remember anything lately in 5.1. Did I miss something? When I emailed TWC, some customer service rep tried to send a service guy to my house because she "was sorry to hear I was having trouble with the picture on my HD channels." I couldn't get them to understand what 5.1 even was. I heard a rumor that they had to drop the 5.1 because of the bandwidth being used up by the Latino channels?

jacksonian,

I don't have the answer because we aren't currently hooked up to our surrounds - It'll be another few weeks before we are in our newly completed HT!!! If you want me to, I'll ask the "powers that be" over there at TWC if someone alse can verify that their surrounds don't work on TWC HD.

Pam

Is there any sports bar in the Greensboro / Winston-Salem area that has HD also looking for the same in Charlotte, but will ask on the charlotte thread (unless you have the info:)

Would be great to know now when football season is coming closer - yes I am anxious.....:)

Originally posted by mhdiab
Is there any sports bar in the Greensboro / Winston-Salem area that has HD also looking for the same in Charlotte, but will ask on the charlotte thread (unless you have the info:)

Would be great to know now when football season is coming closer - yes I am anxious.....:)

J Butlers on South Main St in High Point/Archdale has a nice NEW 52" RP 16:9. that they didn't have before. I am not sure if has an HD tuner, but it does have sat and OTA analog that I have seen.

Anyone watching TWC Hi Def like HBO? Anyone getting 5.1 on anything?

Pam, even if you don't have your speakers hooked up, do you have your receiver hooked up? My Pioneer 45TX is on auto-detect and gets nothing but the analog signal. Minority Report in HD Saturday night and Attack of the Clones last Saturday were still analog. I would have thought they would be in DD if anything ever would.

I love the great picture, but it's wasted without the killer sound.

jacksonian,

No, my receiver isn't hooked up yet. If I get the chance between finishing the trim and painting tonight, I'll hook it up to see if it reads 5.1. Hopefully I can give you a report in a day or so.

pam

This is unconfirmed so don't hold me to this, but I have heard from a reliable source that WXLV will be going to 720p HD in time for Monday Night Football.

Looks like we may get some ABC HD after all!

Pam--Thanks! I guess we don't have many other fellow TWC'ers around these parts on the forum.

foxeng--Won't hold you to it, but that would be very sweet!

Now if TWC can just pick up Discovery like Raleigh and Charlotte, and then jump in with ESPNHD, I'd be all set.

Did you say - Discovery and ESPN HD????

I'll email TWC today!

Pam
PS Faux finished the trim in the HT til 11:30 last night. Hopefully I'll hook the receiver up tonight.

After getting my HDTV set on July 5th, I'm ready to make the plunge into getting an OTA antenna. I've currently got D*. I've seen comments about Channel Master having good gear, and someone posted a nice message about Bill Davis Antenna and how his handiwork made it through the ice storm.

So, I've got just a few questions: Anyone got a number for Bill Davis Antenna? And where can I purchase Channel Master equipment in Winston? Since some of the channels have towers to the north, and some to the south, is it necessary to have a rotor to swivel a CM 4228 in order to pick them all up? Or is a stationary 4228 with a pre-amp powerful enough?

I tried to read all 19 pages of this thread (!!!!) this afternoon, so I apologize if these questions have been answered, but I didn't think I saw them.

That's good news about WXLV, foxeng. I hope the rumor turns out to be true. (However, I'm still mad at them, so I'll probably continue to watch WSOC out of Charlotte whenever I can. After my initial bragging about being able to receive WSOC, I've since ocasionally had trouble receiving their signal. But, when it comes in, it's sweet - complete with Dolby5.1!)

I notice WXLV's website now says, "Eventually we will also broadcast our signal in HDTV, which stands for High-definition Digital Television- a standard with even higher-quality imaging and sound, as well as a widescreen format"

Originally posted by ShackShock
So, I've got just a few questions: Anyone got a number for Bill Davis Antenna? And where can I purchase Channel Master equipment in Winston? Since some of the channels have towers to the north, and some to the south, is it necessary to have a rotor to swivel a CM 4228 in order to pick them all up? Or is a stationary 4228 with a pre-amp powerful enough?

I don't know about Bill Davis, but several people here at the station have used Roger Goodwin at Audio Video Installations-292-4231. I have personally never used him, but I haven't heard anyone say anything bad about him. I don't know of a place in Winston-Salem, but Dow Electronics in Greensboro handles CM, that is where I bought my 4228, and yes you will need a rotator for you 4228 since 12 and 26 are on Sauratown Mt and the rest are south of Greensboro between Level Cross and Randleman.

My emails to WXLV have always gone unanswered. I posted the response I got from TWC Greensboro about the upcoming channels. I'm hoping that Raleigh and Charlotte being online with Discovery will bode well for us. Curiously, TWC seemed much more firm about the INDEMAND HD channels. But they'll have to get this DD 5.1 issue worked out before I pay for analog sound.

ShackShock, not to be an antenna-hater, but with TWC offering the locals, HBO, SHO, and soon hopefully Discovery, In-Demand, and maybe ESPN and giving you the HD box for free, why go with a big bulky antenna setup? Just curious. I'm not a cable lover, but they do seem to be offering one of the sweetest HD deals around when you consider what satellite customers are paying for equipment and programming packages.

Originally posted by MrPhred
That's good news about WXLV, foxeng. I hope the rumor turns out to be true.

I can't divulge sources, but this one would know. It was not anyone connected with WXLV but if this source says so, I believe them.

jacksonian,

i just emailed TWC about the 5.1 situation and about adding the DiscoveryHD and ESPN HD. I'll report back when I hear from them.

Pam

Originally posted by jacksonian
ShackShock, not to be an antenna-hater, but with TWC offering the locals, HBO, SHO, and soon hopefully Discovery, In-Demand, and maybe ESPN and giving you the HD box for free, why go with a big bulky antenna setup?

I haven't had cable in 5 years and I pay less for TV now than I did before and I get all the HD that D* is offering and the locals, plus the Charlotte DT's and the Raleigh DT's and the Roanoke, VA DT's. That is more than cable gives you. I don't mind an antenna on the roof. As a matter of fact I just ordered a high powered VHF only antenna to add to my 4228 for VHF DXing. I got hooked again after not having an OTA for 30 years. It is nice being able to see stations in other markets when the locals preempt or time shift.

To each his own. YMMV.

(I know, I am a first class GEEK!);)

Welcome, ShackShock.

The number for Bill Davis Antenna is (336) 288-6585. Tell him "Fred the Hippie" sent you. He supplied me with the first set of Channel Master gear I purchased. I believe he gets his gear through Dow Electronics, a distributor in Greensboro, who, when I last checked, refused to sell Channel Master equipment to the public.

I found it impossible to find Channel Master equipment anywhere in the Triad, other than going through Davis. The last time I purchased Channel Master equipment (about a month ago), I did so over the Internet, from www.warrenelectronics.com. I was quite pleased with their prices and service. You might also check some of this forum's sponsers.

I'm afraid there's no way you can skip buying a rotor. I've found it's a necessity. I couldn't get by without a pre-amp, either.

I'm pleased with my set-up. It includes a Channel Master 4228 antenna (the highest gain, non-commercial, UHF antenna they make), a 7777 pre-amp (although a 7775 would work fine if you're not going to going to attempt to pull in any VHF stations), and a 9521A rotor.

