Looks like 4 and 7 are having a few issues with the high wind and microwave links.

I would say that about 16 too. 4 is giving me hell right now in the Living Room where I used to get a great signal. And I am sure you really didn't mean 7. :)

Before I saw that post I was going to ask if the high winds around here could be screwing up OTA reception somehow. I know it shouldn't and sounds ridiculous, but I didn't know if the wind was messing up the waves. :)

Entergy is having problems with the power on Shinall right now. A 220V feed blew a fuse due to the high winds and took 7 off the air and put 4 to standby power temporarily.

A 220V feed blew a fuse due to the high winds and took 7 off the air


LOL... I'm sorry, but when I read this, I couldn't help but snicker :) It got me to thinking their must be a higher power that doesn't like katv more than the viewers of Central AR... they just can't stay on the air! :p

Keith,
Always be suspect of any wireless device you or your neighbors are using. That's the first thing to disconnect if you're having reception problems with another wireless device (e g, OTA TV).

If the FCC spent less time regulating the nation's morals and more time regulating wireless devices like the one you purchased, these kinds problems wouldn't be as common.

I may try moving the device across the house to see if that helps any, and if it doesn't, I suppose I'll just retire the thing...haha. Thanks for trying to help me, though!

I actually meant 7. At work all we have is a little rat shack antenna on the roof of our warehouse and a 13" analog tv in the break room.
My boss was watching it, and called me in to see if our antenna blew down. I switched to 4 and they were off. Switched up to 9 and it was solid, so I just figured it was a microwave problem since 7 had been popping in and out for an hour before that.

Noticed they also were up on G10 last night with a whole transponder, in open scramble mode. No signal today, don't know what they are up to.

Oh, I never try 7 OTA anymore since there is no DT from them, so I didn't know they were down. I never saw 4 down today, but guess it could have happened when I wasn't looking. Anyway, sorry to doubt you. :)

Got any older FTA equipment I could play with to see if I would like to do it on my own? :) Hehehe, had to ask.

EDIT: I do see that there is no channel 7 on DirecTV right now. Guess its pretty bad up there.

Well, if Nicholson would just pony up some cash, from all those infomercials, and forget analog 7, and just put ch22 up on Shinall, and do it right, they might at least be on DirecTv.

No spare FTA stuff at all. I got a 90cm dish in the front yard for Galaxy 10 (equity MUX), a 24" old Directv dish with a modified mount for Galaxy 28 (ABC News Now and live news feeds), and have another 90cm dish and .4 lnbf on order for AMC3 (PBS HD, PBS MUX, and PBS WORLD). You can hook in up to 4 dishes to the receiver, then just tell the receiver what sat configuration is on each port. I have a 10' C Band dish out back I might try to hook in port 4. Its got 10 yr old lnb and coax, so I'm sure those are bad. Also, trees now block it just about completely. Used it to get Smallville in HD on WB feed before KWBF even tried doing digital.

Stuff is cheap tho, you can get a dish, lnbf, and receiver for about $160 if you want to try it out..

You mean a 4 year M.I.S. degree won't get me anywhere? I have to go get a 2 year community college degree? LOL And 4 years as an Aviation Electronics Technician in the Navy won't help either? :) Sorry, but most of the time I find that education and just knowledge in general doesn't get you jack around here. You have to know too many people to be able to get a job, much less a break into a specific field.

I just really want to move to a real city in a real state where damn near everything and everybody's life in the entire state doesn't circle around one specific thing or group and you don't have to know a guy who owes another guy a favor kinda thing to get a job.

Didn't know about the military electronics. That will work.
Good Luck on your job search. There has to be a job out there somewhere.

SWEET!!! I got GBPVR to actually record ABC HD shows tonight via the Comcast feed into my house. I can actually watch the shows in a decent format and not crappy SD DirecTV fed content. I matched up the channel with the channel it found when scanning and told it to manually record from 8 to 10. Only thing I have to work on now is getting the EPG data to actually fill in completely. For some reason, it had all the info up until like 6pm, after that it didn't have anything even though I told it to fill in the 4 days worth that you get for free from cttvlistings.net. Just gotta figure out why its doing that.

stevenken, Did you get my last PM?

Yes, Dennis, I sure did. I just haven't had time to do anything about it yet. Last night was kinda hectic and I was lucky to get done what I did. :)

Entergy is having problems with the power on Shinall right now. A 220V feed blew a fuse due to the high winds and took 7 off the air and put 4 to standby power temporarily.Thanks, alisonf.

Do you know where katv plans to rebuild their ch22 tower?

SWEET!!! I got GBPVR to actually record ABC HD shows tonight via the Comcast feed into my house. I can actually watch the shows in a decent format and not crappy SD DirecTV fed content. I matched up the channel with the channel it found when scanning and told it to manually record from 8 to 10. Only thing I have to work on now is getting the EPG data to actually fill in completely. For some reason, it had all the info up until like 6pm, after that it didn't have anything even though I told it to fill in the 4 days worth that you get for free from cttvlistings.net. Just gotta figure out why its doing that.
I've noticed problems with it getting the EPG data on its own as well. It definitely doesn't seem to be following the "download EPG data automatically" configuration. I think I also had it suddenly decide to download the EPG (and thus kill all the data it already had) one time when I loaded the actual program (not just the recording service) for the first time in a while.

Overall, I'm pleased with the whole GB-PVR solution for HD recording, with some annoyances (one significant). First is this EPG stuff, which is a little ridiculous. Second is that I haven't seen an automatic record option, although it probably is there somewhere. Of course, with unreliable EPG data, that wouldn't be of much use anyway. Third, I am still having issues with audio lagging the video, which gets progressively worse as the show goes on. This seems to happen only on Fox broadcasts, although I have only watched one thing from another network (an episode of The Office). I'm not even 100% sure this is GB-PVR's fault (it could be something low-level on the computer, like the media splitter), as it seems to worsen primarily when I start zapping commercials or using the instant replay button. The true test of all of this will come in the weeks ahead when I start recording Lost, Smallville, and probably some hockey.

ORPhD, yeah, I agree, the EPG data problem is a pain in the butt.

There is an option in the config to load in XML data as well, but every time I tried doing that it didn't work either. I got it from the cttvlistings.net site just like the automatic part it does. Until I get continuous EPG data, I won't worry about the auto record bit.

I haven't played back the shows I recorded yet, so I don't know anything about sync problems.

No, I am pretty sure that has not yet been determined.

Because I don't want to call Comcrap, what is the situation with their HD offerings? Are they currently distributing cablecards to customers with TiVoHDs? Single stream or multi? Extra cost?

Thanks. :)

Is anybody around the Searcy area receiving a HD signal from KATV? I was getting it from my OTA, but since the fall I've seen nada. Is it just me (being too far out) or is it more widespread than that? What is the timetable for it to return for people in my area?

Is anybody around the Searcy area receiving a HD signal from KATV? I was getting it from my OTA, but since the fall I've seen nada. Is it just me (being too far out) or is it more widespread than that? What is the timetable for it to return for people in my area?

Hmm, I am not really sure where you have been, but you must not have seen any news at all in quite a while. KATV's tower dropped to the ground like a big hunk of lead a couple weeks ago. If you want, you can go back a couple of pages on this forum and you will see.

Not to be mean or anything, but where have you been?!?!!?!??!?! This was a major big deal everywhere when it happened.

I know about about the tower falling and everything, but I have also heard that some area's have their HD signal back via OTA, but I do not. I'm curious to find out if this is a range thing, or something else.

Earlier in this thread, I seem to remember Cablecard request responses were all over the board, depending on which CSR was on the line. There was no consistency whatsoever. I have little reason to think this would have actually changed.

While on the subject of Comcast's HD, I had an interesting experience this past weekend. As some of you know, I have been getting their digital starter package (no HD add on) for a couple months now. Overall, I have been pretty happy with the quality, as it didn't seem to be much of a dropoff from OTA (and certainly MUCH more reliable for PVR purposes). As a result, I was considering shelling out the extra $7 a month for the HD package: sure, I wouldn't get that many more channels (10-15, I think), but $7 a month wouldn't be breaking the bank either. Plus, I'm sure HGTV in HD would earn some major brownie points. Anyway, we were at my wife's sister's house the other day. They have the exact same TV we do and have the HD package, so it was a perfect way to see what I would be getting. While I may have been just a bit close to the screen, it was still, quite frankly, pretty appalling. Basically anything moving had major artifacting going on. It was almost as if it was only HD during a still image, which of course, is pointless.

All in all, it just made me glad that I haven't seen those types of issues with the networks. It also made me realize I wouldn't be the one mentioning upgrading.:)

I know about about the tower falling and everything, but I have also heard that some area's have their HD signal back via OTA, but I do not. I'm curious to find out if this is a range thing, or something else.

Noone anywhere has KATV HD OTA. The only way KATV has ANY HD content going out is across Comcast Cable. There is no HD transmitter at all for them right now to transmit anything via OTA.

Thanks for the information!

Anyway, we were at my wife's sister's house the other day. They have the exact same TV we do and have the HD package, so it was a perfect way to see what I would be getting. While I may have been just a bit close to the screen, it was still, quite frankly, pretty appalling. Basically anything moving had major artifacting going on. It was almost as if it was only HD during a still image, which of course, is pointless.

You can't really judge it by that. I had Comcrap before I switched back to DirecTV and I had their HD package. On my 42" Plasma it looked just fine. In fact, if I am remembering correctly, it looked about as good as D*'s content does. I didn't stay with them because of their lack of channels plus the major nickel and diming they do to people.

The reason I say you can't judge it by that is that I would imagine that their HD crap is about as iffy farther away from the distribution point as DSL is. I may be completely wrong on that count, but I can only imagine that there would be degradation in the signal for something as bandwidth heavy as HD the further away you get. I wouldn't be surprised if your sister-in-law's house were farther from their distribution point than yours is. OR it could be something as simple as your sister-in-law having a crappy receiver and needing to have it replaced because there is something wrong with it.

I would also be willing to bet if you got the HD offerings from them it would be better than hers. Of course, I wouldn't wish that on anyone and would highly recommend your switching to D* to get better service and more HD channels. I wish Comcrap a slow and painful death most of the time. Others I am glad they are around.......well, okay, only as long as I am able to get FREE HD local channels while satellite doesn't have it. :)

This was a major big deal everywhere when it happened.
"Everywhere"...in central Arkansas. Which some of us would hardly consider "everywhere." :) I'm not sure this even made a blip on the radar anywhere else.

If not for AVS, I'm not sure I would have known either (although I would have noticed something was up tomorrow if Lost HD hadn't recorded). And sadly, I drive by the tower site every day. True story: I didn't even realize there was an abnormally large tower until probably about 4 months ago. I've been driving this commute for almost 2.5 years now.

yeah yeah yeah, you knew what I meant, Dave! :)

Oh, and by the way, thats sad you didn't know it was there. My wife is oblivious like that to some things, but even SHE knew it was there. :)

You can't really judge it by that. I had Comcrap before I switched back to DirecTV and I had their HD package. On my 42" Plasma it looked just fine. In fact, if I am remembering correctly, it looked about as good as D*'s content does. I didn't stay with them because of their lack of channels plus the major nickel and diming they do to people.

The reason I say you can't judge it by that is that I would imagine that their HD crap is about as iffy farther away from the distribution point as DSL is. I may be completely wrong on that count, but I can only imagine that there would be degradation in the signal for something as bandwidth heavy as HD the further away you get. I wouldn't be surprised if your sister-in-law's house were farther from their distribution point than yours is. OR it could be something as simple as your sister-in-law having a crappy receiver and needing to have it replaced because there is something wrong with it.

I would also be willing to bet if you got the HD offerings from them it would be better than hers. Of course, I wouldn't wish that on anyone and would highly recommend your switching to D* to get better service and more HD channels. I wish Comcrap a slow and painful death most of the time. Others I am glad they are around.......well, okay, only as long as I am able to get FREE HD local channels while satellite doesn't have it. :)
EXCELLENT point about the distance...I never thought about that. In fact, that seems very, very likely since they always said their Comcast internet was WAY slower than DSL. If they were simply from from the distribution point, that would explain everything.

I'm currently paying $20 a month for Comcast, which, for what I get, D* and E* can't touch. I can record the locals in HD (which is really all I care about), I have more than enough SD channels for my wife and kids, and the On Demand kids stuff works great for our daughter...er, um, not that we ever just sit her in front of the TV or anything. :o Even when it goes up to $50 after 6 months, it will still be the most cost effective solution for this particular set of needs. And if I do decide I want more, $7 is almost nothing in pay TV land, and, relative to what I have now, 10-15 extra channels will still seem awesome (even if it really isn't).

To each, his or her own.

Note: I wasn't misinterpreting steveken's post as some sort of slam for having Comcast. I know he does too. It can serve a purpose, if a very limited one in this area. All I was saying was that that purpose happens to serve me very well at the moment. As an interesting side note, while I hate Comcast and have dealt with them for years (going back to when I was living near Philly), it is hard for me to root for their complete destruction since they do own my favorite sports team (the Flyers). Partial destruction would be just fine though.;)

You know, you would think we were afraid of retribution by people who read this board the way we keep putting in notes to cover our asses. :)

How come no one is complaining about the enhanced season finale of Lost being preempted for basketball? I just figured out ABC from Casper Wyoming is an hour behind us, and its just starting on that channel. Went to KATV to record it, since I've never watched it, and it seems kinda popular, but the basketball Gods said No... so the "backup" is recording it. Wonder if they will show an infomercial for the premier tomorrow :)

I just figured it's not worth complaining about anymore, it's January whatever's on ABC on Wednesdays is just gonna get pre-empted. It is a rerun after all, and plus, it's not in HD anyway OTA. Now, tomorrow night I'll be griping about the lack of HD. I've got the SD DVR set to record it, but I may end up watching it online at ABC.com anyway.

