I have never been able to receive 6-3. Anyone have any idea why?

I haven't checked in quite a while because I "hid" it in my guide but I believe they shut it down a while ago to reallocate the bandwidth to the other two channels? Just wait till it's active again tomorrow and manually add it then. Then you can hide it in your guide too :).

ron

Originally posted by hilladen
I have never been able to receive 6-3. Anyone have any idea why? 6-3 has been 'on hiatus'. It will be added to PSIP this afternoon so you can do a channel scan, though it will be blank, and the program stream will be active tomorrow morning about 8 AM.

Friday, March 19

Analog

Boston College vs Utah
Oklahoma State vs Eastern Washington
Providence vs Pacific
Washington vs UAB


Digital 6-1 (High Definition)

Memphis vs South Carolina
Oklahoma vs Eastern Washington
Providence vs Pacific
Kansas vs Illinois-Chicago


Digital 6-2 (Standard Definition)

North Carolina vs Louisiana-Lafayette
Georgia Tech vs Northern Iowa
Kentucky vs Florida A&M
Washington vs UAB


Also, if you have not checked out the listing of upcoming HDTV specials and sports events you should visit: http://www.koin.com/koin/hdtvprograms.shtml

Great lineup, Lee. Good to see you are saving bandwidth for the HD games by not using 6-3 on Fri. You guys are making some excellent decisions, IMHO! Nice to have y'all on our side. Now, about that 5.1 thing .... (Man, we get greedy! :D)

Bob

Originally posted by ridgefamus
Now, about that 5.1 thing .... (Man, we get greedy! :D) Tell you what, you get each of the 8,000 or so DTV viewers to kick in $2 each and I'd get the equipment to pass 5.1. I'd even be will to add something like 'DD 5.1 is brought to you by viewers like you' to the open of DD shows. Oh, wait, another station in town is already doing that kind of thing. :)

I'd be willing to chip in 10 bucks to lower the number of people needed. Not putting down KOIN because you have way better programming, but 5.1 on "that other station" kicks butt since they got the audio droppouts figured out.:cool:

Hey Lee! Maybe you could hold a Dolby Digital Telethon on one of the subchannels! ;-)

Do you think we could get 160 people out of the 8000 DTV viewers to donate $100? That might be easier.

So it sounds like the DD 5.1 equipment has not even made it to a KOIN financial plan. Does the Mother Ship (Emmis) have any other properties that does HD and CAN pass 5.1 that is in a market as potentially large as KOIN-DT can reach?

Better watch out with those ideas for raising money. I'm all for it but if word gets out, we'll be paying for KPDX/KPTV to install their stuff on the towers.

Originally posted by ridgefamus
So it sounds like the DD 5.1 equipment has not even made it to a KOIN financial plan. Does the Mother Ship (Emmis) have any other properties that does HD and CAN pass 5.1 that is in a market as potentially large as KOIN-DT can reach? Almost all Emmis stations pass through whatever their network was sending them when they were built and most are full power installations like KOIN. Unfortunately KOIN-DT was built before Emmis bought the station. Emmis really does believe in digital television as a way to give new life to free over-the-air broadcasting. The problem remains, and you've all heard this before, that there is absolutely no revenue being generated by the digital television facilities that Emmis has invested over $30-million constructing over the last four years and will spend another $6-million on construction in the year ahead. So, we get in line and wait until the new construction phase is over.

Doing a search on members of this forum whose "Location" matches "Portland, O" resulted in 270 matches. So if each of these members would be willing to donated $50 to $100 to Lee for the equipment, we could be watching our favorite CBS shows in DD5.1! Sounds like a good reason to spend $100 bucks to me!

How bad do you want it!???

Of course maybe Lee was just kidding about this donation thing?

I'm sure he was.

I'd even be will to add something like 'DD 5.1 is brought to you by viewers like you' to the open of DD shows.Corporate grant baby! Something more along the lines of "DD 5.1 brought to you by the generous donation of Nike" sounds better to me :D. Phil, Phil? Where are you? Since it's high tech related maybe a company like Intel would be an easier mark. Hey, 16K for a banner before every DD show would be cheap advertising....

ron

Someone will have to sell me on the DD 5.1 thing. I find Dolby Digital Surround to be perfectly adequate. What would DD 5.1 get me (for basketball anyway)?

Originally posted by Lee Wood
Tell you what, you get each of the 8,000 or so DTV viewers to kick in $2 each and I'd get the equipment to pass 5.1. I'd even be will to add something like 'DD 5.1 is brought to you by viewers like you' to the open of DD shows. Oh, wait, another station in town is already doing that kind of thing. :)

I would be willing to kick in a chunk of money if it got us DD 5.1 faster... :)

I would think there has to be a A/V store that would be willing to help out, maybe Magnolia HiFi or something....

I went out and bought a 120Gb drive to see if I can timeshift an entire day of basketball.

Will 6-1 be low bitrate SD or high bitrate HD upconvert like it would be normally? If all three subchannels are low bitrate then I'll be able to watch all three games on my computer simultaneously. That would be something.

And my wife thinks I need to get some perspective when I talk about what KOIN is delivering! lol

Bob

NCAA Multicast on KOIN-DT
Thursday, March 18, 2004

(All Games are Standard Definition)There's your answer. If they tried to put two SD feeds along with one HD (upconverted) it would be completely worthless. As it is, watch on Friday to see what you think of the PQ when they have 6-2 slated for a "skinny" SD slice of the bandwidth along with the HD feed on 6-1. I think you will agree that trying to spread it even further would be atrocious...

ron

BTW Lee, last night I had ET on while I was on the stair machine and watched Survivor afterwards and only noticed a couple very momentary audio dropouts. Nothing even close to causing signal loss so if that happend to be the result of some tinkering you did, thanks :).


ron

I hear that a few stations around the country are multicasting one HD channel with two SD channels. It isn't quite worthless, but it definitely affects the HD quality in a bad way.

I just turned on the TV and 6-3 has sound problems, anyone else?

I guess it all depends on your definition of worthless :D. Check the threads in the HD programming forum after the HD games air from those stations and see the wrath they incur. Its not just the HD feed that suffers. Ever watch the "skinny" SD feed of a Blazer game on 8-2 when KGW has the demo loop going on 8-1? It's just plain woeful. The effects can be minimized with good equipment and carefully balanced settings, and I think Lee and his crew do a good job with what they have to work with. But at this point with the current state in the evolution of equipment/compression I'm afraid even the most skillful tuning can't overcome the limitations. We're just not there yet.

I watched 6-2 last night because there was no audio on 6-1. I think it was back this morning though...

ron

With my Dish 6000 whenever KOIN remaps to ch 40 I get the same results; good sig strength but no picture. I hope KOIN gets a reliable PSIP machine soon.

Originally posted by hilladen
I just turned on the TV and 6-3 has sound problems, anyone else? All better now.

Originally posted by R11
I watched 6-2 last night because there was no audio on 6-1. I think it was back this morning though... Since I'm using a homebrew HDTV system, I was able to reprogram 6-1 use the audio from the 6-2 channel. :)

I wouldn't think the broadcast would be worthless unless all you wnated is the best picture quality. In would rather be able to watch a game that I wanted to see, than not have the choice. In an ideal world everything would be HD, we shall all just have to wait I suppose.

Also, thaks to CBS for the multi-cast I like the format and ability to see entire games of my choosing.

Agreed. Yesterday's choices were perfect. And the HD game on now is awesome! Thanks for bringing it all to us, Lee and CBS! I don't see any perceptable degradation due to the 6-2 multicast. Good engineering, I presume!

Bob

I take that back - the picture on 6-2 sucks but who cares when the other is good HD?

Did anyone else notice that Fox WS is now on 30-01? Are they ever going to fix the anamorphic-appearing stretch on the other channel?

I take that back - the picture on 6-2 sucks...:D Even SD basketball requires a minimum amount of bandwidth to be worthwhile... Can you imagine how things would look with two "skinny" SD feeds along with the HD? :eek:

Marissadad, as of this morning at least I was still getting the WS feed on 30-2 and the regular feed on 30-1 (and 12-1). They have both been coming through at 480p though...

ron

That's weird Ron, I got the WS on 30-01 last night. Maybe they are getting ready to cut it over. I hope they do because VOOM is not yet mapped for 2 Fox channels for our area.

The best way to watch basketball in our current situation is via Analog, it beats the pants off these SD feeds, but then you don't get three games, either.

I think they may be in the process of testing configurations all right.

ron

So 6-3 is blank right now and 6-1 is in HD. Is 6-3 not broadcasting so the Eastern Washington game can be broadcast in HD? Would that be necessary or just make the HD broadcast a higher quality picture?

Lee: Why is the audio level on 6-2 so much louder than 6-1? Or am I having local problems OTA?

Bob

There is a difference in the way audio is set up between the 6-1 HD and 6-2 SD based on a Dolby recommendation that normally (that is, absent screaming crowd noise) keeps the loudness on regular programming more consistent. The SD setup does not have all the same settings that the HD processing does. So in high loudness conditions (like basketball) there is a noticable difference even though on a bargraph level meter it is not apparent.

Originally posted by hilladen
So 6-3 is blank right now and 6-1 is in HD. Is 6-3 not broadcasting so the Eastern Washington game can be broadcast in HD? Would that be necessary or just make the HD broadcast a higher quality picture? What we have are two systems that have no way of knowing what the other is doing. The PSIP system 'announces' services (channels) and what the components (channel mapping, HD or SD video, audio, captions, content rating, program guide data, etc.) are and where in the data stream to find them. Then we have the Encoding Systems (1 HDTV and three SDTV) that can be allocated space in the data stream for their program feeds. Since the two systems do not know what the other is set up to do (and all of the settings are manual - pages of drop-down menus, etc.) it is only practical to set up an expected 'norm' and compromise between the two. This is why 6-3 is showing up all the time even though it may be blank - no programming encoder assigned to put anything out. It's a balancing act between content (how many games) and quality (HD or SD) and its all seat-of-the-pants decisions. I will offer that THIS years HD & SD combination multicast looked a lot better than LAST years. There was not nearly as many artifacts visible on the HD program and the SD, while not great, was better than many digital satellite or cable feeds.

But, then again , I may be biased.

(Was this too technical??)

No, not too technical. You're doing a great job. I really appreciate the fact that you take the time to let us know what's going on. You and KOIN should be commended for that.

Anyone know the KOIN schedule for the NCAA Tournament today and tomorrow??

Originally posted by nhs510
Anyone know the KOIN schedule for the NCAA Tournament today and tomorrow?? Yes...

Saturday, March 20

Analog

Duke at Seton Hall
Nevada vs Gonzaga
Stanford vs Alabama
North Carolina vs Texas

Digital 6-1 (All Upconverted)

Duke at Seton Hall
Nevada vs Gonzaga
Stanford vs Alabama
North Carolina vs Texas

Digital 6-2 (Standard Definition)

Duke at Seton Hall
Nevada vs Gonzaga
Manhattan vs Wake Forest
Syracuse vs Maryland
DePaul vs Connecticut

Sunday, March 21

Analog

Xavier vs. Mississippi State
Illinois vs. Cincinnati
Pacific vs. Kansas


Digital 6-1 (High Definition)

Xavier vs. Mississippi State (Upconverted)
Memphis vs. Oklahoma St.
Pacific vs. Kansas


Digital 6-2 (Standard Definition)

Xavier vs. Mississippi State
Boston College vs. Georgia Tech
Wisconsin vs. Pittsburgh

Lee,

I would rather have something be to technical then not technical enough. Thanks for the explanation

Yes, love it when you get technical, Lee. Thanks for the lineup. KOIN's coverage has been fantastic!

Is there something in the upconvert PSIP stream on 6-1 that prevents me from stretching the picture? My HD box (Zenith 420) won't let me alter the picture size on 6-1 but I can on SD 6-2.

Bob

Originally posted by ridgefamus
Is there something in the upconvert PSIP stream on 6-1 that prevents me from stretching the picture? My HD box (Zenith 420) won't let me alter the picture size on 6-1 but I can on SD 6-2. Very few tuners will let you do anything with the aspect ratio of a 16:9 HD program service. (The RCA DTC-100 being one exception - it lets you stretch, crop or zoom an image to fill a screen correctly.) I have a Zenith 4:3 HDTV with integrated tuner (very user friendly) so on upconverted 6-1 I get a 24-inch image centered on my 32-inch screen. :(

Thanks for the schedule!

I've been switching back and forth to analog and now can't get 6-1 or 6-2 to come in. Has KOIN gone off the air?

OK 6-1 came back momentarily but 6-2 or 40-2 is still not attainable. Maybe it's the wind up herre on Bull Mtn. We had about a 1 1/2 hr. power outage earlier this afternoon.

Hey guys ... pondering making the switch over from the Cable/Comcast (evil) side to OTA.

I live behind a big hill (Mt. Scott) and had convinced myself (via antennaweb) that I had no chance of getting HD OTA. I actually put a big Radio Shack antenna in my attic 3 years ago when I moved in, but gave up (and left it there!) when I couldn't get the quality I was hoping for ... and moved onto cable. Over the years, I convinced myself (in my mind) that I couldn't get ANY reception. Today I went back up and (to my surprise) found out that I actually get decently good reception of locals (just not the perfect analog quality I had become accustomed to via cable). Sorry for the long story, but now I'm thinking that since OTA HD is all or nothing, I may have a pretty good chance of getting a good OTA HD signal. I'm assuming it is worth the try, don't you think?

