OK rebooted both set top boxes (4250HDC and 8300HD) and now have all 4 channels.

I've done a scan in the TV just now and still 75 NTSC and 45 QAM channels, nothing changed.

I've done a scan in the TV just now and still 75 NTSC and 45 QAM channels, nothing changed.

These recently-added channels are all on SDV. I found this out using the ODN diagnostics.

How's the PQ on these newly added channels?

How's the PQ on these newly added channels?

Bio is another stretch-o-vision channel. Discovery looks kinda blurry (so does Bio). ESPNU looks great, and Speed looks decent.

Watched some Discovery HD this morning, thought it looked awesome! What's their policy in regard to aspect ratio? I was watching Cash Cab and it seemed like it was zoomed 4:3, there were black bars on each side but they were extremely thin, it wasn't stretched so something was going on. I'll probably never watch BIO or Speed, and ESPNU only if there is a game on I want to watch, but keep the HD channels coming TWC!

Honestly, I don't watch Discovery much but I may now they are in HD. They showed a preview for Storm Chasers this weekend, where they are following a tornado in the dark. Looked pretty cool..

The later Cash Cabs are in 16:9, so there maybe something else going on.

Can't get the basic cable digital channels for WTVD? They just up and disappeared the other day. WRAL and the NBC station digital channels come up fine. This is only on my HD TV that doesn't have the TWC HD cable box, but does recieve the cable through the cable line. Help?

Can't get the basic cable digital channels for WTVD? They just up and disappeared the other day. WRAL and the NBC station digital channels come up fine. This is only on my HD TV that doesn't have the TWC HD cable box, but does recieve the cable through the cable line. Help?

Reboot. It will take longer than usual, but then they'll all be there.

Can't get the basic cable digital channels for WTVD? They just up and disappeared the other day. WRAL and the NBC station digital channels come up fine. This is only on my HD TV that doesn't have the TWC HD cable box, but does recieve the cable through the cable line. Help?

I assume you are talking about a TV connected to TWC without a cable box and you are missing the QAM locals. I suggest you do a 'scan for channels' and see if it finds them. I believe there were some config changes at TWC for the QAM channels... see just a few posts above.

I was watching Cash Cab and it seemed like it was zoomed 4:3, there were black bars on each side but they were extremely thin, it wasn't stretched so something was going on.

I've had Discovery HD on DirecTV for a while and yes, they do zoom 4:3 material a bit. Guess it is a compromise between stretch-o-vision and full 4:3 pillar. You can really notice it during commercials when the last line of legal type at the bottom is cut off.

That being said, most, if not all, of the Discovery series programs (Mythbusters, etc) are now shot in HD and look great.

Cheers

These recently-added channels are all on SDV. I found this out using the ODN diagnostics.

I don't suppose anyone has gotten any letters about tuning adapter availability to go with the new channels?

Mythbusters in HD was great last night. Finally!

I don't suppose anyone has gotten any letters about tuning adapter availability to go with the new channels?

I haven't noticed that any of the legacy SD channels that were scheduled to go SDV have actually done so. As you may know, Cox and TWC have been fined by the FCC for taking away channels for CableCard viewers that are part of a service level they are authorized to receive.

The reason why TWC may only be rolling out a handful of channels at a time may be related to that, and other bandwidth limitations. Once they start "pulling" legacy channels, they will have to have some sort of responce to the CableCard base, albeit as tiny as it is.

TWC wins big points with me for these adds, because the F1 finale is this weekend, and on SpeedHD!!! So excited to finally get to see F1 in HD.

FCC orders Time Warner to carry MASN

The Federal Communications Commission has denied an appeal by Time Warner Cable and ordered the cable television company to begin carrying the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network on a basic analog tier within 30 days.

Or, "in time for college basketball season," MASN spokesman Todd Webster says.

But TWC isn't giving up in its long dispute with MASN. The company issued a one-sentence response when informed of the FCC's Media Bureau's decision: "We disagree with the Media Bureau's decision and plan to appeal to the full commission."

MASN carries Major League Baseball's Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals, as well as college football, basketball and other sports. Under MLB's territorial rights map, the Triangle is Orioles and Nationals territory, so during the course of this dispute, cable customers have been unable to watch those games.

But Time Warner has argued that teams so far away from this market would not interest all of its huge basic cable audience and that MASN thus should be made available to subscribers willing to pay extra for a digital sports tier.

Two arbitrators have ruled that Time Warner Cable has discriminated against MASN, an independent regional sports network, and TWC had filed a "petition for review" with the FCC. FCC Media Bureau Chief Monica Shah Desai's denial came today.

Turns out that Time Warner "Free HD" is actualy somewhat misleading; you have to subscribe to the SD equivalent to get the corresponding HD channel, even in case of non-premiums. I don't get Speed HD, ESPNU HD and BIO HD because the digital tier I subscribe to is Cinema Choice, not Digital Variety. I called TWC to check if that's really their policy, and a very helpful techical support guy did not think so, but after checking with the higher up, it turned out that it actually was. While I was on the phone with him, he gave me some details about the plan for introducing new HD channels that is a bit more detailed than the one on their web site, see below. The stuff not mentioned on the web site are the projected dates, MGM for MOJO swap and Versus/Golf split into two full time channels; curiously, he did not mention Weather Channel that is listed on the site. He also said he had the channel numbers for the new channels (except for the January additions).

November 20:
CNN HD
Planet Green HD
Team HD (NBA League Pass)
Game HD (MLB Extra Innings/NHL Center Ice)
MGM HD to replace MOJO

December 8:
Versus/Golf HD to become two separate channels

December 18:
ABC Family HD
Animal Planet HD
Disney Channel HD
ESPNews HD
Fox Sports Carolinas HD
History HD
The Learning Channel HD
Lifetime HD

January 13:
Cinemax HD (2 channels)
Starz HD
The Movie Channel HD

Turns out that Time Warner "Free HD" is actualy somewhat misleading; you have to subscribe to the SD equivalent to get the corresponding HD channel, even in case of non-premiums. I don't get Speed HD, ESPNU HD and BIO HD because the digital tier I subscribe to is Cinema Choice, not Digital Variety.

It's always been that way ever since they tried to spin their weak ass HD package into something marketable.

TWC always roll out the misleading comparison that you have to pay more to get HD on satellite whereas it's "free on Time Warner." What they don't say is that you have to pay for the digital tier on TWC to get "Free HD" which adds up to the same amount as if you paid for the standard channels and basic HD packages on sat. Except you get more HD on sat.

I don't suppose anyone has gotten any letters about tuning adapter availability to go with the new channels?

Don't believe the product exists until it's in your hands. TWC have a long history of announcing things that don't arrive until months or sometimes years later.

It's always been that way ever since they tried to spin their weak ass HD package into something marketable.

TWC always roll out the misleading comparison that you have to pay more to get HD on satellite whereas it's "free on Time Warner." What they don't say is that you have to pay for the digital tier on TWC to get "Free HD" which adds up to the same amount as if you paid for the standard channels and basic HD packages on sat. Except you get more HD on sat.

Actually, I did some comparison a while ago, and, to get approximately what I get from TWC (and with more HD), Dish was noticeably cheaper; I called TWC, mentioned that and got a discount for a year with no commitments. They tried to sell me their 2 year commitment thing, but no way I'd be doing that - U-verse is coming, things may get better, whether by switching or getting further discounts.

For a while now (and still as of this moment) you do get a lot more HD on satelite, but, once all these channels are in, TWC will not be that far behind (as far as I am concerned): only one channel I'd really like (SciFi), a few channels I'm mildly interested in (USA, Bravo, FX, Tennis, NFL), and some I could not care less about. Of course, that's assuming satelite does not add some interesting HD channels meanwhile.

Actually, I did some comparison a while ago, and, to get approximately what I get from TWC (and with more HD), Dish was noticeably cheaper; I called TWC, mentioned that and got a discount for a year with no commitments. They tried to sell me their 2 year commitment thing, but no way I'd be doing that - U-verse is coming, things may get better, whether by switching or getting further discounts.

For a while now (and still as of this moment) you do get a lot more HD on satelite, but, once all these channels are in, TWC will not be that far behind (as far as I am concerned): only one channel I'd really like (SciFi), a few channels I'm mildly interested in (USA, Bravo, FX, Tennis, NFL), and some I could not care less about. Of course, that's assuming satelite does not add some interesting HD channels meanwhile.

TWC might not be "far behind" _after_ the channel adds, but they'll still be much more expensive ($45/mo for ~45 HD channels + HD DVR on Dish vs. ~$75-80 for the same on TWC). (unless you call and get a discount as you have done)

TWC says the new channels will roll out over the next "several" months.. I wonder how many "several" will be.. or they could just say "will be added 3 days before Uverse goes operational" :D

I followed the suggestion from a few pages back to re-scan my QAM channels to fix the problem caused by TWC's changes. My missing stations came back - but now WNCN is gone! Is anyone else having this issue? I used to see them on 17.1-17.3 over QAM, but now my TV skips those stations entirely.

Just before doing the re-scan this morning, I noticed that 17.1-17.3 were all showing a black screen.

It's always been that way ever since they tried to spin their weak ass HD package into something marketable.

TWC always roll out the misleading comparison that you have to pay more to get HD on satellite whereas it's "free on Time Warner." What they don't say is that you have to pay for the digital tier on TWC to get "Free HD" which adds up to the same amount as if you paid for the standard channels and basic HD packages on sat. Except you get more HD on sat.

My favorite was always the "you don't pay more for extra outlets". For basic cable, correct, but for digital you had to pay more per box than satellite charged per outlet...

I followed the suggestion from a few pages back to re-scan my QAM channels to fix the problem caused by TWC's changes. My missing stations came back - but now WNCN is gone! Is anyone else having this issue? I used to see them on 17.1-17.3 over QAM, but now my TV skips those stations entirely.

Just before doing the re-scan this morning, I noticed that 17.1-17.3 were all showing a black screen.

I did the rescan for ABC/FOX back on the day they went missing and had WNCN fine until today. I didn't notice it gone until tonight when I got home. I'll probably do another rescan shortly and see what I get.

A rescan did pick 17.1 - 17.3 back up for me.

TWC moved WNCN (17.x) from physical channel 111 (717MHz) to 102 (663MHz), which is why you need to rescan.

What is the status of Fox News in HD with TWC in Cary?

Did they seriously just screw with ABC 11? It's the first quarter of the Texas-Texas Tech game?! And the channel just goes Poof! Not available!! I had to switch to SD channel 9 so I can keep watching...I can't take the time to do a rescan during the game!! WTF are they doing?

Yep, 11.1 is dead on QAM, not 1st time and I'm sure not the last time this will happen, HD has been terrible over cable/QAM in the past few weeks, it goes out completely or breaks a lot during many 'important' shows.

I've switched to SD.

Yep, 11.1 is dead on QAM, not 1st time and I'm sure not the last time this will happen, HD has been terrible over cable/QAM in the past few weeks, it goes out completely or breaks a lot during many 'important' shows.

I've switched to SD.

Well, I called. (while watching on SD) He put me on hold and came back and told me it was an "outage" and I wasn't the only one who had called (I could tell that by the hold time). No ETA. 50.1 was dead too when I flipped by during a commercial break.

I'm not getting WTVD, WRAZ, WRAL, or Showtime.

I'm missing ESPNHD as well.

Anyone on satellite has an outage as well? What about OTA?

Everyone in the chat room that I'm in is getting the game in HD where they live (outside of the Triangle), just us. Most of my HD stations seem to be out, but I'm back to watching it in SD as well as everyone else.

Anyone on satellite has an outage as well? What about OTA?

11-1 and 50-1 are fine OTA.

211 and 250 are out via TWC. 255 is ok though...

im in clayton and no 11.1! DAMN I want to watch the texas game in HD!

No TNT either.

I just rebooted my box thinking it was me (I've had instances since the OS switch where I'll randomly have blank HD channels which is usually fixed by a reboot).

Came here and was relieved to see it wasn't only me.

HBO-HD working fine here, as are TNT, TBS, and a couple others that escape me at the moment. But no ABC, no ESPN. Taking a long time for them to fix, too.

I just rebooted my box thinking it was me (I've had instances since the OS switch where I'll randomly have blank HD channels which is usually fixed by a reboot).

Exactly what I was thinking. I came here to check before doing a reboot as well. No Fox HD here either.

edit: typical, I hit post and the channel comes back.

and just like that, it's gone again.

Yup. :rolleyes:

Has anyone tried remapping? (I'm guessing, since some have restarted their boxes, that remapping won't help.)

I'm using QAM over TWC, and every digital channel, save WUNC and WRAL is gone.

I did an "exhaustive scan" (which takes about an hour) tonight, and while it did find a few additional SD mirrored channels, there were no new values or frequencies for WTVD (ABC) and WRAZ (FOX). Both channels seem to actually be coming in sporadically right now (2am), but it definitely is not watchable. You really have to appreciate TWC for picking Saturday night to experiment with their signals. I was unable to watch both ESPNHD and ABCHD during the games. That's customer service!

I haven't tried my STB this morning but my QAM tuner in my mythtv box still won't tune WTVD or WNCN (at least; those are the ones i've tried today).

WTVD now gives full signal strength and says locked but it freezes the screen and I have to esc to get out. WNCN has very low signal strength (29%).

-Matt

I just turned my tv on for the first time this morning. Had left the box on ABC HD and it was black for the first 30-45 seconds and then kicked in around 10:45 or so...

Ok, now I'm getting everything but WNCN and WRAZ. WNCN still has very low signal strength. WRAZ has regular strength and says locked but no video, just freezes.

-M

Ok, now I'm getting everything but WNCN and WRAZ. WNCN still has very low signal strength. WRAZ has regular strength and says locked but no video, just freezes.

