Updated 9-15-2009 - Updated KGW carriage of Estrella

Because stations are transitioning at different times it may be necessary rescan tuners several times between midnight and noon on June 12.

Now, here is where DTV is at in the Portland market:

KATU (2, ABC) - Final DTV 43 effective 6/12/2009 - Operating at full power (1,000 kW) from the Sylvan Site shared omnidirectional antenna (KATU, KOIN and KRCW all use the same transmitting antenna). Runs 4:3 with sidepanels added inside 16:9 upconverted when not on true HD. They pass ABC HD and Local (720p) including DD 5.1 audio on 2-1. Transmits This movie network on 2-2 in standard definition. Includes 3 days of PSIP Program Guide, 708 and 608 Closed Captioning on 2-1 and 608 captions on 2-2 when available (due to the age of some of the programming captioning is not always required). Local news studio content is produced in HD while field material is upconverted widescreen format. KATU remains on UHF channel 43. Analog transmissions ended on evening of June 12 at 11:35 PM making KATU the last station to be digital only.

KOIN (6, CBS) - Final DTV 40 effective 6/12/2009 - Operating at full power (1,000 kW) from the Sylvan Site shared omnidirectional antenna. Passes CBS HD (1080i) and DD5.1 audio. Runs 4:3 inside 16:9 upconverted when not on true HD on 6-1. Includes one day of PSIP Program Guide, 608 and 708 (DTV) Closed Captioning on the HD service and SAP/Descriptive Video when available. Local news is produced in widescreen format. Carries 'TVGuide on Screen' data service. KOIN remains on UHF channel 40. Regular analog transmissions ended the morning of June 12 at 7:28 AM. KOIN remained an Analog Nightlight station until 7:30 AM June 27. KOIN commemorated the end of analog service by re-running a special produced in 1978 for the station's 25th anniversary just before the off button was pressed.

KGW (8, NBC) - Final DTV 8 effective 6/12/2009 - Operating at full power (25 kW) and has applied to increase power to 45 kw from the Skyline Site with an omnidirectional antenna. They pass NBC and Local HD (1080i) on 8-1 and 4:3 inside 16:9 upconverted at other times. 8-2 carries the Spanish language programming of Estrella. Includes 12 hours of PSIP Program Guide, 608 and 708 (DTV) Closed Captioning on the HD service and no Closed Captions on the Weather Channel. Local news studio content is produced in HD while field material is upconverted widescreen format. Analog transmissions ended on the morning of June 12. Digital transmission on channel 8 has begun.


KOPB (10, PBS) - Final DTV 10 effective 6/12/2009 - Operating at full power (32.4 kW) from the Skyline Site with an omnidirectional antenna. Passes PBS HD (1080i) on 10-1 (includes Descriptive Video audio service when available). HD Programming frequently does not match the analog channel, a mirror of the analog channel can be found on 10-2 (includes Descriptive Video and Spanish sound tracks when available), a localized version of PBS Create called OPBPlus is carried in standard definition on 10-3 (includes Descriptive Video audio service when available), and OPB Radio and OPB Music audio services on 10-4. Includes one day of PSIP Program Guide, 608 and 708 (DTV) Closed Captioning on the HD service and 608 Closed Captions on the SD service. Analog transmissions ended the morning of June 12. Digital transmission on channel 10 has begun.

KPTV (12, FOX) - Final DTV 12 effective 6/12/2009 - Operating at full power (24.5 kW) from the KPTV site with an omnidirectional antenna. Carries FOX HD (720p), including DD 5.1 audio, and 4:3 inside 16:9 upconverted programs on 12-1. Includes one day of PSIP Program Guide, 608 and 708 (DTV) Closed Captioning on the HD service. Local news is produced in widescreen format. Analog transmissions ended the morning of June 12. Digital transmission on channel 12 has begun.

KPXG (22, Ion) - Final DTV 22 Effective 12/03/2008 - Operating at full power (745 kW) from the Skyline Tower site with an omnidirectional antenna. Carrys one HD and three SD programs in a multicast. 22-1 is Ion HD (720p), 22-2 Qubo childrens programming (including a Spanish audio track), 22-3 Ion Life and 22-4 Worship TV and Paid Programs. Includes one day of PSIP Program Guide and 608 Closed Captions on all services. KPXG changed to UHF channel 22 on December 3, 2008 ending it's analog broadcasts on the same channel and becoming the first Portland station to be digital only.

KNMT (24, TBN) - Final DTV 45 Effective 4/16/2009 - Operating a full power (1,000 kw) DTV station at the Sylvan Site with an omnidirectional antenna. Carrys Five SD programs in a multicast. 24-1 mirrors the KNMT analog programming, 24-2 and 24-3 various religious programs, 24-4 religious programs in Spanish and 24-5 consists of childrens programming. Includes 7 days of PSIP Program Guide and 708 and 608 Closed Captions. KNMT remains on UHF channel 45. Analog transmissions ended April 16, 2009 making KNMT Portland's second all digital television station.

KRCW (32, The CW) - Final DTV 33 effective 6/12/2009 - On the air at full power (750 kW) from the Sylvan Site shared omnidirectional antenna. They pass The CW HD (1080i) on 32-1 and 4:3 inside 16:9 upconverted when not on true HD and Universal Sports on 32-2. Includes 2-1/2 days of PSIP Program Guide, 608 and 708 (DTV) Closed Captioning on the HD service. KRCW remains on UHF channel 33. Analog transmissions ended the morning of June 12.

KPDX (49, My Network TV) - Final DTV 30 effective 6/12/2009 - On the air at full power (741kW) and has applied for 1,000 kw from the KPTV site with an omnidirectional antenna. Carries My Network TV HD (720p) and 4:3 inside 16:9 upconverted programs on 49-1. Includes PSIP Program Guide, 608 and 708 (DTV) Closed Captioning on the HD service. Analog transmissions ended the morning of June 12. Digital transmission on channel 30 has begun.


For antenna aiming, all of the stations are clustered near SW Burnside and Skyline. The Sylvan Site (KOIN, KATU, KRCW and KNMT) are the two equal height towers furthest east. The Skyline Site (KGW, KOPB and KPXG), the tower with a 'forked' antenna mount on the top, is in the center. The KPTV and former KPDX sites are the two tall towers furthest west.

That's where things are to date.

Now, let's see if we can keep the Portland interests focused here instead of scattered all over the place.

Thanks Lee, Great idea!

KATU (2, ABC) DTV 43 - Currently off the air due to damage to their microwave receiver caused by a power hit at the Sylvan transmitter site.

They did come back up briefly for a few days a few days ago after they got their microwave receiver back from repair? It seems somethings died a second time?

KPTV (12, FOX) DTV 30 - Currently off the air while the studios are moved to Beaverton.

Any 'industry insider' info on a time frame for this?

Thanks for all your help and info.

Dave

KATU is back on the air now.

Lee, what's up with KOIN? I turned it on to watch the 12 hr HD Sports marathon this morning and it is breaking up a lot. I have a Dish 6000 receiver and I keep getting the transparent browser that shows channel number, signal strength etc that I get when changing to a new channel, except I only lose the signal breifly, it pixelates, breaks up, goes blank then tunes right back in.

HELP! This is totally unwatchable, thanks.

Yea! KATU is indeed back up. Lets hope they can stay up. (Viagra?)

Re: KOIN- I've just watched the first 2.5 sets of the Agassi/Hewitt match. I didn't see a single drop out. I do get some pixelization (mainly with the flaming CBS eye that flys across the screen prior to replays) but no drop outs. I'm using an AccessDTV card and have a 25/25 signal.

No Multicasting! Thank you CBS/KOIN!

Dave

Finally a Portland Thread!, well I was all pumped up for todays 12 hr marathon on CBS as well, but I am getting frustrated as hell with my CBS reception. I've got a RCA 38in F38310 and my signal is going from 0 to 50 and I cant even watch the Florida / Miami game. I'm out in hillsboro, and have a clear line a site and all my other channels come in 80+, going to check on ABC now, but hopefully the 5ft mast the installer is bringing will help out and at least get me a constant 50+ signal . Any ideas on what may be causing this or any tips? Has anyone else had this problem? how did you fix it?
Thanks!

Lee
Thanks for taking the time to put this thread together

Does anyone have a recommmendation on antenna installers. Have a high pitched roof incompatible with my age. Will need a big CM antenna and rotor as I am down by the river in West Linn and currently can't get all channels reliably with a single direction Thanks in advance

Hi Lee,

I'm another one of those having breakup problems with KOIN. It really is unwatchable right now. I can't go more than 1 or 2 minutes without breaking up, muting or pixelating. My signal varies from 89 to 94% strength. I also have a Dish 6000 and I'm in eastern Vancouver.

Your a life save Lee. Great job.

And thanks again for letting me know about the problems with KOIN and Mitsubishi TV decoders. It is frustrating to not be able to watch the US Open on KOIN when it was working a week ago with crisp reception. I guess I'll keep on waiting but it sucks that KOIN has the most programming OTA. Again thanks again and keep us posted.

Dan

Let me ad my "Thanks" to Lee for creating this thread.

Does anyone else sense that there may be a compatibility issue with the Dish 6000 and KOIN?

I would think the same thing, except reception has been great up to a few days ago. I don't think we've had new code downloaded in the last few days, have we?

I live in Hillsboro and have a Panasonic STB. Worked great all week-end except this morning 6-1 kept resetting my on screen display.(6-2 was OK). This resetting happened Thurs. night as well.

Hey HB111, where in hillsboro do you live and are you getting OTA reception? I'm curious as to your location and the type of antenna you are using, do you have any signal fluctuation probs with KOIN?
Thanks!

I have a mits receiver and watched a little of the tennis sat morning, the womens final sat evening and the mens final yesterday. Both of the finals were fine although the mens seemed a degree or two sharper to me (was the weather cam on 6-3 shut down or something?). There were drop outs sat morning while I had it on as I was reading the paper. Also had the pixelation from the flying graphics that dlarson mentioned although I don't remember noticing it yesterday though. Note to CBS: ditch the zoomy/noisy graphics on tennis. this isn't Fox football you know and we don't need to see/hear a bunch of stuff flying around between points (especially the sound).

ron

Hi Lee
Thanks for getting us all together.
HB111 mentioned that 6-1 kept resetting his receiver on Sunday. I had tennis on Saturday and Sunday and my DST-3000 would lock up and do a reset occasionally (maybe 5-6 times). I was cursing my bad luck and thinking that I would have to send it in for repairs until I read HB's post. I know that some people have had problems with the DISH 6000 but I have never experienced this before. I've had HDNet on this afternoon in HD and haven't had a single reset since the tennis on Sunday. Is it possible for KOIN's signal to prompt a receiver reset spontaneously? If so, I would be interested in hearing about anyone else that has had this experience.

This is truly the power of this forum. I was ready to ship the thing off today until I read HB's post. It might still be broken, but at least I had more knowledge of possible other causes.

Thanks
Scott

Sorry, gang. It was a busy weekend. School's back in session, soccer is back in full swing, and a couple of dinners with friends. (Even TV folks have a life - REALLY!)

It appears that the Triveni PSIP system decided to get weird sometime Friday or Saturday. Monday morning it was putting out things at the wrong intervals and it wasn't putting out all the right stuff. This seems to have affected Dish 6000 and Mitsubishi receivers the most. The Samsung based Harris ARX-100, RCA DTC-100 and Toshiba DST-3000 at the studio ignored the problems. Sorry about this. It always seems to happen when there is a REALLY good sporting event on the schedule. When I tried to do a manual restart of the program (it is Windows after all) Monday morning it forgot everything it ever knew about its job and I had to completely rebuild all of the settings. This is NOT my favorite thing to do on a Monday morning!! In any case, all should be well now (at least the Mist in the lobby is happy again).

KATU-DT got back on the air some time Friday.

Still no word on KPTV-DT. They are having lots of shakedown problems from the studio move and I'm not inclined to bug Ed yet.

I noticed it Friday night, Lee. I was hoping it was a temporary problem and would have been gone by Saturday morning. Since you run the PSIP on NT, maybe you should consider rebooting that thing weekly. Better yet, can you put it on Linux?

All is well now, thanks a lot, Lee.

Lee, elsewhere on this forum was posted that CBS is upgrading their satellite to handle DD 5.1 by early 2003. Is KOIN ready to pass this through when it's available?

Thanks.

Hey, Lee,

BTW, I've had flakey reception on KOIN for several weeks. I haven't said anything, since I figured it was just my particular case. But it was basically unwatchable. 'figured it was some kind of summer foliage or atmosphere propagation weirdness thing (although almost all of the foliage around here are evergreens).

Anyway, last night, reception was back to normal. I wonder if the manual restart fixed it.

Originally posted by Marissadad
Lee, elsewhere on this forum was posted that CBS is upgrading their satellite to handle DD 5.1 by early 2003. Is KOIN ready to pass this through when it's available?CBS hasn't clued us into their plans yet. Our biggest problem is getting the signal from the satellite earth station in Milwaukie to the studio. The present system uses separate receivers (in Milwaukie) and decoders (at the studio) so we are able to pass through the DD2.0 embedded in the video without problem. In theory we can do the same with DD5.1, but how we handle local audio becomes the problem then.