Does anyone have any experience with the Directv Hughes HNS HTLHD HD/OTA receiver? I'm a total OTA newbie, but do most/all OTA receivers (including the satellite combo boxes) allow you to catch the multiple (multicasted?) sub-channels? As a current Directv subscriber (and Comcast for locals/HD), I'm thinking about taking advantage of their current $99 offer described over on the HD Hardware forum.

Thanks in advance for any replies!

If you can get any analog picture you should be able to get the OTA digital signal. (Ghosting is the big killer of digital.)

I live in West Linn behind some hills. My Analog signal is unwatchable, but I receive all the local digital channels. (and some from Eugene and Corvallis.)

Right now the best antenna out there for UHF digital reception IMHO is the Channel Master 4228 8-bay bow tie antenna.

This is what my set-up looks like.

Originally posted by scottcorinna
If you can get any analog picture you should be able to get the OTA digital signal. (Ghosting is the big killer of digital.)

Thanks, Scott. So it sounds like I should give it a shot. But (excuse the dumb newbie) what do you mean by "ghosting is the big killer of digital"???

Thanks!

HELP!

So I went out and got the Directv Hughes sat/OTA receiver. I hooked it up to my HUGE 3-yr old Radio Shack (VU-190XR) outdoor antenna, which I have in my attic. I've done my best to get it pointed in the right direction (~284-degrees, according to antennaweb.org), moving it back and forth a bit to try to find the right position. Unfortunately, as I knew before I started all of this, pointing that direction goes pretty much right into a hill (if I could only mount it on a 100-foot pole!).

I am able to get most of the locals in analog with varying degrees of quality. But I am only able to get channel 2 (43), 8 (46), and 49 (48) on the digital side (and 2 & 8 are far from perfect ... break-up every 10-20 seconds). I can occasionally get 6 (40) and 32 (33) if I play around with the antenna, but not for very long and with really bad breaking up. This seems strange to me, since I get the analog versions of 6 and 32 pretty well. And I don't get channel 12 (30) or 10 (27) at all.

My next step tomorrow (unless anyone has some better advice), is to try some sort of antenna signal amplifier (something like this: http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&product%5Fid=15-1170) on the cable coming from the antenna. Would this be helpful? The only other thing that I can think to try would be trying a different antenna. Does anyone have any suggestions? As much as I envy Scott's setup, I don't think my wife will go for a large outdoor antenna(s). So it would have to be something that I could put in my attic or not be too big outdoors. I'm assuming those antenna's that clip on the dish would not be good in a challenging reception area like mine (especially since the dish is pointing almost opposite from 284-degrees!).

Sorry to ramble on, but it just seems to me (wishful thinking?) that if I can get my locals in analog pretty well (albeit nowhere near cable analog quality), then I should be able to get the digital versions of those locals with the same antenna?

Any insights would be hugely appreciated ... and/or advice of some sort of an "expert" that I could bring in to help!

Thanks.

marshdom:

The fact that you get most of the digital signals even with serious breakups is a positive sign. You say that you get pretty good analog reception although not as good as cable.

You are not that far from the towers to have a "weak" signal but you are probably getting "ghosting" or "multipath" interference.

The multipath signals are substantially less powerful than the straight signal but they thoroughly confuse the stb, therefore dropouts.

You should point your antenna to receice the best average analog signals, then try an attenuator on your rg6. You may be able to reduce the multipath signal strength to a level your box can handle and still have enough signal to function.

If you don't have an adjustable attenuator you can put 1, 2, or 3 splitters in line to reduce the signal strength. (each double splitter has about 3.5 db of reduction in signal strength.

This is worth a try before you go any further. A 0-10db adjustable attenuator is about 9 bucks at RS.

good luck

Lew

(yes, a chain of splitters does look stupid, but they will get you a lower and therfore cleaner signal)

Unless you are really close to the towers, I would recommend getting a Channel Master line amp. It almost doubled my signal strength. I wouldn't get the RS amp but that's just me. As was suggested earlier, I would also get the CM 4228 antenna. It's not that ugly. It looks like an oven rack mounted vertically.

Thanks for your responses, guys! Please keep them coming!!! :D

I must say that I am a bit confused, since your two responses almost seem to conflict. Lew thinks my signal may be too strong (I am ~11 miles away from the towers), but Bert thinks I need a line amp? I guess both are worth a try, but if anyone else wants to chime in with an opinion or clarification, please do!

Is there really a difference between the line amp from RS that I listed and the channel master one (from looking at their website, I'm assuming you mean their Channel Max 3039 model?)? Does anyone have a suggestion of where to get CM products in Portland? Their website lists Lowe's, ACE Hardware, and Frye's (and I prefer not to drive down to Frye's).

I know that the best thing to probably try is to put an antenna outside, but my wife is going to kill me if it is too big/ugly. How big is the CM 4228 that Scott posted (it looks pretty big ... and why does he have 2 of them?)? Does anyone else have an outdoor antenna suggestion that is either smaller and/or "more pretty"?

Finally (thanks for putting up with my long posts!), does anyone have an opinion as to why I'm not getting anything other than channels 2, 8, and 49? Aren't all of the towers in the same location? And I'm getting the analog versions of 6, 10, 12, and 32 to varying degrees. For instance, I'm getting the analog of channel 6 very strong ... shouldn't I be getting something on the digital 6/40? Or could the multipath be so bad that it is giving me NO signal on the stb?

Again, thanks in advance for replies ... and I'd still love to know if anyone knows of any "experts for hire" that could help me out!

I wasn't sure how far you were from the towers (I was in a hurry and didn't read all the posts - sorry). That's why I said Unless you are really close to the towers ......

If you're close to the towers you DON'T want a line amp. I've been told you can have too much signal.

As far as the RS vs. CM equipment - I just don't like RS stuff. It seems really cheap. CM is supposed to make some of the best stuff. I don't know for a fact that there is a difference but it's worth a few extra bucks to me just to make sure.

The 4228 is 40"x36". You shouldn't need two of them for a standard installation to a single tuner.

I have a really hard time getting all the Portland stations reliably from Salem. The first location I had worked for 9 months. Then one day I lost channel 6. For me (in Salem) I can get all the channels but 6 easily. When I add 6 to the mix I lose signal from all the other channels. So, I can either get 6 pretty well and the others fairly well OR I can get everything but 6 REALLY good and barely get 6. I have no idea why it works this way because they are all at 5-6 degrees from my house.

With channel 6, I can have 70% signal strength for a couple hours and then lose the signal out of the blue. Two minute later it comes back at 70%. There are no trees or anything else in my line of site. The antenna mount is rock solid. No wind, no rain, no idea what's happening. Very frustrating.

Good luck

You could try the smaller version of the CM 4228, the CM 4221. It's a 4 bow tie version so is only half as wide. It might have more of a WAF so you can mount it outside.

Hi Again Marshdom,

They are both right. (Digital is a very odd duck. Even the broadcasters are still learning it's quirks.)

I tried the Yagi route which is what your antenna is. The very front is the UHF part. (It didn't work very well in my situation.)

I use 2 CM4228 to combat ghosting. Ghosting is the signal bouncing off an object (hills, buildings, etc) and being delayed arriving at your location. In the analog signal it looks like you have two, three or four ghosts on the screen. With digital the receiver can't figure out which signal to lock on to.

The effect of ghosting can sometimes be lessened by putting an in-line 10db pad on the coax that runs into your receiver. Or you can overpower the ghost by using an amplifier. However you can overpower the reciever also.

It's a lot of trial and error. It took me over a year to find the right combination of antenna's and location to receive a solid signal.

You might try the Channel Master 4221 4-Bay bow tie antenna and see if that helps your signal.

Here is the side view of my antenna's to show you what I had to do to compensate for the hill in my way.

Excellent idea. I actually had the 4221 before I bought the 4228. Living in Salem, I wanted all the signal I could get. I actually didn't notice much difference between them. The line amp added WAY more signal strength for me than the larger antenna. I think the 4221 is about half the size of the 4228.

Does anyone in the area sell Channel Master antennas ... or do I need to order them online?

scottcorinna-

I looked at your picture but can't quite make out what you have. Is it two bowties facing each other????

marshdom

I got my CM antenna and line amp online. Can't remember the company name. Just do a Google search.

Here is the front shot of my antenna's

scottcorinna

Never mind. I just looked at the first picture you posted so I now see you have two completely separate antennas. Are you merging the signal into one line? Can you point two antennas to slightly different locations and then merge the signal?

If so, maybe that's what I need to do with KOIN. One antenna just for KOIN, another for all the other channels.

bertschb,

Your problem with KOIN may be their PSIP generator. It will cause your receiver to lose the auto mapping of the signal. (Channel 40 becomes 6, channel 48 becomes 8...)

KOIN knows of the problem and is working on it.

Originally posted by bertschb
scottcorinna

Never mind. I just looked at the first picture you posted so I now see you have two completely separate antennas. Are you merging the signal into one line? Can you point two antennas to slightly different locations and then merge the signal?

If so, maybe that's what I need to do with KOIN. One antenna just for KOIN, another for all the other channels.

I have both antenna's running into a combiner then into my receiver. It's known as stacking antenna's.

You can stack to gain signal strength or to help reduce ghosting. In my situation it helps reduce ghosting.

Would stacking help if I pointed one antenna to get a good signal from KOIN and then another antenna to get a good signal from all the other channels then combine them? Can you actually get the best of both?

Generally, when I lose KOIN I can try to manually tune it to 40-1 but that still doesn't work. I've been down the remap route several times during the last year. I don't think my problem is with remapping unless it fixes itself in a few seconds. For me, KOIN can work great for a week and then get flaky for a day or two. When it's flaky I lose the signal for a few seconds to several minutes or even hours. I had my antenna in one spot for 9 months and it worked great the whole time it was there. Then, last January I lost KOIN and it didn't come back for several weeks. I had to relocate my antenna (again) to get KOIN back.

Man, I wish I could get a waiver so I could get CBS from DirecTv.

Anyone else getting audio suttering on KOIN 6-1 for the Memphis/OK St. game? (Sorry to depart from the riveting Mt Scott dilemma.) ;-)

Bob

Yes, I have audio stuttering. Plus, I lost KOIN for a couple minutes. It's back now. Just another day in digital paradise.

The 6-1 audio problem must be local. I see that others are reporting good audio in other parts of the country. The audio on 6-2 is fine - loud, but fine. It must have been the wind yesterday that played havoc with my reception on both subs. Seems perfect today. But today is a perfect day, anyway! Too nice to be inside. Oh well.

Originally posted by marshdom
Does anyone in the area sell Channel Master antennas ... or do I need to order them online?

I got my CM 4221 at a Mom & Pop video store on Beaverton Hillsdale or Canyon a few years ago. Can't remember the name of the store. If your interested in giving them a call, I'll see if I can find my purchase receipt.

I think it's :Vern L. Wenger Video-Audio" on Beav-Hillsdale Hwy.

Thank you to everyone for all of the help. I went out to RS and got an attenuator and amplifier. I tried each of them. The annenuator seemed to make the situation worse. The amplifier seemed to work pretty well, giving me a strong consistent signal on stations ... when I lock onto them. Unfortunately, my only constant is being able to get channel 2 very well. Depending on how I play with the antenna, I also get 8, 32, and/or 49 ... but never all at the same time. And I'm still never getting 6, 10, or 12. I'll keep playing around with it for awhile, but I'm thinking that my in-attic solution just isn't going to cut it.

So, I'd still love any suggestions ... specifically on: a) outdoor (or in attic) antennas that people have had success with (without causing a divorce), and/or b) if anyone has suggestions of a "expert for hire" that could help me out. Also, I'm still curious why I get some station so well and others not at all, given that all of the towers are in the same location and I get pretty decent analog reception of those stations???

I guess my next step is going to have to be trying a CM 4221 outside. Hope I can get it by the wife!

Bob and others ... sorry about hijacking the discussion for my problems! Hopefully it helped some other lurking newbie out there!

(Edited: I'm now able to get 6-1 and 6-2 ... how cool, both games!!! ... for the first time. Unfortunately, I'm only able to get channel 2 at the same time. So now I've proven that I can occasionally get a strong signal for 2, 6, 8, 32, and 49 ... but never for 10 or 12. Given all of this, is it wishful thinking to expect that a well-installed CM 4221 outside would be able to catch most of the stations? I'd really hate to buy one - as I'm assuming they can't be returned - and pay someone to install it - on my 3rd story roof! ... only to find out that I can only get 2 or 3 stations at a time.)

mashdom: What's your analog reception like on the UHF channels (e.g. 49, 32)?

I'm not an expert - but I believe that UHF multipath should give you one (or more) ghost images on your UHF reception. If a weak signal is your problem, you would expect lots of noise (static, etc).

If you have a clear image but ghosting, an amplifier is only going to make it worse - since it'll make the ghost look that much more like a valid signal. If you just have a very noisy picture, then presumably a weak signal is your problem and the amplifier may help.

Has anyone else used this technique of tuning their UHF analog reception in order to improve their ATSC (digital UHF) reception?

I hear a lot more about multipath problems than signal strength problems around here. A more directional antenna might be worth a try if you establish that multipath is the problem. I believe their are directions out there for making you own.

