I need some assistance from the technophobes out there. While watching the Bob Hope golf on KATU-DT today OTA, I did some A/B comparisons with the signal I receive from Comcast on KATU channel 4. I have for some time been intrigued by the aspect ratio of the picture that KATU-DT delivers on 2-1 to my widescreen Sony. It is always perceptably wider than the image I get from KGW or KOIN on their digital channels. I had been wondering if KATU was stretching the image for a wider result for their digital audience.

So looking at the same images side by side in PIP (one analog and one digital) I can clearly see no stretching and more information in the edges in the digital frame. That is, there is more information being transmitted in the digital image than the analog, side-to-side. Why is that? I have thought all along that the digital (non-HD) transmissions were an exact duplicate of the analog pickup, but transmitted digitally.

So what is it that KATU does that the others don't?

Bob

Oh, by the way, I asked KOIN if they would be presenting ALL of the Super Bowl programming in HD and here is what Lee Wood replied:

"Yes, all of the Super Bowl HDTV events will be carried._ The automation system was not programmed correctly for the HDTV pre-game show on the AFC game and the operator was watching the DTV off air signal so did not see that the pre-game was in HD.

Lee"

My question was prompted by the observation that the pregame show for the AFC Championship game last Sunday was produced by CBS in HD but was not shown by KOIN in HD. So this is good news!

BTW, did anyone catch "It's A Bug's Life" on KATU last night? One of the best HD shows I have seen OTA. The 5.1 sound and PQ were astounding! Keep 'em coming, I say!

We have to keep thanking KATU for providing the quality audio in their HD feeds, IMO, and encourage the other stations to upgrade.

Bob

Bob, KATU does stretch there signal to a 14:9 format.

Yes, A Bug's Life was awesome. First time I sat through an entire network broadcast movie.

Originally posted by earletp
Because of the issues I've read concerning Samsung and KOIN I'm reticent to choose one of them and I've read mixed reviews on other brands.
The problems with KOIN and Samsung STB's are specific to the SIR-T351 model, no others. My 160 receives KOIN just fine.

Darrell:

I'm sure you are right but it sure looked to me that I was able to see more of the image on 2-1 DT than what I saw on Ch 4. It seemed there was definitely more real estate to the right of the ABC bug, which was my arbitrary reference point on the right side of the screens. I thought I also saw a bit more on the left, too.

Whatever, it's a nice illusion they present that gives a widescreen viewer the perspective that they have a better (non-HD) digital presence than the competition. But KATU is especially to be commended for the DD 5.1 productions, a la Bug's Life. To my knowledge, none of the other local stations sends 5.1.

Bob

I don't think KATU is stretching their image. I think it's a mild zoom/crop just like KGW uses when they are upconverting their local SD programming on 8-1 (like during blazer games for instance). I think the reason there looks to be slightly more pic info on the sides is because on the 4X3 screen a small amount of the pic is masked off by normal overscan on your TV. When it's shown on a 16X9 set you see all the way out to the edge. Ever notice how the side lines are not completely sharp but the top and bottom are? Do some more A/B comparisons and I'll bet you find that while there is slightly more picture on the sides, there is slightly less on top and/or bottom where it's been cropped. They are simply trying to make the standard 4x3 image look closer to 16x9. Personally, I wish they would just leave it alone and send their upconverted programming in it's native AR.First time I sat through an entire network broadcast movieMe too! :) For years anyway.

ron

Wow what a great site. I just joined the HD community last Thursday when my Dish Network 811 finally showed up. Over the weekend I installed a Channel Master 4221 in the attic with roughly 90' of RG6. I was wondering if others currently experience jittering problems with Fox 30-1 and 30-2. At first I thought it was some kind of multi-path issue, until I saw several other posts of similar variety from several weeks ago. My only other issue seems to be with WB and the lip sync, or lack thereof, and that is well documented here. So far so good with all of the other OTA locals 84%-91%. As a crow flies I am 15 miles from the towers and unsure whether my site distance is brushing the west side of Mt. Scott. I am at about 570' above sea level. So am I receiving reception that is consistent with everyone else watching OTA HD in the metro area? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated so I don't get impatient with Fox and order a tripod for the roof. Thanks.

Duckboy,

Welcome! Glad to see you have an 811, I can't answer your question on Fox as I don't get the signal at all, but maybe you can answer a question for me. It seems to be stated in your post that you're receiving most the Portland locals (with the exception of Fox) just fine. I'm assuming this include KOIN?

I'm asking because I just switched out my Dishnetwork 6000 for a Dish 921 HD DVR :D. Before the switch I could receive ABC, NBC, CBS, and OPB. Fox has always been a problem. I have a very small omni directional antenna on the roof (don't laugh, it's actually the infamous RS doublebowtie, I was using for testing and it worked so well I just left it up there). I got occasional dropouts on most of the channels but since I rarely watched OTA I've lived with it. Now with the 921 I'm finding myself watching the locals more as I don't actually have to work my evening around the programming schedule and I can FF thru commercials ;)

Anyway, the point is the 921 OTA tuner seems MUCH improved from the 6000. It takes a second or so more to lock than the 6000, but once it does it rarely lets go. I was able to record all of "A Bug's Life" without a single drop. I now also receive a rock solid WB whereas I could barely hold a signal w/ the 6000. However, I've totally lost KOIN. Nothing, not even a whiff of a picture. The 921 OTA channel scan finds and lists KOIN by name every time, but when I try to actually tune it I get a black screen with "no signal". I know a real antenna may improve the situation, but before I get up on the roof and start the trial and error process for one channel I was wondering:

1. Does anyone know if the 811 OTA tuner is the same as the 921 tuner. I kind of thought they might be since they were developed around the same time

2. If so, is anyone using a 921 (or 811 if the tuner's the same) successfully with KOIN.

After reading most of this thread today (well, at least the last year) I noticed a couple of OTA tuners (Samsung SIR-T351 and one other brand I think) have had problems with KOIN due to PSIP data.

Again, I could start swapping antennas I was just looking for feedback from anyone in the area that may be using a 921 and receiving KOIN.

Thanks,

Jeff

Did you get your 921 locally or from the Internet? If so, where?

Steve

I have the Zenith HDR-230 HD receiver/recorder and I lost KOIN about three weeks ago. KOIN came in fine for the first 7 months I had the recorder. I contacted Lee Wood at KOIN and he told me KOIN did not change anything in the PSIP stream and in fact rebooted the machine that runs the PSIP stuff. I'm swapping my Zenith under warranty. I can't help you with your 921 but something seems fishy. I'll post back here if my replacement Zenith works with KOIN.

Originally posted by duckboy
...
I was wondering if others currently experience jittering problems with Fox 30-1 and 30-2. At first I thought it was some kind of multi-path issue, until I saw several other posts of similar variety from several weeks ago.

I've been getting jitter on Fox for a few weeks now, but mostly with the 30-1. When I record 24 (the show), I don't have any jitters on 30-2. (Using a MyHD 120).

Rob

The 811 has a newer tuner than the 921. It's my belief that the 6000 and 921 are built on the same chipset. The 921 has been under development for about 2 1/2 years so the hardware in it is ancient, whereas the 811 has a newer chipset. That's why the 921 will not do SD/HD output at the same time and the 811 will. It's reported in other forums that the 811 has better reception than the 921. Check out Satellite Guys (http://www.satelliteguys.us/index.php?) and DBSTalk (http://www.dbstalk.com./index.php?) for some good Dish info.

Steve,

I got the 921 locally at Star Satellite in Vancouver. When I called last week I never expected them to actually have one but a customer backed out on a preorder so they had a unit sitting there waiting for a new buyer :D

Marissadad,

Thanks for the tuner info. I guess I'll rephrase the question then. Is anyone else successfully receiving KOIN with the Dish 921 OTA tuner?

Jeff

Hey Jeff, you can bring it to my house for a few days and I'll test it for you!

Originally posted by Marissadad
Hey Jeff, you can bring it to my house for a few days and I'll test it for you!

That's very generous of you! :p

I think I probably just start the antenna shuffle. I have to send the unit to Dish anyway for a fix to the dreaded "transparent blue vertical line" problem. I'm going to wait until after Sunday though and I need to have KOIN up and running by then! (or swap w/ the 6000 for the day)

You know, joke or not, it's really not a bad idea. Taking your box elsewhere, I mean. I've done the "antenna shuffle" lots myself. But I think if I suspected STB problems, I'd cart it to a buddy's house and try it there to make sure before getting up on the roof.

Find somebody who can pull in analog channel 24 well; I believe it's on the same tower as KOIN's digital station.

Hi
Does anyone have a suggestion for antenna/satellite installers in the Port area. Need someone to install antenna and dish on roof and run the cables to several rooms.
Thanks in advance

Originally posted by ceccacci
You know, joke or not, it's really not a bad idea. Taking your box elsewhere, I mean. I've done the "antenna shuffle" lots myself. But I think if I suspected STB problems, I'd cart it to a buddy's house and try it there to make sure before getting up on the roof.

I'll seriously consider that if I can't manage to pull the KOIN signal after playing around some more. I'm sure I probably wouldn't a shortage of takers!

Samsung 351 Owners:

I'm going to dink with the PSIP system Sunday morning to see if I can get HD to show up for the Super Bowl on Samsung units.

WARNING FOR NON-SAMSUNG OWNERS: You may need to rescan or manually select 6-1 or 40-1 depending on where things settle.

Lee

Lee, good to hear from you again, what's the status on DD 5.1 for KOIN?

Thanks.

We finally got the new CBS satellite receivers last month, but have not been able to get them to work reliably. The picture has lots of drop outs. We were waiting for the receiver so we could figure out what we need to add, but they came too late in the budget cycle. Once we can get them to work then we can move on to figuring out what it will take to pass 5.1 and budget accordingly. The advice we have received from CBS, Dolby and the instructions with the units are not in agreeement with how to handle the switching between local and network audio. I don't want to become "KATU Part Duex" with all sorts of audio incompatibility. (And that isn't intended as a cheap shot at KATU. I helped Alan figure out what his problem was.)

I just spoke to the Direct TV people and they will be showing the Super Bowl in HD on channels 80 and/or 81. So all you people who are having trouble with the CBS signal and have Direct TV with HD, you're in luck. For us with the OTA signal and Direct TV w/ HD, I guess we can compare signals and see which is better, KOIN OTA or Direct TV out of LA or NY.

Originally posted by Lee Wood
Samsung 351 Owners:

I'm going to dink with the PSIP system Sunday morning to see if I can get HD to show up for the Super Bowl on Samsung units.

WARNING FOR NON-SAMSUNG OWNERS: You may need to rescan or manually select 6-1 or 40-1 depending on where things settle.

Lee

Okay, Super Bowl Fans, things are pretty much dumbed down as far as they go. At one point they were so dumb that the Mitsibushi integrated TV in the lobby couldn't pick it up any more. I'll check back in about an hour to see if anyone, particularly Samsung 351 owners, has any news - good or bad.

