No announcers and no commentary, sounds like they finally got it right!:D

The only way you can hear the SAP channel is if you are watching the analog broadcast and have the SAP channel turned on. CSI aired fine from here.

Actually Mark I couldn't get you guys at all on Monday night. Everyone else was fine, but WANE was completely down at least for me.

have a uhf outdoor UHF only HD antenna (RS)....using an amplfier i get FW
abc,cbs and nbc...but not fox..(Low power)...can any in FW receive
any other channels in HD? considering getting a rotor or dif antenna if it is possible to receive say south bend....

I've tried pointing my antenna at South Bend stations to try and receive FOX with no luck. I have a uhf/vhf antenna mounted atop a 10' pole from the peak of my 1 story house with an amp installed as well.

Getting real sick of FOX. All the football games they carry are blacked out on the Sunday Ticket so I'm forced to watch their crappy analog signal instead of H.D. feed from D*.

Will be even worse come playoff time. HD for WANE games and the crummy pic from WFFT.

Originally posted by rxman
have a uhf outdoor UHF only HD antenna (RS)....using an amplfier i get FW
abc,cbs and nbc...but not fox..(Low power)...can any in FW receive
any other channels in HD? considering getting a rotor or dif antenna if it is possible to receive say south bend....

Look for my previous comments on getting the South Bend stations.

From the tri-lakes area north of Columbia City, I get better signal strength from South Bend[45 miles] than I do from Fort Wayne[30 miles].

And forget WFFT they are lame. It will not surprise me to see FOX will terminate their contract with them. No company can do what they do and still be in business. They need to take advice from the FOX affiliate out of South Bend, it is much better.

diehard

Did some tweaking on my antenna last night and I'm now getting WFFT. I doubt they increased power, but it's just weird that my tweaking improved the signal that much.

I just noticed that today my Sylvania box has wane-dt on channel 15. Looks like they started using the remap on digital. It seems odd to me that they would start now on that. They've been calling it Wane-DT 31 on the air for some time.

anyone else watch the LSU at Georgia game in HD on wane? The sound was DD 2.0 and there were no anouncers. I suspect that it was originally in 5.1 and they are just sending out the left right of that 5.1 signal, with the anouncers on the center channel.

Edit: I called wane and I got someone in the news room that said that everything was "ok" on their end as far as the anouncers go, and that I'd have to call someone in engineering on monday about the problem. funny guy.

oryan_dunn~~

Please note my post on the page 25 of this thread. The problem has persisted each Saturday for three weeks with regards to no announcers on the digital broadcast of the SEC game. Analog broadcast has no issues. I would bet you are correct in the assumption of original broadcast with 5.1, but no center channel on the WANETV 2.0 digital feed leaves us with no announcers.

Hopefully mkj will chime in with some inside perspective on the issue.

Originally posted by oryan_dunn
anyone else watch the LSU at Georgia game in HD on wane? The sound was DD 2.0 and there were no anouncers. I suspect that it was originally in 5.1 and they are just sending out the left right of that 5.1 signal, with the anouncers on the center channel.

Thats correct here too. The sound was background only, no announcer. My reciever showed DD2.0. Unfortunately I don't get that feed from South Bend, so I can't compare it :(

diehard_1955

In a way I almost prefered not having the anouncers. It was truly like being there. You could hear the anouncer for the stadium and you could hear the band in the background. Somehow after the game was over, I still knew what happened. That gave me the idea that it would be cool if you could select the audio streams you wanted to hear. If you didn't want crowd noise, you could turn that off, if you didn't want anouncers you could turn that off as well. If we ever get 5.1 sound, to knock out the anouncers, you'd just have to turn off your center channel.

What's up with WANE? Sometime during the past week, things have changed. I no longer get a picture on 31-1. My on-screen guide now shows two 15-1 channels. The first one doesn't give me any picture. The second one gives me the HD channel. If I enter 15-1 on the remote, it goes to the first one (no picture). If I jump from the HD channel to another channel and back, it goes to the first one (no picture). Tonight I think I will try a channel search and also try to remove that first 15-1 channel.

BTW, I am using a Samsung Directv HD receiver.

Mine has been all messed up lately too. I have the sony sathd-300 D* receiver.

Still get all the channels it's just the numbering is all mixed up.

The numbers changed on mine as well from 31 to 15, but since mine is an OTA only, it didn't really trip it up at all.

FYI, DTV is going to roll out local channels on October 19th. Yes, you will need a second dish to receive them.

My OTA receiver (lg lst-3510A) shows the channel as 15 as well, but everything was working ok last night as far as the sub channel numbering goes.

Only reason to pay for the D* locals is if you have a D* tivo. Other than that who wants to watch the compressed signal D* will pass as opposed to the HD signals we're all used to.

WANE is showing up as 15.1, 15.2, and 15.3 on my receiver now. Seems that they are re-mapping them to these channels. Now hopefully D* will update their guide information so it will correspond as well.

As of today Friday 10-8-04 WANE DT 31 is having a new digital antenna installed just below the analog antenna. I was in a conference with the Chief engineer and a new transmitter panel is on the way also. I was told DT 31 will reach 1000kw. e.r.p. The analog is at 2.5 million watts E.R.P. the most powerful signal in Ft. Wayne. Fox DT 36 is still at less than 200 feet above ground level with only around 100 watts into the antenna. At seven miles away with an eight bay 4228 the signal will not lock. I sure hope things improve in the future !

Was anybody able to watch the HD game on WANE past the 7 minute mark of the second quarter today? Just curious on the audio. It is being fed out of here on 5.1, and here it sounds fine.

Jckrac,

Yes, I noticed no announcers for the first quarter...left and right channels only. Now I have full 5.1 sound.

Thanks Cardfan for verifying that for me.

We are working on the issue and trying to make sure audio is good for all HD events.

You're welcome. It sounds good, keep up the good work!

Originally posted by j.leone
Fox DT 36 is still at less than 200 feet above ground level with only around 100 watts into the antenna. At seven miles away with an eight bay 4228 the signal will not lock. I sure hope things improve in the future !

I've got the same ChannelMaster 4228 and I can lock into 36 just fine. Now that WANE will be transmitting at a million watts, I'm wondering if I'm going to have more problems with the signal (too much power as opposed to too little).

I've tried tweaking my antenna and still can't even get a little bit of a signal let alone enough to lock onto a signal and get a picture.

I've pretty much given up on WFFT ever getting their act together at least until they are forced to turn off their analog signal. It's too bad too, because FOX has a lot of programming coming up this fall in HD.

Elevation is everything. I live on the far SouthWest side of town and I'm located about 60 feet above most of Huntington. Take into account the elevation and the fact that my antenna only drives one TV, you can see what I'm doing in this case to make it work. :-)

I know this is a thread for Fort Wayne, but I got this e-mail from WNIT up in South Bend. If you read this, they are saying that eventually FCC requires that they start resending the signal from their temporary channel to the alocated one. Only makes sense. My guess is this is what WANE is doing?

Dear DTV Viewer:

In accordance with a recent FCC rule change, we are changing the PSIP (program stream identification protocol) on WNIT-DT to correspond with our analog channel, 34. The two program streams on WNIT-DT will now identify on all digital receivers as 34-1 and 34-2 instead of 35-1 and 35-2.

We do not anticipate that this change will cause any difficulties in reception, but it may require that you do a tuner setup or channel scan on your receiver in case it does not now find our digital signal. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience that this may cause you, and we appreciate
your continued viewership and interest in WNIT-DT.

Sincerely yours,

Brian L. Hoover
Chief Engineer/Director of Broadcast Operations
WNIT/WNIT-DT


Now THIS is what a real broadcast station does for it's viewers (ARE YOU LISTENING WFFT ????????????)

diehard

Originally posted by bwohlgemuth
I've got the same ChannelMaster 4228 and I can lock into 36 just fine.

bwohlgemuth~~

Just wondering if WFFT is passing through any High Def programs on their digital signal, like the Sunday football games. Are they in 720p and DD5.1?

If so, I may try some tweaking as well. I am less than 2 miles from the tower and rarely get a signal lock. I believe my elevation is considerably lower than the tower, which is hampering my ability to lock a signal, even though my antenna is at the peak of my 2 story house. If there is additional High Def football availlable, it would be worth the climb onto the roof.

Thanks in Advance for the reply.

No HD signal from WFFT. The only advantage I see in getting their signal is not having to switch back and forth between the analog and digital receivers.

It sounded like the big switch is supposed to come next year after all the major stations that are owned by Fox55's parent company switches over the "must carry" stations for 2005.

One thing I could recommend which worked with some of the Indy distants for a while was a Zenith Silver Sensor with an amplifier. This might help pull in the DT36 signal and you can tweak it much easier than your rooftop antenna.

Let's hope that "next year" for WFFT's switch to boost their power and install necessary equipment for HD means early next year.

Any updates on when WANE will increase antenna height and broadcast power? I have no problems receiving their signal as it is but just curious as I thought this was going to happen soon.

Is wpta still on? I get no signal whatsoever from them.

I had the same problem this weekend with WPTA. Were they doing an antenna upgrade?

I live 35 miles west of Ft. Wayne, and I had reception problems with WPTA this weekend also. There was zero digital signal and very poor analog signal with a lot of ghosting and noise. They must be doing some sort of maintenance.

Update...

WPTA appears to be functioning normally as of noon local time.

Originally posted by vereekej
Let's hope that "next year" for WFFT's switch to boost their power and install necessary equipment for HD means early next year.

Any updates on when WANE will increase antenna height and broadcast power? I have no problems receiving their signal as it is but just curious as I thought this was going to happen soon.

It sucks that fox got the superbowl this year. No HD for us. It is cruel and unusual punisment for us that during fox games they have the little Fox HD promo about 720p and Dolby 5.1.

Does anyone know why Comcast is carrying all of the local HD channels except WPTA?

Because they both s*ck? ;-)

FYI, DirecTV lauched Fort Wayne locals today. Call in early to get the 2nd dish installed this month.

Should make D* more competitive with Dish in this area but no thanks for me on the locals. Although if I add the tivo that I want I may have to get them.

Is anyone else annoyed by the consistant audio clicks on Wane's digital channel? It seems like it has gotten worse since the last time i watched Wane. Now, I can hear it on the commercials as well as during the show. But they are still more prominent when music is playing than when someone is just speaking. The clicking almost sounds like a tape that has gone bad, like it warbles a little and other times it just little spots where the sound sounds like it just cuts out. Anyone else notice this or bothered by it?

One can only hope that FOX 55 is getting a lot of phone calls and e-mails asking about HD. The HD promos (where Fox pimps 720p with 5.1) ARE cruel and unusual punishment from a station that works on the cheap - yes, WFFT has always been pretty low-budget, but there was a time when they actually produced shows out of the studios on Hillegas Road no matter how cheap (Happy's Place anyone?).

Happy's Place was the shiznit! I went there as a kid...

Anyway, I'm just glad the Cubs aren't in the WS this year. Otherwise, WFFT would have to start blocking my phone number.

