I am in Melrose on a hill facing the towers and use the CM 3021 without preamp and receive all the the local digital stations consistently. I bought it from Stark and had the satelite guys run the wire when they hooked up the dish. I have attempted unsuccessfully many times to pick up the NH PBS station (57) and gave up when GBH started running the HD demo loop.

Originally posted by Bob Hess
Unless you want analog VHF reception, I would consider a Channel Master 3021 for your location. This is a 4-Bay bowtie antenna, UHF-only, antenna. This is assuming line-of-site to the top of the Needham towers. Many viewers using this antenna or the 4228 in the Boston area. You should not need a preamp from your location.


I do want analog VHF reception so I can dump Dish's locals. Does a combined antenna offer degraded UHF reception, or is it a cost issue? Would it be worth it to have both antennas and combine them somehow? (Through a high/low pass diplexer of some sort? Does such a device exist?)

BTW - A while back there was discussion of how the WBCN audio for the Patriots doesn't match up with the WBZ-DT video (due to the additional delay associated with the ATSC encoding). I asked at the time if it would be possible to put the WBZ-TV feed through a delay circuit to syncronize it with the WBZ-DT feed (consequently making the WBCN audio match when they manually delayed it to match WBZ-TV) and I never heard back. Is this not possible? Not desirable?

Thanks,
Jim

Originally posted by JStanton
I do want analog VHF reception so I can dump Dish's locals. Does a combined antenna offer degraded UHF reception, or is it a cost issue? Would it be worth it to have both antennas and combine them somehow? (Through a high/low pass diplexer of some sort? Does such a device exist?)

BTW - A while back there was discussion of how the WBCN audio for the Patriots doesn't match up with the WBZ-DT video (due to the additional delay associated with the ATSC encoding). I asked at the time if it would be possible to put the WBZ-TV feed through a delay circuit to syncronize it with the WBZ-DT feed (consequently making the WBCN audio match when they manually delayed it to match WBZ-TV) and I never heard back. Is this not possible? Not desirable?

Thanks,
Jim

Sorry Jim. Extremely expensive to delay audio and video and difficult to justify right now.

Bob

I know of someone who was having the same problem with baseball games. He got some sort of device that delayed the audio. I wish I new the details, but a such a device does exist for home use.

19-1 looks awesome with PBS HD feeds.

Tim

Originally posted by pezdoctor
Can someone verify the approximate broadcast hours for the PBS-HD feed (including demo loops)?
I know it's on at night, but is it also on in the AM and afternoon?

Thanks,
Keith

The satellite PBS-HD feed is 24/7.
It is up to the local affiliates to schedule pass-throughs, tape delays, etc.

Originally posted by JStanton
I do want analog VHF reception so I can dump Dish's locals. Does a combined antenna offer degraded UHF reception, or is it a cost issue? Would it be worth it to have both antennas and combine them somehow? (Through a high/low pass diplexer of some sort? Does such a device exist?)


Not sure why you would want analog VHF when just about everything is available on DTV in the UHF band. I would focus on UHF and get the best digital reception. You can combine signals using combiners available from Radio Shack, if that is really what you want to do. The only advantage of a VHF antenna is you can improve your radio reception.


... I asked at the time if it would be possible to put the WBZ-TV feed through a delay circuit to syncronize it with the WBZ-DT feed (consequently making the WBCN audio match when they manually delayed it to match WBZ-TV) and I never heard back. Is this not possible? Not desirable?

Thanks,
Jim

The link below might be of use:

http://www.alesis.com/products/nanoverb/index.html

Alesis makes a number of signal processing products. You could pay a visit to a Daddy's Junky Music store and someone could probably guide you to the cheapest equipment for a simple audio delay.

You can find a Daddy's from the following link:

http://www.daddys.com/stores.shtml

-Dave

WBZ-DT is operating at half power right now. Lost an amplifier overnight.

- Bob

Originally posted by HDorBust
Not sure why you would want analog VHF when just about everything is available on DTV in the UHF band. I would focus on UHF and get the best digital reception. You can combine signals using combiners available from Radio Shack, if that is really what you want to do. The only advantage of a VHF antenna is you can improve your radio reception.
...........................