Lee

I made the dumb mistake of not checking CBS HD on my RCA 38310 earlier or at least checking up on this thread. I live out in Hillsboro, but I usually pick up all the HD channels with my Blue Boy antenna but CBS has always been the lowest at about 55-65 signal strength which is ok (occasional drop out) but now I get nothing! It jumps from 0 to 28-33 and back down.
Is anyone else experiencing a lower signal or is it just me? I wonder if the recent winds and heavy storms we had this week maybe threw off my antenna a bit, even though everything else comes in 80+ strength like before. Any feedback back would be appreciated. 5 hours till people start showing up for my party and I may be without HDTV, there will be some unhappy patrons, DOH!

THanks Guys!

Pat,

Do a 'Quick Scan' for channels and see if that fixes it. The RCA DTC-100 uses the same tuner as the 38310 and one of the ones at the station needed a re-scan while the other didn't after I changed things in hopes that Samsung 351s would work.

You've still got 5-1/2 hours to kick-off.

Lee

Lee,
I tried the rescan after seeing your post and no luck. I cant even get the traffic cams. Highest signal I get is a 33 which is just enough to make my reciever go into digital audio mode, but no picture as it goes back to 0 in no time.
I've already asked KOIN for a waiver for CBS HD because it has always given me problems but obviously there is no chance in hell of getting that in by today. Do you guys take those waiver request on a case by case basis?, or do you just look up the address and see that its a Signal A and then reject it? Maybe you can fax a waiver admission to DTV before game time for me? haha, actually I heard someone did that from some other station where there buddy worked at the non O&O station and he got his west coast HD feed. Oh well.

So your saying that it was something on your guys end that changed that may be affecting the signal? I wonder if tweaking my antenna will help anything , I'd rather not go up there if I can avoid it, its on a 6 ft mast and I'm not a fan of heights. But if its going to help me get the game in HD, it may be worth it. Thanks for your help.

I am enjoying good signal strength from my Zenith 420. I cannot tune in 40-2 (6-2) today and am surmising that KOIN is not multicasting today? Perhaps they are dedicating their full bandwidth to the SB? If so, thanks, Lee!!! Too bad you can't crank it up in 5.1.

Bob

I just checked in because I noticed 6-2 was gone. Is that just for the Super Bowl? I usually use the surf button to avoid it. The pre-game looks fantastic!

Hope it'll still be gone when the Grammys are broadcast - last year was a pixellated mess at times.

The blue bars on the sides of the "Iron Team" are a whole lot nicer than black bars, too. Is CBS doing that, or KOIN?

Well after conquering my fears and getting on the darn room, I forgot that since I got my 6ft mast put in that the darn thing is drilled into the room so there is not much I can do regarding moving it. In fact on my last Full Search Scan on my RCA38310, KOIN 6-1 doesnt even show up at all, I dont even get the 25-30 signal I was getting before. Also, all my DIgital channels moved up to the 30's and 40 channels but still have 80+ strength. So I guess I will be welcoming people over and saying "No HD" at the door and watch them turnaround, hehe.

Lee, I would be very interested now in trying to get a waiver to get CBS HD from D*. Please explain to me how that process works, I would love for someone out here to try and to a signal test and either a) show me where I actually get a signal or b) see that even though I am 30 miles away I still dont get a signal. Any info would be great.

Thanks Guys and have fun watching the game in HD!

Pat,

If your channels are now showing up in the 30's and 40's it means that "Aquire Off Air Guide" is now turned off and all stations are showing up on the physical (40-1) rather than the remapped channel (6-1). Another thing to watch out for is to be sure that the signal type is set to "Air" and not "Cable" before you do a scan. Your problem definately sounds like antenna aiming or multipath rather than lack of signal (which is the justification for a satellite waiver).

Others,

Yes, the full bandwidth is being given to the HDTV feed. 6-2 has been put to sleep for the day. Sorry, no 5.1 sound. Just couldn't get the correct information about the needed equipment in time. It'll have to wait until later in the year at the earliest.

No word about Samsung 351s yet....

Lee,
Thanks for the reply. I figured out the Off-Air Guide and yes my settings are at "Air" and after doing another Full Search I got all my channels back to thier 2-1, 8-1 etc.
But.. CBS still comes in at 40-1, but based on one of your earlier posts that may be OK after some change you made? At least it came back with the 33 signal strength but that wont be good enough to get a signal. I dont know what the problem is, I mean as of even 2 weeks ago (AFC champ game) I had a 60+ signal and things looked really good. I dont watch CBS that often so I dont know when the signal went down. I may have to go around the neighborhood and see if the other folks with antennas are getting a good signal. I may just be SOL. oh well. Does CBS have the superbowl next year? I hope the answer is no, hehe

Lee,

I had tuned into the superbowl today, noticed 6-2 was gone, and was scared because I was never able to record 6-1 through my samsung t165 and jvc30k due to the PSIP thingy.

Then suddenly I realized that I could record 6-1, and in the full 1080i! My heart almost stopped! Now I've read the posts from the past few days in this thread, and have a few questions.

Will 6-2 be comming back, and if so when? Also, when/if 6-2 comes back will samsung t165 owners be out of luck recording again?

If I do NOT re-memorize my channels when 6-2 comes back, will the tuner still think 6-2 doesnt exist and allow me to record in the future?

Finally, if 6-2 will be comming back and bring with it the previous problems samsung owners were plagued with, would it be possible for KOIN to remove 6-2 during HD movies and HD special events (such as the grammys) so everyone can enjoy them and record them in their glorious 1080i? Surely there are more people whom watch 6-1 in high definition then those whom use STBs on 4:3 tv's.

Sorry for throwing so many questions at you, but I got so excited thinking I could finally watch CSI and the many other shows that I miss while at work in 1080i.

-Matt

I just got my refurbished Zenith HDR-230 and I still can't get KOIN. When I scan the channels it pauses at 40-1 but can't lock so it just moves on. I guess I need to go back on the roof but I can't for the life of me figure out why all my other channels still come in with great signal strength and KOIN is gone. I have no trees near me and my antenna is mounted really well. I already tried re-aligning it before I got the refurbished unit and that didn't help.

I have the HDTivo on pre-order so I guess I'll just wait and for that uint to arrive and ss if it can pull in KOIN. Verrrry disapointing :(

I think people with a 4:3 set would be better off using S-Video downconverted on 6-1 and letting their TV do the scaling, since the image is much better vs 6-2.

Anyone else have audio stuttering during the half time show?

No stuttering for me, then again I wasn't actively watching the halftime show so it is possible

16 people + Sony 57xbr2 w/built-in tuner = no problems during the broadcast (except two dropouts, that could have been anything...

For many in my crowd, this was their first fewing of an HD program, and all were asking about cost, etc.

I explained to all, that:
- Comcast doesn't carry CBS/KOIN yet (though many knew that Comcast had HD); they of course asked: "why not"
- DirecTV only offered CBS-HD in owned and operated cities; they didn't quite understand what that meant
- outdoor antenna and rotator was necessary for my location

Sony has split screen, so was able to put two viewing sources side by side - KOIN/CBS-HD in one, and TiVo-SD in the other. Not for instant replay of the game, but to review the commercials. Unfortunately, had already deleted the game by the time the Janet Jackson revelation was noted on the news.

All-in-all, a great day to show HD potential, but...consumers will be frustrated until KOIN/CBS, DirecTV, and Comcast resolve their issues. Most of my crowd was "technical" but all were confused about the limitations in reception.

Waivers? what's that...

Mike

PS 60 days until HD TiVo

Originally posted by Marissadad
Anyone else have audio stuttering during the half time show?
I noticed some, but then, that could have been just my setup. My reception is a little iffy at the best of times; I actually got pretty lucky during Superbowl. Only a single, very brief dropout.

Super Bowl looked great for me on an HDV-420/SilverSensor, about 5 miles NW of the towers. Very strong signal! I know I did get a few momentary audio dropouts, but I think they were mostly during commercials (since I really can't recall when they occurred).

Saw a moment of heavy pixellation during the halftime show, when there seems to have been a strobe. I remember that from the Grammys last year as well; I think MPEG2 just doesn't like strobes. :)

I had some audio stuttering during the half time show as well (MyHD). It was a nice game to watch. Thanks CBS.

Originally posted by Marissadad

Anyone else have audio stuttering during the half time show?

I did but I attributed it to poor pickup from the wireless mics the performers were wearing. I thought that whole show was horribly produced for TV. But the game was great! Thanks again to KOIN and Lee Wood.

Bob

My SuperBowl report:

All-in-all quite excellent!

I noted a couple of dropouts too. But everyone who attended our place (10 total) were quite blown away at the whole thing. Since we have a projector in a non-light-controlled room, the biggest issue was light. But I just started the picture small (~65") and increased it between quarters (~120"). So maybe if they could start the game 30-60 later? :) Thanks CBS!

I'm noting more and more problems with other stations, however (FOX at least). Not sure what's up with that.

I had about a dozen people over for their first HD experience. I have a 2HD projector on a 110" diagonal screen and I was explaining the difference between the HD & SD camera shots and everytime a SD camera shot was shown, one of the guys would comment "That's not HD". They learn fast.

I agree it was an awesome presentation. Thanks Lee, for shutting off the other channels for the game.

Update from Salem

For anybody following my woes with the Zenith HDR-230 HD recorder/receiver......

I went back on the roof, moved the antenna 10' horizontally and 2' vertically and KOIN is back. My old location worked from May until the first of the year. It was a rock solid mount and all the other channels didn't budge from very good signal strength. Only KOIN was lost. With the new antenna location KOIN is back and I'm happy but I have no explanation as to what might have affected it. Multi-path??? I have no trees in the way. Really wierd. I suspect it's something seasonal so I may be moving the antenna back to it's original location in May.

I sure wish I could get a waiver for the HD CBS on DTV due to the flakey signal I get here in Salem

What's the latest with the Samsung 351 and KOIN, has the PSIP tweaks that Lee did for the SB helped out? I've found one for $289 and would love to have it for HD recording.

Thanks.

6.2 is back and the sir-t165 is back to recording blank tape on koin. I'll bet the 351's are back to blank screens too. I hope the 3410a can record 6.1, like the HDR 230.

Lew

Yes the 6-2 did come back, even when i didnt rescan the channels it somehow found it again. My SIR-T165 refuses to record anything on 6-1 once again :(

I had the curious idea of attempting to delete the 6-2 from the memory of the t165 hoping it would think its gone, and tried recording on the jvc but it still did not work.

I'm curious what exactly Lee changed on KOINs end during the Superbowl. Did he simply stop using the 6-2, or did he change some code on 6-1 in the psid and happened to take 6-2 off the air at the same time to allow everybody to record 6-1?

My PC couldn't quite keep up with the full bandwidth of 6-1 when displaying it at full resolution. Normally it drops a frame or two an hour during football games on KOIN. That's barely noticable, but during the Superbowl it was dropping frames a couple of times every minute. Reducing the display to 1280x720 solved the problem.

I think I better get an 8X AGP card for next year.

Well, there's nothing like unhappy 351 owners and the Super Bowl to hit a nerve. On Monday I got two calls from Samsung folks. One on the east coast who is going to try to get me a 351 to dink with to see if I can figure out what makes it break. And an engineer on the west coast that we have already directed to existing transport stream records and who may have someone in Portland Thursday to make more so that the engineers in Korea can figure out what is causing the problem with the 351.

