Well, the WHAS-DT thread has lived its life, I think, and it's time for a general thread given the news now that Insight might be offering HD over cable by EOY.

I'll start off by saying I think my phone call to WHAS worked! Watching their 6pm newscast on the digital channel in 4:3! No more stretched image! This is a good step forward. Now we'll see how they handle Stuart Little tonight as I see TitanTV showing WCPO-DT (Cincinnati) with Stuart Little in HD. Oh, the audio seems improved, too. Not quite equal to the analog yet but better. Now if we can just get them to lose that huge-a$$ logo bug in the lower-right corner!

And, I'll end with a general query to Woowoo and Willam Smith. Is WKPC-DT going to be showing the scheduled HD programs in HD or continued multi-casting? I see a few shows coming up next week that, according to the DTV schedule at www.ket.org, show them to be in HD.

Things are starting to pick up here in the Derby city!

UPDATE: Per an actual thought I had, here's a list of technical contacts to report problems. (Thanks to all who contribute!):

WHAS 582-7840
WHAS NEWS (for nights and weekends)582-7223

WAVE 585-2201
WAVE NEWS (for nights and weekends)561-4150

WLKY 893-3671
WLKY NEWS (for nights and weekends)891-4932
Chief Engineer Jim Mercer [email]jmercer@hearst.com

I just spoke w/Neal re:the audio issue with Stuart Little tonight (just static on the national feed and commercials, local commercials sounded ok). They're all still recovering from the Derby production of Thunder and are fleshing things out.

He said, for one, they are reading this forum now so they can see our feedback. Also, they just pass the HD signal from ABC through and cannot do any processing on that signal. I mentioned if they are actually receiving a 16:9 signal tonight, it appears to be zoomed and cropped in all dimensions (esp. noticeable to the left and right edges of the frame compared to the analog version).

I did thank him for getting rid of the stretched 4:3 image. :)

Sooo...I will gladly give WHAS a bit more time before making any more judgments and just hope for the best.

I was also hoping that front moving through would provide some tropo enhancment to Cincinnati (I could catch WCPO-DT and compare) but that's not happening. :(

Hey all,

I have a Zenith DTV1080 being fed by a ChannelMaster 4221 4-bowtie antenna. I live in Prospect (just into Oldham County). Here's my problem - when I do an EZ-scan, the only digital channels I get are 15-(1-4) (KPC?). I can't get WHAS (55/11-1). This is even though the signal strength meter is in the "Good" range (I would estimate 80-90 out of 100 if there were numbers on the meter). Even 15-(1-4) has a choppy signal. I've got my antenna in one of my upstairs rooms (very near the location I will mount it on my house) facing SW. Any ideas on what my problem is?

Thanks.

Hey, bruggles.

Do you mean to mount that on the roof? That should definitely help reception.

But, pointing SW? I would think you'd want to point pretty much due West. I'm just in Jeff. County from PeWee Valley and the WHAS tower is about 12 degrees North of West for me. I've found significant dropoff to the SW but better to the NW of the tower.

And, what's the tree/building situation around you? And what type of cabling, the distance, splitters in use, etc.?

It will be mounted on the side of the house at roof level. It is actually pointing about due West (maybe just a little south of due west). There is about 70' of quad-shield RG6 in between, with no splitters. Do you think that the signal meter on the DTV1080 is misleading?

Thanks.

Well, it's more of a signal over noise measurement. I've had locks on Indy digitals or Cincy digitals during tropo enhancement and the signal % has shown 50-51% and had no dropouts as it was a rather clean signal, but weak.

If you get a lot of fluctuation in strength I believe that's a sign of a lot of multipath interference (trees/buildings/hills).

You may need to switch to a more directional-type antenna like the Channel Master 3022 (http://www.channelmaster.com/layout_graphics/3022%20Antenna.jpg) instead of the bowtie. But, get it on the roof, if you can. Use an eave-mount and a small mast (Radio Shack has a 5' steel mast you could use for about $10) or a chimney mount and, say, a 10' mast. Height is your friend. :)

Just caught the news on the Insight HD plan. I'm psyched! This would be so much easier and really help HD catch on more quickly. It seems like there is finally more movement all over the country on Hidef. I hope within 6 months we see CBS and NBC go HD here in Louisville.

We lost the sat receiver we use to pickup the HD feeds, I hope to have another receiver online for the weekend. Check the digital section of our web site to check for programming. or send email to the address on the digital page. Programming reads the emails.

William

Originally posted by William Smith
programming reads the emails.

William
So write them S L O W L Y

:-)
Woo

BTW
The plan to carry PBS on Insight is a National Level deal.
It was not something that happend localy.
Us bottom feeders are waiting to find out the Details

Jerry,

I'll give that a shot. Do I understand that you're getting Cincy and Indy HD feeds? That's great - I didn't realize that was a possibility (although right now I'll be happy to get the Louisville feeds).

I'll keep you updated, although I won't be able to do anything for a few days.

woowoo,

LOL! :D


bruggles,

Well, actually, this morning I was able to lock WKRC-DT out of Cincy at about 70-73% and WRTV-DT out of Indy at 53-54%. But, conditions were good this morning for signal propagation after that front moved through last evening.

The Hepburn Tropo Forecast (http://www.iprimus.ca/~hepburnw/tropo.html) is a pretty accurate indicator.

Understand about the time issue, too. There's much I'd like to do to mine but time/money is always a concern :)

I wish WHAS-DT would get their sh#t together. I checked the local newcast this evening and once again there were lipsync issues. Looked like about 1/2 second out of sync. Doesn't anyone at the station look at their own telecasts?

Originally posted by NightowlKY
Insight might be offering HD over cable by EOY.



Must have missed the announcement, can you point me to further info??

Thanks

The replacement sat receiver is set for HD tonight.

Happy viewing.

William

Originally posted by William Smith
The replacement sat receiver is set for HD tonight.

Happy viewing.

William

Hey, William.

Well, I can tell it's 16:9 and the other three channels show black but show signal strength but the show itself, Evolution, doesn't look HD. Nowhere near the shows of Smart Travels I've seen before. Maybe these interview segments weren't in HD? Or the drama part itself wasn't in HD? Or maybe I'm just not sure what I'm seeing :) It looks quite soft and grainy to what I've seen on even CBS.

It looks good, though, just not the heart-stopping clarity I saw on that Smart Travels show one day several weeks ago.

Originally posted by John Nelson


Must have missed the announcement, can you point me to further info??

Thanks

John,

Take a look at Keith's post near the end of this thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=133362&perpage=20&highlight=insight&pagenumber=5)

Well, its listed as HD.....

Looks like we passed what was sent
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=140548
Later
Woot

Yeah...saw that, woo.

We'll see how Aleutians looks tonight at 10. :)

Well, although the ABC logo is in the far right (I thought that meant they were cropping the image), I was able to compare the digital channel to the analog and there is definitely more image to the left and the right.

Soo...looks like we're on the right track for ABC-HD. I'd say the image quality is on par with, say, Everybody Loves Raymond but minus the red push CBS has. Well, the audio is still way too low.

UPDATE:

WKPC-DT showing Aleutians in HD. Oooo...this looks SWEET!! :D

Good job KET on the Aleutians. Excellent PQ. Glad you are back up and delivering.

I see that WHAS forgot to flip the HD switch Tues. night for NYPD blue. I was checking my HiPix and saw it was broadcast in 4:3 - what a waste :(
Outside of WKPC, we still do not have any HD in this town. I also got a message from a friend of mine the WDRB is not planning on broadcasting anything digital until at least the first of next year :rolleyes:
Louisville, a world class city, LOL!

Well, Drew and According to Jim (is that the name?) were in HD on WHAS.

I wonder how far WAVE and WLKY are coming? WDRB doesn't matter much to me since FOX will probably never do HD and stations in Cincy/Dayton aren't even doing the FOX Widescreen so I doubt WDRB will either.

:confused:

I wish WAVE would get moving. I caught Leno in HD last night from WLWT-DT 35 in Cincy and it looked just incredible. It's sharper than anything from CBS or ABC.

After NYPD Blue wasn't shown in HD I called WHAS Master Control the following day. It appears that the Digital Transmitter has a separate Video Switcher and the master control personell either didn't know how to feed the transmitter or they forget. The gentleman I spoke with said that they were working on automating the process...Anyway congrats to the Master Controlers last night for 3 sit coms in hd.....

I feel your pain Wa4ryb! It is frustrating that WHAS forgets to hit the switch. I too was disappointed with NYPD blue. I was glad to see the sitcoms back the next day in HD. Right now I'm trying to stay cool and focus on progress for my own sanity's sake. I have to say I am getting 100% more HD than I was 6 months ago. Still not enough to satisfy hidef lovin' me (ie. not really world class yet), but it's progress.

Life got better for us after william came up with a simple way to "Throw the switch"

If a station gets Lots of phone calls........
They will remember to do it.

I usually watch all my network HD stuff on ExpressVu but I have a HiPix for time-shifting. I usually don't know whether WHAS has flipped the switch until after it been aired. I hope they get it automated. Seems like other stations have a computer do the "switch flipping".

Tried to catch a little of Con-Air last night on the ABC big picture show...was this supposed to be in HD? Didn't have time to take a look at HDTVgalaxy or watch much of it..but it looked to be SD and 4:3...

Don't believe Con Air was supposed to be in HD. But, isn't there a movie coming up on Sat. on ABC that is?

Air Force 1 tomorrow night...hope WHAS does FTDS (flip the damn switch) and we don't have any weird audio...also Dinosaur will be on Sunday night. Should be a great weekend to test out your HDTV setup.

Now if only had my new NEC projector here to see it!

Good deal! Two decent flicks in HD. And that opening of Dinosaur should be incredible!

Guess I'll finally break down and reset my HD geometry (that's the one thing I didn't have the ISF do) and redo convergence. Well, it's raining (again) and I can't work in the yard so why not?! :)

Great...Air Force One is on in HD tonight on ABC but WHAS is dark as night.