How come no one is complaining about the enhanced season finale of Lost being preempted for basketball? I just figured out ABC from Casper Wyoming is an hour behind us, and its just starting on that channel. Went to KATV to record it, since I've never watched it, and it seems kinda popular, but the basketball Gods said No... so the "backup" is recording it. Wonder if they will show an infomercial for the premier tomorrow :)

forgot about the "enhanced" rerun (though from what I've read, it wasn't that great anyways). I'm glad LOST isn't on Wednesdays anymore for that very reason, only one preemption to deal with this season! (last I checked) SEC tournament on March 13, maybe it will actually be a game worth watching, oh wait, the quality is still crap...not worth watching!

less than 24 hours til LOST returns! I'm taking my laptop to my dad's office to record via Comcast's QAM. I was hoping for a little more HD QAM than just the locals but hey, it's free and it's Comcast (some providers occasionally offer HD Theater or TNTHD or HDNet).

I'm gonna record the HD feed, but don't have any way to transfer it off the drive for you guys. Best I could do would be a high bitrate 480i widescreen recording through component rgb to the dvd recorder. If I didn't have 3 cats and a big dog in a little house, I'd say come watch it live in hd. I'm not much of a housekeeper tho.

I'll be recording it to my hard drive and removing the commercials for my archive. I don't think it will fit on a DVD though (in native HD, no compression), maybe a dual-layer (I don't have any of those though). No next-gen drives (BR or HD DVD) for me either...

I just record on my HR20, then dump it to my dvd recorder using component, edit out the commercials. I can choose the amount of compression. I don't know if any of my computer gear is even fast enough to play actual uncompressed HD (like recording using a atsc capture card). I'm using the ATI video built into the motherboard. Never upgraded to a good card, as I never use it for HD.

I was going through some of the screencaps I've taken of distant DT stations over the past few months, and came across one from WXXV-DT, the ABC affiliate for Waco, Texas.

http://i32.tinypic.com/314z4ig.jpg

Notice the sidebars for a 4:3 program. This is the only station I've noticed that actually utilizes the entire 16:9 screen, 24/7. Granted, it just a station logo, but I thought it was interesting. Personally, I think nice, because it provides constant station ID, and makes use of that extra space. I can see how the logos could distract some viewers, though. Just wanted to get some opinions from all of you. Honestly, I'm curious as to how difficult it is for a local station to do this? Tech-wise and cost-wise.

How come no one is complaining about the enhanced season finale of Lost being preempted for basketball? I just figured out ABC from Casper Wyoming is an hour behind us, and its just starting on that channel. Went to KATV to record it, since I've never watched it, and it seems kinda popular, but the basketball Gods said No... so the "backup" is recording it. Wonder if they will show an infomercial for the premier tomorrow :)
While a huge Lost fan, once I heard this enhanced finale had no input from the show's creators (due to the strike), I "Lost" interest. non-HD sealed the deal. I also can relate to Rocky's feeling of "what's the point?"

Kevin, March 13 is still a Wednesday, so no pre-emption there. Is there still a televised game on Thursday?

As for abc.com's HD stream, I finally got a chance to mess around some with it a couple weeks back. My impression is that it is highly dependent on your internet connection speed. For me, this was bad, as I am on the slowest DSL plan around, and it showed: the test episode of Lost that I watched looked quite a bit worse than my HTPC-upscaled (and processed) DVDs. The software definitely seemed to be testing and configuring for connection speed though before the stream even started, so I'd suspect that it's possible to get much, much better results. And the picture was certainly watchable...so if needed in a pinch under the circumstances, it's really not a bad alternative, IMO.

I'll be recording it to my hard drive and removing the commercials for my archive. I don't think it will fit on a DVD though (in native HD, no compression), maybe a dual-layer (I don't have any of those though). No next-gen drives (BR or HD DVD) for me either...
It MIGHT. I seem to think the one hour broadcasts of American Idol (also 720p) come in around 6.1GB over Comcast (compared with about 9GB OTA, if I'm remembering right). If you figure about 25% can be trimmed for commercials, that would bring the file in just under the 4.7GB capacity of DVD+/-R.

Of course, this wouldn't be playable on a DVD player, but it would facilitate transport.

http://i32.tinypic.com/314z4ig.jpg

...Notice the sidebars for a 4:3 program. This is the only station I've noticed that actually utilizes the entire 16:9 screen, 24/7. Granted, it just a station logo, but I thought it was interesting. Personally, I think niceMany big market stations can do that. Also, late arrivals to DTV also get the latest equipment, which has this capability.

I don't object to that type of logo insert at all. But eventually, you'll likely see bolder, more annoying graphics, animations and very likely banner ads in those bars, which can easily be done. NBC already puts moving colored crap in those bars sometimes, to try and keep you hypnotized.

Kevin, March 13 is still a Wednesday, so no pre-emption there. Is there still a televised game on Thursday?


my Windows Calendar shows the 13th as a Thursday...February 13th is a Wednesday but March 13th is a Thursday. The tourney runs Wednesday-Sunday I believe so preemptions all around...


It MIGHT. I seem to think the one hour broadcasts of American Idol (also 720p) come in around 6.1GB over Comcast (compared with about 9GB OTA, if I'm remembering right). If you figure about 25% can be trimmed for commercials, that would bring the file in just under the 4.7GB capacity of DVD+/-R.


my OTA recordings for AI are usually around 6GB I believe. Only NBC and CBS recordings are 9GB per hour (720p vs. 1080i). Office episodes from NBC with commercials removed (20-22 minutes) are about 2.6GB. Haven't archived LOST before though so I don't know the sizes on those. Just got a new external hard drive to store all of these HD recordings on :D. The Office episodes I've kept have helped me get through the strike thus far...

If I am not mistaken, you guys are talking about March Madness. During that week NOTHING will be new anyway, so it doesn't matter. Networks realize when big things are going on that they won't get any viewership, so they put on re-runs for the people who could care less about the big thing that is going on.

If I am not mistaken, you guys are talking about March Madness. During that week NOTHING will be new anyway, so it doesn't matter. Networks realize when big things are going on that they won't get any viewership, so they put on re-runs for the people who could care less about the big thing that is going on.

March Madness runs after the conference tournaments so it starts on March 20 this year. Alltel Arena is hosting on the 21st and 23rd I think. Which presents a LOST scheduling conflict...eight weeks of episodes would end on March 20. LOST probably skews heavily in the 18-49 and probably males too where March Madness is a big draw. So does ABC leave LOST up against college basketball or does it move the season finale elsewhere in the schedule (it's not like they have a whole bunch of new episodes of shows anyways, almost any spot could be opened)?

my Windows Calendar shows the 13th as a Thursday...February 13th is a Wednesday but March 13th is a Thursday. The tourney runs Wednesday-Sunday I believe so preemptions all around...



my OTA recordings for AI are usually around 6GB I believe. Only NBC and CBS recordings are 9GB per hour (720p vs. 1080i). Office episodes from NBC with commercials removed (20-22 minutes) are about 2.6GB. Haven't archived LOST before though so I don't know the sizes on those. Just got a new external hard drive to store all of these HD recordings on :D. The Office episodes I've kept have helped me get through the strike thus far...
D'oh...you're right. One of two possibilities exist. First would be that I forgot it was leap year, saw February's dates, and assumed they worked for March too. Second, would be that I am not only incapable of noticing a 2000' tower, I am also incapable of noticing the big month banner at the top of a calendar page. Both are equally likely :o

If Fox and ABC come in at 6GB/hr OTA, then I was just remembering wrong (Lost's season finale is probably the last OTA thing I recorded on either). Actually, that would be comforting to me because it would seem to indicate that Comcast is not compressing the OTA signal at all (something I suspected since quality on the networks does seem comparable).

You know one thing I have ALWAYS wondered? Why do these TV stations like 4 and 11 HAVE to have silly little sounds (4 has the nbc bells and 11 has this chimy thing) when the extended forecast comes up? I mean, sometimes I can't hear the person talking very well because of it. It serves NO useful purpose and kind of annoys me, honestly.

Alison, I have a question specifically for you. My dad was showing me something he recorded from 11-1 the other night when the radar and map showing the weather was up. It had 2 sets of everything (radar, map, writing showing the reason for the map, and things of that nature). One was the standard old one that was on the 4:3 signal. The other was the new, fancy looking one in the 16:9 area as if it was a full screen HD presentation with the pretty new graphic for the clouds and lightning and stuff. My question is WHY were there two of them up there? Was that just a goof? Or is there something wrong now that makes it to where you guys can't remove the 4:3 weather map from the bottom left to make room for the 16:9 one to take over? I mean, it was really funky looking and blocked a lot more of the screen than the usual annoying maps. (I personally think they can be more transparent, but it might take away from the overall presentation of the information.) Anyway, I was just wondering why both were up at the same time on the same feed. I really hope that was just a goof.

Wake Up Channel 7!!! You Turned Off HD On Comcasts Feed!!!! Turn It Back On!!!!

Finally, turned it back on after 15 minutes of SD creaminess.

Speaking of Channel 7, the Arkansas-Mississippi game looked better on D* 665 than on D* 7.

Hey KETS-DT guy...

THANKS. Soundstage is in HD now... Daughtry sounds great.

Finally, turned it back on after 15 minutes of SD creaminess.

crap, are you serious? I was hurting watching LOST in stretched SD (friend's house so I didn't have control over the aspect ratio)

NBC already puts moving colored crap in those bars sometimes, to try and keep you hypnotized.

I've noticed the "hypnotics" as well, especially during NBC Nightly News and The Today Show. I don't even want to think about what stations may start doing with that space in the future. Heck, I'll take the ugly gray sidebars over a bunch of flashing garbage any day, and I absolutely hate the gray coloring that some stations have had in the past.

Kevin,

Were you able to recording Lost using the QAM tuner on the On-Air GT? I have had mine for a year, and I still haven't had the chance to try out the QAM tuner.

Kevin,

Were you able to recording Lost using the QAM tuner on the On-Air GT? I have had mine for a year, and I still haven't had the chance to try out the QAM tuner.

I don't know if he was, but I was able to. Well, I don't have the "On-Air GT", but I did it using the HVR-1600.

I don't know if he was, but I was able to. Well, I don't have the "On-Air GT", but I did it using the HVR-1600.

I noticed that Hauppauge makes a USB HD tuner, as well (HVR-950). I thought about getting one, since Circuit City has a good price on it. I also have the On-Air GT (by AutumnWave), and it has the be the best money I spent last year. Does the HVR-1600 work well? I know it's not a USB tuner, but since it's made by Hauppauge, I would assume both the HVR-1600 and the HVR-950 are similar in performance. I just want to get another USB tuner for a backup, and I'd like to compare the tuner sensitivity. I don't think the HVR-950 has a QAM tuner built in... does the 1600 have one?

You know one thing I have ALWAYS wondered? Why do these TV stations like 4 and 11 HAVE to have silly little sounds (4 has the nbc bells and 11 has this chimy thing) when the extended forecast comes up? I mean, sometimes I can't hear the person talking very well because of it. It serves NO useful purpose and kind of annoys me, honestly.

Alison, I have a question specifically for you. My dad was showing me something he recorded from 11-1 the other night when the radar and map showing the weather was up. It had 2 sets of everything (radar, map, writing showing the reason for the map, and things of that nature). One was the standard old one that was on the 4:3 signal. The other was the new, fancy looking one in the 16:9 area as if it was a full screen HD presentation with the pretty new graphic for the clouds and lightning and stuff. My question is WHY were there two of them up there? Was that just a goof? Or is there something wrong now that makes it to where you guys can't remove the 4:3 weather map from the bottom left to make room for the 16:9 one to take over? I mean, it was really funky looking and blocked a lot more of the screen than the usual annoying maps. (I personally think they can be more transparent, but it might take away from the overall presentation of the information.) Anyway, I was just wondering why both were up at the same time on the same feed. I really hope that was just a goof.

Yes, that was a goof. The weather symbols, both analog and HD, are not connected to automation so the operator has to manually run them. They must have forgotten to take out the HD bug on a local station break. Classic case of "asleep at the switcher"... The symbols size and lack of transparency are designed for readability for those viewers with smaller TVs. The "sounders" you hear occur when the forecast pages come up. People like it because they know that is when to pay attention! You find working in TV it really is hard to find the middle ground where every viewer is happy.

Kevin,

Were you able to recording Lost using the QAM tuner on the On-Air GT? I have had mine for a year, and I still haven't had the chance to try out the QAM tuner.

Yes sir, it worked! I hadn't used it either. And the switch from SD to HD at the beginning seemed almost perfectly timed. It happens right as a car (don't want to spoil) hits the fruits at the beginning.

I had watched once via QAM at a hotel but no recording or anything. Too bad the GT can do satellite...

btw, it was 42:15 long and takes 4.87GB of space, just above DVD capacity right? DVDs hold 4.7 or 4.8GB?

Finally, turned it back on after 15 minutes of SD creaminess.
I was very concerned they were going to leave that weather bug on the whole episode. I would have been seriously ticked.

I was very concerned they were going to leave that weather bug on the whole episode. I would have been seriously ticked.

me too. it wasn't so good watching stretched SD (at my friend's house) anyways but to have a big weather bug made it worse. And I don't know if it was different for us, but my recording goes to HD right after the "previously on LOST" so it was turned on after 1 minute. Don't know if you were exaggerating or what. (The recap's last 10-15 minutes were in SD though, good thing the recap wasn't one I wanted to keep)

If you know that the last 15 of the recap was SD as well as the first minute was, then you know I wasn't exagerating. You know most LOST people wanted to see everything they could. Hell, they HAVE to recap it just so you remember what the hell was going on because its been so long. Like with Heroes, when are they bringing that back for the new "season"? (season in quotes because the last stuff they showed sucked so bad they decided to kill its thread off quick to keep people from ditching it and making the new stuff a new season)

I noticed that Hauppauge makes a USB HD tuner, as well (HVR-950). I thought about getting one, since Circuit City has a good price on it. I also have the On-Air GT (by AutumnWave), and it has the be the best money I spent last year. Does the HVR-1600 work well? I know it's not a USB tuner, but since it's made by Hauppauge, I would assume both the HVR-1600 and the HVR-950 are similar in performance. I just want to get another USB tuner for a backup, and I'd like to compare the tuner sensitivity. I don't think the HVR-950 has a QAM tuner built in... does the 1600 have one?
The 1600 does have a QAM tuner, with software support both from WinTV (its bundled software) and GBPVR (what most end up using). It has had its growing pains (not all of which are fixed yet), but overall I have been very pleased with my purchase.