I would still like to find the solution to the problems we have had with the 151 and 165 are as well.

Lee

Sounds great Lee :)

Feel free to let us know when you've solved or know the solution for the problem on 6.1 for sammy owners, and thanks for the extra effort :)

Lee, I hope your solution includes being able to record KOIN from a Sammy since that's the only reason I want one. I guess I could always go the HTPC route though.

Originally posted by Lee Wood
I would still like to find the solution to the problems we have had with the 151 and 165 are as well.

Lee

Hey Lee,

Are there known cases with the Sam T151? Because I have one and haven't had a single problem with KOIN's signal - before, during, or after the Super Bowl.

BTW, you still have that SkyStream DBN35 there? (I was mr. DBN35 about 3 years ago, FWIW)

Thx for the support, Lee.

Is anyone else having the color go out of sync with Comcast on the 2-71 channels of non-HD programming? I've troubleshot all the cables and that good stuff, then today when the tech was here he said it was a known issue and there was no fix at this time.

The problem started about 9 days ago.

Craig:

Yes, there is an issue with the 151 that caused them to lock up standard definition from KOIN and KPDX. It involved the Nielsen AMOL signal on Line 22 of the VBI. (For those who don't know, the AMOL is that blinking line of data at the top of the analog picture. Nielsen uses it to automatically keep track of what commercials and programs a station is airing.) Both KOIN and KPDX blocked the signal to solve the problem.

And yes, the DBN35 is still here... sleeping.


lewlew, iodsnips:

I have made Samsung aware of the 165 recording problem as well while I had their attention. Suppossedly they are looking at it too.

Suppossedly they are looking at it too.Yes, we're looking into that. We'll get back to you... ;)

ron

Originally posted by Lee Wood
Craig:

Yes, there is an issue with the 151 that caused them to lock up standard definition from KOIN and KPDX. It involved the Nielsen AMOL signal on Line 22 of the VBI. (For those who don't know, the AMOL is that blinking line of data at the top of the analog picture. Nielsen uses it to automatically keep track of what commercials and programs a station is airing.) Both KOIN and KPDX blocked the signal to solve the problem.

Guess that was before my time. A retroactive Thanks is in order for that. :^)

And yes, the DBN35 is still here... sleeping.

If only it was sleeping with the fishes...

Had to reboot that thing at 4am every night for 3 months.

Anyone watch ER tonight. I didn't get it in HD. . . ?

Originally posted by sladewatts
Anyone watch ER tonight. I didn't get it in HD. . . ?

After weeks of living without NBC/KGW DTV, I tried enabling the channel on my Mits HDTV... and VOILA! It's there !

ER appears with 4-sided letterboxing !? HUH ?!

Some commercials were full-height, but not the program.

Stayed with KGW DTV through to the Tonight/Leno show, and Leno was DEFINITELY in gorgeous HDTV, practically full-width 16:9 widescreen.

So, it looks like ER was broadcast non-HD, while Leno was broadcast HD.

This is my first night receiving KGW OTA DTV, so please correct me if I'm mistaken. ER is my wife's favourite program, so this is of great importance to our family's well-being :D

In case this matters: receiver is internal Mitsubishi tuner/decoder embedded into WS-65513.

-- Bob

ER definitely looked hosed tonight.

If I'm not mistaken, it was the SD program, which is letterbox 16:9, then put inside the HD channel - which then gives you the side letterbox. Isn't Friends supposed to be HD too? It wasn't tonight.

I don't believe that Friends has been, or ever will be, HD.

So, anyone know the person at KGW who failed to throw the switch, or whatever they need to do, so we can find out why they didn't last night?

Looks like ER was put out by NBC in the squeezed letterbox format for 4:3 screens. See the thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=362765

To my knowledge, Friends has never been in HD. None of this appears to be a KGW issue.

Bob

thanks Bob.

what a joke. I can't believe the poor decision making on that one.

NBC has done that 4:3 letterbox pretty frequently. A number of the West Wing episodes were presented that way, as I recall. I think the proof in the NBC pudding, as to how serious they are about a commitment to HD, will come with the Daytona 500. It's one thing to present filmed content in HD and a whole other ballgame for live action. I didn't see it but I understand their coverage of the Breeder's Cup had about 5 - 10 minutes HD per hour of program. We'll see on 2/15 whether they are at all going to begin to challenge CBS' apparent leadership in HD sports programming.

Starting at 8:00PM KGW airs the "HD" feed direct from NBC net just like KOIN and CBS net does. Shows done in HD come through as native HD and the SD shows are upconverted at the network before transmission. That eliminates the local affiliates having to do the upconversion of the SD shows and the quality is generally better as well. Any "letterbox" show becomes "windowboxed" on the HD feed when they are just upconverted.

ron

Off-Topic again - looking for recommendations for an ISF tech in the area to calibrate my RPTV

Buzzman, go to Google, do a search for ISF, go to their webpage and choose Oregon, there is a list of several techs in the Portland area.

Went to look for 60 Minutes to make sure everything ready for the Grammys.

No signal at 7pm on 6.1 or 6.2. Other HD channels OK; Even gave the rotator a spin...

Update: 8:00pm rescanned, and now 6.1 is back where it should be...funny...

Mike

I just tried 6-2 and got "No Signal". Did Lee take the sub off the air? Regardless of the problems CBS is having with the Grammies sound or the worth of the content ;-), I have to applaud KOIN for giving up the multicast bandwidth for this show.

Bob

Are you sure KOIN killed 6-2 for the multicast, as 6-2 was still comming in for me, but a black screen. I wasn't able to record the grammys in 1080i due to the sammy problem. Was hoping they would do the same thing they did for the superbowl so everyone would get a chance to see it. This was only a slight annoyance.

I had first started watching the movie "Pearl Harbor" at 7pm, as ABC, TitanTV.com, and others said it woudl be in 720p, and it was in 480 4:3 for the first hour! That made me so angry as I wanted to record that so badly, and it wasn't worth it for only half the movie. Heck the dvd looked much better than the first hour :(

Was this because it started at 7pm, rather than 8pm and was 4 hours long? I remember "the sound of music" was 4 hours long and started at 7pm and wasn't in HDTV for the first 20 min, and I just turned it off after the first 20 min.

6-2 dissappeared from my 6000 as well. CBS needs to learn that strobe & flashing lights do not encode well, I had major macro blocking during those scenes. All in all though, a gorgeous presentation.

And what about KATU? Pearl Harbor was SD the several times I checked in, then at 9 it was in HD, just in time for the attack. I wonder if they had technical problems or forgot to throw the switch?

Anyone catch The Lion King last night? It was outstanding, probably the best HD I've see on broadcast TV yet. 3 thumbs up!!

ah, marissadad, was editing my previous message the second you wrote yours, heh.

Perhaps they started the movie in SD due to the movie being 4 hours long. Either way, they should drop that policy if that was the reasoning, or they need to give out the number for ABCs engineer so we can wake him up if he forgets, lol.

Well, that was one of the worst produced Grammy's I have seen. The sound problems in the first 45 min. were much worse on CBS out of LA than it was here in Portland. All but a few acts/songs were terrible. Last years Grammy's was a 1000 percent better. Hope they move it back to New York for next year. What a waste of 3 1/2 hrs.

Steve

3 thumbs up!!Does this mean you're all thumbs then?

The first 45 minutes of the Grammys with that strange echoing reverb or whatever it was was downright excruciating. As far as the show itself goes, I didn't think it was totally bad, but it definitely was lacking something. Perhaps it was just a good reflection of last years music scene in general...

ron

When Alicia Keyes was singing, I was ready to turn it off, her voice was horrible, then on the radio this morning I heard a talk show host talking about the same thing; that her voice sounded like a man and it was an audio glitch that was to blame! Too funny. I don't know her at all and was astounded that she had received 5 Grammies in 2001 for THAT voice.

iodsnips, I'm going to send Allan an email and ask him who the Bozo is that works on Sunday and see if he can light a fire under his butt.

Originally posted by Marissadad


iodsnips, I'm going to send Allan an email and ask him who the Bozo is that works on Sunday and see if he can light a fire under his butt.

Careful, it might have been Alan;). Any bets on how Mummy will be aired tonight?

Bob

Here's a reply I received from Alan at KATU:

We had a HD satellite receiver problem. (Bad / intermittant cable). A
replacement cable was found and swapped out at some time into the feed.


Great news, The Mummy should be just fine tonight.

Good news, thanks!

BTW, I tried to stay with the Grammies as long as I could and wasn't really interested in seeing Pearl Harbor again. I found myself sharing time after 9:00 with OPB and the Dale Chihuly special. I was so mezmerized by the colors of the glass scuptures and the whole story that I found myself flipping back to the Grammies less and less. Has that show been on before? It was absolutely beautiful in HD. I need to remind myself to keep checking the OPB website for their digital channel offerings so I can catch the whole show next time it airs. Their monthly member guide doesn't list DTV shows but they have some great-sounding HD stuff coming up.

I started watching the Grammys but ended up watching PBS a good bit as well - but it wasn't KOIN's fault. It was just a poorly-done show. KOIN did a 100% better job than last year, and even handled the strobes relatively well.

bdb, I have to agree with you about KOIN's effort last night. Without the shutting down of 6-2 it would have been a major mess. It allowed the pixelation to be tolerable and limited to only the most demanding scenes. After reading some of the posts in the Grammy thread in the HD Programming forum for comparison, I would like to throw out a big THANK YOU to Lee Wood and crew.

ron

I've seen the Dale Chihuly special on OPB before, it was spectacular. They usually show it only during the pledge drives, though, as they do with most of the really good stuff.

Ah exellent news. Glad it was just a bad cable thats been fixed and nothing perminent :-)

I noticed WB digital OTA signal(32-1) is off air, so does that mean they are installing the HD goodies right now?

Originally posted by R11
bdb, I have to agree with you about KOIN's effort last night. Without the shutting down of 6-2 it would have been a major mess. It allowed the pixelation to be tolerable and limited to only the most demanding scenes. After reading some of the posts in the Grammy thread in the HD Programming forum for comparison, I would like to throw out a big THANK YOU to Lee Wood and crew.

ron

Don't say we don't learn from mistakes. As for the audio problems, they only affected the West coast delayed feed (analog and digital). Let's hope CBS learns from their's too.

I would also like to thank Lee. We are very lucky to have him working so hard to make our CBS HD experience in the Portland market an enjoyable one. Lee goes above and beyond the call of duty to help all of us.

Thanks Lee!

It looks like the WB is working again so my hopes of WB in HD will just have to wait...sigh...

Originally posted by bertschb
I would also like to thank Lee. We are very lucky to have him working so hard to make our CBS HD experience in the Portland market an enjoyable one. Lee goes above and beyond the call of duty to help all of us.

Thanks Lee!

We're also lucky to have him telling us whats wrong and why when an occasional CBS problem comes :)

Hate having a question buring in my mind and not knowing who the right person I should ask.

Thanks again Lee, I certainly appreciate all of your efforts you've put in over the last few years for such a minority of users.

Lee, awhile back you had mentioned the possibility of a KOIN facilities tour, is that still feasible? I would love to take one if you're still thinking about doing one.

