What's weird is that RetroTv lists them as an Affiliate.

http://www.myretrotv.com/affiliates.html#

As I recall, there had been an agreement at one time that never happened. I remember seeing a few affiliate announcements that later fell apart, but they remained listed on then-RTN's website for a while after.

- Trip

I have a DISH DVR pal and I have not received PSIP program info from WBUI for a long time. I do get PSIP from WBUI from other TV's I have tried at work but the PSIP for the DVR is what I want.

Have you tried rescanning it now that THIS is on - you need to do that first.
You might even need to rescan WITHOUT the antenna connected, THEN reconnect & rescan - some converters seem to need this to totally flush out old info.

I am also dissapointed WBUI added a movie network as I second channel. I do not like it. I was hoping for Retro TV. I thought that is that they were going to carry.

I 2nd that, too - but I guess it's better than ANOTHER weather sub... :rolleyes:

RTV's New York City affiliate, WSAH, is dropping them at the end of the month due to poor technical quality (lip sync problems, continuous reruns of the same episodes over and over, etc) and upset advertisers. I can't say I'd blame a local station for skipping out on affiliating with RTV given their current reputation.

While I'm posting, let me ask this. Is there anyone in the area who uses a 32-bit Windows computer with tuner to watch OTA digital TV? If not, is there someone who would be willing to try it with an existing antenna setup if I was to provide a loaner tuner via postal mail?

I'm looking for someone to collect TSReader captures on as many of the local stations as can be received. I know it's a large market and so I'm not expecting any one person to be able to receive everything.

Thanks.

- Trip

Any talks to get HD on Dish Network?


Also, one last thing, others have confirmed this but the higher ups did indeed finally make a deal with Direct TV to put WBUI on in HD.

Just got my UVerse service yesterday, and tonight the FoxHD feed is showing the pillar box. Not sure if it's UVerse related, or a FOX 55 issue. Anyone else noticing this on other services?

Just got my UVerse service yesterday, and tonight the FoxHD feed is showing the pillar box. Not sure if it's UVerse related, or a FOX 55 issue. Anyone else noticing this on other services?

Yes. This is an issue with U-verse receiving both WRSP and WCCU's Fox feeds. Anything broadcast and viewed on the WRSP HD feed appears to be pillar boxed.

If you move to WCCU - it should clear up the issue. It works 100% for me. Be wary if scheduling any DVR recordings that they use WCCU as well, had a few screwed up because of this.

the pic quality on WBUI HD is not bad, but it is not good. it is now passable for those with average TVs or expectations, but it doesn't live up to the HD standard.

i did verify it is stat mux'd. sometimes the video bit rate will drop as low as 2Mbps. the hardware does a good job minimizing visible macroblocking but it strips the HD detail out in the process. the quant levels jump off the charts at times showing the encoder is indicating it doesn't have enough bits to accurately deliver the picture

i don't know about the movie sub channel; it will be gone in a year or so like all the other sub channels have gone. there is no market for them and no ad revenue for them either. stations have the equipment and plenty of monkeys with 'value addded' bright ideas so more to come.

Josh> the audio on WBUI wednesday night was off

i looked at the stats and see the audio is off norm
AC3 Audio: 3/2 Channels (L, C, R, SL, SR) + LFE, 48.0 kHz, 224 kbps.

that is mp3 like rates, especially for 5.1

Have you tried rescanning it now that THIS is on - you need to do that first.
You might even need to rescan WITHOUT the antenna connected, THEN reconnect & rescan - some converters seem to need this to totally flush out old info.

I 2nd that, too - but I guess it's better than ANOTHER weather sub... :rolleyes:

I tried deleting WBUI then scanning with no antenna and then scanning again but still no PSIP program info for WBUI. The DVR PAL does not delete stations when you scan it only finds new ones. You have to delete them manually first so I did that. It found 23.2 without me having to rescan as it finds new stations automatically.

I like weather subs but have no use for an old movie channel.

Josh> the audio on WBUI wednesday night was off

i looked at the stats and see the audio is off norm
AC3 Audio: 3/2 Channels (L, C, R, SL, SR) + LFE, 48.0 kHz, 224 kbps.

that is mp3 like rates, especially for 5.1

I'm not sure on the details but I know that last night (Wed) the other station engineer was here working on the audio sync issue. He said he made some major adjustments to settings on the Dolby E equipment and it seems to be better during the daytime shows. We won't know until tonight for Prime..