Originally posted by DialItUp
Anyway, I'm just glad the Cubs aren't in the WS this year. Otherwise, WFFT would have to start blocking my phone number.

If that's the case, then WFFT has nothing to worry about until 2197. :D

Just wait till everyone gets their HD sets for Christmas and just before the Superbowl is all jacked up about watching the Superbowl and NFL playoffs in January. Only to find out that WFFT is analog only. (yes I know they're broadcasting a digital signal, but 100 watts doesn't count)

They'll start feeling the heat pretty soon. A lot of the sitcoms on FOX will be HD this fall as well so I would imagine they will be playing their HD promo alot then as well.

Just wait till everyone gets their HD sets for Christmas and just before the Superbowl is all jacked up about watching the Superbowl and NFL playoffs in January. Only to find out that WFFT is analog only. (yes I know they're broadcasting a digital signal, but 100 watts doesn't count)

Honestly, I don't think WFFT will care about the SuperBowl at this point. Their corporate owners have to invest capital in upgrading several stations for "Must Carry" by next year before we will get HD.

The only thing we can hope for is that Fox will run the SuperBowl in HD over DirecTV and we'll be able to watch that way.

FOX HD should be up full time of DirecTV by then. I have to say the MLB Playoff games have been looking EXCELLENT!

"The only thing we can hope for is that Fox will run the SuperBowl in HD over DirecTV and we'll be able to watch that way."

It's times like these when I wish I hadn't switched from D* to Comcast...:(

DVR for $10/mo was the only reason...

DirecTV is offering the DirecTiVo for $50 after rebate now. That would only cost you $5/mo!

I wasn't very clear - I was looking for HD TiVo/DVR. I had standard TiVo when I used to subscribe to D* and I loved it.

Does anyone know why WANE didn't show the Colts game in HD yesterday? It's really nice being blacked out from my Sunday Ticket's HD coverage of the game only for the local network to fail to show it in HD. I got to catch a little of it in HD when one of the non blacked out games ended early and cut over to the Colts game.

Does anyone know why WANE didn't show the Colts game in HD yesterday? It's really nice being blacked out from my Sunday Ticket's HD coverage of the game only for the local network to fail to show it in HD. I got to catch a little of it in HD when one of the non blacked out games ended early and cut over to the Colts game.

Originally posted by DialItUp
I wasn't very clear - I was looking for HD TiVo/DVR. I had standard TiVo when I used to subscribe to D* and I loved it.

Sorry didn't realize you wanted the HD version, unfortunately those aren't $50

Originally posted by MarkMaple
Does anyone know why WANE didn't show the Colts game in HD yesterday? It's really nice being blacked out from my Sunday Ticket's HD coverage of the game only for the local network to fail to show it in HD. I got to catch a little of it in HD when one of the non blacked out games ended early and cut over to the Colts game.

I can share your frustration. It's even worse though when the game you wan't to watch is in HD on Sunday Ticket but then you have to watch it on WFFT.

Something must not have been working properly at WANE. Or they didn't even know that it was going to be in HD.

It's really frustrating because the Fox-HD games look so nice! Gotta love WFFT. What a joke!

THis is off topic.
I have a double sided standee advertising RUSH HOUR and BLADE.
I no longer have room for it.
If someone would like it they can have it.

Please see picture of it in my gallery. It is not put together in the pictures.
If I have no takers than I will post it on freecylers
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FtWayneFreecyclers/.
This is a very good place to give stuff away and get things for free in the Fort Wayne area.

I can share your frustration. It's even worse though when the game you wan't to watch is in HD on Sunday Ticket but then you have to watch it on WFFT.


The CBS station in South Bend did not broadcast the Colts gamein HD either. They have only had one HALF of a colts game in HD all year.

its BS. we are limited over here for HD programing OTA, and the ONE thing I look forward to is the HD colts game.

Do you think its a CBS thing and not the local station?

It's a local thing. HDTV is a "new" thing so apparently it's difficult to make sure the HD signal gets passed through.

Most of the time the problems seem to be that the station wasn't even aware that it was available in HD.

We can only hope that it will get better.

Daylight Savings ends in a couple of days, so unWISE33 won't have much of an excuse not to pass HD through past Sunday.

WFFT, thanks for not airing baseball history in HD.

Hey, look on the bright side. Maybe by the time the Cubs win the Series, WFFT will be broadcasting in HD!

Originally posted by NoToLowPower
Daylight Savings ends in a couple of days, so unWISE33 won't have much of an excuse not to pass HD through past Sunday.

WFFT, thanks for not airing baseball history in HD.

Yep. We should all send e-mails to WISE and let them know that they can put all of their HD propaganda back on their website again. Unfortunately the biggest HD news from NBC is that all of the Nascar races will be in HD next year so we'll pretty much have to wait till next summer to see anything good in HD.

Originally posted by vereekej
It's a local thing. HDTV is a "new" thing so apparently it's difficult to make sure the HD signal gets passed through.

Most of the time the problems seem to be that the station wasn't even aware that it was available in HD.

We can only hope that it will get better.


In 15's case of carrying HD games, it is a tad tricky.

Take for example this weekends games. CBS made a transponder change for the games late yesterday, meaning the feed will not be coming on the normal network transponder normally assigned to 15. Given the lead time, we can know about it and make appropriate changes to make sure we are on that transponder.

However, since the operation here is now ran out of Indy, if CBS makes a transponder change at 11 in the morning, nobody here is going to know about it until after the fact, as there is no one here to change the frequency on the receiver.

CBS does let the affiliates know ahead of time what games will be fed to which stations, but they always reserve the right to change the transponder.

This wouldn't have been a big deal several years ago, but now with a skeleton operations staff, especially on the weekends, you end up with the local station looking bad if a last second technical problem or other issue causes CBS to do an outright transponder change.

Colts/Cheifs aren't in HD today on WANE. What's the deal???

CBS is showing the Baltimore -vs- Phily game in HD now on ch 80 D*. I'm not much of a football fan, so I couldn't say if they are only doing one game at a time in HD or not??

What could cause a sudden change in your signal? I ask becuase I haven't changed anything on my setup (an indoor silver sensor) and I cannot get either wane or wise. On their analog, there is ghosting that is more severe than it has been in the past and there looks like some kind of interference specs that are on the screen. Those specs are toward the middle of the picture and look like they are a few pixels square and flash randomly. It reminds me of the specs that are on film at a theater that has been played alot. On the digital signal, I ether get no signal at all, or a pixelly mess. This all started yesterday. On Friday, everything was working fine. The multipath seems kinda out of place since I use a silver sensor which hasnt' had trouble with that in the past and it is designed to reject multipath. Anyone have any ideas? Did anyone else's signal go to crap this weekend as well?

Thanks,
Ryan

Originally posted by DialItUp
Colts/Cheifs aren't in HD today on WANE. What's the deal???

We are aware of/working on it.

As if we should be surprised UN-WISE is not passing on the HD feed of American Dreams....they must not realize the time change!

I also had some problems with locking on to WANE's signal today. The signal strength wasn't any lower than normal, just had problems with audio drops and pixelation dropouts caused from a poor signal.

Then it wasn't just me. I also noticed that Wane's analog was super ghosty; i'm almost positive that's why I couldn't lock on. I messed with my silver sensor a bit and I got it to lock on consistantly, but the signal strength was about half of what it normally is. I have an uneducated theory that the strong winds dropped all the leaves and maybe that has had something to do with my problems. As long as its not a permant problem, I wont get to upset.

I just checked unWISE's site and so far they haven't put up their "FW Leader in HD" page yet.

Another question, anyone know why the titan tv guide shows that the local news is in HD for wane and another station (forget which one)?

Also, users in the fort wanye area, I'm considering satalite, any props for direct tv or dish.

Thanks,
Ryan

The Colts game started to flicker between HD and SD around 4:26pm. By the time the Patriots game started, it was full-time HD.

I also noticed American Dreams wasn't HD. I wonder if unWISE will ever get it right.

I use Comcast and have a friend on Dish and DirecTV. Both of them are pleased. I think DirecTV is a little more expensive and I'm not sure how their HD offerings compare. There are some threads about that in the HD Programming section of this website.

I like Comcast for the inexpensive HD-DVR capabilities

I called unWISE today to ask when they were planning on broadcasting in HD again. I got transferred once to a lady who seemed surprised they had not started carrying HD again after the time change. She said she would get with the engineers to get an answer and call me back. That was around noon. Guess what? No call back.

VERY unWISE!

I have D* and have been satisfied. Pay about $50 per month for the total choice and the HD package. I don't get the locals. The HD package is $12 per month which to me is worth it for ESPN-HD and Discovery HD theater alone but it is still expensive to add the HD pack on a comparision type basis.

I pretty much get D* just for the Sunday ticket. It's the only way to get all of the Detroit Lions games, which is even better for this year because they are all in HD. TV is expensive no matter which way you do it, unless you go OTA only, then it's free.

Actually you can get the HD pack for free for 6 months with D*. Just go online and take off the HD Pack, the re-up with it....it should then show free for 6/mo.

Las Vegas in HD tonight. Unfortunately, this still doesn't lift the unWISE name. We'll see about that on May 1st, 2005.

Edit: It looks like there is a slight lip sync problem. Its not bad, but definitly not in sync.

second edit: leno looked good tonight, the lips were in sync... i forgot how good jay's show looked in hd

Originally posted by matthpd195
Actually you can get the HD pack for free for 6 months with D*. Just go online and take off the HD Pack, the re-up with it....it should then show free for 6/mo.

Yep. Already did that.

Wow, the audio/video are way out of sync tonight on leno. The audio is about a full second ahead of the video. Now this is very anoying.

Originally posted by oryan_dunn
Wow, the audio/video are way out of sync tonight on leno. The audio is about a full second ahead of the video. Now this is very anoying.

Saw that too. It was so bad I had to switch to Un-WISE's analog channel to watch the show. There were also sync problems on Las Vegas on Monday, although not as bad as on Leno tonight.

I am getting the signal via Comcast. Wonder if the problem is at NBC, Comcast, or the local Un-WISE?

I also switched to the analog tonight. I noted the sync issue of Vegas the other night. It's got to be the unWISE station cuz I get their signal over an antenna. Since you are experiencing it also, it isn't my box or equipment. I'm going to shoot them an email about it. It might be a good thing if you do as well.

On another note, I helped set up a friend's Dad's HD and last Sunday he was watching a football game on WFFT and saw the promo for HD, and since his picture wasn't in HD, he called up WFFT and chewed them out. They had said "no future plans for HD cuz it would cost 400,000 bucks." I guess that didn't sit to well with him. Anyways, I think that on Sunday, we all should call them and slap them around a bit for not wanting to invest in HD. If not on Sunday, then on Monday morning. I plan to. Maybe they will get the picture that people actually get HD now, unlike a few years ago.

Edit: I also noticed that it was slightly out of sync even on the analog channel, but it was no where near as bad as on the HD channel. Also, the later airing of Leno (not in HD) was fine with not a/v sync issue.

>>I'm going to shoot them an email about it. It might be a good thing if you do as well. <<

I sent an e-mail to UN-WISE's engineering email address around last night (late Thurs.) regarding the audio-video sync problem in Leno and Las Vegas. No reply yet as of Friday night. I'llbe surprised if they do reply.