Good luck. I hope you pull in a ton of stations!

Originally posted by foxeng


(I know, I am a first class GEEK!);)

Aren't we all????:p

pam

Originally posted by PamW
jacksonian,

i just emailed TWC about the 5.1 situation and about adding the DiscoveryHD and ESPN HD. I'll report back when I hear from them.

Pam

I hope I am wrong, but I was talking to the TWC guys today and they didn't seem too sure when Discovery HD or ESPN HD would happen. I would take that as not in the near future, but with Raleigh and Charlotte having Discovery HD, it would seem logical that the Triad would have it too, but I do know each district is run differently than the other districts.

One quick question about the rotor. With the 9521 rotor, it says you can program in each channel. So, does that mean if I need to move the rotor, I have to have line of sight with the 9521's remote in order to rotate it?

Also, I know there is no such thing as "standard" installation, but about how much does Bill Davis charge? I'm hoping to put the antenna on my firestack and then run it down into the basement where my TV is.

ShackShock, there are three pieces to the 9521 - the rotator motor (which mounts outside on your mast), a controller (about the size of a pack of cigarettes, that goes inside your house), and an IR remote control (which you point at the controller). Since the remote control transmits commands to the controller using IR, it must be line-of-sight. My controller receives signals from the remote just fine from 40 feet away.

I can't recall exactly what Davis charged me. He gave me a package price - mast mounted on the chimney, antenna, pre-amp, rotor, mast, all wiring, labor - everything. I do recall that I thought his price was reasonable.

foxeng, thanks for the tips. The fact that we are here dictates that we are all geeks as Pam says. I would love to get WRAL in Raleigh too. I figured that would be the reason you had an antenna. I can't do one in my neighborhood, I'm the homeowner's association president and I'd have to make myself take it down. :)

Pam, thanks for sending the email. Maybe if we make some noise at least someone will know we want it. I think they'll catch on sooner or later. Maybe a Christmas present?

jacksonian,

My email got forwarded to the engineering and marketing groups of TWC. Hopefully I'll have an answer soon. Now I need to go work on my HT! (More pouncing of copper , then silver - faux finish - it ain't for the faint of heart!)

Pam

Originally posted by jacksonian
foxeng, thanks for the tips. The fact that we are here dictates that we are all geeks as Pam says. I would love to get WRAL in Raleigh too. I figured that would be the reason you had an antenna. I can't do one in my neighborhood, I'm the homeowner's association president and I'd have to make myself take it down. :)

Have you read http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/otard.html? That is the federal ruling overriding HOA to allow OTA and dishs, as long as you follow the rules outlined in this. You may have an "out!"

Oh, that would look real bad. I think I'll stick with TWC until they screw up. That's good info, though. I don't think my wife would go for it either :) Hell, I had to make sure not a single speaker, component, or wire was visible for my theater. I'm lucky I get the big screen!

I've made a call to Bill Davis antenna on Tuesday, but haven't heard back. I'm going to try again tomorrow during normal business hours (left a message the other night), but in the meantime, does anyone else have a good experience with a company that they'd like to share? Likewise, anyone have info on a bad antenna installer that I maybe should stay away from?

I've also got to call my homeowners' association and see how big of a pain they're going to be. I put up my dish without asking, and no one said anything. I've armed myself with the FCC regs that someone posted on here (thanks!), but don't know how anal retentive this crew will be, since I've only lived here for about 10 months.

Originally posted by ShackShock
I've made a call to Bill Davis antenna on Tuesday, but haven't heard back. I'm going to try again tomorrow during normal business hours (left a message the other night), but in the meantime, does anyone else have a good experience with a company that they'd like to share? Likewise, anyone have info on a bad antenna installer that I maybe should stay away from?

Several people here at the station have used Roger Goodwin at Audio Video Installations-292-4231. I have personally never used him, but I haven't heard anyone say anything bad about him.

I've also got to call my homeowners' association and see how big of a pain they're going to be. I put up my dish without asking, and no one said anything. I've armed myself with the FCC regs that someone posted on here (thanks!), but don't know how anal retentive this crew will be, since I've only lived here for about 10 months.

Just remember, you have Federal law on your side so what ever the HOA says, as long as you stick to the rules as outlined in the OTARD, the HOA has no case and if they go after you, you will have legal recourse, something I am sure the HOA lawyers will want to avoid, particularly if you are in the right.

Flash the FCC regs and a little self-deprecating charm, and they roll over. The architectural chair of the homeowners' board said it wouldn't be a problem. So, now it's just a matter of time. May have to call this other guy, as Bill Davis hasn't called me back yet.

Anyone have any other installation recommendations or stories that you'd like to share?

Time to start searching for some Channel Master stuff. Anyone have experience with their reception in the Peacehaven and 421 area of Winston?

Originally posted by ShackShock
Flash the FCC regs and a little self-deprecating charm, and they roll over. The architectural chair of the homeowners' board said it wouldn't be a problem. So, now it's just a matter of time.

When the Feds are on your side, it is hard to argue. I bet the HOA has seen the OTARD before, but they would rather NOT advertise it or EVREYONE would have one! ;)


Anyone have experience with their reception in the Peacehaven and 421 area of Winston?

With an outside antenna you should get all the locals, as well as Charlotte and Roanoke.

I got calls back from Roger Goodwin this morning, as well as Bill Davis. Looks like Mr. Goodwin will get the business b/c Bill Davis doesn't want to drive "way out" to Winston. Said something about HD antennas being finicky and that he sometimes has to make several trips back out to adjust them. Wait a minute, doesn't he get paid to come back out and make adjustments? So, he's basically turning down work? I hope he's busy with enough work in G'boro.

Also, spoke to my salesman at Now Audio Video, where Roger Goodwin worked before going solo. Says he does real good work and is a good guy. That makes me feel a lot better, especially since no one on here seems to have had previous experience with him.

Now, it's time to start looking to actually buy the equipment, as it sounds like Dow Electronics has everything on back order. Warren Electronics on the Internet seems to have the best prices. Anyone have any experience ordering from them?

...can anyone check to see if WGPX-DT 14-1 or 16-1 is on the air? I've got a stabilized carrier offset (around 2.5 KHz) on 14 and that's all it can be. They'd most likely be on the air from 12:30p-12:30a or something similar, if WPXR-DT is any indication.

Thanks!

- Trip
In Charlotte Co., VA

Originally posted by Trip in VA
...can anyone check to see if WGPX-DT 14-1 or 16-1 is on the air? I've got a stabilized carrier offset (around 2.5 KHz) on 14 and that's all it can be. They'd most likely be on the air from 12:30p-12:30a or something similar, if WPXR-DT is any indication.

Thanks!

- Trip
In Charlotte Co., VA

Last time I heard, it was going to be a while before they came on. (no money) They have an extension pending at the FCC till Dec 31 of this year. Their current one expires next month if I remember correctly. I'll check to see if there is s signal on there tonight when I go into work and look at a spectrum analyzer.

There is an LPTV (WXIV) on 14 within 5 miles of WGPX's tower that is on the air (that will be off when they do come on) and that might be the signal you are seeing and the center carrier of that would about 2.5 Mhz above the channel edge.