Yes sir, it worked! I hadn't used it either. And the switch from SD to HD at the beginning seemed almost perfectly timed. It happens right as a car (don't want to spoil) hits the fruits at the beginning.

I had watched once via QAM at a hotel but no recording or anything. Too bad the GT can do satellite...

btw, it was 42:15 long and takes 4.87GB of space, just above DVD capacity right? DVDs hold 4.7 or 4.8GB?
I agree. The timing of the switch to HD was AWESOME! I only wish I could have watched it that way originally (more on that in a bit). At least I'm planning to watch the whole episode again tonight...this time in HD.

So at the moment, my HTPC seems to be unable to record and watch at the same time. Additionally, my wife has no faith in it to do its job because my last HTPC was extremely unreliable. Combining these two factors meant my wife insisted we watch it in snowy OTA SD just in case. Thankfully, it recorded just fine (with the awesome transition to HD), just as I thought it would.

Steve, are you able to watch and record at the same time? It seems to be inherently problematic for me. It has been happening to me on multiple networks. The good news is, thanks to your suggestion, I am no longer having any sync issues at all. While Fox will provide the true test, I do suspect the file type setting was the culprit, and that's now been changed.

The 1600 only works barely. I have yet to get the QAM to work right with the WinTV software. GB-PVR is the only one that has performed well for me. I haven't tried the other options other than CTPVR. Maybe that Beyond product would work...whats it called? Snapstream? Anyway, Hauppauge is still yet to write decent drivers to make the1600 do its job right. I have the HVR-1800 as well. It is supposed to do QAM too, but I have yet to get it to do it at all, much less right. I think they just need new people to write drivers.

Dave, I think your problem might be that your HTPC might not be up to snuff component wise to do the job. List out the specs of your machine and I will see what I can discern from it. I know for a fact you need a pretty beefy machine to watch HD live.

The 1600 only works barely. I have yet to get the QAM to work right with the WinTV software. GB-PVR is the only one that has performed well for me. I haven't tried the other options other than CTPVR. Maybe that Beyond product would work...whats it called? Snapstream? Anyway, Hauppauge is still yet to write decent drivers to make the1600 do its job right. I have the HVR-1800 as well. It is supposed to do QAM too, but I have yet to get it to do it at all, much less right. I think they just need new people to write drivers.



I was afraid you would say that, lol. I've read the poor reviews for it. I downloaded the BeyondTV trial, but found it a little too complicated. I can't find a tuner that uses guide data from the OTA broadcaster. The OnAir GT is the only one I've found that does that. All the others, like BeyondTV, etc., is like Media Center; I have to put in a zipcode and it downloads the guide data... but the station listings are always wrong and it just messes up everything. I would love Media Center if it didn't require a zipcode. I don't mind zipcode type guide, but I just wish these programs would allow the option to retrieve EPG data from the broadcaster. For example, I should be able to get OTA EPG data when I don't have access to an internet connection.

Yes sir, it worked! I hadn't used it either. And the switch from SD to HD at the beginning seemed almost perfectly timed. It happens right as a car (don't want to spoil) hits the fruits at the beginning.

I had watched once via QAM at a hotel but no recording or anything. Too bad the GT can do satellite...



I have also tested the QAM tuner itself, but no recording. I was at a hotel in Jackson, MS and connected the GT the the cable in the room, and I was able to tune in all the locals w/ some music channels. The cable company in El Dorado, Suddenlink, had the locals scrambled when I tested it last year at the house. Suffice to say, cable was dropped soon after. I don't know if they've fixed it or not... (probably not :rolleyes:) I thought it was the law, but then I read somewhere that it was their discretion.

The 1600 only works barely. I have yet to get the QAM to work right with the WinTV software. GB-PVR is the only one that has performed well for me. I haven't tried the other options other than CTPVR. Maybe that Beyond product would work...whats it called? Snapstream? Anyway, Hauppauge is still yet to write decent drivers to make the1600 do its job right. I have the HVR-1800 as well. It is supposed to do QAM too, but I have yet to get it to do it at all, much less right. I think they just need new people to write drivers.

Dave, I think your problem might be that your HTPC might not be up to snuff component wise to do the job. List out the specs of your machine and I will see what I can discern from it. I know for a fact you need a pretty beefy machine to watch HD live.
It's a brand new (though not top of the line) build.
GA-MA69gm-S2H HDMI motherboard
Athlon X2 4000+
2GB DDR2 6400 RAM

I have no issues whatsoever playing HD files once they are finished recording. I also have had no issues watching HD live (although I haven't tested since I switched muxers). I think this might have something to do with the muxer issue you helped me solve previously and that I'm going to try to troubleshoot some more this weekend. When recording is taking place, I'm at like 3% CPU usage, so that shouldn't be a problem for playback in those circumstances, or I guess the fact I'm using an IDE drive could be the bottleneck.

Did anyone catch Smallville Thursday? Did it have 5.1 sound? I could have sworn I normally got 5.1 from KASN, but it only recorded 2.0 (again, could be my muxer problem, though I doubt it).

For those interested in QAM software/hardware compatibility, the link in my sig might be helpful. Basically, BeyondTV works only with a plugin called Externinator. It basically tells the WinTV software what to record from the BTV interface. Personally, my experience with BTV was very poor. It was a slow system hog and crashed my computer all the time.

Driver issues are likely Microsoft's fault (it's BDA related). My sig explains that too. The only reason Hauppauge stuff works at all with other programs is because they "leak" low level info about their hardware to 3rd parties. This happened with both their tuners and their remotes.

Did anyone catch Smallville Thursday? Did it have 5.1 sound? I could have sworn I normally got 5.1 from KASN, but it only recorded 2.0 (again, could be my muxer problem, though I doubt it).



I just checked my recording, and it was 2.0. Last time I asked Errett, KASN-DT did not have 5.1 capablilities yet, and I believe I've seen on other threads, that as of last year anyway, Smallville was actually still only 2.0 from the network.

I just checked my recording, and it was 2.0. Last time I asked Errett, KASN-DT did not have 5.1 capablilities yet, and I believe I've seen on other threads, that as of last year anyway, Smallville was actually still only 2.0 from the network.
Thanks. I guess I'm just remembering wrong.

Funny, I get my smallvilles in 5.1. Oh yeah, thats right, I download the torrents off the internet. Sorry, my fault. (In case you didn't catch it, thats a *wink wink nudge nudge ya know what I mean ya know what I mean* kinda statement.)

Sam, all my "100" transponders on 103(a) are gone now. Getting:
5-48, 15-65, 17-94, 18-72, 23-73, 24-50 now.
Had high hopes they might be adding LR, but guess not. What are you seeing up there now?

Any Directv subs who for some reason cannot get 16-1, Directv has backup channels 700 (sd) and 701 (hd) carrying the game.

For KFTA-DT fox viewers in NWA, they have no super bowl.
As I type this, KFTA-DT (fox) is off the air.
No super bowl for NWA viewers if they don't have D* and can get ch 701 w/ an MPEG4 receiver....

When the season premier of Lost was on, 40/29 lost their network feed, went to black and finally came back SD. It seems that snow knocked their HD network dish out.

Life in podunk.

Yea? Fox using KU? I would think major networks would use C band. A foot of snow won't knock that out. My dish has been frozen solid with freezing rain and then snow, and still worked.

Bet someone there is gonna get fired...Losing your station for the Super Bowl? Damn...thats gonna cost em.

For KFTA-DT fox viewers in NWA, they have no super bowl.
As I type this, KFTA-DT (fox) is off the air.
No super bowl for NWA viewers if they don't have D* and can get ch 701 w/ an MPEG4 receiver....

When the season premier of Lost was on, 40/29 lost their network feed, went to black and finally came back SD. It seems that snow knocked their HD network dish out.

Life in podunk.

He neglected to say it was only off for five minutes.

Yea, I read that in the Ft. Smith thread... Why doesn't FOX use C Band?

For KFTA-DT fox viewers in NWA, they have no super bowl.
As I type this, KFTA-DT (fox) is off the air.
No super bowl for NWA viewers if they don't have D* and can get ch 701 w/ an MPEG4 receiver....

Thats pitiful. Seems the local broadcasters penny pinching ways are starting to bite them and its effecting J6P too.

Nice having the SB on a network and affiliate (KLRT) that knows how to do proper HD/5.1. No sound issues (well, except for Joe Buck's PBP ;) ). I didn't see last year's game in HD (was at my dad's watching on his 4x3 analog TV), so I can't compare ad count vs last year.

That said, during the game (not counting local ad breaks) there were only four SD ads. Of those 3 were 4x3 and the first one was a GMC truck ad in letterboxed SD. You could think GMC (General Motors) could pony up at least a HD version of their lame ad. The big suprise among the SD advertisers--Victoria's Secret, the last one.

Isn't NBC going to carry the final telecast of the transtion/analog era?

Oh, the promos for the Daytona 500 indicated the race is Feburary 17. :D

Yep, already have my dvr programmed for the Sprint, Nationwide, and Craftsman series...Cant wait.

steveken, check your PM

Apparently DirecTV has turned on the remote scheduling function for all users with a HR20 (not sure what other receivers can do it). Just sign in to D*'s site, go to TV Listings, choose what you wanna record, and select the option to tell your receiver to start recording. You have to be connected to the network first.

This weekend Comcast pulled a fast one. To defeat the people who purchase only "limited basic" cable for $10, then plug it into their HiDef sets to get the network programs, they changed the QAM channel carrier to 67 or 68 (I think). This puts it into the band they filter (14-77) if you don't want to pay the $49/mo fee to get all their analog stuff.

It is still clear QAM, but lots of people who are filtered can't get the publicly broadcast station's digital feed. Are the broadcasters aware of what Comcast is doing to their transmissions?

I thought the whole point of limited basic was to watch locals and a couple others...seems rather stupid to pay for locals and have the cable co block them out. Why I dumped comcast back in the 90's.

The beauty about comcasts filtering is that they use little barrel, in-line filters that a customer can easily disconnect if its inside the box on the side of their house. the only hangup would be if the box is closed really well somehow or if they are using those brass things around the connectors so they are hard to get to.

Now, I have never done this personally, but knowing how they are hooked up, it seems real easy to do. ;)

The beauty about comcasts filtering is that they use little barrel, in-line filters that a customer can easily disconnect if its inside the box on the side of their house. the only hangup would be if the box is closed really well somehow or if they are using those brass things around the connectors so they are hard to get to.

Now, I have never done this personally, but knowing how they are hooked up, it seems real easy to do. ;)

are those filters in the part of the box that says it's illegal to open? I don't know if you have those here, that's what ours said in Missouri. I wondered how it was illegal since it was on my property. Did we sign something that said that little piece of our property is owned by the cable co?

Its a gray, one chambered plastic box with a bunch of screw mount points in it on my house with a black zip tie holding it closed. I don't think it says anything about illegal to open. In my opinion, if its held closed by a zip tie, and if I can cut the zip tie, and I can replace the zip tie, how in the hell would they know? In any case, I am NOT condoning this activity from taking place, nor am I admitting that I have done this, I am just saying how relatively simple it is.

They put em on the feedpoint at the pole here in NLR anyway. I wouldn't be climbing up a telephone pole. Found another FOX station in Texas on FTA. Looks like Ill have plenty of FOXs to choose from for football season.

Anyone else notice KLRT-DT was running REALLY low power this evening? Wouldn't come in at all on my HR20, and had a signal strength of 14...normally its 100.

Not a good year for Arkansas broadcasters.

Anyone else notice KLRT-DT was running REALLY low power this evening? Wouldn't come in at all on my HR20, and had a signal strength of 14...normally its 100.

Not a good year for Arkansas broadcasters.

ohhh, that's why my American Idol recording didn't work :(. I'm not a big fan but without any new episodes of most other shows, I'll watch anything in HD...the recording was only 1.04GB instead of 6GB so I knew something was up. Thought it was on my end though. When I left for work the signal strength was good (26dB where 20dB is the minimum level needed, 34dB being the highest level I've ever seen [a few miles from a Dallas tower once]). Glad they didn't go low power for the Super Bowl!

Wow, we lost quite a bit it looks like when the server went down. I forget all of what I said in my last part, but I do remember part. I was mentioning how, on my QAM, I noticed KATV is running with gray bars on the sides now for some reason. Wonder why they are doing that and how long it will last.

Anyone else notice KLRT-DT was running REALLY low power this evening? Wouldn't come in at all on my HR20, and had a signal strength of 14...normally its 100.

Not a good year for Arkansas broadcasters.

Should have been back to normal around 7:50PM. We noticed an issue around 6:20PM and thought it was a studio problem. We responded and discovered all was well at the studio and had to roll folks to the mountain. We then discovered an issue with an exciter and once switched to the secondary exciter, everything was fine.

E

that's how I got 1/6 of the recording of AI. I wondered how that happened. Usually it's the full size, even if it has dropouts, or it's nothing.

Thanks for the heads up on the QAM frequency changes, guys...I had to go remap everything yesterday, but at least it was all in one convenient spot (the 93's, I think) unlike before. Of course, this is assuming I found the HD locals and not the SD QAM locals (Comcast seems to carry both). It was tough to verify HD since practically nothing was actually in HD at the time due to the storm. I'm a bit nervous as I haven't found PBS HD yet. Hopefully it's just in a range I haven't gotten to yet though.

Just out of curiosity, is KLRT able to broadcast HD with a weather bug? When I checked AI OTA last night, it was SD, but I wasn't sure if this was because of the bug or the other technical issues they were having.

Dave, the way Comcast has the mappings now, you will see the HD version of the locals the same as I do on my tv. At least here with GB it did. KATV was 8-1, KLRT was 13-1, KARK 5-1, etc. just after 58.3 (in the middle of the filtered analog signal areas like was discussed). If they are up in the 90's, those are usually just the digital version of the analog. KASN and PBS all showed up for me just after 102.12. PBS was 80.3, KASN as 38.1, VTV 38.2.

Let me know if you find them.


P.S. I am STILL yet to figure out why they have constant loops of Crazy in Alabama (I think thats the name of the movie....I had it once before, but I forget now.), Highlander, The Messenger, and Jakob the Liar running on 81-1, 82-1, 83-1, and 84-1. It just doesn't make sense to me.