Lay you odds , Master Control forgot to turn the Transmitter on.......What a bummer.......

Well, the digital's been off all day but I figured it was a weekend and they were just waiting until the movie.

Called the station, though, and the Engineering dept. was "out to dinner" and I told the woman the digital channel was off the air and there was supposed to be an HD movie shown.

Sooo....

Great...rush home from dinner with the wife, promising a great HD movie...no frigging signal!

Come on guys....here I am talking up WHAS and you fail to deliver...

This makes everyone look bad!

Hey Jerry,

WKPC DT-17 is floating in tonight with signal in the 70-80 range on the DTC-100.No sign of WHAS though.

Is this Alleutian(sp?) special supposed to be HD.It looks a little soft.They are also running 3 Subs along with it.I always thought that 2 Subs were the limit while running an HD at full resolution.Am I thinking right,here?

Also,the stack's working great.In order to null out that damm LP in Salem I have to manually punch in the azimuth heading one deg at a time on the 9521 rotor,instead of using one 2deg click on the remote.One deg either way,I lose 20 points on the E/B meter!

Greg,

Not sure about Aleutians tonight. The other night looked pretty darn good. I believe they only had the one channel at that point.

The KET DTV program list (http://www.ket.org/agency/dtv/programs.htm) doesn't show anymore HD until Tue's Evolution show.

And WHAS-DT was dark all day today. Guess they took the weekend off.

Hope to heck they get it fixed for Dinosaur tomorrow night.

Everyone?! Call WHAS tomorrow!!

Oh...update...it's on now. Gee...:confused:

WHAS is starting to become a joke! HDTV my a$$. Didn't they pay their electric bill? LOL! I think if you guys want network HDTV you need to invest in ExpressVu. Thank goodness for WKPC or we would not have any HDTV in this one horse town.

I recommend everyone call anyway and see if we can get that enormous, egregious WHAS-11 bug removed (or at least tamed immensely). I'm watching WTVQ-DT 40 (ABC in Lexington) and their bug is rather large but very faint and would be a good place to start.

Jerry,

Thanks for the heads-up on DT-55.A solid 88.Do you know if they are still at 1Kw? If they are,it's a good testimonial on the strength of a good digital transmission.

Just for kicks,I switched over to the RS U-120R on the 25ft mast.It'll lock up,but readings are 32..28..zip-nothing.

Not sure on the transmitting power. And, for the U120R, not surprising. Conditions are very poor this weekend. But, I was getting some blips from WKRC-DT 31 in Cincy tonight and WXIX-19 is coming in with a viewable image. But, this cool weather and the wind just aren't helping any. Supposed to tie the record low tonight...38.

Jerry,

Yea, things are pretty "normal" here tonite also,Maybe a little enhancement to the south and east.Did pick up KET DT-24 and DT-44.

It'd be fun to pop my stack off the tower and bring it down,set it on your tripod,just to see what difference it might make on the Cincy stations.

I'll be here all day tomorrow (err...today) :)

Actually, looks like a Blake JBX21WB will be ordered in about 2 weeks (and possibly a Winegard pre-amp, or did you have a spare of those?). Been emailing Joel Cohen from hi-rez (U.S. distributor for Blake)

Back, to on-topic ( :) ), anyone have word on WBKI? Esp. with the apparent upcoming announcement of the WB offering some HD programs this fall.

WHAS-DT is broadcasting right now so we'll see what happens with Dinosaur

Well, it looked like Dinosaur was being broadcast tonight in HD. I did not like that it wasn't OAR and it seemed a bit soft but I'll take it! I was going to time-shift this program but my daughter decided to play with my keyboard (while I wasn't around) and stopped the HiPix :( so I got half a movie. I am starting to feel jinxed. Anyway, props to WHAS for being on and flippin' the switch :D

Also, anyone else think that the network HD feeds are darker than the SD feeds? The commercials seem a lot, lot brighter - I noticed this on Alias before too but I did not notice this on WHAS's HD tests. Anyone else? If I flip to ExpressVu it looks fine but through my HiPix it definitely is darker - Thunder looked great and was not dark (except when it was supposed to be). Fortunately, I can adjust this but I was wondering if anyone else noticed this.

I can't complain about that picture. It looked really good. The sound still seemed to low or something. Does it seem low to you all too?

Yep, the audio was still rather low for me, too. The receiver went into Dolby Digital mode so I assume it was 5.1 but it just lacked that punch as I had to turn up the volume quite a bit and it just didn't have much amplify I guess. And it's getting to be a big PITA to lower the volume before switching channels.

FYI, I left the PBS Receiver on the HD feed just in case it was HD instead of SD. We are always transmitting the channel map for 4 services but if its in HD only one service will be active. The reason for the map never changing is due to the different receiver reactions when a new map is transmitted.

Welcome to the world of no receiver standards...

William

Kudos to WHAS last night for finally getting NYPD blue broadcast in HD with descent PQ and sound!

I'm still having problems getting WHAS DT. I think I've got my antenna (ChannelMaster 4221) pointing just about due west and at about roof level (from Prospect). I'm getting KET fine (15-1 through 15-4), but no sign of 55 (or 11-1?). I'm using a Zenith DTV1080 DSS tuner. I'm new to this, so I'm a little confused - should I be able to get a signal from WHAS even if they aren't broadcasting in HD at a particular moment? I've been trying from 8-10 tonight (when My Wife and Kids and Drew Carey are supposed to be broadcasting), and am getting nothing. But the antenna is giving me a very clear analog signal for WHAS, I'm getting the KET HD feed, and my signal meter on the DTV1080 is pretty high. So I would hope I could get WHAS DT...

Thanks in advance for an info.

bruggles, did you try 55-1? Do you show any signal strength? I had Drew Carey on at 9:00 and it looked great. If whas is broadcasting in HD you should be able to get it. They come on around 4:00 in believe. They have not done any multicasting so I've only seen 55-1. I think I am getting an 85 on my HiPix and about 92 (signal strength) on my DTC-100 both off an antenna in my attic. I live in Hikes Point. Hmmm, any Zenith owners here? On the DTC-100 you sometimes had to disable the off-air-guides or it will confuse the tuner - maybe you are having a similar problem?
Good luck.

Disable the guides
Could be a PSIP Problem
I think MichelZ hit it right

OK, hopefully you're on the right track...

Sorry, but I've got a couple of questions - what is PSIP, and how do I disable the guides on the DTV1080? I've looked through the Setup menu (and the others) and the manual, but don't see any mention of a way to do it? Am I looking for the right thing?

Thanks again.

PSIP is the system that tells the receiver how to reconstruct the picture.

i.e. this video goes with that audio......

There is a feature in the PSIP that allows channel Remapping.

i.e. broadcast channel 55 becomes virtual channel 11

With KET
Broadcast Channel 17 becomes virtual channels 15-2,3,4,....

Sometimes receivers can get confused when it comes to channel mapping.

Or the broadcaster may be doing something wrong

I am not familiar with the 1080 but basically you want to "Reboot" it and do a fresh channel search.

You might want to search the forums for information on your 1080?

I tried rebooting according to the last message in this thread...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=107447&highlight=dtv1080+reboot (http://)

No luck... I still get KET (15-1 through 15-4) fine, but nothing else... It is only 5:00 on Friday - do I need to try again another time?

I searched for any mention of turning off the guides or PSIP, and didn't find anything

Thanks again.

I just did a scan and my HiPix shows both 11.1 and 55.1 and has them as WHAS-DT. It used to only show 55.1, very strange but it works.

I tried manually adding 11 and 55 - 11 came up with analog WHAS (again clear as a bell) and nothing else, and 55 came up with nothing at all.

Is the WHAS transmitter running on 9 volt batteries? Is the DTV transmitter running at low power levels? If it is at low power, Why? Should I order 21 miles of RG6 to drop to the station? I really regret spending all this money on HDTV gear, I would have enjoyed a nice trip somewhere exotic. I have never seen such a waste of good technology.

keithfaber,

WHAS coming in good this evening at SS of 65-75 on the DTC-100.Haven't heard,but think they are still on temporary low power,1Kw.I think the only time they ran full power(1000Kw) was during "Thunder".

They might be doing that to save some money,plus the the fact that very few people are watching.Just guessing,of course.

70mi north of TX

whas gonna come on-air for this?

silvermaxd,

No sign here either.Best ABC reception here is analog WTVQ (Lex) @107mi.Nearly snow-free.Hope it stays that way until the race is over!

A whole weekend of crusade for children and no Hamptons. I wonder when will see the hamptons? The paper say's it's on tonight part 2 of 2. What about 1 of 2?

There is an article in this weeks LEO dealing with HD
Did you all know that it is required by the FCC<Grin>
I have written the author <I know him>
And told him to come here for answers.

Silvermaxd,
I don't think WHAS would let anything preempt the crusade.
It's a big deal down there

can't they put different programming on the digital channel seperate from the analog one sometimes?

Can = yes
Will= ???

OK,

I picked up a DTC100 at Circuit City today (just for a trial). I got WHAS (on 55) first try! Also, I get KET on 17 (instead of 15 on the Zenith).

So now I guess it's back to Zenith to find out what their explanation is.

Turn OFf-AIR guides ON and rescan the channels. It should work then.

William

William,

Do you know how to do that specifically on the DTV1080? We couldn't figure out how.

Thanks,

brian

I just put in the 8vsb OTA module in my Echostar 6000 and hooked up a channel master 4228 antenna. Watched WHAS 55 and 4 KET HD channels last night. Pretty nice. Seemed that I recieved better signal after the rain yesterday than the day before when I first tried to get 55. Now I have CBS-HD, WHAS-HD, HBO-HD, Showtime-HD and KET-HD. I have had this HD tv for 2 years and just got HD in the past few months. I am starting to like the choices!!! I live approx 60 miles from Louisville but I am sure it is closer "as the crow flies". COME ON WLKY, WAVE and WDRB GET WITH IT!