Thanks.

Was it just my system or did CSI:Miami have that audio popping problem thing again?

Cris

I caught the very end of CSI:M and also heard the audio popping.

Originally posted by Marissadad
Thanks again Lee, I certainly appreciate all of your efforts you've put in over the last few years for such a minority of users.

Lee, awhile back you had mentioned the possibility of a KOIN facilities tour, is that still feasible? I would love to take one if you're still thinking about doing one.

Thanks.
oh, I'd like to go on a KOIN tour as well! let me know if you're doing a KOIN facilities tour as well.

Thanks, Lee, for sticking with us. I have a question: Has KOIN-DT adopted a "no simulcast" rule when HD shows are on 6-1 (40-1)? While watching The Guardian just now, I tried to pull in 6-2 and each time was presented with a "No Signal" from my STB. If so, I think this is great for our local HD community. I see so many complaints from other parts of the country whose CBS stations have 2 or more subs that steal from the HD programming. I hope what I perceive is actually what is happening.:p Hooray for KOIN (and Lee)!

Bob

Originally posted by ridgefamus
Thanks, Lee, for sticking with us. I have a question: Has KOIN-DT adopted a "no simulcast" rule when HD shows are on 6-1 (40-1)? While watching The Guardian just now, I tried to pull in 6-2 and each time was presented with a "No Signal" from my STB. If so, I think this is great for our local HD community. I see so many complaints from other parts of the country whose CBS stations have 2 or more subs that steal from the HD programming. I hope what I perceive is actually what is happening.:p Hooray for KOIN (and Lee)!

Bob

Less subchannels to steal the bandwidth from the HD subchannel is always great, but this does mean us sammy owners cannot record CBS as 6-2 is the only one that allows us to record. If KOIN could fix the sammy problem then eliminate the 6-2 and 6-3 to add the bandwidth for 6-1, that'd be a win win situation for everyone. I wonder why other stations, like NBC have the HD and SD subchannels, when most people who have digital tv's are 16:9 anyways and if their set cant do 1080i their tuner can most likely downcovert the signal to 480p anyways.

Originally posted by iodsnips
I wonder why other stations, like NBC have the HD and SD subchannels, when most people who have digital tv's are 16:9 anyways and if their set cant do 1080i their tuner can most likely downcovert the signal to 480p anyways. Let me try this one more time...

Most, in fact nearly all, tuners do not permit you to change the aspect ratio on a 16:9 signal. You can't zoom or stretch it to fill a 16:9 screen when the station is running upconverted 4:3 programs. As a result what shows up on these 16:9 screens is a 4:3 picture with black side panels. If you own a CRT based projection display or plasma screen display you will eventually get burn-in developing on the side panels to the degree that when a 16:9 program comes on the sides are discolored. This is very evident on our 18 month old projection TV in the lobby. The same thing will happen to 4:3 HDTVs (and there are a lot of them out there, too), except the the burn-in will be on the top and bottom as well due to forced letter-boxing. So, on a 4:3 set you can end up with with a square donut effect of burn-in.

Now, if a 4:3 signal is being received nearly all tuners will let you stretch, zoom or crop to fill either a 16:9 screen or a 4:3 screen. This lets the set owner determine how best to address and control the potential of burn-in.

I don't want to be the guy getting the call from the $9,999 60" Plasma owner complaining about burn-in on the side panels and threatening to sue me and my station. That's why we send out the two presentations at the same time.

Geez Lee, KOIN should not be the stupid person's baby sitter. Especially at the expense of their entire DTV viewership... If people can't take care of their expensive toys in a responsible manner that is their problem, not KOIN's. Can these people not switch to an SD input and watch a downconvert if they are so concerned? Do they not know that they should vary the programming type so as to avoid burn-in in the first place? Have they not read their manuals? Not listened to the sales person who sold them the TV? Please don't let the vacant-headed whiners ruin a good thing for everybody....
ron

If they switch to SD on the HD channel, they will get a better picture anyway. I record this way on my JVC 30k since I don't have a firewire STB and the resulting image is as good as a DVD.

I think it comes down to the fact that people need to be educated on how to run their equipment. I agree with Ron that the station should not be their babysitter and let them watch appropriately.

The bigger question is - Can the 'significant other' figure out how to switch things around? Some STBs (like Samsung) the switching is a switch on the back of the unit... many settings are buried in menus on the STB, the Display or both that must be changed... too much of this is NOT user friendly. Not everyone has a Pronto with 18 step macros programmed to do what is needed and no one should NEED one. The reason I bought a Zenith integrated DTV was that all I have to do is enter 6-1 to get HDTV and 6-0 to switch antenna inputs and get cable. When my wife wants to sit down and watch the news she does not want to have to figure out how to do it. Unfortunately with the current state of user interface development my situation is the exception and not the rule.

when my significant other wants to watch TV she uses the 25" set in the bedroom. ;)

You are right ron, no one should receive a digital signal, unless they watch only 16:9 material. If the show is not in HD, then you should watch it on another TV. Shame on KOIN for thinking that we only own one TV. Shame on KOIN for thinking that everyone knows to switch to 6-2 on regular programming, and only watch 6-1 with HD programming (Everyone KNOWS that you should have KOIN in your favorite channel list twice, duh!). Shame on KOIN for making the STBs that wont stretch/crop/zoom 16:9 material. Shame on KOIN for making display devices that are susceptible to burn in. Shame on KOIN for not calling you up to ask what exactly you want. What a big disappointment to have to share a household with a spouse and children that don't know how to program macros on remote controls.

Hmm. On the one hand, I have to agree with Ron that KOIN should not have to be a stupid person's babysitter. However, in today's overly litigious society, Lee might have a valid concern. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if some idiot at least tried to sue a TV station over burn-in.

Originally posted by ceccacci
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if some idiot at least tried to sue a TV station over burn-in.

Heck, perhaps even sue them because the digital broadcast isn't even HD! :)

Seriously, what a mess...

Mike

Lee has a valid point with the SO, my wife was to technoligically challenged that I bought a Pronto just for her and guess what? She still chose to watch TV on the 13" set in the bedroom, even though she only had to push one button to change to whatever. Go figure! Then I'm out of town and she's calling me up trying to figure out how to watch a DVD so I tell her, grab the Pronto, press the button labeled "Watch DVD" & voila! she has a picture. I prefer having a pile of remotes to juggle, it's much more fun.

I like high-quality HD as well as the next guy.

But doesn't ATSC mandate that broadcasters always transmit an SD stream (at least until a particular date) just to support the lowest common denominator?

Just wondering...

Originally posted by Marissadad
Then I'm out of town and she's calling me up trying to figure out how to watch a DVD so I tell her, grab the Pronto, press the button labeled "Watch DVD" & voila! she has a picture.
<g>
You think wives and kids are a problem? I have an elderly aunt who has more of a love for technology than an understanding of it. She has to have all the latest toys for her home theater, but making it work..... Well, I had to create a little booklet for her with detailed instructions for exactly how to set each component for any conceivable activity. And I still get phone calls. I have to give her credit for trying though!

Lee I understand that the current state of "user friendliness" with DTV (and OTA in particular) is quite low. It can be very confusing for the non-technically inclined. But does it makes sense to penalize everybody because some people can't figure it out? Not to be harsh here, but perhaps the people that can't understand it should wait to enter the DTV realm until it becomes a bit more point and shoot/plug and play? If people call and complain that you caused them burn in you can always blame it on KATU :D. Actually I have always found it kind of ironic that the only local HD broadcaster that doesn't have any subchannels just happens to also be the one with the least concerns about bandwidth in the first place.

rbonzer, no offense intended, but you are talking crazy my friend. From the tone of your post I seriously don't think you fully understand what we are talking about, and the point I was trying to make. And just for the record, I watch a ton of 4X3 SD digital TV. It may also surprise you to know that I don't even own a widescreen TV...

ron

Originally posted by craigpratt
I like high-quality HD as well as the next guy.

But doesn't ATSC mandate that broadcasters always transmit an SD stream (at least until a particular date) just to support the lowest common denominator?

Just wondering... Hey, hey, watch it with the lowest common denominator comments there Craig. rbonzer will be jumping all over you :).

Is there a even an HD-capable ATSC tuner made that doesn't downconvert HD signals for SD output?

ron

I thought the issue was that you wanted KOIN to stop transmitting the 4:3 SD subchannel.

Here is my assumption:
- Most people can not stretch/zoom/crop 16:9 material on their regular OR widescreen TVs.

Here is where I see problems:
- People with 4:3 TV will have to watch 4:3 programming letterboxed on all sides.
- People with 16:9 TVs will have no option of what color is on the sides of the screen. Whatever KOIN chooses, that is it.

To watch SD from a different source requires a different source. I have a OTA tuner that gets both NTSC and ATSC. My NTSC has snow and shadows. My ATSC is fine.

Why don't you complain that the ATSC standard doesn't give enough bandwidth to have 1080P and several 480i channels? Why not complain that they included subchannels in the spec? I imagine that you will also complain, eventually, that MPG2 isn't good enough, you can still see artifacts, even using the full bandwidth.

I don't understand where all the stupid people are (other than me, I guess). How do you watch Friends (or whatever SD programming) on your 4:3 TV? I find that the ATSC SD subchannel is way better than cable/satellite.

Rob

Rob, what we are saying is that all STB's have the ability to downconvert HD material and they then do the stretching with their TV, then there is no need for an SD subchannel.

Yes, I get that. But they also downconvert 16:9 upconverted 4:3 material. Right? So during Friends (a sample 4:3 SD popular program), it would 'postage stamp' the material if it downconverted it to 480i 4:3 output.

Why can't they support aspect ratio changing on the fly? Wouldn't that solve the issue?

Rob

Sure it would, but then the TV can stretch/zoom or whatever to fill the screen, that's the whole issue here.

My Dish 6000 will do all the stretch/zoom modes with an HD source, but unfortunately, many of them cannot, so to do so, they must downconvert or go to an SD channel.

So, you have only a 480i SD picture where the real picture is inset, then zoom it in. Isn't that like watching a non-anamorphic widescreen DVD and zooming in. Yuck. Ok, then if everyone is fine with that approach to 4:3 material, I concede, I'm one of the stupid people.

I would imaging that zooming in on the postage stamped 4:3 material is still better than Dish locals.

I still think that the aspect ratio needs to change on-the-fly based on the source, not just constant. Can you do 1080i 4:3 broadcasts?