Other issues.

I'm not sure why WRSP would be pillar boxed on Uverse. They get their signal in our building via Fiber and we don't have any sort of SD sub channel on WRSP for them to be taking by mistake.

As for RetroTV, they were a consideration for a while but they have a poor reputation in general so we decided not to go with them. I actually thought the company had already gone out of business. Also possibly a factor, the Chief Engineer at the originating television group behind THIS used to be Chief engineer at WBUI, though that was not while WBUI was owned by GOCOM so at this point it's really just incidental.

As for the success of THIS, I guess time will tell on that though we've gotten a lot of positive feedback already. Part of the problem of the issues we've had with it so far being so noticeable was that we (engineering) were supposed to have until the 1st to work out the bugs before all of the cable companies started picking it up and they started running real spots on it.

The company that originally started RTN (Equity Broadcasting) went out of business, but sold it several months before bankruptcy to Luken Communications.

- Trip

I'm not sure why WRSP would be pillar boxed on Uverse. They get their signal in our building via Fiber and we don't have any sort of SD sub channel on WRSP for them to be taking by mistake.

Well even though both WBUI & WRSP do NOT broadcast an SD signal, DirecTV was having the very SAME problem w/WRSP when they first started carrying them in HD. I know this because one of my clients was bitching about it BIG time, as he had just upgraded to HD. I told him to stop calling DirecTV & call WRSP, as I suspect there was a problem in the feed that specifically went out to DirecTV, as the OTA & cable HD feeds were fine. Finally about 3-4 days later, it got fixed.

AndyM77 - I would call WRSP directly, as it may be a specific problem on what they send out to AT&T.

ehjay - where ARE you at? Are you saying that U-verse carries BOTH WRSP & WCCU? That doesn't make sense - aren't they the same exact feed anyway? Why would they be carrying BOTH in the same area - if anything, it's going to be one or the other, but it's my understanding that U-verse carries ONLY WRSP, in ALL areas including the Champaign area - just like both DBS companies do.

Well even though both WBUI & WRSP do NOT broadcast an SD signal, DirecTV was having the very SAME problem w/WRSP when they first started carrying them in HD. I know this because one of my clients was bitching about it BIG time, as he had just upgraded to HD. I told him to stop calling DirecTV & call WRSP, as I suspect there was a problem in the feed that specifically went out to DirecTV, as the OTA & cable HD feeds were fine. Finally about 3-4 days later, it got fixed.

AndyM77 - I would call WRSP directly, as it may be a specific problem on what they send out to AT&T.

ehjay - where ARE you at? Are you saying that U-verse carries BOTH WRSP & WCCU? That doesn't make sense - aren't they the same exact feed anyway? Why would they be carrying BOTH in the same area - if anything, it's going to be one or the other, but it's my understanding that U-verse carries ONLY WRSP, in ALL areas including the Champaign area - just like both DBS companies do.

Thanks dishrich, I was a D* sub before moving to UVerse, and remember Fox HD issues with them when they first went local HD. BTW - I have both WRSP and WCCU on my U-Verse. I'm in Northwest Champaign...

The previous problem with WRSP on Direct TV was a Direct TV issue. Someone called us about it but it was fixed because we called them.

The Uverse problem has been corrected and was due to the signal we were feeding them.

Also, Uverse does carry both WRSP and WCCU. They were originaqlly not sure which to carry but decided to carry both since WCCU has some localized news content and localized advertising for that area of the market. Also, they pick up WCCU and WRSP in our building via Fiber, they take WBUI OTA even though it comes out of the same control room.

My main speculation on the reasoning behind this is that they still think our studio is in Decatur even though we told them several times it's not. This is supported by the fact that they called to verify the address as the old one in Decatur. The only real benefit is that if the transmitter goes off, Uverse won't lose it's picture.

Also, Uverse does carry both WRSP and WCCU. They were originaqlly not sure which to carry but decided to carry both since WCCU has some localized news content and localized advertising for that area of the market. Also, they pick up WCCU and WRSP in our building via Fiber, they take WBUI OTA even though it comes out of the same control room.