-M

As of right now, I get all the channels over QAM on my Vizio.

I never lost anything except WTVD and WRAZ. I never lost WRAL, WNCN, WUNC or 22.1 and 28.1. Right now, I still don't have 11.* or 50.*. I have not re-scanned so far. Panasonic. Basic cable only, no STB.

I'm getting everything except WNCN now. I'm going to try scanning again.

now wncn comes in but wraz doesnt. ugh.

now wncn comes in but wraz doesnt. ugh.

Things are yoyo-ing all over the place. Both my TiVo and my 8300 are having channels go in and out. Ive switched all my recordings over to OTA for today.... hopefully TWC can get this mess straightened out soon.

I wonder what is going on? I wonder if all the channels they said were going to go to SDV back in Sept are now beginning to move and they are rearranging everything?

I re-scanned only a couple of days ago and am getting everything now except WTVD (11.1), which is jumping in and out, and WRAZ channels (50.1 & 50.2). I wonder why TWC can't decide where they want at least the locals channels to be, put them there and then leave them the hell alone?

Everything is coming in nice and clear now. All the QAM channels that I should be receiving are tuning and there have been no dropouts for the last 20 minutes.

Everything is coming in nice and clear now. All the QAM channels that I should be receiving are tuning and there have been no dropouts for the last 20 minutes.

Not quite... Cablecard is still messed up. 217 and 280 are still missing. 217 is attempting to tune 717Mhz and 280 is attempting 711Mhz. A TWC box is showing 217 actually at 705Mhz and 280 at 663Mhz. It may be time to reboot the TiVo.

Yanked the plug and restarted TiVo and Cablecard picked up the correct frequencies for 217 and 280.

I've been having channels drop out for hours for the past week or so on Time Warner cable in Raleigh/Morrisville. On Thursday, I did a complete rescan of the channels and it fixed it for two days. Then on Saturday, I wasn't able to get any of the college football games in HDTV. Right now I'm getting everything but NBC which is wonderful since the NFL game is coming on. Does anybody know what in the world TWC is doing? Are they blacking games out from HD or something or is this just another example of why I need to switch from TWC to satellite?

I've been having channels drop out for hours for the past week or so on Time Warner cable in Raleigh/Morrisville. On Thursday, I did a complete rescan of the channels and it fixed it for two days. Then on Saturday, I wasn't able to get any of the college football games in HDTV. Right now I'm getting everything but NBC which is wonderful since the NFL game is coming on. Does anybody know what in the world TWC is doing? Are they blacking games out from HD or something or is this just another example of why I need to switch from TWC to satellite?

I don't know where the problem was, 7 and 217 were unwatchable during the NBC Nightly News but 218 was somewhat blocky but entirely watchable. I switched my TV to the tuner (not OTA) and 7 and 17.1 had the same problems.

Two separate times in the last few weeks I've seen loss of 5.1 surround audio on 17.1 OTA and posted here but it appeared no one else was watching... so I'm glad to see someone else seeing what I'm seeing.

Tonight during the news and the start of Football Night in America was horrible breaking up, although signal strength was fine... looked like encode/decode errors in the transmission. At some point the breaking up stopped but the audio had again dropped to 2-channel audio only (no 5.1 again).

Is this an NBC problem or just WNCN?

Two separate times in the last few weeks I've seen loss of 5.1 surround audio on 17.1 OTA and posted here but it appeared no one else was watching... so I'm glad to see someone else seeing what I'm seeing.

Tonight during the news and the start of Football Night in America was horrible breaking up, although signal strength was fine... looked like encode/decode errors in the transmission. At some point the breaking up stopped but the audio had again dropped to 2-channel audio only (no 5.1 again).

Is this an NBC problem or just WNCN?

Both myself in Cary and my friend in Michigan on a different cable company had no 5.1 during NBC Football last night, so it's not a local/TWC thing.

WLFL (22.1) and WRDC (28.1) seem to be missing. At least, they aren't being remapped to the appropriate channels when I run a QAM scan. Everything else is in its proper place for a change. But with TWC, that may not be true in five minutes.

I don't suppose anyone has gotten any letters about tuning adapter availability to go with the new channels?

Looks like Time Warner has a page available now where you can go and order your tuning adapter.


http://www.timewarnercable.com/Carolinas/products/cable/sdv/default.html

So much for what little of evening television was on tonight. TWC went down in Carrboro at 4pm this afternoon and came back 30 minutes ago.

So much for that "advanced fiber network." Not much use if you don't have "advanced engineers" to keep it running and get it back when it blows.

These recently-added channels are all on SDV. I found this out using the ODN diagnostics.

Anyone know how to tell if a channel is SDV on MDN? I'm curious because lately there have been a couple channels that are blocky when you first tune to them and then after a second are fine.

Anyone know how to tell if a channel is SDV on MDN? I'm curious because lately there have been a couple channels that are blocky when you first tune to them and then after a second are fine.

Head into the diagnostics. One of the pages with channel info has a line a quarter way down that says something like "Channel/type: 124(XXX)" The parenthesis shows the broadcast format and SDV when the channel is broadcasting that way.

NBC HD had the best graphics of the night for election coverage on network IMO.

Unfortunately WNCN have dropped to 4:3 SD within SD to show local results and completely destroyed it. With massive waste of space making the national broadcast totally illegible.

NBC HD had the best graphics of the night for election coverage on network IMO.

Unfortunately WNCN have dropped to 4:3 SD within SD to show local results and completely destroyed it. With massive waste of space making the national broadcast totally illegible.

I just came on to b***ch about this. You nailed it, best graphics and coverage and it's ruined locally. I'm currently switching between MSNBC and WRAL.

WNCN: Two thumbs down and a some other fingers up for taking the best coverage and best graphics, and shrinking it to illegible postage stamp size within a 4:3 SD down converted stream. My god, you've got 17-2 to show SD versions of 17-1.. If you can't do HD crawls, then periodically refer viewers to 17-2 and don't mess up the network feed.

WRAL: One thumbs up for having an HD local results crawl, and good local coverage in HD, and one thumb
down for Katie Courac

WTVD: One thumb up for having a more-or less HD crawl, one thumb down for lousy network graphics.

WUNC: Two thumbs down and a great big "WTF!?!?" for your strange show populated with unknown local pundits. My EPG guide data said "The Newshour Election Night Coverage 2008: Jim Lehrer reports on Election Day", not "Random local pundits talk about the election" At least it was 100% HD.

Drew

MGM HD replacing MOJO HD on Time Warner Cable in Raleigh, NC

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/11/06/mgm-hd-replacing-mojo-hd-on-time-warner-cable-in-raleigh-nc/

MGM HD replacing MOJO HD on Time Warner Cable in Raleigh, NC

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/11/06/mgm-hd-replacing-mojo-hd-on-time-warner-cable-in-raleigh-nc/

I got an email today stating the same. I guess no more Fox Sports Net HD games on TWC.

I got an email today stating the same. I guess no more Fox Sports Net HD games on TWC.

Fox Sports Net HD is going to be added as a full time channel sometime before the end of January. I would guess they will continue to preempt MGM to show hockey and basketball games until they add it.

If Time Warner continues their trend of adding channels statewide then as well as MGM on Nov 20th we can expect to see:
Planet Green HD, CNN HD, Team HD and Game HD.

And then on Dec 8th, Versus HD and Golf Channel HD become two separate channels.

These additions have already been announced in Charlotte and Greensboro so it is likely we will see them here as well.

Did anyone have any glitches in The Office and the first part of 30 Rock last night? I was recording WNCN OTA and had some weird digital artifacting, but not the usual type of glitches you get occaisionally with OTA broadcasts.

Did anyone have any glitches in The Office and the first part of 30 Rock last night? I was recording WNCN OTA and had some weird digital artifacting, but not the usual type of glitches you get occaisionally with OTA broadcasts.

Yes, I saw some strange patterns (like test patterns with yellow and grey blocks) filling large parts of the screen. I was also recording OTA. Did anybody see this on cable?

Drew

Yes, I saw some strange patterns (like test patterns with yellow and grey blocks) filling large parts of the screen. I was also recording OTA. Did anybody see this on cable?

Drew

Yep got the same breakups and blocks via TWC.

You'd think that the point of ESPN sending regional coverage to its networks & cable companies would be so that Time-Warner wouldn't show FSU/Clemson on two different channels. Alas.

This is a sanity check for myself. It appears that Legend of the Seeker is available on two OTA channels (WRDC 28 and WLFL 22), but neither of those stations appear to be broadcasting in HD (digital yes, HD no). Titan TV says that this show is available on 22.2 in HD, but I can't get any set in my house to tune 22.2, and I'm not convinced WLFL is broadcasting that sub channel. I really don't want to watch this is 4:3, so if I can't watch it OTA in 16:9, I'll go with an alternative method of procuring the show.

Thoughts?

This is a sanity check for myself. It appears that Legend of the Seeker is available on two OTA channels (WRDC 28 and WLFL 22), but neither of those stations appear to be broadcasting in HD (digital yes, HD no).

They're broadcasting in HD, but at least 22-1 is showing an SD 4:3 version upconverted to 1080i. Eg, they don't seem capable of showing HD syndicated programs yet. Thanks for letting me know that 28-1 is showing it tpo. I've set that to record, I hope it is in HD and not up-converted SD.

Drew

They're broadcasting in HD, but at least 22-1 is showing an SD 4:3 version upconverted to 1080i. Eg, they don't seem capable of showing HD syndicated programs yet. Thanks for letting me know that 28-1 is showing it tpo. I've set that to record, I hope it is in HD and not up-converted SD.

I switched to the 28.1 recording for tonight as well. We'll see, but TitanTV doesn't have it tagged as being in HD, so I have low expectations.

I switched to the 28.1 recording for tonight as well. We'll see, but TitanTV doesn't have it tagged as being in HD, so I have low expectations.

Yep, up-converted SD as well. Do you happen to know which piedmont/triad station it is shown on? Perhaps it is HD there. I seem to remember ST:Enterprise was shown in HD on a triad station, but not in HD in the triangle. With the right weather conditions, I was able to watch at least one episode of ST:Enterprise in HD. That was quite a while ago, and with a much older tuner..

Drew

Enterprise was a network show on UPN, passed through like any other network program. Legend of the Seeker is syndicated and must be recorded in HD. My understanding is that a number of Sinclair stations do not have that equipment yet.

- Trip

No 5.1 surround sound again on 17.1 tonight for Sunday Night Football. At least 3 Sundays now (not all in a row I don't think but definately 2 were). Is this just a WNCN problem or is NBC having issues?

Anyone out there using a HDHR? I see the other reports of NCN/NBC problems here, but I can no longer even tune it on my Homerun, even after a rescan. I can tune it with my STB, but I like to be able to record the HD stream via the homerun. Any ideas what's going on with this channel?

Edit: @Trip in VA: Okay, that was bizarre. Witch Hunt was just ending on my mp3 player when I glanced at your sig.

Anyone out there using a HDHR? I see the other reports of NCN/NBC problems here, but I can no longer even tune it on my Homerun, even after a rescan.

Is this OTA or QAM? I was thinking about getting an HDHR at some point, but you're scaring me if you're talking about OTA: Even my 4 year old nxt2002 based ATSC card has no problem with NBC OTA. If it is QAM, did you try tuning to the new physical channel (102.x)? Maybe the CVCT is hosed again.

Drew

Edit: @Trip in VA: Okay, that was bizarre. Witch Hunt was just ending on my mp3 player when I glanced at your sig.

:D

Best song ever written.

- Trip

Is this OTA or QAM? I was thinking about getting an HDHR at some point, but you're scaring me if you're talking about OTA: Even my 4 year old nxt2002 based ATSC card has no problem with NBC OTA. If it is QAM, did you try tuning to the new physical channel (102.x)? Maybe the CVCT is hosed again.

Drew


It's QAM. When you say 'new physical channel', when did that kick in? I know some of them changed ~2 weeks ago, but I was fine after a rescan with the HDHR software. Then, after I realized last Thursday's NBC shows didn't record, I did another rescan last night and it seems to pick up the channel (I don't have access right now to the channel info it's trying to use), but I can't tune to it (to be specific, the HDHR test viewer, which uses VLC, spits up an error, and my HTPC software just eventually times out).

Could this be caused by too much inadvisable cable splittage?

(My other QAMs including locals are fine.)

@Trip--longtime Rush fan, have been hitting Moving Pictures pretty hard lately, ever since they put out the whole album for the 'Rock Band' game. :)

@Trip--longtime Rush fan, have been hitting Moving Pictures pretty hard lately, ever since they put out the whole album for the 'Rock Band' game. :)

Check your PM box. =)

- Trip

It's QAM. When you say 'new physical channel', when did that kick i
<....>
Could this be caused by too much inadvisable cable splittage?


NBC17-HD moved from 111.2 to 102.x (not sure what x is, possibly 2) a few weeks ago. I'm working from home, and my Sony shows that 17.1 is still coming from 102.

I'm not familiar with the HDHR software, but the way I'm used to things, you talk about a "physical channel", which is the real analog frequency (for NBC this is now 102 for QAM, or 55 for ATSC) combined with the subchannel number on that frequency. And you talk about a "logical" channel, or a "remapped" channel, which is the familiar "17.1". So a physical channel might be mapped to a logical channel like 102.2 -> 17.1 for cable, or 55.1 -> 17.1 for over the air. Time warner sometimes "screws up" or even omits the CVTC which is what contains this remapping information. Some receivers (and HTPC software) gets hopelessly confused by this, and is unable to tune when the CVTC is bad or missing. I used to use MythTV, and it got very confused and missed recordings when TWC omitted the CVTC information from Fox and ABC a year or two ago. This prompted me to go purely OTA, to avoid this problem.