I would not suggest RS amplifiers as they add too much signal noise making the whole amplification process not that good compared to CM's amplifiers. I recently bought the JBX21 (approx $180) which arrived from england, and is supposed to be the best antenna to fight multipath, but I soon learned my dumb landlord installed multiple signal splitters in my walls for extra convience to analog tv users throughout the house, lol.

I also got the best amplifier which is the CM7777 (I think its the 7777 or the 7775, which everone is the UHF ONLY one as all your/our digital channels are in the UHF range and we don't want to amplify the other signals. Kinda wish I could return my antenna as I found out the zenith silver sensor works fine in my area afterall. Just get the CM amplifiers online (took a 2 month wait to get the cm7777 as they were backordered recently).

I am very lucky as I live on a hillside in vancouver, WA (brush prairie) with a clearshot at all the towers lined up. If you need to aim your antenna to recieve different channels each time, they do have wireless rotators that every time you change the channel you wait a few seconds while the pre-programmed rotator automatically remembers the exact direction you told it to memeorize and thus you get every channel (with the small wait of having the rotator move your antenna).

If possible, try buying some high quality stuff locally instead of online, otherwise you'll be stuck like me wishing I could return it, lol. And three months ago I called every tv repair shop and hardware store asking if they carry CM amplifiers and they all said no, just fyi.

I live out in Hillsboro and have been going nuts because I cant get a constant signal for KOIN. My signal strenght goes from 0 to 26 up to 60 and all over the place cant get anything and knowing that these games are in HD is frustrating. I'm wondering if an amplifier would help me out, all the other channels are coming in at about 70+ and are great. But my question is regarding my setup where to put the amplifier.
From the roof my antenna feeds into a diplexer w/ my DTV before it comes into the house and then is diplexed back to 2 line before plugging into my RCA 38310 w/ built in tuners. Would I have to put the amplfier in before it goes into the diplexer? or can I do it on the line after its been split back into 2? It's going to be harder to get it on its own line as I will probably have to get rid of diplexers and just feed 2 lines into the house.
Any ideas? I'm running out of ideas, and the chances that my Waiver with DTV for CBS HD will go through are about as good as Nevada making it to the Final Four.
Any input would be great.
Thanks!

I feel your pain regarding KOIN but I have no advice.

I've used top of the line everything and my signal isn't split even once and I still have trouble with KOIN. I've moved my antenna so many times it's rediculous. I just live with the intermittant signal loss.

Good luck!

Well, the audio stuttering on KOIN-DT 6-1 has continued into Cold Case tonight. Lee, something has changed since the HD feed on Friday's NCAA games. Those were perfect productions. The SD upconverts on Sat. were without perceptable audio glitches, although I had a terrible problem locking in OTA on both 6-1 and 6-2 yesterday, I think due to the wind. Reception today has been flawless.

What's the prognosis for HD audio?
Bob

Watched cold case tonight along with proof of life on KOIN and omg the audio popping sure was annoying, but great picture. Very glad to see the movie was in 1080i, was afraid it would be SD.

I will offer that THIS years HD & SD combination multicast looked a lot better than LAST years. There was not nearly as many artifacts visible on the HD program and the SD, while not great, was better than many digital satellite or cable feeds.Hey Lee, I took a break yesterday afternoon while doing yardwork and popped inside to catch the end of the NCAA coverage and I agree with you that your HD/SD multicast looks much better this year. It looked like you were giving the HD feed just enough BW to maintain an overall good PQ with minimal artifacts and I was surprised that the SD definitely looked improved over last year. For me the SD looked pretty decent when there wasn't much movement and on close shots but it did break down considerably on the wider shots and during the end to end transitions. I don't know that I'd go so far as to say it was as good as a bad satellite feed just because of the still serious motion artifacting, but it looked pretty good during free throws and when they were setting up plays in the half court :). What do you attribute the better results this year to? Also, do you employ any filtering or is it all just the BW balancing act?

ron

Originally posted by marshdom
(Edited: I'm now able to get 6-1 and 6-2 ... how cool, both games!!! ... for the first time. Unfortunately, I'm only able to get channel 2 at the same time. So now I've proven that I can occasionally get a strong signal for 2, 6, 8, 32, and 49 ... but never for 10 or 12. Given all of this, is it wishful thinking to expect that a well-installed CM 4221 outside would be able to catch most of the stations? I'd really hate to buy one - as I'm assuming they can't be returned - and pay someone to install it - on my 3rd story roof! ... only to find out that I can only get 2 or 3 stations at a time.)

After 3 months of trying different antennas, locations, attenuators, amplifiers, etc., I finally decided antenna selection and placement for the reception of digital signals is a Black Art. My first recommendation is that you find a nice fat chicken to sacrifice to the antenna gods; this will do as much good as anything if you don't have line of sight to the towers.

Also, every recommendation you get will be wrong, including this one. There are too many variables. What works for one guy is not likely to work for the next if the conditions are not identical. It's pretty much trial and error.

Next, try the cheapest solution first. Before buying a big outdoor antenna and installing it, try a good indoor antenna, like the Zenith Silver Sensor you'll find others talking about in the forum. Then move on from there.

In my case, I ended up with a cheap RS VHF/UHF combo for my outside antenna. This worked much better than the huge 6' Channel Master yagi I also tried, and which now lives in a corner of my garage on top of the wood pile. Bigger is not necessarily better. With careful alignment, that allows me to get everything except 10 and 12 (12 sometimes, depending on how much the wind is blowing the trees around my house). Then I switch to the indoor Silver Sensor for 10 and 12. I have to switch back to the outdoor antenna to get reliable reception on 6 and 8. But between the two, I can get all the OTA channels, and I basically live in a hole behind a hill.

Originally posted by PatNOregon
But my question is regarding my setup where to put the amplifier.

One of the real experts can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the amplifier should just about always be placed at the antenna, before anything else, so as not to amplify any signal noise picked up along the way in.

Originally posted by iodsnips
Watched cold case tonight along with proof of life on KOIN and omg the audio popping sure was annoying, but great picture. Very glad to see the movie was in 1080i, was afraid it would be SD.
I agree with the PQ, KOIN looks almost 3D on my projector now, I don't know if the mastering is getting better or they've tweaked the signal. The audio is very annoying.

Just for kicks I used the Analog tuner on my JVC DVHS deck yesterday, displaying it on my projector and I have to admit, it looked better than any of our local SD digital signals.

ceccacci,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts ... very helpful. Seems like at the very least, I should give a Silver Sensor a try (and maybe the chicken sacrifice). Do you (or anyone) know where I might be able to buy one (preferably locally - so that it is easy to take back if it doesn't work)? I looked online at CC, BB, and GG, but none of them seem to carry it (at least online). Maybe Magnolia? Any other ideas?

A hole behind a hill, huh? Sounds like me ... you give me hope. Interesting that you have problems with the only two stations that I can't get at all ... 10 & 12. Do we live in the same hole behind the same hill? :confused:

Which model of "cheap" RS antenna do you have?

As for your two antenna solution, could you simply combine the signal into one line and feed that into your stb? Just wondering.

Thanks again.

Here's (yet another) really dumb question, that follows on the last question I asked ceccacci in my previous post ...

If I bought a Silver Sensor (or any other antenna) that got reception on a few channels when I point it one way and a few other stations when I point it another way ... is there an easy way to combine the two (or three) signals into one feed into my stb?

Silver sensor can be had for around $40 I think at sears or bestbuy. While I agree you should probably try the cheapest solution for the antenna first, its not worth buying the cheapest, then the next cheapest, if those dont work then the next cheapest, until you've tried everything. Try the silver sensor, if that doesnt work, simply return it (packs back up nicely) and get the CM4228. If that doesn't work too nicely, then go for the JBX21 yagi.

You could get another antenna, filter out all the signals on it except for one channel and add it to the other signal, but that type of setup gets very messy and expensive from what I've read. Again, a rotator that automatically rotates the antenna each time you change the channel is the easiest and most effective to get reception in areas that need frequent antenna rotation.

IMHO never get radioshack amplifiers, as the best amplifier can be had for $50, a UHF only amp like the CM 7777. It's beautiful, as it comes in two parts. First part is weatherproof, and goes up and clamps to the pole that your antenna on the rooftop is attachted to, and you simply connect the antenna to that box and also the coax line that runs through your house.

The second box is placed next to your HDTV and receives the signal through the coax that ran trhough your house to the antenna on the roof, and also sends the signal to the tuner for decoding, and this second box also plugs into the wall for power.

The real beauty with this setup is, the electricity required to power the amplifier (the real amplifier is next to the antenna ontop the roof) does NOT require a long extention cord! The power is sent up the already existing coax cable from the second box plugged in next to your hdtv, up through the coax cable that was installed previously, receivied by the first box, providing power to that and the signal gets a good amplification right from the source of the signal received. Plus the noise from the amplifier is extremly low (the next best solution for an amplifier that does lower noise then this one costs over $200, lol).

Need good multipath antenna to fight off the reflected signals so even weak signals don't breakup, then need a good amplfier to boost that one signal the antenna locked onto, and then you get a good high bar of strength that never breaksup (at least for me).

marshdom & ceccacci: OK, I gotta ask. What is this channel 12 that everyone is having trouble pulling in? Channel 12, according to my antennaweb.org list and transmitter.com, is in the analog range (KPTV). It should not be a channel that a digital receiver should be able to display, I think. Also according to antennaweb, KGW and KOPB live at the same compass oreintation, so if you get one you should likely get the other. I think the variable here is the power with which each sends its signals.

BTW, I bought my Silver Sensor at BB last Sept. Not sure if they still carry them.

Bob

I presume that they're referring to FOX as "channel 12" (VHF) - which is actualy UHF 30.

The virtual channel of UHF 30 could actually be "12" - can't recall if they do virtual channels...

BTW, been noticing that http://tv.yahoo.com now has the digital OTA stations listed for PDX.

Anyone here over by murray road and Cornell road? I'm sort of wondering how well the reception would be here before I invest quite a bit of money getting a HD directtv receiver. I'd like to receive the local HD feeds, which I'm assuming d* doesn't offer in this area. I'm just wondering if reception is worth the investment of the receiver first, and then the OTA investment also.

Randyman ... I'm no expert (to which everyone here will attest!), but if you haven't already, you should check out www.antennaweb.org. Type in your address and it will tell you what digital stations you can expect to receive and which direction you need to point your antenna. I believe that the consensus is that antennaweb.org is very conservative. If it says you will get a station, you probably will. If it says you won't, you might still be able to get them (with some work ... as I'm finding out).

Bob ... sorry for the confusion, yes, I did in fact mean channel 30.

I just got home from Sears with a Silver Sensor (actually had them price match Amazon for $24). I haven't had too much time to play with it, but I have already received strong signals for CBS, WB, UPN ... and for the first time FOX 12/30 (but only 3 out of 4 at one time). So I have now received (at one time or another - with various antenna setups) 6 out of the 7 locals, only missing PBS. This gives me hope that with the proper equipment and proper install job, I should be able to get most of the locals.

I would still be interested in the answer to my question regarding combining signals from multiple antennas. Thanks.

(Edit: Wow. That little Silver Sensor is pretty amazing. I'm now able to get ABC (2/43), CBS (6/40), PBS (10/27), FOX (12/30), and UPN (49/48) all at the same time!!! The only downside is that I've only accomplished it so far while holding the Silver Sensor in mid-air near the TV and STB. I can also get WB (32/33) if I move the antenna around a bit, but I've yet to get NBC (8/46) with the Siver Sensor. Interestingly, though, my STB automatically moves (maps?) to 8-1 and 8-2 when I add 46 as a station that I am supposed to have. It usually only does that on stations when I'm getting a signal ... so maybe it's "almost" getting a signal? Any ideas why the antenna seems to work best while I'm standing near the TV and STB and holding the antenna in the air? When I move away (higher, into the attic, closer to the front of the house - nearer to the TV towers, and/or set the Silver Sensor on a table, etc), I go from being able to get 5 stations simultaneously to 2 or 3 at best???)

marshdom:

I took your advice and went to antennaweb.org and punched in my address. I'm hoping someone can help me with the results here. It states that I would need a Yellow small multidirectional antenna with the miles from towers being 4.0 miles or less. (i'm guessing that is what it means.) So I'm guessing this is a pretty positive thing then.

Which antenna would be recommended knowing now that I'm pretty close and of course the wife would like a smallish antenna anyway. Preferably one out of sight. :)

Randyman,

Given my success with the Zenith Silver Sensor in a bad location, I would recommend that you give it a try. It is just a small little indoor antenna that sets up in about a minute flat. I found it at Sears for $40, but I took a quick printout of the item from Amazon.com for $24+ and they matched the price.

When you got to antennaweb.org and it lists your stations, click on the button at the top of the list that tells it to show you only the digital stations. Go to the very first page of this thread to see a list of the 7 local stations in the area. You will see that the HD versions of these stations are actually broadcast over higher numbers.

Hope that helps.

Does anyone in Portland receive KOAC or KNMT OTA digital channels? I'm asking because VOOM maps all the available digital channels and you have no choice in what is displayed & these are included in the guide. I never could get either of these with my Dish 6000.

VOOM also maps Fox to 12-1 and they don't have the sub channel.

I'm on the backside of the hill in West Linn. If I swing my antenna in the direction of KOAC I get a fairly solid signal.

I don't know what KNMT is.

KNMT is a religious channel, I think the same as 22? or is it 24?

Where is KOAC out of?

I can get KOAC and KNMT OTA analog signals just fine.