That's interesting - OK, does U-verse carry BOTH WICS & WICD in Champaign as well? Considering they are 2 completely different stations, I would think so.

Hey Josh, one last question - how do you guys get WCCU to the Champaign tower, a direct (fiber) feed? At one time, didn't WCCU just take a direct OTA pickup over around the Decatur or Champaign area?

That's interesting - OK, does U-verse carry BOTH WICS & WICD in Champaign as well? Considering they are 2 completely different stations, I would think so.

No, U-Verse only carries WICS.

No, U-Verse only carries WICS.

WICD will be added soon,probably in the next 30 days

Jim

Well they still have NOT added WSEC-14 PBS, which serves our side here. :(

I wrote to WSEC last month & they said that AT&T could NOT pick up WSEC all the way over in Decatur (which I find very hard to believe), so they were working to get a fiber link between their site in Decatur & WSEC.

Well they still have NOT added WSEC-14 PBS, which serves our side here. :(

I wrote to WSEC last month & they said that AT&T could NOT pick up WSEC all the way over in Decatur (which I find very hard to believe), so they were working to get a fiber link between their site in Decatur & WSEC.


Same reason for the delay in adding WICD. The fiber link is supposed to be completed by the end of October.

Jim

WICD will be added soon,probably in the next 30 days

Jim

Speaking of WICD, is anyone else experiencing audio dropouts on this station? I have noticed it for the past week or so on HD shows like college football, Dancing with the Stars and Desperate Housewives. Am watching via Mediacom, but have yet to check if it is doing it OTA.

Mel

No WBUI OTA for the first 10 minutes of One Tree Hill last night. Come to think about it, there's been quite a few problems with WBUI the past couple weeks with both audio sync and video. I deleted Vampire Diaries a couple weeks ago because the first part of it was without sound and downloaded a torrent to view instead. There's been other times when 16:9 was dropped and 4:3 picked up instead. This used to be one of the most consistent stations when HD started being broadacst a few years ago. Ever since the move to Springfield, it seems there's been problems.

yes they've been having problems, but working on them, although work has been sidelined by frivolous stuff

Josh> this week's audio is now 2.0 stereo @ 448:
AC3 Audio: 2/0 Channels (L, R), 48.0 kHz, 448 kbps. Dialog Normalization: -27.0 dB

bit rates continue around 12mbps average, sometimes plummeting to as low as 2mbps on the HD feed. you should probably put a floor in on the HD side to not dip below 7mbps as the SD channel shouldn't need almost 10 itself


i was thinking i'll have to ask my friend for the nielsen locals come nov to see just what the viewer numbers are for this area.

No WBUI OTA for the first 10 minutes of One Tree Hill last night. Come to think about it, there's been quite a few problems with WBUI the past couple weeks with both audio sync and video. I deleted Vampire Diaries a couple weeks ago because the first part of it was without sound and downloaded a torrent to view instead. There's been other times when 16:9 was dropped and 4:3 picked up instead. This used to be one of the most consistent stations when HD started being broadacst a few years ago. Ever since the move to Springfield, it seems there's been problems.

That's interesting - OK, does U-verse carry BOTH WICS & WICD in Champaign as well? Considering they are 2 completely different stations, I would think so.

Hey Josh, one last question - how do you guys get WCCU to the Champaign tower, a direct (fiber) feed? At one time, didn't WCCU just take a direct OTA pickup over around the Decatur or Champaign area?

We use a microwave link. Originating at our Springfield studio. There are three relay towers to the actual tower near Penfield. The first leg of the hop also carries WBUI to the Oreana tower.

Our tower engineer, who's been working at the station for longer than I have been, said that at one point they were considering doing just one long hop from way up on WRSP's tower to the Penfield tower but it didn't work out.

No WBUI OTA for the first 10 minutes of One Tree Hill last night. Come to think about it, there's been quite a few problems with WBUI the past couple weeks with both audio sync and video. I deleted Vampire Diaries a couple weeks ago because the first part of it was without sound and downloaded a torrent to view instead. There's been other times when 16:9 was dropped and 4:3 picked up instead. This used to be one of the most consistent stations when HD started being broadacst a few years ago. Ever since the move to Springfield, it seems there's been problems.