Leno's on; no sync problems. It seems like HD takes a few pounds off of Jay's head.

Well Leno seems ok tonight. Hopefully they got it worked out permanently.

NBC's Crossing Jordan on Comcast's hi-def channel (181) as of this minute has sound but no picture. The analog channel (13) is OK. Not sure if the problem is at Un-WISE or Comcast.

Did anyone else notice this. If so, were you watching on Comcast?

No video on NBC via OTA! Un-WISE certainly is earning its name.

Originally posted by oryan_dunn
No video on NBC via OTA! Un-WISE certainly is earning its name.
I'd sure like to know what their problem is. I wonder if anyone is there at night to call when there are problems. Or if they even care.

I'd say it's obvious that UnWISE just plain doesn't care. They make no attempt to broadcast HD for seven months during Daylight Savings Time, then make half-a**** attempts to broadcast in HD for the remaining five months! We were watching Law & Order CI last night, when, about 45 minutes into the show, the picture disappeared! And we were screwed because I had recorded the show on my Comcast DVR. So there we were, trying to figure out what was going on by listening to the sound! A standard def image popped in for about the last five minutes of the show, but, geez, it was ridiculous!

I guess they really are the station "where news comes first," and everything else comes last!

UnWISE-33..... GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER!!!!!!!!!!!

Tonight, Las Vegas (via Comcast)on UnWise --t is not wide screen (and it doesn't look like hi-def). I thought Las Vegas was broadcast in wide-screen?? Did anyone else watch Las Vegas tonight and was it in widescreen?

Maybe the problem is my equipment but all the other Comcast hi-def channels are OK. And Oryan_Dunn has experienced the same problems I have seen in the last week and gets the signal OTA.


I think I will call Un-Wise Tuesday and try to find out if they are aware of these problems and whether they are trying to address them. I'll probably just get to talk to the receptionist though.

>>>Edit later in the evening: same problem on Leno - not wide screen and not high def.

>>I think I will call Un-Wise Tuesday and try to find out if they are aware of these problems and whether they are trying to address them. I'll probably just get to talk to the receptionist though.<<

I called them today and talked to someone in the engineering department. He said they are aware of the problems with their hi-def signal. They installed some new software that they received from NBC and it has bugs in it that are causing the problems. They are working to correct the problems but since their is no hi-def programming during they day they can only work on the problem at night while they receive a hi-def feed from NBC. He said if the problems are not fixed in a day or two. he will revert back to the previous software.

He was apologetic and did seem eager to get the problems fixed.

I also asked him if they are going to broadcast in hi-def when the time changes again in the spring. He said the station has been sold (pending FCC approval) and it will be up to the new owners whether they want to invest in the required equipment.

Hopefully our new Gov will talk some sense into our state legislators and get Daylight Savings Time implemented. Then the time change won't be a problem for the local stations.

Originally posted by seplant
Hopefully our new Gov will talk some sense into our state legislators and get Daylight Savings Time implemented. Then the time change won't be a problem for the local stations.

AMEN.

Exactly. They've been talking about it in the Indy HD thread. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=186022&perpage=20&pagenumber=67

Leave it to a Republican to make a liberal decision.

I actually live in Huntington which is about 25 mile west of Ft. Wayne. I have an older style roof top antenna and I get good reception on ABC, NBC, and the PBS station. The local Fox station doesn't appear to be broadcasting a digital signal yet. My problem is I cannot get even a faint signal from the CBS station. It's crazy because all of the stations are very close to each other. According to the local CBS website they are broadcasting but they are not included on the list on this forum. Does anyone know if they are in fact broadcasting digital? If so, does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks
Krumy

I had difficulty receiving WANE (CBS) until I got up on the roof with a compass and really accurately pointed my antenna. With ABC, NBC, and PBS I was able to get a good signal strength within about a 20 degree range or so. WANE only gives me a good signal strength when the antenna is accurately pointed. Since pointing the antenna I have had little reception problems and I actually now get WPTA at the highest strength possible.

If you want a real challenge, try to lock onto WFFT's signal.

Originally posted by vereekej
Leave it to a Republican to make a liberal decision.
My RINO Mitch. :D

Just a question: can the FCC nail a station for failing to properly ID their DT channel/subchannels? I noticed that ever since WANE-TV changed their logo, graphics, etc. in an blatant attempt to catch up to their next door neighbor on W. State Street, instead of the old 15 logo showing up on the screen with a voiceover ID'ing "WANE-TV 15, digital channel 31," they run a 5-second ad for the news operation with "WANE-TV 15 FORT WAYNE" in the bottom left corner. The UPN channel is ID'ed as "WANE digital channel 31.2" and the radar isn't ID'ed at all.

EDIT: Correction - UPN changed their ID, now only the cable systems are listed. Does PSIP count as station ID?

Vereekej,
Thanks for the reply. After posting here I gave the guy who runs Andrews Electronics a call. He has helped me over the phone before. Anyway, I replaced our old antenna a couple of months ago with a newer but similar model. I didn't understand all I know about antennas and thought I was using a pre-amp but I wasn't. I installed a pre amp yesterday and now I can get WANE, although the signal is weak. I feel pretty good about getting ABC, CBS, and PBS without an amplified signal so with a little directional tweaking I feel I can improve the signal on all stations.
Krumy

Has anyone noticed that the audio and video are slightly out of sync on unWISE HD broadcasts? Not as bad as it was a couple of weeks ago, but there is a noticeable lag. The problem was evident during ER last night, and Third Watch has the same problem tonight. I don't recall there being a problem with Law & Order on Wednesday.

Noticed last night that the audio/video were out of sync on unwise. It's not too far off, but never the less it's still very annoying. It almost confuses my brain and gives me a headache if I try to watch it for too long.

I just wanna say that ABC and WPTA do a great job on MNF. It looks and sounds excellent every week.

I have to agree.

I wish I could agree, but I've never been able to see MNF on WPTA in HD. Why? BECAUSE COMCAST STILL DOESN"T CARRY WPTA IN HD!!! :mad:

But.......

I just talked to a CSR at Comcast, and I was told that they WILL start carrying WPTA in HD just after the New Year. Dare I believe them??? :confused:

Channel 208 on Comcast is showing a movie in HD at this moment. I don't recall a HD channel 208 before. The channel guide doesn't identify the channel name and all the time slots say "To be Announced". Anyone know what this channel is?

After extensive emails to WFFT FOX (36-1) I have confirmed that they have no plans to implement an HD or 16:9 OTA broadcast in the foreseeable future.
Their reason is "supposedly" because of the uncertain nature of the FCC's broadcast regulations and because there are "so few customers who own equipment to view the HD or widescreen format"

SO.....I was hoping that you would help me out in sending them a little message and letting them know that many of their viewers who wish that the could see programs like Football and '24' in all their glory.

So if you feel like it, drop an email to fox55@wfft.com and politely ask them if they are going to upgrade their weak 480i SD signal soon. Let's let them know that we are waiting!!! And reply to this post so I know our message is going out

Thanks!

WFFT has told me in the past that the upgrade to HDTV would come over the next year after their parent company upgraded several other stations that needed to be upgraded according to FCC ruling. The number I was led to believe was significant (over 20-30).

I just did some digging on Fox55 and it's parent company Nexstar Broadcasting Group (http://www.nexstar.tv/) which is based out of Irving, TX. Here's some interesting information. Nexstar owns several stations across the country, specializing in small to medium markets. According to this website (http://www.nexstar.tv/default_v1024.asp) WFFT is the 11th largest station in their network. Not 50th, not 25th....11th. Looking at each one of the bigger stations such as WBRE in Scranton, PA (DMA Rank 53) the Fox station there is broadcasting currently in 480i. Same with WROC in Rochester, NY. I haven't checked all of them obviously, but the stations I did check were not broadcasting in HDTV nor was there anything noted on their website they would be this next year.

My plan is simple, forget writing to Fox 55. Writing to them is like yelling at my dog. He might not like it, but he doesn't understand a word I say. Here's where we should be writing to:

Nexstar Broadcasting Group, Inc.
909 Lake Carolyn Parkway
Suite #1450
Irving, TX 75039
Phone: (972) 373-8800

Also, I would write a nasty letter to Fox Sports copying Nexstar's Office regarding their decision to not carry HDTV.

Corporate Headquarters
Fox Sports Networks/Fox Sports Net
10201 West Pico Blvd., Bldg. 101
Los Angeles, CA 90035
Phone: 310-369-1000
Web: www.FOXSports.com

Enjoy!

Brian

Here's what I just sent to FOXSports via the feedback option on their website:

"As I'm sure you are aware, High Definition programming is incredible. Once you've seen Hi-Def, it is hard to go back to watching regular television. After watching sports in Hi-Def, I really struggle to force myself to watch sports in standard definition. However, this has led to a problem with our local Fox affiliate here in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

When asked when they will be upgrading their equipment to enable them to broadcast in Hi-Def, Fort Wayne station WFFT Fox-55 says they have no plans to upgrade at least within the next year. They claim that this is because of the uncertain nature of the FCC's broadcast regulations and because there are "so few customers who own equipment to view the HD or widescreen format." Because of this, I have yet to watch a football game on Fox this year. Our cable system carries our local CBS affiliate and ESPN in Hi-Def, so I have been watching all of the football they have been carrying.

Is there anything you can do to encourage WFFT to start broadcasting in High Definition?

Thanks."

1

whats the best indoor antenna. for the fort wayne area? i live in aboite

go to www.antennaweb.org and input your location to get recommendations on antennas. Make sure to select Analog or Digital based on your need.
Then read my above post and email fox55@wfft.com! =)

I have a simple bowtie array antenna that is installed in the attic.
Found it at doitbesthardware.com, model # 1483.

I live off of Hwy 14 between Scott Rd and Hadley Rd (fairly close to the towers) and am able to get the 5 main DTV broadcast channels most of the time. Only have trouble with WFFT, but the reason is not the antenna.
Very important to use antennaweb.org and get the proper heading to aim the antenna.

I am using a Dish 811 receiver for the turner.

I live 30 miles west of Ft. Wayne, and I am very disappointed in the lack of Fox HD. I will be writing to the appropriate people to express my displeasure. Thanks to those who have provided the mailing addresses above.

My HD Tivo shows the Fox digital channel in my guide for both Ft. Wayne and South Bend, but even with an excellent antenna and pre-amp, I have never been able to pull in a signal from either city. I am going to be really bummed out if I can't watch the Super Bowl in HD.

I contacted D* yesterday to inquire about the possibility of getting a waiver from WFFT so that I could receive the national Fox HD signal over satellite. Apparently, D* is now testing the Fox HD signal and they hope to have it available soon. I was told that due to a new law that went into effect yesterday, they could not offer any national feeds, with or without waivers, unless a subscriber was in an "owned and operated" market. I don't know if they were just blowing smoke or not, but the Super Bowl in HD doesn't look very promising in the Ft. Wayne market.