Originally posted by BarryO
BTW, I've had flakey reception on KOIN for several weeks. I haven't said anything, since I figured it was just my particular case. But it was basically unwatchable. 'figured it was some kind of summer foliage or atmosphere propagation weirdness thing (although almost all of the foliage around here are evergreens).

Anyway, last night, reception was back to normal. I wonder if the manual restart fixed it. The last time I did a full reboot was in early August just before going on vacation. I had not noticed anything odd since then until Monday. But, who knows for sure since the three brands of receivers monitored in Master Control didn't have any problems.

As of last night KPTV 12 is back on the air. I didn't watch long enough or check to see if there were any Fox widescreen programming on but it is back up none the less.

As a native Portlander of 44 years it just seems so strange to see the words KPTV 12 associated with Fox programming :). Apparently D* must think so too because even though their APG is showing the correct programming on 49 and 12, the header still lists 49 as Fox and 12 as UPN....

ron

Thanks for all the info on the PDX scene. I returned my TERK55 and installed a RS UHF antenna, and can now get KGW fairly stable.

MarissaDad, I am also off Wheatland road, and your help was appreciated.

Lee, I was having momentary drops last night during Judging Amy (very nice in HD), the signal would just be gone for 3-4 seconds, then come back. This happened about 5 or 6 times during the hour. Is this the same problem that you are still trying to troubleshoot? Thanks for your time, it's great to know what's going on. Thanks.

KPTV on my Dish 6000 is exhibiting jerkiness with motion. Also, the PSIP assignments have not changed on the digital channels. UPN 49 is still showing KPDX even after manually readding the channel & FOX still says just 30-01 with no call letters assigned.

Well, my KOIN-DT reception was lousy again last night. It must have been the cloud cover we had Monday night that helped things for me (fortunately, it's cloudy most of the year; just need to wait another few more weeks).

BTW, channel 30 is back up.

Originally posted by R11
As a native Portlander of 44 years it just seems so strange to see the words KPTV 12 associated with Fox programming :). Apparently D* must think so too because even though their APG is showing the correct programming on 49 and 12, the header still lists 49 as Fox and 12 as UPN....

ron KPTV was the ORIGINAL Fox affiliate when the network was first started. They dumped it after a couple of years and were independent until the Chris-Craft/United station group, parent of KPTV, joined with Paramount Studios to start the United Paramount Network.

Originally posted by KJD
Lee, I was having momentary drops last night during Judging Amy (very nice in HD), the signal would just be gone for 3-4 seconds, then come back. This happened about 5 or 6 times during the hour. Is this the same problem that you are still trying to troubleshoot? Thanks for your time, it's great to know what's going on. Thanks. That sounds like the problem, but it usually doesn't happen that often. Maybe once or twice an hour when I'm watching it at work. We're still unable to identify the cause.

I currently have a model 6000 receiver and no OTA antenna. I will be moving to Vancouver soon, and I am wondering what would be the best antenna to use in order to get good reception on all the OTA HD channels. (price is a consideration, however.) I am planning on the the tuner add on module for my Sat receiver, if that makes any difference.
Also, I am wondering what HD channels are available in Port. OTA. I live in rural Southern Oregon for the time being, and have no OTA HD! I am excited. Also, those that are not HD, how does the digital compare? What format is it in?

Thank you,

Ian

KPTV was the ORIGINAL Fox affiliate when the network was first started. Geez Lee, how many years ago was that? You're memory is much better than mine I guess. Seems like KPTV has been independant/UPN for ever. Actually since you mentioned it I do seem to remember them doing a little Fox for a while. Weren't they on prior to that as well?

ron

Does anyone know if captioning is possible in any of the Portland channels. Lee had mentioned that KOIN 6-2 is sending this out but I can't seem to pick this up on my Mitsubishi TV. It has capabilities of CC1-4 and Text1-4. I've tried the all briefly but nothing comes up. Any ideas.

Dan

Originally posted by R11
Geez Lee, how many years ago was that? You're memory is much better than mine I guess. Seems like KPTV has been independant/UPN for ever. Actually since you mentioned it I do seem to remember them doing a little Fox for a while. Weren't they on prior to that as well?

ron KPTV was Oregon's first television station (on UHF channel 27 at the time) signing on in 1952 as the NBC affiliate until 1956 when KGW (sister of NBC affiliate KING in Seattle) came along and KPTV became the ABC affiliate until 1962 when KATU (sister of ABC affiliate KOMO in Seattle) snatched THAT away. (Do you sense a pattern?) Anyway, KPTV sued ABC and Fisher and used the settlement proceeds to rebuild into a color facility including a color mobile unit. This lead KPTV to become the most popular independent station in the US for many years and the color mobile unit allowed them to have early success with the Trailblazers as their first TV outlet. KPTV ran as an independent (if you don't want to count the nightly INN 'Independent Network News' from WPIX) until the start up of the Fox Network a couple of days a week. The ratings were so bad that after a couple of years KPTV went it alone again until becoming a UPN 'partner'.

Originally posted by dan76
Does anyone know if captioning is possible in any of the Portland channels. Lee had mentioned that KOIN 6-2 is sending this out but I can't seem to pick this up on my Mitsubishi TV. It has capabilities of CC1-4 and Text1-4. I've tried the all briefly but nothing comes up. Any ideas.

Dan KOIN does provide captioning on all services, however the Mitsubishi receiver (like the one in our lobby) does not support DTV captions, only analog TV captions.

Lee you're a virtual font of knowledge. Thanks for the KPTV history lesson! Looks like their independant days started just about the time my memory goes back to around 4 or so. Had totally forgotten about their brief stint with Fox before you mentioned it. Thanks again.

ron

Lee, this (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=170023) post from the HDTV programming forum is stating that WB is showing Family Affair in HD. Do you know if/when Portland's WB will be on the air and if/when they will do HD?

Thanks.

Lee

Regarding the problems last weekend, I think the reason you didn't see any problems on your station receivers was that they did an automatic reset and then returned to normal. This was the behavior exhibited on my DST-3000. If I hadn't been watching tennis full-time I would have missed the reset. It would freeze for about 10 seconds, reset, reload the guide, and return to normal operation. I saw it about 5-6 times but it could have been more when I wasn't watching.

Just a thought.

Scott

KWBP is STILL waiting for the FCC to grant their Construction Permit application to locate the DTV transmitter at the Sylvan Site in Portland rather than their analog site at High Camp northeast of Salem. At last report they did not plan to have HDTV capability at sign-on, but I think that was before the WB announced they were getting on the HDTV bandwagon. The TV engineering managers will be getting together for lunch shortly and I'll try to remember to ask.

At the end of last month I had posted this thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=165519) . Since this is now the "Nearly Official Portland, OR DTV Thread" I thought I would post further developments here. I have since had additional correspondence with Pat Shearer. Below was my response to his last email from the previous post and his response.

"Hi Pat,

Have you seen this, http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/020821/cgw027_1.html,
about the WB's plans for HD this season? With this announcement
do you think that might speed up the HD upgrade at KWBP?

With 3 of the 5 major networks in the Portland area broadcasting
in HD it seams that KWBP would want to get on board before it gets
left too far behind.

I know that HD is a major incentive for me to tune in. I used to not
watch much, if any, CBS programming for example, until they started
broadcasting in HD. I decided to take a look once I got my HD setup.
Now I'm glad I did. Turns out they have quite a few shows that I
enjoy watching.

When the major three networks, I don't count FauX, they don't broadcast
real HD, went online they had quite a few problems. Actually they're still
having some problems, so it's obviously a bit tricky to get right.
If KWBP wants to catch up and run with the rest they need to get
started ASAP. In my humble opinion of course.

I'm sure the decision is not up to you but to the owner of KWBP.
Maybe if enough people were to write into the station it might speed
things up?

Do you have an email address that I could direct people to? I think
there are many more people than you might think out there now with HD
capability. And with more support from our local stations there would
undoubtedly be many more.

Thanks for your time to read this Pat and for your responses.

Anxiously awaiting Hi Definition!

Dean"



His Response,



"Dean,

Let me try to clear this all up for you. First of all, we don't even have a
construction permit to build our DTV transmitter facility. Once that permit
is obtained, it will take about 4 months to get the equipment delivered and
installed to enable us to broadcast in digital on channel 33. The last that
I heard was that the FCC hadn't even looked at our application yet as they
are so far behind due to budget cutbacks. We have no control over that
process and therefore we just have to wait.

Although the WB network has finally made a decision about how they will
deliver HD programming to the affiliates, KWBP will not have any way to
carry that signal to our transmitter site for broadcast. Even if we could
get the HD signal to our transmitter site, we would have to have a digital
encoder capable of converting that signal into the proper format for the
transmitter to broadcast. Our corporate (ACME Television) people have made
the decision to save considerable money by initially just upconverting our
existing analog signal(standard definition) for digital broadcasting.

Until such time as our master control room is converted from analog to
digital, we would have no way to switch local commercials into the digital
signals coming from the network. Therefore, we have to continue converting
the network digital signals into analog to go through our master control.
The end result is that the analog output of our master control room will
then be fed into a converter where it will become digital for broadcasting.
As you know, the insertion of local commercials is essential because that is
the only source of revenue for a television station.

Before you ask, I'll address a concern you might have. That would be the
question of how the conversion of the WB network signal into analog for our
master control and the subsequent conversion back to digital will affect
image quality. As you can guess, any conversion will somewhat degrade the
picture quality. However, if you were to go to an actual transmitter site
and make a direct comparison of the picture displayed on a high quality
studio monitor as it is being fed into the transmitter to one coming out of
the transmitter displayed on a consumer television set, you would see a
significant difference. By taking that same input signal through a digital
conversion and then broadcasting through a transmitter and decoding in a
consumer digital television set, the quality will surpasses the analog
television's by a large margin. I have personally seen such a comparison and
the digital television picture is significantly better.

Of course, the limitation then becomes the raw resolution of the picture.
Standard definition - in digital or analog, is limited to about 480 lines of
actual picture whereas a true HD picture is 1080 lines. By having more
lines, the perceived quality will be much better with a true HD picture.
Until KWBP converts the master control room to all digital, we will have no
way of passing a true HD signal through to our transmitter. Converting the
master control room will cost about $400,000. Add to that the new microwave
system, satellite receivers and other equipment for the transmitter and it
could easily come to somewhere around $700,000. Our new transmitter will be
almost $800,000 and we have already spent just under two million on
construction at the Sylvan site for the building, tower and antenna system.

Aside from the capital outlay for equipment, there is the operating cost of
the new transmitter. The electricity alone will be about $96,000 per year
and full power UHF transmitters require plenty of maintenance. Our new
digital transmitter will be almost identical to our existing anaolg
transmitter. From experience with the analog one, I can tell you that we
will be spending roughly $30,000 per year for repair parts and expendible
supplies.

All of this expense is to provide "free" TV to viewers like yourself. I hope
you now see that this is a huge investment that we will be making and we
will certainly do so as our revenue allows. However, as a small and growing
company, some compromises had to made along the way and it will take time to
get this all accomplished. By the way, ACME Television owns 10 stations
throughout the country with 8 of them in smaller, less profitable markets
than Portland. They all have to invest similar funds into building digital
facilities so it is a challenge for our company to fund this type of
expansion.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope I have answered your
questions. I do hope that when we get our digital transmitter on the air,
you will sample the programming and let me know what you think of the
quality of the picture.

Pat"



So, the good news is, they do plan on HD, but the bad news it doesn't appear that it will be any time this TV season. Not to mention the fact that the FCC is being very lame in approving the permit to build their tower.

In other words, they're investing $2.8 million in a digital transmitter for which there is almost no incentive for anyone to watch (as it just carries SD content already available elsewhere), rather than spending $3.5 million on a transmitter with HD content, which is unavailable from any other source.

Good news, I just received a reply from Pat at WB & they just received their construction permit on Wednesday & is good for 1 year. They are awaiting corporate response on when to go ahead.

That is good news. I bet it was because I called the FCC lame in my last post that they finally got it together! ;)

Good point Barry, $3.5 mil isn't much more in the scheme of things. Although Pat did say that ACME owns 10 stations around the country so that measly $700k now becomes $7 mil. Quite a bit more but it would still be nice if it could be done right the first time. It seems to me that it might also cost more to upgrade later than if they were to do it now all at once. That's how it usually works with most things.

At least now we are starting to head toward the right direction.

Sorry if I missed this, but does anyone know when KATU (2, ABC) DTV 43 is scheduled to be back up and running?

I believe it was up last night when I flipped by.

ron

I just checked, KATU-DT is on the air right now.

Great, thanks for the update. Maybe my signal was just too weak. I will check again tonight.

Michael

Lee, any news on when KPTV (FOX) will be going back to their 480p "high resolution" widescreen mode? I hope prior to 24's premier.

Thanks.

Originally posted by Marissadad
Lee, any news on when KPTV (FOX) will be going back to their 480p "high resolution" widescreen mode? I hope prior to 24's premier.

Interesting that you pose the question "when" before anyone had stated that they aren't already! *grin* Sure enough, tonight's premiere of Firefly is being shown in a 16:9 letterboxed presentation within a 4:3 frame… what's worse, my signal with KPTV is atrocious, completely unable to receive a reliable signal no matter where I aim my RS double bow-tie... KPDX, on the other hand, still comes through loud and clear. *shrug*

And I was hoping it would be prior to the premiere of John Doe… *double shrug*

-Moorebid

PS. Now that John Doe has started, it's just 4:3, no letterbox... of course, the "Available in FOX Widescreen" logo was still displayed, taunting us with our now-inability to receive it.