I remember what it was that I put in the lost message before. Has anyone figured out any way what-so-ever to find PBS HD listings? I mean, I am really getting frustrated here with the lack of data for it. How are people supposed to watch it if there is no information at all to be found for what is on it?? Please, someone tell me they figured it out.

Dave, the way Comcast has the mappings now, you will see the HD version of the locals the same as I do on my tv. At least here with GB it did. KATV was 8-1, KLRT was 13-1, KARK 5-1, etc. just after 58.3 (in the middle of the filtered analog signal areas like was discussed). If they are up in the 90's, those are usually just the digital version of the analog. KASN and PBS all showed up for me just after 102.12. PBS was 80.3, KASN as 38.1, VTV 38.2.

Let me know if you find them.


P.S. I am STILL yet to figure out why they have constant loops of Crazy in Alabama (I think thats the name of the movie....I had it once before, but I forget now.), Highlander, The Messenger, and Jakob the Liar running on 81-1, 82-1, 83-1, and 84-1. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Well based on the fact that I don't seem to see any mappings that you're seeing (and vice versa) either one of two things is happening: either we are mapping channels in GBPVR in completely different ways, or we are getting drastically different signals from Comcast. My money's on the latter.

After pressing the "Map EPG channels" button (or something like that), I did a rescan last night. Nothing shows up before the 35's, eventually, all the locals are together (in the 93's). I haven't checked what was above that yet. I never have seen anything labeled 8-1, 13-1, etc. Even before the big QAM shuffle, I was up in the high numbers: 90's had two, 114's had two, and the 103's had 2. I never found HD channels lower (and I went through everything pretty meticulously). This tells me we are not getting the same signal, even though our TV's somehow seem to be translating things the same way. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to see a screen shot of whatever GBPVR configuration screen shows you the 8-1, 13-1, etc. labels. This should confirm if we're doing things the same way too.

And I agree, those looping movie trailers have to be the dumbest thing I have ever seen.

Well, this is about the best I can do here. This represents half of what GBPVR picks up for me. Granted, I don't get most of these channels, but you will see on the bottom of the first column and top of second how the locals that do HD are listed. If you want, I can keep doing this and get the rest of the channels in a second picture. Just let me know.

Well based on the fact that I don't seem to see any mappings that you're seeing (and vice versa) either one of two things is happening: either we are mapping channels in GBPVR in completely different ways, or we are getting drastically different signals from Comcast.

When I scanned my portable box it pulled most of the local full digital signals from channels 67 and 68. The non listed channels between 58 and 75 are all cable analog channels. As I recall they pack 4 channels on one carrier and two on the other.

Before the switch they were on 90 and one other. I'm not sure why the PBS program on the 114 QAM remaps to 80-3 since that doesn't relate to the channel position on Comcast's digital system. Maybe it is an internal reference for their box.

Well, this is about the best I can do here. This represents half of what GBPVR picks up for me. Granted, I don't get most of these channels, but you will see on the bottom of the first column and top of second how the locals that do HD are listed. If you want, I can keep doing this and get the rest of the channels in a second picture. Just let me know.
Wow, thanks man...that is EXACTLY what I wanted to see. No need to go any further.

Anyway, you confirmed it: we're not getting the same signal into our PCs at all. Everything I have looks like yours...except for that block of channels after 58.3 with clear labels as to what those channels are. Wow, that would have made my life infinitely easier the first time I was going through the configuration process (or even now, since I'm not 100% sure yet that I even have the HD channels mapped). It also explains away all of the confusion I have had for some time now as to why we never seemed to be on the same page with what we were seeing: it's because we weren't.

Now I won't say with 100% certainty that this is definitely Comcast's doing. There could be a difference in QAM tuner sensitivity (even though we have the same model and software). I could be seeing a weaker signal due to any number of reasons. However, to see this drastic of a difference in one behavior (and one behavior only) seems to suggest to me that we are in fact likely getting different signals from the source even though we are both within city limits (I think I'm remembering your location right).

What's particularly odd is that I do think my TV pulled the channel ID data (and I know it pulled the channel location info), so it does exist somewhere in my signal. I just can't see it on my PC for whatever reason. As long as I have properly mapped the HD channels though, I'm not sure solving the issue is remotely worth it.

Are you sure you don't have filters on your line to block out some of the analog channels? That would be the only reason I can think of for why you aren't seeing the ones after 58.3. I am still convinced that what you are seeing in the 90's are just the analog's retransmitted digitally because I am seeing the same channels and they are NOT the HD ones. For instance, the KATV one on 93.5 does NOT have the gray pillar bars on the sides, but the one earlier listed as 8-1 DOES have them and I know for a fact that it IS the HD carrier. I am willing to bet you have some kinda blockage. The best way to know for sure if you have the right one is to look at the KATV one, if it has the gray pillars, you are in the right area.

Thanks Errett. You guys always run a solid ship. I'd say best in class here in town.

Not sure if this was already posted, but AETN has bought a replacement analog transmitter that's scheduled to come online this month. See the story (http://*******.com/2yuhwp).

I only have one word... "WHY" ?

Thanks Errett. You guys always run a solid ship. I'd say best in class here in town.

I would add that I have found that the information that errett provides on this forum is factual and timely. I have said from day one that his shop is "number one" in technical expertise in this market, or probably the state for that matter.

Thanks for your help, errett, and keep up the good work.

Are you sure you don't have filters on your line to block out some of the analog channels? That would be the only reason I can think of for why you aren't seeing the ones after 58.3. I am still convinced that what you are seeing in the 90's are just the analog's retransmitted digitally because I am seeing the same channels and they are NOT the HD ones. For instance, the KATV one on 93.5 does NOT have the gray pillar bars on the sides, but the one earlier listed as 8-1 DOES have them and I know for a fact that it IS the HD carrier. I am willing to bet you have some kinda blockage. The best way to know for sure if you have the right one is to look at the KATV one, if it has the gray pillars, you are in the right area.
So I did a bit more digging last night, and it turns out that I did miss something in my haste the previous night (I got on the computer sometime after 6:30 and was frantically trying to get everything rescanned and reconfigured before 7).

Like you, I am finally seeing the HD channels after 58 and the channels after what I think was 102 (CW and PBS), all properly labeled. You were right about 93 being the digital feeds of SD...last night's American Idol recorded in SD (no big loss). So it does seem we are seeing the same thing right now.

What still remains a bit puzzling is how my first scan had acted: the lack of labels and the crazy spread out HD locations (90, 103, 114). Those were definitely all in HD because I watched each of them in HD, so we were definitely seeing different behavior prior to the reshuffling. Oh well. At least we seem to be seeing the same thing now, and my configuration is fixed (your screen caps made doing so go much faster...thanks again for doing that). Hopefully Comcast is done messing with the mappings for a while now :)

Not sure if this was already posted, but AETN has bought a replacement analog transmitter that's scheduled to come online this month. See the story (http://*******.com/2yuhwp).For some reason your link got zapped with *******. Here is an article by AETN addressing the replacement transmitter. Let's see if this one gets zapped too:

http://www.aetn.org/pressroom/aetn_works_to_restore_kets_2

Edit: Didn't get zapped. What was the site name of the one you posted? I'm curious now.

dmatch

For some reason your link got zapped with *******. Here is an article by AETN addressing the replacement transmitter. Let's see if this one gets zapped too:

http://www.aetn.org/pressroom/aetn_works_to_restore_kets_2

Edit: Didn't get zapped. What was the site name of the one you posted? I'm curious now.

dmatch
You can't use links from a lot of places AVSForum doesn't like for various reasons.
They also block from tiny url dot com, which is the URL you are asking about.

I only have one word... "WHY" ?Because it's taxpayers' money and should be wasted like it always is.

AETN = Analog Educational Television Nitwits



NTSC's days are numbered (but somebody forgot to tell AETN.)

I remember what it was that I put in the lost message before. Has anyone figured out any way what-so-ever to find PBS HD listings? I mean, I am really getting frustrated here with the lack of data for it. How are people supposed to watch it if there is no information at all to be found for what is on it?? Please, someone tell me they figured it out.
Nebraska NET-HD may be the same as the national PBS-HD feed and may be the same as what you want. You could check and see by looking at the schedule here:

http://www.netnebraska.org/television/sched/

dmatch

dmatch, thats a start!! THANK YOU!! Now if only to find a way to get that data into my program guide in GBPVR. I will experiment with the cttvlistings and see if I can get it in there. Thanks again!

Steve

Edit: Hmm, nope, doesn't look like the cable provider for lincoln (where net hd is) carries NET HD. Guess I will have to look more for a source of guide data.

Actually Lincoln Cox does carry it, it's just listed as KLNE-DT. I verified this using this link (http://netnebraska.org/technology/dig_channels.htm). However, I'm running into two problems.

1) While they certainly do follow the PBS HD feed more than KETS, it still isn't quite all the time because they show sports.

2) I have had two major issues with CT's listings configuration. First, the Uncheck All button doesn't save changes properly. This requires the user to individually uncheck every listing (which for one of the ones I was trying to make work, was like 800). The second issue is even more annoying. There are a few inconsistencies between what displays in the configuration pages and what is sent out in the listings. I think this happens when a network changes channels and the old listing only gets deleted from the configuration pages (not the guide data). Those listings will then still download and show (but not be mapped) even though there is no way to uncheck them. This is particularly annoying/troubling when the only channel for the Comcast digital listings that did this was a certain famous adult channel.:rolleyes: These stragglers seem to occur in all but the most basic packages (because the digital tiers for both cable and satellite both have tons of possible channels).

Wow, new CE on D* for the HR20-700 is not really any better. Guide is still slow as all get out, I still don't have anything for the Media Share showing up, the whole thing in general is performing as crappily (I know, not a word) as the last CE. I can't tell they did anything to it.

At least when you change the channel it shows the title of the one you changed to, not the one you were already on.

Media Share is a joke. Won't play audio from .vob files, won't play mp3's unless you transcode them with a computer. If I have to go through all that trouble, Ill just use the computer.

I forgot to mention that something else changed when Comcast moved the QAM stations: bitrates (at least for KATV).

1/31 Lost: 7.23GB
2/7 Lost: 5.96GB

Smallville, meanwhile, was 6.75GB both weeks.

Thanks Errett. You guys always run a solid ship. I'd say best in class here in town.

I would add that I have found that the information that errett provides on this forum is factual and timely. I have said from day one that his shop is "number one" in technical expertise in this market, or probably the state for that matter.

Thanks for your help, errett, and keep up the good work.

Thanks guys...we really enjoy what we do and I have a great group of folks that work with me.

E

Wow, new CE on D* for the HR20-700 is not really any better. Guide is still slow as all get out...Try a reboot. If that doesn't help, you may have to go back to the last ntl release (RBR+02468)
</ot>

Guide issues were present in the last natl release also. My guide on this beta is much faster, but I have scrolling turned off. I'm just disappointed they went half way with mediashare and then just stopped working on it. Nothing has changed in weeks.

I've seen mentions of the National PBS HD station, but who gets to watch it? I've seen it mentioned before that DTV doesn't carry it, even if I were eligible to get it, which I'm not.

I've seen mentions of the National PBS HD station, but who gets to watch it? I've seen it mentioned before that DTV doesn't carry it, even if I were eligible to get it, which I'm not.
Comcast customers using QAM tuners (not sure about STB's, strangely enough). I think it's available over FTA satellite as well.

Comcast customers using QAM tuners (not sure about STB's, strangely enough). I think it's available over FTA satellite as well.I'm not in a Comcast, what is FTA satellite?

...what is FTA satellite?In case you're not familiar with it, you can look up almost anything on wikipedia.org (http://en.wikipedia.org) the free online encyclopedia.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTA_Receiver

PBS HD is available to Comcast customers with the HD set top boxes.

ORPHD, The following PBS stations are available on FTA:
PBS HD, Create, Network Operations, Schedule 1, Schedule 2, Schedule 3, Schedule 4, PBS e/i, PBS Spanish, Montana PBS.

Dish costs $89, LNB is $29, receivers run from $89 for a top line SD, to $425 for a top line HD.

Check out ftalist.com and click ENGLISH, for a list of available stations.

All PBS stations are on one sat. If you want stations from multiple satellites, you either need a dish for each one (receiver can handle up to 8 I believe) or a motor drive for your dish ($90).

I find myself watching PBS, AlJezerra, and old westerns on FTA more than I watch Directv lately.

Yeah, Comcast customers with an HD set top box can get the PBS HD channel, but from what I can tell, you still can't get scheduling information for it. If I am right, its on 440, but when you look at their online schedule on comcast.com, you still don't get the right show information.

For instance, at this moment they are showing "Religion & Ethics Newsweekly" in their program guide on the site, but yet they are showing the actual PBS HD showing of "African American Lives".

So, even though they have PBS HD for the HD customers, you STILL can't figure out whats on it because the damn guide data still isn't right. This is a VERY frustrating problem.

Steveken: Do you get locals from D*? If so, can you report the missing guide data for 42-1,russian guide data on 42-2 and the missing 42-3? I can't, since I don't "live" here :) It really needs to be fixed. Figured someone at equity would have bitched about it and got it fixed by now.

Radio Shack has the LG made Zenith DTT900 digital/analog converters in stock.
Bestbuy has the Insignia (store brand clone of the same box) also available in some stores.

$59.00 for either brand

Yeah, Dave, I do get locals from D*, but I am not about to call them up about that. For one, I don't have the patience to try to explain it to them because they won't understand. For two, I will just be told that its a local providers problem. It will also work about as well as trying to tell them that I don't get 42-3 on my HR20. I just really don't care about 42 enough to try anyway. There is NEVER anything on there that I want to watch.

Dave, you can report screwed up guide data provided to D* by TMS at:
http://www.zap2it.com/services/site/zap-feedback,0,6935396.story

" Send general comments to feedback@zap2it.com. Please keep e-mails short, concise, and to the point; and make the "Subject:" lines relevant. We will try to answer e-mails in a timely manner, but at times we get overwhelmed and may take longer to respond. Feedback is not handled over the weekends.