The problems that night were an unexpected coincidental problem on top of a problem that should have been a non issue.

For some reason the HD feed receiver wasn't locked in at 7. Normally we'd fall back on the SD receiver but we've been using it to record some syndicated shows on another frequency so it was not tuned to the CW feed. The SD not being tuned wouldn't have been an issue if the HD reciever had been working since the HD "covers" the SD.

As for all of the smaller issues. At the time of the move we (Engineering) were under a lot fo pressure to keep WBUI on the air without downtime since it was the middle of November sweeps. We were setting up a new automation system and new video servers in Springfield with the Decatur operators still working in in the old control room. We were not getting replacement equipment for anything else other than the automation system and servers however. This mean that we were slowly taking away things like DVC decks from the Decatur studio to supplement what WRSP already had. At one point we were taking the entire day's worth of tapes back and forth since Decatur didn't have the equipment to record the syndicated shows anymore.

The other key was the rack of HD equipment. There's 20-30 devices all in one rack. in Decatur the HD rack was sort of a "ok it's there" set up since analog was still the meat of the station at the time. In order to make the move in Springfield easier we would make this equipment the heart of WBUI's feed and basically go all digital with with the signal. In order to make the move more quickly we removed all of the equipment, or at least most of it, from the HD rack and reused all of the cables when possible since terminating hundreds of cables takes days. The point was to minimize the downtime of the HD before we cut over to the new equipment in Springfield.

The whole thing was rewired in a day with mostly old cables. I remember when I first came on at WBUI my first assignment was to cable up that rack in Decatur, it took me like a month.

I guess the point of this story is mostly that the many of the cables in the rack were damaged during the move which has caused a few of our minor on air issues and signal drop outs. Many of them have since been replaced. Also we started feeding Dolby E from the network receiver which ended up being part of the problem with the audio drift as the later equipment wasn't set up for Dolby E. There's also issues occasionally with the automation system. It's the same brand and program as Decatur but it's a newer version and it runs three playlists and 4 times as much equipment now.

The video servers also haven't been quite what they were cracked up to be now that we're running all of our programming off of them instead of off tapes. during extremely busy times of the day such as early mornings, we have been dealing with replication issues (which would be why occasionally you may see a show start one episode only to change to a different one partway).

All of this of course isn't helped by a generally tough economy as there isn't as much budget to get things that would help alleviate some of these problems until it becomes a crisis. As far as I know, we're actually doing pretty well, but ACME, who owned us when we were in Decatur would pretty much give you anything if you asked for it. On the other hand, they (ACME) don't seem to be doing so hot these days.

Has any Comcast customers contacted a CS rep to find out why NBA HD channel is showing up in the cable guide on channel 960 but none of the programming is available? This is very frustrating.

Not to beat a dead horse but there were problems once again at the beginning of One Tree Hill for a couple minutes or so of no AV. BTW thanks for the previous response, Josh.

Can someone please tell me why FOX here in Champaign is so messed up? First off they don't air the HD broadcast of Bears preseason games...which is available to them. And then now they are only broadcasting NFL games in DD 2.0 via Comcast QAM. I highly doubt it's a Comcast issue since CBS and NBC come through at 5.1.

Someone told me on the Davenport post during the Bears preseason that our Fox station didn't have the equipment to handle an HD feed from any other stations other than the national feeds .WBBM feeds Bears preseason games,regular season games from the national feeds .The funny thing was during preseason NFL Network had Bears game in High Definition ,explain that one !!! :eek: :confused:

Can someone please tell me why FOX here in Champaign is so messed up? First off they don't air the HD broadcast of Bears preseason games...which is available to them. And then now they are only broadcasting NFL games in DD 2.0 via Comcast QAM. I highly doubt it's a Comcast issue since CBS and NBC come through at 5.1.
The local Fox channel has been broadcasting all the Fox network programs in DD 2.0 for quite a while now.

Why though? 5.1 doesn't not take up that much room. If the others (including CW) can broadcast in 5.1, why can't they?