Originally posted by foxeng
Last time I heard, it was going to be a while before they came on. (no money) They have an extension pending at the FCC till Dec 31 of this year. Their current one expires next month if I remember correctly. I'll check to see if there is s signal on there tonight when I go into work and look at a spectrum analyzer.

There is an LPTV (WXIV) on 14 within 5 miles of WGPX's tower that is on the air (that will be off when they do come on) and that might be the signal you are seeing and the center carrier of that would about 2.5 Mhz above the channel edge.

If it was them, the carrier would be at 158.75 or 160 KHz, not 2.5. I got that carrier again this morning, but when I turned the antenna toward Greensboro, I LOST the carrier. Hmm... (WLFB-DT?)

On another note, is there anyone else who still has problems with WUPN-DT? I've only gotten 3 Greensboro channels before--WFMY had about a 20 (SNR), WXII about a 17, and I've had up to a 19 on WUPN, but it won't give any multicast options--it acts like there's nothing there at all, and when I called I was told it wasn't at their end, but they'd check on it. It STILL didn't work when I got it this morning!

Thanks.

- Trip

Originally posted by Trip in VA
On another note, is there anyone else who still has problems with WUPN-DT? I've only gotten 3 Greensboro channels before--WFMY had about a 20 (SNR), WXII about a 17, and I've had up to a 19 on WUPN, but it won't give any multicast options--it acts like there's nothing there at all, and when I called I was told it wasn't at their end, but they'd check on it. It STILL didn't work when I got it this morning!

WUPN-DT has two streams up all the time, one is a 480i and one is a 1080i stream. Only the 480i stream which is listed as 48-1 on receivers but is really the second stream, has any programming on it. The HD stream has either color bars that are generated inside the encoder or nothing. The PSIP data on the HD stream is not complete and therefore doesn't display a picture correctly.

All Triad stations operate below their maximum power levels except WUNL-DT and WUPN-DT. WUNL-DT is operating at around 500,000 and WUPN-DT is at around 700,000. WFMY-DT, WXII-DT and WXLV-DT operate at half power at around 500,000 each and the remaining stations operate at flea power in the 4 to 9 kilowatt range. WUPN-DT, WXLV-DT and WUNL-DT operate with a directional pattern and the flea power stations all have directional patterns no matter what their full power patterns are and WGPX has asked for lower power with a directional pattern.

WXII-DT and WUNL-DT operate from north of Winston-Salem on Sauratown Mt while all the other stations operate from 3 different towers clustered within 5 miles of each other just off US 220 north between Level Cross and Randleman between Greensboro and Asheboro.

Trip in VA,

WGPX-DT IS NOT on the air. I am looking at the channel with a spectrum analyzer and all I am seeing is WXIV-LP's analog signature. It is now 8:22pm which is prime time when all DT's that are on are required to be on and all the DT's in this market are on except WGPX-DT.

Don't know who or what you are seeing, but it ain't from here.

Any word on our local ABC affiliate (channel 45, whatever its letters are), moving to HD. I thought they already were, but guess not.

This is for Jacksonian and any other TWC folks out there-

I did hook up the receiver yesterday and found HBO HD in 5.1 surround. No other stations in 5.1. Got the sound calibrated - nice!!

I still haven't heard from TWC on the other issues as far as HD stations being added - i.e., Discovery HD or ESPN HD.

I'll ask again in a few weeks.

Pam

Originally posted by ShackShock
Any word on our local ABC affiliate (channel 45, whatever its letters are), moving to HD. I thought they already were, but guess not.

The rumor is that they will 720p by the fall. No hard date yet. But they have been a little busy with the 45 analog transmitter. It got hit by lightning last weekend and literally melted down. Something happened to the interlocks and instead of the transmitter shutting down, it burned itself up. So they have been working on getting it back to normal.

Originally posted by PamW
This is for Jacksonian and any other TWC folks out there-

I did hook up the receiver yesterday and found HBO HD in 5.1 surround. No other stations in 5.1. Got the sound calibrated - nice!!

Pam

Thanks, Pam. Crap, I guess I have to get back there and double check my connections to make sure I didn't knock my digital connection loose and if not, I guess I need a new box from TWC. Pam, dare you getting 5.1 regularly? And it is the HD channel, right?

Regularly?
LOL! You have to realize I haven't had my receiver hooked up for over 8 months. Just got it together last night. I'll keep checking and if I find any irregularities, I'll let you know. It is HBO HD E and W. All others are giving me 2 channel right now. Just hooked the computer up in the theater, too. I'll be programming the remote over the weekend (MX 700). As far as boxes, I have the 3100 and they told me the only "upgrade" is the DVR version. $4.95/month. Add HBO I control for another $4.95. I don't think that one is in HD tho...

Let me know how things work out - I hope it's just a loose connection!

Pam

No, I knew there was no upgrade box yet, I just meant a replacement. Because I know I had 5.1 for the grammy's but it's been a long time. Tell me how you like the MX700. I have the MX500, and I've replaced all my remotes except for my Pioneer Elite 45TX remote, which I'm sure I could do if I just spent some time doing it. But I haven't been dedicated enough to go for macros yet. I don't have discrete codes for my projector, so that throws things off.

Good News!

Pam, thanks so much for checking. As usual, it was operator error (ME!). Somehow the digital input on the Pioneer had gotten changed, I remember having a power outage one day and I'm wondering if the Pioneer reset itself to the defaults. So all I had to do was go back into the menu and change the input assignment. Really appreciate your help. I guess I should have been smart enough to check it, but I just assumed that it wouldn't have changed. No more assuming with electronics.

jacksonian,

You are welcome. Glad to be of help. I just finished a bit of baking and I'll be spending the rest of this glorious day in the theater programming the MX700. I'll let you know how it turns out. I may have to break away and go swimming this afternoon, though!

pam :D

PamW,

Last night I found that Discovery HD had been added on channel 550 on TWC.

This morning, I was watching a documentary showing a large leopard stalking its prey somewhere on the Serengeti plains.

Our house cat was fascinated by the HD image and watched the screen intensely from the middle of the theater floor. When the leopard crouched down to move closer to its prey, it looked so real that our cat crouched down in a defensive posture.

It was hard to keep from laughing. In any case, it is a change from the PBS demo channel... and apparently... a new cat toy.

Joe L.

That's great news about the Discovery Channel, but I'll never understand why we have to stumble on these things--why TWC Greensboro doesn't publicize these things...:rolleyes:

J.L.,

Thank you for the info! I know what we'll watch tonight. I wonder how my dog will react...

era,

I agree with you. I hate the fact that we have to "discover" (no pun intended) the new stations on TWC.

Pam

Agghh! I've emailed TWC 3 times in the past month asking about Discovery and each time they replied with "there are no plans at this time." And they even asked me if I'd like to be on a mailing list for any new developments and I said, "ABSOLUTELY!"

So frustrating. Did you just find it by scrolling through the channel banners?

I just sent the following email to DK McLaughlin at TWC - It's pretty female, but hey - it's what I am. ;)

Pam


We noticed this morning that Discovery HD has appeared on channel 550. Thank you! But my friends and I with TWCHD have some questions - Why is it no one at TWC knew this channel was going to pop up? We have asked the customer service folks several times about this and no one knew anything. Same thing happened when the locals went digital/HD a few months ago. We had to discover it by channel surfing.