Rob, I think you are losing the path right with your basic assumption. As Marissadad said, watching an "HD" feed in SD (be it 16x9 or upconverted 4x3), is entirely possible just by switching over to the SD input on your TV/monitor. Simple as that. Then you have the capability to stretch, zoom crop or whatever to your hearts content. Because I have a 4x3 TV that is how I watch most of the 4x3 primetime upconverted shows from KOIN and KGW because they are "postage stamped" on the HD feed for me. Marissadad is right as well in that they look very good that way too. I also time-shift/record HD shows onto SVHS tape via the SD output and they look every bit as good as a good DVD because of the high resolution source. But back to my original point. Since I have a 4x3 TV and watch a lot of HD I see black bars all the time. I don't worry about burn in because I mix the programming up enough that it's not an issue. And I would never consider it the local broadcasters responsibility to make sure that I don't mess up my TV...

ron

I would imaging that zooming in on the postage stamped 4:3 material is still better than Dish locals.Yes, and better than the very low bandwidth/heavily pixelated local subchannels ;). Ever tried to watch a Blazer game on 8-2? It's a complete waste of time.

ron

Ron, don't even get me started on the Blazers on 8-2. I actually switched to my 27" TV and watched OTA Analog and I saw more detail and had a better picture than KGW OTA Digital on 8-2 or from Dish locals, here's what I found:

OTA Analog: Brilliant colors, high contrast, fantastic detail in the floor as well as reflections of the players in the key.

OTA Digital 8-2: Colors not as brilliant, contrast good, details lacking, a bit of relection in the key & massive pixelation with movement..

Dish Local: Horibly soft, no contrast, color stunk and there was absolutely no reflection of the players in the key and the floor looked like mush & all detail was lost during movement.

I detest SD Digital, I think it should be bannished into the Twilight Zone never to return. I can't watch any SD Digital programming on my projector, it just looks too bad. It looks great on my 27" TV though. I can hardly wait for the day when all programming and commercials are 100% HD (wishful thinking, I know).

Boy, this is surely the most active I've seen this forum over the last 6 months.

But talk about confusion on top of confusion.

"SD" (standard definition) is an OTA digital format - not something that comes out of your STB. Yes, a STB can down-convert HD to 480i/p (and get good quality). But 480i/p is not SD. I'm not advocating SD - it should probably go away. But zoomed HD doesn't quite equal SD - since zoom!=pan-and-scan.

The quality of the SD encoding quality has nothing to do with the fact that it's SD. It's a function of the encoder and the parameters set in the encoder - most namely bitrate.

If I were to speculate about why the Blazers games look especially bad , I would guess that (1) the SD is being throttled to a low bitrate, (2) the encoding equipment (which is probably local) isn't doing a good job - esp at this low bitrate, (3) being a live show, it's either fixed-rate or single-pass variable-rate (hard to do two-pass on a live event, after all ;^).

IMHO, any quality issues being seen with both the HD and SD channels are a function of the equipment/settings and not the total bits assigned. As an example, I would pull out an average DVD. Many are 5-7Mb/s and not a hint of macroblocking or pixelation. ATSC channels are 20Mb/s. Excellent encoding of both an SD and HD stream are quite possible in this bit range, with proper production. I just don't think all the pieces are there yet.

(3) being a live show, it's either fixed-rate or single-pass variable-rate (hard to do two-pass on a live event, after all ;^).

Maybe it will get easier, with the FCC talking about a 5 minute delay for live programming to avoid someone else making a boob of themselves. :)

Encoding is an art, not a science. DVDs look good, because someone made sure they would look good; then again, there are some really bad dvd encodings, too.

There is plenty of bitrate bandwidth available. You are right that better encoders will help immensely.

Mike

Excuse me for not reading through all of the pages....

Is there a particular antenna that works well in this area? I'm a little NW of 185th and 26, and have most channels coming in with a set of rabbit ears. But the signal strengths fluctuate between low single digits and the 50's. I thought I'd put something in the attic if that works for most people.

Thanks

willi,

I'm in the Bethany area and a radio shack double bow-tie antenna works very well for me.

I think I'll just tip toe out the back door while no one is looking....

Lee, wait, hold on, don't go yet! Are you still thinking of a tour? Enquiring minds want to know ;-)

Just to throw fuel on the fire, KGW's 8-2 digital channel is fed buy their old analog Master Control switcher. ( A big piece of s***.)

When KGW switches to NBC primetime on 8-1 they feed the transmitter directly from NBC. (Digital all the way.)

Some day the whole plant will be digital. ($$$$$$)

willi, I'm in the Bethany area as well, and I get very solid reception from a Silver Sensor antenna. I got it at Circuit City. That the the Radio Shack double-bows are known to be some of the better UHF indoor antennas. The double-bow is kind of ugly, and I don't think they carry it anymore.

CSI was hosed tonight. As soon as I tuned in, it went wacko, I re-entered it as 40 and it mapped at 40-01/02 with lots of signal strength but nobody was home, so I missed CSI in HD.

Lee, does anyone monitor this stuff?

I was wondering why the PSIP wasn't working tonight. Fought like crazy to pull in 6-1 or 6-2 while trying to monitor the Duck game. At CSI show-time I finally thought to try 40 and there it was. 40-2 was active, as well. Darrell, you'll be happy to know you didn't miss much visually. The story line was pretty good but they continue to insist on these guys walking around everywhere in both dim and normal light using their flashlights. Made for HDTV? I dunno.

So I'll try to ask Lee again: Does KOIN have a strategy to pull SD subs while HD content is being carried on the main? Not that this has a bearing on what happened tonight but I asked this just before the "Big Debate" started in this thread.

Bob

CSI hosed for me too. Couldn't get my Dish 6000 to pick up CBS. Got good signal strength as 40-1, but no picture\sound. My MyHD card could pick it up though as 6-1.

Cris

Well, when I left work this evening the PSIP was working. I didn't watch much TV tonight (teen's on board at home) so I'll check it in the morning.

The next revision in PSIP software/hardware is due in July or August and we are in line to get it.

What monitoring Master Control has that is useful is an RCA DTC-100 for off-air. But if you are leaving it on the same channel it usually just keeps on working. There's not much else to show there might be a problem. (Remember, there is absolutely NO revenue attached to the HDTV transmission. ONLY expense for the 8,000 or so viewers out of the 1,000,000+ television households. You can't force 'top of mind' attention to the one person on duty under those circumstances. However, if they do see something odd they usually call me.)

Also, KOIN does not kill the 6-2 SD feed during an HD program unless it will be requiring full bandwidth such as live sports or special event programs. (And, please, let's not get in to yet another vein on required bandwidth. The KOIN Motorola encoder is variable bit rate by design and will not use more than the content requires for MPEG encoding and this is usually 10-12 Mb for the typical CBS comedy or drama.)

Good night 'til tomorrow.

Has anyone had any problems getting OPB over the last day or so? I'm not getting a signal on 10-1, although my Dish 921 is finding it on a search for all channels. I'm not having problems getting any other station (each at around 100), just OPB.

Thanks!
Erin

I live in Salem and use the largest double bow tie antenna that Channel Master sells as well as a Channel Master line amp. I can pull in all the stations except KOIN reliably. For some reason it comes and goes. It worked well for a few months but is flaky now. I have to move the antenna to different positions on my roof from time to time. Very frustrating. I do live on the back side of a small hill in West Salem but I have a two story house with no visible obstructions to the north.

The Channel Master line amp made a big difference for me.

I recorded CSI last night on my Zenith HDR-230. After reading some posts here I sure hope I got something to watch.

ErinKG, I pulled in OPB OK last night after I couldn't get KOIN. OPB in the past has been very unreliable.

CSI came in fine for me but it looks like the HD feed was mapped to both 40-1 and 40-2 (6-1/6-2)? Still the same this morning as I flipped about for the various versions of the weekend weather forecast (those all looked bad :(). Sounds like the E* receivers were choking on something maybe?

ron

Sure enough, the PSIP computer had stopped putting anything out. The program schedule grid was advancing so it looked like it was working even though it wasn't.

Usually if you tune to 40-1 manually you'll get the HD signal back.

I hope the next version upgrade stays on schedule to mid-summer delivery.

Yeah, normally when KOIN remaps like this, my Dish 6000 just readjusts itself and changes the numbers, but last night all I got was a black screen with 87% signal strength. My guess is something in the PSIP was hosed. I guess we'll find out when Lee reports back.

I have the Sony 57XBR2 with a built-in HD Tuner.

It is picking up both 7.1 and 10.1 for OPB.

Sometimes has a problem with KOIN; when signal not present on 6.1 or 6.2, I have to remember to check 40.1 or 40.2, or rescan. Contrast this with Fox, which is never available at 12.1 or 12.2 for me; it is always at 30.1 and 30.2

Evidently, there are channel mapping codes within the digital stream which aren't always broadcast correctly, perhaps?

Update: I guess we are all typing at the same time; Lee's post explains it all.

Mike

I hope the next version upgrade stays on schedule to mid-summer delivery.So Lee, should we be expecting 5.1 audio in this same time frame then? :)

BTW, just wanted to reiterate (in light of rbonzers comments), that I think you guys are doing a great job under the circumstances and with what you have to work with. Honest, I don't blame anything on you :D

ron

I don't think I ever said that KOIN was doing a bad job. I actually think that KOIN is doing a great job as well. I just decided to defend the stupid people that need babysitting, because they don't think the same way as you. Lee has said that there is enough bandwidth for both HD and SD (for most programming) and you are screaming that its ludicrous to have the SD subchannel.

Originally posted by R11

BTW, just wanted to reiterate (in light of rbonzers comments), that I think you guys are doing a great job under the circumstances and with what you have to work with. Honest, I don't blame anything on you :D

ron

Agreed, wholeheartedly! I think most of us realize that as early adopters we are very lucky to have the local broadcasters participate delivering the breadth of HD content that has absolutely no separate revenue stream. I suspect that when you see that "Zenith, The Authority in HDTV" is bringing us CSI, none of that corporate support trickles down to the locals. We are also extremely luck to have engineers like Lee and Alan help us understand what is going on at their end so we can appreciate what we see/get on our end. (Wish we could find a counterpart at KGW!) I was hoping that as Comcast rolled out their "locals in HD" push, there would be a start to a funding process for HD build-up. Advertisers will be slow to appreciate added revenue streams (focused demographics?) for HD but signal distributors like Comcast should be able to peddle a business model that recognizes the local value.

With the reliability of cable/satellite reception for analog broadcasts as a precedent, it's hard sometimes to figure out just where anomolies in digital transmission/reception lie. Unless you have information from the source, equipment and setup are usual suspects for problems. AVS Forum threads can sometimes help shed light on common network or equipment problems but having participation from local users and broadcasters has been invaluable to me.

Ron, I doubt DD 5.1 would be part of Lee's PSIP version upgrade, but we can all hope. :p

Bob

I think the KGW engineer is Eric Reiss, not sure of the spelling. I've emailed him a few times but since I changed computers, I've lost his email.

Are you thinking of Eric Dausman maybe? Not sure if he's their lead engineer or not...

Bob, Lee has mentioned previously that they have the 5.1 upgrade planned so I was just wondering if perhaps it would be lumped in together with the PSIP upgrade purchase.

r, you misunderstood my post. I wasn't implying that you thought KOIN was doing a bad job. Your first post yesterday strongly indicated that you thought that I did though. I was just setting the record straight. Again, you misinterpreted the whole gist of my original post. The only people I think are stupid and inspire my disdain are those who would blame their mistakes on somebody else (the burn-in "liability" Lee mentioned). Period. Please don't try to read anything else into it. And "screaming that its ludicrous to have the SD subchannel"? Come on man...