Drew

I made it through that round of changes a few weeks ago (rescan on the HDHomerun + some changes to BeyondTV lineup). My NBC QAM problems seem to have started the same night normal STB (and OTA?) users reported problems, this past Thursday night (see top of this page).

Anyone else using a QAM tuner able to get WNCNDT?

Restarted everything, did one more scan, WNCNDT is magically working again.

No 5.1 surround sound again on 17.1 tonight for Sunday Night Football. At least 3 Sundays now (not all in a row I don't think but definately 2 were). Is this just a WNCN problem or is NBC having issues?

I don't know about last night but I was watching Nightly News over the weekend (might have even been Friday night) and the sound level was about 1/3 normal during the news, commericals during the Nightly News and NBC17 news at 7pm were at the normal level. I had to really crank the volume up during the news and then mute it during the commericals.

...And ABCHD on 11.1 (over QAM) is having PMS tonight, tons of blackouts, picture/sound are coming and going.

But of course during the commercials it's all good...

I don't know about last night but I was watching Nightly News over the weekend (might have even been Friday night) and the sound level was about 1/3 normal during the news, commericals during the Nightly News and NBC17 news at 7pm were at the normal level. I had to really crank the volume up during the news and then mute it during the commericals.

No 5.1 tonight during Heroes on NBC... and I too had to really crank up the volume to hear the dialog. First time I've seen this leak over from Sunday problems... so it must be getting worse, whatever it is.

No 5.1 tonight during Heroes on NBC... and I too had to really crank up the volume to hear the dialog. First time I've seen this leak over from Sunday problems... so it must be getting worse, whatever it is.

no 5.1 on Chuck either.

Interesting, I was coming back to post that I was wrong last night about having fixed my QAM NBC / WNCN issue: I had no audio and didn't realize it when I made my previous post.

(I didn't, however, try cranking it up very loud. At normal volume settings, though, I have no audio.)

I wonder what the heck is going on.

Also, of less interest to most of you but still weird, I have to use a very specific video decoder (nvidia purevideo) to get NBC video to play back under BeyondTV, while the other networks are fine with the default decoder.

I am moving from Cary to Knightdale in a couple of months and want to make sure the Raleigh Local spotbeams on Directv reach out there? I remember at one time that there was a problem with how far they went out? Thanks!

The Raleigh DirecTV spotbeams reach Rocky Mount, so I'd be surprised if you have an issue in Knightdale.

I posted a few weeks ago about NBC17 losing 5.1 audio during Sunday Night Football and no one replied... but it happened again tonight. No football, but the highlights show was not 5.1 and had very low volume... this continued even when 40-Year-Old Virgin started.

If it matters this is via OTA... and since this is a repeat performance of lack of 5.1 audio I wanted to post again and see if anyone else has noticed.

Same thing happened to me this Monday Night, Heroes recording was in 2.0, not 5.1...Gah!!!

The Raleigh DirecTV spotbeams reach Rocky Mount, so I'd be surprised if you have an issue in Knightdale.

Thank you!

Proxy post for a friend:

In the Raleigh/Durham area on TWC using TiVo HD+Cablecard (no STB). I've noticed that DSCHD (Discovery HD) has recently become "available." It's part of the standard digital package, however whenever I attempt to tune it I get no signal (a blanked screen and no TiVo buffering). Does anyone know if DSCHD and some of the other recent HD offerings in Raleigh/Durham are SDV? Tuning adapters not yet available here, unfortunately, but it would explain my problem.

Proxy post for a friend:

In the Raleigh/Durham area on TWC using TiVo HD+Cablecard (no STB). I've noticed that DSCHD (Discovery HD) has recently become "available." It's part of the standard digital package, however whenever I attempt to tune it I get no signal (a blanked screen and no TiVo buffering). Does anyone know if DSCHD and some of the other recent HD offerings in Raleigh/Durham are SDV? Tuning adapters not yet available here, unfortunately, but it would explain my problem.

The 4 new channels are SDV (at least on my node). I would expect any new adds from now on to be SDV with the possible exception of MGM HD when it replaces Mojo.

It shouldnt be long for Tuning Adapters.

Anyone out there using a HDHR? I see the other reports of NCN/NBC problems here, but I can no longer even tune it on my Homerun, even after a rescan. ...

After a bit of hassle, I finally kinda, sorta have Beyond TV 4.9 RC2 working with my HDHR, only to find that that WNCN's HD channel on TWC is at around 82-84% signal strength and yielding stuttering, even unplayable (by BTV anyway) recordings.

Every other local station's digital channels are coming through on QAM at 95+% strength on the HDHR, so it seems TWC hosed something when they changed frequencies for WNCN stuff.

WNCN's HD channel on TWC is at around 82-84% signal strength and yielding stuttering, even unplayable (by BTV anyway) recordings.

Maybe a dumb question, but both you guys are BTV users... Maybe it is the software. Have you tried to play the recordings outside BTV with some other media player? Also, do your recordings play better if you record OTA rather than cable?

Drew

My HDHR seems to be working okay with SageTV - but I haven't checked the signal strength lately. I'll check this evening...

From the TWC Channel Change page:

Dec. 31, 2008: NBC Weather Plus (Channel 219) and Elections '08 On Demand (Channel 1103) will no longer be available.

Dec. 18, 2008: The following channels will be added:

Animal Planet HD - Channel 261
ABC Family HD - Channel 263
Disney Channel HD - Channel 264
Fox Sports Carolinas HD - Channel 272
ESPNEWS HD - Channel 274
TLC HD - Channel 275
Lifetime HD - Channel 276
History HD - Channel 297
My Life On Demand - Channel 1106

Dec. 8, 2008: Versus HD and Golf Channel HD becomes two separate channels. Versus HD goes to Channel 271 while Golf Channel HD remains on Channel 283

Nov. 20, 2008: The following channels will be added:

Sprout - Channel 184
Planet Green HD - Channel 262
CNN HD - Channel 269
NBA League Pass HD Channel (for NBA League Pass subscribers) - Channel 720
MLB Extra Innings/NHL Center Ice HD Channel (for MLB Extra Innings and NHL Center Ice subscribers) - Channel 745
MGM HD - Channel 958 (replacing MOJO on HD Suite)


Nov. 11, 2008: The NBA League Pass Preview Channel (710) is changed to an NBA League Pass package channel.

I assume the 958 channel for MGM HD should be 291.

Maybe a dumb question, but both you guys are BTV users... Maybe it is the software. Have you tried to play the recordings outside BTV with some other media player? Also, do your recordings play better if you record OTA rather than cable?

Drew

BeyondTV is surely part of the problem in the sense that it isn't being very robust in trying to play the HD stream from a low strength QAM signal tuned by HDHR. VLC does a better job of playing the same stream, though it eventually failed and terminated due to some error, the stream was so bad.

But there is a signal strength problem independent of BTV or VLC. The HDHR management apps report the low signal strength for WNCN's new frequency (all the other clear QAM channels are fine for me). I'll have to double check it, but my TV's QAM tuner reported low signal strength for WNCN as well.

I forwarded the info I had to WNCN's operations guy and he responded to my e-mail pretty quickly. He's forwarded the info to TWC's engineers. He said they feed TWC via fiber and any systemic signal strength issue seen on the customer's end of the wire would be a TWC issue (presumably somewhere in the transition to copper leading to our homes?).

I haven't bothered hooking up my HDHR with OTA to see how well it does since I know it'll be pretty bad since I have only rabbit ears, lots of trees and hills between my house and the transmitter. Hopefully things might get better in February if OTA transmitter power cranks up???

...
I forwarded the info I had to WNCN's operations guy and he responded to my e-mail pretty quickly. He's forwarded the info to TWC's engineers. He said they feed TWC via fiber and any systemic signal strength issue seen on the customer's end of the wire would be a TWC issue (presumably somewhere in the transition to copper leading to our homes?).
...

Wow, tonight the signal strength for WNCN is great and BeyondTV's displaying the WNCN HD stream just fine.

So whatever it was, it seems WNCN got TWC on the case and they fixed something as far as I can tell.

How are others receiving WNCN HD on their QAM tuners now?

Wow, tonight the signal strength for WNCN is great and BeyondTV's displaying the WNCN HD stream just fine.

So whatever it was, it seems WNCN got TWC on the case and they fixed something as far as I can tell.

How are others receiving WNCN HD on their QAM tuners now?

I'm seeing signal strength at 92%, which is the same as the other channels that I get. So, no problems over here.

I've been watching local HD over the QAM tuner, and media streaming to my XBOX Media Center to my LCD TV for a little over a year. It works fine. But I'm finally tiring of watching live HD TV to get true HD quality, or XBOX Media Center which can upconvert non-HD content but it really looks poor when compared to true HD over QAM. The only reason I'm even remotely satisfied with watching TV like this is it's basically free with Road Runner. So the $0 cost to watch all that TV is a big selling point for changing nothing.

But, I'm ready to explore my options for watching more HD channels in actual unaltered HD format (read: no more XBOX Media Center) and am hoping to solict you for some suggestions. I'm mostly happy with the major channel HD offerings though I do watch some HBO series (via XBOX Media Center) and would like Food in HD and some kids channels like Noggin. If going satellite I would miss the local PBS channels though I don't really watch them that much.

I see a variety of users using PC QAM tuners and streaming, though I'd need to replace my XBOX since it can't play raw HD. I'd be just as happy paying some low price for satellite HD as long as it had a DVR. It's certainly a lot less work than streaming from my PC to the TV. I'm least likely to pay Time Warner for cable as it seems to have the least HD offerings at the highest prices and I can't bundle with my Road Runner due to my particular Business Class account to my house which means like $70/mo for HDTV+DVR which is simply ridiculous.

Thoughts?

Is anybody else getting the blue (you didn't pay for this channel) screen when trying to watch the FSN Texas v Kansas game on 291?

yeah looks like they forgot to flip the switch today.

According to Time Warner Cable's channel change information page (http://www.timewarnercable.com/Carolinas/programming/channelChangeUpdate.html), NBC Weather Plus will shut down on December 31, 2008. It turns out that NBC Universal bought out The Weather Channel, so the two weather networks now are redundant. Will that lead to better picture quality on WNCN-HD?

I'm seeing signal strength at 92%, which is the same as the other channels that I get. So, no problems over here.

Just wondering...do you know if you had you been getting 92% (or better) throughout the time since they changed the QAM frequency for WNCN (a couple of weeks ago)?

Also, the ability for BeyondTV to play back WNCN HD is hosed again. All the other local HD channels play back fine. So I still have an issue that I didn't have until after they moved the channel, but now I have no clue where the problem lay.

... But I'm finally tiring of watching live HD TV to get true HD quality, or XBOX Media Center which can upconvert non-HD content but it really looks poor when compared to true HD over QAM. ...

Thoughts?

Unless TWC does something sane like offering HD equivalents of Standard service channels, like Food HD as you mentioned, on clear QAM, your choices are pretty limited to STB+DVR based (i.e. more expensive unless you get a super discounted bundle package) services whether from cable or satellite.

I suppose something like the Hauppauge HD-PVR that can record from HD component output sources can help avoid monthly DVR fees (but not HD STB fees) and offer you more storage and place shifting flexbility, but I guess you still need something to replace your Xbox MC??

Thoughts?

Dish ViP722 + Dish TurboHD Gold, Silver or Bronze. TWC can't even come close on price.

(Personally I'm too cheap even for that, and I have a Mac, so I went with an EyeTV + HD Home Run, + Apple TV + Netflix.)

j.

Is anybody else getting the blue (you didn't pay for this channel) screen when trying to watch the FSN Texas v Kansas game on 291?

I went to the TCW online support chat (since the phone wait time was 20 mins) and their oh so helpful support technician said, our records show you don't subscribe to that channel. I tried explaining that they use 291 for FSN-HD programing and that it usually opens up for everyone. The tech said, I am not aware of this issue. You need to call your local office.

Very helpful. I miss Directv.

According to Time Warner Cable's channel change information page (http://www.timewarnercable.com/Carolinas/programming/channelChangeUpdate.html), NBC Weather Plus will shut down on December 31, 2008. It turns out that NBC Universal bought out The Weather Channel, so the two weather networks now are redundant. Will that lead to better picture quality on WNCN-HD?

The plan, I believe, is to replace it with Universal Sports, which NBC also owns. I'd prefer to just have a higher quality NBC feed, or to have an NBC feed that doesn't constantly reset my 8300HDC the past few months (once the tuning adapter is out, hello TiVo HD). You can see details here:

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/10/14/nbc-replaces-weather-plus-with-universal-sports/

Couple of things:

@vidiot1985--Heya, glad to see I'm not the only BTV user around here. You had my hopes up, upthread, about WNCN, and I turned it on only to see I still have no audio (then I read your subsequent messages). (The stream will play in BTV for me, but only with the NVIDIA purevideo decoder, and I get no audio.) As I think you've noted, it plays with the HDHR tester/VLC, but I didn't let it run long enough to see a possible error.

I could give it a shot with OTA on my channelmaster, but I'd un-cabled everything a while back and so this may require more motivation than I have right now. :) I think I have a radio shack signal amplifier somewhere; I wonder if this is worth a try.

Second question, for anyone, regarding the new TWC HD channels (BIO HD etc):

Are these channels actually working?

For both Bio HD and DSC HD, I get the following splash screen that is clearly being generated by the STB (it's the same screen as "you don't get this, please call ### to order it):

DISCOVERY HD is currently unavailable
Please try again later

I do have a HD STB from TW, I get other HD channels with no problem. I haven't tried the remaining new channels because I can't remember what they are and these are the only two I'm really interested in. (Being what I'm guessing is possibly the sole female in this thread, my interest in the sports channels is nil. :) )

I've rebooted the box.