You hereby grant to Zap2it.com, Tribune and their respective affiliates worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display any message posted in the Community Areas and/or any e-mail sent by you to Tribune (in whole or in part) and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.
If you wish to report a cable or satellite lineup discrepancy: please fill-in the "Subject:" line as "Lineup Discrepancy," and include the following information or your request will not be processed:
Cable System Name (please copy exactly from our list of providers)
Specific Description of Problem (channels missing or incorrect, program data incorrect, date/time of specific occurrence, etc.)
Provider Phone Number
Provider Service (cable, satellite)
Apartment or Hotel Complex Name (if applicable)
City
State or Province (and country if outside of the United States)
Zip or Postal Code"

Forget it, its not worth it. My PDA won't even display a link on that page to where you are supposed to find all that info. Thanks anyway. Ill just let em keep sending russian programming guides.

I take it you never got very far getting your Treo to work with your desktop as a "modem" then, huh?

Nope, reboots to often. Just doesn't have enough memory. I'm gonna get an Iphone or Blackberry when I get the "$600 government stimulus" check in May !!!

BTW, I hooked the old rusty 10' Cband dish in my back yard, through 150' of 10 yr old coax, with a 10 yr old lnb that's been hanging out in front of it for 10 yrs with no cover, to my FTA receiver today, cuz I was bored. Hit "power scan", and believe it or not, it locked on about 20 equity stations, and 4 widescreen 16:9 fox feeds from the pro bowl. I can't believe that old rusty crap worked. The dish mover is so rusty, I can't even move the dish without sawing off the bolts and fabricating a hand crank. And to make matters funnier, it was looking right through an old oak tree that's grown considerably since the free HBO days...

Dave,
Just email feedback@zap2it.com
Subject: Lineup Discrepancy
Give provider, city, DMA, station ID & channel #

Yeah, Comcast customers with an HD set top box can get the PBS HD channel, but from what I can tell, you still can't get scheduling information for it. If I am right, its on 440, but when you look at their online schedule on comcast.com, you still don't get the right show information.

For instance, at this moment they are showing "Religion & Ethics Newsweekly" in their program guide on the site, but yet they are showing the actual PBS HD showing of "African American Lives".

So, even though they have PBS HD for the HD customers, you STILL can't figure out whats on it because the damn guide data still isn't right. This is a VERY frustrating problem.
Yeah, the more research I do into this whole thing, the less sense it makes, and the more aggravating it becomes. Here is a national channel funded by our tax dollars, and no one seems to know what the heck is on it or when. If I had any way to know in advance that I could watch a Daughtry or Lifehouse concert in HD, I would have. Now I can't even see if it's going to be rebroadcast. Even more inexplicable is the fact that even PBS's own website seems to avoid acknowledging the existence of such a station (they only point users to their local affiliate lineups). Judging from older internet posts, it even seems they, at one point, did provide the national HD listings.

It's getting harder to blame CT TV Listings for not having these when it seems no one does :mad::confused:

When is DirecTV going to add PBS-HD? It's been announced.

A newbie could sure use some advise regarding OTA reception on the east end of Conway. I have Directv and hate the poor reception of the local channels on my Sony 60A3000 HDTV. Further, I want to receive NBC, CBS and Fox on two bedroom SD TVs.

I picked up an indoor amplified Terk antenna to see what I could get, if anything, on my Sony 60" HD set. I expected nothing but was elated to see terrific IQ on the following channels with the Terk sitting on a speaker next to the TV, aimed very roughly south:

KARK - DT 4.1 1080i - Excellent! Very surprised!
KTHV - DT 11.1 1080i - Excellent! " "
THV2 - 11.2 480i Good
KLRT - DT 720P Good
KASN - DT 38.1 No Signal
VTV 38.2 No Signal
KWBF -DT 42.1 720P Good
KKYK - DT 42.2 480i Good
KATV - DT 42.3 480i Poor

Now, I'm going to return the Terk and go to a more "substancial" outdoor antenna (although I'd like to use it in the attic) with an amplifier with four outputs (to three TVs).

I think I'd like to go with the Channel Master 4228 but I'd really like suggestions/recommendations on the antenna and also on an amplifier. Since I'm going to be crawling around in the unfinished attic running cable I only want to do this once so I can use all the suggestions I can get.

Thanks in advance for any help. Dan

Forgot! Anywhere in Little Rock where I can get the Channel Master and amplifier? Thanks!

...I think I'd like to go with the Channel Master 4228 but I'd really like suggestions/recommendations on the antenna and also on an amplifier. Since I'm going to be crawling around in the unfinished attic running cable I only want to do this once so I can use all the suggestions I can get.

Thanks in advance for any help. Dan

Forgot! Anywhere in Little Rock where I can get the Channel Master and amplifier? Thanks!

CM 4228 antenna available HERE (http://www.warrenelectronics.com/antennas/4228.htm).
CM 7777 low noise VHF+UHF preamp available HERE (http://www.warrenelectronics.com/antennas/4228.htm).
Don't waste time and money on a slightly cheaper noisy amp from a chain store. (And return the TERK, please).

davenlr may be able to help with a central Ark. dealer. Only dealer I know of in Arkansas is Common Sense Cellular Satellite (http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&q=common+sense+cellular+satellite&near=Eureka+Springs,+AR&fb=1&view=text&latlng=36387442,-93735482,15054546433110000273), here in Eureka Springs. They sell and install a lot of 4228s & 7777s in our area.

Before you begin an attic install, make sure you don't have:
Metal Roof
Foil-backed radiant barrier roof insulation (foil faces the attic space).
HVAC equipment in the attic.

At your distance, the best place to put an antenna is outside.

Go to http://www.antennaweb.org
Enter your complete address and zip.
Copy & paste the results for the digital channels back here.

Hi ArkieDan. I would mount the antenna outside if at all possible. If you must do attic, it should work but you might get dropouts on CBS and if you can get it, PBS when you flick on and off light switches with it in the attic.
I actually would recommend a UHF/VHF yagi for Conway, If you want to get PBS (now and later when they move to channel 7). If you don't watch PBS, the channel master setup will work fine. I know of no local dealers in LR area except Perfect 10 and the won't sell to end users. Try Solidsignal.com or just seach the net for low price/shipping combo. And use QUAD shielded RG6. Belden is best, and can be ordered with your antenna/amp. Don't forget the compression connectors and tool to attach them. You should be able to get all LR locals from one direction with that setup.

Wow, warren electronics looks like they have gone up on the price for a 4228. I think that was where Sam put the link for it last time and it was only like $27 or so. I seem to remember the layout of the page being exactly like that and the antenna was a lot cheaper. Oh well, guess things go up all the time.

right after The New Adventures of Old Christine had ended, I saw this...

http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/6821/kthvdtus4.th.jpg (http://img120.imageshack.us/my.php?image=kthvdtus4.jpg)

at least it gives a comparison of the SD and HD bug. didn't realize that the SD bug was stretched north-south a little bit. I would prefer that there was no bug at all on my HD broadcasts (other than a *soft* network bug [ahem, NBC]) but at least THV can do bugs without putting us back in SD...

Thanks, arxaw & Davenlr,

Below are the results from AntennaWeb, digital only. I would prefer to stay away from a yagi because they're huge and intrusive but, I must admit, I'd like to get PBS in hi def.

One other question; I have a wide brick chimney at the rear of the house. Can I place the 4228 against the broad side of the chimney, sitting about 6 inches out from it's surface, or should it be free-standing with no obstructions to it's rear? This placement would pretty much make it invisible though I don't want to compromise it's performance.

* yellow - vhf KTHV-DT 11.1 CBS LITTLE ROCK AR 182° 21.1 12
* yellow - uhf KARK-DT 32.1 NBC LITTLE ROCK AR 182° 21.1 32
* yellow - uhf KLRT-DT 16.1 FOX LITTLE ROCK AR 181° 21.0 30
* violet - uhf KATV-DT 22.1 ABC LITTLE ROCK AR 159° 46.2 22
* violet - uhf KASN-DT 38.1 CW PINE BLUFF AR 160° 48.0 39

Thanks for the good advice!

Dan

Wow, warren electronics looks like they have gone up on the price for a 4228. I think that was where Sam put the link for it last time and it was only like $27 or so. I seem to remember the layout of the page being exactly like that and the antenna was a lot cheaper. Oh well, guess things go up all the time.Warren has always charged ~50 bucks for the 4228 (http://warrenelectronics.com/antennas/4228.htm). It's smaller brother, the 4221 (http://warrenelectronics.com/antennas/4221.htm), is ~24 bucks.

...I would prefer to stay away from a yagi because they're huge and intrusive but, I must admit, I'd like to get PBS in hi def.Depending on terrain, you're probably in the range of KEMV-DT (RF ch 13), the PBS affiliate in Mountain View. See this coverage map (http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DT1134244.html). The 4228 works great for channel 13, and is bi-directional for VHF channels. But it probably wouldn't work too well for lowband VHF channel 5 KETS-DT in Redfield. Your results didn't list either of those channels, though.

You might go back to antennaweb and at the bottom of the address entry page, click +OPTIONS. Enter 50 in the antenna height, to make the results more realistic.

For the LR channels, your compass aim sweet spot would be ~171° South.

...I have a wide brick chimney at the rear of the house. Can I place the 4228 against the broad side of the chimney, sitting about 6 inches out from it's surface, or should it be free-standing with no obstructions to it's rear? This placement would pretty much make it invisible though I don't want to compromise it's performance. I've installed them on the ends of a house like that. It should work fine. You can even spray paint the 4228 with flat paint to blend in with the background. It won't affect reception at all.

BUT, if you are able to get KEMV from Mtn View, installing the 4228 on a wall or chimney would probably block reception if the chimney is behind and to the North of the antenna. You would need clearance both North & South (hint: on the roof).

The easiest way to install a 4228 on a roof or wall is using a DS-3000 “J” PIPE MOUNT for satellite dishes. It's the perfect length. Probably available locally at a sat dealer, or see this page at Warren (http://www.warrenelectronics.com/Satellite/dish_mts.htm).

When is DirecTV going to add PBS-HD? It's been announced.Even if they do add it, what will be the eligibility requirements? Same as they are now?

Even if they do add it, what will be the eligibility requirements? Same as they are now?When it becomes available, all you'll need is an HD receiver and currently subscribe to local SD channels.

I think I might have figured out the problems with KTHV and their audio issues. I think they just need to raise the levels of their newscasts and that would solve a LOT of issues.

BUT, at 6:20 during a commercial break before sports came on, there were two Arby's commercials in a row. The first one was about normal, but the second one was a good 15dB to 20dB above everything else! I was like WHAT THE HELL!!! It scared the crap out of all of the entire family. That kinda thing is nuts and should NOT happen at all for any reason. Alison, if you have any control over the audio levels, can you PLEASE try to get this audio issue nailed down to something that is more consistent so we can all enjoy your newscasts? We would all appreciate it!

steveken,
KTHV doesn't seem to care about fixing this longstanding problem, which is very annoying to their viewers.

Or, perhaps they don't know how to fix it.

steveken,
KTHV doesn't seem to care about fixing this longstanding problem, which is very annoying to their viewers.

Or, perhaps they don't know how to fix it.

How you fix it is to have someone sitting at the audio board and watching a VU meter, especially during newscasts and local cut-ins. Have this person trained to ride the levels properly, remembering that it is better to start off low and raise the level than to start high and have to bring it down.

I have heard back-to-back commercials for different auto dealers and have the first commercial be so high you wanted to turn the gain down and the second so low you could hardly hear it. The audio person at the station should be responsible for riding levels, not the viewer.

They also have a "sportscaster" on that station that thinks he has to yell into the mic to be heard. Another reason to have to turn them down.

While they are at it, they could also increase the pedestal or setup (black level) on their studio cameras to avoid the washed-out look of their news set.

If you want to see a properly lighted set with good camera setup, tune KLRT-DT's newscasts. The KARK-DT set and cameras look good too. Neither of these stations have any of the audio problems that KTHV-DT has, and has had for months.

They have a good newscast, they need to just fix it so people will want to watch it.

When it becomes available, all you'll need is an HD receiver and currently subscribe to local SD channels.

Does LR even have HD locals via DirecTV yet?

According to DirecTV, no.

According to a local dealer, yes.

Doesn't really interest me too much though. Since the problems start at the station it will still be near pointless.

I subscribe to D*....I DO NOT have locals in HD. They have been rumored to roll out Little Rock locals in HD for a couple of years now. Maybe when the next D* satellite launches next month. Maybe not?

Does LR even have HD locals via DirecTV yet?

According to DirecTV, no.

According to a local dealer, yes.

Doesn't really interest me too much though. Since the problems start at the station it will still be near pointless.

LR HD Locals will be on DirecTV's D11 satellite. According to satelliteguys.us it is scheduled to launch March 9.

Press release from Boeing HERE (http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2008/q1/080129c_nr.html).

LR HD Locals will be on DirecTV's D11 satellite. According to satelliteguys.us it is scheduled to launch March 9.

Press release from Boeing HERE (http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2008/q1/080129c_nr.html).

Thanks for the confirmation guys. :)

FYI for you Comcast folks, three new HD channels launched today:

Discovery HD-Ch 424
Animal Planet HD-Ch 426
SciFi HD-Ch 427

How you fix it is to have someone sitting at the audio board and watching a VU meter, especially during newscasts and local cut-ins. Have this person trained to ride the levels properly, remembering that it is better to start off low and raise the level than to start high and have to bring it down.

I have heard back-to-back commercials for different auto dealers and have the first commercial be so high you wanted to turn the gain down and the second so low you could hardly hear it. The audio person at the station should be responsible for riding levels, not the viewer.

They also have a "sportscaster" on that station that thinks he has to yell into the mic to be heard. Another reason to have to turn them down.

While they are at it, they could also increase the pedestal or setup (black level) on their studio cameras to avoid the washed-out look of their news set.

If you want to see a properly lighted set with good camera setup, tune KLRT-DT's newscasts. The KARK-DT set and cameras look good too. Neither of these stations have any of the audio problems that KTHV-DT has, and has had for months.

They have a good newscast, they need to just fix it so people will want to watch it.

We will endeavor to be more like KLRT in the future.

When it becomes available, all you'll need is an HD receiver and currently subscribe to local SD channels.I thought I couldn't get any of the national feeds if I got a decent OTA signal (which according to DTV, I do)?