Originally posted by craigpratt
I presume that they're referring to FOX as "channel 12" (VHF) - which is actualy UHF 30.

The virtual channel of UHF 30 could actually be "12" - can't recall if they do virtual channels...

BTW, been noticing that http://tv.yahoo.com now has the digital OTA stations listed for PDX.

Ok I am going to jump in here. I am using a Channel Master 3010 antenna located in my attic and my Voom STB for OTA reception. The Voom channel guide lists Fox 12 Portland - KPTV-DT as channel 12.1. I see on the KPTV transmitter map that they translate on channel 20 for the Albany area. Is the 'black magic' channel mapping being done in my Voom STB? Also, seems KPTV-DT transmissions are sporadic in my area. At times I have very good reception with no artifacts, other times nothing at all!

Ideas?

Thanks

Originally posted by hilladen
I can get KOAC and KNMT OTA analog signals just fine.
I'm asking about DIGITAL because VOOM has them mapped into my local guide and VOOM does not support Analog, just Digital.

Originally posted by marshdom
ceccacci,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts ... very helpful. Seems like at the very least, I should give a Silver Sensor a try (and maybe the chicken sacrifice). Do you (or anyone) know where I might be able to buy one (preferably locally - so that it is easy to take back if it doesn't work)? I looked online at CC, BB, and GG, but none of them seem to carry it (at least online). Maybe Magnolia? Any other ideas?

A hole behind a hill, huh? Sounds like me ... you give me hope. Interesting that you have problems with the only two stations that I can't get at all ... 10 & 12. Do we live in the same hole behind the same hill? :confused:

Which model of "cheap" RS antenna do you have?

As for your two antenna solution, could you simply combine the signal into one line and feed that into your stb? Just wondering.

Thanks again.
I live in Tigard on Fanno Creek. The ground rises up in the direction of the towers, so all I see are trees and hill. I get plenty of signal strength, the problem is all multipath.

Can't remember for sure which RS antenna it is, the VU-75 maybe? Small, anyway. Like I said, I tried a much larger dedicated UHF, and my signal strength went down and I ended up receiving fewer channels.

I've never attempted combining the signal from the RS and the Silver Sensor; suspect without some extensive filtering I'd just make the multipath problem worse. I keep meaning to buy a switch, but as it is, I just physically swap cables. A pain, but it works. And after a lot of very frustrating trial and error, I'm just HAPPY it works. ;-)

As to others' mapping questions, yes, by "channel 12" I am talking about FOX/KPTV. With my Samsung DirectTV STB, this maps to 12-1 and I believe 30-2. No idea why it only remaps one of the sub channels.

Originally posted by marshdom
ceccacci,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts ... very helpful. Seems like at the very least, I should give a Silver Sensor a try (and maybe the chicken sacrifice). Do you (or anyone) know where I might be able to buy one (preferably locally - so that it is easy to take back if it doesn't work)? I looked online at CC, BB, and GG, but none of them seem to carry it (at least online). Maybe Magnolia? Any other ideas?


Normally, Best Buy in Beaverton has the Silver Sensor antennas in stock. Strangley though, they don't seem to have many OTA DTV receivers to hook them to.

Does anyone in Portland receive KOAC or KNMT OTA digital channels?

KOAC is PBS out of Corvallis, I don't get it in SE Portland, but I've not spent anytime trying either.
KNMT is TBS and it comes in just fine here. (45-1)
I get FOX on 30-1 and 30-2, the others remap to the analog station numbers.

Earl

Originally posted by earletp
KNMT is TBS and it comes in just fine here. (45-1)
Earl [/B]

You mean TBN, not TBS.

Originally posted by ceccacci

I've never attempted combining the signal from the RS and the Silver Sensor; suspect without some extensive filtering I'd just make the multipath problem worse. I keep meaning to buy a switch, but as it is, I just physically swap cables. A pain, but it works. And after a lot of very frustrating trial and error, I'm just HAPPY it works. ;-)



I also have 2 antenna feeds behind my TV and STB. One is for the Silver Sensor and the other goes outside to a RS hanging under my deck. I used to switch frequently but have found that my STB has "learned" to use the SS better and better over time. I can't recall the last time I used the outdoor.

For combining lines to a switch or into one line or some combination, try searching in the HDTV Hardware thread or the Home Theater - Home Integration and Distribution thread.

Darrell: Until about 5 months ago, I used to be able to pull in KNMT on 45-1 but it seems to not be generating a signal any longer. It is owned by or licensed to National Minority TV, Inc. and transmits (or used to) from the same cluster of towers as KOIN and KATU. KOAC has not been on my list of available digital channels for my zip code so I've never looked for it.

Bob

You mean TBN, not TBS.

Yes, I did, thank you.

Earl

Originally posted by Kschorz
Ok I am going to jump in here. I am using a Channel Master 3010 antenna located in my attic and my Voom STB for OTA reception. The Voom channel guide lists Fox 12 Portland - KPTV-DT as channel 12.1. I see on the KPTV transmitter map that they translate on channel 20 for the Albany area. Is the 'black magic' channel mapping being done in my Voom STB? [chomp]

Yes - this is some MPEG/ATSC magic where the data in the physical channel itself tells your STB what it would like to be referred to as (the "virtual channel").

Some decent explanations I found on the web:

http://www.broadcastpapers.com/tvtran/ThalesPSIPSolutions02.htm

http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Tech-Corner/f-RH-TSID.shtml

Sorry about Saturday's games. The ATSC Encoder Gods were not happy and demanded a sacrifice.

Here are the NCAA games for the Thursday/Friday multicast...

Thursday, March 25

Analog
Vanderbilt vs. Connecticut
St. Joseph's vs. Wake Forest

Digital 6-1 (Upconverted)
Vanderbilt vs. Connecticut
St. Joseph's vs. Wake Forest

Digital 6-2 (Standard Definition)
Pittsburgh vs. Oklahoma St
Alabama vs. Syracuse


Friday, March 26

Analog
UAB vs. Kansas
Georgia Tech vs Nevada

Digital 6-1 (High Definition)
UAB vs. Kansas
Georgia Tech vs. Nevada

Digital 6-2 (Standard Definition)
Texas vs. Xavier
Duke vs. Illinois

This will wrap up the multicast for this season. All of the rest of the games are successive and the HD will have full bandwidth.

Lee: We trust you were able to appease the gods. Thanks for the great coverage!

I know there is no definitive decision yet, but it appears CBS is going to permit locals to show HD coverage of The Masters on Thurs and Fri (4/8 and 9) that USA Network is carrying. Will you let us know if KOIN will participate in bringing those early rounds in HD?

Bob

Originally posted by ridgefamus
I know there is no definitive decision yet, but it appears CBS is going to permit locals to show HD coverage of The Masters on Thurs and Fri (4/8 and 9) that USA Network is carrying. Will you let us know if KOIN will participate in bringing those early rounds in HD?

Bob

Yes (at least so far), but ya otta check the KOIN website once in a while:

HDTV News (http://www.koin.com/koin/hdtvnews.shtml)

Upcoming HDTV Programs (http://www.koin.com/koin/hdtvprograms.shtml)

Mea culpa, Lee. Thanks for the reminder :rolleyes:.

Originally posted by Pat Shearer Welcome to the group Pat. You'll find lots of useful information from viewers here and a good way to keep in touch with them.

Lee

Pat, nice to have you onboard, what's the WB antenna status?

Thanks for everyone's help over the past few days. I had someone come out and install a CM 4228 on my roof yesterday. I have most of the digital locals coming in real strong, except for 27/10 and 48/49. I can get those stations, but only at the expense of the other ones. I might try experimenting with a second antenna at some point, but I think I'm going to try a CM 7777 preamp first (just ordered one today). The installer was amazed that my Hughes HTL-HD (D* satellite/OTA box) did such a good job with some pretty weak signals that I get behind the hill.

The good news is that I'm getting a good to great signal on the major networks, with the exception of some occasional weakness on ABC. So thanks again for all of your help!

Finally ... FYI ... the installer did a very good job. It took longer than I was hoping at a reasonable (but still hard-to-swallow) hourly rate, but I am happy with the work. So if anyone is looking for an installer, feel free to PM me.

Originally posted by Marissadad
Pat, nice to have you onboard, what's the WB antenna status? I'm going to guess that Pat will say it's my fault since KOIN has had a tower crew moving antennas and getting ready install a new analog antenna for what seems like forever. These Texans just don't seem to like to climb around 900 feet off the ground in the rain and wind. :)

Originally posted by Lee Wood

(Was this too technical??)

Lee,

Speaking of being technical. What is with the funky way that KOIN does the PSIP data in the transport stream? I recently made some changes to a piece of software that I used to edit transport streams(HDTVtoMPEG2) in order to get the PSIP data to display correctly from KION.

KOIN PSIP data is unique from everyone else’s in a couple of ways.

1. The amount of PSIP data for KOIN requires 2 packets to hold the data. Everyone else’s requires only 1 packet. No big deal here, KOIN is more verbose in the information they provide. The problem is that before the second packet arrives to complete the data, the first packet is re-sent again! So in the transport stream you end up with, 1st packet – 1st packet – 2nd packet – 2nd packet. You would think that the proper order would be 1st packet – 2nd packet – 1st packet – 2nd packet. In order to get the information properly, if you encounter another 1st packet of data before you get the 2nd packet, to throw away the first packet and start over. So far, if I grab the middle two packets, I can get a complete set of data. It just seems kind of strange the way the data is being placed in the transport stream.

2. The other weird thing is that KOINs transport streams have a Network Information Table. I thought NIT’s weren’t used in ATSC transmission systems. Also, the Network PID has been assigned the reserved PID for PSIP data, 0x1ffb! This caused the software that I use to automatically ignore the PSIP data because the reserved PID for PSIP, 0x1ffb has been mapped to a NIT in the Program Association Table. This just doesn’t seem right to me.

You guys are the experts over there so I’m sure there is a reason why it is the way it is, but it sure seems strange to me.

Cris

Originally posted by Cris Moore
KOIN PSIP data is unique from everyone else’s in a couple of ways.

1. The amount of PSIP data for KOIN requires 2 packets to hold the data. Everyone else’s requires only 1 packet. No big deal here, KOIN is more verbose in the information they provide. The problem is that before the second packet arrives to complete the data, the first packet is re-sent again! So in the transport stream you end up with, 1st packet – 1st packet – 2nd packet – 2nd packet. You would think that the proper order would be 1st packet – 2nd packet – 1st packet – 2nd packet. In order to get the information properly, if you encounter another 1st packet of data before you get the 2nd packet, to throw away the first packet and start over. So far, if I grab the middle two packets, I can get a complete set of data. It just seems kind of strange the way the data is being placed in the transport stream. I believe this is caused when a new packet has not yet been delivered by the PSIP Generator so the packet that is in the buffer of the multiplexer is repeated. But, I can't prove it. The original recommendation for PSIP throughput was reduced from 1 Mb to 250k kb as real-world PSIP was rolled out on top of older multiplexer technology. I think this is where the timing got out of whack. Though odd, the duplicate packets are permitted per ATSC Recommended Practice A/54A "The Guide to the Digital Television Standard" dated 4 December 2003. (The specific reference is in the last paragraph on page 51 and in footnote 7 on that page.) This is also what causes some Samsung SIR-T351 tuners to not decode KOIN-DT, they are interpreting it as excessive jitter and throwing up rather than taking the extra packet and throwing it away.

2. The other weird thing is that KOINs transport streams have a Network Information Table. I thought NIT’s weren’t used in ATSC transmission systems. Also, the Network PID has been assigned the reserved PID for PSIP data, 0x1ffb! This caused the software that I use to automatically ignore the PSIP data because the reserved PID for PSIP, 0x1ffb has been mapped to a NIT in the Program Association Table. This just doesn’t seem right to me. I think what you are seeing is the Region Ratings Table (Table Type 0x0301) and it is included within the 0x1ffb base PID per the ATSC A/65b Standard, section 6.4. Let me know if you see something different, but this is what I see.

Lee,

Thanks for the information. I'll take a look at the documentation I have and see if I can make it make sense. I have a copy of A/65b but I don't think I have a copy of A/54a. There is so much documentation, its hard to keep track of it all.

You see, there are people out there that really like the technical stuff. :-)

Cris

I usually get channel 8 but no reception today?
Anyone else?

I just checked and I can't get channel 8 either. I usually have no trouble with that channel. Just another day.....

I think what you are seeing is the Region Ratings Table (Table Type 0x0301) and it is included within the 0x1ffb base PID per the ATSC A/65b Standard, section 6.4. Let me know if you see something different, but this is what I see.

Lee,

Granted, I’m no expert here, but I’m still a little confused.

I understand that there are several tables that can appear in the base PID 0x1ffb. These include:
0xC7 – (MGT) Master Guide Table
0xC8 – (TVCT) Terrestrial Virtual Channel Table
0xC9 – (CVCT) Cable Virtual Channel Table
0xCA – (RRT) Rating Region Table
0xCD – (STT) System Time Table

When I read the PSIP data from KION’s transport stream, I’m getting the data from the TVCT which is contained on table_id 0xC8, in a packet whose PID is 0x1ffb. The RRT would appear in table_id 0xC7 (MGT), in a packet whose PID is 0x1ffb.