Who is in charge of notifying (read - advertising) these wonderfiul new channels? Obviously the word isn't getting out. If my friends hadn't told me today, I probably woudn't have found out for quite some time (favorite channels set on the remote). What a shame it would have been, too. My husband and I are putting the finishing touches on our very own dedicated Home Cinema room. We'll be doing a lot of entertaining in there and really love showing off the TWC HD channels. Discovery HD (from what I've read) is a doozy! Could you imagine NOT showing that channel off ! Please let the people in charge of advertising that they aren't letting the good people of Greensboro in on their best kept secret. Digital is good, but High Definition is incredible!

Thank you for your time.

Dear Greensboro and Triad area DTV viewers;
Please be advised that UNC-TV will begin HD broadcasting regular programs on August 3rd 2003 Instaed of the PBS Loop. Also for over the air viewers we will have HD broadcasting every evening from 8PM to 11PM. The first show will be an original UNC-TV HD production "Carolina Preserves". I think you will enjoy the excellent HD video quality. For viewers with an antenna, 3 of the SD channels -3, -4, and -5will go away when we come on with HD. On TW digital cable the SD channels will be simultaneous with the HD programming as it is now.
Thanks for watching UNC-TV Digital !
Wayne Estabrooks, Chief Engineer - UNC-TV

Thank you Wayne!!!

This IS exciting!

Pam :D

BTW, Is the Carolina Preserves show the about the paintings of Bill Mangum?

Pam,
Thanks for writing to TWC, I did the same today and asked them to start an email list of us folks if they didn't already have one. Heck, I'll advertise it for them!

Good news about the PBS stuff.

Now, come through with ABC and ESPN for football season and I am set!

jacksonian,

You nailed it... I was just surfing through the channel guide last night and noticed the new HD channel. (No... I don't have the entire lineup memorized)

I was just looking for something good to fall asleep to. Isn't it amazing... over 500 channels of late night commercials.

Joe L.
I did not look for HD-ESPN.... perhaps I should... ya never can tell...(apparently TWC can't/won't tell either)

I surfed them tonight and didn't see anything new, but I guess I'll have to make it a habit to check. You guys will be the first to know if I find anything.

Here's the reply I received from TWC:

"The Discovery HD Theater channel will not be officially released until August 1st. If you are able to view anything at this time, it is not guaranteed until the release date. Announcements are normally printed with your cable statement. We hope that you enjoy Discovery HD and want to be able to offer you more high definition channels in the future. Please let me know if you need further assistance. Have a nice day."

Oh my goodness, it's not guaranteed until tomorrow! What if it goes out tonight? :) Those tiny little sentences printed on the bill are probably the absolute worst way of announcing anything in my opinion. How hard is it to update a web page? Isn't that instantaneous quality of the web what we all love so much? Especially if you have RoadRunner? Oh well, I guess that would make too much sense.

All I had time to catch last night was "Sacred Monuments of Asia" which was fairly boring and not the greatest HD, couldn't stay up to watch Insectia.

Originally posted by jacksonian
All I had time to catch last night was "Sacred Monuments of Asia" which was fairly boring and not the greatest HD, couldn't stay up to watch Insectia.

When it is "guaranteed" catch Aurora. It is awesome!

My response from TWC:

"Like any new product, we test them before we officially launch them. That is the case of Discovery HD. We are officially launching on Friday and there will be the appropriate marketing effort accompanying that launch. Thanks for you interest.

D.K. McLaughlin
Vice President
Governmental/Public Affairs
Time Warner Cable"


Pam

Pam,
Thanks for your nice comments.
Yes, the Carolina Preserves show is the one with the William Mangum paintings. I have the book and the DVD that we did related to this. We did this production with only 1 HD camera. You may have seen the Standard Def version.
I agree with your post that TW and UNC-TV are missing the boat by not promoting these wonderful channels. I look forward to comments from anyone on the DTV channels. Thanks
Wayne Estabrooks Chief Engineer - westabrooks@unctv.org

I did get an email today (official launch day) announcing Discovery HD. Maybe they're catching on.

I did get an email message from TWC a couple of days after Discovery was up and running. (I had agreed that I'd like to be on their emailing list for new HDTV developments.) So, that's good. Probably, they were in the "testing" phase until now and didn't want to make it public just yet. I hope they can get Mark Cuban's HDTV offerings soon...:p

I tuned in a 8 tonight to watch the first official (non-demo) broadcast on TWC of the PBS channel (501).

Imagine my chagrin. There, in the upper left corner was their stupid logo UNC TV. Some vugarians in the programming or marketing department must have decided that we need the burn-in problems and the ugliness of the logo bug.

I didn't have the heart to watch any more of the show. It's too depressing when clods have enough power to spray their little logo, their little graffiti, onto an otherwise beautiful picture.

Don't support PBS until they stop defacing their picture. I refused last year and this year to send them any money.:mad:

era,

Just email Wayne Estabrook (see address above) with your complaint. I'll also mention it to him.

BTW, I just saw Trading Spaces on Discovery HD - way cool!

Pam

Originally posted by era
I tuned in a 8 tonight to watch the first official (non-demo) broadcast on TWC of the PBS channel (501).

Imagine my chagrin. There, in the upper left corner was their stupid logo UNC TV. Some vugarians in the programming or marketing department must have decided that we need the burn-in problems and the ugliness of the logo bug.

I didn't have the heart to watch any more of the show. It's too depressing when clods have enough power to spray their little logo, their little graffiti, onto an otherwise beautiful picture.

Don't support PBS until they stop defacing their picture. I refused last year and this year to send them any money.:mad:

The HD was on the second channel (502?) It was on 26-2 and it looked stunning!

HD was on 501 - It WAS stunning, but I think era has a point about the "loud" logo bug. I already emailed Wayne to see if he could pull some strings.

Pam

Originally posted by PamW
HD was on 501 - It WAS stunning, but I think era has a point about the "loud" logo bug. I already emailed Wayne to see if he could pull some strings.

Pam

It is in the upper right coner now and it is MUCH smaller than the one they used at the start.

Cool -

My family is firmly entrenched into "X-Men" right now, so I cannot recheck it. I did hear from Wayne and he's going to pass along the logo bug info to the proper folks.

Pam

Anyone get Monday Night Football in HD tonight? I just got hooked up to Greensboro's TWC HD and am disappointed MNF is not being broadcast in HD, at least I am not getting it.

Originally posted by catdaddy
Anyone get Monday Night Football in HD tonight? I just got hooked up to Greensboro's TWC HD and am disappointed MNF is not being broadcast in HD, at least I am not getting it.

WXLV is not transmitting HD at this time. They are rumored to be going HD shortly due to MNF.

Yep, I've still got my fingers crossed for XLV to come through. I'd love to watch some football this season!

foxeng,
the past few nights I've tried to watch the FOX digital channel, the video and audio keep dropping out. The picture looks great, but every 5 seconds or so it goes black and then comes back. Were you aware of this?

Originally posted by jacksonian
foxeng,
the past few nights I've tried to watch the FOX digital channel, the video and audio keep dropping out. The picture looks great, but every 5 seconds or so it goes black and then comes back. Were you aware of this?