What makes it even worse is if you were able to get it in HD last year, had a party, everyone loved it, and everyone is expecting the same this year.

Try explaining to people that you most likely won't get it in HD this year. Even worse it will be OTA analog, which looks terrible on a big screen.

Originally posted by pilot20
I am going to be really bummed out if I can't watch the Super Bowl in HD.
Apparently, D* is now testing the Fox HD signal and they hope to have it available soon. I was told that due to a new law that went into effect yesterday, they could not offer any national feeds, with or without waivers, unless a subscriber was in an "owned and operated" market. I don't know if they were just blowing smoke or not, but the Super Bowl in HD doesn't look very promising in the Ft. Wayne market. [/B]

Not looking good indeed! Especially if you read what the CS director from WFFT said to me in some recent emails:

WFFT's first response:
>>Thanks for the e-mail. Unfortunately we have no immediate plans to broadcast in HD.<<


WFFT's second response:
>>And what do you say to the millions of Americans who can't afford an HD TV?
Some consumers don't realize that one of the reasons the Federal
Communications Commission is pushing HD broadcasts so hard is so they can
remove the analog signals and convert that bandwidth for use by the military
and local law enforcement applications. When local affiliates start
upgrading to HD signals soon thereafter the FCC will dictate that we can no
longer broadcast with our analog signal. When that happens millions and
millions of Americans will be forced to either buy a converter for their
current television set or buy a new set altogether. The FCC still has not
laid out a comprehensive plan for who will bear the cost for this, but rest
assured most, if not all, will fall on the consumer. That may not mean much
to you because obviously you already have an HD ready TV, but there are
countless families in this country who will wake up one day and find that
they can't watch any television at all unless they go out and spend a couple
hundred dollars or more. A lot of people can't afford that. We respect your
opinion that HD is better and you want to see more of it. But from our
perspective this issue is not that black and white. There are many shades of
gray that are still being worked out. That's one of the reasons the FCC does
not dictate that we must broadcast in HD. We want nothing more than to offer our
viewers the highest quality possible. But right now the percentage of people who can
afford to go out and buy a new television every time there's a new technological advance is very small.
We're doing our best to serve all of viewers and not just a select few. Thanks again for your e-mail,
I hope this gives you a little more insight into the subject and illustrates that
this is not just a matter of; HD is better so spend the money and give us
more.<<

I LOVE HOW THEY ARE BLAMING EVERYONE for the lack of FOX's HD in Fort Wayne except themselves and their parent company!!!
It's this kind of mis-information that encouraged me to begin complaining and asking for others to do so as well. Obviously, the more people who see football and '24' in HD, the more will see the benefits and upgrade when they get a chance. Why should viewers bother upgrading to HD if their favorite shows are not being broadcast in HD yet? It would seem that a broadcaster would want to provide their 'art' in the best possible medium to keep the viewers they have and maybe even aquire a few more. But I guess the almighty dollar comes first, as usual. I say "Broadcast in HD and they will come"
But maybe it should be: "Complain a lot and maybe they will broadcast in HD"

Send them an e-mail back using their information to help you. Since we are such a "small percentage" that can afford to go buy a tv for "every little technical advance" they shouldn't mind giving us waivers to get the national feed off of D* when it becomes available. Hey, since we a such a minority they shouldn't mind us watching the local ads from the L.A. and N.Y. markets as opposed to Fort Waynes.

Some one may also wan't to remind them that this "little technical advance" is the only major change to broadcast television since color. Looks like the possibility of HD from Fox in Ft. Wayne may be never.

Ask yourselves this question WFFT. Do you really think the demographic your advertisers is after falls into a category of people who have no other means to watch television than analog OTA? Not very likely these people have a lot of disposable income burning a hole in their pockets that can be swayed one direction or the other by viewing an advertisement on your channel.

We should also be praising the other networks in FW for their support of the transition to HD. Can't hurt to put a positive vibe out to the other networks.

Better yet, complain to WFFT's advertisers. Tell them we aren't watching them because nothing is offered in HD yet. Hit WFFT where it REALLY hurts - - in their pocket book!

Hi, Can anyone near South Bend receive ABC HD from Fort Wayne?

I am really bummed out by the lack of an ABC local broadcasting in HD. Perhaps the new "DIgital White Area" will lead to a solution, but I doubt that I can hold my breath for a sufficiently long time.

thanks,

Haven't heard of anyone getting it from the SB area, but have heard reports of people receiving WPTA from Indy. WPTA is broadcasting at full power so you should be able to get their signal. Probably need a good rooftop antenna pointed at the tower maybe a pre-amp and you should be able to pull er in.

Hopefully you can get our ABC and we can get your FOX. Sort of a little trade off.

I'm also curious in learning more about the new "digital white areas" that supposedly came into effect recently. It could be our solution to WFFT.

Originally posted by aggie
Hi, Can anyone near South Bend receive ABC HD from Fort Wayne?

I am really bummed out by the lack of an ABC local broadcasting in HD. Perhaps the new "DIgital White Area" will lead to a solution, but I doubt that I can hold my breath for a sufficiently long time.

thanks,

aggie, see my post here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4001793#post4001793

I don't know if this is what your looking for? I am 22 miles from Fort Wayne and 40 miles from South Bend.

diehard_1955

Laggytoad, can you forward me that e-mail (headers and all)? I would love to share that with FoxSports, DirecTV, and anyone else who will listen. I'm also going to see if we can get some attention in the media (i.e. Fort Wayne radio) about this issue.

A while back (mid may to be exact), I emailed pat white about wise not having an hd time shifter, but I never heard back from him and didn't hear it discussed on the radio. He always talks about how great HD is (in conjunction with the classic stereo add, so i don't know how much he really appreciates it) and i would think he would care. Maybe his friends over at such and such could help lol. Anyways, i think it would be a good idea to get the word out. Also, try to get your friends, anyone actually, to email fox or nexstar. They don't know that they don't have hd sets, but the more people contacting them, the better.

I live in Middlebury, about 25 or 30 miles east of Granger, and I get a very strong signal from ABC in Fort Wayne. I also get a good signal from Battle Creek ABC on digital channel 20

Hi, What sort of antenna do you have, and do you use a tower with a rotor? Thanks!

Originally posted by aggie
Hi, What sort of antenna do you have, and do you use a tower with a rotor? Thanks!

I don't know if you were asking me, but I use two channel master 7775 pre-amps and a channel master 4228 8-BAY BOW ANTENNA and I have one pointed at South Bend and the other at Fort Wayne. My receiver has two antenna inputs called A and B and I ran two coax's down to the reciever.


Don't try using a combiner, it won't work. You need to run the coax seperate. If you don't have two inputs on your reciever, you will have to install a rotor.

hope this helps,
diehard

If your receiver doesn't have 2 inputs, could you run the two lines down into an A-B switch, add all the channels from both the south bend and fort wayne market, and just switch between antennas depending on the station you watch? Seems like that would work. Would definitly be more of a hassle than a rotor, but much cheaper.

Running both coax's down to an A/B switch should work with no problem.

The problem arrises when you try to combine both signals. This has something to do with the signal loss you get, but I can't remember the exact reason. I think if you do a search here you will find the details.

I did it this way because I was watching Fort Wayne news and then switch to watch the national news in HD from South Bend. I didn't want to keep running the rotor two to three times a night.

diehard

Originally posted by aggie
Hi, What sort of antenna do you have, and do you use a tower with a rotor? Thanks!
I also have a CM 4228 with CM 7777 amp and rotor with about 40 feet of mast.

Anyone know a good antenna installer in the Huntington area? I'm looking to get a rotor installed and don't want to have a crappy job done.

bwohlgemuth,

Contact Hire's Electronics in North Manchester. Ask for Jeff. They do very good work. In fact, their primary installer lives in the Lagro area.

Hire's phone number - 260-982-2913. Tell Jeff that Snavely referred you to him.

Happy New Year,

Pilot

The geniuses at Fox55 have been "told" to air the Vikings/Redskins game as opposed to the Bears/Packers. From what they have done before, I can't believe Fox Sports made this choice.

I wonder if our local comcast will pick up ESPN2-HD...

Over in the Indy thread, Jason had this tid bit of information about a Nexstar station: "WTWO and WBAK will NEVER bradcast in high def. I am a pretty good friend with Julie Henricks at WTWO and she told me that if the FCC forced WTWO to broadcast in 1080i. Nexstar would probably just shut down the station."
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=186022&perpage=20&pagenumber=71#post4924968

That's not good news for WFFT. Hopefully they'll sell the station to someone else. I wonder what people would have done when the stations switced to color and instead of switching, they just closed down. Nexstar is lame.

Just in case anyone felt like letting nexstar know how they feel, I have taken the liberty of guessing the email addresses to some of the bigwigs at www.nexstar.tv based on their position in the company, their names, and the way nexstar email is addressed. I have sent a polite email to all of these guys and got no undeliverable messages or replies, so I cannot know for sure if they are good emails...but hey, it's worth a try, right?
<psook@nexstar.tv>,
<rstolpe@nexstar.tv>,
<tbusch@nexstar.tv>

browse through this page:
http://www.nexstar.tv/default_v1024.asp
to see who these guys are or to find other bigwigs that you may want to email. Have fun! Remember to be polite and professional even though I doubt they give a rat's @$$ about you as a viewer =)

It would seem Nexstar has some big issues going on elsewhere in its company. I was reading a trade report here at work today, and it stated that Nexstar was pulling its retransmission rights on cable in certain markets (not Fort Wayne.) I believe it stated they wanted 30 cents a subscriber for the rights.

Sounds like Nexstar has several fish to fry. Linkage:

http://www.sastandardtimes.com/sast/cda/article_print/0,1983,SAST_4956_3434260_ARTICLE-DETAIL-PRINT,00.html

Originally posted by laggytoad
Just in case anyone felt like letting nexstar know how they feel, I have taken the liberty of guessing the email addresses to some of the bigwigs at www.nexstar.tv based on their position in the company, their names, and the way nexstar email is addressed. I have sent a polite email to all of these guys and got no undeliverable messages or replies, so I cannot know for sure if they are good emails...but hey, it's worth a try, right?
<psook@nexstar.tv>,
<rstolpe@nexstar.tv>,
<tbusch@nexstar.tv>

browse through this page:
http://www.nexstar.tv/default_v1024.asp
to see who these guys are or to find other bigwigs that you may want to email. Have fun! Remember to be polite and professional even though I doubt they give a rat's @$$ about you as a viewer =)


well, i emailed to those addresses that you posted around 6 this afternoon, and I got a reply back in about an hour.

here's my original email:
-----Original Message-----
From: Ryan Dunn [mailto:oryan_dunn@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2005 5:35 PM
To: psook@nexstar.tv; rstolpe@nexstar.tv; tbusch@nexstar.tv
Subject: Lack of High Definition from WFFT



Hi,

I’d like to express my disappointment at the lack of High Definition from WFFT55 out of Fort Wayne. In repeated emails to WFFT, they state that they have no plans to upgrade to HD. I understand that the cost of upgrading is high, but with most primetime programming being offered in HD, as well as the recent addition of Fox Sports in HD, WFFT should be upgrading to HD soon. I am extremely upset that I will not be watching the Super Bowl in HD this year, especially after having watched it in HD last year on CBS. WFFT is the only station in the Fort Wayne market not broadcasting in HD. WPTA ABC, WISE NBC, WANE CBS, and WFWA PBS are all broadcasting in HD. I should hope that Nexstar’s position on the matter is not to never upgrade to HD. If this is your position on the matter, maybe you could sell the station to a company more in tune to the demands of the consumer. A few years ago, I could understand the lack of HD, as it was new and not many views could receive the signal. Now, however, many more people are able to receive the signal, especially as integrated HD sets are now reasonably priced. I look forward to an email from you stating your position on the matter.