What I don’t understand is why KOIN’s transport stream contains a (NIT) Network Information Table. From my documentation in the section where it talks about the (PAT) Program Association Table, it indicates that the first program entry, program_number zero, identifies the network_PID carrying the (NIT)Network Information Table. It then says that in ATSC, the NIT is not used, and therefore, the program_number value zero should not appear in the (PAT)Program Association Table.

In the ISO 13818-1 documentation where it talks about the PAT, it has this to say about the Network_PID:
network_PID -- Network_PID is a 13 bit field specifying the PID of the Transport Stream packet which shall contain the Network Information Table. The value of the network_PID field is defined by the user but shall not take values reserved for other purposes. The presence of the network_PID is optional.

Note the “should not take on the values reserved for other purposes”.

In the same documentation, the description of the Network Information Table says it contains “Physical network parameters such as FDM frequencies, Transponder Numbers, etc.”

And just to be a royal pain the a$$ :-), below is a hand decoded (PAT)Program Association Table from a recently recorded transport stream from KOIN. Note the inclusion of a program_number == 0. AND it has been assigned a reserved PID, i.e 0x1ffb.

I guess the question is… Why does KOIN include a NIT in the Program Association Table? Since the value of the Network_PID is user defined, why is it being assigned a reserved PID number even if it is being included for some optional reason?

Sorry for the lenght of the post, just trying to understand.

Decoded (PAT) Program Association Table from KOIN:
sync_byte: 0x47
transport_error_indicator: 0
payload_unit_start_indicator: 1
transport_priority: 0
PID: 0 <------------------------- Program Association Table
transport_scrambling_code: 0
adaptation_field_control: 1
continuity_counter: 3

pointer_field: 0
table_id: 0 <------------------------ Program Association Table
section_syntax_error: 1
reserved: 0
reserved: 3
section_length: 0x15
transport_stream_id: 0x977
reserved: 3
version_number: 0x18
current_next_indicator: 1
last_section_number: 0

program_number: 0 <-- program 0 reserved for network_PID, why is this even here?
reserved: 7
network_PID = 0x1ffb <-- user assigned value, 0x1ffb is a reserved PID number!

program_number: 1 <-- HD program
reserved: 7
program_map_PID: 0x10

program_number: 2 <-- SD program
reserved: 7
program_map_PID: 0x20

CRC_32: 4f27bd66

Hey Cris,

Thanks for the technical posts - I, for one, find it very interesting.

Have you found a decent tool for parsing the TS or are you doing all hand-decodes?

Originally posted by Cris Moore
program_number: 0 <-- program 0 reserved for network_PID, why is this even here? Short answer: Because the Motorola Encoder puts it there??

Cris,

KOIN is the only station that maps the analog channel as well as the digital channel and associates program guide data to it. For some reason the PAT table (generated in the Motorola Encoder along with the PMT) adds the 'program_number: 0' entries. I checked the Triveni generated PMT/PAT tables and they do not generate it.

The reason for taking the MPEG tables from Motorola and the PSIP tables from Triveni is that the Triveni system, being Windows-based - strike one; written in Java - strike two; utilizing an in memory database - strike three; will, without notice or indication, just stop working. The lights are on, but there's nobody home. The schedule grid continues to advance like normal, but no data is output.

By taking the MPEG tables from Motorola tuners can revert back to the physical channel tuning and find the services within the stream. Without ANY System Information tables in the stream I'm not sure how receivers would react, my guess is probably not well.

Receivers seem to ignore the 'program_number: 0' entries (when in doubt - through it out) without any issues, so I'm not sure it is a worrisome issue. Triveni never flagged it as a potential problem on the three occasions they have dissected our transport stream looking for problems with their StreamDoctor system.

Lee

How you folks liking this technical stuff NOW?

Originally posted by craigpratt
Have you found a decent tool for parsing the TS or are you doing all hand-decodes? I'd like to know too, even though I don't have a way of recording the transport stream at this point.

Lee

Originally posted by craigpratt
[B
Have you found a decent tool for parsing the TS or are you doing all hand-decodes? [/B]

I currently just hand decode the packet(s) I'm interested in using a Hex editor and paper.

You know I don't even see the transport stream anymore, just Blond, Brunette, Redhead. :p

Seriously, I have been doing them by hand, but I did start a PID stripper last year thats about 1/2 to 3/4 done. It started out to be TS Analyzer. With a bit of effort, I could get it to output the decoded packets like PAT, PMT, MGT, TVCT, etc. and I wouldn't have to do it by hand. Of course If I had some money to throw away, I'd probably get something like the Manzanita TS Analyzer.

Cris

Lee,

Thanks for the reply. I can certainly live with the "Thats just the way it is right now" reason. I've already fixed HDTVtoMPEG2 so that it handles the KOIN stream properly now. I was just curious about the funkiness of what I found in the transport streams.

BTW, it's nice to see you on the boards again. I know you are probably a really busy person. I don't see how you find the time to chat with us, but I certainly do appreciate you taking the time.

Cris

Cris and Craig:

Have you ever been here...
http://www.coolstf.com/tsreader/

Originally posted by Lee Wood
Cris and Craig:

Have you ever been here...
http://www.coolstf.com/tsreader/
Thanks Lee - looks very interesting - will have to give it a try.

I'm on the fence regarding purchase of a pcHDTV card (http://www.pchdtv.com/) - which will allow me to time shift DTV and do this sort of fun real-world protocol analysis.

There must be some free low-level protocol dumping tools that will at least produce a parsed dump of a stream. But I haven't found it yet. Perhaps this card comes with something.

I've done the hex-level decomposition too. As I'm doing it - and I realize I'm off one nibble and the last 10 bytes are decoded incorrectly - I keep thinking "you know, this job is much better left to a computer..." :)

Lee, Chris, & Craig:

In all your psip transport analysis has one of you figured out why the samsung sir-t165 won't pass the signal via firewire to be recorded on d-vhs when remapped to 6.1 but will record when 40.1 is shown?

I assume this will never be resolved by KOIN or Samsung but was curious just the same.

Lew

Lew,

The problem with the Samsung 165 is the duplicate PSIP packets mentioned above by Cris. When that model of tuner sees the duplicates it thinks there is excessive jitter in the signal and won't pass it out the firewire port. Samsung has indicated to me that there is no cure for it on their side do to design considerations. I'm trying to get some attention from Motorola, but have had no luck so far. As I noted above, the duplicates are permitted within the ATSC standard so there may be no cure available for the 165 issue.

Originally posted by Cris Moore
Lee,

Thanks for the reply. I can certainly live with the "Thats just the way it is right now" reason. I've already fixed HDTVtoMPEG2 so that it handles the KOIN stream properly now. I was just curious about the funkiness of what I found in the transport streams.

BTW, it's nice to see you on the boards again. I know you are probably a really busy person. I don't see how you find the time to chat with us, but I certainly do appreciate you taking the time.

Cris

So, are you the one that wrote HDTVtoMPEG2? Its a great tool. Are there any updates? I've searched around and can't seem to find any home for it. I'm using 1.07 for converting to mpeg, and 1.10 for trimming. At least as far as I can remember.

Lee,

Yes, I do own a copy of TSReader. Well worth the money. I don't so much use it for a transport steam analyzer as I do for its recording capability. Using TSReader, I am able to record Smallville and Angel from my c-band dish in HD. Perhaps someday our local WB will be in HD, but until then, this is currently my solution for WB in HD.

rbonzer,

No, I'm not the one who originally wrote HDTVtoMPEG2. That honor goes to Ben Cooley and Grant Reeve. However not to long ago, Grant made his 1.10b source code available. I downloaded the source and I have fixed a few bugs that have been driving me crazy. I love the tool too, and until something comes out that's better, it is the best tool available for cutting out commercials from transport streams.

I have fixed the following problems:
1. Resolution\FPS\Aspect Ratio\Bit Rate not displaying for some transport streams
2. No preview picture for some transport streams, ABC 720p streams?
3. No preview picture for some WB HD transport streams
4. Attempt to fix the half PSIP, half NONAME display in the Channel list.

No major fixes or anything like that. If you would like a copy, let me know.

Cris

Originally posted by craigpratt
There must be some free low-level protocol dumping tools that will at least produce a parsed dump of a stream. But I haven't found it yet. Perhaps this card comes with something.
Some folks with pchdtv cards have the source to a half-working PSIP parser here (among other tools for the card):

ftp://ftp.sonic.net/pub/users/ulmo/hd2000/tools/

When I run it on KOIN, I get lots of checksum errors but eventually I get some readable output after a couple of minutes. If I run it on KOPB it searches for missing PID's and eventually gives up.

Originally posted by Lee Wood
Lew,

The problem with the Samsung 165 is the duplicate PSIP packets mentioned above by Cris. When that model of tuner sees the duplicates it thinks there is excessive jitter in the signal and won't pass it out the firewire port. Samsung has indicated to me that there is no cure for it on their side do to design considerations. I'm trying to get some attention from Motorola, but have had no luck so far. As I noted above, the duplicates are permitted within the ATSC standard so there may be no cure available for the 165 issue.


Lee,

I’m sure you have already considered this, but I’m going to mention it anyway. If the problem that people are having with the Samsung 165 is strictly due to the “jitter” problem because of the duplicate PSIP packets, then the simple solution is to get rid of the duplicate PSIP packets. I believe that could be done by removing the extended_channel_map_descriptor from the transport stream, i.e. descriptor_tag 0xA0. There are three of these descriptor_tags, one for each channel. Each descriptor takes about 39 bytes. So by removing them, the PSIP data will drop by 117 bytes. If you drop this many bytes, the PSIP data should now fit into 1 packet instead of 2 packets and the "jitter" will be gone. What will be removed from the transport stream will be the following 3 long channel names: (2)“KOIN-DT, Portland, Oregon” and (1)"KOIN-TV, Portland, Oregon", which I believe no one sees anyway.

Just an idea.

Cris

Sounds like an idea worth looking into.

Lee,

Let me know when I should try recording again.

THX Cris

Lew

Lew,

Now that I've had a little time to think about it, this probably won't fix the duplicate problem. Even if Lee dropped the byte count so that the PSIP data would fit into 1 packet, the hardware is probably configured to send duplicate packets, so your still screwed. As Lee said earlier, the duplicate packet are valid as long as their continuity_counter values are the same. I've double checked and they are.

So unless Lee can turn off the option to send duplicate packets, everyone with a 165 is screwed.

My assumption was that the duplicates were caused by the multi packet requirement of the PSIP data. However, if this is an option that has been selected on the hardware, then it can only be fixed by turning it off.

I guess thats what I get for thinking out loud.

Cris

Ok guy's. I know it has prolly been asked before but are the Zenith Silver Sensor and the Gemini ZHDTV1 HDTV-UHF Digital Indoor Antenna the same beast?

TIA

TIA: Yes. I did a Google search and the Amazon listing picture for the Gemini is the same as my SS. In fact, my Zenith Silver Sensor box carries the ZHDTV1 model number.

BTW, it looks like the audio demons have struck the KOIN HD basketball broadcast today once again. Wasn't it last Sunday with this problem, too? And, I can't find KGW-DT again. They seem to not be able to maintain their digital signal lately.

Bob

Randyman, I believe they are the same. AFAIK, they're still actually OEM'ed by several companies from http://www.antiference.co.uk/sensor/.

The movie JESUS at 9PM Sunday on KOIN was having serious sound problems. Anyone else notice the problem ?

-- Bob

Cris Moore,

This stuff is a distance over my head but some of what you said in post 1877 is confusing me further.

You said if the info was shortened it would fit into just one packet.
Does this mean the packets are currently not "duplicate"?
If they are not, then they would seem to be out of compliance. No?

Lew

Lew,

Sorry, didn't mean to make things confusing.

KOIN's PSIP data is larger that everyone else's. So large that it requires 2 packets to contain all of the data. Normally what you would see in the transport stream would be the 1st packet, followed a little later by the 2nd packet. Then a little later, the 1st packet, followed by the 2nd packet, etc.

What is happening with KOIN is that the 1st packet is sent, and then a little later the 1st packet is send again, followed by the 2nd packet, followed by the 2 packet again. This "duplicate" sending of the same packet is valid if the continuity_counter in the packet has the same value as the previous PSIP packet. Now if the 1st packet was send 3 times followed by the 2nd packet being sent 3 times, then that would be invalid. Duplicates are allowed, but that means only in sets of two.

Here is the footnote from the documentation:
The MPEG-2 System Standard defines a duplicate Transport Stream packet to be the second of two – and only two – consecutive Transport Stream packets having the same PID that are carrying payload and contain identical byte-by-byte contents (except for the program clock reference, if present). Duplicate Transport Stream packets may be used for additional error resilience purposes.

Now my bogus assumption at first was that the reason we might be getting the duplicate packets was because of the length of the PSIP data that was being sent out. By shortening the PSIP data so that it would fit into 1 packet, we might be able to get rid of the duplicates. I was thinking this because, IIRC, there are times that people with the 165 CAN record from KOIN. I assumed this was because KOIN has changed the PSIP data by shortening it or removed it entirely or something . I don’t know because I have not looked at a transport stream from KOIN at one of the times when the 165 COULD record from KOIN. If someone wants to send me a sample, I’d be willing to look at the PSIP data and see how it differs from the one with duplicates.

Now after a while I got to thinking, even if the PSIP data was shortened so that it would fit into one packet, it probably wouldn’t make any difference, if the hardware\software was configured to always put out duplicate packets. Because what you would get would still be the PSIP packet followed by a duplicate PSIP packet, i.e. the packets continuity_counter values are the SAME. Now keep in mind that this is different than a PSIP packet following a PSIP packet whose continuity_counter values are DIFFERENT, as the continuity_counter is what determines what is a duplicate and what is data just being sent again.