I talked to Zenith today... their tech support guy was very nice by the way. He seems to think the problem may be in the way that WHAS is broadcasting their signal. William, I found the "turn off air guides" on part of the Setup Menu (DirecTV, Initial Setup, Channel Setup). Funny thing is, it adds another digital station (68), but not WHAS-HD. I'm assuming it's adding channels that are SUPPOSED to be there, but aren't necessarily strong enough to receive. Maybe WHAS is transmitting in a way that the DTV1080 just can't map. Anyway, he will send me a new STB if necessary, but he doubts whether that will help. If not, I may try to get a refund - that is a really big strike against the Zenith (at least for me).

68 Digital is the mate to WKMJ. We don't have it up yet and won't for a while.

Please see this thread for updated programming information:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=147028

Thanks
William

Update -

I'm getting WHAS now with no problem. It did turn out to be a PSIP problem with the Zentith DTV1080. Zenith could not help me (they sent me a new box the day before I found the solution), but WHAS did. I ended up talking to Steve Beall (like Bell) at 582-7727. He seems to be the expert on their HD setup. He suggested that the PSIP stream was the problem (at least the DTV1080's ability to deal with it). He was kind enough to turn it off for me one night and voila - I tuned it in on the first try! My antenna is not even mounted yet (just sitting in a bedroom upstairs on the west side of the house), so it was obviously not a signal problem. Once it was tuned in, it held the next day after he turned the PSIP stream back on. He said that they had cured problems with Sony STB's by doing this. He did say that they are going to be upgrading to a Trivini system (don't appreciate the technical aspects) that he hopes will be more compatible with all STB's.

I would like to thank Steve (and WHAS) VERY MUCH for all of his help. It's good to know that there are station folks out there (William Smith also) that are willing to help....

here is what they said when I asked them when they would be up and running with digital TV.

reply:
WAVE should be on the air with digital by late Fall. We have most of the
equipment and are presently constructing the building for the transmitter.
When the building is complete, we will install the transmitter and be ready
to start digital broadcasting.

Thank You

Bill Eschbach
WAVE

What's up with WKET tonight. I've been waiting for Japan's Secret Garden in HD and its only on in SD with multicasting. I thought HD would continue on KET until July. This is very disappointing. :mad:

Was it on our website as in HD or did you get the info from PBS? Send programming questions to DTVhelp@ket.org.

Now that wave-3 has targeted late fall ( isn't that the same as early winter?) we might see them on air by spring. Any word on wlky? Last time I saw something posted it was mid-summer or we looking at "late fall" for them as well now? BTW, anyone surprised by these stations missing the May 1 deadline? I am still shocked that whas made it ;)

I bet(and hope)that they are all gonna try and be on when all the regular shows start airing their season premiers.

William
Thanks for the reply. Yes it was on the KET goes Digital website as
"Nova: Japan's Secret Garden (HD)". Usually these listings have been accurate in terms of SD widescreen or HD. However, in this case it was not correct. This was the only HD listing for the month so I was trying to catch it if possible. Any chance it will be rebroadcast in HD?

I doubt it, If I get a minute I'll check the automated switching system to see if it was programmed but I doubt it was. The person who took over that task just got back from D.C. and has been swamped.

Sorry, even we miss occassionally.

Hang on this is fun stuff...

William

Anyone have an update on WLKY's time table for testing their HD transmissions? Last I heard was "late summer". Anyone?

I received an e-mail from Jim Mercer at the the station and here is what he told me:


"The construction process is stalled. WLKY is leasing space in a building
being constructed by another party. The progress on that construction is
behind where I wish it to be. Hopefully is will get moving soon."

sounds like it will probably be in the fall is my guess.

What's the status on WHAS-ABC HDTV? I still haven't found enough reason to go out and buy a HDTV decoder (again), but if they have their act together and broadcasting an HDTV signal properly, then I think it would be worth it.

Any comments? Thanks for the help!

I have been watching it and they seem to have thier sh** together now. When broadcasting a HD signal the picture looks good and fills the screen, the sound is good. When they show standard TV the picture is side cropped. They switch between the modes for commercials and back without problems. I believe they are still at low power but I recieve the signal fine.

silvermaxd, was that recently that you received that e-mail from WLKY? If they a still in the construction stage it might be late fall before even testing :(

stovetop, WHAS-DT is working fine but at low-power. I've seen zero problems except for occasional stutter or pixelization which may be power related.

MichaelZ,
I got the e-mail from WLKY on july 16

I thought I would resurrect this thread to remind everyone how dead HDTV is in Louisville right now. We fortunately have WHAS-DT (abc) and PBS-DT but the rest of the stations missed May 1 and TitanTv now shows Nov.1 for both WAVE(nbc) and WLKY(cbs) and first of the year for Fox and next May for the the stations left.
I remember, just yesterday(actually more than a year ago), asking for a waiver from WLKY for CBS-HD on Dish and of course, was denied. They stated they would be up by May 1, 2002 and we now know that was a laugh. I am glad I got ExpressVu, back them, and I am going to enjoy CSI and other new CBS shows. Others here may want to look at that option - I would not be surprised if WLKY will not have their HDTV antenna up by next fall.

Yep, still waiting for the stations here to get their act together.

The bad part is now I watch crap on ABC just because it's HD. :D With NBC finally offering a few shows in HD it'd be nice to be able to actually get them. Ditto CBS and FOX, even if FOX is FAUX HD :rolleyes:

Lexington is at least making some headway with WKYT-DT (CBS) up and running. I managed to lock on them once but with their antenna on the east-side of the tower, folks to the west are pretty much out of luck .

No new news here......

We MAY be able to get the WKMJ-DT
(companion for 68)
transmitter on the air by the first of next year.
It's the last one that we have to deal with.
(It's not a normal instalation)

Is WHAS(abc) transmitting in 720p or 1080i? My HiPix was showing 1080i and I thought that strange since ABC is outputting 720p. Anyone know?

Hi Woot

As I understand it,when all the KET DTV plant is rolled into service,all will be boadcasting the same multicasted programming(including HD capability).Right?

If this is correct,then why any WKMJ-DT at all? The broadcast location is basically the same as WKPC.

Having said that,maybe KET could petition the FCC to move WHAN off of 17 and give them 38. That way I'd have a clear shot at DT-17 and they could go bug some Fox viewers up towards Terre Haute,with their dumb infomercials!!!!

Whatta you think of them apples?

First, MichaelZ I have it from WHAS that they upconvert everythingto 1080i. I get great PQ from them most of the time. Second, I sent the WB station manager an email a couple of weeks ago asking about when they will comply with FCC mandate for DTV and asking about HDTV pass through of the WB network signal. No reply after 2 weeks. Way to go WBKI. I guess they may not be interested in their viewers. :mad: Anybody else tried to get an answer from them? Finally, is anyone else getting KET-DT? I haven't been able to get them since they went off air this summer. What's up with that? I was getting some HD from them prior to July, 2002. Anyone have any feedback?

PCS, thanks - I thought they were converting the 720p to 1080i. I've noticed an anomaly with my HiPix card - if I output 1080i to my PJ the video occasionally stutters. If I ouput 720p it is smooth as silk! Very strange! What is even stranger is that my DTC-100 is smooth as silk output 1080i to the same projector. BTW, this only happens with WHAS. I can live with it but I've noticed that the image when output at 720p is not quite as sharp. Oh,well - when you live on the edge.

PCS
WKPC-DT is alive and well
It is on the air 24/7 now with a 4 channel multicast
Maybe try a rescan?

Max-HD
The multicast is running statewide from lexington
HD Statewide is not quite there but they are working on it.
WKMJ-DT will be put on the air to serve louisville.
(We have it, Why not use it)
I have not heard from the programming gods what will be on it.

Maybe when 38 comes up that will solve your (WHAN) problem?

Anybody getting WHAS-DT today? I've not seen it all day and I even swung my antenna around back toward the Knobs (usually keep it pointed toward Cincy).


---

Nevermind....coming in fine now....don't know what the deal was

Hi all - I'm just about to buy a HDTV capable projector and was wondering what the options are. It looks like nothing much locally, but what about Satellite? Does Dish still have the most HDTV content or is DirecTV catching up? Thanks..

I just set up my new HD system this weekend with directv. HBO, Showtime, and HDNet are it for them. Don't know about Dish Network.

Any news on the other local affiliates?

Chris
Put up an off air antenna and you will get

WKPC-DT channel 17
4 channel multicast
Remaps to channel 15.1 , .2 , .3 , .4 etc...

And

WHAS-DT (after 4:30 in the afternoon)
Channel 55
Remaps to channel 11
720p ABC Programming

The others MAY be up this fall.......

Oh yea......
Welcome to the club

Thanks woowoo.

Is KET broadcasting any HD programming? Can you even do that while multicasting? Just curious.

We were but we are not now

When a station is multicasting the best they can do is HD at a reduced bit rate.
Instead of the whole 19mbs going to the HD program it only gets about 14-15mbs.
The other 4-5mbs goes to the subchannel
Most people call this "enhanced definition"

woowoo, are you guys planning on doing HD in the evening as before when PBS broadcast HD material?

Anyone else know the status of WLKY or WAVE? They both still on track for Nov.1 or May 2003?

Arrgh !! I just saw where the Alabama vs. Georgia game is in HD Saturday on CBS. Come on WLKY, your killing me!

Roll Tide!!!

Any chance of pulling in the Lexington CBS affilliate that is putting out HD from a Louisville based Antenna? Or is the tower oriented the wrong way?
-Alex-

MichaelZ
We are working on it but I could not give you a time table.

Things are not good for state funding right now.
(No Budget yet!)

I'm just happy that we got the transmitters on the air....

bairda,

Here's an email I received from WKYT recently:

Hello Jerry,
Nice to hear you are getting us in Louisville! We are at full power. A
couple of things may be causing you to get a better signal on WTVQ.
First, you are using UHF antennas. Some locals here are having success with a UHF antenna, but given your distance, a VHF antenna would certainly work better.
Second, our antenna is situated on the east side of our tower, away from
you.