I don't care quite enough yet to sit on hold, but thought I'd see if anyone had any thoughts.

Couple of things:

@vidiot1985--Heya, glad to see I'm not the only BTV user around here. You had my hopes up, upthread, about WNCN, and I turned it on only to see I still have no audio (then I read your subsequent messages). (The stream will play in BTV for me, but only with the NVIDIA purevideo decoder, and I get no audio.) As I think you've noted, it plays with the HDHR tester/VLC, but I didn't let it run long enough to see a possible error.

...

Unfortunately, I have ATI video, so the NVIDIA decoder probably won't work for me :-). I noticed BTV doing funky things with the audio recently on some channels, including WUNC, with it selecting the SAP audio. Have you tried using the little Tools icon when you're getting no audio and switching to the "next audio stream" in BTV?

Back onto WNCN on TWC, I'm getting weak signal again today, even worse than before. Now it's at like 62% signal strength according to my HDHR.

I checked on my TV's QAM tuner (in a different room on a different cable run) as well and it jumps between 50% and a bit more than the 75% mark, but only for WNCN among the major locals.

According to my HDHR, I'm getting weak signal on clear QAM channels 102 (WNCN, 62% now), 105 (NWS14 and WAUG, 84% now), and 106 (WUVC, WGNSAT, 90% now). Channels above and below those are coming in pretty strong though (95+%).

I've forwarded my info to the WNCN operations guy again and hope he can get TWC engineers on the case to look at WNCN's TWC signal woes, unless it really is somehow on my end (don't see how if I was getting 93% strength on WNCN yesterday).

Unfortunately, I have ATI video, so the NVIDIA decoder probably won't work for me :-). I noticed BTV doing funky things with the audio recently on some channels, including WUNC, with it selecting the SAP audio. Have you tried using the little Tools icon when you're getting no audio and switching to the "next audio stream" in BTV?

Wow, that worked. I'm actually watching QAM NBC for the first time in almost two weeks.

I'm not familiar with that 'next audio stream' option--I wonder what the implication will be for recordings? It seems like that option only appears in live tv, so will I still end up with unplayable recordings?

...well, tried a test, seems like recordings from the channel won't play back.

Sigh.

Just wondering...do you know if you had you been getting 92% (or better) throughout the time since they changed the QAM frequency for WNCN (a couple of weeks ago)?

Also, the ability for BeyondTV to play back WNCN HD is hosed again. All the other local HD channels play back fine. So I still have an issue that I didn't have until after they moved the channel, but now I have no clue where the problem lay.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure what the actual signal strength was before this, but after the QAM channel change. I do know that we haven't had any playback issues after I rescanned for channels.

Just checked again, and signal strength is still at 92% and signal quality is at 96%.

...
Just checked again, and signal strength is still at 92% and signal quality is at 96%.

"Unfortunately", my WNCN digital signal strength is up again, 98% this morning :-).

I don't know if my Live Chat support session with TWC yesterday prompted them to do something (in addition to wanting to send a technician to my house to see what was wrong with my setup) or if this is something that just varies for some unknown reason or if TWC was sending the WRAL signal stronger during their football game, at WNCN's expense, then when WNCN's football game came on, they boosted the power on WNCN (and left it there?) or some other weird conspiracy.

It'd be cool if the TV service had a status page like their RoadRunner service for known outages/problems (not that that page is comprehensive or definitive).

FYI, for the first time in many weeks we had 5.1 surround for the Sunday Night Football game!

I also noted that the picture quality seemed better to me than in weeks past.

FYI, for the first time in many weeks we had 5.1 surround for the Sunday Night Football game!

I also noted that the picture quality seemed better to me than in weeks past.

Currently watching Heroes (not quite sure why I'm still watching this, but that's a different thread all together) and no 5.1.

Currently watching Heroes (not quite sure why I'm still watching this, but that's a different thread all together) and no 5.1.

looks like something blew out during Chuck. The show was HD and 5.1 for the first half hour then the video went down and it was just showing a green screen and audio, dropped to SD for a few seconds and when the HD came back the 5.1 was gone.

Something tells me that NBC17ENG is being kept quite busy these past few weeks. ;)

looks like something blew out during Chuck. The show was HD and 5.1 for the first half hour then the video went down and it was just showing a green screen and audio, dropped to SD for a few seconds and when the HD came back the 5.1 was gone.

Something tells me that NBC17ENG is being kept quite busy these past few weeks. ;)

I'm betting he has been busy! I thought maybe they finally had it fixed with the Sunday night experience... but I too saw back to 2.0 for Heroes (I don't watch Chuck) last night.

Thanks to all who posted "heads up" about the TWC basic cable channel changes a couple of weeks ago. I was out of the country for 3 weeks and came back to very little DTV working. A channel scan fixed everything.

Will
Vonage since February 2005

From the TWC Channel Change page:

Dec. 31, 2008: NBC Weather Plus (Channel 219) and Elections '08 On Demand (Channel 1103) will no longer be available.

Dec. 18, 2008: The following channels will be added:

Animal Planet HD - Channel 261
ABC Family HD - Channel 263
Disney Channel HD - Channel 264
Fox Sports Carolinas HD - Channel 272
ESPNEWS HD - Channel 274
TLC HD - Channel 275
Lifetime HD - Channel 276
History HD - Channel 297
My Life On Demand - Channel 1106

Dec. 8, 2008: Versus HD and Golf Channel HD becomes two separate channels. Versus HD goes to Channel 271 while Golf Channel HD remains on Channel 283

Nov. 20, 2008: The following channels will be added:

Sprout - Channel 184
Planet Green HD - Channel 262
CNN HD - Channel 269
NBA League Pass HD Channel (for NBA League Pass subscribers) - Channel 720
MLB Extra Innings/NHL Center Ice HD Channel (for MLB Extra Innings and NHL Center Ice subscribers) - Channel 745
MGM HD - Channel 958 (replacing MOJO on HD Suite)


Nov. 11, 2008: The NBA League Pass Preview Channel (710) is changed to an NBA League Pass package channel.

I assume the 958 channel for MGM HD should be 291.

Looks like all the HD channels TWC is adding over the couple of weeks are going to be SDV channels except for MGM HD according to the following from their website:

The new services listed below cannot be accessed on CableCARD-equipped Unidirectional Digital Cable Products purchased at retail without additional, two-way capable equipment:

Discovery Channel HD Channel 260; Speed HD Channel 273; ESPNU HD Channel 288; and Channel BIO HD Channel 296, Planet Green HD Channel 262 ; CNN HD Channel 269; NBA League Pass HD Channel 720; MLB Extra Innings HD/NHL Center Ice HD Channel 745, Disney Channel HD channel 264; History HD Channel 297; Animal Planet HD Channel 261; ABC Family HD Channel 263; Lifetime HD Channel 276; ESPN News HD Channel 274; TLC HD Channel 275; Fox Sports Carolina HD Channel 272.

Looks like all the HD channels TWC is adding over the couple of weeks are going to be SDV channels except for MGM HD according to the following from their website:

The new services listed below cannot be accessed on CableCARD-equipped Unidirectional Digital Cable Products purchased at retail without additional, two-way capable equipment:

Discovery Channel HD Channel 260; Speed HD Channel 273; ESPNU HD Channel 288; and Channel BIO HD Channel 296, Planet Green HD Channel 262 ; CNN HD Channel 269; NBA League Pass HD Channel 720; MLB Extra Innings HD/NHL Center Ice HD Channel 745, Disney Channel HD channel 264; History HD Channel 297; Animal Planet HD Channel 261; ABC Family HD Channel 263; Lifetime HD Channel 276; ESPN News HD Channel 274; TLC HD Channel 275; Fox Sports Carolina HD Channel 272.


Salt in the wound..... :(

Hopefully tuning adapter will appear in December. I still have my 8300 as SDV insurance.. but I hate that thing.

Salt in the wound..... :(

Hopefully tuning adapter will appear in December. I still have my 8300 as SDV insurance.. but I hate that thing.

When it comes to TWC anything they say is about as reliable as horoscopes in National Enquirer. Especially when it comes to the almost mythical tuning adapter. Engadget had a test of the Moto box back in May and said they would be shipping in July. TWC made an announcement they would be dropping this year back in October.

November is half way gone. So this could fall under another empty promise from TWC. And considering the havoc they've created with Navigator the tuning adapter sounds like a whole other potential mess. Would they really want the tech support hassle by releasing a potentially problematic piece of hardware so close to the holidays now?

Watching House on Fox HD via TWC.. no 5.1. That's two stations now...

I'm betting he has been busy! I thought maybe they finally had it fixed with the Sunday night experience... but I too saw back to 2.0 for Heroes (I don't watch Chuck) last night.


It looks like it could be a NBC issue. I found this on the Wilmington, NC thread from the Chief Engineer for the NBC station there. If you want to read the whole thing go here. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=254668&page=55

Audio is another thing with many similar frustrations. We have lip sync, popping, and drop outs when it becomes corrupt or mismatched to video. We have had so many issues from many sources including NBC network that I have had to temporary bypass the 5.1 surround sound to stabilize the audio for the 98% or our viewers that are not using it. This has drastically reduced many of the issues. We will introduce surround sound after NBC completes the conversion to all new satellite receive equipment and we have had a chance to stabilize our transmitter site and new local HD news control room.

Please be patient with us. The digital transition has set us back 20 or more years in equipment stability and reliability. I have only scratched the surface on the vast number of issues and problems we are working through right now. We still don't have much of the test equipment or expertise to fix every problem quickly but I can assure you we will improve over time just like when color television was introduced or when TV first came on the air.

looks like something blew out during Chuck. The show was HD and 5.1 for the first half hour then the video went down and it was just showing a green screen and audio, dropped to SD for a few seconds and when the HD came back the 5.1 was gone.

Something tells me that NBC17ENG is being kept quite busy these past few weeks. ;)

The technical performance of NBC 17 is abyssmal. It has been since I moved to Raleigh six years ago. It was abyssmal when NBC owned it. It's been abyssmal since Media General has owned it.

They keep asking on the air to "tell us how we're doing". I guess management does not own TV sets, or they'd be embarrassed to ask...

What do they want us to say ??? "We just love your blurry SD newscast???" "We just love the digital studdering, the audio problems, our favorite shows in letterbox SD, 2.1 sound, or a colon cleansing informercial replacing the first few minutes of "Meet the Press".

At least I haven't seen any ads for Birmingham, Al auto dealers since Media General took over.:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Watching House on Fox HD via TWC.. no 5.1. That's two stations now...

Turns out this time it was my HD DVR. Went into audio settings and switched it from DD to PCM and back to DD and 5.1 came back.

Turns out this time it was my HD DVR. Went into audio settings and switched it from DD to PCM and back to DD and 5.1 came back.

Glad you figured it out. I was just going to FYI that I watched OTA and House was 5.1 all the way... so either it would be a Time Warner issue or your receiver, which you already figured out in the meantime.

Is anyone who receives WLFL-DT (22.1) OTA getting anything ? OTA analog and DBS appear to be OK

Looks like WNCN's HD clear QAM channel on TWC is working for me with BeyondTV 4.9 again (previously only their SD channel was playing back normally). Let's hope it lasts...

EDIT: and of course it lasted all of about five minutes :(

back to square one with WNCN HD on TWC not playing back on BTV.

ABC over QAM is garbage, freezing/stuttering all the time, audio is fine (5.1) but video is stuttering/freezing. Anyone else?

Haha vidiot, I just did the same thing as last time: read the first sentence of your message, excitedly turned on WNCN, saw the same behavior, and then came back to see the second half of your message. ;) Quit toying with my emotions!

shipitz, I'm watching a clear QAM recording of a ABC-HD from weds night, it seems fine.

On another topic: can anyone actually tune 260 DSC HD (Discovery HD)? I continue to get the "DISCOVERY HD is not available right now, please try again later" splash screen. I continue to be too lazy to sit on hold to find out what's up.

On another topic: can anyone actually tune 260 DSC HD (Discovery HD)? I continue to get the "DISCOVERY HD is not available right now, please try again later" splash screen. I continue to be too lazy to sit on hold to find out what's up.

I'm getting the same message.

Jim

Haha vidiot, I just did the same thing as last time: read the first sentence of your message, excitedly turned on WNCN, saw the same behavior, and then came back to see the second half of your message. ;) Quit toying with my emotions!

shipitz, I'm watching a clear QAM recording of a ABC-HD from weds night, it seems fine.

On another topic: can anyone actually tune 260 DSC HD (Discovery HD)? I continue to get the "DISCOVERY HD is not available right now, please try again later" splash screen. I continue to be too lazy to sit on hold to find out what's up.

This happened to all of the SDV channels at my end. My guess is that SDV became misconfigured when channels were added today.

Please call technical support about this. If two or more people call in the same area call in the same problem, their trouble tickets can be combined to allow the technical support representative to declare a global outage, which could send someone to the head end to fix this SDV misconfiguration. I have already called TWC technical support, so I am waiting for another call to alert TWC that there is something wrong at the head end.

By the way, try to play any show from the video on demand before you call TWC technical support. Successfully playing one of these will provide you proof that your box can talk to the head end, eliminating one possible trouble spot for the technical support crew to have to sort trhough in diagnosing the problem.

On another topic: can anyone actually tune 260 DSC HD (Discovery HD)? I continue to get the "DISCOVERY HD is not available right now, please try again later" splash screen. I continue to be too lazy to sit on hold to find out what's up.

Coming in fine here in Durham. I've had problems with the SDV channels a couple of times over the past couple of weeks and I have had to unplug the box and go through a cold boot to get them to work. Might as well do that before you call TW since that will be the first thing they tell you to do.