I hoped that helped instead of making it worse. :-)

Cris

Originally posted by Cris Moore
Lew,

Now that I've had a little time to think about it, this probably won't fix the duplicate problem. Even if Lee dropped the byte count so that the PSIP data would fit into 1 packet, the hardware is probably configured to send duplicate packets, so your still screwed. As Lee said earlier, the duplicate packet are valid as long as their continuity_counter values are the same. I've double checked and they are.
Changing the Long Name so that the Base PID 0x1FFB would fit into one packet would only solve part of the two packets problem. EITs (Program Times, Titles, Ratings, etc.) and ETTs (Program Description) also frequently take up two packets and they would still create the Packet 1-Packet 1-Packet 2-Packet 2 sequence randomly.

So unless Lee can turn off the option to send duplicate packets, everyone with a 165 is screwed. I don't have anything I can 'turn-off'. Again, my thinking is that the duplicates are created in the multiplexer when a new packet has not yet been delivered by the PSIP system and the multiplexer sends the duplicate still sitting in the buffer.

My assumption was that the duplicates were caused by the multi packet requirement of the PSIP data. However, if this is an option that has been selected on the hardware, then it can only be fixed by turning it off. I have no way to examine the stream to the packet level, but I'd be willing to bet that single packet data is also being duplicated on occasion. Again, my 'gut' feeling is that it is a timing issue between packet arrival and packet forwarding that creates the duplicates. It certainly isn't intentional and it certainly is random.

I have not been able to find anything in the very limited documentation and system setup menus that even comes close to addressing this. There just is not a lot that can be tweaked in the system at the user level.

Lee

I noticed extreme audio dropouts during last night's Cold Case episode (3/28/04). I switched over to 40.2 and they were playing a different episode? Weeeeeeeeird. 40.2 switched over to the correct episode at some later point. I'm watching off-the-air, by the way.

Guess I'll wait for the re-run. Do the local affiliates have any options for a quick local re-broadcast if the 1st one was muffed?

Because of NCAA running over the network did some wierd things for the west coast feeds. And, no, the local affiliates have no options of a refeed - particularly if was only the west coast that got muffed up.

This was probably due to the basketball running late. In the past networks have let the sports continue on one subchannel while running scheduled programming on time on the other subchannel. When the sports programming is finished, they start the same scheduled programming a few minutes behind the other subchannel. It can get confusing if you change channels and forget which subchannel you were watching (didn't I just see this a minute ago?).

I've never seen them air two different episodes though!

I didn't check the sub channel -2 but the -1 and analog channel were airing the same show and it was a rerun. The audio stuttering was so bad I switched to the analog channel.

Lee & Cris,

Thanks for trying to explain that to me. I'm going back to my own "simple life" and not worry anymore about packets.

Thanks LG for the LST3410a. Now I can record KOIN independant of packet problems.

Lew

Now I can record KOIN independant of packet problems. Which is as it should be!

Now if you want to hear your brain cells swell we could get into a discussion of how MPEG-II video compression works... Talk about magic!

Well, after reading the last couple days worth of posts, I've decided to look into getting a Pre Amp for my CM 4225 Antenna. I think I'll go with the CM7775 Pre-Amp since all our channels are in the UHF range. My question was if I need to change my setup now because of the existing Diplexer I am using between my OTA and DTV Dish. When using a Pre-Amp does the line have to be a straight shot from the source to the OTA box or can I leave my existing setup as is, and just plug the Pre-Amp connections on the antenna and the OTA box without removing the diplexer?
I wanted to double check before I mess something else up.

Also is there any place local (I'm in Hillsboro, near the Ronlar Acres Intel Plant) where the CM 7775 can be bought? If not , who have you guys who have bought one gone through online? I would prefer to buy it local so I can return it if it doesnt solve my issues with KOIN. But I'll give it a shot.

Thanks!

Since you are already sending power / LNB switching back up the coax you will need a second coax to get power to the preamp.

Double-O Electronics is the regional distributor for ChannelMaster. While they probably won't sell you one they can probably tell you who you can buy from close to home.

Full bandwidth HD Final Four comin' up Sat!! Looking forward to it. Do we need to make any sacrifices in advance to appease the encoder gods just in case Lee?

I thought it might be time to report on a GOOD experience. I had a friend over yesterday, and we got to see "West Wing" which is one of our favorites. And last night they ran HD video for much of the show, instead of the usual film based show. WOW! One of the crispest drama shows I've ever seen, much better than most the HD network series.


My friend has decided he has to start looking into a HD box and a good display. I suppose I'll have to help him adjust and calibrate it.

Anyone hear anything about Comcast adding Koin's Digital signal. It seems ridiculous that they can't come to some type of agreement.
Also is there any info on when Comcast might have a Pvr for both the Cable HD signal as well as the local Digital stations
Thanks in advance
Michael

Did you check the break away Portland Comcast thread for info? A bunch of HD Comcast folks staged a coup and created an independent thread. Said something about life, liberty, and freedom from OTA and satellite posts.

Getting ready for the Final Four. I see that 6-2 has been shuttered and the blue side bars are set for future expansion into glorious, full bandwidth 1080i HD. Should be terrific games and exceptional CBS PQ. Thanks for setting it up, Lee!!

Bob

Lee, the picture and sound were beautiful during the games and Sunday night's HD lineup, thanks a bunch, no audio stuttering at all.

Hello, does anyone this weekend receive any OTA dtv broadcast from OPB? I just hooked up my hd300 receiver ... and I have no problem receiving 2.1, 6.1, 8.1, etc. But not 10.1 -- no signal. Is OPB broadcasting? Browsing through this thread it seems like they tend to have more equipment problems than others.

If a tv station says they broadcast on "digital channel 27", what channel does that correspond to using the "10.1" notation?

thanks.

OPB's online but they do quit broadcasting at 11PM. Does your box allow you to do a manual DTV channel input? Try 27 and if it's up, it will automap to 10.1. I tuned it in several times over the weekend, it may be your location, let us know exactly where you are and someone can tell you the quirks of your area.

Originally posted by Marissadad
Lee, the picture and sound were beautiful during the games and Sunday night's HD lineup, thanks a bunch, no audio stuttering at all.

My picture and sound were great for the games, but I had bad video at the start of CSI-Miami last night and had to change the channel. I didn't check back to see if it improved or not. Of course, I'm still getting used to my new OTA/Antenna setup (and in a bad location) ... so maybe the wind was blowing a bit and it was just a problem at my house. Did everyone else's picture look okay at the start of CSI-Miami?

In response to Michael (as one of the people behind the Comcast coup), I don't think anyone knows when KOIN over Comcast will happen. As for the DVR, it could happen anytime between now and the end of the year ... how's that for a nice wide window? These issues have been discussed quite a bit on the Portland Comcast thread (started by vince2).

I switched over to Crossing Jordan at 10 and went to bed at about 10:15 so I can't vouch for CSI:Miami but everything was fine until 10PM.

brak2718: I have been having trouble getting OPB this past week (nights) and Fri and Sat nights. Since I was able to get KGW I figured OPB was down. They share the same transmitter location so if I get one I can usually get the other. I was able to get OPB last night. I watched Supertwister in progress, then Cunningham and then American Family. But at some point during American Family, the sound quit. I fell asleep until it came back on pretty late in the program. I also recall surfing the channels on Sat. afternoon and did see that one of those woodworking shows was on. So it appears they are intermittent at best.

I was going to post my own question last week of whether anyone else had problems with OPB but got distracted.

Bob

Hi -- I got my receiver to tune in to OPB finally; it was just a weird way I had to tell my receive to tune in. The HD program (Buffalo's houses of Worship) I saw looked amazing... a lot better than most HD content I've seen on abc/cbs/nbc. (Prior to what I just saw on OPB the best hd content I've seen has been the KOIN & KGW local news casts, and the Tonight Show). I'm VERY happy with the picture quality I'm seeing now. Of course my girlfriend gives me a hard time that I'm more interested in the technology and have neglected the fact that there's barely any content I'm interested in!

Ummm, I don't think the local newscasts are presented in HD. If the picture doesn't fill your widescreen without manually stretching it, it's not HD. The Tonight Show - yes; news in Portland - no. News in Seattle - yes, on some stations, I understand.

BTW, I think my problems with getting OPB have to do with their PISP. I have only been trying to get them via 10-1 but last night, when I could get them that way, I tried 27-1 and my STB pulled it in. I think their mapping has a bit of an inconsistency.

Bob

Regarding local newscasts in HD -- I thought they were in HD simply because they looked so good compared to most everything else I've seen. On the front panel of my receiver it tells me if the current channel is 1080i, 720p, 480i, etc., and I thought the news was broadcase in 1080i (I can verify that tonight). I thought some programs were broadcast in 1080i but if the original source material was shot only with a 4:3 camera that the studio would add bars on the side so you really are receiving a 16:9 picture even though it looks only 4:3.

But those shows certainly could be SD ... what I learned about this hd/dtv experience right away is that just because the signal is HD or SD doesn't mean it'll look great -- they're a long chain of video equipment between the camera and my tv, and any weak link will degrade picture quality. So the awesome program I saw on OPB last night was obviously shot with an HD camera, edited with capable equipment .. and when they broadcast the show they didn't compress the snot out of the video stream. On the other hand, some SD shows can look a lot better on my screen than HD content that wasn't originally shot in HD, or edited with HD equipment, etc. Well, I'm just guessing about everything that's going on, but my point is that there's definitely a large difference in quality between shows broadcast in HD format.

Hey, anyone notice a strange shadowing problem on NBC (8.1) last night? It looked like all red images were shadowed to the right about 1/5 of the screen image.

8.2 didn't seem to have the problem.

I was starting to check my cables since it looked like a cable interference problem.

yes -- I noticed the exact same thing on 8.1 pretty much all day yesterday.

I am watching The Tonight Show right now and am seeing the same thing.

Actually, tonight was a terrible night for me with digital OTA channels. I watched NCIS on CBS earlier and it had bad audio issues as well as appearing very oversaturated (everyone looked red). Then I tried to watch 24 on FOX and had reception issues. And now this issue with NBC.

:(

I was noticing similar issues with 8-1 last night.

Navy NCIS always appears too red, there is a thread on it in the HDProgramming section. I've noticed that even on my Voom STB using DVI that Navy NCIS is overly red and I normally get spot-on colors with that box.

Originally posted by craigpratt
Hey, anyone notice a strange shadowing problem on NBC (8.1) last night? It looked like all red images were shadowed to the right about 1/5 of the screen image.

8.2 didn't seem to have the problem.

I was starting to check my cables since it looked like a cable interference problem.
BTW, in reply to my own post, I should mention that it was not a cable problem - at least on my end - in case that wasn't obvious.

Perhaps KGW has a wiring or interference problem on their HD encoder. Although, that shouldn't apply to their network feeds, should it? Yablo reported the problem with the Tonight Show. There's nothing in the analog space at KGW in this case, right?

I guess something like this could be happening in the digital space. But to have something so colorspace-specific seems weird.

Originally posted by brak2718
Regarding local newscasts in HD -- I thought they were in HD simply because they looked so good compared to most everything else I've seen. On the front panel of my receiver it tells me if the current channel is 1080i, 720p, 480i, etc., and I thought the news was broadcase in 1080i (I can verify that tonight). I thought some programs were broadcast in 1080i but if the original source material was shot only with a 4:3 camera that the studio would add bars on the side so you really are receiving a 16:9 picture even though it looks only 4:3.

Local news has always looked better than anything else. Live video with minimal processing; studio cameras, perfect lighting, etc. Even in the old NTSC days ( ;) ), if you had a good OTA feed, and weren't looking at the signal through a cascade of distortion-inducing Cable System components, the Local news shows could look fantastic.

Now with HD OTA and digital studios, you're probably seeing at home about the same quality picture as that captured by the camera itself. You can certainly see alot more warts/freckles, etc. on the on-air personalities than you were ever able to see before.

All color on KGW was shifted a few hundred pixels to the right and made everything unwatchable (unless you turned off the color and watched in it B&W). It was one of the oddest screw ups I've seen in HDTV.

Try putting on your 3D glasses, maybe there's something there that we're missing! ;-)

Has anybody called them about it yet? If not, I'll give them a call. I'd like to hope they can get it straightened out for the new episode of ER tomorrow night.

ron

It seemed to be fixed with Law and Order @ 9:00, though I didn't watch more than the opening scene.

Yea, that was a repeat of the "Bum-fight" episode. Leno was also back to normal (too bad he recycles his jokes 3 times a week). Looks like KGW fixed that color shift issue, yay.

I took a closer look at a screen dump of KGW's wacky color problem from a couple of days ago. The color wasn't just moved a few hundred pixels over. It was also reflected again another few hundred pixels to the right. So a red light would have a red reflection to the right and another dimmer red reflection even farther to the right.

I thought ghosting couldn't happen with digital signals! :p

I think they just needed to realign the plasma conduits...

ron

No, no - they rotated the shield frequencies to reduce the quantum flux. This was causing a red shift while travelling at light speed.

Anyone else experience short blackouts on KOIN-DT today during the The Masters after the rain delay? About every 15 minutes or so my screen went black like the power went off and as soon as the "no signal" message came up after a few seconds, the picture was back. They were very brief interruptions but pretty regular. Just wondering if it's me or ...?