Thanks for the signal report. Since there is not currently a CBS HD signal
in Louisville, we hope you can see us often!

Note I was in a 'blonde mode' when I was trying as I'd forgotten they are VHF. I have a VHF-only antenna in my attic but it's pointed west and hooked to my receiver for FM stations right now...I haven't yet taken it apart and turned it around but I hope it will help w/reception. BTW, I'm off the Snyder between 64 and 71 so I'm a bit further east and rather high up for the county (about 740' asl)

NightowlKY,
Are you receiving WKYT (or WTVQ) regularly? With a good signal strength?
Looks I might be on the roof Saturday morning. I'm further west and lower but who knows?

Thanks for the info,
Chris

I've only gotten WKYT once and WTVQ is hit or miss...but the tropo has been favorable the last several days but, to be honest, I've not checked in a bit. Tonight, I think I'm going to re-orient my VHF antenna in the attic and let ya know how it goes.

Any idea why I could previously recieve whas-dt and now cannot? Nothing hardware-wise has changed. I still pick up all 4 KET channels and now WBNA digital but i get No signal at all from whas now. I have attempted repositioning antenna to no avail. I just dont understand. Whas tells me nothing changed, but if nothing changed here and nothing changed there....

Not sure. Been watching WHAS-DT most of the evening and the game is still going. WBNA-DT's tower is closer to you as it's around Brooks, Ky. Which KET are you getting? WKPC or WKZT (E-Town)?

WBNA-DT is also at full-power right now during an initial testing phase and they will drop back to lower power and only operate during the evening.

Is it possible your receiver lost the channel mapping and WHAS is now on 55.1?

I just noticed WBNA this evening - channel 8.2. Too bad its not HD :( Anyone any word on when testing might start for WLKY or WAVE?

just received an e-mail from the station in response to me asking them when they would be sending out a digital signal and they said they hope to be on by Dec. 1st. I was surprised!!. I'll just be glad when somebody else besides WHAS gets going.

I am starting to wonder if the WLKY will ever be up. Something tells me that they will probably run SD and low power (like 5 watts) when they finally do get running. I think they will be kicking and screaming and dragging their ass into the HDTV world. WLKY sucks!

Ah come on now ... at least they have a nice big-n-purdy logo :rolleyes:

I posted on the other Louisville thread about WBKI stating via email that they are working on DTV transmission soon. I have sent a request for additional info. If anyone else wants to add to the viewer feedback and show interest the manager's email is billbradley@wbki.tv. Let them know you are expecting HDTV.

Last I heard WLKY was going for a Nov. 1 live date. I haven't caught any testing yet. Think they're backing out?

Last I heard WAVE is not going until next year.

Larry

I have the dish 6000. For over a week now WHAS 55 will not show as 11-01. I tried unplugging the receiver and it still comes up as 55-01. This happens whether I map from "scan for digital" or "add DTV".

I saw on here where this was going around awhile back, but I still can't get 55 as 11. Anyone got any suggestions?

Thanks,
Larry

Larry, same here. I only show 55.1 for WHAS-DT. I really do not care what station number as long as I get it ;)

Let's get this stupid ball rolling in L-ville already!!!!

This is just like waiting for cable company's to get high speed I-net going ... hearing "Oh it will be ready next month" for 12 months straight. Let's hope that once they're up and running they transmit enough power to get the signal more that 2 miles from the tower.

lapplegate: Aren't Fox, NBC, and another all using the same tower and transmission building? Seems once one is ready they'll all be ready if that is the case. I don't know why they'd drag their feet, unless they really don't care about DTV transmission.

I can tell you one thing, if they don't all start using full power, the poor folks watching 13 inchers via rabit ears have a RUDE surprise in store for them! I'm right in town and WHAS is unwatchable during any weather, and I have a decently large/high outdoor antenna.

Ductape,
I don't know about the same tower, but I think most of the towers are located in about the same area (floyds knobs, IN?).

I just checked Titan. They show FOX live by Nov. 1, WAVE by Dec. 15 & WLKY by Jan. 31. The best way to get a feel for live timing is to go to the FCC site and check for each stations request for an extension. You can use the extension date to get an idea, but when it gets close they just get another extension. So even that's not reliable.

I sent an email to Jim Mercer at WLKY asking if he could confirm the Jan. 1 date. Been a couple of days with no reply.

Larry

WKPC-DT IS at full licensed power.

Will,

What has happened to the HD pass through at WKPC. You guys went down in the summer to upgrade and once you came back up is only multicast. Have you abandoned HDTV? I am a PBS viewer who hopes this is just a temporary anomaly. When will HD pass thru resume at WKPC?

Just got a reply from Jim Mercer at WLKY on their estimated live date:

"It does look as through we will be on in Mid to late January. The
installtion crew is scheduled to begin insatlling our transmitter in
November and are projecting 6-8 weeks.

Jim"

Forget CSI this season.
Larry

lapplegate, yea, I gave up following the 'live' dates shown by FCC/Titan, since all they do is keep pushing the dates back. At this point I simply say it'll happen whenever it happens. From what I've gleaned about the tower/transmission building stuff, several of the stations will be sharing the tower. And until that transmitter building is completed none of them will be on air. And last I heard (from this site) it was happening Oct/Nov. Which mean right now. And give in some time to troubleshoot, I don't see anymore DTV in Louisville until at LEAST Jan 1. I was hoping to watch '24' on Fox's fake HDTV but I doubt that will happen now.

William: Trust me we haven't forgotten WKPC! We just take you for granted now :D

Although I too have been wondering when you might return to passing the HDTV stuff too.

We have no plans to resume the HD passthrough like we did before, All HD will be fed from the Network Center in Lexington. We are in the process of debugging the enhanced system that will feed the entire network right now.

Hang in there..

William

William - what exactly does that mean for us who would like to see PBS's HD content? Will it be played on 15-# in the future? Or on another channel?

15-4 will be the HD feed when available. KET just issued a press release on digital television last week, That's why I can't say much...

William

William, is the PBS HD feed going to be refed at a lower resolution? If you are going to have the other sub-channels and datacasting then the HD feed will have to be retransmitted at a lower resolution. If this is true, what will the resolution be 480p?

As I said I can't really talk about it, our communications department gets upset with me if I let out any information before they do.

No it won't be in 480P it will be better than that. You are not quite correct in that to reduce bandwidth we have to reduce the resolution, 1080i can be shown in 12-15 Mbps. PBS material in general is not as bandwidth demanding as most of the material on the commercial stations.

William,

Thanks (I think) for the update. At least there is still hope for PBS 1080i. Hopefully Insight will not degrade the KET reduced bandwidth signal once they get their hands on it in the cable process.

Anybody got any news on WBKI (WB) or WFTE (UPN)? Where will their towers be in relation to the big 3 in the Knobs? How soon? Anyone else send an email to these stations. I get no further reply from WBKI.

It appears that Whas HD is now on full time.

Interesting. Wonder what prompted them to flip the switch full time? Next step is full/more power transmissions.

An interesting side note, my DirectTV OTA recevier (Hughes E86) finally started displaying WHAS's guide info on the digital channel a few weeks ago. Before that it displayed the generic "Regular Programming" on the guide for all time slots. A few weeks ago the guide data reflected the actual shows for WHAS-DT, and showed "SIGN OFF" from morning until 4PM, when programming began. If still does that. I wonder how long it will take before the DirectTV advanced guide picks up the change to WHAS's broadcasting times. Not that it matters much, but it's neat to see how the local's guide info is integrated into the DirectTV guide ...

I was looking on the guide on Titantv.com and it looks like that Guide is updated, even with WKPC 4 multicast channels (no programming for it)

One this I noticed on tonight lineup was that it lists Nightline as HD, is this true?

"Nightline


ABC's incisive late-night news program, which usually features newsmaker interviews following a set-up story. The series began in November 1979 as a nightly update on the Iran-hostage crisis (with Frank Reynolds at the anchor desk)
High Definition (HD) "

I never heard of news programs being in HD.
BTW, seeing all that HD programmign on WHAS-11 brings me to tears that I can't get a signal. =(

I'll check it out tonight. That sucks that you can't even get WHAS. Maybe Insight will be our saving grace!! (Doubtful :rolleyes: )

Stovetop,

Out of curiosity, what's your problem with WHAS reception? Are you out in the sticks? What kind of STB do you have?

Actually, if I recall, I think he's right downtown. Stuck between high rise buildings - almost no chance to get any reception.

OK - just curious because I had a STB issue (Zenith) that I thought was reception for a while....

I'm still getting WHAS DT as 55-01 not 11-01.

Is this a problem with the STB (Dish 6000) or something in the stations broadcast?

BTW, got an email from FOX:

"Our target date for digital transmission is December 1st.

This will not necessarily entail broadcasting in HDTV at first, however.
Further details regarding that will be made public as things progress
throughout the coming year."

Thanks,
Larry

Good post about the time frame for Fox Larry. All I get from WB is "we will be there in HD when the time comes" What the hey? I thought this was the time!!! May 1st 2002 is history.

DucTape was right, I'm downtown and can't get a signal strong enough to get a picture.

Also, i heard that TitanTV schedule labeled a lot of shows as HD even though they weren't, I guess that explains it.


On a side note, an update from Insight:


Dear Mr. Weber:

In recent weeks we have begun testing HDTV over cable in one of our systems. As long as the testing goes well, and receivers are available from our supplier, we hope to be able to offer HDTV by the end of this year. This is by no means a commitment, but a reasonable projection based upon current information. We will be sure to provide more information to our subscribers as further details develop.

Sincerely,



Karen Stokes

--------

Definately some good new. =) I think Insight is giong to pull through for us.

"Further details regarding that will be made public as things progress
throughout the coming year."