Turns out this time it was my HD DVR. Went into audio settings and switched it from DD to PCM and back to DD and 5.1 came back.

dgmayor,

Thanks for the tip. My box has been doing this for months now and I've been doing a cold reboot. This way is much easier and much faster. Thanks again!

Haha vidiot, I just did the same thing as last time: read the first sentence of your message, excitedly turned on WNCN, saw the same behavior, and then came back to see the second half of your message. ;) Quit toying with my emotions!

...

Sorry about that!

Fortunately, I filed a bug with the BeyondTV beta, they sent me a pointer to another pre-release build and now I can watch WNCN HD from TWC normally.

So hopefully this problem is nailed down once and for all.

Is anyone who receives WLFL-DT (22.1) OTA getting anything ? OTA analog and DBS appear to be OK

I can't speak to the other day when you originally asked because I only watch WLFL on Thursdays for Smallville... but I can say tonight 22.1 OTA has been having lots of problems. I finally gave up as it was doing something really screwy that was locking up my OTA decoder because it was constantly dropping the PID channel identifier then redetecting it then dropping in a loop that made it near impossible to tune to another channel and 22.1 was not watchable.

Got the new channels today.. keep em coming! Kind of sad to see Mojo go because I liked watching the Howard tv recap show on Friday nights.

Coming in fine here in Durham. I've had problems with the SDV channels a couple of times over the past couple of weeks and I have had to unplug the box and go through a cold boot to get them to work. Might as well do that before you call TW since that will be the first thing they tell you to do.

Thanks for the heads up. I've powered off/on the box, but I'm not sure I've done a 'cold boot', can you remind me if that's something different?

I've never been able to tune these channels since they were added.

vidiot, do you happen to know what build # is working for you? I'm in the beta program as well.

ABC over QAM is garbage, freezing/stuttering all the time, audio is fine (5.1) but video is stuttering/freezing. Anyone else?

What kind of receiver? An early SageTV 6.4 beta had problems with ABC11 for me. About 1/2 the recordings would have a screwed up timeline, leading to freezing/stuttering when playing them back. This same bug did not affect any other channels, so perhaps ABC is doing something weird here. Upgrading to the final 6.4.x SageTV fixed the problem for me.

I've heard that VideoReDo would fix the timeline on the buggy recordings, but I never bothered because they played OK in an old version of mplayer I had laying around.

Drew

Thanks for the heads up. I've powered off/on the box, but I'm not sure I've done a 'cold boot', can you remind me if that's something different?

I've never been able to tune these channels since they were added.

vidiot, do you happen to know what build # is working for you? I'm in the beta program as well.

A cold boot is where the box boots from either a power failure or being unplugged.

Thanks for the heads up. I've powered off/on the box, but I'm not sure I've done a 'cold boot', can you remind me if that's something different?

I've never been able to tune these channels since they were added.


A cold boot is unplugging the power from the box and then plugging it back in and waiting for the box to go through it's 5 minute start up. Just turning it off and back on won't have the same effect.

Wahoo!!! U-verse coming to Cary! Maybe.
http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/11/21/atandt-eying-december-launch-of-u-verse-in-cary-nc

Doesn't U-Verse have worse picture quality and lower bitrate than either cable or satellite?

Update:

After cold boot (thanks folks) I'm getting the latest HD offerings.

vidiot, I found what I assume was your beta ticket, and downloaded the build they offered you, and I finally have NBC back (with audio). Thanks for taking the time to report that, nice service from SnapStream there.

Wahoo!!! U-verse coming to Cary! Maybe.
http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/11/21/atandt-eying-december-launch-of-u-verse-in-cary-nc

They were running fiber down High House about 2 or 3 weeks ago.

ABC over QAM is garbage, freezing/stuttering all the time, audio is fine (5.1) but video is stuttering/freezing. Anyone else?

I have the same exact problem. It's horrible. They better get this fixed before Lost starts in January or I'll be pissed.

Is anyone getting CNN HD in North Raleigh from TWC?

I see it in the guide on 269, but when I change to that channel I get message saying not available yet.

Tried a cold reboot, no luck. Trying to figure out if it truly is not available yet or if my box has a problem.

Thanks...

Is anyone getting CNN HD in North Raleigh from TWC?

I see it in the guide on 269, but when I change to that channel I get message saying not available yet.

Tried a cold reboot, no luck. Trying to figure out if it truly is not available yet or if my box has a problem.

Thanks...

I'm in Cary and I get it with no problems...

Is anyone getting CNN HD in North Raleigh from TWC?

I see it in the guide on 269, but when I change to that channel I get message saying not available yet.

Tried a cold reboot, no luck. Trying to figure out if it truly is not available yet or if my box has a problem.

Thanks...


Hmmm... I get 'CNN HD is currently unavailable. Please try again later.'

I keep pressing A to try again... but no joy.

Is anyone getting CNN HD in North Raleigh from TWC?

I see it in the guide on 269, but when I change to that channel I get message saying not available yet.

Tried a cold reboot, no luck. Trying to figure out if it truly is not available yet or if my box has a problem.

Thanks...

Are you able to tune to any of the other SDV channels like Discovery Channel HD (260), Planet Green HD (262), Speed HD (273), or Biography HD (296)?

If so, too many other users are tuned to other SDV channels. You just are unlucky.

If you can only tune one of them or none at all, this looks like your head end was screwed up.

Also, try rebooting. On Thursday, SDV was totally messed up. A reboot on Friday night forced the box to reload the SDV carousel, allowing it to use SDV.

Either way, call TWC Technical support. Maybe they might fix whatever is causing the problem (either too many users are tuned to different SDV channels or there is a head end misconfiguration).

Are you able to tune to any of the other SDV channels like Discovery Channel HD (260), Planet Green HD (262), Speed HD (273), or Biography HD (296)?

If so, too many other users are tuned to other SDV channels. You just are unlucky.

If you can only tune one of them or none at all, this looks like your head end was screwed up.

Also, try rebooting. On Thursday, SDV was totally messed up. A reboot on Friday night forced the box to reload the SDV carousel, allowing it to use SDV.

Either way, call TWC Technical support. Maybe they might fix whatever is causing the problem (either too many users are tuned to different SDV channels or there is a head end misconfiguration).

I can tune all the SDV cannels..... EXCEPT CNN HD. Ill reboot it and see what happens.

I can tune all the SDV cannels..... EXCEPT CNN HD. Ill reboot it and see what happens.

Same here.

I live off Glenwood and I can get all my channels except CNN HD

I can tune all the SDV cannels..... EXCEPT CNN HD. Ill reboot it and see what happens.

Reboot made no difference.... All HD works except CNN HD.

CNN HD is fine here.

While flipping I also landed on the Community Channel at 265. Looks like somebody is using an AV screensaver. ;)

I haven't been able to tune into CNN HD ever since it was supposed to have been added on Thursday. I have 2 HD DVR boxes (8300HD and 8300HDC) and neither of them can tune into 269 so it's not my box(es). I can get all of the other channels except CNN HD. I had a service tech come out yesterday and he couldn't find anything wrong. Customer service is a joke as there is no way to escalate the problem or contact anyone higher up who might be able to help with this SDV debacle. I'm glad it's not just me but when will we get some resolution to this issue? Grrrrr:mad:

Update: As of Monday morning, I am finally able to tune into CNN HD on both of my boxes (ODN and MDN) so obviously it had nothing to do with my boxes!

Every time i've gone to CNN HD they have SD looking junk on with graphic filler down both sides. Maybe it's just my timing. Oh well.

Hi scsi and others with CNN HD problem,

Please call in your trouble with CNN HD. Maybe if enough of us complain about it they'll realize they need to get it fixed.

I called it in about 20 minutes ago. They couldn't figure out what the problem was. They rebooted my box, service person put me on hold twice to talk to other folks. She said there's no record of a problem from anyone else (which is wrong since Tim Terrific actually had truck roll).

Thanks,

Sooke

... too many other users are tuned to other SDV channels...

... so I can't also watch?

Ummm, if that's true, SDV will truly suck.

... so I can't also watch?

Ummm, if that's true, SDV will truly suck.

I had thought that when I read about SDV implementations in other markets that the plan was to make channels that were lightly viewed SDV channels.

I had thought that when I read about SDV implementations in other markets that the plan was to make channels that were lightly viewed SDV channels.

That would be the case if TWC were not so desperately starving for bandwidth and falling way behind in HD channel numbers. SDV was supposed to be the answer to all cable's woes but if the infrastructure is already stressed as it is then just flipping a switch for SDV and then upping the channel count isn't going to make everything better. TWC need to do more with their network.

They probably didn't want to add these channels until the digital switch but market forces are probably tipping their hand.

[QUOTE=VisionOn;15137718]That would be the case if TWC were not so desperately starving for bandwidth and falling way behind in HD channel numbers. SDV was supposed to be the answer to all cable's woes but if the infrastructure is already stressed as it is then just flipping a switch for SDV and then upping the channel count isn't going to make everything better. TWC need to do more with their network.

QUOTE]

True.. and so far they havent freed up any bandwidth by moving stuff from linear to SDV. Once they do that... I would expect their bandwidth situation to improve.

However, the CNN HD issue is unlikely to be due to bandwith starvation. Its still not working this morning. My guess would be that a few nodes are misconfigured.

Now instead of just a black screen I get a, "CNN HD is currently unavailable Please try again later" notice.

Even I can't watch CNN HD now. I have called it in to TWC support.

CNN-HD is working fine here, has been since it was added.
Of course I'm on DISH and it was added back in April. :)

Even I can't watch CNN HD now. I have called it in to TWC support.

TWC Engineering is aware of it and working it.

CNN-HD is working fine here, has been since it was added.
Of course I'm on DISH and it was added back in April. :)


LOL... Funny Guy... :D

Try CNN HD now.... Should be fixed....

Try CNN HD now.... Should be fixed....

CNN HD is still broken here.

Still down for me as well.

I'm in Cary and I've had no problems getting it since it was added.

Still down for me as well.
Rectified by at least 9pm yesterday. Probably earlier but thats when I checked.

I'm in Cary and I've had no problems getting it since it was added.

Same here.

CNN HD started working for me Monday night sometime.

CNN HD is now fixed at my house as of Tuesday.

My turn. No CNN HD here. Or Speed HD. Or Planet Green HD ... basically it's an SDV massacre.

Ah TWC, your "advanced fiber network" never succeeds to amaze me. :rolleyes:

and look at that. After 15 years (?) the rest of the market is finally getting Bravo.


Dec. 31, 2008: NBC Weather Plus (Channel 219) and Elections '08 On Demand (Channel 1103) will no longer be available.

Bravo will be added to these Standard Cable lineups:

* Cary, Chapel Hill, Durham, Garner/Selma, Goldsboro, Henderson, Raleigh: Channel 72 (replacing Inspiration/EWTN*)
* Lumberton: Channel 22 (replacing Inspiration*)
* Fayetteville/Southern Pines: Channel 53

WHY does UNC not deliver the main UNC-TV feed to Time Warner in HD ???? In case the rest of you don't know, the programming on TWC channel 200 is available in HD OTA on 4.1. I switch to OTA to see The News Hour, Frontline, Nova, etc in HD. I'd bitch to UNC, but I'm not a "member" and I can't stand any more guilt trips.......(or afford to pay for any more TV)

and look at that. After 15 years (?) the rest of the market is finally getting Bravo.

I'm sure Bravo in NC was a "pawn" in the Universal NBC/Time Warner negotiations. Since TWC seems to be rolling out HD channels simultaneously across the NC region, it would be difficult to maintain that strategy if all channels are not carried in all areas.

I never understood why Bravo was not available in much of NC. I sent an email to TWC accussing them of being "homophobic" in not carrying Bravo in NC, and actually got a reply that religious programming was more consistant with the area's deomgraphic. How many Benny Hinn channels do we need??? I counted seven channels that carry Benny Hinn.

Anyway, Bravo is a fairly top shelf network with many high profile Emmy nominated programs.

Given that, I think Emmy needs a new category: "Excellence in Televangelism". Just Kidding.:rolleyes::rolleyes:

My turn. No CNN HD here. Or Speed HD. Or Planet Green HD ... basically it's an SDV massacre.

Ah TWC, your "advanced fiber network" never succeeds to amaze me. :rolleyes:

What is this, SDV Whac-A-Mole? :p

Seriously, have you rebooted, and if that does not work, have you phoned it in? Sometimes they fix the problem, but you need to reboot the box to force it to reload the repaired SDV carousel after the problem has been fixed.

I never understood why Bravo was not available in much of NC.

Way way back (as in years) in this thread I asked the same question and someone knew. If I recall Carrboro had a different cableco at one point who carried Bravo. When TWC took over they had to follow the same carriage agreement.

What is this, SDV Whac-A-Mole? :p

It's back again now.

With the current state of SDV this seems like it's going to be a recurring and randomly striking new "feature" that we are probably going to have to get used to.