I thought the coverage was teriffic and can't wait for better weather in good daylight for the course and PQ to really shine. I hope KOIN is able to take down 6-2 for the weekend shows. I guess it's asking too much to pre-empt a soap on a weekday.;)

Bob

Originally posted by craigpratt
No, no - they rotated the shield frequencies to reduce the quantum flux. This was causing a red shift while travelling at light speed.

I believe the correct textbook solution is a pulsed stream of tacheon particles. They have been proven effective for ANY problem.

:D

I realize this is a little off subject but I thought many of you may be interested in the following response from ESPN on why the only broadcast occasionaly in HD on ESPN HD:

"Currently, ESPN HD is a simulcast service of ESPN. Until ESPN HD is a
24-hour, 7-day-a-week network of original 16:9 high definition
programming, we are converting and stretching the 4:3 programming not
originally produced in 16:9 to fit the format. We are doing this for
consistency and to protect the integrity of our various feature
components, such as our BottomLine and 28/58 news inserts, and various
studio updates that will continue to be produced in 4:3 until the ESPN
Digital Center opens later this June, even during events produced in
16:9."

I am getting some bad breakups on 6.1 and the presentation of the Masters. I don't understand why the power fluctuates between no signal to 40%. I am line of sight from the west hills. Is KOIN transmitting at low power or is the pixilation the result of not enough band witdth?

40% is very low, like you are borderline receiving them to begin with. It sounds more like you are having reception problems and seeing signal breakup, as opposed to seeing motion/compression artifacts (pixelation) to me.

ron

hd-head,

If I may speculate on some possibilities to what you're seeing.

o If you're getting sporadic data loss, you're more likely to see it during a high-bandwidth program. (the larger the windshield, the higher chance you'll get hit by a bug/bird dropping).
o The "signal strength indicator" is usually just a measurement of the packet bit errors - which is why it seems so discreet/binary. If they're doing the calculations on just the demuxed streams, your "signal strength" may vary according to the bandwidth of the program.
o Your box may be having a hard time dealing with the spiky bandwdth (assuming this is a variable rate program). Golf is supposed to be especially spiky for bandwidth. (Nice static images followed by quick pans with lots of detail). In this case, you'll see loss correlated with these scenes.

I kind of doubt it's the last one. Antenna tweaking will probably help matters.

Just some idle speculation...

Craig,
Thank you for your idle speculation. I realized just before reading your post that I may need to check my antenna and see if a slight reposition would help matters. Thank you for your "primer" on poor reception.

I have a similar problem with KOIN on my Zenith HDR-230. My signal strength for KOIN is normally about 65-70%. At times, for just a second or two, signal strength drops to 0%. Usually happens a couple times a day. All my other stations have about the same signal strength (actually a tad better) and they never drop out. I've been fighting to get a solid signal on KOIN for quite a while. I should be getting my HD Tivo in a couple of weeks. I hope it can lock onto KOIN better but I'm not holding my breath.

There were some hits on KOIN during golf Thursday and Friday. Don't know why. Everything was set up the same as it was for NCAA and it came off real well then. Saturday and Sunday the full bandwidth will be for golf (no soap operas or talk shows to compete with).

Can't wait! The Masters in HD is a site to behold. I'm going to record it and save it for a demo for others who haven't seen HD yet.

I currently have smallish indoor RCA antenna (ANT1030). My reception is pretty crummy, with none of the HD channels getting a decent sustained signal through my MyHD card. I live in Beaverton (Murrayhill area) which should be a pretty straight shot to the stations.

So my question: Will an attic antenna *guarantee* me better signal strength? I don't want to go through the installation hassle only to see no improvement... Second, where is a good place to pick up the antennas recommended by antennaweb.org?

Thanks.

-tony

Lee: It seems like those audio gremlins, Like we had during some of the NCAA games, are back in the HD feed on 6-1 today! Bummer!! The past 2 days were fine, as far as audio. Hope it can be fixed quickly. :-)

Bob

Didn't mean to complain. Audio is not a critical part of golf presentation - I'll turn it off if it gets bothersome. The PQ is wonderful. Thanks for giving full bandwidth!

tbacos, I live in Lake Oswego and have a attic atenna and great great reception, the only thing you might suffer from is too strong a signal.

Please forgive the dumb question, but how can the signal be *too* strong? What happens?

Thanks.

-tony

Originally posted by bertschb
My signal strength for KOIN is normally about 65-70%. At times, for just a second or two, signal strength drops to 0%. Usually happens a couple times a day. I had a similar problem when I first set up an OTA antenna. I discovered it was caused by Tri-Met buses and other massive vehicles causing brief multipath problems as they went by my house.

Fixing this was lots of fun. Every time I adjusted my antenna, I had to wait for the next stupid bus to come by to see if the multipath was still happening. It took me hours! :mad:

Originally posted by tbacos
Please forgive the dumb question, but how can the signal be *too* strong? What happens? One case that a "too strong" signal can be a problem is when it causes multipath signals that are too strong for the receiver to reject. Normally signals reflected off of buildings and other objects are fairly weak and the receiver won't be fooled by them. If the multipath signals are strong enough the receiver can at times be tricked into thinking that they're weaker components of the real signal.

Originally posted by scowl
I had a similar problem when I first set up an OTA antenna. I discovered it was caused by Tri-Met buses and other massive vehicles causing brief multipath problems as they went by my house.

Fixing this was lots of fun. Every time I adjusted my antenna, I had to wait for the next stupid bus to come by to see if the multipath was still happening. It took me hours! :mad:
I have to say, that is the funniest ATSC reception problem I've heard of. But it makes complete sense. I can just imagine first coming to the realization that The Bus was the problem. Reminds me of a Mr. Bean episode.

I knew someone who lived on the east side of a tall apartment complex in downtown (SW) Portland. He was able to receive analog OTA by orienting his antenna to point at another building - which was apparently reflecting some of the signal. It wasn't a very good signal. But it was watchable.

It would have been exceptionally funny if it was the KOIN tower that he'd bounced off of. :) (I think it was the First Interstate building.)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Cris Moore
Lew,

Sorry, didn't mean to make things confusing.

KOIN's PSIP data is larger that everyone else's. So large that it requires 2 packets to contain all of the data. Normally what you would see in the transport stream would be the 1st packet, followed a little later by the 2nd packet. Then a little later, the 1st packet, followed by the 2nd packet, etc.

What is happening with KOIN is that the 1st packet is sent, and then a little later the 1st packet is send again, followed by the 2nd packet, followed by the 2 packet again. This "duplicate" sending of the same packet is valid if the continuity_counter in the packet has the same value as the previous PSIP packet. Now if the 1st packet was send 3 times followed by the 2nd packet being sent 3 times, then that would be invalid. Duplicates are allowed, but that means only in sets of two.

Here is the footnote from the documentation:
The MPEG-2 System Standard defines a duplicate Transport Stream packet to be the second of two – and only two – consecutive Transport Stream packets having the same PID that are carrying payload and contain identical byte-by-byte contents (except for the program clock reference, if present). Duplicate Transport Stream packets may be used for additional error resilience purposes.

Now my bogus assumption at first was that the reason we might be getting the duplicate packets was because of the length of the PSIP data that was being sent out. By shortening the PSIP data so that it would fit into 1 packet, we might be able to get rid of the duplicates. I was thinking this because, IIRC, there are times that people with the 165 CAN record from KOIN. I assumed this was because KOIN has changed the PSIP data by shortening it or removed it entirely or something .
Now after a while I got to thinking, even if the PSIP data was shortened so that it would fit into one packet, it probably wouldn’t make any difference, if the hardware\software was configured to always put out duplicate packets. Because what you would get would still be the PSIP packet followed by a duplicate PSIP packet, i.e. the packets continuity_counter values are the SAME. Now keep in mind that this is different than a PSIP packet following a PSIP packet whose continuity_counter values are DIFFERENT, as the continuity_counter is what determines what is a duplicate and what is data just being sent again.

I don’t know because I have not looked at a transport stream from KOIN at one of the times when the 165 COULD record from KOIN. If someone wants to send me a sample, I’d be willing to look at the PSIP data and see how it differs from the one with duplicates.

I hoped that helped instead of making it worse. :-)

Cris


I happen to have a copy of part of a "cold case" episode during one of the few times KOIN's PSIP thingy shutdown. I recorded it on my Samsung SIR-T165 onto my DVHS then from there to my hard drive. Would you like me to send you a sample? If so, does it have to be from the beginning of the episode or any part of it? Chris, if you do or do not want this clip, please tell me ASAP so I can either send or delete this clip to make room on my drive (spring cleaning).

Originally posted by craigpratt
I have to say, that is the funniest ATSC reception problem I've heard of. But it makes complete sense. This and receiving a station off of another building are the kinds of odd multipath problems you can have when you're dealling with really strong signals. It will drive you nuts to see a near perfect 95% signal regularly drop to 30-40%.

iodsnips,

I've sent you a PM.

Cris

Originally posted by Cris Moore

I don’t know because I have not looked at a transport stream from KOIN at one of the times when the 165 COULD record from KOIN. If someone wants to send me a sample, I’d be willing to look at the PSIP data and see how it differs from the one with duplicates.


All you should see are the basic MPEG tables, PAT (0x000), PMT 1 (0x010, PMT 2 (0x020), Video and Audio for 6-1 (0x011, 0x014, 0x015), Video and Audio for 6-2 (0x021, 0x024, 0x025) a lot more null packets and probably not any duplicate packets since these PIDs are being generated by the encoder and not from an external source.

Thanks for the info Lee. That is kind of what I was expecting, but just wanted to take a look-see out of curiosity.

Ok, guys. I'm having a heck of a time trying to get OTA signals to come in clearly on all of the common stations. I just purchased a silver sensor because of its many recommendations on this forum. According to antennaweb, my farthest tower is 4.2 miles and i'm located on 26 and murray. What is going on. I thought for sure that this silver sensor would easily pull in all my stations clearly as some people are getting them from as far away as 15-20 miles with this antenna. I do not have a huge building, or trees in my line of sight, but of course this is oregon and there are trees around. Any ideas? Am I going to be forced into an outdoor antenna here?

Randyman,

I'm not very far from you (near West Union & Bethany).

When I studied reception stats from my place, I tried 4 different antennas. The SS gave me the poorest scores. My attic-mounted yagi gave me the best. But it only barely beat out the bowtie.

Have you tried out any of the cheap ones? I have one or two you can have or try for the taking.

I'm sure you can make it work w/o going to an outdoor antenna. I've seen DTV picked up in Hillsboro with a paperclip jammed into a piece of coax. It was on the second floor however...

I think craigpratt is correct in saying that each place has its own characteristics and antennas are going to respond differently depending on where you are and what is around you. I know I tried an antenna that worked just fine for people in similar situations as me but it didn't work for me. I think I would craigpratt up on his offer to try out his different styles of antenna

I live on top of Cooper Mountain out in SW Beaverton.

I would have direct line of sight to the towers, except for the large water storage tank between my home and the west hills.

Indoor antenna as well as attic mounted antenna not very useful due to multi-path problems.

Resolution: simple VHF/UHF yagi on the roof with a rotator; slight adjustment to the rotator assures great, problem free reception on all stations except 49.1 - for that one I have to move the antenna. This then affects the other channels.

I'm thankful that Tri-Met does not run their busses past my house <grin>

Mike

I also live four or five miles away from the towers on the other side of the hills. Since we're so close, the towers are in slightly different directions making yagis difficult to use. Someone suggested that I leave a few of the elements "inline" on my yagi to reduce its directionality (is that a word?). It turned out that I only needed two or three elements open to get good reception from all the towers when the yagi was pointed directly between them. You might want to try that and see if you don't need the rotator. You may run into multipath problems again though.

Fine until the wind blows fiercely on top of the hill, here...

I know I've posted this before someplace, but I can't find it. So here it is again in a nut shell.

TV reception in our area varies greatly with the seasons. This is especially true with UHF, but the changes do affect VHF as well. (There is an area in Oregon City that generates calls about channel 6 reception every spring and fall. It took me several years before I made the correlation.)

In the Winter, when there are no leaves on the trees, there is less absorption of the signals by the foliage and signal levels improve, unless you live in a stand of wet Douglas Firs. Then there is more absorption. The absence of leaves also affects which multi-path reflections reach your antenna. Reception will be pretty stable - unless there is snow or ice.

In the Spring, the leaves come out and they are wet. This increases absorption of both the intended (main) signal and reflections (multi-path). As we move later into Spring and the weather alternates between wet and dry reception can vary along with the weather - good one day, bad the next.

In the Summer, things dry out (right after the Rose Festival most years) and the leaves don't absorb as much. Reception will be pretty stable clear into Fall.

In the Fall, the rains return and the leaves get wet again. The leaves themselves will dry out internally and absorb less signal, but it will vary with how much it rains on any given day. Finally, the leaves fall off the trees and we return to Winter conditions.

So, you can pretty much expect your reception to vary throughout the year. If you are lucky you might find THE sweet spot for your antenna location and aiming for year around reception. If you're not so lucky, maybe you can convince your neighbor across the street to cut down that big maple tree to improve your odds.

Originally posted by Lee Wood
... If you're not so lucky, maybe you can convince your neighbor across the street to cut down that big maple tree to improve your odds.