I have not seen this. I catch the news at 6 and 10 on the digital channel. I see it OTA and not through cable. If you are on cable and you still see it, then you might call TWC. If you are OTA, the only thing I can think of is with all the storms we have been having, lightning will cause the picture and sound to either pixelate or drop out for a second. This happens to us since we are running such low power. When we eventually increase power, that problem will go away.

I just watched the 90120 special for 5 minutes before I responded here and the picture and sound were solid the whole time. Let me know if still continues.

foxeng,
I'm trying to watch the preseason 49ers Raiders game and the audio is all jacked up. It's 10x louder than any other station, digital or analog, and it's got feedback or some type of talking in a tin can quality to it. PQ looks very good except for when they use the little camera on the string hanging over the huddle. Any ideas what happened to the audio?

Originally posted by jacksonian
foxeng,
I'm trying to watch the preseason 49ers Raiders game and the audio is all jacked up. It's 10x louder than any other station, digital or analog, and it's got feedback or some type of talking in a tin can quality to it. PQ looks very good except for when they use the little camera on the string hanging over the huddle. Any ideas what happened to the audio?

That is the way it is coming to us from FOX.

Thanks foxeng, that thought occurred to me, but I didn't have any way to tell.

Originally posted by jacksonian
Thanks foxeng, that thought occurred to me, but I didn't have any way to tell.

We have no way to adjust the network audio level on the DTV side. The network digital signal is fed directly into the encoder, so whatever they send us, that is what you see and hear.

I was surprised to see the game in wide screen. I would have bet money that it would have been 4:3. Guess that was one benefit for having FOX based in LA and not NYC last night like ABC, CBS and NBC are. I hear that CBS offered no HD programming last night, only SD because of the blackout.

I know that FOX News Channel lost their NYC uplink and is sending a signal out through a sat truck to LA to be sent out. We have been watching the backhaul signal to LA all day and it looks much better than what is being uplinked out of LA.

My Fox audio is still all whacked out. Very loud and very poor quality. Is anyone else having this problem? Maybe Pam since you have TWC also?

I'll check this evening and let you know!

Pam

Have any of you guys seen UNC-HD (26-2 or 4-2) over the past couple weeks? All I can say is WOW! I've been watching HDTV for a long while, but never have I seen such incredibly stunning video! UNC-HD is now my "show off the equipment" channel.

I'm also pleased to see that the screen is no longer littered with so many of those annoying (and potentially screen-burning) logo bugs. There's now only one translucent bug in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. But, on my TV (a Pioneer Elite PRO-520HD), it looks like it's shoved too far over to the right, into the overscan area. It's so far over that the "D" in "UNC-HD" isn't visable. Is that how it looks on your screen?

On our plasma display, the Logo is fully visible. It is also fully visible on my Panasonic 34" Direct View display. However on our 64 inch Pioneer Elite, the logo is partly off the edge of the screen. I have seen this over-scan on several rear projection sets. Thanks for your nice comments on the UNC- HD programs. I did notice some lip sync problems from time to time on my receiver.

Anyone else with TWC having trouble with their digital Fox audio? It's the only channel that's messed up. I guess it must be a Fox + TWC issue since none of you OTA guys have mentioned it.

Originally posted by jacksonian
Anyone else with TWC having trouble with their digital Fox audio? It's the only channel that's messed up. I guess it must be a Fox + TWC issue since none of you OTA guys have mentioned it.

I talked to TWC today and they checked and said they didn't see anything wrong. They suggest you go into the config menu and go under the audio section and you should see a variable and fixed setting. Whatever it is set for, change it to the other one and see what happens.

Thanks foxeng. I'll try that out. I guess it was just curious to me since all the other digital channels audio was fine, it's only Fox that's giving me trouble. That made me think it wasn't my box or the settings, but I'll see what I can figure out. Appreciate you checking for me.

jacksonian,

OOPS!!! Sorry :o - I was supposed to check that out for you. My apologies - I'll check it now -

I sat with it for several minutes - even changing the channels and I had no trouble at all.

Again, I apologize for not getting back to you jacksonian - that was the first day of school and I completely forgot.

Pam

Originally posted by jacksonian
Thanks foxeng. I'll try that out. I guess it was just curious to me since all the other digital channels audio was fine, it's only Fox that's giving me trouble. That made me think it wasn't my box or the settings, but I'll see what I can figure out. Appreciate you checking for me.

Wish I could be of more help, but I don't have TWC, just DirecTV. Haven't had TWC in 6 years. Not much help am I.

Our audio is a tat bit hotter than everyone else's, (not that there is a standard anymore) but it isn't distorted OTA and the guy at TWC was listening to it over a SA3100 and said it sounded fine. This guy is cables equivalent of my job, Transmitter Supervisor so it doesn't get much better than that. (no CSR for me! I have ALL the secret phone numbers - well 2 of them!)

Good Luck.

Pam,

Did you know you had exceeded you monthly bandwidth on Mindspring? I wanted to check out your setup and couldn't. Well maybe in September.

Yep,

Sorry about that - but I do have pics in the gallery here, too! Just not all of them. Take a peek!

PamW, you've just gone and made me jealous! Nice set up! I'd love to know how you managed to box that Pioneer Elite so nicely. It really looks great.

I do have a complaint, though. Those Berkline 090's would put me into a slack-jawed, drooling coma long before I could finish my popcorn :o

Great gallery!

MrPhred,

It's just a frame around the Elite. I'll attach some pics for you.

Here you go! Both pics are from backstage so you can see how it looks. I'll add a third of the frame (before the GOM) around the front of the Elite.

And one more...

Last one.

FYI..... here is the response I received today from WXLV concerning my question of when MNF would start being broadcast in HD.

"We will have the LOCAL equipment in place to broadcast HD in September.
Unfortunately there is no timetable for ABC to supply us with an HD signal.
The FCC's mandate for HDTV only applies to TV stations, not the networks.
The networks have no incentive to supply HD signals to their affiliates."

Doesnt sound like he is even aware that ABC is already broadcasting MNF in HD.

Maybe foxeng can make some sense out of that, because it sounds ridiculous to me. Aren't the networks supplying ALL of their affiliates with an HD signal when they have one?

BTW, WXLV never even answered any of my emails.

Here is his follow up response to my question asking him if that means since ABC is already broadcasting MNF in HD that they will start showing it in HD locally in Sept.

"No, I guess I didn't make myself clear. We have the equipment to broadcast
HD at our transmitter site and the HD equipment at our studio is installed
and scheduled to go on line September 23. What we do not have are the HD
receivers from ABC that are required to broadcast ABC's signal in HD. ABC
has said that they will supply us (and all their affiliates) with HD receive
equipment - - - they have not given us a date. ABC's original plans were to
roll out the HD equipment by last years Super Bowl - - - a date they
obviously missed!

HD receive equipment is proprietary, and we can not just purchase it "Off
the shelf," it has to be supplied by ABC. There is no timetable for ABC to
supply its affialtes with the HD equipment. I am sure it will be soon - - -
maybe by the first of next year - - - as ABC has invested a lot in its HD
broadcast of Monday Night Football."

Originally posted by catdaddy
There is no timetable for ABC to
supply its affialtes with the HD equipment. I am sure it will be soon - - -
maybe by the first of next year - - - as ABC has invested a lot in its HD
broadcast of Monday Night Football."