Thank you,
Ryan Dunn
oryan_dunn@hotmail.com


and the response from Perry:
We are currently finishing the development our master plan for the full power and high definition upgrade to our 40 TV stations. I’m sure you can imagine the complexity and cost involved at approximately $2million per station. Rest assured we do plan to upgrade WFFT to full power and high definition capability, although I cannot say with certainty exactly when. PAS

So I guess that is better news than I had expected. I wonder where wfft is on the list to be upgraded? Anyone know the ranking of nexstar's station based on the market size? Another thing that he addressed in the email was the stations going to full power. That's another issue that wfft is currently lacking on their digital signal. So, hopefully, they'll get started soon on the upgrade.

nicely done, Dunn! Hopefully the interest we show in WFFT will make it a little higher on the upgrade list. It's too bad it's not in time for the 24 season premiere this sunday <sigh>
I do believe the first post regarding Nexstar in this thread mentioned the station rankings of WFFT in case you were curious.
"squeaky wheel gets the grease"!

I also sent similar emails to Fox Sports and the GM of WFFT. I wonder if I will get a reply from either of them.

How many people are not receiving any audio on WPTA's high def channel? I noticed on Tuesday and last night that I was not receiving audio over my RCA DTC210 sat receiver. The non-HD channels were fine. I know of another person not receiving the audio on his Samsung SIR TS-160 receiver. Does anyone know of a good person at WPTA to email about the problem. Via their website, I sent an email to the station manager, but I assume a station engineer would be a better person to contact.

Was having the same problem on my parent's DTC210....I went home and all was OK through my Hughes receiver and through my TV's decoder. I figured it was just something wrong with their receiver. But their audio never returned, and mine never went out. Glad to know there is someone else with the same problem & it's just not their equipment.

Hope they get this fixed soon!

This thread is depressing.

maybe this will help:
:) :D :) :D :) :D :) :D :) :D

Originally posted by aggie
Hi, Can anyone near South Bend receive ABC HD from Fort Wayne? I did. I have since taken down the antenna, but I had a RadioShack UHF Only antenna that could pick up ABC out of Fort Wayne. It was not an easy pull, and I was also hampered by the fact that I had a South Bend facing antenna tied into a combined coax down to my HD set ... but I could get the ABC. (The South Bend channel numbers are so close to Fort Wayne's that interference is easy if your antenna isn't directional enough.)

I didn't feel like running a separate coax from the second antenna to my HD box just for the one channel (the other FW stations are not strong), and I wanted to improve OTA of South Bend so I dropped the FW antenna off of my system. But it worked.

BTW: I'm on the South side of Elkhart near the US20 bypass. No so much hills to shoot through as you have over in Granger.

JL

I have two Samsung 360's and neither will play audio from 21 WPTA-DT. I was originally going to post a message to the 360 720p problem thread but I see others in Ft. Wayne are having audio issues using other HD receivers.

I also have a FusionHDTV PCI card and it's able to play the audio so their is audio in the signal.

I'm using the Sony hd300 and have had no problems with audio on WPTA yet.

Sylvania SRZ3000 here and haven't had any audio problems with 21's audio.

HD-Tivo and no audio problems from 21.

Haven't had any audio problems from my LG LST-3510A either.

I talked to an engineer at WPTA last week. He said that they had made some software changes and that I should try rescanning the channel. I did the rescan and I still did not receive any audio. I left a voice mail on Monday stating that the rescan had not worked. I never got a call back, but I noticed late last night that I had audio again.

I have audio again on my Samsung 360.

Since WISE was bought out by granite, I wonder if they will be getting an HD delay server for this summer? Although, they may not need to if Daniels has his way with dst. I really want HD this summer since Conan is going HD in April.

Hi, I live in the Fort Wayne area and just joined the ranks of the HD "enlightened" last month. After reading this thread, I'm beginning to understand there are many more issues with HD in the Fort Wayne area than I was initially aware of, and in hindsight I'm kind of glad I didn't buy HDTV sooner.

But the main reason for my post is the debacle that is known as WFFT. I clicked on a link earlier in this thread that provided broadcasters' transmission info and it states that WFFT DT36 has a construction permit for a 1,000,000 watt transmitter at 241m. It surprises me that they would get a permit for that if they had no intention of building it. (For example, WANE got a construction permit in the same time frame for a 1500 watt transmitter and then later applied for a modification to 1,000,000 watts.)

So, I'll cross my fingers that we will have FOX in HD at some point here in town. In the mean time (meaning for the Super Bowl) I will be looking into a way of pulling in a Fox station from South Bend or Toledo.

Originally posted by HDEye


So, I'll cross my fingers that we will have FOX in HD at some point here in town. In the mean time (meaning for the Super Bowl) I will be looking into a way of pulling in a Fox station from South Bend or Toledo.

Take a look at some of my posts on getting both South Bend stations.

One thing I havn't seen in this thread is how close to Fort Wayne can people recieve South Bend stations. I am in the Tri Lakes area north of Columbia City... any one closer to Fort Wayne who can pick up South Bend?

diehard

From everything I've read Ft Wayne would be my best bet for OTA HDTV. Wondering if anyone from the columbus grove-lima area has had any luck. I live in the country with flat terrrain, but will need to put up anntena (purple range) Roughly 60 miles to all FT wayne stations according to Antena web. Which only list wane as the only station in FT wayne I should get. Would like to know, before purchasing antenna and a OTA receiver if I would have any luck picking up the stations or would it all be a waste of time and money.

Any suggestions or if anyone in my area has had luck picking up OTA HDTV please let me know and give me some do's and don'ts.

Thanks

Columbus Grove thinking of OTA HDTV
From everything I've read Ft Wayne would be my best bet for OTA HDTV. Wondering if anyone from the columbus grove-lima area has had any luck. I live in the country with flat terrrain, but will need to put up anntena (purple range) Roughly 60 miles to all FT wayne stations according to Antena web. Which only list wane as the only station in FT wayne I should get. Would like to know, before purchasing antenna and a OTA receiver if I would have any luck picking up the stations or would it all be a waste of time and money.

Any suggestions or if anyone in my area has had luck picking up OTA HDTV please let me know and give me some do's and don'ts.

Thanks

If you have D*, try and get the wavers for their local stations.

Wolfie

you should be able to get WPTA, they're broadcasting at full strength. WANE will be difficult as they are at low power, WISE is possible but will be difficult. WFFT will be impossible.

Thanks. Just curious, anyone receiving the Ft wayne HDTV signals from 60 or miles away. This would give me a good idea of I would be able to pick up their reception?

And if so what type of tuner do you have and antenna setup.

Thanks

Anyone in the area using the expensive DirecTV HD TIVO?

If so, do you or have you had any issues with channels in the DirecTV program guide being fake channels that do not actually have programming? This is in reference to OTA Digital channels.

I don't have a Directv HD Tivo, but I have been getting these fake channels on my RCA Directv HD receiver. They are rather annoying.

Same for me with my Hughes HTL-HD receiver.

Hi, what do you folks mean by "fake channels"?

thanks,

Here is what is currently showing up in my OS guide:

15 WANE (sat)
15 WANE (analog)
15 AIR (analog) (guide just lists "Regular Schedule")
15-1 WANEDT (no signal)
15-1 WANE-HD
15-2 WANEDT2 (no signal) (guide lists UPN programming)
15-2 WANEUPN
15-3 WANE-WX
21 WPTA (sat)
21 WPTA (analog)
21 AIR (analog) (guide just lists "Regular Schedule")
21-1 WPTADT (HD)
21-1 WPTA-HD (no signal) (guide just lists "Regular Schedule")
21-2 WPTADT2 (weather) (guide lists HD schedule)
21-2 WPTA-SD (no signal) (guide just lists "Regular Schedule")
33 WISE (sat)
33 WISE (analog)
33 AIR (analog) (guide just lists "Regular Schedule")
33-1 WISEDT (HD)

Originally posted by vereekej
you should be able to get WPTA, they're broadcasting at full strength. WANE will be difficult as they are at low power, WISE is possible but will be difficult. WFFT will be impossible. I think WANE is now broadcasting at full strength as they blow everyone out of the water at my location (4 miles from the towers). WFWA is the next stongest, followed by WISE and then WPTA.

I'm 20 miles out and wfwa and wpta are the two strongest, with wise and wane tying next. And, as expected, wfft is nowhere to be found.

For me, in order of most powerful to least powerful: WPTA, WFWA, WISE, WANE. WFFT doesn't deserve so much as a ranking.

Speaking of WFFT, they are running a "Too Big For Television" contest in observance of the fact that their network, FOX, has the Super Bowl, the Daytona 500, American Idol, 24, and the OC all on in February. The prize is a Hitachi 51" TV - no indication as to if the TV can handle HD. Who here bets they'll tell the winner that they can they can see FOX in HD when it's really just 55 analog?

I don't watch NBC that much, but it looks like WISE keeps forgetting to flip the switch. Maybe Granite will step it up when the duopoly finally takes place (it was supposed to happen a couple of weeks ago, what happened?).

WFWA is the only station in town that is making some kind of an indication that their digital channel exists (their bug in the corner says "WFWA-DT").

For those in the area that get cable from Mediacom, I just recently tried out a QAM tuner and these are the stations that I can get:
105-1 WFWA-HD
105-2 WANE-HD
106-1 WPTA-HD
107-1 Universal-HD
107-2 ESPN-HD
108-2 HDNet
108-3 HDNet Movies
109-1 Discovery HD

There are also many digital music channels as well.

I talked to Mediacom Support and they said that they were in contract talks with WISE to carry WISE HD.

I also recently contacted WFWA about PSIP data and program information. He said that they had just got in some new equipment that was supposed to be installed yesterday. Their PSIP stream is back, but only displays DTV Program. He said that they are working on getting the program list working.

Originally posted by NoToLowPower
WFWA is the only station in town that is making some kind of an indication that their digital channel exists (their bug in the corner says "WFWA-DT").

WPTA also has the WPTA-DT 24 across the bottom of the screen at times.

I noticed that WFTA also just started including the program info for the 40-2 channel, although it is an hour off.

Originally posted by oryan_dunn
WPTA also has the WPTA-DT 24 across the bottom of the screen at times.