Well, it has been a fun and exciting week on the local PDX OTA thread eh? Ever since those HD cable guys left it's been a little too quiet around here anyway ;).

ron

Ron, that's it. It's been awhile since I've contacted him, sorry about the memory lapse ;-) but he was the guy I always corresponded with concerning thier HD issues.

KGW is in the process of upgrading their production switchers (Not to be confused with their on-air /master control switcher.) to new digital switchers from Grass Valley.

http://www.thomsongrassvalley.com/products/switchers/kalypso/

This is taking up a lot of money (over a million) and a lot of man hours. Plus over four miles of new cable to run.

These switchers while capable of producing HDTV (with additional and expensive hardware.) will only do digital for now.

Hopefully after this upgrade the Master Control switcher will be upgraded as well.

All hail the yearly budget.

For those of you who don't check OPB's own schedule, they have two hours of HD shows tonight (about whales...?). After that is the re-run of last night's Nature which, while not HD, really shows off the colors of DTV (its about macaws - those brightly-colored giant parrots).

They were all off on their schedule last night, and snuck in an episode of Desert Speaks, which is also really nice HD.

Accidentally tripped on the NBA all-star game last night. TNT was re-broadcast through the INHD channel on Comcast.

The TNT commercials were touting NBA finals in HD format as the HD version of TNT was unveiled.

Does anyone know if this is an automatic for Comcast to get TNTHD this May?

J

bdb: Thanks for the OPB reminder. Those shows were fantastic. I especially was awed by the shot in the second show - Sperm Whales - of the loggerhead turtle with the little pilot(?) fish swimming around it. It looked as if my RPTV was a fish tank in the room! All of it was good stuff!!

Bob

I was unfortunately watching Las Vegas last night on KGW's OTA HD channel and it was not in HD even though it was scheduled to be. I checked KOIN and was receiving HD so it was not my system. Does it have something to do with the aforementioned upgrades or did some fail to flip the switch again?

FWIW, I didn't watch NBC until Leno, and he was SD until the first commercial break.

I think if you look in the HDTV Programming thread, you might find other comments about Las Vegas and how others have experienced it not being sent by NBC in HD from time to time. I think I have seen those complaints recently. Do a search in that thread.

Bob

Has anyone else seen a signal level drop on KGW. I used to receive around a 70% signal, now its around 58%. All the other stations signal levels haven't changed.

On another note, KGW's Director of Engineering is Eric Dausman.

His e-mail address is edausman@kgw.com.

The signal I get from KGW is as strong as ever for me (92-95%) but I have line of sight to the tower only four miles away.

I'm about 30 miles away in Woodburn and haven't noticed a KGW signal drop.

Yes, had lots of problems with KGW's digital signal last Sunday during the Daytona 500 race. After about 30 minutes, it became unwatchable (lots of pixelation, eventually no-signal on the Sony SAT-HD200 receiver). BTW, they don't seem to use all the bandwidth for the HD broadcast. Why would they still broadcast SD signal on their 8.2 channel during HD broadcast? Wouldn't everyone with an HD set want to see the signal in HD?

Hormoz, don't get us started on subchannels again. Read back a few pages for the scoop from Lee Wood.

Don't worry, I learned my lesson the hard way. Subchannels are the root of all evil.

Las Vegas was SD for me as well. Interesting you should mention a signal drop for KGW. I lost the signal yesterday a few times for the first time ever. The only signal I ever have trouble receiving is KOIN. After the trouble with KGW, I was scratching my head last night wondering why I'm in this HD game. Then I watched CSI Miami which I recorded earlier and it reminded me why I've spent too many thousands of dollars and crawl up on my roof every now and then to fiddle with my antenna.

BTW, I live in Salem

I was just watching the West Wing and was experiencing signal drop and it seems like other people are having problems with KGW, anyone know what is causing it?

I lost KGW several times again last night. Something's up.

I watched West Wing last night too and although I never lost signal, it was the most pixelated I can remember seeing anything on 8-1 (I didn't see the 500 last weekend though ;)). That dark opening scene with the pilots ejecting from the plane was a mess. Even some of the scenes in the white house with people just walking around were not fairing too well.

ron

Has anyone emailed Eric?

Marissadad,

Didn't mean to start that debate. I am following the thread closely, and am eternally grateful to Lee for all his insights, and efforts . Just hoping if somebody from KGW was lurking...!

If somebody from KGW is lurking it won't be Eric for awhile. He is going on a medical leave for a couple of months and those of us who know him and his wife wish them a swift recovery.

Thanks for the update Lee, I hope all is well with Eric.

In regard to KGW, I tuned it in a few times over the last couple of nights and my signal strength is in the 90's and I had a perfect picture. Keep in mind I did not watch an entire show, just a few minutes of viewing to check out the picture.

I watched ER last night and it looked mostly OK. I did notice a couple instances of minor pixelation but it seemed much better than the previous night for WW.

I too hope all turns out well for Eric. I've traded emails with him a few times over the last couple years and he seems like a good guy.

ron

When I have been watching KGW my signal strength has been 93 - 100% and then it would drop completly out for about 5 seconds.

is it me, or does KPTV's widescreen look like a very dark cave?

I too noticed the absence of audio and video from 30.2 Fox Widescreen today. . Funny thing is that the signal strength was in the 80-90% range!

30-02 has been off the air for me, good signal strength but no picture or sound.

KOIN's PSIP also screwed up again this weekend, I could not tune it in last night or tongiht and I called the newsdesk at 7:45 and asked them to have engineering reset the PSIP because I wanted to watch Cold Case but as of 8:45 it was still screwed up.

Lee, why does it always mess up on the weekend, could you reset it Friday evening so it will work through the weekend? Or at least have your techs try tuning it in several times a day to see what's going on?

Marissadad, It's to late now, but I was able to watch Cold Case on 40-1 tonight.
I only found that out because this is all new to me and I'm still playing with buttons, settings, and signals.
Is this kind of thing "normal" and something I should file away for future reference? If the remapped channel isn't working, try the assigned DTV channel number?

Earl

I'll let Lee speak for himself.

But I believe he's been trying to work on the PSIP and other elements of the KOIN data stream in order to accommodate some questionable DTV receivers and such. It looks like the recent update/tweak to the PSIP generator has introduced some problems.

Having worked with some DTV equipment, I can tell you that much of the equipment is far from perfect - PSIP generators and data inserters being notoriously problematic. And some of the stuff runs Windows. Nothing like having to patch a critical piece of your DTV infrastructure on a weekly basis...

I noticed I could record KOIN 40-1 on my sammy! got to watch Cold Case for the first time in 1080i.

Marissadad, were you trying 6-1 or 40-1? Also what STB are you using?

I use a Dish 6000 and it automaps to the correct station when the PSIP screws up. I tried tuning in 40-01 and I got a blank screen then it kicked me back to channel 6 analog. I also tried inputting the channel manually at ch 40 but it does the same thing. It's weird, somehow it still knows that the "mother" channel is 6 because it always kicks me back to analog 6 after trying to tune in 40. It takes about 10 seconds of trying to tune and then gives up.

This is a fairly new thing for the 6000 because it used to tune in 40 in the past when the PSIP was hosed but now it won't.

When I first got kicked out, I had KOIN set for 6-01 and when I went to tune it in, it remapped to 40-01 then kicked me out.

Lee, do you have engineers at the station on weekends? If so, why couldn't they get it reset after I called? Maybe the news guy didn't pass the word to the engineers?

Just for the record I didn't have any problem with KOIN all weekend. Strange how we all seem to have a different channel the we are having problems with.

Here's the latest on the WB tower project from Pat:

Darrell,

Well, it's one of those good news/bad news things. The weather has improved
so the company doing the work on the tower for KOIN is getting a lot done.
However, my crew can't work on the tower while the other crew has the tower
rigged. I'm meeting Tuesday with both tower companies to see if I can have
the other guys do some of the work for me so that we can get this project
done. I'm hoping that this way, we can get the work done and not drive the
price up too much while also not impeding KOIN's progress. Wish me luck!

Pat

Originally posted by Marissadad
Lee, why does it always mess up on the weekend, could you reset it Friday evening so it will work through the weekend? Or at least have your techs try tuning it in several times a day to see what's going on? I did restart it on Friday and everything was fine when I left at 5:45.

Today I downloaded and installed an update to the software. Also, today we started using program information from Tribune Media Service (the same folks that supply program listings to the Oregonian) so I don't have to supply it (cut and pasted from the programmers websites) myself.

Let's see if this update is any more stable.

Thanks Lee, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Well Lee, I flipped on 6-1 after the Blazer game ended about 7:00 or so and left it there as I did things around the house. Sat down and watched that Charlie Sheen show at 9:30 and about half of CSI until I fell asleep on the couch. I don't know about anybody else but I don't recall seeing any dropouts or breaks in signal at all. First time that has (hasn't) happened in over a year or so? So at least with the Sony receiver from in close range, that new software set up seemed to work well :).

ron

Went to tune in 24 on 30-2 and no picture/no sound even though the Signal strength is good. Same thing this weekend with the Nascar race. Anyone know what is up with Fox.

Same here, I haven't been able to pick up 30-2 for several days now.

FOX is lame and refuse to provide the Portland area with HD TV, the signal has always been shoddy in my opinion.

KPTV's signal has always been near maximum and perfectly solid for me. The only problem I've had is with 30-2 going out like this (it's happened once before). Their 480p doesn't work very well for sports or action but I've found it pretty decent for prime time series and movies and some live events.

FOX will be providing the Portland area with HDTV along with the rest of the country this Fall.

FOX Net will be providing HD this fall but at this point there are no assurances that KPTV will be distributing it as such. My guess is that they will go ahead, bite the bullet, and spring for the HD upgrade set up this summer that Ed Williams has said they have proposed to management. But it's in the hands of the bean counters and Ed made a strong point that it was far from a sure thing. I'm hoping he was just making sure not to get everyone's hopes up in case it's ultimately rejected or back-burnered (fingers crossed).

ron

It sounded like FOX will be leasing at least some of the HD equipment to its affiliates and the upgrade might not be as expensive as it could have been. I know there's really no chance of them upgrading KPDX to HD, but it'll be really sad if KPTV can't broadcast the Superbowl in HD next year.

I don't know that I'd write off KPDX. This was the last paragraph in the post Ed made back in December about the issue:
So, this long tome brings me back to the original question - what are we going to do about HDTV in 2004? We are most likely going to provide some level of HD service on KPTV and KPDX. How soon and how much I don't know today. We have designs on the drawing board and we are ready to build the systems. Funding is the issue and we're looking very hard at what we can afford to do with HD this coming year.Since it's been a couple months now I think I'll email him and see if he can give us any details about the outcome of their budget talks regarding the HD upgrades. I'll ask about the current status of the blank 30-2 and the stuttering on 12-1 too.

ron

Is the blank 30-2 still an issue? I pulled that in the other night and it was showing The OC while 30-1 had other programming. That was my only observation so it may have been just temporary.

Bob

Well, I guess I shouldn't have asked him about 30-2 then :). And, "other programming" on 30-1? Are you saying they were multicasting then? Actually Ed responded pretty quickly to my email and said they would be abandoning 30-2 soon, as they finish up with their switching system so they can do WS on 30-1 instead. He also said there was no 12-1 now(?) because they are not providing full PSIP information at this time. Not quite sure exactly how that breaks down because 12-1 has been up to the best of my knowledge so maybe it's just a mapping thing. He said he wasn't aware of any DTV issues they'd been having. Am I the only one who sees the strange video stuttering on their SD channel then? I see it when I watch their newscasts...