I've lost track -- who owns KPTV now? If it's Meridith, the days of Fox Widescreen in Portland may be over.

KPTV is now owned by Meredith (along with KPDX) and it is the same Meredith that did 'Fox Widescreen' on KPDX thanks to the efforts of Ed Williams. They will likely get there. The problem is in integrating two very different technical plants into one facility.

OK, with Meredith owning the CBS affiliate in PHX (the one that refuses to carry CBS HD), I thought things didn't seem promising. 'sounds like Ed may have "begged forgiveness" rather than "asked permission"? (an old saying about the corporate world). Hopefully, KPTV folks will be able to pull off the same trick.

Fox widescreen ain't HD, but I was still pleasantly surprised the first time I turned on KPDX-DT and saw DVD-quality video filling up the whole screen. It's interesting how my brain has gotten calibrated to different levels of PQ. I was momentarily startled, since it looked like I was watching a DVD, but I knew I hadn't put one on the player.

Actually, passing 'Fox Widescreen' is not a big problem. It is distributed as a 480i 4:3 anamorphic image (16:9 squished horizontally into a 4:3 frame). Every standard definition DTV encoder has a setting for aspect ratio where you tell it if the incoming signal is 4:3 or 16:9. If you say it is 4:3 it tells the decoder to pass it through as 4:3 frame. If you tell the encoder it is 16:9 it tells the decoder to stretch it out to fill a 16:9 frame. So there is no additional cost to the station to pass 'Fox Widescreen'. Since it is 480i it is even switched by the normal video switching equipment.

The bigger problem is what to do with all of the rest of the progamming and local breaks. You need an 'aspect ratio converter' (ARC) to feed the local progamming into so that it comes out as an anamorphic image with blank sidepanels. You also need a way to bridge Closed Caption data around this processing so that captions are not lost. Finally, you need the switching logic to know that if on Fox to use the Widescreen Feed and if local to carry the normal program passed through the ARC. There is some added expense (~$25k) here, but it is nowhere near that of passing full HDTV (~$200k).

Now you folks can help me...

First Question...
KOIN passes captions on both 6-1 and 6-2. What models of tuners and receivers are you using and can you see the captions? What models don't provide the captions?

Second Question...
KOIN provides a full PSIP Electronic Program Guide, including detailed program descriptions, that lists the programming on the analog channel and all three digital services. What models of tuners and receivers are you using and can you see the Guide information including the program details? What models don't provide guide data. Remember, if you are using a DirecTV tuner with the Advanced Program Guide (APG), the guide information is coming from DirecTV and NOT from the PSIP Guide data. If you see Guide data for the Weather Cameras on 6-3 then you can be sure it is from the PSIP guide data.

Third Question...
KOIN passes Spanish (Bold and Beautiful) and Descriptive Video (JAG, CSI, Sunday Movies) audio services on a separate audio service on 6-2 when they are available. (We will soon be adding this to 6-1 since it is an FCC requirement that it be carried.) What models of tuners and receivers are you using and can you hear the second audio service? What models don't provide the access to the service?

In Summary...
Tuner/Receiver Model:
Closed Captions: Yes / No
Guide Data: Yes / No
Second Audio: Yes / No

Your responses will be a great help to me in answering viewer questions that pertain to these functions.

Thanks, Lee

Lee, I have a Dish 6000 and it is a big fat NO on all accounts. Rumor has it that the 6000 has ceased production due to the captioning requirement, but you know how rumor mills go. On the bright side, currently shipping 6000's are including the new 8psk (not 8vsb OTA) module at no additional charge.

The only thing I was unsure of w.r.t. the 6000 was the second audio. But I enabled spanish in the "Alternate Audio" part of the menu, but last night's movie on 6-2 was still in english.

I'm getting a Samsung T150 this week; I'll let you know what it does.

Lee
FYI - The third segment (9:30-9:45) of CSI Miami last night was 4x3 upconvert.
I believe you have a DST-3000 but for the record I get the PSIP but no SAP or CC

Scott

Lee,
Are you still having problems configuring the system for KOIN 6-1 and 6-2. I'm experiencing the same things as other have had in the past with 2 second hiccups lasting about 3-4 time an hour. Any news on this?

Dan

I get CC on Hughes HIRD-E86 for koin 6-1,6-2
Just get KOIN-DT Regular on all koin hd channels 6-1,6-2,6-3
Have to wait for spanish to come on.

I just picked up an Sony Directv STB HD200 and I am receiving great digital picture strength in Tigard with rabbit ears. I'm on Bull Mountain and received a lot of ghosting on the analog signal but he digital signal is strong with no dropouts.

On some stations I receive the digital signal on their major channel like 2.1(ABC) but for CBS the receiver scans and list 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3. The guide indicates no signal for these channels, but if you push the button for signal strength it shows good. I find the CBS programming on 40.1, 40.2 with the weather cam on 40.3.

I'm not sure whats going on with these major and minor digital channels and if the HD200 STB is affecting how these stations are listed.

When will Att have hdtv on there cable?

Third man, did you get the Sony 200 locally or on line

Thanks

I got online at Video and Audio Center in Santa Monica, CA. I would of bought it local, but couldn't wait since I just had to have it:-) No one had it local. I just bought a 65SWX20B at Video Only. Now I've run out of optical inputs and need to decide whether to ditch my AVR3200 for a new receiver or get a optical mux.

Lee, I am still having problems on 6-1 with the picture freezing for maybe 2-3 seconds, then disappearing, and then the audio comes back for a second or two before the picture reappears. This seems to happen about every15 minutes or so. I don't believe I am losing the signal because my tuner (Samsung SIRT150) still shows that it has a strong signal while all this is going on. I don't seem to have this problem with the other Portland stations. Is this a incompatibility issue with my tuner and your signal? It gets a little frustrating during say CSI, especially when you miss some important dialogue. Any help is appreciated
Dave

Dave,

It's not your receiver. It's a frustrating thing all right. As you say, it always seems to happen right at the most inopportune times doesn't it? Lee has commented on this before and apparently they have an "issue" with their equipment which they can not seem to isolate so that they can fix it. I believe he said it may have to do with the old "beta" software they are still using possibly? At any rate, I don't think he's fully aware how often it occurs. I started to count the times during CSI: Miami last monday night and was up to 5 or so in the first half hour when I quit counting. Seems like they often come with a couple in short sucession and then it will be stable for 10 minutes or so before it happens again. Very frustrating. I hate drop outs and lip sync problems :(.

ron

Same problems here (South of Hillsboro) with my Dish 6000. My wife finally made me go back to the analog signal - ghosting and all.

If anyone is interested, I'd be willing to "synchronize watches" and log dropouts some night on a given program to be sure we're seeing the same things at the same time.

This describes my situation exactly.. I live in hillsboro, and have a double bow tie in the attic. At first I thought it was my setup, but I spent quite a bit of time adjusting things to the point I get solid 100% SS on my Tosh DST3000. However, I still get these 5-6 sec video , audio dropouts (goes completely blank) at the rate of about 4-5 per hour.
I watched the SS meter for a while, and have not seen the level drop below 93. I haven't left the meter on for an hour to catch the dropout, and I am not quick enough to switch to the meter when the dropout occurs.

I would be willing to "sync watch", if that will help isolate. How about CSI next week?
I will also try to answer Lee's question on PSIP,etc when I get a chance.

I'm down in Salem and am having the same problem with channel 6 dropping out. I thought it must be my particular setup, but I'm glad to hear I'm not alone. I'm using a Samsung SIR-T150 attached to a Winegard PR-9018 rooftop UHF antenna and preamp. I've been assuming the dropouts were due to some error I made in installing it, in particular with the coax cable run. I purchased 100 ft. of RG-6 coax from Radio Shack and initially just ran it in from a window to make sure the antenna worked (which it did without dropouts, in my recollection). Afterwards, I cut about 30 unnecessary feet from one end of the cable and put on a twist-on type F-connector and it's seemed like ever since I've been getting the dropouts. Is that even possible as a cause? Or is it truly only the fault of the transmitter problems mentioned above? Or both?

By the way, is anyone else reading this board receiving HD in the Salem area? How are your results? Even with the preamp I can only get about 55% signal strength at best...

GFox,

I think typically what you would see as a result of borderline reception would be picture freezing and large macro-block pixelation with the audio still coming through in some cases. These are total drop outs where it appears the signal is temporarily cut off altogether and you get a blank screen. It sounds like that is prob what you are experiencing as well.

As I said before, Lee knows about it but I think he thinks it is only happening once or twice an hour. He has said they have tried to pinpoint the prob but just have not been able to isolate it. It's unfortunate because KOIN has really been the most responsive and solid DTV station with only this one issue. Well, other than the fact that they also have that weather/traffic cam on 6-3. I think some of the minor pixelation that shows up in fast motion scenes would prob be eliminated if they shut that thing off. Not really sure why they have it up at all. Does anybody even care about it? Maybe it has some thing to do with "staking out the space" for future use or something....

ron

CSI next week sounds good to me. Let's "talk" some more (or send me PM) to discuss the details. Mostly, I just want to make sure others are having problems synchronously with mine. I put a 4 bay bowtie in the attic yesterday and now typical signal indications are around 93 on my dish 6000. Direct line of site from the Bald Peak are south of Hillsboro.

I'm expecting a truck from Magnolia to deliver the new Sony 40" direct view set within the next ten minutes or so. Its gonna drive me nuts if I have to watch analog feeds on it because of drop outs. Actually, maybe I shouldn't refer to them as drop outs. The image freezes with the different colors smeared across the screen and with the audio muted -- for maybe 5 to 10 seconds. Typically, I get brief pixelization shortly after that. Then it may be OK for 10 minutes or so.

Just wanted to chime in and get on board with the KOIN problem. I'm in Sherwood. I have a Samsung 150 with a Channel Master 4228, 8 bay bow tie with a 26db preamp. I get all of the channels at 60-80% reception. KOIN absolutely drops out between 2-6 times an hour and it has almost pushed me over the edge (no other channels exhibit this behavior).

I thought it was my setup and tweaked my system for days attempting to fix the problem. I wish Lee would respond and give us an update on what is going on and any intended fix in the future. I also thought it was my 150, but it appears that others are having the same problem with different boxes.

I'm in on the time sync thing. I will watch CSI and post my log. I'd like to get in on any PDX group that would like to meet/talk about setups, etc. Thanks.

Thanks for the replies guys! Misery loves company. Are we going to log CSI Miami or CSI Las Vegas? Are we going to call out the scenes it happens in or try to time by our watches?

I suggest Miami on Monday and times.

I think some of the minor pixelation that shows up in fast motion scenes would prob be eliminated if they shut that thing off. Not really sure why they have it up at all. Does anybody even care about it? Maybe it has some thing to do with "staking out the space" for future use or something....
Why even have the SD channel? We all are capable of tuning in either channel and I never watch the SD channel, too much pixelation, so why even waste the bandwidth? Lee, care to comment on this? KATU only has one channel.

Just so you guys know, I also record a lot of KOIN programs on my Dish PVR 501 and KOIN is having a blanking issue with the Dish satellite signal as well. The frequency is about the same: 5-6/hour but the black out length is only about 1/4 second or so with a total loss of video and audio.

I'm good with logging CSI Monday night. I don't think its really necessary to accurately synch clocks (being fairly close and being able to calculate times between hits is likely most important). At any rate, here's a nice simple NIST site for setting your watch: http://nist.time.gov/

I'm mostly curious as to whether we're all seeing the same thing - independent of receiver make/model.

BTW I watched part of the HD SEC football game today and didn't notice many breakups.

Hi,

I live in East of Lincoln City. Any hope of getting any of the HDTV channels. Just wondering if it was worth trying. I am able to receive the non hdtv channels.

Thanks

I'll log Miami tonight as well. With my Mits box the dropouts are very consistent. During CSI on thursday I was counting seconds and they were all just about 3.5 seconds long.

Andy64, what you describe sounds more like a reception problem to me as what most of us are seeing is just blank screen when it happens. Or maybe the Dish 6000 just handles the dropout differently?

dj7675, I'm no expert but I would think the chances of picking anything up from Lincoln City over the coast range would be highly unlikely.

ron

I get a video freeze and no audio for a few seconds. During Hack Friday night it happened 4 times, one I distinctly remember is when the guy with the cab came out and it was missing. The other was during a commercial for an anti-depressant.

If I can stay up that late tonight, I will log as well, otherwise I will record it to tape and view it later and post the results.

I think some of the minor pixelation that shows up in fast motion scenes would prob be eliminated if they shut that thing off. Not really sure why they have it up at all. Does anybody even care about it? Maybe it has some thing to do with "staking out the space" for future use or something....

Yea, I figured it's "for future use". To compound the problem, since the SD channel is a simulcast of the HD channel, when the HD needs alot of bitrate, so does the SD channel, since they have the same content. I find it especially noticable on "flashes" of light such as those that seem to occur during program openings, like CSI's. It's pretty predicable. 'haven't noticed it during most "talking heads" scenes, but if something blows up, you'll see pixellation.