PBS is a special case, since its classified educational and not commercial, and doesn't need protection from wandering eyes missing 20 minutes of commercials every hour.

How you fix it is to have someone sitting at the audio board and watching a VU meter, especially during newscasts and local cut-ins. Have this person trained to ride the levels properly, remembering that it is better to start off low and raise the level than to start high and have to bring it down.

I have heard back-to-back commercials for different auto dealers and have the first commercial be so high you wanted to turn the gain down and the second so low you could hardly hear it. The audio person at the station should be responsible for riding levels, not the viewer.

They also have a "sportscaster" on that station that thinks he has to yell into the mic to be heard. Another reason to have to turn them down.

You know, they can fix the commercial problems too by having the agencies that send them to them set them at one constant level set by the station. OR have a computer run the commercials and normalize the audio. You can do this on mp3's, you should be able to do it on tv commercials too.

And Craig O'Neil has ALWAYS had a loud mouth. There is just nothing you can do about it. He is like that in person, always has been, always will be. It's just Craig O'Randy as my family calls him.

FYI for you Comcast folks, three new HD channels launched today:

Discovery HD-Ch 424
Animal Planet HD-Ch 426
SciFi HD-Ch 427

LOL! I have had these on D* for MONTHS now! LOL!!!!

If you or anyone you know, needs a DTV converter for an analog TV, I would seriously consider the Zenithhttp://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/images/icons/icon14.gif model sold at Radio Shack. An identical clone of it is sold under the store brand Insigniahttp://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/images/icons/icon14.gif at Best Buy. It should work very well in a screwed up OTA market full of hills like LR. A review of it is here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=13047439&postcount=258).

Another good model is the Magnavoxhttp://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/images/icons/icon14.gif, sold at walmart. Both of these have excellent OTA tuners.

The Zenith/Insignia & Magnavox boxes allow you to add additional channels not found on the initial scan. Just reposition the antenna and rescan, to add to the Zenith/Insignia, or reposition and manually add channels to the Magnavox.

Avoid the RCAhttp://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/images/icons/icon13.gif model, also sold at walmart. It does not allow additional channels to be added to memory after a scan. There is no manual add, and rescanning "forgets" the channels in the previous scan. Not good.

Yea, my tv is lame like that. It erases its channel map before a rescan, and has no way to add or directly enter a channel. Even tho I don't have any analog tv's, I ordered two coupons. Gonna get two of the boxes, one for my Tivo Series 1 and the otherfor my DVD recorder. I'm hoping and praying that Tivo adds the converter to its IR blaster list.

My Vizio doesn't have a way to manually add channels either. Kind of a pain in the ass if you ask me. Companies should be fined for doing stupid stuff like that.

I applied for a coupon because we have one very little often used analog TV connected to rabbit ears, lol. The rest are satellite-connected. But hey, it can't hurt to have an emergency converter box, eh?

Yea, my tv is lame like that. It erases its channel map before a rescan, and has no way to add or directly enter a channel...My Sony doesn't have manual channel entry, but if you do a rescan, it adds any newly found channels to the existing list. That's also how the Zenith/Insignia converters work. A great feature for DX-ers or for people using rotors.

The Zenith/Insignia does a complete 2-69 channel scan in less than 30 seconds. damfast.

Someone mentioned using a converter with a backup tv.

I looked at one of the Magnavox boxes @ walmart. Their power consumption is 8W, and the LG (Zenith/Insignia-BB) is also 8W.

These could be used in conjunction with a battery-operated portable tv with a 12-13.5v battery pack and power inverter (to power the converter) for emergency power. Something to keep in mind post 2/2009.

Of course external rabbit ears or an outdoor antenna are required.....:D

did anyone else have lots of compression artifacts during LOST on KATV-HD tonight (via Comcast)? I freaked out when I saw the file size, I thought my recording was screwed up but the average rate was 9.8mbps instead of last week's 16ish. definitely noticeable, definitely annoying...I hope Comcrap improves this for next week!

I doubt it. They added 3 more HD channels...they had to get the bandwidth from somewhere. Looks like you found one of the places. :)

L O L

did anyone else have lots of compression artifacts during LOST on KATV-HD tonight (via Comcast)? I freaked out when I saw the file size, I thought my recording was screwed up but the average rate was 9.8mbps instead of last week's 16ish. definitely noticeable, definitely annoying...I hope Comcrap improves this for next week!
I noticed this too, and the PQ was terrible (there was one close up of spinning helicopter blades towards the end that was one giant mess). File size went from something like 7.3GB to 5.1GB to 3.7GB in two weeks. Ridiculous.

What's really weird is that Smallville, on the other hand, has had a consistent 7.2ishGB all three weeks. So if they're stealing bandwidth for the new channels, they're not doing so consistently.

Kevin, what are you using to record QAM?

And I'd rather have bandwidth challenged HD than no HD at all. How are the D* waivers coming along, fellas? ;)

hmm, my lost files are 3.33GB each (I recorded the 7:00 one too). Eli Stone is 3.24GB.


HAHA, waivers???

Does anyone know the latest on KATV OTA digital? Are they back online yet, same channel, at Redfield or somewhere else? Thanks much!

Thanks for the update. I checked it out last night, and got the Discovery and Sci-FI in HD ---BEAUTIFUL. However, the Animal Planet HD channel was blank. Is Comcast releasing these new HD channels to all areas at the same time? Wonder why I can't get this one channel while the other two are fine?

Arkansas Business quoted Dale Nicholson as saying his preference was to put the digital tower on Shinall Mt rather than down in Redfield. Of course, he said it was subject to evaluation by engineers and approval of the FCC. Target date: Nov 2008

KATV's website still says they hope to have a backup digital tower up "in the next few weeks". It's the same page that still says "our HD signal will be restored to Comcast subscribers in the next few days" so I don't think it is exactly up to date...

At least they woke up and decided to try to move to Shinall with the rest. Clear channel already owns a big tower on Shinall. Wonder if that would prompt them to move KASN up there too? I can get KASN, pointed at Shinall on all my receivers except the HR20, but I never watch CW anyway.

KATV Plans To Have New Tower In Place by November
By Arkansas Business Staff
2/11/2008

The one voice missing from the saga of KATV-TV, Channel 7's tower collapse on Jan. 11 was finally heard from last week.

Longtime General Manager Dale Nicholson, who says he's had his hands full, was eating lunch with News Director Randy Dixon when the pair got the call.

"That's about the last thing you expect to hear when you get a call during lunch," Nicholson said. "I never thought anything like that would happen during my time here, but it did, and we've worked tirelessly to take care of it."

Though it'll ultimately be up to engineers and the Federal Communications Commission, Nicholson said if it were up to him the station would build its new tower atop Shinall Mountain west of Little Rock rather than back at the site of the collapse at Redfield.

One thing is for certain, Nicholson said, he and station owner Allbritton Communications Co. of Washington, D.C., intend to have a fully operational tower in place in time for the November television ratings "sweeps" period.

And I'd rather have bandwidth challenged HD than no HD at all. How are the D* waivers coming along, fellas?Who needs waivers? Just "move"...

KATV Plans To Have New Tower In Place by November
By Arkansas Business Staff
2/11/2008Link to article, HERE (http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article.aspx?aID=102982.89419.115106&k=katv).

At least they woke up and decided to try to move to Shinall with the rest. Clear channel already owns a big tower on Shinall. Wonder if that would prompt them to move KASN up there too? I can get KASN, pointed at Shinall on all my receivers except the HR20, but I never watch CW anyway.

Nope...and there are a whole lot of reasons as to why not.

E

errett,
Would it have anything to do with cities of license?

errett,
Would it have anything to do with cities of license?

In my opinion, that is part of it. The FCC currently has a very strong localism push going. I am not sure how it would go over that a station wants to move further away from their city of license. But that is just one reason, there are plenty more for staying put.

E

In my opinion, that is part of it. The FCC currently has a very strong localism push going. I am not sure how it would go over that a station wants to move further away from their city of license. But that is just one reason, there are plenty more for staying put.

E
There are thousands of homes in southern AR that hope the KATV antenna stays at the original location. This is the only station that we are able to receive AR news. Shinall is too far to pick up on a consistent basis even with the best antenna and amplifier. We have other stations closer to us but most of the news comes from a different state, MS or LA. How would you like to pay taxes and vote in AR and not know how your tax dollars are being spent?

There is another station in southern Arkansas you can get your news from, Channel 10 from El Dorado. I don't know if there are any others, but that is at least one. I can't believe that anyone would rely that heavily on the piece of crap station that is 7 for their news that they can't supplement it with another station.

It's been a long time since I watched anything, especially news, on KTVE Ch. 10, but growing up in southeastern Arkansas, it was about the only local station we had really good reception on. I think I remember back then, it really had more of a Louisiana focus, even though it's licensed to El Dorado. fn1234 is right, Ch. 7 was the only real Arkansas station available to us, and we were really on the fringe for getting it.

Well, while I understand your concerns, and this message isn't intended to minimize your concerns, you can easily get all the LR stations with a sat subscription. How far should we go here? What about the people in Russellville and Ola that can't get channel 7, but will if they move to Shinall. The real solution, is to get all your neighbors to sign a letter requesting channel 7 to install a low power translator in your area. Take channel 20 in LR. You can't get it, you can try ch 14. Live to far from LR, channel 49 in Camden....So far out you can't get any of them? A $200 one time sat system will pick them up. Matter of fact, I can get channel 20, and 42 anywhere in the US. It just makes sense for all stations in a DMA to be co-located. If you are outside the DMA, and your local station sucks, there isn't a lot that can be done, except find alternatives. I'm from Milwaukee and Blytheville. I'd love to see news from Memphis. I'm to far away. Should Memphis move their transmitter to Forrest City so I can get them?

Look at the poor folks in Jonesboro. One ABC station, one PBS. Memphis is to far, LR is to far.

I'd love to live way out in the country, BTW. I drive all over the state, and its pretty down there in the SE. Too flat for me, but nice in the woods, none the less.

BTW, the difference between Shinall and Redfield is about 20 miles. While I haven't tried, I suspect with the right equipment, you could pick up Shinall if you were able to pick up redfield. I used to get Greenwood MS on the east side of NLR with my Quantum, at 90 ft, no amp.

There is no guarantee you would still be able to get channel 7 if they did rebuild in Redfield, as I doubt they would put up as tall a tower as the one that fell. How well do you receive KASN down there compared with KLRT?

There are thousands of homes in southern AR that hope the KATV antenna stays at the original location. This is the only station that we are able to receive AR news. Shinall is too far to pick up on a consistent basis even with the best antenna and amplifier. We have other stations closer to us but most of the news comes from a different state, MS or LA. How would you like to pay taxes and vote in AR and not know how your tax dollars are being spent?Needs of the many outweigh.....

FWIW, there are also thousands of homes in the Ozarks, surrounded by hills, that can't get any free TV from anywhere. Life's tough.

Like Jasper? No TV, and even my cellphone says "No Service". Its like a black hole down there! Pretty black hole tho. I'd move there in a heartbeat...followed by UPS with some sat dishes and a Wildblue install :)

Like Jasper? No TV, and even my cellphone says "No Service". Its like a black hole down there! Pretty black hole tho. I'd move there in a heartbeat...followed by UPS with some sat dishes and a Wildblue install :)There is very little cell service in Newton County. But that's something I certainly wouldn't miss by moving there. Wildblue? Don't bother in Newton. Ritter telephone co. has DSL, even in beautiful Boxley Valley. God's country, for sure.

TV is definitely all or nothing in Newton County. If you live on Cave Mountain at ~2200', you can get TV from LR, FAY, TUL & Springfield. Your neighbors 3 miles DOWN the road get nothing.

Yea, I was listening to 98.5 on top of the mountain from LR no problem. How would a person not from up that way, find an acre lot up on one of those mountains? I wouldn't know the first place to look. Sure would be a fun dx retirement location. I should start planning pretty soon.

Yea, I was listening to 98.5 on top of the mountain from LR no problem. How would a person not from up that way, find an acre lot up on one of those mountains? I wouldn't know the first place to look. Sure would be a fun dx retirement location. I should start planning pretty soon.Ponca's zip code is 72670. Start at Realtor.com and search for land in that zip. Search results should show a realty company serving the area.

... How far should we go here? What about the people in Russellville and Ola that can't get channel 7, but will if they move to Shinall.Exactly.

katv also has an obligation to their parent company to determine which location will better serve and reach more viewers with the best demographics, for the least amount of money. That location is Shinall Mountain in WLR.

They can also build a tower almost 1000' shorter at Shinall and acheive the same height above sea level as the former monstrosity at redfield.

It makes sense to relocate KATV to Shinall. As I stated in a post on another thread, the viewers down here (at least some of the antenna/rabbit ear analog crowd) have used inferior antenna systems to get by with as long as KATV comes in. Yes, in 2008 there are people in my local area that have snowy pictures on KTHV and little to no reception of KLRT (analog). In a few cases, its because of living in highly wooded areas in "the bottoms" but mostly its because of using no preamps, small antennas, and often RG59 or even ribbon cable. What happened with KATV has been a wake up call for these analog holdouts.

Steven, besides KTVE (which is a Monroe station despite having a El Dorado COL), and KEJB (analog 43, no digital but its MNTV) there is to my SE, WABG (analog 6/DT 32) the ABC (and FOX on subchannel 6-2) in Greenwood/Greenville MS, the CBS affiliate in Greenville, WXVT ch 15 analog (they are going to wait until the last minute to upgrade their digital signal), WMAO the MPB/PBS station on 23 analog/25 digital. I suspect many of KATV former analog antenna viewers in Desha, Eastern Drew and Chicot counties have started watching WABG or KTVE instead. I don't suspect that Drew County will fall out of the LR DMA (although, if it does it may become part of the Monroe/El Dorado market), but it is a possibility with Desha County mostly likely to the Greenwood/Greenville DMA. Much will depend on how WXVT rolls out its badly needed digital upgrade, in time the Greenville stations will provide 3 of the 4 major networks, plus PBS.