On to the HD. Ed says plans are "still in place to upgrade both the Fox and UPN sides of the house to HD in time for the fall launch". He said Fox was due to deliver them two new satellite antennas in March and switch gear later in the spring, giving them time to get everything in place and tested in time for the HD launch! He said their budgeting was still not finalized yet, but that they had put in the request for the funds to move forward with the upgrades for both stations though.

ron

I'm about a week behind, since I tape my shows, but last week's 24 was on 30-2. I don't know about this week's yet. My problem is that I have the lip syncing/sound delay on 30-2, which makes me watch the show on 30-1. Is anyone else having this problem (when there is something on 30-2)?

R11: Well, that's good news and reason for us to keep our fingers crossed on the HD front. You know, when I saw the different stuff on 30-1 (I think it was news promos) from the closing credits of The OC that were on 30-2, I didn't think of this being a departure from KPTV's usual same programming on each. It just didn't register. I was more intent on going to whatever show I was geared to watch next.

It also didn't register with me about you saying there were stuttering problems with 12-1. I never get a signal when tuning to 12-1 with my digital tuner (ATSC via Zenith 420 OTA). I just checked and no signal for 12-1. A program is on 30-1 and the test pattern is on 30-2. This is all my usual state of affairs with KPTV. Am I missing something?

Bob

That's interesting Bob. I've been watching FOX SD on 12-1 all along... Since Ed says there's nothing on 12-1 as well I can only figure that what I'm watching is a redirect of 30-1 by my receiver. So I guess the question is do you get video stuttering on 30-1 during their live shows ie, newscasts? I've never seen it during any other programming, just during the news.

ron

To be perfectly honest with you, I hardly ever watch Fox on the HD setup. The only other Fox viewing is their 10 PM news and we watch that on the bedroom analog TV via Comcast. No stuttering there. So I am not really a good barometer for what KPTV-DT offers and I guess I should not have jumped in as I did. Sorry! It's just that your post about 30-1,2 got me to think about what I saw momentarily as 2 different programs the other night on 30-1 and 30-2 and how that was odd.

I'm always getting stuttering on fox's 30-1 and 30-2, more so on 30-2 widescreen. Simpsons, malcom in the middle, and boston public are almost unwatchable as they're so choppy on 30-2, hope they fix the choppyness and lipsyncing before they attempt hdtv.

Will FOX be moving to hdtv as in 720p or 1080i this fall? (just clarifying all their stuff isn't gonna be 480 widescreen, as that ain't real hdtv, eheh)

Will UPN be moving to hdtv as in 720p or 1080i this fall?

I don't have any stuttering problems on 30-1 or 30-2. 30-2 seems to be back again.

FOX will be moving to 720p. UPN is 1080i already but KPDX doesn't broadcast in HD yet.

UPN is 1080i already? Across the USA, do most cities see this in 1080i except for us? When will KPDX broadcast UPN in 1080i?

If FOX is moving to 720p, will that mean we'll be seeing it in 720p here in portland area? any news on this?

I am submitting this post to test the AVS thread update process. I have gotten a couple of emails the past 2 days informing me there is a new post in this thread, the latest indicating that bdb posted at 7:19 pm last evening. When I click on the link I am usually taken to that last post. Well, the last few times I click on the link and keep winding up at the same point in the thread which doesn't include the latest post. I have tried refreshing my browser (Safari on Mac), entering the AVS site anew and several other workarounds. Now I want to see if those other missing posts come up in front of this one when I am taken back to the thread after submitting it.

Has anyone else been having similar experiences with the thread?

Bob

Well, that didn't result in being able to see any more posts. The one bdb posted (according to the email I got) at 7:19 yesterday is still not there. Maybe it was deleted by the Administrator?

bdb: Are you there? What's going on?

I don't see it either.

Originally posted by iodsnips
UPN is 1080i already? Across the USA, do most cities see this in 1080i except for us? When will KPDX broadcast UPN in 1080i?

If FOX is moving to 720p, will that mean we'll be seeing it in 720p here in portland area? any news on this?
I don't know how many UPN stations are broadcasting in HD around the country but there are a few. We'll see FOX in HD next fall assuming KPTV upgrades when the network upgrades. It's been said that they plan on upgrading KPDX to HD at the same time which would be great, but who knows.

Hi all!

I thought I would give you all a local report on the 3410a for those who might be interested.

Mine works extremely well for OTA viewing, recording, timeshifting live, AND Archiving to AND from D-VHS.

It seems to be very similiar to Bert's HD230 with improvements: larger hdd, firewire, and I don't know about the HD230's guide, the 3410a's TVGuide guide works very well and is simple to use.

I honestly can't tell any difference in PQ of the 3410a and sir-t165, as I'm practically on top of the towers in Tanasbourne. (If you can actually see the towers you have got to be pretty close)

I have the sir-t165 connected to a Mits 2000 D-VHS and the Mits 2000 also connected to the 3410a. When I call up firewire on the 3410a it recognizes the Mits and the 165. I haven't messed with the 3410a to 165 as I haven't found anything practical to do with that combination as of yet.

Playback from D-VHS through the 3410a is much easier than through the 165, and doesn't leave "no signal" and "digital audio" stuck on the screen in multiple patches after fast forwarding through the commercials.

You can edit out commercials and other stuff from programs on the hdd and then dump just the good stuff to D-VHS.

I took a Tori Amos Soundstage tape and put it on the hdd. It wasn't very complicated and it made what appears to be a perfert copy. The only difference I can see from direct OTA to the hdd vs D-VHS to the hdd is in fast forwarding. The latter gets a little pixely.

Oh yeah, it records KOIN perfectly.

It operates off the guide clock (not psip). Recordings can be set one button on the guide, or using VCRPlus+ codes, or set time, channel, and end time, just like a vcr.

It has some limitations (can't watch one and record another at same time and price) however being able to archive to D-VHS and record CSI makes it work for me.

Being a one-way device, no one is tabulating what and how often I watch something.

I like it.

Lew

edit: I pre-ordered the 3410a from **************** (AVS sponsor) in Jan when they had a 10% off AVS forum member special with free shipping.

Howdy. Is anyone else having trouble with KOIN and PBS mapping? I have a Dish 811, and after one viewing, both KOIN and PBS shift from their maps (6, 10) to thier origins (40, 27). Not sure if its the receiver or the source. Thanks.

Is OPB showing any of the National PBS stuff? The few times I've tuned in they've had their usual stuff showing. I've emailed them but no response yet.

I watched the Killer Whale show recently on OPB and the audio was dropping out big time. Flipped in the other night to check it again and it was still going on although not as bad. Anybody else experiencing this?

ron

Last night I caught snippets of the Concert for George (Harrison). It looks like a great show and I can't wait to see it in its entirety. The OPB DT listings on line show it airing a couple more times thru Sat. I signed up to get regular weekly digital schedule via email from them. Looks like a great, convenient service to find what's on in HD or WS and supplements their monthly printed guide. Go to opb.org and sign up.

So I would say, yes, they are showing national programs.

Bob

ron: I watched both whale shows (Killer & Sperm) back-to-back a week ago and had no problems at all. Same for the Concert last night, what little I saw, anyway.

Bob

BTW, I am OTA.

Hmmm, I'll have to check again tonight to see if it's clean or not then. Haven't been experiencing any other problems so perhaps it was just the night I happened to be watching. The second time I flipped in it was much better and in fact was clean for a good 10-15 minutes before I noticed any drops at all. Thanks for the info Bob.

ron

Marissadad:

I taped the Concert for George last night on my mits2000 dvhs via the sir-t165. At lunch today I tried playing it back through the 3410a. It is perfect! Playback is smooth and simple as any basic vcr without any weird things going on like with the sir-t165.

So last night I got WestWing and something else (can't remember what at the moment) on the hdd and the concert on tape.

This is getting really good.

Lew

edit: Playback of archived material from dvhs finally works the way it's supposed to. My wife could do this after shown once or twice, and we all know family acceptance is very important.

I tried the search feature here and didn't find what I was looking for, so I apologize if this has been asked and answered before.

Does anyone in the Portland area have an ISF trained calibrator that they've used and were pleased with or would even like to brag about?

I've used the ISF search engine and found we've only a handful to choose from. Some have an ISF Optical Comparator, others a Color Analyzer, and there are a couple that list both pieces of equipment.

Should that be a basis for making my decision on whom to choose? (and if you've time to share, why?)

The system to be calibrated consists of a...
Toshiba 34HFX83 HDTV
Toshiba SD-4900 DVD player
LG LST-3100A STB
Sony SLV-770HF VCR

I understand this is really a hardware question but since this is where most of the Portland people hang out I was hoping y'all would have more specific information on the ISF professionals here.

Thank you,
Earl

Go to Image Science (http://www.imagingscience.com/isf-trained.cfm), put in Oregon and it will give you all the ISF guys in this region.

Thank you and I have already done that.
I've used the ISF search engine and found we've only a handful to choose from. Some have an ISF Optical Comparator, others a Color Analyzer, and there are a couple that list both pieces of equipment.


I've no way of choosing one over the other, other than to ask someone who may have used them. I was hoping that someone may have some feedback on who they've used and the experience they had.
If it's against the posting guidelines to comment on specific techs I'd appreciate knowing that too.

Thanks again,
Earl

Was Leno (with Christina Ricci) broadcast SD or HD from Portland last night (March 4).

I taped it out of Eugene, and it taped in SD, just wondering if it was Eugene or
the broadcast.

Shawn D.

Well, I'm getting darn close to jumping in the HDTV game here. I've been following AVS for advice and opinions. I'm wondering if anyone lives in Happy Valley and what type of reception you're getting over here on the other side of Mt. Scott?
Do most of you guys who are OTA also have a dish or cable or do you rely mostly on the airwaves.
Look forward to learning from this thread.
Bill

I have an antenna, sattelite (Dish Network), and basic cable (makes my cable modem cheaper). Currently I am receiving my HD channels OTA as well as through Dish Network, however, I am thinking of dropping the Dish HD and getting Comcasts HD feed.

Hi Bill. Sorry I'm not near Mt. Scott, but I do have a few peices of advice for you.

First checkout http://www.antennaweb.org to see which channels are available in your area, and which direction they are located. Next, try to see based on the generated map if each digital channel is located towards a mountain or some other massive obsticle that might be a problem, as you might have trouble getting this channel, but then again you might not. This is for OTA (over the air) which is free channels that you pull in with any UHF antenna which is the cheapest to setup.

Also, before you decide to go OTA, cable, or dish you should decide if you want to record High Definition movies or tv content.

during primetime (8pm to 10 or 11pm)
For the Portland area(OTA):
ABC 720p
CBS 1080i
NBC 1080i
PBS sometimes 1080i
FOX 480i (should/might be 720p fall'04)
WB 480i
UPN 480i

480i = dvd, as I'm sure you already know. So if you want to record movies\tv shows in 720p or 1080i you should decide upfront if you desire so, as cheaper STBs without firewire, and many cable/satellite packages won't let you record HDTV.