Here are the times and duration of drops during CSI Miami

2204:36 4 sec
2221:44 4
2222:05 2
2225:14 4
2225:25 2
2237:05 4
2255:27 4

CSI drop outs:

foelker, what receiver are you using?

Here's what I logged - essentially the same as foelker. I'm using a Dish 6000 receiver.
In my case, the image froze with no audio for roughly 5 seconds each time.
We were watching channel 40.01

04:37 minutes after the hour.
21:47
22:08
25:17
25:28
37:08
55:28

At least now I know that its not my particular receiver, location or antenna that is causing the problem.

Looks like we definitely have a pattern. My setup SIRT150, CM4228 w preamp.

I wasn't as exact as you guys but the times match up:

10:04 - Picture freeze, then audio drop, then the dreaded "no signal"
10:22 - Same
10:22 - Again
10:25 - Same
10:25 - Again
10:36 - Same
10:55 - Same

I also noticed the "pixelization" at time of fast focus changes and movement, which I have attributed to a compressed signal, since the rest looks perfect, not the same problem as above.

My question: How do we get this back to KOIN so they know we are not just making this up?

You guys and your military time ;). Looks like I got exactly the same thing except one additional hiccup that was different:

10:04
10:21
10:22
10:25
10:25
10:29 (pic froze with slight pixelation and an audio buzz for about a second)
10:37
10:55

Except for the "other" prob at 10:29 they were all about 3.5 seconds with complete audio and video dropout (black screen). All were during the show except the first which was during a commercial. I'm using a Mits receiver and am pretty close in at somewhere around three miles from the towers.

BarryO, my experience exactly.

ron

Starbuck, Lee will see it here (he started this thread remember). I'm guessing he's been following this but has been silent lately since we started talking about KOINs probs. He's well aware of the problem but maybe now he'll see the extent of it and the fact that it's occuring to seemingly every receiver type. I'm sure he'll chime in when he gets a chance or has some news.

ron

I'm using a DST-3000

Wow, I'd been attributing these glitches to my marginal reception location, but I got the same last night for CSI Miami. 'good to know it's not just me. I'm sure it'll get fixed eventually.

No new information, just lending my 2 cents to the thread.

I also experienced the dropouts during CSI Miami last night. I didn't measure the times like you all, but your descriptions should very similiar.

I am viewing using a RCA F38310 with the built in DirectTV/Over Air tuner. I am using the over air antenna with a simple set of RCA rabbit ears. My location is in Cedar Mill just below the towers. My signal seemed to be hovering right aroud 70% each time I check.

Like many have said, it's good to know it's not my setup.

Michael

Originally posted by dj7675
Hi,

I live in East of Lincoln City. Any hope of getting any of the HDTV channels. Just wondering if it was worth trying. I am able to receive the non hdtv channels.

Thanks

I think UHF is going to have a very tough time making it over the coast range.

How is your reception of analog channels 49 and 24? If you can't receive them reasonably well, then you're probably out of luck, until such time as the stations set up digital translators on the coast (which will be after 2006, I bet).

I saw the same thing at 10:29:34 that R11 saw -- not the usual Pixelization sort of thing. Kinda strange, plus an audio "buzz" that's hard to describe.

I also had very minor pixelization at 10:00:51, 10:31:09, 10:45:0?, and10:58:04 but they were very brief and not of much concern right now.

I had the same problems during CSI miami on my samsung 150 as well. The pixelization problem is quite annoying to me. When they had 6-2 and 6-3 turned off for the US Open there was considerably less pixelization. The HD feed is just not getting the bandwidth it deserves. I can't believe that there is anyone out there with an HD tuner that is watching 6-2 or 6-3 (as entertaining as the traffic cam is.. :rolleyes: ). so why waste bandwidth on it? Doesn't make any sense to me. I can watch a whole episode of Alias with no breakups and no pixelization and thats with a meager 55% signal strength (damn, sucks being too close to the towers!).

So here's a stupid question. Can you be too close to the towers?

Is it a problem with the signal getting broadcast basically right over/past your house/antenna?

I ask because I live in the hills close to the towers and like steinfoot typically get signals in the 55% range.

Thanks

Originally posted by mpenwell
So here's a stupid question. Can you be too close to the towers?

Is it a problem with the signal getting broadcast basically right over/past your house/antenna?

I ask because I live in the hills close to the towers and like steinfoot typically get signals in the 55% range.

Thanks

you too? man it sucks when people in Salem get similar signal strength. I wish there was something more I could do. I have the bowtie with a signal amp right now. it seems to do a good enough job, but it would be nice to have a stronger signal.

anyone have any ideas?

Originally posted by mpenwell
So here's a stupid question. Can you be too close to the towers?

Is it a problem with the signal getting broadcast basically right over/past your house/antenna?

I ask because I live in the hills close to the towers and like steinfoot typically get signals in the 55% range.

Thanks

What receiver are you using? "55%" may mean different things on different receivers.

I'm using the built in tuner OTA receiver that comes with the RCA F38310 direct view set. This tuner is a combined DirectTV/OTA receiver. Beyond that I am not sure what type if tuner it is. I would have to look that information up. I'll search the archive for more detailed info.

After searching the forum... my receiver is a DTC100 HD Directv receiver.

Michael

mpenwell,

Oh yea, I missed the reference to the F38310 in your earlier message.

Remember the reading is more a "signal quality" and a "signal strength" reading. A lower number does not necessarily mean a lower signal level. And if you're receiving a good picture, trying to get a higher reading won't make things any better.

Interesting... I didn't realize it was a "quaility" rather than "strength" reading. This being the case, what is meant by the "weak signal" message that displays when the reading drops below around 35-40? Does this mean that the signal is now of too low of a quality to display a picture?

I'm not quite understanding the difference between "signal quality" and "signal strength".

I don't seem to ever get a "poor" picture. I tend to either get a great picture or no picture at all. If I adjust the antenna to a position where my "signal quality" reading is above 50 then I seem to get a steady picture.

Maybe I am missing something very basic in my understanding of how this works. Is there a way to see how strong my signal is?

Regards,

Originally posted by mpenwell
I don't seem to ever get a "poor" picture. I tend to either get a great picture or no picture at all. If I adjust the antenna to a position where my "signal quality" reading is above 50 then I seem to get a steady picture.


That's the way it works with digital. Either you get all the bits and the picture is great, or you don't get them. Sometimes, if you're on the "hairy edge", you'll get a picture with frequent pixelation and dropouts.

The signal meter measures received quality, i.e., how easy a time the receiver is having telling a 1 from a 0 in the received signal. For satellite reception, about the only thing that causes a low quality signal is low signal strength, so the vendors called this a "signal strength" meter. This term is also understood by non-technical consumers.

For OTA, the equipment manufacturers kept the same term, even though low signal level is only one thing that can cause a low signal quality. Bad multipath, i.e., reflections from surrounding objects of the type that causes ghosting on analog signals, is also a major cause of a low meter reading.

A TV signal level meter can measure signal level. TV antenna installers (good ones, anyway) have such equipment. In any case, I wouldn't signal level would be a problem in the West Hills, unless maybe we're talking about an indoor antenna in a basement.

Not sure how the levels would relate to the RCA, but on my Mits receiver I generally get fully pegged signal "levels" on all channels from where I'm located at the bottom of the West Slope area (mid sized outdoor antenna set up inside my attic).

ron

My timing on the dropouts was identical to the rest of you guys. I'm in the Raleigh Hills area , using the Samsung SIRT150. On a side note, why doesn't KGW run its HD demo loop anymore? It got boring quick but it was great to show guests that were over what HD was all about.

I watched it last night off of a taped recording I made and my timings were the same as everyone else using a Dish 6000. I'm giving the timings to a buddy and he is going to watch the Dish broadcast of CSI:Miami on his PVR 501 and see if the blackouts on the Dish locals correspond to our freezeups.

I think they are related. Probably what is happening is there is a loss of signal for about 1/4-1/2 second causing the frozen picture then the receiver has to relock the signal, taking the 3-5 seconds that everyone is experiencing. Dish told me they are getting the digital feed from KOIN for their locals rebroadcast so the picture blips they are experiencing are probably the same thing.

BarryO,

Your explanation makes things much clearer. Thanks.

And yes I am not using anywhere near an ideal antenna setup. I am currently living in a rental house so I have not gone through the process of setting up an outdoor antenna and doing the necessary wiring. I am using a simple indoor antenna, but for the most part my reception works just fine.

Again, thanks for the additional information. Every bit of new information makes me feels like I actually starting to understand this stuff.

Lots of fun.

Marissadad, I'm kinda surprised Dish uses KOINs digital feed for their local source. D* uses the analog feed so I generally watch that for SD viewing of KOIN just because of the dropouts. I'd really rather watch the network upconverted feed KOIN is passing now for the far better picture, but the dropouts are just too much for me. I'll watch it for the HD shows but the upconverts just aren't enough better to make me put up with the blank screens :(.

Dave, The other day I flipped by KGW HD and the demo loop was on, but it was running in reverse at very high speed. I watched it for a couple minutes and it went through a number of the "pieces". It was kind of interesting as anytime there was movement in the picture whatever was moving would pixelate like crazy. It was actually pretty entertaining to see Joe Donlin and Tracy Barry's heads fuzz out as they moved them around while talking :D. So maybe their tape machine has konked out on them and that's why it's not up now? Also, during the prime time hours they are now passing the network upconverts when there is no HD available.

ron

R11, the Dish feed of KOIN is actually pretty decent. I sent a PQ email to Dish about the blankouts and when they responded they said they were receiving the digital feed from KOIN. Maybe Lee can verify this for us. It seems too coincidental that the Dish feed blanks 5-6 times/hour and we experience freezes 5-6 times/hour. I'll report back what my buddy finds on his PVR blankouts.

Oh, I believe it. And it would make perfect sense as an explanation for both having the dropouts. I was just surprised to hear it is all. For this very reason. It would seem to me that with the instability of the digital systems many local broadcasters have in place at this point in time it wouldn't be the wisest choice. With all the pixelation, dropouts etc that many of the digital feeds contain I'd think they would be receiving too many subscriber complaints. Where the local broadcasters can get away with it because it's just "their digital channels that hardly anybody is watching anyway", the satellite companies wouldn't seem to have the same luxury. I'm glad D* isn't :).

OTOH, before Dish switched to the digital feeds, you could see alot of analog impairments in their signal. I still watch KGW on Dish because I can't receive KGW-DT. KGW-analog on Dish had noticable herringbone interference, and some ghosting. This was noticable even through the very heavy compression that Dish uses. I'd rather have the digital feeds, even with occassional dropouts.

Regarding KOIN, I must say the PQ on the SD local news broadcasts are really outstanding (for Standard-Def, that is). The studio must be completely digital.

However, someone should tell Karen Adams how bad her makeup job looks on KOIN-DT. Last night at 11, both my wife and I said, "yikes, that lady's wearing waaay too much lipstick".

[fixed small typo]

Whatever happened to Kelly Day? I liked her, she was a FOX!

I wonder if Jeff G ever got a HD set so he can join the other "15" people in Portland that have an HD set.

The locals on D* seem to be pretty decent except for being very soft. But I do generally watch the DTV counterparts except for KOIN (an "occasional" dropout is OK with me too - 6-8 an hour a little too frustrating though) and Trailblazer games on KGW are almost worthless due to the heavy pixelation. Then of course there's the all too frequent lip sync probs (mostly on 8). But other than that it's great ;). Seriously though, I think DTV/ATSC will be a hands down, superior improvement over analog/NTSC as soon as the broadcasters invest in equipment that is up to the task.

So we ended up with Julie Emry over Kelly Day.... :(. Don't get me wrong, I went to school with Julie and she's a very nice person, but I've never understood the attraction of her as a newscaster. I thought Kelly was very good. Then again, I guess we are talking about the channel that fired good people for Jeff G.....

ron

Anyone else watch Presidio Med on KOIN last night?

I didn't have any "freezes" at all!

Wonder if it was a fluke or a fix?

Also, anyone having problems with OPB's HD signal? My signal indicator only shows about 70 -75 and I get a lot of breakups. Usually unwatchable. Seems like it got worse when I installed a 4 bay bowtie pointed (I think) at KOIN's tower.

Andy, I set up my system last night during Presidio Med so I had my 501 in the PIP window with my 6000 on the main screen to see if I could coincide the freeze with the Dish black out and wouldn't you know it, no blips. I gave up after 40 minutes because I'm usually in bed by 10 pm. I'll try this again next chance I get with both machines not recording something.

In regards to OPB, they seem to go in spurts with their signal quality. I get a lot of breakups with OPB. My screen will garble and turn green, breakup then lock on. I get about the same strength you do in Keizer using a 121" Rat Shack combo UHF/VHF/FM mounted in the attic. Luckily when they aired Over Alaska I did not experience a single hickup.

I didn't change anything and I got no drops last night. I wonder if KOIN did something. Lee??

KOIN was solid for me last night as well.

BTW, is anyone else having trouble (still) with 49-1? Signal meter seems OK, but lots of breakups.

Where's Lee these days?

Who watched Survivor or CSI last night? I had to watch it delayed off my Dish 501 and I had a black out during Survivor at:

8:22
8:26 (2 right in a row)
8:28
8:32
8:36

I didn't watch the commercials so all of these were during the program.