HHHMMM. OK!?!?

Some networks supply the equipment and some don't. My guess would be that ABC would and would get it to the affiliate post haste if they asked for it, but we haven't been connected with ABC for 8 years now and things do change.

I have an email in to my resident off site ABC guru and when I find out what all this is, I will let you know.

FOX has provided us with the receive equipment for widescreen so I am thinking if we need anything else for receiving HD next year, we would get it from FOX network.

Catdaddy, I'm amazed you managed to get a response out of WXLV. They've ignored every single question I've ever sent them. They made me feel like they didn't give a crap if I watched their station or not. Maybe they're finally improving.

I have the perfect solution for watching ABC Monday Night Football in HDTV - strap an antenna to your roof and point it south toward WSOC in Charlotte. They've certainly got all the necessary equipment, and even provide Dolby for many of their ABC programs. (MNF is only in stereo.)

I haven't tuned into WXLV a single time since I got things set up to watch WSOC.

I'm another member of the "I never received a response from WXLV" club. Catdaddy, how did you do it?

pam

OK.

I heard back from my source and they say that ABC requires stations to purchase $50,000 worth of receive equipment to receive the ABC HD signal.

Supposedly you can buy cheaper off the shelf equipment, but ABC will not support it and they really don't like stations not buying "official equipment."

So you still don't know which end is the hold up, but that does shed some light on the subject.

I'm not sure why they responded to my note. I just went to their website and used their "feedback" page. They responded in less than 24 hours and then they responded to my follow up email within an hour.

Hey, guys - hope you don't mind a triangle resident crashing the party. Can someone give me a list of HD capable channels in Greensboro?

I've got a channel master on my roof that is picking up some Greenboro stations (even though it's not oriented that way) and I'm curious as to what I might be able to get.

Thanks.

Originally posted by deArgila
Can someone give me a list of HD capable channels in Greensboro?


14 WGPX-DT (PAX) (analog 16) - Not on the air yet

19 WTWB-DT (WB) (analog 20) - No HD yet. Low power with antenna pointed W/NW

29 WXLV-DT (ABC) (analog 45) - No HD yet.

31 WXII-DT (NBC) (analog 12) - HD during prime time. Only on from 12 noon to 12:35 AM.

32 WUNL-DT (PBS) (analog 26) - HD channel -2 is only on from 8pm to 11 pm

33 WUPN-DT (UPN) (analog 48) - No HD yet. Their PSIP isn't correct so you may see signal but no picture

35 WGHP-DT (FOX) (analog 8) - FOX Widescreen. Low power with antenna pointed north with wide pattern from west to east

43 WLXI-DT (Rel) (analog 61) - No HD. Lower power with normal antenna

51 - WFMY-DT (CBS) (analog 2) - HD during prime time only and the only CBS HD soap opera. Only on from 12 noon to 12:35AM

Anyone been watching the INHD previews on Channel 551?

not yet, but I'll go check it out right now

Scheduled to begin 15 Sept., Ch. 501 is variously listed as "USAHD" or "INHD"... If it turns out to be INHD, here's their Web site so you can read about their offerings.

http://www.inhd.com/about.html

Currently they're showing promos, but they say there will be a "preview tonight" 7-11 PM (Sunday). They call themselves "the Hi-Def Experience."

The pictures look sharp and pretty. Let's hope they get rid of the bug.:confused:

Here is the INHD announcement (TWC Ch. 501):

NEW YORK, April 28, 2003 – iN DEMAND is preparing to launch as many as three high-definition television channels featuring a variety of movies, sports and general entertainment, the first of those to be named INHD and to be unveiled on September 1, 2003, announced Steve Brenner, president & chief executive officer.

While iN DEMAND’s core business will continue to exploit the traditional models currently being used for both pay-per-view and video-on demand, the model for the new HD channels will be 24/7, linear-programming, not PPV or VOD. However, both will share equally from advantageous economies of scale, making iN DEMAND uniquely positioned to supply additional sources for HD content to distributors as lower-priced digital televisions become more widely adopted.

“By exploiting our existing infrastructure, we were able to devise an expeditious solution for HDTV on behalf of our distribution partners,” said Rob Jacobson, executive vice president & chief operating officer. “Those economies of scale also provide a solution that is highly cost effective and bandwidth efficient. In the end, the big winner will be the customer, because we can deliver more HD value quicker than they would get otherwise.”

INHD will feature several hundred hours of movies, professional and college sports, and general interest programming that maximizes the HD experience. At launch, there will be 12 hours of unique programming daily that will be recycled twice a day. Following the launch of INHD in September, iN DEMAND plans to launch additional HD networks later in the year with more of a focus on movies and sports. INHD will have a separate and distinct brand strategy from iN DEMAND.

The content will be available in wide screen, high-resolution format and will also feature Dolby Digital 5.1 audio when available. While the audio is equivalent to most DVDs, the picture quality is superior. iN DEMAND is working with major digital file-server vendors and set-top manufacturers to deliver its HD content in the 1080i format.

“Adding new linear channels to our product line in some respects marks a major transformation of iN DEMAND from a business model focused narrowly on transactional content to one more broadly focused on both transactional and linear programming,” said Brenner. “With the aggressive rollout of VOD still underway, both models will continue to play significantly important roles and remain vitally important to the overall product mix and success of our affiliates.”

iN DEMAND’s foray into the HD space began earlier this year when it delivered a live HD broadcast of the 2003 NBA All Star Game, which was broadcast in standard definition on TNT.

iN DEMAND also became the nation’s first VOD provider to adopt the HD format commencing with My Big Fat Greek Wedding in April, and Friday After Next, About Schmidt, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Ring, and Catch Me If You Can scheduled for upcoming months.

According to a recent CTAM survey, digital cable subscribers have the highest unaided awareness of HDTV among multi-channel TV consumers at 79%. Ninety-two percent of adults who have seen HDTV or are broadband users have unaided awareness of the technology. HDTV’s picture quality, which is five times sharper than standard definition TV, is cited by 66 % of consumers as the most appealing attribute of HDTV.

Comcast Corp., the nation’s largest cable operator, is aggressively moving forward with plans to make HD programming readily available to customers, while a large percentage of Time Warner’s digital customers who are equipped with HD-ready set-tops also have access to HD content.

The launch of INHD becomes the latest milestone for iN DEMAND whose origin as the industry’s leading distributor of PPV and VOD began over a decade ago as Viewer’s Choice. Previous milestones were made when the company introduced the 35-channel PPV multiplex with 30-minute start times; sports packages from the NBA, NHL, MLB and NASCAR; VOD license agreements from Hollywood’s biggest studios, free-on-demand content and, more recently, HD movies on demand.

iN DEMAND delivers new releases and library titles for cable’s VOD platform from Hollywood’s top studios, including Artisan Entertainment, DreamWorks SKG, MGM, New Line Cinema, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. The output from these agreements give the company access to over 85 percent of the new films released by Hollywood, positioning iN DEMAND as the nation’s largest provider of major motion pictures in the VOD space.