I noticed that WFTA also just started including the program info for the 40-2 channel, although it is an hour off.
I knew I forgot something. They have their ID and DT-24 plastered at the top of their radar, which one of their meteorologist mentioned could be seen of 21-2 a couple of weeks back. What I meant by my last post is that WFWA seems to be the only station that wants to make DTV known; the other stations don't. Take WANE's UPN station for example. Even though it is a digital channel by origin, WANE pimps it like it's a cable-only channel (I've seen it on Comcast in Fort Wayne; it's taken directly off 15-2, you can even see the artifacts). I think that's why the DTV transition has been so slow; the stations don't advertise.

The buildout has been reasonably slow as well with many stations not broadcasting at full power. Little to brag about.

UPN Michiana in South Bend is often advertised by it's cable channel number, but then the WB-LP station did billboards that had the cable channel more noticiable that their OTA channel. The stations are looking at penetration. If they know that more people can get them on cable than OTA they'll focus on that outlet.

My market is a little more mature so DT is mentioned more often. But OTA DT viewers are still a minority of their viewers. DT is getting a push now that the local cableco is adding local HD feeds to their service. It is in people's homes now in a visible form!

The world will catch up with us nerds that are on the leading and sometimes bleeding edge. And by then ... we will be on to the next good thing. :D

JL

I still can't believe we aren't getting the super bowl in HDTV...

Rent a uHaul, stick your bigscreen in the back, get a power inverter, go on a road trip to a town with fox hd,(possibly the parking lot of a football stadium), set up some lawn chairs and a grill, then kick back, open the back of the uhaul, and enjoy the game in HD.

Originally posted by DialItUp
I still can't believe we aren't getting the super bowl in HDTV...

At last check, Nexstar still has "0" (ZERO) stations passing HD. Perfect score!

Anyone in Fort Wayne get Indy 45, Elkhart 58, Toledo 46 ?

We should do long lat searches at 2150.com and see if we can come up with anything...

Justalurker mentioned that Comcast in SB is now offering some HD channels. At C-C I noticed a placard add claiming that ABC-HD was included. Since the local ABC outlet is a LP analog station, I was interested , and I called Comcast.

The first CSR I talked with claimed that ABC-HD was included, but to be certain I could talk with a technical person. The TCSR also did not know, but promised to call back...but hasn't.

It appears that neither Fox nor NBC which are providing HDOTA are available over the cable. So if I were to opt for Comcast and dropped my E* service, I would lose two HD locals. I would add Comcast if they carried a distant ABC-HD.

Finally, I get to my question: Can Comcast carry a distant local in HD when there is no local HD outlet? I recall, perhaps incorrectly, that the previous cable company carried a couple Chicago stations.
Thanks,

that would be unlikely since the local station woudl loose out on ad money from those people watching the other abc station. It probalby goes by the same reasoning that local stations wont issue a waiver to those with satatlite to watch the national hd feed.

Today, I got up on the roof and turned the antenna towards South Bend. I getting a fairly stable picture on 28-1, the SB Fox station. My signal strength seems to be between 50-80 although I have periodically lost the picture and seen the signal drop to 0. I think I'll get to enjoy the Super Bowl in HD. I'll have to fire off an email to WFFT on Monday telling them that I will no longer be tuning them in. They told me in an email a while back that it's not worth the cost of upgrading to HD as it won't generate new viewers. Maybe the thought of losing viewers will get their attention.

What area of Fort Wayne are you in? I'm up in Auburn and want to know if I could get the SB station. Also, what kinda of antenna setup are you using to get 58?

I live east of Churubusco. I have a roof mounted 8-bowtie antenna with a amplifier on it.

I went back on the roof Sunday morning with my wife watching the digital signal strength meter on the TV. I better signal on the South Bend Fox station (28-1). I ended up with a stable 80 with the occasional jump to 90. I did not experience a single drop-out during big game last night.

I emailed WFFT telling them that I would not viewing their station anymore since I could view South Bend's HD Fox. Here is their response:

"Thanks for the e-mail. Our corporation has a plan in place to upgrade every station they own to an HD signal. We are slated to get the upgrade either next year or the year after. You have to understand that the company that owns us owns 47 other stations throughout the country. It is simply impossible from a budgetary and logistical stanpoint to upgrade every station immediately."

Well, that jives with what the ceo of nexstar told me. It sucks that it will take that long. I wish that at the very least, they could upgrade their antenna and transmit at full power. Even a digital signal would be better than their current analog signal.

Does anyone know what format the wfft digital signal is? Is it 480p widescreen or just 480i 4:3?

Comcast installed the dual tuner DVD HDTV cable box so that's now available in Fort Wayne. I have not tested firewire, nor have I checked the firmware number. It works as advertised.

Originally posted by oryan_dunn
Does anyone know what format the wfft digital signal is? Is it 480p widescreen or just 480i 4:3?

480i 4:3 - I live faily close to the tower and I can get the digital signal 36-1 at about 40% power almost all the time. It's definitely better than analog, but still...

Originally posted by Bossplaya
Comcast installed the dual tuner DVD HDTV cable box so that's now available in Fort Wayne. I have not tested firewire, nor have I checked the firmware number. It works as advertised.

Excellent news. I'm taking my single tuner in this week to upgrade - unless they will come out and replace with the new one for free.

Excellent news. I'm taking my single tuner in this week to upgrade - unless they will come out and replace with the new one for free.

DialItUp - Believe it or not, Comcast came out this weekend and replaced my single tuner DVR with a dual tuner model for free. Plus, they are going to drop my cable bill by $5 a month! Why? Because apparently they offer HD service for free with the dual tuner DVR! Talk about an unadvertised special!

Great to hear that Fort Wayne has the dual tuner now. Now does the guide on the new model the iGuide or the crapy old guide with ads. Also can you do the 30 sec. hack on the unit for 30 sec. skips for tv ads?

Also seplant: How did you find out about $5 less?? Did you get a bill right after you installation? Or did you have to ask. Because right now I'm suffering with a
old Moto 5100 and would love to upgrade if the new 6412 boxes have iGuide and can do a 30 sec. hack.

Thanks

Scott

Scott2323,

Good news and bad news.

The good news: the new Comcast dual tuner DVRs use iGuide - lots better than the old guide.

The bad news: no 30-sec skip feature (although I don't know what you mean about a hack to do this - PM me if you know of a way that should make that work with this model). However, the fast-forward on this model absolutely screams. You can zip through commercials so fast you won't believe it. Much faster than on the single tuners.

Another great feature of the dual tuner models is that it shows you where you are in time relative to the total time of any recording. With the single tuner models, you could never tell where you were. Also, the hard drive capacity is twice that of the single tuner model, so you can get up to 20 hours of HD recordings. Sweet!

Seplant here are the instructions for 30 sec. skip:
Here is the exact procedure to program a swap or 30 second skip to the remote.

1) Press the "Cable" button at the top of the remote to put it into Cable Box control mode.
2) Press and hold the "Setup" button until the "Cable" button blinks twice.
3) Type in the code 994. The "Cable" button will blink twice
4) Press (do not hold) the "Setup" button
5) Type in the code 00173 (for 30 second Skip) or 00236 (for Swap).
6) Press whatever button you want to map the skip or swap function to.


I had to do I a lot searching in the 6412 thread in HDTV recorders section to find that. Also you have to have the silver remote that says Comcast at the bottom.

Also you didn't answer the question about the $5 thing. How did you know right
away that your bill was going down $5 from what you paid before by just having the 6412 instead of the 6408.

I didn't PM you because 2 days ago when I tried it said your PM box was full.

Thanks,

Scott

Scott2323,

Thanks for the instructions on the skip/swap. I will try it tonight and let you know if it works.

As for the $5 reduction in monthly fee, my CSR told me about it when I asked about upgrading to the dual tuner model. As usual with Comcast, YMMV. It might depend on which CSR you happen to talk with. When I originally got my single tuner DVR last fall, it took me three calls to Comcast just to get someone to admit the DVRs were even available. I might just have been lucky on my first call this time.

Scott

P.S. My PM box is no longer full.

Scott2323,

Your skip/swap instructions work just fine!

Thanks!

Just received the dual tuner DVR. The new guide is SOOO much nicer. Can't wait to try everything out. Comcast surprises me sometimes...

Now, all we need is ESPN2HD and ABCHD and I will be a very satisfied customer...

Yeah that yellow Comcast guide is uuuuuuuuugly

Is anybody else getting a bad echo on 15-1 when HD is being passed through? It doesn't happen on UPN or WANE doppler radar.

I noticed the echo as well, but I think its only there when they pass along the 5.1 feed. I emailed wane about it, but I haven't heard back yet.

I also noticed the echo. I figured it had something to do with their 5.1 feed also. It's there over the air and on Comcast's digital HD channel.

Well, I'm extremely pissed at Mediacom. The have scrambled all the channels except for the 3 locals that they carry. I just bought a 4200A just for this reason, and now they are scrambled. How $h1ty of them. Pardon my language.

Ryan

Originally posted by oryan_dunn
Well, I'm extremely pissed at Mediacom. The have scrambled all the channels except for the 3 locals that they carry. I just bought a 4200A just for this reason, and now they are scrambled. How $h1ty of them. Pardon my language.

Ryan


That sucks. I wonder if Comcast did the same?

Alright, because of the crapy cable company, I am thinking about going to DirecTV. I've called several times, and all three times, the sales rep has told me the same thing. I asked if I could get the national Fox HD feed through the satalite, since our local station only does analog, and all three times, there answer was yes. Those of you with DirecTv, can you either confirm or deny this? Also, I would need to be able to get the Tigers games from FSN Detroit. Those of you with DTV and FSN Detroit, are the Tigers games viewable, or are they blacked out?

Ryan,

I don't think you're going to get FOX-HD through D* or the DSN network. You're only choice would be to 'move' to a Detroit address and possibly buy a Vonage Detroit phone number.

I doubted I would get Fox HD, but I'm pretty sure I can get Fox Sports Net Detroit. I'm just not sure if the Tigers games would be subject to blackouts? I can currently get them through Mediacrap on FSN Detroit.

According to DirecTV site, the ZIP code for Auburn gets Comcast Sports Net Chicago (Formerly Fox Sports Net Chicago). Unless you order the Sports Pack for an extra 12 bucks.

And the only way to get FOX HD from DirecTV is to get a waiver from WFFT or "move" to a qualifying Chicago address.

Any phone number will work on your account, with number portability being more common it is not an issue.

Originally posted by matthpd195
According to DirecTV site, the ZIP code for Auburn gets Comcast Sports Net Chicago (Formerly Fox Sports Net Chicago). Unless you order the Sports Pack for an extra 12 bucks.

And the only way to get FOX HD from DirecTV is to get a waiver from WFFT or "move" to a qualifying Chicago address.

Any phone number will work on your account, with number portability being more common it is not an issue.

I can confirm one aspect of this. I'm in Ft Wayne, and we now have Comcast Sportsnet instead of Fox Sports Chicago, even though it's essentially the same programming.

I am on comcast cable.

Originally posted by matthpd195
According to DirecTV site, the ZIP code for Auburn gets Comcast Sports Net Chicago (Formerly Fox Sports Net Chicago). Clarification: CSN is produced by Comcast in competition with FSN Chicago. Since CSN got all of the major sports teams they effectively replaced FSN. Both E* and D* have removed FSN Chicago from their services. D* has added CSN Chicago and E* plans on adding it April 1st.