On CSI I got one black out at 9:52. I want to see if these correspond with the 6000 freezing.

Thanks

I watched both Survivor and CSI and although I wasn't really paying close attention or looking for them (and I nodded out for a while at the end of CSI), I didn't notice any dropouts. I did have to call the KGW studio to get them to flip the switch for the HD ER after CSI though. Maybe Lee has been experimenting with some things since we've been complaining here?

ron

Didn't notice any dropouts during Survivor last night. This is with a DTC100.

As for Lee, he is still updating his news page,

http://server2.ezboard.com/fdigitaltelevisionhdtvforumhdtvdigitaltelevisionnewsforum

so he is still around. I sent him a note several days ago informing him that there were several messages here that he might want to know about. Perhaps he is just busy.

Larry, could you double check this link? I got a "page not found" when I tried it. Thanks
Dave

The AVS forum software appears to have munged the link. I guess it doesn't like long lines.

To fix the link, remove the "%20" stuff near the start and the "<br%20/>" near the end.

Originally posted by foelker
Where's Lee these days?

Hey, it's hunting season. 'maybe he's spending alot of time in the woods.

KOIN seems to have improved considerably for me over the last week. No major dropouts during the Prime time shows. Does everyone else see the improvement?

Yup, me too.

I'll find out tonight when I watch CSI.


*** Good news from Ed Williams regarding Fox Widescreen***

Ed just got back from vacation and responded to an email I had sent him a while ago asking about whether or not they were going to be doing the widescreen again. As was expected they have been very busy setting everything back up after the move. I asked if they might have it up by the time 24 starts it's new season at the end of the month. Here's the important part of his response:

"Most of the gear is in place to provide the 16:9 picture - we are dealing mostly with automation systemswitching software issues in getting it ready for air."

So, maybe we'll get lucky and they'll find time to get it dialed in soon. I'd like to check out Firefly in Widescreen too!

ron

Howdy. I just ordered a Dish 6000 and install is set for next Friday. I still have to purchase an antenna for my OTA reception. I live in NE Portland near Rose City Golf Course (just outside the Hollywood District). Any suggestions for an economical antenna? Thanks.

PS -great thread!

TMBUTCH,

Can you put the antenna where it can "see" the towers in the West Hills, or are you behind a hill somewhere?

I'm pretty much at the crest of a hill. I'm a couple blocks off NE Sandy Blvd at about 60th. I live in a residential neighborhood with nothing taller than a 3 story house for several blocks. I should have pretty good line of sight of the towers. Would an attic antenna work? I've heard from some that even rabbit ears might work. BTW -my TV setup is in the basement.

I see no one has replied to TMBUTCH's question.

The best I can suggest is to check out your analog TV reception using a portable TV with rabbit ears in the top story. If you can get a decent picture without too much ghosting, then digital should work well but you might need an amplifier to get the signal down to the basement.

Hello to all,

I messed up and mistakenly posted my question earilier as a new topic. Anyway, here goes again.

I live just about on the boundary between Tigard and Portland, in the shadow of hills off Taylors Ferry Road. I have no line of site to the towers. Excessive ghosting makes enjoyable OTA viewing impossible. If it weren't for cable I couldn't get a decent picture from any local station. I have no interest in DBS. I would like to view OTA hi-def digital broadcasts if possible.

I heard a long time ago that dtv is less sensitive to multipath distortion than conventional standard definition analog NTSC. Is this true? Do any of you guys have any recommendations for dealing with reception in a very poor clean signal area? Or do you think I am stuck and will just have to wait for AT&T Broadband to eventually include true hi-def pass through from our local stations?

Thanks in advance for any comments.

Dennis

tibia, I would think that being so close even though you may be down in a hole somewhat, that you'd have a decent shot of picking up the digitals. You probably couldn't get away with an indoor antenna though.



DECISIONS, DECISIONS: D* finally shut down my free three month preview of the locals over the weekend. It was very nice having them as a backup for when the local digitals were acting up with dropouts, lip sync issues or just off altogether (as KATU was for so long). Now that KATU is back up and Lee seems to have gotten the dropout issue under control at KOIN things have been pretty stable for the last week or so in PDX-DTV land. I'm tempted to just leave them off and see how things go. But Blazer season is quickly aproaching and the SD KGW DTV simulcast is so pixelated for anything with motion it makes basketball a nightmare though. Grrrrr, I wish they were all strong, stable, reliable and artifact free already :(. One of these days I guess. I'll probably go ahead and sign up for the D* locals....

ron

Am I correct in assuming that if you subscribe to D* local channels, you only get the standard def feeds and NOT the Hight-Def? Thanks.

Yep. They don't even have the bandwidth for all the SD locals they would like to carry let alone the hugely greater amount they would need to carry any HD locals. If it weren't for the blazer games I'd probably just leave them off since the large majority of my watching these days is HD anyway.

ron

tibia:

From your description, it doesn't sound good.

But I suggest you do the following experiment: Go to Radio Shack and buy a cheap UHF only antenna. Connect the antenna to a portable TV and tune to Ch 49. Get as high as you can in your house and stick the antenna out a window on a pole. Adjust the orientation and see if you can get a decent signal. If so, there it hope.

Multipath is death to the current crop of receivers as is lack of signal strength.

I don't know Larry, he may be surprised. I get pretty bad ghosting on my analog signals where I am too but the digitals signals come in very strongly. It's almost a case by case kinda thing I think.

ron

Originally posted by Larry Hutchinson
I see no one has replied to TMBUTCH's question.

Hey, cut me some slack, I'm in Japan and fighting jetlag. ;)

He has a good shot with an attic antenna, I think. I think the 4-bay bowtie, 4221/3021 (http://www.channelmaster.com/pages/u1.htm) would work pretty well. Double-O Electronics out by the airport should have them.

Indoor, rabbit ears won't do much good, as the DTV stations are UHF. Radio Shack used to have a goof indoor UHF antenna, the very retro-looking double bowtie, but they discontinued it.

BarryO
I am in need of an upgrade on my OTA roof antenna. Does Double-O Electronics have installation as part of their service, or do you or anyone know of a good local antenna installer/
Thanks in advance

Thanks to all for your suggestions. Before I spend any money on a DTV tuner I think I'll try a MyHD card from work in my HTPC and buy a bow tie or yagi antenna. Who knows? I might get lucky.

I have a CRT front projection system and it would be fun to see what real HD looks like on it rather than upscaling dvd to 720P48.

OK.....I went to Fry's today and bought a big 'ol Channel Master roof-top UHF antenna. Box says it has a 60 mile range and is "digital compatible". Is this going to do it? It looks just like those standard roof-top antenna's from the 70's. Thanks!

Originally posted by michael goldman
BarryO
I am in need of an upgrade on my OTA roof antenna. Does Double-O Electronics have installation as part of their service, or do you or anyone know of a good local antenna installer/
Thanks in advance

I'm sure they don't. Technically, Double-O is a distributor, and doesn't even do retail. But you may want to give them a call and se if they know of an installer. Some of Double-O's customers may be in that business.

They've told me they've sold alot more OTA antenna gear since the Portland DTV stations went online.

--Barry

Originally posted by TMBUTCH
OK.....I went to Fry's today and bought a big 'ol Channel Master roof-top UHF antenna. Box says it has a 60 mile range and is "digital compatible". Is this going to do it? It looks just like those standard roof-top antenna's from the 70's. Thanks!

What's the model number?

If it's a big one, the only gotcha is that it'll be very directional, and you may have to be careful in pointing it. But give it a try.

I tried a number of antennas in search of the "perfect one" and what I found that works best for me is 2 antennas. I use a CM 1165(VHF/UHF) with a CM 4221(UHF) perched on the top of a rotating mast. I run two antenna leads and switch between the antennas using a RF switcher.

I use the CM 4221 4-bay bow for UPN, FOX, NBC and PBS. The signals are very strong. The ABC and CBS signals are too weak and drop out with this antenna.

I use the CM 1165 for ABC, CBS, and WB32(I've got to watch Smallville). ABC and CBS have very strong signals with this antenna.

I'm not saying this will work for everybody. It's just what works for me.

Cris

Its a Channel Master 3020. It is a typical looking big, gaudy, multi-pronged rooftop model....much to the chagrine of my wife. It better work well or I'm screwed.

The 3020 is a combination VHF/UHF antenna. That's why it's so big: the log-periodic VHF antenna needs big elements. The UHF Yagi antenna is the smaller part in the front.

You really don't need the VHF part, since all the PDX DTV stations are UHF. That's why I like the 3021 for close-in installations. It's not very big, and since the reflector can be mounted right up against a surface, it can often be mounted against a chimney or wall very unobstrusively.

Someone here posted that KGW - particularly during blazer games, was very pixelated and almost unwatchable. Would it be worth it to stay with the 3020 so I can pick up the analog signal for KGW as well as the digital. I was planning on cancelling my subscription to the D* locals due to getting the OTA channels. Does anyone know if I can even cycle the OTA analog locals through the D* 6000?

Yes, you can watch the local analog channels on the 6000. KGW has been mirroring the SD feed on the HD feed, so basketball is much better on the HD channel. Plus, last year they tried hooking up with ASCN to broadcast a few games in HD but they had some equipment problems. Maybe this year? We'll see.

TM, it was me that mentioned the blazer pixelation. The simulcast HD feed (primetime hours generally) on KGW is definitely cleaner but it is 14:9 zoom/cropped so you loose a bit of the picture. The SD feed actually looks quite good... when the players are standing at the free throw line and not moving :). The locals still have their troubles, which brings me to a question: has anybody else been having audio strangeness from KGW the last few days? I'm getting a very loud right main channel output. It's so loud that sitting right in front of the TV it overshadows the center channel. If I turn that speaker down all the way it balances out pretty well (until I change the station...). This is while using PLII.


****ON ANOTHER NOTE*****

I'm thinking of picking up one of the Samsung DLP sets and am wondering if anybody around the PDX area here would be interested in a 2 year old 36" Sony XBR in pristine condition for a decent price? It's been a great TV and I'd just keep it but I really have no room for a 2nd large set at my house at the moment. If anybody is interested let me know. Thanks.

ron

ISF TECHNICIANS IN PORTLAND AREA

I *may* be getting a Hitachi RPTV this fall, and from what I've been
reading here it may need an immediate color temperature and red push calibration.
Can anyone here recommend a local ISF tech?
There's very little information at http://www.imagingscience.com/
How much can I expect to pay?

Jim,

It is generally recommended that you wait 6 months or more before an ISF.

Also, you could buy from Uptown Audio/Video where they throw in an ISF for free (at least that was the case with my Elite.)

Yes, I could have just walked into your office and told you this but perhaps it will be
useful info for others out there.

You should immediately do at least an AVIA setup for contrast, brightness and color as a minimum then wait till you have 100 hrs on the bulbs to do your ISF.

Who saw the test last night on KATU? It was pretty cool, I flipped onto KATU at around 9:06 last night and they were running a test loop.

They were showing a 101 Dalmations clip, Good Morning America banner, an Academy Award statue and various other short clips that were the best HD I have seen to date on ABC.

They also displayed a color bar and did a DD 5.1 surround test identifying each speaker as they went, it was pretty cool.

Didn't see it last night but I have run across the test deal before where it has the monotone voice saying, "left speaker....... right speaker..... center etc.

ron

Yeah, the KATU test loop got me in trouble. Wife flipped on KATU for "The Bachelor" and got the test loop. Oh, well, least I got to do some sound level setting....he he he

It seems they have the complete dropout problem fixed but now I'm noticing another problem that never occurred before. I'm getting quite of bit of artifacts or pixelated blocks during the telecast ( tonite all during Survivor and CSI ). It seems to happen with the slightest bit of motion on the screen and occurrs every 20-30 seconds or so. I never lose the picture like before but its very anoying. I also noticed it somewhat on the HD broadcast of NYPD Blue on Tues. night. over on 2-1. Anyone else ?

Dave,

I watched Survivor and CSI last night also and only noticed one short drop out (maybe a second). But it's interesting you mention the pixelation. I was sitting there thinking, "Hmmm, the pixelation seems worse than usual. I wonder if some how it could be related to whatever changes Lee made to reduce the drop out problem...". There's always some but it definitely seemed a few degrees worse than what it usually is. BTW, I was watching survivor on the upconverted 6-1 feed.

ron

Ron,

yeah, I was watching the 6-1 feed also on Survivor but didn't jump over to 6-2 to compare. It's funny, Lee used to blame some of this on the "leaves on the trees "during the summer time with interfering with the digital signal reception. But for me, the picture during the summer was fine except for those complete drop outs. Now that the leaves are falling, I get all this pixelation. I'd almost rather go back to the dropouts.

So....anyone know where you can get a program listing of HD material? I haven't been able to find a guide of what the locals are putting out so I jut search around. Already getting a bit tired of watching the Starlight Parade on 8-02 (although it looks awesome!) I'd really like to know when the next broadcast of a college or pro football game is. Oh, also, a quick question. Is all HD material widescreen? The elephant documentary airing on discovery appears to be 4:3. Also, how do you tell what is better, 720P or 1080i? Should I just leave the Dish 6000 in 1080i? Thanks!