In addition to recent releases and library titles, iN DEMAND delivers hundreds of hours of VOD content licensed from entertainment companies such as BBC AMERICA, Comedy Central, Court TV, ESPN, Fox News, and Sesame Workshop.

iN DEMAND, the world’s leading PPV and VOD provider, delivers television premieres of the best movies, championship boxing, mega-event wrestling, professional and college sports, plus original entertainment. iN DEMAND’s 60-channel digital lineup also offers MLB Extra Innings, NBA League Pass, WNBA Season Pass, NHL Center Ice, ESPN Full Court and NASCAR IN CAR on iN DEMAND. The company’s shareholders are Comcast iN DEMAND Holdings, Inc., Cox Communications, Inc. and Time Warner Entertainment – Advance/Newhouse Partnership. Further information about the company can be found on the Internet at www.indemand.com.

This afternoon on Ch. 550, the Discovery channel was showing the movie Christopher Columbus, but all the native women's tops were blurred. I've never seen this done. It was rather endearing, like the way that some countries used to take a felt pen and mark out parts of magazines that were "objectionable."

I think if Discovery wants to show a movie, it should just choose one that fits in with its demographic, rather than mangle more mature movies to make them "suitable.":eek:

era,

I haven't seen the "censorship", but I did see the previews of the INHD station over the weekend. Now it's gone! I hope all is up and running like they said by Sept. 15th. I was watching Andy Roddick beat up on some poor Spaniard at the US Open...

Such growth over one year! Now if TWC would only advertise that they have these channels!

Pam

Yes, the INHD testing was all too brief.

I too hope that INHD will appear 15 Sept. (Next Mon.). However, their use of a logo bug is quite annoying.[FONT=times new roman]:rolleyes:

Did anyone catch and see if WFMY had the SEC game on Saturday in HD? I saw WRAL did, but I forgot to check WFMY. I think WFMY forgot to switch, but I didn't check it to see.

I didn't see the announcement until it was Sunday so I missed it. Anyone happen to catch it?

Not me. Sorry!

I can't find any INHD channels either. I thought they were supposed to start yesterday.

INHD was sceduled to start yesterday (Mon. 15 Sept.) but it didn't appear on TWC. Who knows why? For some reason, they don't want to keep us abreast of their plans.

No news until after the fact. Discovery was up an running before they sent an email about it.

I hope they get it working and also that they lift the blackout on TWC HDTV news. Even if TWC has to announce changes of plans, it's better I think to let us know what those plans are rather than keeping us in the dark all the time. :confused:

I put in an email just a second ago to see if they can tell me the status of INHD. I'll let you know what I hear.

foxeng,
Do you have a contact over at WFMY/CBS? It was about a half hour into the NFL game on Sunday before they threw the switch on the HD. And the Georgia/LSU game is supposed to be in HD on Saturday, but the WFMY website is still showing it as SDTV. I'm going to try to call them and make sure they know it's in HD. I want to have some friends over to see what I keep preaching about, but I don't want to look like a moron when they don't throw the switch.

Originally posted by jacksonian
foxeng,
Do you have a contact over at WFMY/CBS? It was about a half hour into the NFL game on Sunday before they threw the switch on the HD. And the Georgia/LSU game is supposed to be in HD on Saturday, but the WFMY website is still showing it as SDTV. I'm going to try to call them and make sure they know it's in HD. I want to have some friends over to see what I keep preaching about, but I don't want to look like a moron when they don't throw the switch.

The only person I know well is Lee Wimbs in the Engineering department. He is a good guy. Give him a call. Tell him I said hi!

Got a nice response this am from WFMY:

"Thanks for e-mailing WFMY News2.

You are right, Georgia @ LSU will be in HDTV and I have corrected that on the website.

Last Sunday, CBS was having some HDTV problems with the New England @ Philadelphia game. Hopefully that won't happen this weekend.

Also this Sunday the 4:15pm game Cleveland @ San Francisco will be in HDTV.

David Briscoe
WFMY News2
Program Director"

Has anyone with OTA picked up WSET-DT 34, the ABC out of Lynchburg yet?

Originally posted by foxeng
Has anyone with OTA picked up WSET-DT 34, the ABC out of Lynchburg yet?

I'll say this: their signal, even though only 17.9 kW, it's an absolute POWERHOUSE. Strongest signal I've got over here.

So if you get some good tropo from this direction, give it a shot.

- Trip

I was talking to an engineer friend of mine today and we got on WXLV-DT and he was telling me they are working on revamping their master control room and HD will happen when that is completed. He didn't have a schedule of when that will happen, but they are in the middle of building it now.

Thanks for the info, foxeng!

Good info, foxeng. I've been holding my breath for WXLV to finally get some ABC HD out to us.

BTW, WGHP is looking & sounding great these days!

Originally posted by roland6465
Good info, foxeng. I've been holding my breath for WXLV to finally get some ABC HD out to us.

BTW, WGHP is looking & sounding great these days!

Don't tell anyone but I bumped up the res to 720p about 2 months ago to see what would happen and we have been upconverting 480 to 720 ever since and I have added a second subchannel that is just the analog signal converted to 4:3 480i. TWC is getting ready to have the stations send them their analog and digital signals via fiber optics instead of taking them off the air and we had to buy a second encoder for the analog signal (the digital is already in the proper format for them) to be able to send the analog to TWC. TWC hasn't dropped the fiber yet, so I connected the SD encoder as 8-2 on the DTV to be sure it would work so those with OTA setups, you will see 8-2. Those on cable will not have access to it.

I also hear that WXLV is working on their digital microwave now for HD so it must not bee too far away.

Yea!!!!

Thanks foxeng!

anyone here on W-S TWC? Their website soesn't list UPN48 or WTWB20 in their "HDTV lineup". Is this just old info, or is TWC only carrying the big four & PBS? Because as I recall, the "regular" channels on digital cable looked horrible.

haven't heard of TWC carrying the UPN or WB broadcasts yet. I don't even know if those locals are broadcasting in HD yet.

Originally posted by jacksonian
haven't heard of TWC carrying the UPN or WB broadcasts yet. I don't even know if those locals are broadcasting in HD yet.

I know UPN isn't--the network doesn't do HD yet and they're owned by Sinclair. Plus I can't tune them when I've got tons of signal on either of my tuners because of that PSIP problem they refuse to fix.

I don't know about WB.

- Trip

PS--Nobody's been able to tune WSET yet? I tuned WFMY and WXII and almost WLXI about two weeks ago.

Originally posted by jacksonian
haven't heard of TWC carrying the UPN or WB broadcasts yet. I don't even know if those locals are broadcasting in HD yet.

WTWB-DT WB20 nor WUPN-DT UPN48 are transmitting anything more than upconverting their SD signal. TWC only has WFMY-DT, WGHP-DT, WXII-DT, WXLV-DT and WUNL-DT on their systems in the Triad. Best I can tell, TWC has no timetable on when or if they will add the other stations.

The WB does have a few hours a week in HD, but WTWB-DT has no way to broadcast it and UPN does not transmit any HD at this time, even though several of their shows are shot in HD (such as Enterprise).

OK, I knew they weren't doing HD, but was at least hoping for upconverts in the digital realm of their lineup.

How do the low channels look these days on TWC?

Kind of icky - but tolerable. You get used to the digital/HD channels and all the others look like you-know-what.