That's not a good thing though. Watching DTV just for the heck of it is not what I (or anyone else) wants ... what's the point of dealing with the various reception problems of DTV if the reward (HD content) is not there? None IMO. The "throughout the coming year" comment leads me to beleive that Fox's 'fake' HD will not be broadcast until WELL into 2003. Maybe late 2003. There goes any chance of watching 24 in widescreen. Or Fox's 'enhanced widescreen' NFL games that are supposed to happen this year.

I bet many of the other stations in town will follow the same tactics. Too cheap to purchase/implement the equipment for HD pass-thru. Just pass a very low power DTV signal to get the FCC off their backs.

DucTape, I think you interpreted the BS message from WDRB quite well. Also, the Dec. 1st target date. probably as good a date as the Nov. 1 mentioned last month. Know what a target is, something aimed for but rarely hit! :D
Also, WLKY is listed as Jan. 31, 2003 - any bets on them being on-line by May, 2003? If they make it on-line any bets on it being low/no-power with retransmit of SD signal?

Current HD status for the world class city of Louisville and its surrounding counties:

WBNA-DT 8 PAX Louisville KY Nov 1 2002 (I can't believe these guys can be on the air and the others can't - WTF????)
WKPC-DT 17 PBS Louisville KY Now Live (w/o HD though)
WLKY-DT 26 CBS Louisville KY Jan 31 2003
WKMJ-DT 38 PBS Louisville KY May 1 2003
WAVE-DT 47 NBC Louisville KY Dec 15 2002
WDRB-DT 49 FOX Louisville KY Nov 1 2002 (missed - now December 1)
WFTE-DT 51 UPN Salem IN Nov 1 2002 (missed)
WHAS-DT 55 ABC Louisville KY Now Live (Kudos, kudos - one station - besides WKPC - could get live, on time, with HDTV!)

one little minor clarification, The FCC deadline for WKMJ-DT is May 1 2003, so its not late and we plan on beating that deadline, (I have no idea what we will put on it at this time.)


William

William, kudos to you guys too - seems strange to me the the stations least able to afford it (outside of WHAS) or the ones delivering. I am sure you guys will beat the deadline and probably will beat WLKY :D

Michaelz,
Our funding cycle is very different than the commercial guys.
We have some folks with foresight (William and others)
That secured our funding back in 1999.
Yes, everyone knew this was coming.
Some just chose to ignore it.......

The arrogance of some TV execs just p*sses me off! There I feel so much better now . . .

Ah MichaelZ, you're hurting me with that list. I'm trying to stick my head in the sand and ignore it :D

Yep, I hold no thoughts that the rest of the major networks will be on time with their 'new' target dates (which have been missed HOW many times now?), nor that once the DTV signal is going that HD will be passed either. I didn't care but now NBC actually has some HD content, and Fox has 2 shows I would like to see in fake HD, NFL and 24.

Just curious William, why 2 PBS stations in L-ville? Are they seperate entities?

Originally posted by DucTape
Just curious William, why 2 PBS stations in L-ville? Are they seperate entities?

I'm not William but the answer is History .... Once upon a time channel 15 was an independent PBS station, while 68 was the official KET station. As I recall, channel 15 had monetary problems so KET offered to buy out the station. Presto, chango ... Louisville winds up with 2 KET/PBS stations.

HDC

Interesting. So why keep them both alive? Why bother with that expense? Especially now that they are multicasting, it seems redundant to have (now) 5 channels of PBS being broadcast. 15-1, -2, -3, -4, and 68. And assuming 68 multi casts, then you have 8 PBS channels!? There's not that much content to air ...

Duc,
I'll defer to William or woowoo on that one ... I think the original reason to keep both stations up was that one of them was used to startup the KET2 channel in the analog domain. As for the future I know not ....

HDC

A little history...


Actually, we had bought a replacement analog transmitter for 68 just before the merger with 15. (It arrived after merger so we put it in). We developed KET2 specifically for the available channel in Louisville. Since we had to deliver KET2 to Louisville via satellite,it made sense to allow cable companies to pick it up either via off-air of 68 or direct from satellite. With that model we reached over 50% of the population of the state. Now, using same upgraded microwave system that we use for the DTV transmitters , we now deliver KET2 to ALL 15 transmitter sites at no additional cost than before. All cable companies now receive KET2 either off-air from 68 or from a local KET DTv transmitter.

Our Louisville unit can cut in the ch 68 feed at this time and will be able to cut into 38 when its on the air.

As to content for 38..... I have no idea other than to put KET2 on it for now..


William

Hey MichaelZ,

Nice overview list, but you didn't include WBKI (WB). They do have some network HDTV these days, but the station manager won't give me astraight answer about when they launch. Do you have any word on their launch date to complete your list? I'm just wanting to share the pain!?! BTW, speaking of "world-class city" does anybody know how merger effects our TV market status? I believe we were #40 nationally before merger. Seems like markets much smaller than ours (can you say advertising $$$) are getting many more DTV channels sooner than we are in Louisville. What gives?

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
I'm not William but the answer is History .... Once upon a time channel 15 was an independent PBS station, while 68 was the official KET station. As I recall, channel 15 had monetary problems so KET offered to buy out the station. Presto, chango ... Louisville winds up with 2 KET/PBS stations.

HDC
Correct
I was one of the channel 15 staff lucky enough to be employed by KET.

PCS, when you speak of merger, are you referring to the proposed DirectTV / DISH Network merger? If so, that deal is dead, squashed by the FCC who rejected it. As for where that leaves the DBS services in the country, I'd say it's status quo for now. DISH just put up a new satalite that has spot beam ability, and will help get some of the LiL channels off the CONUS satalites, and MAY help them serve more markets, but the sad fact is that we will NEVER get LiL HDTV from satalite. There is no way they can fit that much bandwith on the available slots.

Steve,
We start tranmitter installation 11/19. The building, tower, antenna nd
line is complete. Not sure how long the installation will take (being
performed by the manufacturer) Bill

Sounds like it may be pretty soon although I don't have a clue how long a transmitter will take to put up.

I think PCS was talking about the city-county merger.

I believe that number will not change since it just has to do with metro area more than anything, and that will not be changed by the merger. Louisville will be the 16th largest city, but still the 51st largest metro. I believe are TV Market Status is at #50, that should not change.

DucTape,

No I was not referring to DBS. Good guess. I wasn't very clear. I was referring to the Metro Louisville merger with Jefferson County to form Greater Louisville. We are now a much larger city "on paper" and I understood this was one of the motivations for merging to give us greater clout with other metro areas for business, etc. This should change our status as a TV market and this should lead to more advertising $ (perhaps). I was just commenting on the sad state of affairs that WBNA could get their DTV signal launched and WAVE and WLKY and the rest are still huffing and puffing trying to catch up. What a joke! PATHETIC. Some "world class" broadcasters we have compared to those in much smaller markets who are up with DTV and passing HDTV and who have less advertiser dollars to fund their operations (I suppose). At least WHAS is giving us HDTV. I have respect for them and their efforts. The others are getting more ire from me each and every day they delay, stall, make excuses, play political games with the FCC, use MY (along with all American taxpayers) public property broadcast spectrum for free and milk us for every dollar possible while giving us jacksh*t for quality. Can you tell I have feelings about this? On tuesday I plan to do my part to THROW THE BUMS OUT starting with Northup and Mcconnell to give someone else a chance to get the job done. Later!;)

Here's a follow-up in case you missed the Courier on Monday. It's a decent article by tom Dorsey about KET and gives the good news/bad news about DTV in Louisville. According to the article WBKI is still stonewalling grrrrrrrrrr... Here's the article

http://www.courier-journal.com/features/columns/dorsey/fe20021028dorsey.html

Ah! I didn;t even think about the local merger :D To many 'mergers' to keep up with!

Yep, I think we're all getting sick of the incredible feet-dragging that most stations are doing, and sick of the thought that even when DTV begins transmissions, most stations will cheap out on passing HD signals. It is a slap in the face for sure. I mean, in the grand scheme, how much more can the HD equipment cost them once they're broadcasting DTV?

PCS, I know why I missed WBKI (WB) is due to the fact the they do not even have a Digital antenna planned for Louisville! They broadcast out of Campbellsville and I don't think they will have a DT here in L'ville - probably just cable.

WBKI-DT (no plan for Louisville - Campellsville is under review)
WBNA-DT 8 PAX Louisville KY Nov 1 2002 (I can't believe these guys can be on the air and the others can't - WTF????)
WKPC-DT 17 PBS Louisville KY Now Live (w/o HD though)
WLKY-DT 26 CBS Louisville KY Jan 31 2003 (what a joke! Hahaha)
WKMJ-DT 38 PBS Louisville KY May 1 2003 (according to William they should beat this)
WAVE-DT 47 NBC Louisville KY Dec 15 2002 (going to be missed based on Dorsey's article - I am betting on Jan 15, 2003)
WDRB-DT 49 FOX Louisville KY Nov 1 2002 (missed - now December 1)
WFTE-DT 51 UPN Salem IN Nov 1 2002 (missed - I have no idea on this one)
WHAS-DT 55 ABC Louisville KY Now Live (Kudos, kudos - one station - besides WKPC - could get live, on time, with HDTV!)

Well, this tells a tale of woe for us HD fans. Thank God for ExpressVu and Dish/Directv or it would really be bleak!
BTW, after the metro merger Greater Louisville will be 25th in size (if memory serves me right) but in reality we seem more like 200th ;)

PCS
Thanks for the link

Rumor has it that fox might be testing there low power DTV transmitter later this week.
Honestly, That's all i know.........:-)
Happy thanksgiving folks
I'm hittin the highway for the holidays.
woo

Woo,

Thanks, what's the channel #? What direction is the tower? Is it in the Knobs? Have a safe trip.