Originally posted by TMBUTCH
So....anyone know where you can get a program listing of HD material? I haven't been able to find a guide of what the locals are putting out so I jut search around. Already getting a bit tired of watching the Starlight Parade on 8-02 (although it looks awesome!) I'd really like to know when the next broadcast of a college or pro football game is. Oh, also, a quick question. Is all HD material widescreen? The elephant documentary airing on discovery appears to be 4:3. Also, how do you tell what is better, 720P or 1080i? Should I just leave the Dish 6000 in 1080i? Thanks!

1. HD Listing-www.titantv.com
2. HD material widescreen-some is broadcast in 4:3 with black bars which sucks because the HD200 won't widen. I have to use the TV zoom mode witch is not as good.
3. I thought I read where 720P was better for Sports.

My question:
1. On my HD200, shows that are supposed to be HD and DD, the icons on the screen from the HD200 onscreen channel banner do not show it as either. I saw it tonight with Boomtown and The Practice. They appear to be HD. Is this a station issue?

Antenna notes:
I have a cheap RCA rabbit ears with a UHF loop. It does not receive the analog signals all that great. It's perfect for the OTA digital. It also may have something to do with the HD200 which some people have indicated has better at pulling in digital channels than previous generation STB. So before you invest in a large TV antenna, you may want to try out some cheap rabbit ears with a UHF loop for kicks.

http://www.hidefguide.com/ is a good one.

This is probably the best $35 I ever spent:
https://www.ordersecure.com/ssl.ilovehdtv.com/subscribe.html
The above site gives you a schedule delivered to your email everyday and also keeps you up to date on the HDTV industry.

http://www.hdtvgalaxy.com/broad.html

I thought by definition all true HDTV is widescreen.? If I see it broadcast in 4:3 with black bars I assume it's a digital broadcast of an SD signal

Yes that's true but if he's seeing 4:3 on one of the HD channels it's been upconverted. Now, there was that showing of Men In Black on KGW a month or so ago on a Saturday night that was 4:3 on 8-1. It sure as hell looked like HD to me. People reported that it was widescreen in other areas but not here. I think somewhere along the way some settings were not done properly so it wasn't coming through full widescreen, but it definitely looked like HD though....

ron

It would be interesting to get Lee's comments. I thought even an upconvert sent via an HD signal would be widescreen.
I am sometimes amazed at how even a non HD digital picture can look. Koins news looks really good on the digital channel

KOIN has no local HD production capability yet. I think Lee said it would still be a couple of years down the road as it is very expensive.

michael, Look at all the commercials on your HD-OTA channels between the shows. Or most all of the "original programming" on HBO or Showtimes' HD channels. It's all 4:3 and has been upconverted. The aspect ratio of the final product is determined by the aspect ratio of the camera which the film or video was originally captured on, and then by the production processing where it may be masked, cropped etc.

ron

I realize that. I was referring to their SD signal, but over the digital channel

On another point. Are Hd people in the Port area interested in getting together on some evening to swap stories, advice etc and to put names with faces? Could meet at some chinese buffet place to make dinner simple.
Just a thought

I noticed last night that Fox was showing Boston public on their 30-2 channel, at 5:00 pm no less, obviously a east coast feed? Must have been tweeking on the sub channel to get it working. Then at 8:00 it was on the main channel in widescreen.

Still not HD but I suppose better than 4:3.

It would be cool though if all the HD stations would broadcast both the east coast and west coast times. At least when they don't overlap. It would be much easier to catch some of the later HD shows without the hassles and expense of recording.

I hope it's true, thank you Ed, if this is true, we will have 24 in widescreen tonight! There is a digital God.

Heads up, if anyone is online tonight! FOX is transmitting a widescreen image on 30-02 with color bars and a timer counting UP to 24:00:00 which will hit 24:00:00 at exactly 9:00 pm, which is when 24 starts. Looks like we will get 24 in widescreen after all, yahoo!!!!

At 8:00 they started showing That 70's show. The picture is still in 16:9 & the program is letterboxed, but 30-01 is still 4:3.

Does anyone know if KGW plans on broadcasting any Blazer games in HD this year? Thanks.

I had sent an email to Ed yesterday in the morning asking if they were going to have it up in time for 24 or not and I missed his email back in the late afternoon saying it was.... He said they have it set up on 30-2 for test purposes now and it will probably stay there "for at least a few weeks". It's the direct Fox widescreen feed without any of the local commercial insertions. It will just show the color bars when the network is not transmitting the widescreen feed. He said to let them know how it looks.

I also got an email back from KGW in response to my asking if there was any chance of them doing the Blazer game in HD tonight since it was a home game. They responded back with a negative saying that the Blazers had told them that they had not been able to "get permission from the NBA" for it.... Sounds kinda strange to me. I also sent an email to the Blazers asking if they had any plans for HD games on KGW and have not heard back from them yet. If they get back to me I'll post with their answer.

BTW, "Lake Oswego, Oregon" sure looked nice on 24 last night huh? ;)

ron

The FOX widescreen was a very nice surprise... The PQ was good. The widescreen sure makes a difference. Also, I really liked the fact that we got to see the East code feed even though my wife made me turn off 24 running at 6:00 to eat with the family. Priorities...

Also, I would love to see Blazer games in HD. Hopefully they can get it worked out. I know it would encourage me to watch more game, if not for the HD alone.

Finally, L.O. was "nice." They sure made it look like L.O. was a great rural retreat... if only that was the case...

Cheers,
Michael

Just to clarify... the PQ was good compared to what I was expecting. I just got my set a couple of month ago, so I hadn't see any Fox widescreen.

I still wish is was true HD, but it was still better than expected.

michael

Anyone else notice problems with interlacing? It was similar to the problem Discovery HD had when they first started. I think it had something to do with "reverse interlacing"? I can't remember, but it was pretty bad. I ended up switching my 6000 to SD mode and watching it on my 27" TV, it looked better there.

I also had a band of noise across the very top of the image, anyone else?


..

Here's the response I got from Jon Hazell the head engineer at ASCN when I inquired about HD Blazer games this season:

------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Ron.

Actually, there aren't any NBA or technical reasons why last night's game wasn't televised in HD. It comes down to $$$ (what a surprise!).

Since acquiring the big twelve-camera HDTV truck, Blazers Broadcasting has realized that they can make quite a bit of money traveling around the country working for outside clients (last week they were in LA taping a Tom Petty concert). If the truck stays here in Portland, it costs extra money to produce the game telecasts in HD and they are losing money on work they can't do elsewhere. In today's lousy economic climate, any extra revenue is very important.

Current plans call for NO Blazers games to be televised in HD this year, though of course that can change. For a while, it looked as though last night's game would be in HD because NHK, the Japanese national television network, wanted to carry it and were willing to pay the cost of production. All of their acquisition is now in HD and they televise lots of American sports. For example, they carry every Mariners home game using an HD truck they built here in the states (go Ichiro!). Unfortunately, this time they were unable to clear the rights to show the game in Japan, since another Japanese network was carrying the ESPN telecast.

If you'd like to see Blazers games in HD it would help if you sent them a request. It's easier for them to justify a telecast if they feel there are viewers out there. The person to contact is Dick Vardanega (dick.vardanega@blazers.com). He's responsible for the Blazers' broadcast operations and for the HD truck.

We at ASCN would like to see more Blazers HD also, but it will take input from the public to get them to reconsider. Good luck!


Jon Hazell
Chief Engineer
ASCN

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

Not good news. After the way they played last night nobody may care though ;). If you still do however, send Dick an email as Jon suggested. I rather doubt that they will care what a few HD viewers want as opposed to making significant coin from renting out their services but you never know. I'm going to send one. The upconvert on 8-1 Wed night didn't look too bad. I'm glad to see KGW is at least doing that now instead of running the demo loop. I just wish they'd leave it 4:3 instead of doing the 14:9 zoom/crop though...

ron

I E-mailed him with my plee. I stated the following:

"Please.....PLEASE......find a way to broadcast a game or two in HDTV in PDX!!!! I understand that the Blazer's camera truck is often more valuable eslewhere....but isn't there a way to cut a deal with the Blazer's opponent to sweeten the pot alittle? Especially if the Blazer's play a major maket team like LA or NY....couldn't you sell them broadcast rights in their city to make it more financially viable?

Anything that could be done would be MUCH appreciated by the several thousand HDTV capable viewers in PDX. Heck....I'd even shell out $10 or so to PPV a game in HD as I'm sure other fans would as well."

Yeah...I may have slightly exagerated the number of HD capable households in PDX...but oh well.

Hey.....wasn't the WB and another channel supposed to kick off Digital channels in PDX today?

Ron, I just sent Dick an email. I would love to see the games in HD.
TMBUTCH, WB won't be on the air for quite a while yet, they just received their construction permit about 3 weeks ago. Do you know what the other digital channel was? Probably those idiots at PAX that wanted to switch to channel 3. Of all the moronic things to do. They had assigned to them ch 22 and filed with the FCC for ch 3. I won't watch them.

Anybody else having trouble the last couple of days with KGW pixelating and dropping out frequently?

TM, nope. It's been solid for me. Sounds like a possible reception prob maybe?

ron

Odd. It seems to pixelate and drop out only during their 'stock footage' (demo loop and lighthouse move). The network shows come in fine. Anyone know if they run their demo on a weeker signal or if they boost their signal during prime time?

(side note : just saw on the programming board that ABC is broadcasting Beauty and the Beast in HD on Sunday....thought I'd bring that to the attn for those of you with kids)

ASCN Kput?
Colin Cowherd reported on KGW this P.M. that ASCN will be closing shop. Any body hear something similiar? Would be a shame if true, as they never had a chance to really get going

I heard the same on Dwight Jaynes' show today. Said that ASCN is closing shop at Midnight. Maybe this will free up some HD cameras for KGW Blazer broadcasts? Naw....probably not.....

I have been having major problems the past few days on all the Portland DTV channels. I live in Salem and up until now everything has been working pretty good. Signal strength looks good, high 80's low 90's, but I'm having a lot of lock ups and very bad pixilation. Its virtually unwatchable. The screen even turns partially green. I also lose my channel Id's. ie. 6 reverts back to 40-1, or whatever the actual digital channel is, as do the other DTV stations. I'm kind of wondering if its not the OTA tuner in my STB. I'm using a Dish 6000. Anyone else having these kinds of problems?

I'm in Keizer, Dean and have had no issues lately with my 6000. Sometimes when I tune in to KATU or OPB the screen will flash green for a second or two then lock on. OPB has been breaking up a lot but that's the only one I've really noticed.

I almost always get the green screen when tuning into KATU but now its on all the DTV stations. I suppose its time to call Dish and see what they say. I haven't had the system for more than a year so hopefully they will cover it, at least partially.

OOPS!

Dean, take out the Extended Warranty from Dish, it only costs $1.99/month. You have to have the coverage in effect for 30 days before making a claim, so if you are close to 1 year, take out the warranty. For what a 6000 costs, it's chump change & it covers all your gear.

Dean, I've got a Samsung T150 and had numerous artifacts and pixelation Monday night during CSI Miami. Even last week it was bad on NYPD Blue and both CSI's. I don't know if it's my equipment, reception or the broadcast. I was getting great reception until about 3-4 weeks ago except for the dropouts with KOIN. As soon as they fixed the dropouts, I starting having all the artifacts. At least with the dropouts the picture perfect in between.

Dave

Last night I did what I should have done in the first place. I unplugged the unit for about 30 seconds and plugged it back in. I fired it back up and viola, everything is back to normal. I sometimes forget about the hard reboot these machines sometimes need. You'd think I'd have that down by now being a 501 owner as well. ;)

Anyway I'm glad that worked. However I'm still going to look into that $1.99 per month warranty. I have 4 receivers, with the other two being 4000's. Might not be too bad of an investment.

Thanks for the heads up Marissadad.

Dave, maybe a hard reset might help your system? Couldn't hurt.

How many 6000 owners are having a problem locking in 61.5? I put up a 24" dish last Spring and it made a world of difference but now that the rains have returned, I can't even watch HBOHD or the demo channel with even a drizzle, it won't register a signal at all.

My buddy at work has a satellite strength meter, I guess it's time to break it out and tweak the dish.

I'm in Aloha and have a pretty good signal on 61.5 and 148 both with 18" dishes. Tweaking will probably help you situation.

Steve

No problems at all with Dish HBO. I am still having some drop-outs with KGW though. I live near Rose City Golf Course in NE PDX - have a roof top channel-master. All other OTA come in at 85%+.

BTW....anyone catch Beauty and the Beast tonight on ABC? PQ was stunning....good DD sound as well. Very nice.

I tweaked my dish, just took a bump to do it, the 24" is very sensitive to alignment. This morning with a steady rain I had a strength of 67 which is what I was getting on a sunny day. I'm back in business.

On the FOX side, is anyone else getting a band of noise across the very top edge of the picture? I can adjust my 6000 up a bit so it's almost gone, but if I record something NTSC the full band is there.

Hi Folks,

I've been silent for a while so I could get some unprompted reaction on the steps taken to end the drop-outs. Obviously the steps taken worked. (You Dish locals subscribers - have the drop-outs stopped there too?) I've preformed a couple of other hidden 'experiments' too that don't seem to have had any impact. The drop-outs were caused by random bursts of PSIP program guide data. This seems to be resolved now.