As I said in my post before I edited it out, if the station is that lazy/cheap/stupid, just stop broadcasting all together and let Comcast pickup WFLD out of Chicago. It's not like we'd miss anything if any of our local newscasts and their 1970s SD presentations went the way of the dinosaurs. (Heck, when your best newsman in the territory is a guy out of Wausau, WI..Benton and one of the newscasts looks worse than those in Northern WI...WAND, you should be ashamed of yourselves.) If you're not financially capable or willing to join the 21st century, just go out of business instead of halfassing it.

Any Comcast customers have the Entertainment Sports Package that includes NFL-HD at channel 920, MLB-HD at channel 949. Are you receiving the NBA HD Channel 960? The channel is listed in the cable listings for C-U at comcast website and is on my cable guide, but I do not get any reception for this channel. Is this channel unavailable (NBA-HD) for anyone else who has the package with MLB-HD channel?

Someone told me on the Davenport post during the Bears preseason that our Fox station didn't have the equipment to handle an HD feed from any other stations other than the national feeds .WBBM feeds Bears preseason games,regular season games from the national feeds .The funny thing was during preseason NFL Network had Bears game in High Definition ,explain that one !!! :eek: :confused:

NFL Network is national and has the equipment on-site to receive it and transmit it in HD. I said on there that the Rockford station was widescreen HD...turns out, they could receive it in widescreen HD, but could only send it out widescreen SD. So if you are receiving something from a network, you have a much better chance of it being in HD, and if not, a much smaller chance (for now), particularly in medium and smaller sized markets.

Any Comcast customers have the Entertainment Sports Package that includes NFL-HD at channel 920, MLB-HD at channel 949. Are you receiving the NBA HD Channel 960? The channel is listed in the cable listings for C-U at comcast website and is on my cable guide, but I do not get any reception for this channel. Is this channel unavailable (NBA-HD) for anyone else who has the package with MLB-HD channel?

I'm getting the NBA-HD on channel 960 with no problem here in Champaign.

Just a note for those who might be wondering.

Yesterday we began experiencing short duration audio dropouts in our WCIA-DT signal. Our Tandberg 5780 encoder showed occasional faults, complaining it had no AC-3 input, so we first suspected the Dolby 569 Encoder. Its output was checked and found to be fine.

The encoder seemed to settle down in the afternoon, so I hoped it was a glitch and wouldn't happen again. Once I arrived home I got the dreaded call from Master Control that it was happening again, so I remoted in to the encoder and found the same faults occurring. The dropouts were only lasting a few seconds, so we decided to stick it out until after Letterman and reboot the encoder at that time.

At about 8:30 yesterday evening it failed again, and this time it didn't come back. I instructed the TD to reboot the encoder, resulting in about 2 minutes of dead air (an eternity in TV). It came back up and seemed to be OK.

Got another call this morning at 4:30AM. It had been solid for several hours, but the TD had to reboot it again around 3AM. It was again solid for several hours, and once I got to work started troubleshooting.

Eventually we suspected the encoder had a bad audio card, so I got tech support on the phone to help me reconfigure the B card. As I was talking to them the encoder failed again, so we hurriedly changed around the B card settings and once I moved the AC-3 audio cable to the other input audio came back and it has been solid all day.

Very frustrating, and demonstrates the digital cliff effect... it's either perfect or not there at all. Sometimes I miss analog's tendency to get a little fuzzy but still sort of working.

WCCU-DT / WRSP-DT both continue to do popup snipes with ads for their 1/2 priced deals - http://wrsp.gocommediadeals.com - during primetime programming, no less. As though it wasn't nice to finally have a network that generally didn't do snipes, and then the local affiliate decides to go and do it on their own.

Worse still, they're in SD, and knock the signal down to a letterboxed & pillared SD feed while on screen. I have a full 5-6 minutes of air that entirely ruins the HD picture whenever they feel the need to push these snipes up.

Could we stop these? Or at least insert them into the HD feed and not ruin our viewing experience?

Yeah don't see that happening. Unlike WCIA who has shown time and time again that they actually care about their tech savvy/demanding viewers, WCCU has made it fairly clear that they don't give a crap about us. Have they ever had someone around here or responded to viewer's complaints? I mean seriously...if their programming exec is lurking around here, do us all a favor and take a long leap off a short pier.