PCS, here is the info - the degrees are from Hikes Point

WBNA-DT 8 PAX Louisville KY Now Live 214°
WKPC-DT 17 PBS Louisville KY Now Live 316°
WLKY-DT 26 CBS Louisville KY Jan 31 2003 316°
WKMJ-DT 38 PBS Louisville KY May 1 2003 316°
WAVE-DT 47 NBC Louisville KY Dec 15 2002 36° <<<I thought Wave was sharing WLKY's antenna?
WDRB-DT 49 FOX Louisville KY Under Review 310°
WFTE-DT 51 UPN Salem IN Under Review 310°
WHAS-DT 55 ABC Louisville KY Now Live 312°

You can find out antenna info from http://www.antennaweb.org

MichaelZ-- thanks for the udpate.

Odd issue, Live in far eastern Jeff country (Old Henry Road) and I'm unable to receive any digital signal for KET on channel 17, but amazingly receiving a good lock on the KET channel 43 ? (I can receive WHAS (55) fine.) Where is 43 antenna located?

Equip: Using a Channel Master 3023 UHF with Radio Shack amp 15-1109. Antenna in attic. (HTPC with myHD)

Anyone receiving any Lexington stations in Louisville area? I had a great analog signal last night, but didn't pull any digital.

thanks, Steve

Channel 43 is out of Elizabethtown
Same programming....

WOW, Let's hear it for the little guys. Finally we have 2 digital stations on the air in Louisville! The remaining stations that have not made it to air with digital should hang their heads in shame.

woowoo, thanks for the info on ch 43

Let's hope WAVE and WLKY can get their act together. The broadcasters made a commitment and we've heard excuse after excuse, especially here locally. Broadcasters promised HDTV back in 1985 to keep their spectrum, and 17 years later all I hear is "next month". I bet January will come and go without WAVE and WLKY up and running.

Cambus,
Welcome to avs looks like HDTV in Louisville is growing. FYI, the FOX station Woo mentioned is not WBKI which is WB network. I guess it is an Etown Fox affilliate. I get WDRB here in Louisville. also, we actually have 3 digital stations in Louisville WHAS (ABC), WBNA (PAX), WKET(PBS). Only WHAS passes thru a hidef signal. WKET is working toward being able to do hidef and WBNA (?). I agree, come on WAVE and WLKY, as well as WDRB and WFTE. Get off your a**es and broadcast HDTV!!!

I was in the mall last week and Insight cable was there with a kiosk. I talked to them about my service and asked about HDTV on Insight. To my surprise the two CSRs knew about it and indicated it should be available once WAVE and WLKY get going with their local DTV stations. They anticipated January 2003. I guess we'll see. At least it is being talked about to the general public and they didn't give me some BS like I've gotten before about "we already have HDTV it's called digital cable, blah, blah, blah!"

For some reason I cannot get excited about WDRB's testing of their 'low power' DTV transmitter when I know that they will NOT be passing the EDTV 16x9 Fox stuff. So no widescreen NFL, no widescreen 24. Looks like I'll still be watching analog for awhile more!

Channel 43 is KET's E-town DTv transmitter. It is not a Fox affiliate.

Did everyone know that the UofL - Purdue basketball game (the Wooden Tradition in Indianapolis) is going to be on HDNet *live* at 3:30 on Saturday!!!

Go Cards (and HDNet) !!!!!!

Thanks for the heads up. Too bad I'm treed in here in Audubon Park so I can't get D* or E*. I guess I'll have to make a run to Ovation to watch it there since they use HDNET to display their HDTVs.

WDRB-DT has been up since at least Wednesday(11/27) evening. Don't know about daytime but it has been there the last 3 nights.

beetle, thanks for the heads up! WDRB is on this afternoon (channel 49). I hope they pass the faux 480p widescreen signal for 24 this Tuesday :)
--- Stations doing Digital ----
WBNA-DT 8 PAX Louisville KY Now Live
WKPC-DT 17 PBS Louisville KY Now Live
WDRB-DT 49 FOX Louisville KY Now Testing!!!
WHAS-DT 55 ABC Louisville KY Now Live

---- Now for the Slackers! ------
WLKY-DT 26 CBS Louisville KY Jan 31 2003 (Yeah, I bet - LOL)
WAVE-DT 47 NBC Louisville KY Dec 15 2002
WFTE-DT 51 UPN Salem IN Under Review

Guess I'll have to seek out the new WDRB-DT, then! Woo hoo! Even w/my stack and pointed to the tower (analog) I get a decent picture but the audio is always sparkled w/a bit of static...more like interference. Very annoying.

Well, receiving WDRB-DT 49 but not all that great. I'm getting about 48-53% on my DISH 6000 with plenty of breakups. They must be at very low power.

And the image is softer and the colors more muted than on their analog broadcast.

Nightowl, I was watching some of the ballgame yesterday and was flipping between the analog and the digital and the image seemed blurrer to me as well. It looked like crap compared to the same game on HDNet :D

Wow, I wonder if anyone will actually be able to receive WDRB's broadcast. It must be at insanely low power. I get ABC at 72-79 sig strength (Hughes E86) and KET at similar power. But WDRB I get ticks at 3-6! I played with the pointing of the antenna but nothing would make it better. Accordingh to AntennaWeb, ABC is at 311 degrees and WDRB is at 305, so I should be able to get both reasonably well without repositioning.

I'm close - right in St Matthews, and have a RatShack V-120 outside, so you would expect that I should be able to receive it. I guess this is all I expected from Fox though.

DucTape...that is strange! I am very close to you in Indian Hills and I get digital 49 (WDRB) at 70 to 75% using a RatShack outdoor UHF (similar to the 15-2160 model) and the Dish 6000 with the 8VSB module. I get digital 55 (WHAS) at around 85% in the same direction. I do use an amplifier on the antenna and my mast raises the antenna up to about 18 feet or so. Not sure why you wouldn't get it?

Now if DRB would just put on something other than the static I get currently with the digital feed!

-Alex-

Sure...rub it in Michael! :P

I just fired off an email to WDRB asking for more detail on their initial foray into DTV and plans on passing the 480p feed.

On a side note...I wonder how long until FOX officially changes their name to FAUX? :)

Hmmm, I am looking at my HiPix card (who knows how good the signal strength meter is but) and I get
WHAS 85%
WDRB 84%
WKPC 80%
WBNA 82%
I live in Hike's Point with a cheap RatShack outdoor ant. mounted in my attic.

Just checked and I'm still barely getting a lock (still plenty of breakups) and It's on a VERY narrow beam. If I move my antenna just a couple of degrees north or south I lose them. And, just a reminder, I'm off the Snyder out near Pewee Valley at 730' elevation.

I did hear from Bill Lamb (General Manager), though, already. He didn't have much detail other than that they are testing and it seems it could last a few months like this. Hoping to hear from some others with more technical information.

I did invite them up here, though. :)

I don't know how the rest of you are getting WDRB. I have the dish 6000 and get 55 at 88%, 17 the same and 08 at 70%. But 49 will "flicker" on the "Add DTV" bar at up to 55%, but wont lock and turn the bar to green. Looks like something is there ,I just can't get it to lock. I'm in Henryville, IN. Of course I still get WHAS-DT as channel 55-01 not 11-01 as it used to be.
Larry

I'm getting WDRB-DT at 58-65%. No break-ups exept during some of the heavy wind gusts we got this weekend. I need to try to aim it in a little better. WHAS and WKPC are coming in at 100% and I couldn't do any fine tuning during my antenna installation because the meter was pegged. I watched the Eagles/Rams game on it yesterday without any trouble.
I dont think the digital looks any better than the analog, but the digital sound is better (at least for the football game). I was hoping to see the Fox Widescreen but maybe in the future.

Chris

That's strange - some are getting it no trouble, others (like me) can't pull it in at all. My antenna could probably stand to be higher, as it does point towards some trees a ways away. But they are all naked now, so they shouldn't present a huge problem, and like I said, I get WHAS at 72-79 on my E86 (which is plenty good for a strong lock). But WDRB I get picks at 3-6, that's all. No amount of tweaking the antenna helped. It's on my back deck, about 20 feet up.

But since they are not transmitting EDTV I don't really care!

I can get WDRB-DT fine here on bishop lane
(Newburg & Waterson Expressway)

I actually get WDRB stronger (with virtually no dropouts) than WHAS or WKET here in Audubon Park east central Louisville. I'm just using an indoor RS double bowtie. Too bad the PQ is pathetic compared to WHAS. I wonder if they are going to pass thru edtv widescreen?

I'm sorry if this is old news, but I got a response from WHAS engineering as to why some people (like me) are having problems mapping to 11-01 (comes up as 55-01).

Here is their response:

"Below is a response from our Engineering team.

Thank you for your interest in WHAS-DT!

Tracy Alvey

WHAS-11



The problem is primarily with Sony or Sony- made receivers made under other names . They go into default reset if an RRT pid is not received. It assumes that it is all rated, generates an error and resets, never showing a signal strength indication or a picture. Some of the new dishnet 8-vsb receivers are also having the same problem. Sony is upgrading their firmware to eliminate this problem, but at this point they are still in testing. For now we are not running the PSIP generator to help alleviate problems . This causes some issues with virtual channel mapping, but everyone gets a picture. By the end of February we should have a new PSIP generator in place to resolve these issues.


Steve Beall

WHAS-TV "

Larry

Thanks, Larry.

And, on a side note, my reception of WDRB-DT has improved greatly in the last two days (and so has WHAS-DT). I'm seeing my DISH 6000 read 65-70% on WDRB-DT and in the upper 90s on WHAS-DT :D

Maybe now that the wind has died down some it's helped?

I have been unable to get WHAS for 48 hours. Is anyone else having this problem? Are they off the air? lowered power?

Looks ok here. Watched part of Monk and now Football. In Springhurst.

I still see the 15th listed for WAVE DT signal to be up....anyone heard anything on when this might actually happen?
-Alex-

I received an e-mail from Bob @ Wave and he told me late January or maybe sooner. Hopefully they do a better job than the others are doing!!