Last week a Descriptive Video audio channel for the visually impaired was added. (This was an FCC requirement until a court last Friday said the FCC had no authority to require it, but it will stay pending further FCC or judical review.) This will impact older Panasonic tuners (DST-50/51) that will only get dual-mono audio with the descriptive audio or Spanish on 'Bold and Beautiful'. This is a problem in the tuner that was documented long ago. There is supposed to be a fix from Panasonic, but I don't have any details.

The recent broad reception problems are seasonal. As the leaves on the trees dry out, and it has been a dry Autumn up until now, their affect on reception changes. Now that the rains have come and they are very wet (reflections change again) until they finally fall off (when reflections disappear until Spring). Hang in there, once the leaves are gone things should settle down, but they could be different and require some antenna adjustments.

PAX (KPXG 22) will be DTV on channel 4 not 3. KWBP-LP analog repeater of WB32 will probably move from channel 4 to channel 5.

I think that brings things current.

Thanks for the update Lee. Yes, the dropouts do seem to be history with your changes. However, for what ever reason I now seem to be experiencing a bit of an increase in motion artifacting the last few weeks. Have you made any changes in the allocation of bandwidth or something? It's not a huge difference but several others have mentioned it too. I assume you guys have your reasons but it sure would be nice if you would do away with the traffic cam and use the bandwidth to increase the PQ on 6-1. I have a feeling if you took a vote here it would be 100% in favor. Do you think anybody uses it? Thanks again.

ron

D-43 (KATU) problem.

I am hoping Lee Wood can help.
I have 2 HDTV recievers.

One is a PANASONIC STB, The other is the MyHD (HDTV recorder card for PC).

On the Panasonic STB the video signal on D43 has a kind of micro-studder.

Using the MyHD card, I can record D43 fine but when just using it as a tuner the signal will be fine for around 5 minutes and then go through a series of breakups.

Cliff @ www.digitalconnection.com had a local viewer having the same problems as me, record the D43 signal for analysis.
Cliff seems to believe that the problem is in the ATSC encoder:

"the TS is sending data packets faster than the PCR time stamp is indicating".

I have forwarded this info. to Alan Batdorf (ABatdorf@katu.com).

Thanks

Lee, the Dish blips were still there as of Monday night's CSI:Miami. I'll let you know after Thursday Night's Survivor, CSI & Without a Trace if they are still there.

OK...what did I miss here? I think - until tonight - I was getting the KOIN channels on 40-0 and 40-1. Now they are on 6-1 to 3. No problem...just wondering what accounts for the change.

Lee, I watched Survivor delayed on my Dish 501 and the blank outs are still occurring. I watched CSI Live on my 6000 OTA and there was several blank outs as well, only they are not like they used to be. They used to cause my 6000 to retune the channel, displaying the signal strength banner, but last night there was just a blank picture and no tuning indicator.

I watched Survivor and CSI and only noticed one drop out with my setup (close in, mits box). It was a total blank just like the previous ones (about 3 sec.).

TM, the real ATSC channels are 40-1, 2 and 3. Your set top box duplicates a set of the digital channels and remaps them to the corresponding NTSC channel numbers. At least in the Hughes boxes they both show up in the guide. I hide the higher numbers and just display the "traditional" ones since my brain has been programmed to them for 40+ years...

ron

I watched Survivor and CSI and only noticed one drop out with my setup (close in, mits box). It was a total blank just like the previous ones (about 3 sec.).

Ditto.

Was the blip within five seconds of the hour straight up? The PSIP computer system seems to cause and 'issue' when the program tables roll-over on the hour.

No Lee, those I've always just assumed were somehow related to the switching between programming/ads or the widescreen resetting the aspect ratio or something (seems like there are usually a couple little bobbles that happen right as the programming is switching back on coming out of commercials). This was a distinct dropout right in the middle of some dialog.

ron

Hello:

I am thinking about buying a OTA HDTV receiver (samsung T151) for my Mits WS48311. I live in Hillsboro (near Orenco) and I was wondering if I could get by without having to put an antenna in the attic but get "rabbit ears" antenna instead next to the TV. Would I be able to receive decent signals from Portland TV stations like KOIN AND KATU? If the answer is yes, what antenna would you recommand?
Thanks.

I am in Hillsboro and I amk using a $15 antenna from Jensen(TV630).

I have tried 4-5 different antenna's. This one worked the best for me.

Fred Meyer's has it

Originally posted by Doubichou
Hello:

I am thinking about buying a OTA HDTV receiver (samsung T151) for my Mits WS48311. I live in Hillsboro (near Orenco) and I was wondering if I could get by without having to put an antenna in the attic but get "rabbit ears" antenna instead next to the TV. Would I be able to receive decent signals from Portland TV stations like KOIN AND KATU? If the answer is yes, what antenna would you recommand?
Thanks.

Orenco's a good location; you can see the West Hills towers from just about anywhere. There's alot of DTV stations in Portland; the HDTV is wonderful and even the SD streams are far higher quality than satellite or cable.

An indoor antenna is worth a shot for your location. "rabbit ears" are a VHF antenna, and the PDX DTV stations are currently all UHF. People have had very good results with the Radio Shack double bow-tie, but it's now discontinued. 'might as well try the antenna from Freddie's that HB111 recommends.

Originally posted by TMBUTCH
OK...what did I miss here? I think - until tonight - I was getting the KOIN channels on 40-0 and 40-1. Now they are on 6-1 to 3. No problem...just wondering what accounts for the change.

The 6000 does this when it gets confused by the PSIP stream. It was happening alot when KOIN was having the dropouts.

Go back to the "ADD DTV" menu and but Ch. 40 back in. It'll pick it up as 6-1 to 6-3.

HB111:

Whay a coincidence. I actually have a TV 630 new in a box that I had bought for another purpose. How do you like your panasonic HDTV receiver? Do you use some kind of amplifier for the antenna in order to receive good signal from DTV stations?
Thanks

Originally posted by Doubichou
I live in Hillsboro (near Orenco) and I was wondering if I could get by without having to put an antenna in the attic but get "rabbit ears" antenna instead next to the TV.

Its certainly worth a shot. I'm a little closer, but not a whole heck of a lot. I'm a little closer, but not too much. I get great reception using a Zenith Silver Sensor from Circuit City. I was going to use an outdoor antenna in the attic, too - I set it up indoors temporarily just to see if indoor would work. The Silver Sensor actually gets better reception than the much bigger outdoor antenna did!

As someone mentioned, you need a good UHF antenna; rabbit ears won't work.

BB

Originally posted by BarryO
... People have had very good results with the Radio Shack double bow-tie, but it's now discontinued. 'might as well try the antenna from Freddie's that HB111 recommends.

Channel Master makes a double bow-tie indoor antenna as a Model 4149
'Allegro UHF Antenna'. You might check out CM dealers Chelsea Audio in Beaverton or Vern Wenger in SW Portland.

I was not aware that there was a 'Zenith' Silver Sensor. If this is a relabeled 'Antiference' unit from the UK that is great news for viewers who are close in, but are having problems with multipath. It is highly directional and a great solution for many indoor applications.

Yes, Zenith is OEM'ing the Silver Sensor from Antiference.

My thinking was that it's so directional one needs care in alignment, so if he is in a good area he may want to try a less-directional antenna first.

Hey you guys, I get good ATSC reception so have never paid much attention to it but now you've got me curious. How does multipath manifest itself on a digital transmission anyway?

ron

I saw the note from Lee that stated PAX would be on Ch 3-1 and that WB would be on 5-1, my question is whats the ETA to get these two stations up and running? Just Curious, the more HD the better!

I see other communities are starting to get hi-def on AT&T Broadband. Has anyone heard anything about this for the Portland area?

Thanks,

WOW! Anyone watching the OPB program on Matisse and Picasso? PQ is as good as anything I've seen yet. Not just the close-ups of the paintings, but the head shots during 'live' interviews. As Paulie Walnuts put it in last week's Sapranos, "Da picture's so clear, his nose hairs look like BX Cables!"

I've been having a problem with KOIN digital reception and would like to know if anyone else is seeing this problem.

When watching KOIN on channel 40.1 I will occasionally lose the signal and then if I tune to 6.1 it returns. Also the reverse happens, watching 6.1, lose the signal; tune to 40.1 and get the signal back.

I using a Sony SAT-200HD with a roof top antenna and have line of sight to the towers, a distance of less than 20 miles. The signal always looks good with no pixelization or dropouts. The Sony’s signal strength meter is in the 90% range on either 6.1 or 40.1. I do not have this problem on any other station.

This appears to be some type of PSIP issue. Any Ideas?

Thanks

Pat, I don't know (or care) about PAX, but WB just got there building permit about a month ago, I suppose another year or so?

Thanks for the tip!! I had been having alot of digital artifacts on all channels. It just happened to coincide with the dropout fix on 6-1. Well, the first time I unplugged my Samsung T150, nothing changed and I thought it was time to reposition my antenna. Well. a week later I tried it again and it did the trick - great picture now. I don't really understand why this type of "tweak" should work (or why the problem happens in the first place) but hey, who am I to argue? Thanks again Dean.

It appears from previous comments that FOX is broadcasting widescreen but I have never seen it when I tune in for the Sunday NFL games. Is it possible Ed doesn't know some of these are WS and is not "flipping the switch?"

Since the Thanksgiving day Washington @ Dallas NFL game will be 16x9, I am hoping it will be WS on KPDX.

Larry, tune in to 30-02, that's where the WS is. The Green Bay game was WS yesterday.

Anybody try watching FOX last night? I tuned in during Boston Public and could not hold a decent signal, it was breaking up big time. Ch 30-01 was fine but in 4:3.

Originally posted by Marissadad
Anybody try watching FOX last night? I tuned in during Boston Public and could not hold a decent signal, it was breaking up big time. Ch 30-01 was fine but in 4:3. I watched some of Boston Public on 30-2 (in between the awful-looking ESPN game on cable), and it never missed a beat. I'm on the westside, about 3 miles north of the FOX/UPN building (of course, they don't broadcast from there; it just means I don't have to travel as far to throw rocks at them:D).

BB

How about "noise" at the very top of the picture on 30-02? I get this on my 6000 if I watch it HD or on my NTSC TV. I can adjust the picture up slightly and minimize the noise on HD, but on NTSC it's still there.

Larry, tune in to 30-02, that's where the WS is. The Green Bay game was WS yesterday.

I could swear I tried that, but on T-day I'll try harder.

Is anyone else getting the noise on the top line of 30-02 or am I the only one? Dish 6000.

24 PQ last night was pretty good but I still have that dang noise line and it's driving me nuts.

Marissadad,

I haven't noticed it on my 6000 but I haven't really been watching much. I'll check it when I get home and let you know.

Thanks Dean. Could you check it NTSC as well? Sometimes I record to my VCR and the noise line is there.

What happened to FOX tonight? I tried watching Phantom Menace and had horrible breakups. I gave up and tried about 8:15 and the test pattern was back.

which online HD guide are you guys using? I've been looking at HiDefGuide.com but it only shows the evening listings. Thanks

Look through this thread, it was posted a couple of pages back.

Marissadad,

I don't seem to be experiencing any noise line on 30-2 or the NTSC channel, or 30-1 for that matter.

I watched Star Wars last night and it had no dropouts for me. I did however watch the earlier showing, started watching about half way through, so I can't say if the later showing was bad.

Would have been much better of course if it was in real HD, but it wasn't too bad, even though it was packed with commercials and didn't have Dolby Digital sound.

Thanks for checking Dean, maybe I have a funky 8vsb mod or something? It's weird about Star Wars though, didn't it start at 7? When I checked back at 8:15 the test pattern was on.

I didn't notice until last night but it looks like the way Ed has things set up for the time being that we're getting some east coast feeds on 30-2 as well. Flipped by a little after 6:00 and Malcolm in the Middle was already on and then back again at it's regular time of 9:00.

On Saturday I went to watch the Blazer game on 8-1 when it started at 7:00 and the demo loop was playing. I checked my D* guide and it showed 8-1 switching to the game at 8:00 (which is what they have been doing, going to the 14:9 upconverts during prime time) so I checked back after half time hoping to watch the second half without all the pixelation on 8-2 and then they were showing a 4:3 upconvert of Erin Brockovich.... I guess that must be what was scheduled on the national feed for the rest of the country. I really wish KGW would take a page out of KOIN's book and drop the multicasting/demo loop etc and just go with the single feed (of whatever the regular local programming is supposed to be) duplexed on both channels. And if they'd quit the 14:9 zoom/crop and just leave the upconverted stuff 4:3 it would be even better. Does anybody else care? should we start pestering them about it?

ron

I really wish KGW would take a page out of KOIN's book and drop the multicasting/demo loop etc and just go with the single feed (of whatever the regular local programming is supposed to be) duplexed on both channels.That demo loop is used by local resellers to display HDTV. If it increases interest in HD in Portland, that's a good thing. Hopefully it'll get people asking "what do I need to see programming like that?" (and hopefully those resellers will know the answer!)

Its also the only true HD programming on most days, so its the only chance I have to show people what HD can look like!

BB

I don't mind the demo loop during the day but I think when they are showing a regular show in HD, they should turn off the SD channel and devote the entire bandwidth to HD.