-Dave

VHF antennas are for a lot more than just radio. We should have channel 13 digital sometime this winter. Also when the analog switches off in 2006 most of us will need VHF as well for channels 11 and 9 digital. (These stations are above 51 so won't be allowed to stay where they are now.)

Sure, this is in the future a little bit, but I find I still need VHF right now to watch channel 11 since they keep the HDTV full bandwidth on 57, and sometimes I still watch low def non-demo loop PBS.

Analog will not be switching off in 2006. They revised the rule. It now states 2006 or when at least 80% of the market can receive it (I'm pretty sure that includes hardware as well as signal penetration).
We are a loooong way off before that happens.

I suspect DTV signals will be exclusively in the UHF band for at least the next 10yrs, if not longer.

A lot of people still have their analog TVs in addition to their HDTVs and need the VHF antenna for the analog-only sets.

Originally posted by DaveFi
Analog will not be switching off in 2006. They revised the rule. It now states 2006 or when at least 80% of the market can receive it (I'm pretty sure that includes hardware as well as signal penetration).
We are a loooong way off before that happens.

I suspect DTV signals will be exclusively in the UHF band for at least the next 10yrs, if not longer.

I sure hope you're wrong about this, because if this happens they may have to start switching off the digital channels and forget about the transition. This dual system must be very temporary both due to costs (which we will pay for in everything we buy) as well as due to the interference issues cropping up all over.

Besides, the 80% coverage has been surpassed. NAB claims we are at 94% coverage. And if cable delivers on what they have already promised, that alone should bring us over the 80% level by 2006 quite easily, on the home hardware end.

Hi,

Since the dedicated UHF antennas appear to give better DTV reception, could I connect a VHF/UHF antenna to a UHF only antenna and maintain the benefits of the UHF only antenna for the DTV out of Boston?

I currently have an 8 bay bowtie for just UHF (I get 2,4,5,7,23,25,38,56) but would like to get local Rhode Island channels (I don't think there is any digital in RI yet) as well as some of the UHF in the area that are not yet digital.

Thanks,

Chris10

Hi,

Since the dedicated UHF antennas appear to give better DTV reception, could I connect a VHF/UHF antenna to a UHF only antenna and maintain the benefits of the UHF only antenna for the DTV out of Boston?

I currently have an 8 bay bowtie for just UHF (I get 2,4,5,7,23,25,38,56) but would like to get local Rhode Island channels (I don't think there is any digital in RI yet) as well as some of the UHF in the area that are not yet digital.

Thanks,

Chris10

Sorry about the double post - apparently not even my cable modem is fast enough or I am just way too impatient!

Chris10

Sorry, I didn't think about the case of someone wanting to still use analog televisions. That is certainly a valid case for access to VHF analog. But as I stated, you can get a combiner to combine the signal from seperate VHF & UHF antennas. Radio Shack even sells a 3-way combiner that allows seperate antennas for VHF lo/hi and UHF using band-pass filters.

-Dave

Originally posted by Bob Hess
WBZ-DT is operating at half power right now. Lost an amplifier overnight.

- Bob
WBZ-DT back to full power (725 KW) as of this morning.

- Bob

i have recently switched my 2006-analog-shutoff opinion from pessimistic to optimistic. i think there is a good chance we'll have the 85% of homes able to receive dtv by 2006. but jhe you report that someone says that there is 94% penetraition of dtv currently? what exactly is that 94% measuring?

in other news, 35.1 in NH was broadcasting in black&white a couple nights ago. how's that for a blast from the past, making the b&w->color transition all the more analogous to this ntsc->dtv transition

WHDH did seem to be down for the last few days - signal but
black screen. I was poking around in my attic the day it went away,
so I'm glad to here it was them and not me bumping the antenna
out of alignment.

About the same time, I started to receive WLVI (further leading to
my suspicion that I bumped the antenna).

So now I am receiving all Boston DT stations (well at least the VIDEO
for all of them). Since I am the owner of a Panasonic combination
HDTV decoder/doorstop, I receive no audio for 2-1 or 56-1, and receive
SAP audio (only) on 2-2.

I live in Newburyport, MA (About 50 Miles from the Needham attenna complex). What are the chances of me getting a good HD signal?