Yes, I am still a very very bitter and angry man that they are screwing with FOX Sport's 5.1 audio during NFL broadcasts. I wonder if a well placed call to FOX Corp. might lead to at least a network inquiry into WCCU's practices. Anyone have a suggestion?

Just a note for those who might be wondering.

Yesterday we began experiencing short duration audio dropouts in our WCIA-DT signal.
...
Very frustrating, and demonstrates the digital cliff effect... it's either perfect or not there at all. Sometimes I miss analog's tendency to get a little fuzzy but still sort of working.

I just saw my recording of Criminal Minds from Wednesday night and saw the audio drop outs you mentioned. The drop outs were frustrating, but having read your post, at least I knew you guys were aware of it and actively working to resolve it. (And turning on CC helped.)

Thanks for the technical updates. Everyone reading appreciates the work you're doing keeping things running, and your taking the time to keep us informed. Hearing that information makes our AVS Forum community feel like these technical problems are happening with us, instead of to us. That's a very empowering difference, and I appreciate that.

TBK

In also want to say how grateful I am for the station engineers that care enough to post their thoughts here as well as technical information. It is very much appreciated by all of us I think.

Can someone please tell me why FOX here in Champaign is so messed up? First off they don't air the HD broadcast of Bears preseason games...which is available to them. And then now they are only broadcasting NFL games in DD 2.0 via Comcast QAM. I highly doubt it's a Comcast issue since CBS and NBC come through at 5.1.

It's a bit of a late point but the way the FOX Splicer works with the HD prevents us from inserting local HD (Beyond our main upconverted stream) with our current equipment set up. This is why the Bears Preseason games were not in HD even though it was available on WRSP and WCCU.

Unlike the rest of the regular season, these games are not provided to us by the FOX network. We get them from another company off of different equipment.

Thank you Josh...that makes complete sense. Out of curiousity, does WFLD make the HD feed available at all or is it just a local equipment issue?

Any insight on the DD 2.0 vs 5.1 issue with REGULAR season games? Is that a affiliate issue or a Crapcast issue? I know from seeing the stats off of WFLD that FOX does provide 5.1 and have for quite a few years.

I'm getting the NBA-HD on channel 960 with no problem here in Champaign.
I finally am starting to get the NBA-HD channel on 960. I have been checking daily and the channel finally started showing up this past Wednesday, October 21.

Thank you Josh...that makes complete sense. Out of curiousity, does WFLD make the HD feed available at all or is it just a local equipment issue?

Any insight on the DD 2.0 vs 5.1 issue with REGULAR season games? Is that a affiliate issue or a Crapcast issue? I know from seeing the stats off of WFLD that FOX does provide 5.1 and have for quite a few years.

I'm pretty sure the HD feed was available for the bear's preseason games, the Splicer only takes two inputs to switch between them, one from the network receivers and one from our house upconverted stream. Fox is currently upgrading the splicing system for it's stations but I'm not sure if it's capable of taking multiple local streams or not.

As for the regular season games. Anything on WRSP comes straight off of the network receivers and out the door so if it's not 5.1 it's coming to us from the network that way. The way it's handled we can't even control the volume on the network feeds.

On WCCU we have a secondary output which is not 5.1 sound. This is due to a local need for equipment that would process the 5.1 sound. It's possible that the previously mentioned Splicer upgrade may resolve this, at this point we're kind of in a "wait and see" mode since the upgrade for us is probably going to happen within the next month or two. Fox has been somewhat unclear if they are going to give us new equipment for WCCU and WRSP or just for WRSP.

Any chance the dropouts on CW (via DirecTV) will be fixed soon? Watching Smallville over DirecTV is annoying because of the frequent breakups. I know my set up is not an issue -- strong signal strength, no other issues on other channels, etc. Is this a local issue or a DirecTV issue?

I rescanned a CECB tonight, & much to my surprise, WRSP did NOT map to 55.1, but instead to 44.3! So, I came home & scanned 4 others (all different brands) as well as one of my Sony HD's - all scanned at either 44.1 or 44.3. I tried selecting 55.1 on my Sony BEFORE rescan & it was dead.
Also, there is NO prog info data on any of the converters, either.
Any word when this will be fixed???