Its also the only true HD programming on most days, so its the only chance I have to show people what HD can look like! Not quite sure why you say this. There's tons of true HD programming on every day of the week. Maybe you mean video-based HD programming? In that case I suggest they put up HDNet instead. KGW isn't in business to help retailers sell HD equipment. They should be trying to provide the best quality product they can to their viewing audience. Of course that's just my HO. But I'm guessing that after all your friends, neighbors and relatives have seen the KGW demo loop on your HD setup you will start thinking more like me ;).

I agree with you Marissadad. I'm don't know the specifics of how they do it, (maybe Lee can explain it if he happens to see this) but I believe I've been told by other people at KOIN that even though they have the SD channel (6-2) along with the HD channel (6-1) that they are not splitting bandwidth to do it. Something about it just being a duplexed feed of the same programming? Didn't make sense to me because it would seem like there were still two feeds being sent out OTA. Unless the set top box somehow does the duplexing possibly? Now the traffic cam (6-3) , that's a different story....

ron

Originally posted by R11
I agree with you Marissadad. I'm don't know the specifics of how they do it, (maybe Lee can explain it if he happens to see this) but I believe I've been told by other people at KOIN that even though they have the SD channel (6-2) along with the HD channel (6-1) that they are not splitting bandwidth to do it. Something about it just being a duplexed feed of the same programming? Didn't make sense to me because it would seem like there were still two feeds being sent out OTA. Unless the set top box somehow does the duplexing possibly? Now the traffic cam (6-3) , that's a different story....

ron The biggest difference between what KOIN does and what KGW does is in the HDTV encoding equipment. We tested two models, theirs and ours, before start-up in December 1999 and the brand we use was able to compress in 11 MB the same level of picture quality that the other required 14 MB to do. The encoding efficency means we can do more requiring less of the bitstream. The normal CBS soap opera or sit-com is more than happy with 11 MB, in fact it rarely uses more than 9-10 MB. When football comes on it gets the entire stream (unless the encoder control computer screws up). The SD stream is using 3.75 MB, the weather cameras 1.75 MB on an as available basis. The multiple audio streams and PSIP program guide take up what is left with a 500k buffer to handle PSIP data over-runs (the thing that was causing the drop-outs a couple of months ago). So we are sharing the bandwidth between the various services, but the equipment makes it possible to do so unobtrusively.

KGW is running the HD stream at about 14 MB and the SD stream at about 3.5 MB with the remainder for overhead. However, their encoding efficency is not as good, as a result there is a quality difference. And they aren't even running multiple audio services (Descriptive Audio Service is an FCC requirement) or the PSIP program guide (though they have the equipment).

Thanks for the explanation Lee. Like I said, the prior info I got from one of the other engineers there (over a year ago now) didn't seem to make much sense to me at the time. I'm glad you guys did the testing before your equipment purchase then. The KGW SD feed with just slightly less allocated bw has considerably worse artifacting than your SD feed. So what's going to happen when the local cable company starts offering the area broadcasters' HD programming? Will that force everybody to upgrade equipment to provide a high quality end product? Or will everybody just reallocate more bw to the HD feed and further degrade the SD streams?

ron

Please Help!

I posted the problem described below back on 11/22 and didn’t get a response. I can’t believe I am the only one having this issue. Lee Wood do you have any ideas?

Original Post:

I've been having a problem with KOIN digital reception and would like to know if anyone else is seeing this problem.

When watching KOIN on channel 40.1 I will occasionally lose the signal and then if I tune to 6.1 it returns. Also the reverse happens, watching 6.1, lose the signal; tune to 40.1 and get the signal back.

I using a Sony SAT-200HD with a roof top antenna and have line of sight to the towers, a distance of less than 20 miles. The signal always looks good with no pixelization or dropouts. The Sony’s signal strength meter is in the 90% range on either 6.1 or 40.1. I do not have this problem on any other station.

This appears to be some type of PSIP issue. Any Ideas?

Thanks

6-1 is the same signal as 40-1. Any time you are watching 6-1 your receiver has to be picking up 40-1. KOIN sends out 40-1, your set top box duplicates it as 6-1 and displays both in the program quides. I've never had any problems with my hughes STB (I have the higher numbers blocked so they don't even show up in the guides). Sounds like you may have a STB problem?

ron

Does anyone know if HD signal is receivable in Longview, Washington ?

With a medium size radio shack vhf/uhf antenna mounted about 1ft above the roof I get VHF 2,6,8 with snow and some multipath. With my samsung sir-ts160 receiver I get no digital channels.

So is it worth it to get like a blake directional and mount 12' above roof and a preamp ? or am I just out of luck.

To Denali:

Interesting. My Dish6000 does the same thing from time to time. 6.1 will drop out, then suddenly I have to switch to 40.1. This is the only channel that this happens to. It usually happens when I channel surf. I click back to KOIN and it will seem to lock up, then go blank. I then have to go into the menu and rescan for digital channels and it wind up on the other one (6.1 to 40.1, or visa versa)

Originally posted by mosttoys
Does anyone know if HD signal is receivable in Longview, Washington ?

With a medium size radio shack vhf/uhf antenna mounted about 1ft above the roof I get VHF 2,6,8 with snow and some multipath. With my samsung sir-ts160 receiver I get no digital channels.

So is it worth it to get like a blake directional and mount 12' above roof and a preamp ? or am I just out of luck.

Yes, the signals can be received in portions of Longview. Try getting a good UHF preamplifier (Channel Master 7775 or 7777) and aim you antenna using analog channels 24 and 49. If you can get them with noise and a little ghosting you should be able to get the digital stations too.

Originally posted by Denali
Please Help!

I've been having a problem with KOIN digital reception and would like to know if anyone else is seeing this problem.

When watching KOIN on channel 40.1 I will occasionally lose the signal and then if I tune to 6.1 it returns. Also the reverse happens, watching 6.1, lose the signal; tune to 40.1 and get the signal back.

I using a Sony SAT-200HD with a roof top antenna and have line of sight to the towers, a distance of less than 20 miles. The signal always looks good with no pixelization or dropouts. The Sony’s signal strength meter is in the 90% range on either 6.1 or 40.1. I do not have this problem on any other station.

This appears to be some type of PSIP issue. Any Ideas?

Thanks

It does appear to be some type of PSIP issue with the Sony SAT-HD200. Since the tuner is relatively new the cause is still unknown, but you are not the only owner of this model with this problem.

Originally posted by R11
Thanks for the explanation Lee. Like I said, the prior info I got from one of the other engineers there (over a year ago now) didn't seem to make much sense to me at the time. I'm glad you guys did the testing before your equipment purchase then. The KGW SD feed with just slightly less allocated bw has considerably worse artifacting than your SD feed. So what's going to happen when the local cable company starts offering the area broadcasters' HD programming? Will that force everybody to upgrade equipment to provide a high quality end product? Or will everybody just reallocate more bw to the HD feed and further degrade the SD streams?

ron

Exactly what Comcast (aka ATT) Cable might do to get the digital signals is still unknown. They may take an off air feed and strip off the SD channels and PSIP program guide (neither are required by the FCC to be carried on cable), they may take a fiber feed from the studios and carry all of the stream or they may do something in between. We'll have to wait and see what develops and when.

I have the same problem that Denili and TMBUTCH are having. I too have a Dish 6000 like TMBUTCH and lose the 6-1,2 and 3 channel assingments all the time. Always while channel surfing and ONLY with channel 6. It is the one thing that really annoys me about KOIN everything else has been fantastic.

TMBUTCH,
An easier way than scanning for the DTV channels again, if that is what you are doing, is to choose to manually add a DTV station. Left arrow over to the channel number Field then enter 40. Then below you will see 6 appear in green. Click save and your done. Unless you want to add a name to the channel, which I do, I enter CBS for my girlfriend so she knows which network she is on, shes from Texas, when your done with that click on save.

Thanks to Lee Wood, TMBUTCH, and Dean Prestholt for replying to the disappearing signal problem on 6.1 or 40.1 described in previous posts. It's good to know I am not alone.

The only other piece of information I can add is that in my case the problem usually happens when the commercial breaks start, not when I'm channel surfing. I can be watching 6.1 and when the broadcast cuts to commercials I will often loose the signal. I’m just guessing but perhaps it has something to do with a minor change to the PSIP at that time.

I find it hard to believe it’s the receiver since it only happens on 6.1 and 40.1 and no other channels, with both DirecTV and Dish receivers. Any thoughts?

If it wasn't receiver related and solely a KOIN prob then everyone would be having the same issues. My experience has been that the present generation ATSC receivers are generally somewhat particular and anything but robust. There have been numerous problems where local channel numbers and guide data info are not retained and firmware updates have taken care of things. In this case because it is only happening for you with KOIN it would seem to indicate that they may be doing something slightly differently with their stream that is causing the less-stable boxes to hiccup on.

ron

The only things I know of KOIN is doing and the other stations are not are:

KOIN has a full PSIP program guide including program descriptions.
KOIN has closed captions.
KOIN includes mapping for the analog channel (6-0) in PSIP per ATSC Standard.
KOIN has multiple audio channels for Spanish and Descriptive Video.
KOIN provides V-Chip data.
KOIN multicasts three program streams.
KOIN operates at full power.

There might be other things as well. All this seems to work fine on RCA, Hughes, Mitsubishi, Toshiba and older Sony tuners. Anyone care to guess what is causing the problem with Dish 6000 and Sony SAT-HD200 tuners?

Ahh, the joys of working with new technology. The HDTV Hardware forum is jammed with monster threads regarding various problems and issues with DTV tuners. It's definitely keeping tech support lines and station engineers busy. That was a big part of the reason I picked the Mitsubishi/Hughes box as it had been around for some time when I started looking and seemed to have relatively few problems. I've been lucky so far (knocking on wood) with pretty much trouble free operation through three different firmware revisions for over a year now. It's a good thing you like a challenge and have a personal interest Lee.

ron

TO LEE:

I just bought a Sony HD200 receiver last week from CC and have had no problems with it or any station so far. It is much faster and locks in the signals better than the RCA DTC100 i have. I am using a 4bay antenna aimed at MT Scott and can receive all of the current digital stations unless its raining hard or the wind is blowing hard. I did notice this morning at 7:00am the KOIN signal was bouncing all over the place while all the other stations were rock steady so i assume it must be the encoder at KOIN acting up again.

Lee,

While watching CSI last night I had another complete dropout same pattern as the previous. Also, since we've been talking about PQ comparisons between the local stations lately I thought I'd mention this. Most of my KOIN watching is done in HD on 6-1 but I happened to flip by 6-2 and caught some clips of a Blazer game on the news and it really looked pretty much as bad as the SD on 8-1. Very bad motion pixelation. And it does seem to be worse on 6-1 than it used to be as well. I guess I'm taking back some of what I said recently. With your equipment it is better than what KGW puts out but I don't want to say it's far superior by any means. There's still plenty of room for improvement. Not really bitching, just don't want you guys to think we're happy and satisfied with the current set up. As always, do appreciate your hard work though.

ron

I invited several friends over to watch the Oregon vs. Kansas basketball game today because titan tv had it being in HD on their schedule. Obviously, it wasn't. I called KOIN and they said only the SEC football game was in HD today for sports. Does this happen often with titantv? I don't know because I just started viewing their listings the last week or so.

Last night, it's Friday, the kids are finally in bed, and I'm all set to turn on the TV at 10 and watch The Agency in glorious HD. Of course, 6-1 goes dead a few seconds after the show started, and stayed that way for the remainder. 6-2 was showing the SD version, but I was still bummed.

Ron, http://www.koin.com/koin/hdtvprograms.shtml is the best source of HD listings for KOIN.

Anyone else been having trouble with Fox's Widescreen broadcast of football games? I only notice the problem with football games...not movies. Its almost as if my red gun is too slow to keep up. Everytime there is alot of movement or alot of the color red on the screen, there are red 'ghosts' all over the place. Wondering if it is a problem with the local broadcast here, or with my E*6000.

I have installed my blake antenna and channel master preamp and am able to receive all stations from Portland in Longview, WA. The weird thing is, with the antenna mounted right at the roof line I get all stations, the farther I go up from the roof, KGW goes completely away (normally about 54%). KOIN goes from 93% to 100% at the higher position. I have tried different vertical and horizontal angles and it doesn't seem to make a difference (still can't get KGW up high). Can anyone explain why higher isn't better ?

-John

why did Titan TV say that the Duck basketball game on saturday was in HD? was it supposed to be? I got my hopes up for nothing :(

Originally posted by steinfoot
[B]why did Titan TV say that the Duck basketball game on saturday was in HD?TitanTV has had a number of errors. Its a frequent topic in the HDTV Programming forum.

BB

Dave and Steinfoot,

Titan is notorious for false HD listings. If you look in the HDTV Programming forum its becoming a running joke. The other thing is, any time you see something listed as coming up in HD that's out of the ordinary you might want to question it. Something like Oregon/Kansas in HD would have been big news. There hasn't really been any college hoops in HD until March Madness begins (at least on broadcast TV anyway). One of these days.....


TM,

It's just a byproduct of Fox turning a SD video feed into Faux Widescreen. Pretty nice huh? :rolleyes: That bright color strobing effect totally ruins it for me. For video based sources their Widescreen has serious problems.

ron