WHY does UNC not deliver the main UNC-TV feed to Time Warner in HD ???? In case the rest of you don't know, the programming on TWC channel 200 is available in HD OTA on 4.1. I switch to OTA to see The News Hour, Frontline, Nova, etc in HD. I'd bitch to UNC, but I'm not a "member" and I can't stand any more guilt trips.......(or afford to pay for any more TV)
I've been in contact with both UNC-TV and Time-Warner and the problem lies with Time-Warner (not surprisingly). UNC-TV has been supplying TWC with a direct fiber feed of their channels (including UNC-TV) since September. UNC-TV has been broadcasting in HD since then as well so the HD transmission was no longer limited to between 8 and 11 pm. I have contacted TWC with this info and they are currently investigating it and I'm supposed to be contacted by someone in engineering to explain why channel 200 is not being shown in HD. I'm not holding my breath though based on past experience. Every time I talk to one of the CSR's, they tell me that UNC TV is available in HD on channel 201, completely missing the entire issue...:rolleyes:

I've been in contact with both UNC-TV and Time-Warner and the problem lies with Time-Warner (not surprisingly). UNC-TV has been supplying TWC with a direct fiber feed of their channels (including UNC-TV) since September. UNC-TV has been broadcasting in HD since then as well so the HD transmission was no longer limited to between 8 and 11 pm. I have contacted TWC with this info and they are currently investigating it and I'm supposed to be contacted by someone in engineering to explain why channel 200 is not being shown in HD. I'm not holding my breath though based on past experience. Every time I talk to one of the CSR's, they tell me that UNC TV is available in HD on channel 201, completely missing the entire issue...:rolleyes:

Well, they would need more QAM bandwidth than they currently have allocated to have two HD's and 3 SD's. Its possible there may be fiber bandwidth limits too.... although they could get 200 from 4-1 OTA and get around that.

I've been in contact with both UNC-TV and Time-Warner and the problem lies with Time-Warner (not surprisingly). UNC-TV has been supplying TWC with a direct fiber feed of their channels (including UNC-TV) since September. UNC-TV has been broadcasting in HD since then as well so the HD transmission was no longer limited to between 8 and 11 pm. I have contacted TWC with this info and they are currently investigating it and I'm supposed to be contacted by someone in engineering to explain why channel 200 is not being shown in HD. I'm not holding my breath though based on past experience. Every time I talk to one of the CSR's, they tell me that UNC TV is available in HD on channel 201, completely missing the entire issue...:rolleyes:

I fault both parties. UNC must realize that over half of their viewers will only ever see what Time Warner dishes out. Actually, the UNC-HD cable only channel needs to be "retired". I'm not surprised the Time Warner CSR's don't have a clue.

It seems like for awhile, UNC was simulcasting UNC-TV and UNC-HD between 8-11 so it didn't really matter that much. But they don't seem to be doing that anymore, so I wish they would just get it straight.

I fault both parties. UNC must realize that over half of their viewers will only ever see what Time Warner dishes out. Actually, the UNC-HD cable only channel needs to be "retired".

Yes and no.. One of the problems with the HD OTA version of WUNC is that they do stupid things with it, like show kids shows/cartoons all day that don't need to be in HD -- I have a 2.5 year old, and trust me, he doesn't care if Curious George is in HD. Meanwhile, cable UNC-HD is showing stuff that does look better in HD (travel shows, cooking shows, etc). I think what they ought to do is just use UNC-KD for the kids shows, and put more visually appealing programming from the UNC-HD cable channel on the HD broadcast channel. FWIW I'm a "producers circle member" and have complained about this to them. When I talked to them, I got the impression that there were major programming changes coming soon.

I think one reason for the stupid use of the HD-OTA version of WUNC is that it is the only channel that analog viewers, and basic cable subscribers see. So they've got to have the kids shows, etc, wasting bandwidth on it, since that is the only channel that analog viewers can see. After Feb 2009, the OTA analog viewers will be gone, but what happens to the "must carry" rules? Does TWC have to provide all 3 OTA WUNC stations in analog form to basic cable subscribers? Or is providing them as unscrambled QAM good enough?

Drew

Yes and no.. One of the problems with the HD OTA version of WUNC is that they do stupid things with it, like show kids shows/cartoons all day that don't need to be in HD -- I have a 2.5 year old, and trust me, he doesn't care if Curious George is in HD.


I pray for a day when our children only know about SD programming from reading about it on the web or in (e)books! :D

Yes and no.. One of the problems with the HD OTA version of WUNC is that they do stupid things with it, like show kids shows/cartoons all day that don't need to be in HD -- I have a 2.5 year old, and trust me, he doesn't care if Curious George is in HD. Meanwhile, cable UNC-HD is showing stuff that does look better in HD (travel shows, cooking shows, etc). I think what they ought to do is just use UNC-KD for the kids shows, and put more visually appealing programming from the UNC-HD cable channel on the HD broadcast channel. FWIW I'm a "producers circle member" and have complained about this to them. When I talked to them, I got the impression that there were major programming changes coming soon.

I think one reason for the stupid use of the HD-OTA version of WUNC is that it is the only channel that analog viewers, and basic cable subscribers see. So they've got to have the kids shows, etc, wasting bandwidth on it, since that is the only channel that analog viewers can see. After Feb 2009, the OTA analog viewers will be gone, but what happens to the "must carry" rules? Does TWC have to provide all 3 OTA WUNC stations in analog form to basic cable subscribers? Or is providing them as unscrambled QAM good enough?

Drew

The parent channel, 4.1, should be primarily an outlet for current PBS network product, be it for children or adults, SD or HD. Specialty side car channels can show archival genre programming. The HD specialty channel is fine, but it should not compromise delivery of the primary programming service in HD, which is what has happened.

As far as the must carry rules go, one would hope that there is no requirement for worthless programmers to be able to wedge their way onto an analog cable channel by leasing a subchannel on a broadcast channel. I think analog carriage of the legacy parent channel and digital pass thru of the digital signal with all it's baggage is all that should be required. Effective 2012, the analog piece goes away anyway.

I pray for a day when our children only know about SD programming from reading about it on the web or in (e)books! :D

I personally want my future kids (I hope) to see SD programming like Mr Rogers and Looney Toons. :p

- Trip

So, now that I (and others) have complained enough to get the CNN HD channel working on TWC, is there actually anything shot in HD on this channel?

And what was the deal with TNT HD last night? They had a _big_ advertisement bug for some show called the Librarian on screen during Lord of the Rings for the _entire_ battle in the mines of Moria.

Sorry, just crabby today.

Sooke

So, now that I (and others) have complained enough to get the CNN HD channel working on TWC, is there actually anything shot in HD on this channel?

And what was the deal with TNT HD last night? They had a _big_ advertisement bug for some show called the Librarian on screen during Lord of the Rings for the _entire_ battle in the mines of Moria.

Sorry, just crabby today.

Sooke

Yes, CNN's Special Investigations Unit programs and their CNN Heroes programs are shot in HD.

I don't understand why ESPN2 SD has the FL/FSU game but ESPN2 HD is an ESPNews Simulcast. Good thing my father was here and found the game in SD or I'd have never even known. I never look at the SD channels...especially if the HD was one thing, why would I expect the SD would be any different?

I don't understand why ESPN2 SD has the FL/FSU game but ESPN2 HD is an ESPNews Simulcast. Good thing my father was here and found the game in SD or I'd have never even known. I never look at the SD channels...especially if the HD was one thing, why would I expect the SD would be any different?

I found the reason:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?page=coveragemaps2008

This link will become invalid soon, so read quickly. This is ESPN's faut!

I found the reason:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?page=coveragemaps2008

This link will become invalid soon, so read quickly. This is ESPN's faut!

Other than the maps and the statement that you have to tune into the SD station in our area to see the game as the HD is blacked out, I don't actually see a reason.

Other than the maps and the statement that you have to tune into the SD station in our area to see the game as the HD is blacked out, I don't actually see a reason.


Thankfully this is the last major college football weekend of the year and the last time I will have to explain this problem this year. Hopefully ABC/ESPN will fix the limitation before next season.

The problem is with the ESPN/ABC reverse mirror. The game,while being produced in HD, was not being shown in HD on ESPN2. It was shown in HD on ABC but only if it was your regional game. Our regional ABC game was Maryland/BC. ESPN2 can only send one HD broadcast at a time and they chose the Maryland/BC game to be their HD game at 3:30.(Why I have no idea as it would seem more people would be interested in FL/FSU) So if you were in an area that got FL/FSU on ABC, Maryland/BC would be in HD on ESPN2. Those of us in the area that got the Maryland/BC as our ABC game were stuck with an SD game on ESPN2 and ESPN News on ESPN2 HD.

Thankfully this is the last major college football weekend of the year and the last time I will have to explain this problem this year. Hopefully ABC/ESPN will fix the limitation before next season.

The problem is with the ESPN/ABC reverse mirror. The game,while being produced in HD, was not being shown in HD on ESPN2. It was shown in HD on ABC but only if it was your regional game. Our regional ABC game was Maryland/BC. ESPN2 can only send one HD broadcast at a time and they chose the Maryland/BC game to be their HD game at 3:30.(Why I have no idea as it would seem more people would be interested in FL/FSU) So if you were in an area that got FL/FSU on ABC, Maryland/BC would be in HD on ESPN2. Those of us in the area that got the Maryland/BC as our ABC game were stuck with an SD game on ESPN2 and ESPN News on ESPN2 HD.


I assume we had Maryland/BC here because we're considered in the broadcast area for Maryland, same way we're in the blackout region for the Orioles even though we don't receive MASN.

I guess I'm just surprised to hear that ESPN has such a limitation. With all the games they broadcast in HD, and with all the HD stations they have, I guess I just don't understand this limitation.

I assume we had Maryland/BC here because we're considered in the broadcast area for Maryland, same way we're in the blackout region for the Orioles even though we don't receive MASN.

I guess I'm just surprised to hear that ESPN has such a limitation. With all the games they broadcast in HD, and with all the HD stations they have, I guess I just don't understand this limitation.

What is even harder to understand is that ABC only has the ability to send 2 HD feeds at a time(usually the east and west coast prime time feeds). So on a Saturday afternoon when ABC is showing 3 games at 3:30 only 2 of them are shown in HD. Fox and CBS had to overcome this limitation for their NFL coverage and for CBS to be able to show all the NCAA Men's bball tournament in HD. And while ESPN and all it's channels show a ton of games, they only do regional games on Saturdays. The only other time they would be showing multiple feeds would be in March during the NCAA women's tournament. So I'm sure that something that they only do for 8-10 days a year isn't a priority to fix.

The parent channel, 4.1, should be primarily an outlet for current PBS network product, be it for children or adults, SD or HD. Specialty side car channels can show archival genre programming. The HD specialty channel is fine, but it should not compromise delivery of the primary programming service in HD, which is what has happened.


The problem is that they are wasting over 8 hours of bandwidth per day on kids shows, 95% of which are 4:3 SD upconverted to 1080i. I'd much rather they showed that on just the SD "KIDS" channel, and ran the content from the cable HD-only channel during the day. Like I said before, my kid doesn't care that Curious George or Sesame Street is in HD, so I record the SD versions from the Kids' channel to save space.

The ideal solution is what they were doing before -- changing the lineup between primetime and non-primetime (or better, between HD content and non-HD content). According to the engineer I talked to when I called to complain a month or two ago, they had problems with a lot of smaller cable companies not being able to handle an automatic lineup change and that was the reason they switched to what they have now.

Drew

According to the engineer I talked to when I called to complain a month or two ago, they had problems with a lot of smaller cable companies not being able to handle an automatic lineup change and that was the reason they switched to what they have now.

Yup. Here in Rocky Mount, when UNC turned on the HD channel at 8pm each night, there was no audio on the channel for 3-5 minutes after the change. Plus, I assume the constant creation and deletion of the HD channel would play havoc with DirecTV and Dish Network trying to carry the channel as well. While DirecTV isn't carrying UNC-HD yet, I could imagine a situation where something went wrong and the HD channel on DirecTV would be showing the OTA "UNC HD will return at 8pm" instead of normal programming.

Also, please don't forget that those of us out in the sticks don't get the UNC HD channel that is fed to Time Warner. All we can get on cable is the UNC OTA signals.

Where is the UNC game in high def? It's not on 291

(TWC, Raleigh)

Where is the UNC game in high def? It's not on 291

(TWC, Raleigh)

Wow.

It appears that since Time Warner has announced the addition of FSN Carolinas HD (launches on Dec 18 on 262 I believe), they aren't showing any more FSN games in HD until then.

All along we've been getting the FSN-HD games on 291, but instead of continuing this up until the launch of 262, they're just not going to show them at all until then.

God I miss Directv

The problem is that they are wasting over 8 hours of bandwidth per day on kids shows, 95% of which are 4:3 SD upconverted to 1080i. I'd much rather they showed that on just the SD "KIDS" channel, and ran the content from the cable HD-only channel during the day. Like I said before, my kid doesn't care that Curious George or Sesame Street is in HD, so I record the SD versions from the Kids' channel to save space.

The ideal solution is what they were doing before -- changing the lineup between primetime and non-primetime (or better, between HD content and non-HD content). According to the engineer I talked to when I called to complain a month or two ago, they had problems with a lot of smaller cable companies not being able to handle an automatic lineup change and that was the reason they switched to what they have now.

Drew

It still seems ridiculous that the News Hour and Frontline are in SD while the umpteeth million reruns of Organic Farmer and The Wonders of North Dakota are in HD.

ESPN2 can only send one HD broadcast at a time and they chose the Maryland/BC game to be their HD game at 3:30.(Why I have no idea as it would seem more people would be interested in FL/FSU)
Because most of the country got Florida/FSU on ABC...by putting UMD/BC on ESPN2HD, most of the country got both games in HD...we just happened to be in the area where UMD/BC was on ABC, so we were stuck with one game in SD.

Because most of the country got Florida/FSU on ABC...by putting UMD/BC on ESPN2HD, most of the country got both games in HD...we just happened to be in the area where UMD/BC was on ABC, so we were stuck with one game in SD.

yeah, but the easy answer to this problem (especially when there are only 2 games) would be to show FL vs FSU on ABC nationally, and BC vs Maryland on ESPN2 nationally

I found NBC 17 HD finally over the weekend on QAM channel 102.2. I could not find FOX 50, or ABC 11 HD... Cable sux. This was in Fayetteville, but I think it is the same crap for the Raleigh area as well. If anyone can point me to where 50 HD and 11 HD are that would be appreciated! TV was a Sony.