In the last three weeks I have had WGN 85-1 HD go out for about a week. Then Fox 55-1 HD go out for about three days during Game 5 of the World Series and now WAND 17-1 HD has been out for over a week and not come back. With Fox and WAND I connected my 30 year old wire screen antenna to my HD TV and was able to get Fox in HD and a weak signal for WAND. I would have to put the anntena on the roof to get a good signal. So I know it is not the stations' or my TV's fault. I called Comcast and they are giving the company line that they are not responsible for local broadcast signals and that Comcast does not provide these channels. I tried to explain that it is not the station or my TV that is the problem but of course they said it is not their problem.

I have a Panasonic HD TV with the QAM tuner and the only problem I ever had getting the major networks in HD was when Comcast was jerking around in early 2008 with WCIA/CBS from Champaign. My service with Comcast is expanded Basic with no boxes or receivers, which is what Comcast used to called the standard cable package. I am assuming that Comcast is done moving around the channel numbers for these local HD channels. I did reprogram my channels and that did not make any difference.

Is anybody with a HD televison and standard Comcast package having the same problem?

Thanks

In the last three weeks I have had WGN 85-1 HD go out for about a week. Then Fox 55-1 HD go out for about three days during Game 5 of the World Series and now WAND 17-1 HD has been out for over a week and not come back. With Fox and WAND I connected my 30 year old wire screen antenna to my HD TV and was able to get Fox in HD and a weak signal for WAND. I would have to put the anntena on the roof to get a good signal. So I know it is not the stations' or my TV's fault. I called Comcast and they are giving the company line that they are not responsible for local broadcast signals and that Comcast does not provide these channels. I tried to explain that it is not the station or my TV that is the problem but of course they said it is not their problem.

I have a Panasonic HD TV with the QAM tuner and the only problem I ever had getting the major networks in HD was when Comcast was jerking around in early 2008 with WCIA/CBS from Champaign. My service with Comcast is expanded Basic with no boxes or receivers, which is what Comcast used to called the standard cable package. I am assuming that Comcast is done moving around the channel numbers for these local HD channels. I did reprogram my channels and that did not make any difference.

Is anybody with a HD televison and standard Comcast package having the same problem?

Thanks

I figured it out. I reprogrammed the TV this time and found WAND Decatur NBC HD at channel 126-3. I swear I reprogramed the TV before and had no luck finding the WAND NBC HD channel. Apparently Comcast is back to jerking around with the local HD channels just to piss off people like me in order to get me to rent their box.

Jimhighdef

I figured it out. I reprogrammed the TV this time and found WAND Decatur NBC HD at channel 126-3. I swear I reprogramed the TV before and had no luck finding the WAND NBC HD channel. Apparently Comcast is back to jerking around with the local HD channels just to piss off people like me in order to get me to rent their box.

Yup, same prob here - WAND weather is also NOT mapped correctly anymore & is now at 126.4. :rolleyes:
CC DID also move the other local HD/subs around to different QAM's, but the PSIP mapping remained correct. They're probably moving things around (again) to make way for "Project Calvery" that's supposed to come here around 1st QTR 2010.

I rescanned a CECB tonight, & much to my surprise, WRSP did NOT map to 55.1, but instead to 44.3! So, I came home & scanned 4 others (all different brands) as well as one of my Sony HD's - all scanned at either 44.1 or 44.3. I tried selecting 55.1 on my Sony BEFORE rescan & it was dead.
Also, there is NO prog info data on any of the converters, either.
Any word when this will be fixed???

We had some issues with out Network (Internet not FOX) which prevented the computer that downloads the guide and programs the PSIP from connecting to the encoder. This problem was fixed though last night we had a similar issue for a short period of time. These two pieces of equipment do not like losing connectivity to each other and seem to have issues with reconnecting.

Any chance the dropouts on CW (via DirecTV) will be fixed soon? Watching Smallville over DirecTV is annoying because of the frequent breakups. I know my set up is not an issue -- strong signal strength, no other issues on other channels, etc. Is this a local issue or a DirecTV issue?