I'm in Elkhart and get FSN Midwest. I also qualify for FSN and CSN Chicago, where offered.

JL

The duopoly is officially on; Granite now owns unWISE and will still run much of 21. Hopefully they'll put in that delay server that 33's been missing.

EDIT: This whole merger thing is confusing; Linda Jackson's doing news at 5:30 on unWISE, but she's doing it from the WPTA newsroom with 21's presentation. 33's only been in Granite's control for a few hours and most of the staff has already been sacked.

Definitely an interesting development between WKJG and WPTA. I just heard about the change this morning.

I went to the WKJG web site this morning, and they have lots of links to channel 21.

I also heard that all but Linda Jackson got fired from the 33 news staff, and that 33 is simulcasting the news from 21. Very strange indeed.

Pilot

Originally posted by pilot20

I also heard that all but Linda Jackson got fired from the 33 news staff, and that 33 is simulcasting the news from 21. Very strange indeed.

Pilot


Shouldn't it be the other way around? ;) They didn't sack Greg Shoup did they? He's the only decent weather man in town.


Yeah I thought that was odd last night when Frasier was on at 11....



Does this mean that 21 will actually update their set, graphics, and website to the 21st century? HA



EDIT: WISE33.com actually redirects to wpta.com now, with a small WISE33 logo at the top left. :eek:

Originally posted by bonzy
They didn't sack Greg Shoup did they? He's the only decent weather man in town.
Everybody's gone except for Linda. Agreed on the "only decent weather man" comment; everybody else either messes up the forecast, points too much, or both. Is WANE still looking for a meteorologist to replace the obsessive-compulsive pointer they've got on in the mornings? If they were smart, they'd try and get Shoup and move Sandy Thomson to mornings to get her closer to retirement. WANE would be partially redeemed if that happened.

Yeah I thought that was odd last night when Frasier was on at 11....The 10 min. newscast sort of explains why 21 recently dumped Frasier in favor of another episode of Everybody Hates Raymond.

Does this mean that 21 will actually update their set, graphics, and website to the 21st century? HA
So somebody else noticed! If you popped in a tape of a 21 newscast from 5-6 years ago, perhaps more, it would look exactly the same, save for the fact that they added a few more TVs along the ceiling and changed the map in the background. If I read Fort Wayne Mediawatch correctly (I can't check, they took the article off when the merger was finally on), the 21 news operation is supposed move to 33's building some time in the future, so maybe 21 will catch up.

EDIT (4/17/05): Well, guess I was wrong. The 33 building's going to be shut down.

Look at this little tidbit I found at the News-Sentinel site. You guys might be pleased:
"Don Cornwell, chairman and chief executive officer of Granite, said in December that equipment upgrades could become easier to fund under the shared-services agreement.

From digital transmission to weather forecasting equipment, “your ability to afford it is better if you have a bigger revenue base to operate with,” he explained.
(the link) (http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/11082020.htm)

ha, yeah... it has been an inside joke with my family that I would redesign WPTA's graphics, etc when I graduate (I major in graphic design) because I complain about it so much.


I laugh everytime I see ol' Jay in front of that weather map from the 80s


So WISE will still broadcast nbc stuff, but just won't have news? Or will they simulcast the WPTA news? it's so confusing hehe

Originally posted by bonzy
So WISE will still broadcast nbc stuff, but just won't have news? Or will they simulcast the WPTA news? it's so confusing hehe
They simulcast the WPTA morning show, but they have separate newscasts in the evening from 21's (antiquated) studio. Comcast got a lot of calls about this.

Originally posted by bonzy
So WISE will still broadcast nbc stuff, but just won't have news? Or will they simulcast the WPTA news? it's so confusing hehe
They simulcast the WPTA morning show, but they have separate newscasts in the evening from 21's (antiquated) studio. Comcast got a lot of calls about this.

But the newscast from wise is just a "express" one isn't it? Are they going to go with a full blown one or merge llllllinda to WPTA permanently?

Originally posted by bonzy
But the newscast from wise is just a "express" one isn't it? Are they going to go with a full blown one or merge llllllinda to WPTA permanently?
The newscast at 11:00PM is ten minutes long and taped earlier so that WPTA can go live at 11. Here's how it goes for the evening shows: the WISE newscasts on the :30s are just the WPTA news of 30 minutes earlier, just with a different mouthpiece. WANE's even running an ad saying that "NEWSCASTS ARE DISAPPEARING." Like they're even qualified to diss the competition or lack thereof. The ratings are going to be nice to them though.

As I tuned into 1250 WGL this morning, Linda Jackson was on the phone to Dave Macy, who had made some sort of disparaging comment which I did not hear; she didn't sound too well, but she was quick to forgive Macy. A total class act.

So, anybody have anything to say about HDTV? :D

Originally posted by NoToLowPower
The newscast at 11:00PM is ten minutes long and taped earlier so that WPTA can go live at 11. Here's how it goes for the evening shows: the WISE newscasts on the :30s are just the WPTA news of 30 minutes earlier, just with a different mouthpiece. WANE's even running an ad saying that "NEWSCASTS ARE DISAPPEARING." Like they're even qualified to diss the competition or lack thereof. The ratings are going to be nice to them though.

As I tuned into 1250 WGL this morning, Linda Jackson was on the phone to Dave Macy, who had made some sort of disparaging comment which I did not hear; she didn't sound too well, but she was quick to forgive Macy. A total class act.

So, anybody have anything to say about HDTV? :D


This affects hi def...somehow :D


what of the future? Scrap news on 33 altogether and put llllinda in with the 21alive crew? Build a new staff? (If so, why fire the 33 staff?)


In other news, 21alive is hiring a News Producer heh

Since WPTA is transmitting their digital signal at full power maybe they turn WISE up to full power now as well.

I miss Shoup :( If 21 were smart they'd hire him.

Originally posted by bonzy
I miss Shoup :( If 21 were smart they'd hire him.

Greg is a good weathercaster and I prefer his presentation over Curtis on 21...however.... as a window cleaner, I watch the weather constantly and know that Curtis is quite a bit more accurate and is less apt to exaggerate the forecasts. I don't want hype, I just want accuracy...if that is possible in weather forecasting! :) I do know that I will not miss John Thonert! :p

On a side note, regarding Nexstar's comments regarding upgrading Fox's DTV signal...maybe the more we "squeak" the quicker we will get the "grease"! Maybe some nicely written emails/letters to Nexstar will put us at the top of the upgrade list!
Originally posted by MarkMaple
I emailed WFFT telling them that I would not viewing their station anymore since I could view South Bend's HD Fox. Here is their response:

"Thanks for the e-mail. Our corporation has a plan in place to upgrade every station they own to an HD signal. We are slated to get the upgrade either next year or the year after. You have to understand that the company that owns us owns 47 other stations throughout the country. It is simply impossible from a budgetary and logistical stanpoint to upgrade every station immediately."

Anyone know the email address that this message came from so that we could petition it?

Speaking of WFFT, some think they're gonna start a news operation in the future. Taking into account their ownership and their history of being low-budget, I really doubt it, unless they outsourced news gathering, which would be about as bad as having 21 news on unWISE. I hope they do start one, then they won't have much of an excuse to shun HD since they'd no longer be small time.

Does anyone know what WANE TV is planing on doing with the NCAA tournament. I think they have the choice to show the HD game or a local interest game on their digital channel. I sure hope they carry all of the HD games.

Last year WANE didn't show any of the extra games on their digital channels. If I remember correctly it has something to do with getting their programming from WISH in Indy via fiber optic and them not having any choice as to which programming they show.

The WISH comment is not accurate. WANE does decide on its own what programming we air.

With that said, I am excited to pass the on the news that WANE will air 4 games in HD on Thursday 3/17. WANE was not assigned these 4 games for the normal analog station, but was given permission to air an alternative game that was available in HD. These 4 games will only air on HD channel 15-1.
Alabama & Milwaukee
Boston College & Pennsylvania
Gonzaga & Winthrop
Texas Tech & UCLA.

A different set of games will air on analog 15.

Fridays games are not available at the moment. When I know more, I will pass it on. The 4 games in HD will also have 5.1 Surround Sound.

Originally posted by mkj
The WISH comment is not accurate. WANE does decide on its own what programming we air.

With that said, I am excited to pass the on the news that WANE will air 4 games in HD on Thursday 3/17. WANE was not assigned these 4 games for the normal analog station, but was given permission to air an alternative game that was available in HD. These 4 games will only air on HD channel 15-1.
Alabama & Milwaukee
Boston College & Pennsylvania
Gonzaga & Winthrop
Texas Tech & UCLA.

A different set of games will air on analog 15.

Fridays games are not available at the moment. When I know more, I will pass it on. The 4 games in HD will also have 5.1 Surround Sound.


Can I borrow someone's HDTV? :(

Originally posted by mkj
The WISH comment is not accurate. WANE does decide on its own what programming we air.



This is the best comment I have heard from any Fort Wayne media person yet. This is welcome relief. Please keep the good work WANE.

Unfortunately I see South Bend TV media taking this HDTV more serious and providing a lot more than the Fort Wayne media has (Example fox28 and fox 55, yea, right, there is is no comparison, fox28 kicks 55's ass all the way to China)

But then, I never thought I would see WISE TV go through what has happened.

If I'm lucky Steve Shine can go the same way as with the EX employess as WISE33 when fox55 hits the dust (and if anyone thinks different, money is the key and one day when fox realizes the Fort Wayne affiliate is not performing BAM BAM, done, game over) Enough said..............

diehard

Originally posted by diehard_1955
If I'm lucky Steve Shine can go the same way as with the EX employess as WISE33 when fox55 hits the dust (and if anyone thinks different, money is the key and one day when fox realizes the Fort Wayne affiliate is not performing BAM BAM, done, game over) Enough said..............
It's timely you should mention Shine; Fort Wayne Mediawatch (http://www.mediawatch.us/) had this to say in regards to the unWISE massacre:
WFFT-TV, it is rumored, will do a newscast, using some former 33 staffers and Steve Shine as the main anchor.

Is this possible? We think it is, with Asher Agency getting advertising sponsors to jump on board.

Does Steve Shine have anything to do with WFFT anymore? I grew up watching him do the news each hour during primetime in the '90s. The only problem I could see with him doing the news again has to do with politics. The chairman of the Allen County GOP, reading the news, on a FOX station no less? Democrat field day is pending.

EDIT: Forgot to mention: nice job to WANE-TV on the HD games, it's just too bad I don't like basketball. Then again, HD is supposed to make people watch things they normally wouldn't. Is there going to be any promotion of the HD games?

Originally posted by NoToLowPower
It's timely you should mention Shine; Fort Wayne Mediawatch (http://www.mediawatch.us/) had this to say in regards to the unWISE massacre:

Does Steve Shine have anything to do with WFFT anymore? I grew up watching him do the news each hour during primetime in the '90s. The only problem I could see with him doing the news again has to do with politics. The chairman of the Allen County GOP, reading the news, on a FOX station no less? Democrat field day is pending.