The ESPN issue got even crazier when the BC game went long and the blacked out the Tennessee Kentucky game also that was to follow it also. At least they ran the early part of that game on ESPN Classic in SD.

It still seems ridiculous that the News Hour and Frontline are in SD while the umpteeth million reruns of Organic Farmer and The Wonders of North Dakota are in HD.

They're in HD for me OTA. Get an antenna :)

But I'd rather see the Organic Farmer and the Wonders of North Dakota in HD than 4:3 cartoons.

Drew

Yup. Here in Rocky Mount, when UNC turned on the HD channel at 8pm each night, there was no audio on the channel for 3-5 minutes after the change.

This was probably one of the cable companies they were talking about, and the variable delay was probably how long it took before somebody reset their equipment. Did things get better in the last week when they started running both an audio and a video trickle stream, rather than just the video trickle stream?

Plus, I assume the constant creation and deletion of the HD channel would play havoc with DirecTV and Dish Network trying to carry the channel as well.

Wow.. If a freeware open source PVR application (MythTV) and a small business based PVR application (SageTV) could handle the lineup changes OK, you'd certainly think that multi-million (billion?) dollar satellite companies could handle the lineup changes.

Drew

and look at that. After 15 years (?) the rest of the market is finally getting Bravo.

Holy crap, after three years in the Triangle area (after growing up in Florida), I had resigned myself to never seeing Bravo again. Which sucks, since they have the West Wing syndication among other things. Good news.

Did things get better in the last week when they started running both an audio and a video trickle stream, rather than just the video trickle stream?

It didn't really get any better until UNCTV went HD 24/7. I don't think anyone reset the equipment each night. I think the equipment the cable system used to pick up UNC just was dumb about looking for audio. You could almost run a stopwatch while watching cable. After a specified number of minutes, the audio would suddenly appear. Was like that for several years. I hated it because the audio would appear until the sponsors of Nova were read off. So, I'd miss the entire intro as to what they were covering each night.

-Matt

What kind of receiver? An early SageTV 6.4 beta had problems with ABC11 for me. About 1/2 the recordings would have a screwed up timeline, leading to freezing/stuttering when playing them back. This same bug did not affect any other channels, so perhaps ABC is doing something weird here. Upgrading to the final 6.4.x SageTV fixed the problem for me.

I've heard that VideoReDo would fix the timeline on the buggy recordings, but I never bothered because they played OK in an old version of mplayer I had laying around.

Drew

With my Vizio, no external receiver/tuner involved. It also happened using an antenna OTA so something was not right with the stream cause most of the time the HD channel is working fine.

So, is UNC HD 4.2 (at least, that's the channel my TV gives it) missing for anyone else? I don't think I pressed any wrong buttons, but right now I do not have channel 4.2. And if I go to my channel setup (Panasonic Plasma) 4.2 is not listed as available in the manual channel setup either! 4.1 and 4.3 are listed but 4.2 is missing.

FWIW, TWC - Basic only (no digital subscription)

So, is UNC HD 4.2 (at least, that's the channel my TV gives it) missing for anyone else? I don't think I pressed any wrong buttons, but right now I do not have channel 4.2. And if I go to my channel setup (Panasonic Plasma) 4.2 is not listed as available in the manual channel setup either! 4.1 and 4.3 are listed but 4.2 is missing.

FWIW, TWC - Basic only (no digital subscription)

I just checked and 4.2 is fine over QAM. I also do not have digital sub, just plain basic.

Did you try to rescan?

I just checked and 4.2 is fine over QAM. I also do not have digital sub, just plain basic.

Did you try to rescan?

I haven't yet, but guess I'm about too...

So, is UNC HD 4.2 (at least, that's the channel my TV gives it) missing for anyone else? I don't think I pressed any wrong buttons, but right now I do not have channel 4.2. And if I go to my channel setup (Panasonic Plasma) 4.2 is not listed as available in the manual channel setup either! 4.1 and 4.3 are listed but 4.2 is missing.

FWIW, TWC - Basic only (no digital subscription)

Not sure how exactly to answer your question since UNC 4.2 is no longer their HD channel. As of a couple of months ago they dropped two subchannels and now have only 4.1-4.3, with 4.1 being their HD channel OTA.

If you never re-scanned after those changes, perhaps that is causing some confusion to your TV locking on now?

I just checked and 4.2 is fine over QAM.I wonder when this HD channel on TWC QAM will get dropped. Programming is mostly junk featurettes with regular PBS HD programs showing as SD on 4.1. It seems TWC must consider QAM viewers second class. :mad:

With my Vizio, no external receiver/tuner involved. It also happened using an antenna OTA so something was not right with the stream cause most of the time the HD channel is working fine.

I have the same TV and the same problem with ABC11. And it only seems to happen with prime time HD programming between 8-11. NBC and WRAL look great, ABC11 is the only channel with the problem. Someone needs to look into it because their prime time HD programming looks like garbage and it will especially make a lot of viewers upset when Lost starts back in January.

The placeholder for Fox Sports Carolinas HD is up on channel 272 on TWC. Sounds like Time Warner got a lot of complaints this weekend about the Carolina game not being shown in HD due to the lack of Mojo. I wonder if they will use this channel to show HD games until the channel is officially added Dec 18th or if they are going to go ahead and add it early. Also, Time Warner finally has a carriage agreement with NBC Universal to carry USA HD and Sci Fi HD and has started rolling it out to different systems. Hopefully we will see it sooner than later.

The placeholder for Fox Sports Carolinas HD is up on channel 272 on TWC. Sounds like Time Warner got a lot of complaints this weekend about the Carolina game not being shown in HD due to the lack of Mojo. I wonder if they will use this channel to show HD games until the channel is officially added Dec 18th or if they are going to go ahead and add it early. Also, Time Warner finally has a carriage agreement with NBC Universal to carry USA HD and Sci Fi HD and has started rolling it out to different systems. Hopefully we will see it sooner than later.

The college game they had on last night was on the HD channel. I flipped by it real quick so didn't verify if it was actually in HD or not, but it was there.

I wonder when this HD channel on TWC QAM will get dropped. Programming is mostly junk featurettes with regular PBS HD programs showing as SD on 4.1. It seems TWC must consider QAM viewers second class. :mad:

Most PBS HD content from 4-1 is shown eventually on UNC-HD, just at different times/days. What shows are you missing? The only major thing missing from UNC-HD seems to be the Newshour. And the "Festival" begathon junk, but I consider that a feature and not a bug.

Drew

PS: You can search http://www.unctv.org/whatson/ for a particular show..

I have been very frustrated over the years with the schedule changes during the begathon. I can;t rememebr one series of This Old House where my DVR did not screw up in the last 8 or 9 years and miss one or 2 episodes due to unnanounced schedule changes. You would think that since they take donations instead of running commercials that they might have some sympathy for DVR owners since being able to watch the shows I want when I want can only have a positive effect on their bottom line, since I would imagine that people would be more likely to donate then..

The placeholder for Fox Sports Carolinas HD is up on channel 272 on TWC. Sounds like Time Warner got a lot of complaints this weekend about the Carolina game not being shown in HD due to the lack of Mojo. I wonder if they will use this channel to show HD games until the channel is officially added Dec 18th or if they are going to go ahead and add it early. Also, Time Warner finally has a carriage agreement with NBC Universal to carry USA HD and Sci Fi HD and has started rolling it out to different systems. Hopefully we will see it sooner than later.

Well here's my answer:

Dec. 3, 2008: Fox Sports Carolinas HD is launched on Channel 272. Please note that Fox Sports Carolinas HD isn't a full-time HD channel. When there is not an HD sporting event airing, the channel will have color bars displayed and the guide will read “Sign Off.” All HD programming appears in the on-screen as scheduled.

Also I emailed a couple of people at Time Warner and they said right now the plan is to add USA HD here in the first quarter of next year.

The college game they had on last night was on the HD channel. I flipped by it real quick so didn't verify if it was actually in HD or not, but it was there.

Whenever it is actually transmitting a game, it is in HD, but since my monitor only can receive and understand 480i, 480p, and 1080i, I have not bothered to check to see if this channel is 1080i or 720p. When there is nothing, it just shows the SMPTE color bars 480i, which is a great opportunity for those who know how to use these bars in order to calibrate their television. Be sure to tune in after the program starts, or you might be watching the program in 480i if you are using HDMI or allow the box to switch resolutions on the fly because Navigator does not switch resolutions unless it is changing the channel or while the user is setting up resolution choices.

I just found out that Fox Sports Net Carolina HD is 720p.

I just found out that Fox Sports Net Carolina HD is 720p.

Thats actually a good thing.... 720p is better for fast motion.

Thats actually a good thing.... 720p is better for fast motion.

So say some...

So say some...

ESPN says so too.....

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tvlistings/espnhd/espnHDStory?id=1614556

ESPN says so too.....

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tvlistings/espnhd/espnHDStory?id=1614556

Sure they do...they are owned by Disney/ABC. If you truly believe that, come to my house and watch some football or hockey. I guarantee when you leave, you won't think so anymore. CBS presentation of sports is FAR above any presentation on ESPN/ABC family of networks or Fox.

NFL games are probably the best example. Switch from CBS to Fox then back to CBS...on the midfield camera you go from clear to blurry to clear.

I'm serious about the invitation...you are welcome to come see for yourself.

Sure they do...they are owned by Disney/ABC. If you truly believe that, come to my house and watch some football or hockey. I guarantee when you leave, you won't think so anymore. CBS presentation of sports is FAR above any presentation on ESPN/ABC family of networks or Fox.

NFL games are probably the best example. Switch from CBS to Fox then back to CBS...on the midfield camera you go from clear to blurry to clear.

I'm serious about the invitation...you are welcome to come see for yourself.

I think that this is because of these things:

I have read that most TV networks send a high bit rate video for stations to recompress to broadcast rates without too much damage. I think that Fox sends a broadcast-rate stream that is meant to be sent straight to the antenna without modification except to insert a local logo. That also could explain why WRAZ must drop down to SD in order to overlay weather information.
WRAL recently installed a new farm of MPEG-2 encoders vastly improving compression quality.

When I typed "fox hd bitrate" into Google, I found out that some other forum here (http://forums.highdefdigest.com/hdtv-programming-info/68632-question-about-hdtv-bitrate.html) stated that FOX sends only a 14.6Mbps feed to local affiliates to be passed straight through, NBC sends a 24Mbps feed to local affiliates that must be recompressed or rate shaped, ABC sends a 40Mbps feed that must be recompressed, and CBS sends a 45Mbps feed that must be recompressed. If this is true, then it makes some sense why Fox HD is really Fox HD Lite (Blame Fox, not WRAZ!), why WNCN has trouble outputting good HD unless one of its two subchannels has been shut down like during the Olympics, and why WTVD and WRAL are picture quality rivals depending on the source material. However, due to the multiple levels of compression and recompression in the broadcast business, nothing network broadcasters do can beat the cable networks for picture quality.

Due to the way lossy compression is, better source material always results in better output for any given bitrate unless no compression is necessary. Fox really shafts its stations in the picture quality department in exchange for lower local affiliate costs. CBS and ABC provides lots of data to play around with and recompress, so it is easy to get good results unless the recompressor was designed by morons or the local station has a moron in either management or engineering. NBC makes the job tough on its local affiliates with such a low bitrate that its stations need to hopefully buy the right HD encoder to get decent PQ and a decent number of subchannels. The wrong choice will penalize NBC stations more than other stations due to the low bitrate. The upcoming shutdown of NBC Weather Plus hopefully will improve the local NBC situation here. It is obvious that WNCN needs to do something like upgrading or replacing its encoder or encoders, but the recession might make finding money for this task possibly impossible; or it could drop its SD channel now until NBC Weather Plus shuts down, and then either use the full 19.4Mbps for the HD subchannel or relaunch NBC SD once NBC Weather Plus shuts down.

Possibly Fox HD Lite will become Fox HD when the upgrade mentioned on this website (http://splicer.foxpico.com/) goes through, because the capability for local weather emergency overlays looks like it might require sending local affiliates a high bitrate stream to be recompressed down to a broadcast bitrate.

I think that this is because of these things:

I have read that most TV networks send a high bit rate video for stations to recompress to broadcast rates without too much damage. I think that Fox sends a broadcast-rate stream that is meant to be sent straight to the antenna without modification except to insert a local logo. That also could explain why WRAZ must drop down to SD in order to overlay weather information.
WRAL recently installed a new farm of MPEG-2 encoders vastly improving compression quality.

When I typed "fox hd bitrate" into Google, I found out that some other forum here (http://forums.highdefdigest.com/hdtv-programming-info/68632-question-about-hdtv-bitrate.html) stated that FOX sends only a 14.6Mbps feed to local affiliates to be passed straight through, NBC sends a 24Mbps feed to local affiliates that must be recompressed or rate shaped, ABC sends a 40Mbps feed that must be recompressed, and CBS sends a 45Mbps feed that must be recompressed. If this is true, then it makes some sense why Fox HD is really Fox HD Lite (Blame Fox, not WRAZ!), why WNCN has trouble outputting good HD unless one of its two subchannels has been shut down like during the Olympics, and why WTVD and WRAL are picture quality rivals depending on the source material. However, due to the multiple levels of compression and recompression in the broadcast business, nothing network broadcasters do can beat the cable networks for picture quality.