Is this video and audio ro just one or the other? Direct TV is fed directly off of our equipment for 23 and 55 since their equipment is in our building. That is, they don't take the Over the air signal for their feed.

Is this video and audio ro just one or the other? Direct TV is fed directly off of our equipment for 23 and 55 since their equipment is in our building. That is, they don't take the Over the air signal for their feed.In the past, I've noticed both audio and video breakups. Last Friday, I remember hearing audio breakups. I'm not sure about the video.

By the way, since you mentioned 55, I often notice issues with this channel as well. Usually it's the audio -- I hear a little Brrrp, and then the audio returns a second or two later. This happens quite often in House, and also during football on Sunday. I can't say I've noticed issues on any other channels -- at least not that I remember.

I'm following up on the last post, because I'm watching a recording of House right now, and I'm noticing both audio and video breakups. The audio cuts out, then the video breaks up for a split second. Then everything is fine for a while.

I've checked signal strength, set up, etc. Everything appears to be fine on my end. All DVRS in my house are exhibiting the same symptoms for 23 and 55. Again, I don't recall seeing this issue on other channels. I'll keep an eye out, though, and provide more information if I notice anything else.

Thanks for responding to my original post.

if you mean WBUI CW, then it is your issue. i have captured the OTA stream and scanned it with a transport and mpeg error detector and it is perfect; also via eyeball.

here is this past thursdays vampire diaries, all weeks before are ok too:

Sequence Summary:
File Size Processed: 5.60 GB, Play Time: 01h:01m:58s
1920 x 1080, 29.97 fps, 45.00 Mbps (12.07 Mbps Average).
Average Video Quality: 52.38 KB/Frame, 0.21 Bits/Pixel.
AC3 Audio: 3/2 Channels (L, C, R, SL, SR) + LFE, 48.0 kHz, 448 kbps.
Dialog Normalization: -27.0 dB, Center Mix Level: -3.0 dB, Surround Mix Level: -3.0 dB
0 of 104582 video frames found with errors.
0 of 116215 audio frames found with errors.
0 corrupted video bytes in file.
0.000000 seconds of video timestamp gaps.
0.000000 seconds of audio timestamp gaps.


Any chance the dropouts on CW (via DirecTV) will be fixed soon? Watching Smallville over DirecTV is annoying because of the frequent breakups. I know my set up is not an issue -- strong signal strength, no other issues on other channels, etc. Is this a local issue or a DirecTV issue?

also, thx Josh and crew for finally get the 5.1 back up and running.
is it real 5.1 from the network, or 5.1 generated locally from the network 2.0 mix?

it has been in synch and the stream shows no spec errors.

curious... if you don't touch the network audio, how do you insert your nielsen tag for their ratings boxes? i guess this market may not have them, but fox in other markets must be able to do it.

I'm pretty sure the HD feed was available for the bear's preseason games, the Splicer only takes two inputs to switch between them, one from the network receivers and one from our house upconverted stream. Fox is currently upgrading the splicing system for it's stations but I'm not sure if it's capable of taking multiple local streams or not.

As for the regular season games. Anything on WRSP comes straight off of the network receivers and out the door so if it's not 5.1 it's coming to us from the network that way. The way it's handled we can't even control the volume on the network feeds.

On WCCU we have a secondary output which is not 5.1 sound. This is due to a local need for equipment that would process the 5.1 sound. It's possible that the previously mentioned Splicer upgrade may resolve this, at this point we're kind of in a "wait and see" mode since the upgrade for us is probably going to happen within the next month or two. Fox has been somewhat unclear if they are going to give us new equipment for WCCU and WRSP or just for WRSP.

if you mean WBUI CW, then it is your issue. i have captured the OTA stream and scanned it with a transport and mpeg error detector and it is perfect; also via eyeball.I'm not questioning any issues with the OTA stream. I suspect it's an issue that's introduced when DirecTV re-encodes the audio / video to Mpeg-4.

Not sure if this is happening OTA, but 55 on DirecTV is pretty much unwatchable right now (during Rams / Cardinals game). Video is stuttering badly -- looks like stop motion animation. Ugh...

Appears to be just an issue with DirecTV local. OTA seems fine.

Update: Seems to be fixed now. Thanks to whomever fixed this!