KTVE is Monroe? We lived in El Dorado in the late 70's and my dad was one of the lead anchors on that station, so I thought the station was located in El Dorado. All I knew was that everything I ever knew about it was that it was in El Dorado, so I am a bit dumb on what you mean by the Monroe part. Do you mean that they cater to the Monroe audience? If so, why would they do that if the station and everything is in El Dorado?

KTVE's tower is still in Union county, but their main studio is in West Monroe now. The mayor of El Dorado was also an anchor at KTVE when they were located here. They still give South Arkansas news though. They provide city-grade coverage to El Dorado... and have always been receivable with a paperclip from my location.

oh, hmm, interesting.

Thanks for the update. I checked it out last night, and got the Discovery and Sci-FI in HD ---BEAUTIFUL. However, the Animal Planet HD channel was blank. Is Comcast releasing these new HD channels to all areas at the same time? Wonder why I can't get this one channel while the other two are fine?

OK, I finally got it figured out. The Animal HD channel was not turned on, so when I corrected that condition, all is well. Thanks Comcast for continuing to increase the number of HD channels. It is cheating to include HD programs as "HD channels" in your ads to compete with Satellite providers. If you don't a comparable number of HD channels, so admit it. Don't make up stuff!

Yeah, I about laughed my ass off the other night when I saw a comcast commercial saying they had more HD channels than DirecTV. I just couldn't believe they had the audacity to claim that. Especially when they JUST turned on 3 channels that had been on sat for months. Did those 3 channels somehow kick them over the top? Nah, I think they are more likely counting all the HD on demand crap that they have as 1 channel each. I mean, if you count every single HD movie as a channel in itself, sure they do outnumber sat, but thats not a very reasonable count.

Wow, I've been gone for a while, kinda skimmed thru the thread here, looks like we are debating whether redfield should still host the Katv tower or Shinall Mt. should become its new home. I live in Belleville , 4 miles west of Danville. I sit in a valley 4 miles to my east is Danville Mt., 4 miles to my west is Mt.Magazine. Before the tower came tumbling down, I kept a constant lock on Katv 7.1 and 7.2, dropouts were not a problem as they arent here from most of the LR stations. I'd say that I maintained an average lock of 72-81% on their signal, I am right at 80 miles line of sight from them, the shinall towers are in the 52-58 mile range line of sight from me. But not everyone in my area is as lucky as me, remember, at these distances good or reliable OTA reception can be a real crap shoot, I take my OTA reception more serious than the average person, I've spent more money and time to get good reception than most in my area and its paid off for me. But, I set my brother up the same as me a quarter of a mile down the road. We tweaked many things in the process, had to cut a few trees and overcome other obstacles, in the end he gets 4.1, 11.1 &.2 and 16.1....7.1 is about 30-40% at peak and wont lock. In the end, a move to shinall Mt. would be a great move for me personally, I and many in my area would only see the katv signal get stronger. On the other hand, I can see the concerns of people south of LR. Do you guys see a scenario where local tv stations might actually use lower power transmitters and install them throughout their coverage areas on cell phone towers? I dont know if this is possible, just asking.

KTVE's tower is still in Union county, but their main studio is in West Monroe now. The mayor of El Dorado was also an anchor at KTVE when they were located here. They still give South Arkansas news though. They provide city-grade coverage to El Dorado... and have always been receivable with a paperclip from my location.

For whatever reason, I used to get ch 10 from el dorado when my antenna was guyed 20foot above my roofline. Its now mounted to the side or our house and total height is only about 15 feet, old height was 35 feet. We still get all our Little rock and Ft. Smith channels at that height, actually I've found a nice little "hot spot" for reception:D Unfortunately when we re-roofed our house with some super nice architechural shingles 2 years ago, the wife cast me and my antenna off the roofline forever, I no longer get ch 10, If I ever invest in a tower I'm sure I could probably lock it digitally, guess its something to look forward to:)

Here is another fact that hasn't been brought up in the debate so far. The population of Eastern and Southeastern Arkansas has dropped since the 60's while that of Central and other areas has risen.

Other than Pine Bluff (which Central Arkansas won't claim ;) ), and El Dorado, there isn't a town of more than 15,000 in the SEARK counties. Monticello, Stuttgart, and Crossett are the larger places. McGehee has dropped, and so has Dumas, Gould, DeWitt. Star City hasn't grown much, but most of the population growth has been in the unincorporated areas.

Its a business decision that would make common sense, but its doubtful many of the SEARK whiners give a rip about HDTV/DTV in the first place.

Arkyman, I don't know about using cell towers, but MyNet channel 42 has low power translators all over, as does RTN. It would be great once everyone goes digital.

the cell phone tower thing was just a brainstorm of mine, I dont know if that is even possible or within financial reason for the broadcasters. Would be nice if they could distribute their signals in more places in order to reach more viewers.

An idea could be for those podunk towns on the edge of current DMA's (ie Monticello, Dumas,Warren, Batesville, Camden) the Big Four stations could pool their resources and put one low power translator transmitter and rebroadcast 4 SD feeds of NBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX. That would pacify the small town viewers while saving broadcast frequencies.

Doing proper HD would of course require 4 translators (for each town) and that could be a DX'ers disaster, and taking up unneeded frequencies and causing co-channel interference plus would be a waste since D* will be offering HD feeds later this year.

Of course in practice this idea probally wouldn't work. Equity would be wanting to put three of these in *every* town with 2 streams of informercials in addition to their own stations :( . CC would want KASN added to the group of 4, that would make the streams bit starved even on a SD TV. I've seen this effect on TBN O&O digital stations DX'ed and its not pretty.

The next thing cell companies will likely add to their towers will be robust wireless internet services, using the vacated TV channels 52 thru 69. AT&T already owns enough 700mhz spectrum to cover most of Arkansas (Newton County not included ;) ).

For people in the sticks (like me) wireless internet that's comparable to DSL & cable will be better than more LPTV translators. We have enough of those already (see below).

Call Sign Channel Network City, State Frequency
KWOG-DT 39.1 A1 SPRINGDALE, AR 39
KHMF-CA 14 MNT BENTONVILLE, AR 14
K45EI 45 FMN BENTONVILLE & ROGERS, AR 45
K45EI-DT 32 FMN BENTONVILLE & ROGERS, AR 32
KWOG 57 IND SPRINGDALE, AR 57
KFSM-DT 5.1 CBS FORT SMITH, AR 18
KRBF-CA 59 MNT HINDSVILLE, AR 59
KFFS-CA 36 IND FAYETTEVILLE, AR 36
KJBW-CA 15 MNT SPRINGDALE, AR 15
KVAQ-LP 20 HTN SPRINGDALE, AR 20
KAFT 13 PBS FAYETTEVILLE, AR 13
KAFT-DT 13.1 PBS FAYETTEVILLE, AR 9
KNWA 51 NBC ROGERS, AR 51
KHOG 29 ABC FAYETTEVILLE, AR 29
KHOG-DT 29.1 ABC FAYETTEVILLE, AR 15
KODE 12 ABC JOPLIN, MO 12
K62DQ 62 CBS FAYETTEVILLE, ETC., AR 62
K54FH 54 REL GREEN FOREST, AR 54
KKAF-CA 33 MNT SILOAM SPRINGS, AR 33
K42BS 42 TBN FAYETTEVILLE, AR 42
KBBL-CA 9 MNT WINSLOW, AR 9
KSNF 16 NBC JOPLIN, MO 16
KFTA 24 FOX FORT SMITH, AR 24
KYTV 3 NBC SPRINGFIELD, MO 3
K09VM 9 TBN ANDERSON, ETC., MO 9
KFSM 5 CBS FORT SMITH, AR 5
KOTV 6 CBS TULSA, OK 6
KJRH 2 NBC TULSA, OK 2
KTUL 8 ABC TULSA, OK 8
KOAM 7 CBS PITTSBURG, KS 7

Those SOB's at KATV!!!!! I go to check my mail today and found a postcard from DirecTV. Those jackasses there at KATV, KNOWING that they won't have an HD transmitter up for a LONG time, DENIED me from getting ABC HD from LA and NY. I mean, what kinda crap is that? There is absolutely no reason at all for them to deny my request. I have a half a mind to call them up and tell them that even when they do get their crappy signal back on the air that I will NOT watch it at all and go with d/l'ing everything from torrents. This just pisses me off soooooo much.

Ok, ok, I guess I am better now. :) Still rather upset. Oh well, c'est la vie.

I've wondered if this tower collapse might eventually be the collapse of KATV itself. I mean, where is the urgency? They act like they are taking a stroll down the lane and just have all the time in the world to right the ship so to speak. I'm not in charge at KATV but you bet if I was we would already have new tower up and broadcasting with the other towers on Shinall MT. I dont know if KATV thinks they are invincible or what, but in the broadcast industry your either moving forward or getting crushed by your competitors, right now KATV aint even in the game, if they lose their license to another station like ch42, serves them right for taking their viewers for granted.

Who knows, KATV may have collapsed that tower on purpose, the tower is out of sync with the other LR stations at its location in Redfield, it was old and probably needed lots of matienance, I'm sure they had enough INS. coverage on that old tower to rebuild one half the height and put it on Shinall MT. I could care less why it fell, what ticks me off is that they are in no hurry to serve their viewers. Fort Chaffee had a similar situation with all those old Barricks that couldnt be torn down until all kinds of governmental inspections had taken place because of lead, asbestos and all kinds of nasty things that went into buildings years ago, you all dont really think the fire that burned all those old buildings at Fort Chaffe to the ground just started all by itself on the windiest day of the year do ya? One could ask the same question about the KATV tower, how convienent for KATV that 1 year before major changes the old tower comes tumbling down. Oh yeah, wasnt there a little ice or snow that day? thats what it was, they had the tower overloaded with half and inch of snow.

heh, yeah, you are right. They have always thought their crap doesn't stink. I hope they do lose their ego soon and treat viewers better.

On the same note, has anyone noticed how much their signal looks like utter TRASH on D*? I mean, I haven't seen a picture that bad since I had a 13" black and white with rabbit ears as a kid.

... I'm not in charge at KATV but you bet if I was we would already have new tower up and broadcasting with the other towers on Shinall MT...I'm no katv fan, can't stand 'em. But I would imagine getting all their ducks in a row to get a new tower up (wherever it will be located) is a regulatory nightmare. And every tower crew across the country right now is maxed out with work, trying to bring cheapskate, feet dragging analog stations into the digital age, or get stations transmitters ready to move to another channel, post analog.

The vast majority of local TV viewers nowadays receive TV via some sort of pay service. And the demographics of the majority (but not all) of OTA viewers are hardly worth worrying about. The bulk of katv's viewers have already forgotten about the tower's collapse.

So, unlike the pre cable days when the katv tower was constructed, the tower is probably looked at as a step child to katv - something from another era. The main reason they still have a tower is so they can force cable/sat systems to carry them.

PREDICTION:

If approved by the FCC, KATV will construct a tower on Shinall Mountain, or share a tower (as KTHV does with KARK).

If approved by the FCC, KATV will operate a UHF, digital transmitter on channel 22 with the mininum power allowed.

KATV will depend on cable and satellite providers to get their signal to the masses.

I believe that this is what KATV will do and I also believe other stations will be envious if they can pull this off.

Satellite-TV Operators Try to Stop Federal Communications Commission from Requiring Them to Carry All Broadcast HD Signals in Markets Where They Carry Any of Them Starting in February 2009
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/19/2008 4:07:00 PM

Fierce competitors DirecTV and Dish Network teamed up to try and stop the Federal Communications Commission from requiring satellite operators to carry all broadcast HD signals in markets where they carry any of them starting in February 2009.
DirecTV and Dish Network

Currently, satellite operators have to carry all TV stations in any market where they choose to carry at least one. The FCC is considering extending that to HDTV signals after the transition to digital.

While Dish Network and DirecTV said they are willing eventually to carry all, they argued that the FCC should phase in the requirement over four years.

In a letter to the commission Feb. 15, the companies said such a phased-in approach, with a hard deadline four years after the transition, would still be a burden, but it would be better than what they called a "premature deadline accompanied by a waiver process."

The satellite companies were also getting some help from Capitol Hill.

Colorado Democratic Rep. John Salazar (Dish Network is based in Englewood, Colo.) sent a letter to FCC chairman Kevin Martin asking him to "closely examine" the phased-in proposal, saying that an HD requirement would cause satellite operators to drop local programming, whole markets and niche channels like Spanish-language networks.

"We understand that it is a difficult balancing act to make sure broadcasters that invested in the digital transition get the carriage they need, but at the same time to ensure that capacity-constrained DBS [direct-broadcast satellite] providers are not forced to drop markets or programming in the short run due to an overly burdensome carriage requirement," Salazar wrote.

Martin has said that he understands the capacity constraints on satellite, but he is also looking to make sure that viewers get to see the beautiful HD pictures broadcasters are increasingly delivering.

Forced HD carriage is the result of cableco lobbyists. They know that sat companies don't have nearly the capacity to deliver every podunk market's locals in HD, and they would be forced to drop many markets entirely.

I'm no katv fan, can't stand 'em. But I would imagine getting all their ducks in a row to get a new tower up (wherever it will be located) is a regulatory nightmare. And every tower crew across the country right now is maxed out with work, trying to bring cheapskate, feet dragging analog stations into the digital age, or get stations transmitters ready to move to another channel, post analog.

The vast majority of local TV viewers nowadays receive TV via some sort of pay service. And the demographics of the majority (but not all) of OTA viewers are hardly worth worrying about. The bulk of katv's viewers have already forgotten about the tower's collapse.

So, unlike the pre cable days when the katv tower was constructed, the tower is probably looked at as a step child to katv - something from another era. The main reason they still have a tower is so they can force cable/sat systems to carry them.

I guess I should have said, having a new tower up and operational by now would have been my first priority, and I would certainly make an appearance on tv once a week to keep the public updated as to how progress is going and when they might expect to see us digitally back on the air. I understand there is lots of red tape to go thru, but shouldnt KATV have already had these things in place? They already knew a huge change was taking place in 2009. Common sense would say that they should of already had a new tower constructed on Shinall MT. equiped and ready to turn on in Feb 2009. It appears that KATV had no intentions of preparing for the future, now they have no choice. Another flaw in KATV management is their use of excuses like, "folks can get our signal on cable or the small dishes", what they dont seem to understand is that their signal on those systems suck bigtime in quality and I for one am not even willing to watch those horrible degraded channels on my directv. I'd rather watch an old analog feed than that crap they send to cable, dish and direct.