Due to the way lossy compression is, better source material always results in better output for any given bitrate unless no compression is necessary. Fox really shafts its stations in the picture quality department in exchange for lower local affiliate costs. CBS and ABC provides lots of data to play around with and recompress, so it is easy to get good results unless the recompressor was designed by morons or the local station has a moron in either management or engineering. NBC makes the job tough on its local affiliates with such a low bitrate that its stations need to hopefully buy the right HD encoder to get decent PQ and a decent number of subchannels. The wrong choice will penalize NBC stations more than other stations due to the low bitrate. The upcoming shutdown of NBC Weather Plus hopefully will improve the local NBC situation here. It is obvious that WNCN needs to do something like upgrading or replacing its encoder or encoders, but the recession might make finding money for this task possibly impossible; or it could drop its SD channel now until NBC Weather Plus shuts down, and then either use the full 19.4Mbps for the HD subchannel or relaunch NBC SD once NBC Weather Plus shuts down.

Possibly Fox HD Lite will become Fox HD when the upgrade mentioned on this website (http://splicer.foxpico.com/) goes through, because the capability for local weather emergency overlays looks like it might require sending local affiliates a high bitrate stream to be recompressed down to a broadcast bitrate.

It may look better in theory, but it does not look better in practice...I've had HD for quite some time and there has never been a time I have seen 720p look better than 1080i. Even in the early days of broadcast prior to bitstarving, 720p never looked better than 1080i. I can read it all day long, but my eyes tell me a different story.

Alright, let me try and straighten out some of the misinformation in here.

CBS, ABC, CW, and My Network TV all use MPEG-2 at some high bitrate to get the HD to the stations. The stations must then recompress the signal to fit in their stream.

NBC uses MPEG-4, I don't know the details about bitrate but I know it's lower than it used to be because MPEG-4 is so much more efficient. This must also be decompressed and recompressed into MPEG-2 for transmission.

Don't ask me what PBS is doing, I don't quite understand their system. Currently it is similar to the CBS/ABC/CW/MyNet but they're moving to some new thing I haven't read up on.

Fox is different. Fox pre-compresses the signal in Los Angeles or wherever it is, then sends the signal over the satellite. At the station, only a bug can be overlaid by the Fox splicer--the stations cannot tamper with the bitrate on the signal. Fox uses a top of the line encoder with a variable bitrate (leaving enough spare bandwidth for one SD subchannel) and then transmits that on exactly the way it will be transmitted OTA. In this sense, the picture will be cleaner because it doesn't go through that additional decompress/recompress that the other networks all have to do. The new splicer will continue this tradition, only with the addition of the ability to do crawls. The splicer, as its name implies "splices in" whatever needs to be overlaid on the picture, without decompressing the MPEG-2.

All other things being equal, Fox should, in theory, have the best picture quality of any network OTA that is running an SD subchannel. I'm talking about macroblocking, mind you, and not about 720p vs 1080i.

Now as for 720p vs 1080i, I imagine that 1080i looks sharper due to more lines. The drawback is that since it's interlaced, motion takes a bit of a hit. Similarly, 720p is better at high motion, but has fewer lines of resolution. We can argue til the end of time which is superior, it's really a matter of opinion.

I hope this helps somewhat.

- Trip

Ok Trip - it SOUNDS pretty good - until you see that WRAZ is in fact running 2 SD subchannels (one is RTN, the other WRAL's Weather Channel). SO, I'd guess that Capital Broadcasting IS doing something with the Fox network stream to add the additional subchannel. OR they are squeezing both of their subchannels into the same bandwidth that other stations are putting ONE subchannel in. Considering the programming they show, this isn't too hard to believe - the weather graphics will compress well, and we all know what is on RTN.. :D

I've watched the WRAZ-DT signal during network programming, and they are not tampering with the Fox signal (or weren't when I watched a few months back); they are in fact compressing the two subchannels into the space reserved for one. It works okay because of the static nature of the weather subchannel.

- Trip

It may look better in theory, but it does not look better in practice...I've had HD for quite some time and there has never been a time I have seen 720p look better than 1080i. Even in the early days of broadcast prior to bitstarving, 720p never looked better than 1080i. I can read it all day long, but my eyes tell me a different story.

I have seen some badly compressed 1080i high-action scenes like the flashing spotlights you sometimes see to glitz up a wrestling, boxing, or mixed martial arts setting between bouts which generate lots of MPEG-2 artifacts a few years ago. The lens flares that show up when the lights themselves are caught in the camera generate these artifacts when they flash. I have never seen the same effects cause the same problem in 720p. However, I think that the broadcast engineers figured out that flashing spotlights creates bad HDTV, so they no longer glitz up these matches by flashing spotlights but use other methods to glitz them up.

In my opinion, 720p is not as sharp, but is less prone to MPEG-2 artifacts that sometimes crop up in high-action scenes. 1080i is sharper but more prone to artifacts in high-action scenes.

Most PBS HD content from 4-1 is shown eventually on UNC-HD, just at different times/days. What shows are you missing? The only major thing missing from UNC-HD seems to be the Newshour. And the "Festival" begathon junk, but I consider that a feature and not a bug.

Drew

PS: You can search http://www.unctv.org/whatson/ for a particular show..I checked for a period of 30 days to see when "The Royal Family at Work" would be on 4.2 and came up with a big fat zero. I've rarely seen regular PBS HD programs repeated on 4.2. I have occasionally seen them on that channel at the same time they have been on 4.1, but not recently.

I checked for a period of 30 days to see when "The Royal Family at Work" would be on 4.2 and came up with a big fat zero. I've rarely seen regular PBS HD programs repeated on 4.2. I have occasionally seen them on that channel at the same time they have been on 4.1, but not recently.

You are correct. There is NOTHING new on UNC-HD anymore. You're only option to see REAL PBS programming in HD is to invest time and effort in an antenna................me neither.

I have seen some badly compressed 1080i high-action scenes like the flashing spotlights you sometimes see to glitz up a wrestling, boxing, or mixed martial arts setting between bouts which generate lots of MPEG-2 artifacts a few years ago. The lens flares that show up when the lights themselves are caught in the camera generate these artifacts when they flash. I have never seen the same effects cause the same problem in 720p. However, I think that the broadcast engineers figured out that flashing spotlights creates bad HDTV, so they no longer glitz up these matches by flashing spotlights but use other methods to glitz them up.

In my opinion, 720p is not as sharp, but is less prone to MPEG-2 artifacts that sometimes crop up in high-action scenes. 1080i is sharper but more prone to artifacts in high-action scenes.

I think the cameras have gotten much better on the capture end as well...A true test would be to take a Blu-Ray disc...watch with 720p, then 1080i...All things are then equal.

I think the cameras have gotten much better on the capture end as well...A true test would be to take a Blu-Ray disc...watch with 720p, then 1080i...All things are then equal.

That test would not work at all, because the Blu-ray material on the disc is still the same format. The format, whether it be 1080i30, 1080p30, 1080p24, 720p60, 720p30, 720p24, etc... determines how difficult You would need two Blu-ray discs of the same event, one recorded in 1080i30 and one recorded in 720p60, to test. Converting after compression and stamping onto a Blu-ray disc does not make a true test.

Boy, the Giant/Philly game looked like garbage today in HD....most all of the commercials looked worlds better.....they really popped. Game was washed out and colorless on my 1080p Sammy plasma. Steelers/Cowboys was a little better and Redskins/Ravens looks to be the best of the bunch. This is on TWC.

You are correct. There is NOTHING new on UNC-HD anymore. You're only option to see REAL PBS programming in HD is to invest time and effort in an antenna................me neither.

There's not much new on OTA 4.1 either. As far as HD goes, it is hit or miss on 4.1 OTA. For example, the Celtic Women special was letterboxed upconverted SD. Eg, big black boarders around all sides on my 16:9 display.

But the Royal Family was in HD, and looked great. It is too bad you guys can't afford a postage stamp for the free WRAL antenna.

Drew

Don't ask me what PBS is doing, I don't quite understand their system. Currently it is similar to the CBS/ABC/CW/MyNet but they're moving to some new thing I haven't read up on.


If you find out, let us know. HD on 4.1 looks like absolute garbage if there is any motion at all. Everything gets blurry, with motion trails behind it. This Old House is a good example of how bad it can look. It is *not* as simple as the bitrate, as my recordings from WUNC are now roughly the same size as my recordings from WRAL (6.7GB/hr), and WRAL always look great.

Drew

CBS, ABC, CW, and My Network TV all use MPEG-2 at some high bitrate to get the HD to the stations. The stations must then recompress the signal to fit in their stream.

NBC uses MPEG-4<...>
- Trip

What do you know about the encoders that the various stations use? I've found that for "film" material (comedy, dramas, not live sports or news) in 1080i on WRAL and NBC17 will both confuse a lot of software playback devices, while our CW affiliate (22-1) will not. Eg, when playing back a recording from CBS or NBC, I'll see a message about the stream changing between interlaced and progressive every second or so:

demux_mpg: 24000/1001fps progressive NTSC content detected, switching framerate.
A: 23.6 V: 23.5 A-V: 0.039 ct: -0.262 683/674 24% 5% 1.2% 0 0
demux_mpg: 30000/1001fps NTSC content detected, switching framerate.
Warning! FPS changed 23.976 -> 29.970 (-5.994005) [4] 1.2% 0 0
A: 24.3 V: 24.3 A-V: 0.003 ct: -0.213 707/696 24% 5% 1.2% 0 0
demux_mpg: 24000/1001fps progressive NTSC content detected, switching framerate.
A: 32.1 V: 32.0 A-V: 0.037 ct: -0.106 895/883 26% 4% 1.2% 0 0
demux_mpg: 30000/1001fps NTSC content detected, switching framerate.
Warning! FPS changed 23.976 -> 29.970 (-5.994005) [4] 1.2% 0 0
A: 33.9 V: 34.0 A-V: -0.005 ct: -0.052 953/938 27% 4% 1.2% 0 0
demux_mpg: 24000/1001fps progressive NTSC content detected, switching framerate.

Back when I used MythtTV, this used to drive it nuts. It would see the recordings as progressives and not do any deinterlacing at all, unless you forced it. Also, it would see hour long recordings as being 52:30 long, rather than 60:00. SageTV doesn't seem to have a problem with it, for which I'm thankful. But I'm still very curious what is going on.

I know you've got some MPEG analysis software. Can you tell me what CW 22 is doing differently from WRAL and NBC17? (besides using a full 19Mb/s )

Thanks,
Drew

If you find out, let us know. HD on 4.1 looks like absolute garbage if there is any motion at all. Everything gets blurry, with motion trails behind it. This Old House is a good example of how bad it can look. It is *not* as simple as the bitrate, as my recordings from WUNC are now roughly the same size as my recordings from WRAL (6.7GB/hr), and WRAL always look great.

Drew

You think WUNC-DT looks bad? I challenge you to come watch my local PBS in Roanoke, if you can receive their horrible low-VHF signal. 9 Mbps is not an uncommon number for the HD feed, versus 13 Mbps for UNC. They're transmitting 2.6 Mbps worth of null packets for supposed "contractual reasons."

My guess would be that UNC's encoder is not as good as WRAL's. Given how much WRAL has spent on equipment over the years, this would not surprise me. If psockett is still around, maybe he can tell us how new WRAL's encoder is.

What do you know about the encoders that the various stations use? I've found that for "film" material (comedy, dramas, not live sports or news) in 1080i on WRAL and NBC17 will both confuse a lot of software playback devices, while our CW affiliate (22-1) will not. Eg, when playing back a recording from CBS or NBC, I'll see a message about the stream changing between interlaced and progressive every second or so:

demux_mpg: 24000/1001fps progressive NTSC content detected, switching framerate.
A: 23.6 V: 23.5 A-V: 0.039 ct: -0.262 683/674 24% 5% 1.2% 0 0
demux_mpg: 30000/1001fps NTSC content detected, switching framerate.
Warning! FPS changed 23.976 -> 29.970 (-5.994005) [4] 1.2% 0 0
A: 24.3 V: 24.3 A-V: 0.003 ct: -0.213 707/696 24% 5% 1.2% 0 0
demux_mpg: 24000/1001fps progressive NTSC content detected, switching framerate.
A: 32.1 V: 32.0 A-V: 0.037 ct: -0.106 895/883 26% 4% 1.2% 0 0
demux_mpg: 30000/1001fps NTSC content detected, switching framerate.
Warning! FPS changed 23.976 -> 29.970 (-5.994005) [4] 1.2% 0 0
A: 33.9 V: 34.0 A-V: -0.005 ct: -0.052 953/938 27% 4% 1.2% 0 0
demux_mpg: 24000/1001fps progressive NTSC content detected, switching framerate.

Back when I used MythtTV, this used to drive it nuts. It would see the recordings as progressives and not do any deinterlacing at all, unless you forced it. Also, it would see hour long recordings as being 52:30 long, rather than 60:00. SageTV doesn't seem to have a problem with it, for which I'm thankful. But I'm still very curious what is going on.

I know you've got some MPEG analysis software. Can you tell me what CW 22 is doing differently from WRAL and NBC17? (besides using a full 19Mb/s )

Thanks,
Drew

I don't have MPEG-2 analysis software, what I have is bitstream analysis software. It'll let me observe that the stream contains an MPEG-2 stream but not much on details.

What I've heard, though, is that some stations have enabled a "telecine" flag that I admittedly don't know much about. The discussion was in the Cincinnati thread where Nitewatchman (a member who probably knows more than I do) was having issues with one particular station and discovered that flag was enabled. That could be the problem with WNCN and WRAL.

- Trip

What I've heard, though, is that some stations have enabled a "telecine" flag that I admittedly don't know much about. The discussion was in the Cincinnati thread where Nitewatchman (a member who probably knows more than I do) was having issues with one particular station and discovered that flag was enabled. That could be the problem with WNCN and WRAL.

- Trip

Yes, that sounds like it. The symptoms described there are what I see when trying to playback WRAL/WNCN on *nix software. The thread contains a helpful post from dr1394
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15080814#post15080814 where xport is described. Unfortunately, it looks like xport expects a transport stream, and all I have are program streams, so I cannot check for certain.

Drew