EDIT: Forgot to mention: nice job to WANE-TV on the HD games, it's just too bad I don't like basketball. Then again, HD is supposed to make people watch things they normally wouldn't. Is there going to be any promotion of the HD games?


Very interesting stuff. I wonder if National FoxNews could help set it up (do they help with Fox markets?) Using former WISE33 staff makes excellent sense (No Linda Jackson, with Greg Shoup on weather and Kent Horman on sports = excellent. Heck, Shoup would be very happy, I have seen him look like he wanted to almost jump across the table and pound her when she goes on and on, when he is trying to recap the weather at the end of a broadcast.

Steve Shine wouldn't fly.

As promised, here is the information for Friday 3/18. These games will air on HD channel 15.1 only.

12:25 PM
Florida vs. Ohio

2:35 PM
UConn vs. Central Florida

7:10 PM
Louisville vs. LA-Lafayette

9:30 PM
Michigan State vs. Old Dominion

Enjoy!!!

Yes! Louisville in HD! Thanks for the info mkj!

Did anybody watch the WANE news at 11 last night? In the middle of the broadcast, David Scott read off the list of NCAA games that would be aired on WANE-TV 15, then he read the list of "alternate" games that would be aired on "digital cable 31.1." In the word of Lil' Jon, whaaaaaattttt??!! I'm not big on government spending, but Scott's little gaffe makes the perfect case for a DTV education program run by the FCC. If they made the stations alert their viewers as to what DTV is about and that it has little to do with DIGITAL CABLE, this whole transition wouldn't be so difficult. It sucks to be a semi-early adopter.

The HD games do look good, though. Kudos to WANE. I almost forgot I'm not really into basketball.

Hey mkj, maybe you can help with a problem I have.

I have a Toshiba DST-3000 DirecTV receiver, and I have an issue with OTA digital channels 15-1 and 15-2. They show up in my program guide but if I select them from the guide I get nothing. I can select 15-3 from the guide to watch the weather radar without any problem.

I can get 15-1 by using the numeric pad to enter 31-1 directly (entering 15-1 does not work). Same with 15-2; I can get it by entering 31-2. The problem is, if I get to 15-1 by entering 31-1, after a period of time it just goes black - no video and no audio. It always does this precisely on the hour and the half hour but at other times as well. Also, once I enter 31-1 to watch 15-1, if I bring up the guide (just bringing up the guide, not changing channels) as soon as the guide is finished loading the video goes black and the audio goes silent.

I have rescanned the local OTA channels several times and it has not fixed this problem. Since the other local OTA channels work just fine, could this problem be on your end? PSIP perhaps?

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Random58; Sounds to me that there is a problem with the station's PSIP. Your receiver almost certainly doesn't know the time, but the station does!

It seems likely that you have a "fussy" receiver and they aren't conforming precisely to the requsite format.

I suggest that you contact the station, and let them know about your problem. On more than one occasion, one local station in South Bend has disappeared for a month or more!

Thanks Aggie. I hope mkj, who is evidently an engineer at 15, can respond.

Did you go to A&M, by the way?

This is a problem with the DirecTV receivers. You should call DirecTV and let them know of the problem.

We are aware of the issue. This problem is so far only seen in DirecTV receivers that can receive over the air digital.

We continue to look into this problem, but you still need to contact DirecTV about this problem. If I come into more information, I will let you know.

Thanks, mkj, I'll follow up with DirecTV. Any idea why it only affects your station for me?

Random58; Thanks for asking, No, Velva Agricultural High School, North Dakota Agricultural College (now NDSU). I farm with atoms (solid state physicist).

I tend to doubt that the problem is specific to your receiver. If this were the case, there would be thousands of such reports on the various forums.

I had a problem with a local in South Bend, WNIT. It affected Dish 6000 receivers...it was their problem with a non-standard PSIP.

I have a Sony D* receiver hd-300. 15.1,2,3 all show up in the guide and will tune in through these station numbers but I don't receive any guide data for them. It just says "regular schedule" all of the time. The schedule does work properly for WPTA, WISE, and even WFFT which I am unable to receive. I think with D* the guide data is received through the Sat as opposed to OTA with OTA only receivers. It's just recently that WANE had their digital station redirected properly to the 15 numbers, it's possible the D* hasn't caught on to this yet.

First, I want to express my thanks to the people at WANE for showing the tournament games this weekend in HD. All of the games looked great! I especially thought it was great when the announcers would say: "Now back to Greg in New York with an update" and then they wouldn't switch to another game. That has been one my biggest frustrations with CBS's coverage of the tournament - the jumping back and forth between games. It was nice that the HD games did not do that. One problem I did notice though was that the audio kept switching between Dolby Digital 5.1 and Pro Logic - and it wasn't just during the commercials.

On a different subject: I am a subscriber to Comcast's HD Cable and I have noticed that my DWISE channel (channel 232 on Comcast) no longer works. Is this related to the recent takeover of WISE by 21Alive? Can anyone tell me if OTA DWISE still works? I know that Comcast has had issues getting WPTA to agree to have their HD signal broadcast on Comcast. I wonder if the recent takeover has nullified WISE's agreement now as well. I would call and ask Comcast, but I'm pretty sure whoever I got on the phone wouldn't be able to answer my question anyway.

Originally posted by tdodel
I especially thought it was great when the announcers would say: "Now back to Greg in New York with an update" and then they wouldn't switch to another game. That has been one my biggest frustrations with CBS's coverage of the tournament - the jumping back and forth between games. It was nice that the HD games did not do that.

The good news was that CBS didn't "flex" the HD network any. So we are able to follow one game and stay with it. It does get irritating toward the end of the game when they swing from game to game. Of course, if we had more "local" interest

Originally posted by tdodel

On a different subject: I am a subscriber to Comcast's HD Cable and I have noticed that my DWISE channel (channel 232 on Comcast) no longer works. Is this related to the recent takeover of WISE by 21Alive? Can anyone tell me if OTA DWISE still works? I know that Comcast has had issues getting WPTA to agree to have their HD signal broadcast on Comcast. I wonder if the recent takeover has nullified WISE's agreement now as well. I would call and ask Comcast, but I'm pretty sure whoever I got on the phone wouldn't be able to answer my question anyway.

You are right, they could not answer the question. I called Comcast Saturday to report that I could not get the DWISE signal. The CSR said she was not aware of a problem but she would check their TV to see if she could get it. She came back to the phone and said she could not get it on their TV either, so she would report the problem. Still nothing as of Sunday night, so you may be right in wondering if this has something to do with the recent takeover.

EDITED: WISE-DT is on the air, so maybe Granite's trying to coax some money out of Comcast.

Speaking of Comcast, does anybody think the WISE33 news department purger, um, merger into 21 is reminiscent of what happened when Comcast bought TechTV and basically eliminated it to get more subscribers for their G4 channel? Both were cases of killing the superior competition and leaving little trace of the corpse.

As of last night, it was back on the air. Maybe it was a Comcast problem after all?

Yes, This was a Comcast receiver issue...NOT a WISE issue.

Here is an update on the program guide issues with DirecTV receivers and WANE digital.

A problem was found in the program guide data that DirecTV receives and then transmits. Some incorrect/old information was in this data and caused the receivers to not match up the signals. The company that provides the program guide data has been informed of the problem and will be correcting it. I look for this problem to be resolved sometime this week.

Was that program guide data provided by TitanTV? I had issues with them when I first got my HD receiver in December.... They provide an option on their website that when you press the record button on their website it would download the information (channel/time/etc.) to my computer where my receiver (EyeTV 500) would load it into the program cue. EyeTV figured out which station to record correctly for all station except WANE because TitanTV was listing WANE as 31 (31-1, 31-2, 31-3), unlike for example WPTA as 24 (21-1, 21-2). This was a major peeve of mine because I would have to manually choose the channel whenever I selected to record a CBS program so I used the feedback form on their website to inform them of the problem.

I just checked TitanTV after reading the last comment and saw that they now list WANE as 31 (15-1, 15-2, 15-3). I know it wasn't like that a week ago..... I guess their feedback form on their website is really that slow, or it took someone to actually call them to get them to fix it.

No, Titan TV is not the source for this problem with DirecTV.

I noticed the listing on Titan TV was showing 31-1, 31-2, and 31-3. Last week, the station notified Titan to have them update their site to show that we are mapping to 15.

Hi mkj:

My problem is now fixed. Thanks for your assistance!

WOW,

I just checked my RCA Direct TV DTC100 HDTV reciever and the channel guides and information is working great. I get all channels accept 39, it shows "Regular Schedule" tho WANE are working.

I did have to go into my system setup and there was a setting to either acquire or not to acquire guides. I do know when Fort Wayne first started broadcasting in HDTV I had to check do not acquire guieds because it screwed everything up. Now that the channels are showing like 15-1 and such I had to change to acquire guides.

Just another reason why HDTV is must see.

diehard

Well today I got my Moto 6412 from Comcast and what a day. Dual tuners,pretty smart recording interface (now it's not TiVo but it surprised me since I have Replay and TiVo to compare it too),great picture (I think it looks better than my old Moto 5100 I traded in),very easy to use with IGuide instead of that old TVGuide with Ads and no Prog. guide basically. OK OK enough Raving about today.

Watching the games ON WANE-DT tonight there were times with the screen said "No Input Signal" and then after a while it came back and then did it again. Well, last week watching games on my Dad's Samsung 151 OTA tuner it had the same message in that dark grey font. So, it's happening at WANE-DT not my receivers because how can 2 receivers have the EXACT message during basketball action?? Just trying to find out if other Fort Wayne HD people are seeing this too?? Thanks,

Scott

I had the same "No Input Signal" message last night and last week. I think it is either from WANE or from the network.

"No Input Signal"

Had the same message last night watching March Madness on 22-1 from South Bend. It would also lose its lock on HD and occasionally switch to SD. Must have been a CBS issue.

My guide is now working properly for WANE on D*. Now that the programs show up properly on the digital channels it's time to delete the analog station from the favorites list.

Now if only WFFT could go HD then I could say bye bye to analog OTA for good.

Is anyone else who gets guide data via PSIP, not getting guide data for WFWA, for WPTA, all I get is DTV program, for wise, its just WISE-HD1 (which is expected since its been that way) and for Wane, all I get is the current show, noting in the future. I'm using an LG 4200A. I haven't had time to watch tv lately, so today was my first time in a few weeks to watch anything on the HD tuner.

Guys:

At what time did this happen? In between games?

The Harris CBS receiver we have takes a few moments to change transponders. The receiver used to freeze on the last frame of video, but now goes to "Loss of Input Signal". It happens whenever we change from horizontal to vertical locally. Normally, that never happens because we hang on the same transponder, but since CBS is obviously originating from multiple sites, the hot swap has to be done and the signal will drop.

Of course, depending on when this happened, it may be a CBS problem (I didn't work last night), but more than likely we were just switching transponders. The game should have never switched here in Fort Wayne to SD. Let us know if it did and we'll look into it!

Thanks for the input, guys!