Wow, where is the LOVE? The FCC is crazy. Does this rule of theirs mean they would have to carry KWBF in HD, 24 hrs a day, even tho they only broadcast 3 or 4 cards games a year in HD and have to other HD programming? Why doesn't the FCC just reclaim ALL the bandwidth for sale, and shut down OTA altogether. If you wanna watch tv, get a satellite dish or cable....I know that's what the FCC and probably the broadcasters really want.

Wow, where is the LOVE? The FCC is crazy. Does this rule of theirs mean they would have to carry KWBF in HD, 24 hrs a day, even tho they only broadcast 3 or 4 cards games a year in HD and have to other HD programming? Why doesn't the FCC just reclaim ALL the bandwidth for sale, and shut down OTA altogether. If you wanna watch tv, get a satellite dish or cable....I know that's what the FCC and probably the broadcasters really want.

I am pretty sure that is what the broadcasters would love. It would be a management's dream not to have to provide an OTA transmitter and have to pay upkeep and a person(s) to maintain it and saving thousands a month on utilities.

They would love to be able to uplink their local programming to a satellite and then have it rebroadcast by the sat and cable companies.

The FCC has become a group of lawyers. Do I have to say more?

Everybody wants to take the easy way out these days, thats whats wrong with america. Satellites are unreliable and experience major problems and even have their signals severed altogether in bad weather. Think about what just happened with the tornado in Atkins, Cleveland, Clinton, Gasville, Mt. View and so on, could local stations have even relayed info to viewers? I know those storms hit us at my location too, the tornado that demolished those towns started at Ola, 15 miles east of me. During those storms I could watch local tv stations that own and broadcast their own signals to the public, I could get crucial wheather info and updates, but at the same time my Directv was dead as a door nail for over an hour, what good did that do me or what good would it have done anyone? None at all. When the local broadcasters give up their right to own and broadcast their signal terrestrially, they will eventually sever their relationship with the local public who watches them, inevitably it would be the beginning of the end for all local stations accross america paving the way to nothing but "Pay" Tv with the power to do as they please and serve the areas they chose, it would be like when President Clinton and Congress signed NAFTA into law allowing american business's to re-locate outside the Country, and look what that has done, it has eroded the american economy to nothing. Same thing will happen to local stations if they become dependant upon the satellite companies which are far less reliable than local broadcasting. Sure, up front it will save the broadcaster money just like it saved American Built buisness to move their companies accross borders, but eventually all that stuff comes back home to roost, and when it does, its like the plague, its bad, real bad:rolleyes:

Anyone in LR that can pick up Daystar analog 36, check out their sat dish setup screen with program audio...Oppps. Someone forgot to hit the monitor button.

Anyone in LR that can pick up Daystar analog 36, check out their sat dish setup screen with program audio...Oppps. Someone forgot to hit the monitor button.

This problem happens all the time down here with the LP religious stations. During bad weather, I can turn to one, and they will be broadcasting "Satellite signal lost" :)

Those shows on the religious channels are not local, they are being brought in by sat. I still have my C-band 10ft dish up and running, those religious programs like sheperds chapel and the other were on C-band sats way before these channels got them. I think Sheperds chapel is still on Sat Galaxy4 (G4) on transmitter 16. I dont know if this still takes place, but small dishes used to get their programming from C-band (1st generation signal, purest form) thats where I picked it up with my big 10ft dish, the small dishes did the same but with a 30-50ft dish, cable companies do this also, then they would re-broadcast that signal to their sat, then to the customers 18 inch sat dish(2nd generation signal which is degraded from the 1st). Cable companies would simply relay their 1st generation C-band feed down coax cable lines which will degrade so far, then its amped up by head ends along the way, but evey little thing adds up to a loss here and there, by the time it travels 20-50 miles, its a real accomplishment for the cable company to actually deliver an average signal at best to your tv set. With new HD tv's we have today, its impossible for small dish and cable companies to hide their badly degraded signals any longer, small dish is much better quality than cable, but still it has it degradation problems and it shows on todays sets.

Those SOB's at KATV!!!!! I go to check my mail today and found a postcard from DirecTV. Those jackasses there at KATV, KNOWING that they won't have an HD transmitter up for a LONG time, DENIED me from getting ABC HD from LA and NY. I mean, what kinda crap is that? There is absolutely no reason at all for them to deny my request. I have a half a mind to call them up and tell them that even when they do get their crappy signal back on the air that I will NOT watch it at all and go with d/l'ing everything from torrents. This just pisses me off soooooo much.

Ok, ok, I guess I am better now. :) Still rather upset. Oh well, c'est la vie.

steveken, check your PM's.

BelElDel, call it lazy, but I am not going to go through all that trouble. I know it will do me absolutely NO good because these *******s around here just don't give a crap.

I was just flipping around the local OTAs and saw that Channel 7 is in HD mode on 42.03 which also remaps to 7.1 on my TV.

That means 42 is packing 2 HD and 1 SD stream into the same bandwidth. All you Lost fans can check out the quality of their HD program tonight.

No mention of any DT changes on the ch7 website.

Doesn't look to shabby here. better than that crappy sd picture they have been sending.

anybody have a screencap of KATV's HD on 42? Comcast is still badly compressing KATV (9.9mbps) but I don't think OTA would be any better since it's two HD streams...the most they could get is..8mbps? 9?

two HD streams? I would hardly call 42-1 HD. SD stretched out of proportion maybe. Or did they have that movie tonight (forget what it was) in real HD? It didn't show as such in the places I could find.

In any case, I told Vista Media Center to record it coming out of my D* box (not full HD, but still pretty damn close) and the file is 2.37GB. I don't think we can use it for a good benchmark, but I thought I would mention it.

For some reason I can't get my OTA tuner on my other Vista Media Center box to show 42-3. It shows 42-1 and 42-2 just fine, but a blank screen on 42-3.

my LOST file via Comcast after removing commercials was 2.33GB (I think the original was 3.61GB for 66 minutes of recording)

my LOST file via Comcast after removing commercials was 2.33GB (I think the original was 3.61GB for 66 minutes of recording)
My numbers were similar, and the picture quality suffered significantly as a result. None of the other networks seem to be seeing this mega compression as far as I can tell. To my eye, the compression artifacts didn't seem to be quite so noticeable this week (although they were there), but there did seem to be this overall softness to the picture the entire time. Since the other channels remain unchanged, I almost wonder if this is a KATV decision and not a Comcast one.

Do you mind my asking exactly how are you stripping the commercials out of the files?

Interesting. I still haven't been able to get anything from KWBF-DT in quite some time, but I would love to be able to get Lost in HD. As far as 42-1 goes, the only time they are in real HD is on the rare occasion that MyNetworkTV sends HD material, and of course last year they did HD Card games. The rest of the time they stretch stuff to 16x9.

Well, katv is still unwatchable on satellite.

katv 7 on DirecTV:
http://i28.tinypic.com/2d9w65i.jpg

KHOG 29-1 OTA:
http://i29.tinypic.com/2dln7u9.jpg

My numbers were similar, and the picture quality suffered significantly as a result. None of the other networks seem to be seeing this mega compression as far as I can tell. To my eye, the compression artifacts didn't seem to be quite so noticeable this week (although they were there), but there did seem to be this overall softness to the picture the entire time. Since the other channels remain unchanged, I almost wonder if this is a KATV decision and not a Comcast one.

Do you mind my asking exactly how are you stripping the commercials out of the files?

My TV tuner's program records to .ts and I use HDTVtoMPEG2 (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=395744) to cut the commercials out (I usually don't save it to MPEG2, just to another .ts file which I watch in the VLC player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/))

Arxaw.....I completely and totally agree with the pics you've posted, how can anyone even stand to look at the dish feeds, look at that crappy quality in the top pic....Horrible. This is Why I want my OTA folks, on bottom is what you deserve to watch from the networks, on top is what the small dishes and KATV want you to have

My TV tuner's program records to .ts and I use HDTVtoMPEG2 (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=395744) to cut the commercials out (I usually don't save it to MPEG2, just to another .ts file which I watch in the VLC player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/))
Hmmm...I wonder what I'm doing wrong then. I have tried this program and liked the interface overall, but couldn't get it to work right at all for me. Hearing that you have it working with TS files (which are what I pull too) gives me reason to try again. Thanks.

Steveken, on mine in remapped 44-3 to 7-1.... Delete your old 7-1 and rescan, and see if it picks it up.

Steveken, on mine in remapped 44-3 to 7-1.... Delete your old 7-1 and rescan, and see if it picks it up.

Huh?? You completely lost me there.

I was able to get my tv to pick up the 42.3 signal (actually maps to 7.1) by re-scanning for channels.

I am having trouble getting my HR-20 to pick up the signal though. Has anyone else gotten their HR-20 to work with KATV?

Strange. I have done a remove all channels and re-scan on my HR-20 and it shows an antenna signal strength of 70% for 7.1, but when I actually try and tune to that channel I get the "searching for signal" message.

You know, jparry, I don't find that hard to believe. I have my Vista Media Center computer set up to get 42-3, it lists the program information, gets a pretty respectable signal level on the meter, but yet I get nothing what-so-ever on that channel. I don't know what the heck is wrong, but for some reason its not getting something right. On my H20-600 it's working just fine, so I know that I can pick it up strong enough with my current antenna config, I just don't know what the deal is. I am rather confused.

The HR20 gets its channel maps and guide data for OTA locals from Directv. Directv currently does not send 42-3 as an available channel, so until they add it to their database, we won't be able to get it. I emailed the Dbstalk moderator who has some ins with D* and asked him to pass on the info to the people handling that...Until then, we can only watch it on receivers with an actual channel scan.

I have been getting Katv on 42.3 also, but on my tv it does not remap to 7.1, I have not tried it on my Directv receiver yet.

I have been getting Katv on 42.3 also, but on my tv it does not remap to 7.1, I have not tried it on my Directv receiver yet.Some older D* receivers and certain H20s can find it, but none of the HR20 HD DVRs will find it until the mapping is corrected in the channel guide data D* uses. That data is provided by Tribune Media Services. The same people who provide data to zap2it.com and several other online guides.

There's no date on it, but here's the KATV tower status that was a front page story on katv.com about three days ago:
http://cfc.katv.com/external.cfm?p=tower&h=4300

Ther's no date on it, but here's the KATV tower status that was a front page story on katv.com about three days ago:
http://cfc.katv.com/external.cfm?p=tower&h=4300

Wow, thats amazing stuff, thanks for the link

A bit OT, but have you all noticed that in the past couple weeks, the CBS HD "eye" bug has moved a bit to the right? I have an RCA projection HDTV which has above average overscan, and now, the "eye" logo is halfway cut off, on my RCA, at least. On my other brand tvs in the house, the logo is still visible, but it has definitely moved to the right. At first, I thought it was WCBS, but others have noticed the movement, as well. What does it look like on KTHV-DT?

Yesterday finally was able to confirm the changes over on KWBF-DT. However, both yesterday morning and early evening had to deal with tropo scatter and KYTV-DT (same rf ch 44) coming in and over Equity's puny transmitter.

At least the stretchovision was gone from 42-1, and yes what was 42-3 is mapping as 7-1 both on my hamshack box (hisense/usd), and the E* vip 211 (after a rescan).

This morning, kwbf-dt too weak to decode as usual from south podunk.

... "Gorman said he’s also excited about the quality of the broadcasts, which have been digitized by RTN. Dvornik added that although the programming is retro, the technology the network employs is cutting edge." . [LOL]

Article (http://www.sj-r.com/News/stories/25812.asp)

Sam, I added Springfield as a secondary local to my HR20 hoping when I selected 3-3 weather plus it would tune KATV-DT (44-3). I get 90% on 3-3 but when I try to tune it, I still get (771). What's the deal?

Weird, I rebooted and now on my HR20, I actually get 7-1 on 7-1 where it used to be. Rescanned my tv, and get 7-1 also. I can't tell if they actually got the remap working, if adding Springfield Mo made it start coming in, or if they actually have channel 22 DT back on. I hate this virtual channel crap :)

Dave, what zip code for Springfield did you use? I tried rebooting my HR20 as well to see if I could get it all the sudden on 7-1, but still that same searching crap.

I have a similar problem with the FT.Smith and Fayetteville Channels. I tried changing markets also but have never been able to receive them, I know my system has re-booted several times due to bad weather and some power outages, still I only get the LR channels. My installer left my zip code on the receiver setup as 22222, have no Idea why.

These are the two I use for primary and secondary markets in OTA setup menu.
For Springfield DMA, use this ZIP Code: 72632
For Fayetteville DMA, use this ZIP Code: 72732

For the main Directv dish pointing setup ZIP Code, it really doesn't matter what I put there, at least on my HR20s. It may vary by manufacturer.

Your (SD) locals via satellite are based on your account and will come in, regardless of the ZIPs you enter in the Sat & OTA setup menus.

... I hate this virtual channel crapI agree.

Post-analog, the FCC should force stations to map to the frequency they are on. Remapping is confusing to the viewer, and complicates antenna selection.

Apparently, adding the Springfield DMA added KATV-HD but I would have expected it to show up on 3-3, but it works, so I'm not touching it.

Looks like that did the trick.

If DirecTV's not going to use PSIP, they should keep their databases updated. But then, they get that info from Tribune Media, so it's really up to them.

Way too many parties involved for it to work right.

I had emailed Earl Friday to see if he could get them to do something, so I don't know if it was me adding Springfield, or Earl getting D* to add it to their Database.

Good news, Everyone! My latest invention is complete.......Ooops, sorry, wrong show.

I would like to thank you Dave and Sam both for getting me the information to help me get 7-1 back on my HR20 in the living room. My wife will now be happy. :) That saves me a little trouble too trying to explain to her how to get the stuff from in here to out there. :) That Springfield DMA was a good find.

anyone know why D* uses their database instead of PSIP? It was nice setting up my E* receiver. I added the big three manually (three because KATV is not receivable in my house) and all the names came up with the signal and I just cut out the "DT" and "HD" since they were cut off anyways. A lot easier, it sounds like, than what D* subs have to do...