There was one year that the wind knocked down the water tank!

Lee, great post on the affects of seasons and the trees on reception. I've certainly seen the affect.

So...between OTA, cable, and satellite, one of the sources is bound to come thru, as long as there is power...

Mike

Originally posted by mmihalik
So...between OTA, cable, and satellite, one of the sources is bound to come thru, as long as there is power... BTW, KOIN-DT is now on a shiny new backup generator, so we'll be there...

Lee,

Does that mean you are done with crews and the WB can get their OTA HD up and running? After all with the nice weather those guys from Texas should have been able to get it done!

Yep, the Texans are headin' for home. But, Pat got his microwave equipment installed two weeks ago and there is a problem with it that he is still unable to find.

Bummer! Thanks for the info, Lee, I keep tuning in WB and hoping it will pop in 1080i.

Anybody have any ideas on how to get Direct TV to display the program info for 8-1 correctly? Right now, they show HD Demo Loop for all the non-prime time programming, which is what used to be broadcast before KGW went to full time program broadcasting on the 8-1 channel. So do I contact KGW or Direct TV or someone else to get the info corrected on the guide.

The reason it matters is that my wife likes the "logo" 9 channel quick tuning, and it displays the guide info. So if I want it do show the actual programs, I have to set it for 8-2 and then after we select that channel manually tune down one to 8-1 for the HD feed. Clumsy!:(

I would just like to remind all the digital broadcasters in the area, except KATU (they get it) that Oregon observes daylight savings time.

Thanks in advance for setting your psip clocks to "Oregon time".

Lew

Originally posted by lewlew
I would just like to remind all the digital broadcasters in the area, except KATU (they get it) that Oregon observes daylight savings time.

Thanks in advance for setting your psip clocks to "Oregon time".

Lew KWBP and KPDX are the only ones off by more than a minute on our DTC-100. At 4:02 PM today KWBP had it as 1:33 PM tomorrow and KPDX had it being 3:55 PM today. KOIN's clock is locked to Internet time, checked hourly, and Windows 2000 takes care of PST/PDT switching.

Lee,

As of last night your clock was off by 1 hour. Your psip "guide" reflected this "off" time by showing Without a Trace as being on at 9:00PM KOIN time when in reality it was on at 10:00PM Oregon time.

Of course this could just be more duplicate packet issues.

Lew

fwiw: Last night KATU was showing Oregon time, 6, 8, and 10 were each on PST.

During lunch today I checked again. No change from last night.
The program guide said: " 11:00AM - News at N "

On my LG LST-3100A tuner, KOIN-DT time is perfect, and their program guide is correct too. Chs. 2, 8, and 10 also have the correct time.

KPDX-DT time is several minutes off. KPTV-DT and KWBP-DT are both about 2-1/2 hours off. Also KWBP-DT is unwatchable because the audio is way out of sync.

KOIN looks correct to me:

**Event 2004-04-16t22:00:00, duration 1:00:00 'Cold Case'
Description: '(R) (HDTV) A woman emerges from a two-year coma with no memory of
her identity or her daughter's murder.'

My most sincere apologies to Lee and others for my wrongful rant about psip time and guide issues.

It seems my problems are just another strange quirk of the samsung sir-t165.

The clock on the 165 cannot be manually adjusted except as it turns out for yes/no on " do you observe daylight savings time?"

All times listed are psip generated and since KATU's time was right I wrongfully assumed everyone else's were wrong. Turns out KATU's time does not budge with DST in or out. All the other OTAs move an hour by switching back and forth in and out of DST.

What appeared to me to be even stranger was KOIN's guide info which was an hour off. This is what it looked like to me this morning:

6:00a Hey Arnold
6:30a ChalkZone
7:00a All Grown Up
7:30a The Brothers Gar..
8:00a Dora The Explore..
8:30a Blue's Clues
9:00a Country Showdown
10:00a Cheerleading
11:00a PGA Golf

Then by selecting " DTS IN" , the whole guide jumped to the proper times.

I wrongfully assumed the psip information displayed was not futzed with by the stb.

I still don't understand why KATU's time is unaffected, but I'm not going to worry about it.

Once again, my apologies,

Lew

That's a load off my mind. I checked again just before leavingfor NAB on Friday and could not find anything wrong. As for KATU being right, I think it is because they are running static PSIP generated by the encoder rather than a PC PSIP system and it doesn't have the settings for DST. They just manually set it to the correct time.

With Fox coming on in HD this season (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=391168), does anyone know what the odds are that KPTV will be upgraded in time?

Darrell: If you can believe what you read in the Fox HD thread, especially from foxeng, it appears that Fox is outfitting all its affiliates with the upgrade equipment. And that includes DD 5.1 since the way Fox is going to send its signal is unified and doesn't need to be translated at the redistribution point. Since KPTV already is giving us WS, I would be pretty disappointed if they aren't going to be in position to present HD late this summer. Portland's a large market. IMO, odds are even but I'll send an email and see what they say.

Bob

Here's a piece of an email Ed sent me about a month and a half ago when I asked him about the current situation:

"Plans are still in place to upgrade both the Fox and UPN sides of the
house to HD in time for the fall launch. In fact, Fox is due to deliver
two new satellite antennas to us in March and we're supposed to be
getting network supplied switchgear sometime later this spring, allowing
it all to be put in place in time to allow for testing before the
launch. Budgeting is not complete on the corporate side and won't be
until later this spring, perhaps around the end of April. We have
requested funds necessary to upgrade both KPTV and KPDX to HD, however.

30-2 is due to be abandoned soon as we're about to get our switching
system finished to allow switching to the widescreen content on 30-1.
30-2 will probably go away permanently later this summer."


Since they are now doing both WS and SD on 30-1/12-1 I would assume they got the switching system set up. Looks like with any luck we'll see both 24 and Enterprise in HD next season! Oh yeah, and football for all you fans too :).

ron

Thanks Ron. I just got Voom about a month ago and all I can tune in is the vertically stretched SD channel, which is weird since I have seen KPTV switch the channel around and when I can tune in the WS on my Dish 6000 on 30-01, I still get the SD stretch on my VOOM! I'll be glad to see them ditch the extra channel and go all HD. I would like to see KGW and KOIN would follow suite since they will be the only bandwidth holdouts left in town.

Marissadad, it was partially the squeezed picture that prompted me to send the email to Ed in the first place. FWIW, on my system everything seems hunky dory with the 30-1/12-1 channel now. Always the correct aspect ratio and the strange video gremlins they were having on the newscasts are gone as well. I think 30-2 may still be squeezed, but just yesterday I went in and blew it out of my guide anyway as there is no longer any need for it with both formats coming through on the other channel . As Ed said, I'd expect to see it disappear altogether in the near future.

ron

For you guys with Comcast, check this (http://story.theinsiders.com/a.z?s=228&p=2&c=252959) out. 17 Mariners HD games coming your way.

Programming alert: OPB-DT

April 21, 2004

9:30 PM SMART TRAVELS - EUROPE WITH RUDY MAXA - IRELAND'S WEST COAST
( STEREO HD )

Only one showing!

For me, this is the only thing in their entire schedue worth watching. Where the hell are the other Smart Travels and Desert Speaks? I'm tempted to stop sending them money.


http://www.opb.org/schedule/dtv/

I agree Larry, I've written them numerous times about mirroring the National PBS feed and they always give me the same line about their 'local' productions. They could at least give us the National feed after 8 pm, as they haven't shown anything new in ages.

Originally posted by Larry Hutchinson
[For me, this is the only thing in their entire schedue worth watching. Where the hell are the other Smart Travels and Desert Speaks? I'm tempted to stop sending them money.

I stopped sending them money a few years ago when they started putting that huge OPB logo on their picture. It's bad enough on commercial stations, but on a station that's soliciting me for money? I told them so, too.

And, I've always found their pledge campaigns ineffective. You sit down to watch your favorite show, and you find it pre-empted it with some "special event" you have no interest in. 'seems awfully strange to ask for contributions when you've just P.O.'d and disappointed your viewers.

During the pledge drives they always talk about the fantastic shows that OPB airs, yet you only see them during the pledge drives and they are hacked up with the pledge breaks.

A nice DVR will fix that!

Haven't been able to get 8-1, 10-1, 27-1 or 46-1 all night. Anyone else? Since they come off the same tower I was wondering if there may have been a problem there.

Bob

KGW-DT OTA is dead for me tonight (Thurs.) and KOPB is fluctuating so much that I lose the signal frequently. I switched to my cable connection and 73-7 has a good HD signal for KGW. There were still a few momentary dropouts on 115-60 (KOPB-DT) between 10-11PM but nothing like I was getting OTA.

KGW was down during the day on Wed when I stopped by my house to meet a repairman. I called them in the afternoon in hopes that they would get the signal back up in time for The West Wing which they did :). When I got home yesterday and noticed it was down again I called back in hoping they could work their magic once more in time for ER but no luck :(.

BTW, I don't know if anyone else has had the same experience but there's this one news room receptionist in the evening there that is unfit for the job. She acts like she just can't be bothered away from polishing her nails or something to take calls :rolleyes:. She's definitely not helping them from a public relations stand point. Major attitude.

ron

Glad to hear that is KGW's problem and not mine. R11, did they mention what the problem is or did you just get a bunch of sass?

KGW still dead - isn't this going on 48 hours and counting?

Anyone have any details on when (if ever) it's coming back?

It appears that KGW is still down today? I have no signal on 8-1 or 8-2. 10-1, and the rest of my digital cahnnels appear to be fine though. Anyone have any information on what the problem is or when it might be fixed?

R

I just checked and KGW digital (both channels) are down but OPB is on.

Why KGW? WHY!?!?!?! WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS TO US?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Darn it we're going to miss all those Arena football games today. I guess I'll have to find something else to do on a warm Sunday. :rolleyes:

There's always the analog channel, it looks better than KGW's SD channel anyway. ;)

In case no one has noticed yet, KGW-DT is back up tonight. No need, yet, to rely on the dreaded analog channel. BTW, I don't think it's any better/worse than their analog. Mediocrity exemplified!

Bob

I just checked with the transmitter engineer at KGW to see what the problem is with the HD transmitter.

He showed me a melted piece of wave guide. A wave guide is like a giant coax cable (6 1/2 inches across.) that connects the transmitter to the antenna. The wave guide is hollow that is pressurized with dry air. Nitrogen is sometimes used.

The melted piece is an elbow of which there are three that are at the 800 foot level of the tower.

They have borrowed an elbow from OPB until the new elbows arrive from the manufacture. ($2500 apiece) Hopefully they will be installed tomorrow.

FYI; the KGW transmitter puts out 60kw of power, figuring in line loss the antenna is seeing about 50kw.

Thanks for the interesting update Scott. They didn't happen to hazard a guess as to what caused the meltdown did they?

ron

I got home last night expecting to find gigabytes of random numbers where Law and Order would have been saved on my computer. I was shocked to see that KGW was back on the air! I was sure this would be a "Monday at the earliest" kind of deal.

Does KGW-DT normally only transmit at 60kw? They have a license for a million watts.

Originally posted by scowl
Does KGW-DT normally only transmit at 60kw? They have a license for a million watts. The transmitting antenna has gain. According to the FCC web site the KGW operating parameters are:

Operating Constants

Transmitter power output (average power at input to transmission line, after any filter attached to the transmitter, if used): 18.02 dBk (63.4 kW)

Transmission line power loss: 1.34 dB

Antenna Input power: 16.68 dBk

Maximum antenna power gain: 13.32 dB

Maximum effective radiated power: 30 dBk (1000 kW)

Originally posted by R11
Thanks for the interesting update Scott. They didn't happen to hazard a guess as to what caused the meltdown did they?

ron

They have no idea, but talking with the PAX transmitter engineer, they're wave guide has burned up three different times.

And on at least one occasion had to take down the entire wave guide from the tower.:eek:

IS the WB digital channel (32-1) broadcasting? I have trouble with signals in the winter (large wet douglas firs) and usually can get all the digital signals when the weather turns nice. However, I have searched a couple of times today and can't seem to locate it.

I tuned it in last night. Anyone heard about their progress with HD?

Originally posted by Lee Wood
Transmitter power output (average power at input to transmission line, after any filter attached to the transmitter, if used): 18.02 dBk (63.4 kW)

Maximum effective radiated power: 30 dBk (1000 kW) Anything that you can put 63kW in and get 1000kW out has got to be a good deal. :D

OK, I'll show my ignorance in things techie: what's a dBk unit of measurement? :confused:

Bob

I found this through Google:
dBk = dB(kW) - kilowatts - amount of power transmitted by a broadcast radio station .

Originally posted by scowl
Anything that you can put 63kW in and get 1000kW out has got to be a good deal. :D

Well, you don't really get 1MW out. But since it would be a waste to send the signal into space (not many Neilson families out there), or into the ground, the antenna "squeezes" the radiation into the horizontal plane, such that a receiver gets the same signal that it would get if you put 1MW into an antenna that radiated equally well in all (3-D) directions (called an "isotropic" antenna).

Hence the word "effective" in ERP (Effective Radiated Power).

Originally posted by ridgefamus
OK, I'll show my ignorance in things techie: what's a dBk unit of measurement? :confused:

Bob 'dbk' refers to a gain or loss referenced to 1 kw in power. Also a 'db' change is not linear. Every 3 db increase is a doubling of the power. So, 30 dbk is 30 db above 1 kw or 1,000 kw.