Looks like WHAS is back on track at my house. I guess with digital its either all or nothing. That's good except when it goes to nothing (especially with all the low power and part time schedules for broadcasting) its tough to know if it is signal strength or the fact that the transmission has ceased. My Panny STB doesn't have signal strength so that is another part of my uncertainty. Oh well, hopefully Insight will get going with DTV once we get WAVE and WLKY transmitting. Then I can retire my current STB. Thanks for the heads up STEVENSHS.

Fome FOX41.com we have the following:

"WDRB Fox 41 began broadcasting digitally on Sunday, December 1, 2002. Viewers equipped with digital TV receivers will find the WDRB digital signal on Channel 49.

WDRB continues to broadcast its analog signal (receivable by all conventional television sets) over Channel 41 as always, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. All programming on both analog channel 41 and digital channel 49 is identical.

Please note that digital broadcasting and HDTV broadcasting are NOT synonymous. Even though we are currently producing a digital signal, WDRB is not broadcasting in HDTV. There are no plans to do so in the immediate future, but when such a move is ultimately made, that fact will be heavily publicized well in advance.

As we embark upon these technological changes and advances, rest assured that WDRB will continue in its mission to serve the viewing public with the area's finest mix of news and entertainment programming."

Public relations is a wonderful thing!

But will they ever pass the 480P signal from FOX? Not Hi-Def, but still better then the murky digital they are broadcasting now.

-Alex-

Insight Cable is coming Monday to install digital cable and an HD stb. Currently they will only be sending HBO and Showtime HD. Local channels to be added soon. Will provide quality, component and price information Monday after installation.

Sonyman,
Are you a tester or a customer? How did you get this? Is there a waiting list? Sign me up!

WDRB - "There are no plans to do so in the immediate future"

Thanks for nothing! :(

Thanks WLKY for broadcasting the UK / Indiana basketball game in HDTV! Also a big thank you (in advance) for broadcasting the NFL playoffs in January.

NOT!!

THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE to see CBS-HDTV in LOUISVILLE:
Get the DISH CBS-HD feed from NY and LA:

See below for more info:
http://hdtvision.com/Dish%20Network/CBS_HDTV.htm

if you live within WLKY broadcast area, you need to use a friends address in a "white area" when registering your DISH HDTV Receiver, (see QUALIFICATION METHOD #2)

I doubt those idiots at WLKY would give you a waiver. Of course, they will be up and running in January 2003. (ha ha!!) (Also, a big thank you to WDRB and that BS press release. Was that purposely unclear? )

Originally posted by SONYMAN
Insight Cable is coming Monday to install digital cable and an HD stb. Currently they will only be sending HBO and Showtime HD. Local channels to be added soon. Will provide quality, component and price information Monday after installation.

How did you arange this? Who do we need to contact? Details please...

YES sonyman. Come on and show some love man! Enquiring minds want to know. How do we get in on this action with Insight Cable HDTV?

Also, what are the odds that WLKY will be on in HDTV when Louisville and Indiana play in January? (not to mention the odds of CBS carrying it in HDTV) Freedom Hall is at least capable of an HDTV broadcast as the UK/IU game demonstrates so come on WLKY give it up for the Cards!!!

PCS
Sorry I just got home from work. I haven't been able to play yet. The picture is awsome. I am a Beta Tester, full roll out should be in a week to 10 days. I am not sure if there is a waiting list. They are currently only broadcasting HBO and Showtime in HDTV. I had to get digital cable to get the HD stb. The HD stb is a Motorola. The package including digital, internet, HBO and Showtime is $112.05 plus tax.

Went to the mall St. Matthews today (gotta save all that shopping till the last minute when the malls are nice and uncrowded!) and saw that Insight was demoing thier Hi-Def box at their kiosk. I asked one of the sales people about it and he indicated that the rollout would be late January. Couldn't give me pricing and he said that the Motorola box that was being used for the demo was merely a test unit and that the final configuartion had not been decided. He didn't have access to any pricing for the HD HBO/SHOWtime package.

Just FYI...
-Alex-

The Ovation stores in St. Matthew's and Southern Indiana were installed on Friday.

Internet access being, what, $40/mo so that means $80 for the TV service? Guess that's not too bad compared to DISH.

I'm at about $80 for DISH and I get ABC from NY, the LA locals :D , and the HD stuff including CBS-HD (NY feed) plus the regular movie channels (but no Starz and no Cinemax). But to no longer need a dish on the roof...hmmmm

Can't wait for the NFL playoffs and the IU/UK game looked great :D

Hey Jerry just a little help with the math. Broadband internet is actually $46.50 with tax so the cable TV part is really $65.55. That's over $14.00 less than satellite and no dish. I guess we'll have to wait and see what the picture is like and how much, if any, compression effects the PQ. Also, it would be good to get the locals in HD and I wonder why WHAS & WKET are not being carried by INSIGHT since they are DTV now. At least there is progress! I sure hope this all gets worked out and in my den by Superbowl time. Hey a guy can dream can't he! LOL

PCS
I understand that insight is in negotiations now with WHAS and KET and should be broadcasting shortly. I think broadband is $34.95 plus tax with your cable discount. The HD I'm receiving from HBO seems to be much sharper than OTA from WHAS when they are passing along an HDTV broadcast. Insight tells me they should have the Super Bowl. I'm getting ready to run some new upgrade component video cables from the HD box to my TV. Merry Christmas to me.

Originally posted by bairda
Went to the mall St. Matthews today (gotta save all that shopping till the last minute when the malls are nice and uncrowded!) and saw that Insight was demoing thier Hi-Def box at their kiosk. I asked one of the sales people about it and he indicated that the rollout would be late January. Couldn't give me pricing and he said that the Motorola box that was being used for the demo was merely a test unit and that the final configuartion had not been decided. He didn't have access to any pricing for the HD HBO/SHOWtime package.

Just FYI...
-Alex-

I just asked them about it last week at this kiosk and they said they did not know anything about the rollout. I guess I just asked the wrong person.

Sonyman, you still haven't really said how you scored. I f the official rollout should happen in January, what's your secret? I was an early adopter on Digital cable and phone service as well as a internet beta tester and I have asked repeatedly to be included in any testing.

HBO iscurrently broadcasting Ocean's Eleven, it is coming in full screen and 5.1 digital. The picture quality and sound quality is comparable if not better than my DVD player. Depending on the movie, some are letter boxed on the side or top, and some are dolby surround. I am watching with a Sony KDP57XBR2 HDTV. The signal is 1080i.

Brian - a very good friend got me hooked up early. What did insight say when you asked to have an HD stb installed?

KET will be there....
Be paitent

For insight
ALL motorola boxes on the consumer end
Locals will be there
The devils in the details

Fox does not have a "Dual Path" microwave yet.
Cant put the 16 X 9 feed on the air till they get one.
Happy holidays folks......

P.S. You may see a little "38" in january
Dont know what the programing will be....
It will be testing
Woo

Sonyman, I've never gotten anyone who really would admit to knowing anything, so I've asked these people about a waiting list or anything and none have seemed to have any knowledge at all and mpre specifically about HD. I've just tried through the "normal" numbers. I may try a little harder while I'm off work to see if I can get to someone in the know.

Any chance you could pass my name along to your friend?

Too bad WLKY won't be up in time to show the (now announced) playoff games that CBS will be broadcasting :(

Originally posted by SONYMAN
The Ovation stores in St. Matthew's and Southern Indiana were installed on Friday.

I stopped by the St. Matthews store today with a friend who is shopping for a Plasma.

The Motorola HD STB is there and hooked up for demo's. Unfortunately, neither HBOHD or SHOHD were showing a high quality HD program during my visit so I didn't get a good sample. What I did see looked only slightly better than standard definition so I hope it was the program... It certainly wasn't near the quality I'm use to seeing on HBO / SHO with home DirecTv setup.

The salesman said two things that interested me.

1) He said once the roll-out occurs we will need the new Motorola HD STB in addition to the standard cable box for normal definition. He said they will work together, but only the standard definition box displays guides. He said Insight & Motorola are working on a software upgrade which will enable HD STB to do everything and eliminate the need for the second box, but that upgrade won't be available until around April. SONYMAN, Is this true about requiring two cable boxes? If so, how does it work? Does the regular cable box feed it's signal into the new HD STB and from there into the TV or does each cable box take up separate inputs on the TV and require switching of inputs on the TV to watch the HD channels?

2) I'm going to assume this is a rumor and not true, but if it is true I'm going to be very happy.... He said he was told Insight is currently negotiating with: DiscoveryHD, ESPN HD and HD.NET!!!!!! If it actually comes true... WoW! :-) I really hate to give up HD.NET on DirecTV.... If Insight carries it in addition to the local channels they'll have me converted from DirecTV for sure!

Insight needs to carry HDnet or I still would have my Directv dish connected. If they carry all available HD material I will be saying bye-bye DTV.

GregJKY
The picture quality through the HD STB when HBOHD or SHOHD are not broadcasting a true HD program looks the same to me as through the Digital Cable Box. That is where I receive regular HBO and Showtime channels. When they are brodcasting in true HD and viewed through the HD STB, the picture quality in the best I've seen, including DVD.

I currently have two cable boxes. One HD and one Digital. They are not connected to each other. They take separate inputs into the TV. The cable line is split with a direct line into the TV cable connect for regular cable viewing with the TV tuner. A cable line into the digital box with a cable line into the TV with the TV tuned to channel 4 and using the Digital Tuner for changing channels. There is a cable line into the HD STB with component cables into the TV. You can view HD with only the HD STB powered up and the TV switched to that input as you would with your DVD player. I have an optical line running from the HD STB to my audio receiver.

I can only imagine if Insight is going to be competitive, the will need to carry all available HD channels. I was told that they are currently in negotiations with WHAS, KET, ESPN and Discovery HD.

I am sorry that HD was not being broadcast at the time you were in the St. Matthew's store. It is truly better picture quality than any OTA HD or cable signal I have viewed so far.