Thank goodness for HBO HD and Discovery HD Theater . Still waiting for that other HD channel that showed up during the US Open.

I got this from WXLV this weekend.....Hope foxeng's guy has better info than this;

Sent: Monday, October 06, 2003 3:54 PM
Subject: RE: Feedback


> We have no plans to broadcast ABC in HD. Depending on your location, with
a
> directional antenna you may be able to pick up WTVD in Raleigh or WSOC in
> Charlotte. Both stations broadcast ABC in HD.
>
> The owner of WXLV is:
>
> Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc.
> 10706 Beaver Dam Road
> Hunt Valley, Maryland 21030
> 410-568-1500 (Main Telephone)
> 410-568-1533 (Main Fax)
>
> Or on the net at:
>
>
> http://www.sbgi.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: > Sent: Monday, October 06, 2003 3:44 PM
> To: jodohert@wxlv.sbgnet.com
> Subject: Feedback
>
>
> Name:> City: winston-salem
> State: North Carolina
> Zip: 27127
> Email:> Sent-To:Digital TV-related question
> Comments: What is your timeframe to rolling out HDTV? I have been told
that
> it is because of who owns your stations, and I'd love to get their names
and
> numbers if it could speed up the process. As you know, ABC is a leader in
> HDTV, and the lack of access in a market as large as the Triad is really
> frusterating for us out here with the equipment to take advantage. Any
> information you can provide me would be really appreciated.
>
> Thanks,

Would talking directly to the folks at ABC be of any benefit? This stinks! No plans to broadcast in HD - tune to Charlotte or Raleigh - yeah, right - let me get Time Warner in on that one!

I am Ticked!!!

Originally posted by roland6465
I got this from WXLV this weekend.....Hope foxeng's guy has better info than this;

I have heard from two independent sources that they are working on it as we speak.

It is not unusual for a station not to announce or confirm anything until it is in the bag. We don't.

And yes, Sinclair has been slow to convert to HD at their stations, but Mr DTV on here is saying they are starting to get the program at a few of their stations so there seems to be some small, in the broad sense, confirmation of this.

Now you know as much as I do.

Here's what I got from WXLV:

"We consider ourselves lucky when we get 90's technology - - - let alone the 21st century technology.

I do not know the reasons for the company's decision concerning HD, but I suspect they have performed a "Cost versus benefit" analysis and determined that viewers would be served better in other areas - - - like a 5 million dollar upgrade to our analog plant - - - rather than investing in the first generation of HD equipment which is unproven and may require replacement in the short run as technology changes and the digital "Bugs" are worked out.

I understand that you will not be happy with this, but I am trying to give you a straight answer. I am sure the company will re-visit the HD issue and at some point will broadcast in HD - - - I just can not supply you with a date.

I will pass on your comments to "The powers that be," which in our case is the director of engineering."



I hope you're right, foxeng!

On another topic...

Any of you Triad TWC users out there have one of the newer HDTV digital-cable boxes with DVI out? I have a Scientific Atlanta 3100HD and am hoping TWC upgrades to newer boxes with DVI out and the 3100 bugs fixed (i.e., aspect ratio control, selectable resolution, onscreen guide that works properly when tuned to HD channel. . . )

Thanks!

I have the new Pace digital box. I like it a lot. It acquires the signal for the HD channels much faster, allows you to view the channel guide while you're on the HD channels, and has all the aspect controls for stretch mode, etc...all things the SA box wouldn't do. Haven't noticed any negatives about it at all.

I got mine because of that audio problem I'm having with the Fox digital channel, the volume is about 3x loud and distorted. They swapped the SA box for the Pace box, but it had no effect. Cable guy thought it was a problem at the node or head end laser or some mumbo jumbo like that. It's still not better after about 6 weeks. Good thing I don't watch much Fox in the theater.

PS, if you get the new box and you're using a universal remote (I use the MX-500), don't delete your old SA settings, apparently it uses the same codes.

I got 2 Pace DC550P's yesterday. I can't use the DVI for lack of an input on my 36XBR Sony or the Nextvision N6 I'm using on the projector. I have only used for a few hours so far, but I must say that while the picture and sound are very comparable to my Mits. DTV box, I'm a little confused on one front, though.

On the WEGA, an interlaced HD signal automatically trips the "16x9 mode"on the 4x3 TV, which is usually great. On the Pace box, however, the graphic menus are only output through the component, so in order to to take advantage of said menus, one must watch standard TV "windowboxed", with black bars on all sides of the image. The only way to bypass this little annoyance is to change the STB's output to 480i on the front of the box only, which, I admit isn't that bad, but it's the little things, you know?

OTOH, it really doesn't matter at all with the projector, since at full screen, the image is 6x8 ft., and windowboxed is still roughly 4.5x7, and the picture is better than I expected from blown-up 720p.

I'll get back to y'all when I get some more hours on the boxes.

Oh yeah, and as much as I hated to leave DirecTV, Icontrol is pretty cool. 5 episodes of G-string Divas at my command!

The Pace has a Pass option you can use instead of a set format. It will pass along the format it is receiving unaltered. You can try that mode. Not sure how it or your tv will respond if there's a 720p signal though.

I may be the last to realize this, but if you press the # key on the Pace remote, you can switch between 1080i and 480p--which also has the effect of switching the aspect ratio when you're using a widescreen TV watching ordinary, non HDTV, channels.

By the way, Daryl, how do you bypass the set mode on the Pace as you mentioned?

weird, era...

someone at work just told me about this today. short press on the # changes the stretch/zoom, and a press & hold will bring up the display menu.

Originally posted by era
By the way, Daryl, how do you bypass the set mode on the Pace as you mentioned? Not bypass. It's an option called Pass, like a Native mode. The cable box passes along the format it receives to the tv not converted any way.

Example:
Into cable box out to tv
480i -> 480i
480p -> 480p
720p -> 720p
1080i -> 1080i

Hope that makes sense. If you download the manual using the link below you can look on page 16 to see the Pass option mentioned within the screen resolution options.

http://www.pacemicro.com/products/manuals/Pace_DC-550_Operators_Manual.pdf

Has anyone had problems recording onto a VCR with their Pace boxes? I am not able to get mine to record. I get what appears to be a Macrovision effect when I try to record. Of course, TWC was clueless.

I have about 3 weeks experience with the new Sony HD 300 STB for OTA and DirecTV. The picture is great but I am having some audio/video dropout problems. Does anyone else in the area have similar experience?

Channel 551 here in the Triad is listed as NBAHD - is that from last years playoff or this years NBAHD games????

We don't have this channel in Charlotte and saw it when I am over here visiting and wanted to ask (since there is nothing scheduled on it as long as the guide stretches)

Thanks!

Yep, I see it too. It hasn't been there in the 8 months I've had HD. For a while, 551 had the INHD preview, but then they took that off. TWC has been notoriously bad at telling us what's coming. They may be planning to offer some of the NBA games, but who knows, they may just take it off like they did with INHD.

Thanks, Daryl,

I hadn't realized there was a manual available online. TWC seems to get its hardware before it gets documentation, but I'm not complaining--it's better than vice versa. Now if they'll just get a box with both HDTV and hard drive recording, I'll be able to relax at last.

My pleasure. Sometimes TWC have the manuals but just don't offer or hand them out unless you ask for one.