Finally, 720p and 1080i are a LOT sharper than dvd movies or SD tv. 720p and 1080i are around 3 times sharper than dvd, maybe more.

Any general questions feel free to ask.

-snips

Do most of you guys who are OTA also have a dish or cable or do you rely mostly on the airwaves.

I have DirecTV and cable. I have the $10/month cable package for my upstairs rooms because they are almost never used and my cable modem is $10 cheaper that way.

I currently watch and record all my HD content from OTA. My OTA HD receiver/recorder is the Zenith HDR-230. It does a great job recording OTA HD but it's really just a fancy VCR. I pre-ordered the new HD Tivo in January and should get that early next month. At that time I'll subscribe to the HD DirecTV package.

I live in Salem and getting a reliable OTA HD signal has been a challenge. In fact, I just went up on the roof yesterday and moved my antenna to a new location (for the third time in the last year). Very frustrating. I sure hope the HD PQ from DirecTV is good or I'll probably end up trying cable for HD.

What a mess! It's worth the effort but it's a mess.

HD is so good that I really don't watch anything any more unless it's HD.

I have the Dish HD package only, pull in OTA and am getting VOOM this coming saturday. I have no way to record HD yet.

What is VOOM?

What is VOOM?

http://voom.com/index.jsp
It's a satellite HD service started by (gasp) a cable company. Their current deal is $0 upfront, rent the HD STB for $10/month and programming is $39.99 if you order before April, after that it goes up to $49.99. The freebie also includes installation of a dish and an outdoor antenna. I went ahead and ordered 2 STB's so I can put one in the family room as well.

VOOM is on the 61.5 satellite so if you can't get the Dish demo channel, you are SOL. The sat is very low in the sky at 11 degrees. My dish looks like it is pointing toward the ground.

Eventually VOOM will have something like 39 HD channels and 80 SD channels. They currently have around 32 HD channels and carry just about everything that is available. They don't have HDNET or ESPNHD yet but I've heard ESPNHD is coming soon. They also have PlayboyHD.

I went to their (VOOM) website, looks like a lot of HD channels. Do they carry any Portland stations in HD?

you get local stations via an antenna that they install. they do not carry locals on the sat so if you can get them by antenna you are all set. go to www.antennaweb.org to find out what your situation would be like.

Short answer - no way...

Long answer follows:

Except for the special CBS situation on DirecTV and Dish, no satellite service carries the networks.

Dish big-guy Charlie Erden has petitioned the FCC to permit some sort of HD network satellite broadcasts.

There are hearings going on in DC now as SHIVA expires at the end of this year. SHIVA is one of the laws ruling what can/cannot be carried via satellite for home viewers.

NAB has taken a position that out-of-market netowrk boradcasts delivered to any local market impinges on the exclusive rights local stations have for network programs.

Local stations are under federal gun to provide digital broadcasts - not necessarily HD; just digital by a certain date so will not welcome out-of-market stations over satellite; they have to pay back their big investment somehow.

Food for thought: one proposal on the table is a mechanism to carry major networks on satellites, with capability for local commercial insertion; similar to what is doen by cable operators for certain cable channels.

Definitely possible, but will require special equipment.

I think we are years away from simple access to network HD via satellite. Too many local interests and the NAB will stand in the way.

Mike

Ahh. I guess I will continue to watch my local station in HD OTA. On that note I was watching Alias last night and was having some issues with the signal. Did anyone else have a problem?

Yes, I had lots of problems with Alias last night. Picture and audio got messed up A LOT! Wasn't sure if was my POS Dish 6000 or problems elsewhere.

Cris

Originally posted by hilladen
... I was watching Alias last night and was having some issues with the signal. Did anyone else have a problem? Yep, me too (on Samsung SIRT-165). And I usually do not have a problem with ABC. So something was definitely different. I switched over to Standard Def, which was not nearly as enjoyable.

Sounds like the problem was on KATU's end then.

Good to hear, I recorded mine and it was totally messed up, they even re-ran an entire sequence after a commercial break.

I had trouble too (MyHD) with Alias, but I don't think they re-ran the sequence. It was a bit different, with little change in the point of view.

I'm now noticing that Fox is squished. It looks like they've squished 30-1 (framed it like 4:3 material in 16:9 mode), but still have it encoded as 4:3. Is anyone else seeing this?

This epision of Alias kind of did a Pulp Fiction on us. The first part was through the eyes of Bristow and Vaughn, then second part was through the eyes of Reed and Sark.

Originally posted by rbonzer
I'm now noticing that Fox is squished. It looks like they've squished 30-1 (framed it like 4:3 material in 16:9 mode), but still have it encoded as 4:3. Is anyone else seeing this? Yep, it's the same for me. My receiver says it's 480P so no matter how I view it, it won't let me change the ratio either :(.

ron

Originally posted by rbonzer
I had trouble too (MyHD) with Alias, but I don't think they re-ran the sequence. It was a bit different, with little change in the point of view. Yes, like Marissadad I also thought that KATU/ABC had restarted the show! It took me a while to figure it out that the second half hour was the first half hour from different points of view.

Yeah, something fishy is going on with KPTV. Last week 30-2 was looking great in widescreen. Then I was shocked to see them air local commercials (normally they just show the FoxBox on 30-2). The commercials were squished which is why I thought they didn't air them on 30-2 but no big deal. But when the FOX widescreen programming came back, it also was squished. I think they got that fixed but now 30-1 is squished too. Fortunately I can turn on anamorphic stretch and make it look correct.

I hope this is unrelated to the problems KPDX is having right now. I get the usual good signal strength but the transport stream is a complete mess.

KPDX was a mess for me last night as well, I haven't tried KPTV lately.

Hey, KPDX is all fixed now. Thanks to whoever may have been reading this!

A friend of mine has Comcast HDTV here in the Vancouver area. He said that WB is now on Channel 703, which is in the HD range of channel numbers. He is going to check tonight during Smallville to see if it's actually in HD. Has anyone checked WB lately on OTA? I forgot to last night.

KPTV's 30-01 still has the squished Horizontal though. Putting my 6000 in Stretch made it normal. WB was NOT HD last night. They can probably give it to Comcast in HD since they have it in the studio and just can't get it up to the tower yet.

Thanks for the info. I don't think that a station can broadcast in HD on cable if they are not broadcasting OTA. I believe it's a FCC rule.

Originally posted by captmorgan09
I don't think that a station can broadcast in HD on cable if they are not broadcasting OTA. I believe it's a FCC rule. I don't think so, since I believe there are at least a few stations around the country that have not yet gotten their transmitters going, but are otherwise ready to send out their digital-HD signal, and the local cable company takes a direct fiber feed of the digital signal and carries it.

This of course is the situation where the station is unable to transmit OTA because transmitter is not yet ready, needs repair or is otherwise shut down. Which is different from a station choosing to not transmit its signal digitally OTA while providing it to cable ... there may be a rule against that.

Originally posted by captmorgan09
A friend of mine has Comcast HDTV here in the Vancouver area. He said that WB is now on Channel 703, which is in the HD range of channel numbers. He is going to check tonight during Smallville to see if it's actually in HD. Has anyone checked WB lately on OTA? I forgot to last night.
Ah, I live in vancouver, wa myself and was thinking about comcast. Please let us know if you can get the wb in 1080i/720p.

Is UPN or WB available in widescreen through satellite, voom, or comcast in the portland/vancouver area?

Voom only provides the OTA channels via an antenna, Dish only provides the 4:3 Analog signal piped to them from the stations. Don't know about Comcast.

Well, my friend with Comcast watched Smallville last night in HD on WB. He said that the picture was great, but the sound had glitches every 15-20 seconds where it would stutter. He said it was so bad that he switched back to the Standard channel.

I was wrong, you can all beat me up on the OTA thing. :D

Does every station go through the growing pains of glitches when the first start HD broadcasts? Hopefully WB will have it worked out by the time they are broadcasting OTA. I wonder if FOX/UPN will have a "break in period" if and when the start broadcasting.

Growing pains? Break in period? When is the "break in period" going to end for all the other stations? <g>

I would guess yes, FOX/UPN will have their own share of problems. The technology is still too new to be 100% trouble free.

I think the problem with the Portland stations is that they were so early getting on the digital bandwagon that thier equipment is "breaking down" not "breaking in" ;-)

I think I'd rather be sitting here in the forefront of this developing technology than waiting in the wings until all the problems are solved. Yes, it's frustrating at times not knowing if glitches experienced are within my own setup or from the transmitting sources. But having the local AVS forum to discuss and explore these things is part of what makes it all very worthwhile, IMHO.

Bob

I've learned more about how television works in the past six months than I have during the rest of my life (not to mention MPEG compression, modulation schemes, UHF antennas, and monitor technology). These glitches are annoying to most people but for TV geeks they're interesting problems. And it's someone else's job to fix them too.

True they are interesting as well as frustrating. It is nice have the technology earlier than later. We complain because a couple channels are not in HD, instead of having no channels in HD.

Just had my VOOM install done, go here (http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?p=71120#post71120) to read about my install. It was a very good experience, none of the horror stories I've been reading about.

Thursday, March 18, 2004

(All Games are Standard Definition)

Analog

Maryland vs UTEP
Syracuse vs BYU
[Local Programming]
Duke vs Alabama State
Gonzaga vs Valparaiso

Digital 6-1 (Standard Definition)

Maryland vs UTEP
Syracuse vs BYU
[Local Programming]
Duke vs Alabama State
Gonzaga vs Valparaiso

Digital 6-2 (Standard Definition)

Florida vs Manhattan
Wake Forest vs Virginia Commonwealth
Stanford vs Texas San Antonio (will the carry complete game)
Michigan State vs Nevada
Seton Hall vs Arizona

Digital 6-3 (Standard Definition)

Texas Tech vs Charlotte
St. Joseph's vs Liberty
Stanford vs Texas San Antonio (will cut away early if needed)
Connecticut vs Vermont
North Carolina vs Air Force

Multicasting was made for the NCAA tournament. Hopefully the last few rounds will be in HD.

Hopefully, KOIN will be able to pass a game or 2 from Kansas City Friday and Sun. in HD.

Thanks for the news, Lee. Choice is always good! Not multicasting when there is HD, is also good. :-)

Bob

Friday's Schedule will be posted when the dust settles.
All games availabe in HDTV will be on 6-1. Given the match-ups there will likely be an alternative game in SD on a skinny 6-2.

Ahhh, the good news just keeps on coming! Thanks, Lee.

Hello from a newbie. Very new to HD, so just lurking and learning for now.

Originally posted by nhs510
Hello from a newbie. Very new to HD, so just lurking and learning for now.

Welcome aboard!

Thanks for the info Lee. Good work as always. BTW, has anybody mentioned to you that the dropouts seem to be creeping back into the mix? Right after you did the software revision it looked like you had it whipped and things were very solid for a while. Since then I've noticed that they've been reappearing now and again with what seems like increasing frequency...

ron

Horray for multicasting!!!

I mean, horray for multicasting.... sometimes!