Sonyman, if you've seen OTA or Directv HD then that *should* be as good a signal as you will see on cable - digital is digital. Insight will *never* have a better local picture since they are rebroadcasting the OTA signal. As far as cable HBOHD or ShowTimeHD being better than satellite it would depend if the other carriers were down-rezing the bitstream.

I know this is off the subject, but it concerns Louisville and I have not seen it anywhere in this forum.

If you have E* and are interested, the locals are now available. NBC is still negotiating but you can get 11, 32, 34, 41, 58 & PBS for $5.99 a month.

They started 12/19/02 and the picture quality is not up to par, but you can now get full 24hr program info in the guide. No HD.
Larry

MichaelZ,
I guess PQ is in the eye of the beholder. I do have to take exception to your statement that "digital is digital", it is too broad. There are currently 18 different ATSC formats that are sent out by cable companies, OTA (WHAS-DT) and satellite companies. The amount of compression used also varies by source. The amount of degradation of picture quality due to digital compression can vary from these different companies. So HBOHD can vary in PQ depending on the amount of compression the supplier uses, as well as format. HDTV can also be broadcast in two resolutions either 720p or 1080i. Differences in resolution, compression and format can vary by transmitter. You are accurate in your statement that the PQ from WHAS-DT will not be better on cable, but that does on apply to HBOHD or ShowTimeHD. Through my eyes the picture quality from HBOHD through cable is remarkably better that the OTA signal that I receive from WHAS-DT when they are both broadcasting in HD.

Anyone catch the end of Drew Carey Friday night on WHAS ABC? WHAS forgot to switch the feeds, and for about 3 minutes, a Space Shuttle launch was shown. (ABC HD demo loop?) If you haven't seen this demo material (first for me) it was awesome, especially compared to the Drew Carey show, which I'm assuming is shot on 35mm film and converted.

Here are some shots I took with my HTPC using myHD:
http://cambus.com/abc/

Note these shots on my site are highly compressed... the original material is crystal clear with almost a 3D feel.

Sonyman, WHAS-TV upconverts 720p to 1080i and I believe this is why it might look softer than HBOHD. I thought in your message you were comparing HBOHD satellite to HBOHD cable. Unless the carrier converts a digital signal it makes no difference where you receive it from, it will be identical. Now the STB decoding the stream may do a better job than some other box but that is a whole other subject.

Insight is scheduled to install an HD box on tuesday! ^_^
^_^
Called them up today and they seemed to know what they were talking about! They have HBO, Showtime, ABC and PBS up, and they said they were in the process of getting more channels.

2$ a month for the box, and 20$ installation. I'll let you guys know how it turns out on tuesday. =)


BTW, my Hitachi 53" HD set is out of convergence, any suggestion on how to get this fixed?

stovetop, it sounds like they are rolling it out. is that right? not testing still?

HDTV IS NOW AVAILABLE ON INSIGHT IN LOUISVILLE!!!

Yes, I am not a beta tester. I just scheduled install for next week. No extra cost for HDTV if you have an HDTV tuner (internal or STB) if you already have a digital pack. I dropped STARZ and picked up Showtime so no extra charge for me. I am paying $10 for HBO which I didn't have before. I can't get HBO-HD without the whole HBO pack. No CBS or NBC until later in January but they will be added no charge. SOMEBODY WAKE ME UP I MUST BE DREAMING. I put in a request for HDNET and they said it was important to hear from as many customers as possible to get this added. Come on folks lets show MCUBAN some love for his pioneer efforts in HDTV ask for, no demand, HDNET on Insight cable! It feels like New Years Eve all over again. HDTV via cable, no more signal drops. Lets hope the compression doesn't kill the PQ. For now I'm gonna stay positive and get ready for Superbowl 2003 in HDTV. PARTY!!!:D :D :D

Sounds great, guys. Any more details (i.e. what if you don't have a STB - is there a new tuner they are supplying? how much? etc). Please keep us posted on how the picture looks..

pcs, are you saying that you don't need an Insight HDTV stb if you have a HD tuner? In other words, I can use my HiPix card with Insight's system? Please explain - I may order this myself this week if this is the case!

It seems like if you don't have a HD Decoder, you can rent Motorolla's for 2$ a month, and if you do, there's no extra fee besides paying for the extra programming. (Actually, i think it's a great way to get people to sign up for more channels, like how both PCS and I are paying 10$ extra for the HBO package (i had showtime before)).

I saw Discovery Theatre playing in the Green Tree Mall at Sears in Dec (through sat), and it looked FANTASTIC, so, I think I'd actually would be willing to pay 8 bucks to get that. I'll call up and request ESPN, HDNET, and Discovery on monday.

I can't believe Insight came through!

jcblack, it's available for everyone, the number you need to call is 357-4400 and press '1' to bypass the long message to go straight to cable service, and '1' again to order new service.


Good luck, be sure to request channels!

great way to get people to sign up for more channels? Heck yeah. I'm in lexington and still have insight's analog cable. when insight lex gets hd and if the incentives are right i'll go w/ the cable instead of directtv (still shopping for hdtvs but when i get one i'm all in for something).


now, the real question is qam or 8vsb for the hbo and showtime. are you sure you don't need a stb from them to get hbohd? I read through the "HDTV on Cable: Where, Who, What, How Much? " thread and no listing there has 8vsb.

Ditto everything stovetop said. Good luck Michaelz I think the $2 STB is for someone without any HD tuner. I have no experience with HIPIX but I bet that takes care of your need for a tuner. I forgot about DiscoveryHD. I will request that too. Yipee Kai-yeah its finally happening.

jcblack I was wondering about Qam vs 8vsb too. I may be way off but it seems the HDTV STB converts to 8vsb which then goes to the tuner (STB, computer card, whatever) then via analog to the HDTV. I'll find out soon enough and let you know. :p

pcs, the insight stb would need to output a 8vsb astc signal (faked to channel 4 or something - like the dish 5000 modulator) to work with a standard HD Stb like a DTC-100 or a HiPix or whatever. Do they have these stb at Ovation or one of the mall kioshs(sp?) ? I too will send insight a message about HDnet - I would have to have that too ;)

I went by Insights Kiosk at The Mall on New Years Eve and they had already closed... but I could look through the windows and see that they had a Digital cable reciever a little galvanized metal box and a standard DTV receiver. They had two different brands (I think one was a Panisonic). This definitly looked like an 8VSB setup.

I believe I read in a thread earlier this year that one of the other calbelcos had started with this scheme and then changed over after they could get a supply of boxes. I have a MyHD card on the way, so I hope they stick with 8VSB :-)

I hate asking this but anyone have any info on Wave or Wlky and when they might be testing? Last I heard was middle of January but neither one of these stations have been close to making any date previously announced so I don't have high hopes of them being on the air this month.

Can't help you on an announced start date for WAVE or WLKY. I have sent emails this week since signing up for HDTV cable. When I went to the "contact us" page on the WAVE website I found a DTV section of the WAVE site. Of course its not on their start page so that the average person could see it and start wondering what this is all about.:mad: Here is the link if anyone's interested:

http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=841613&nav=7k8Z9ubs

Here is what Titan-Tv has listed (as of today):
CBS 26 WLKY-DT Jan 31 2003
NBC 47 WAVE-DT Feb 1 2003
UPN 51 WFTE-DT Feb 1 2003
WB 19 WBKI-DT May 1 2003

Can someone provide the model number of the Motorola box being using for HDTV with Insight Louisville?

http://broadband.motorola.com/catalog/group_by_category.asp?categoryID=125

Initially they are using a DCT5100.

sonyman, is this the only way to connect, using the dct5100? Someone else posted that you might be able to use your own HD stb but I see nothing on the dct5100 to support that. BTW, does the firewire come with the box and is it functional? Is this the way Insight will be implementing the cable modem for people wanting Insightbb? Who can I talk with at Insight that is technical - I am thinking of doing the whole nine yards, cable modem, phone and digital services (I think it called triple play).
Thanks

Originally posted by SONYMAN
Initially they are using a DCT5100.
http://broadband.motorola.com/catalog/productdetail.asp?ProductID=179 has a PDF indicating this device does QAM. So my guess is that your regular 'ol 8VSB STB tuner won't fly for Insight HD.

I think the Insight options are more than reasonable and very exciting for anyone who has an HDTV and no tuner yet. Those of us already with STB tuners need another HD option in the Insight package (I don't do HBO or Showtime) to get me off the fence. HDNet would do it for me!

Insight will be QAM only.....
Motorola reciever only.......

MORE GOOD NEWS FOLKS!

I just got off the phone from speaking to Steve Langford of WAVE 3. He assures me (barring some unexpected event) WAVE will be on the air Jan. 15th. He checked with his chief engineer before calling me. He expects WLKY to be good to go in the 15th as well. They will be passing through all HDTV broadcasts. He is in negotiations with Insight to get them to carry the signal. He expects this to be done by the end of the month.

Sweet!

Too bad WLKY won't be on and HD in time for the HD divisional playoffs this week :(

But it will be in time for the AFC championship :>)

PCS, thanks for the update on WAVE. Can't wait to see Leno in HDTV, especially musical guests.

Anyone know who locally has 16x9 direct-view HDTVs? (like the Sony KV-34XBR800 reviewed below) I didn't see any direct view 16x9 HDTV at Best Buy last month.

Sony KV-34XBR800 :
http://www.hometheatermag.com/showarchives.cgi?148:2

pcs, I hope Wave comes through but I will be shocked to see Wlky on-line by the 15th esp. passing-thru HD.

Originally posted by cambus
Anyone know who locally has 16x9 direct-view HDTVs? (like the Sony KV-34XBR800 reviewed below) I didn't see any direct view 16x9 HDTV at Best Buy last month.
I purchased my 34xbr800 from Ovation in Lexington this past September(shipped from L'ville). So I would assume the Ovation store in L'ville carries this item too. The Ovation people I've worked with have been extremely helpful and knowledgable about HDTV!