I would prefer to put an antenna in the attic, even if I needed a amplifier. Does anyone think this would work, or should I just bite the bullet and go on the roof?

Any help would be appreciated -

Mark

That WGBH-DT feed is unpredicable and boring. Is it a national feed? There seems to be no way to know what's on at any given time. I wish they would stop multicasting too, because it looks awful, especially when there's alot of movement.

But I'd be happy with any of the nationally broadcast PBS shows. Do they plan inserting them into the loop every once and a while?

Mark,

Look here for some info: http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/address.asp but in general I think the roof always trumps an attic.

Dave

Originally posted by tveli
i have recently switched my 2006-analog-shutoff opinion from pessimistic to optimistic. i think there is a good chance we'll have the 85% of homes able to receive dtv by 2006. but jhe you report that someone says that there is 94% penetraition of dtv currently? what exactly is that 94% measuring?
...................................


Here's the headline from the nab:

"44 NEW STATIONS MAKE DTV TRANSITION

--665 Stations in 171 Markets--
--Over-the-Air DTV Signals in Markets that Include Over 94% of TV Homes--..........................."


(See it at http://www.nab.org and click on the new stations headline.)

Originally posted by DaveFi
That WGBH-DT feed is unpredicable and boring. Is it a national feed? There seems to be no way to know what's on at any given time. I wish they would stop multicasting too, because it looks awful, especially when there's alot of movement.

But I'd be happy with any of the nationally broadcast PBS shows. Do they plan inserting them into the loop every once and a while?

For more HD programming on PBS: vote with your dollars. When I contribute to WBGH, NHPTV, and PBS-Satellite Service, I specify that my contribution is to go to HDTV & HDTV programming.

As for WGBH's HD content, yes it is the national feed...
various demo loops, series (e.g. Tracks Ahead at 5:00pm, Travels in Europe at 7:30 pm)... (I'm still not 'bored' with the new "Visions of Greece" that just started recently).

For the initial airings of "special programming" see:
http://www.pbs.org/digitaltv/dtvsched.htm or http://www.hdtvgalaxy.com

----

As for the multicasting, yes it is a problem squeezing both a HD and a SD on a single channel. That's why many of us put in a lot of effort to get NHPTV channel 57 since it does the PBS-HD feed without multicasting. [There is also the alternative of getting it via "Big Dish" satellite].

Hopefully WGBH will eventually be able to do the 4 SD PBS feeds on channel 19, and a HD-only feed on channel 43. What can I say, digital encoders are not cheap. Running transmitters is not cheap. We have to let WGBH know we're out there -- both watching and contributing.

Originally posted by Chris10
Sorry about the double post - apparently not even my cable modem is fast enough or I am just way too impatient!

Chris10

Chris,

I would avoid trying to mix UHF with UHF/VHF. Like you I also want to receive analog VHF as well as digital UHF. I am situated behind a hill with some trees in the way. The only way I was able to get a good UHF signal was to mount a UHF antenna (in this case a high gain winegard) high above my chimney. I didn't need such a big antenna to receive VHF, since VHF is able to penetrate through the trees. What I did was install a small VHF in my attic and combine the two RG6 coax cables with a combiner/splitter. This way the VHF is out of the way and out of sight (minimizing the "ugly" factor) and the UHF is getting the best signal for my location.

i have recently switched my 2006-analog-shutoff opinion from pessimistic to optimistic. i think there is a good chance we'll have the 85% of homes able to receive dtv by 2006. but jhe you report that someone says that there is 94% penetraition of dtv currently? what exactly is that 94% measuring?

Don't expect analog to go off in 2006. Like I said before, I'm fairly certain that 80% Mr. Powell tacked onto the ruling applies to digital receivers as well as signal penetration.

I don't even think there are any definitive numbers as to what percentage of the US population has digital tuners. It's very hard to quantify because as we know, most HDTVs don't have digital tuners and people buy them to watch DVDs. This has been changing slowly, but I would suspect that well under 5% of the US population has a digital tuner. If it was 2% I'd be suprised.

Originally posted by DaveFi
Don't expect analog to go off in 2006. Like I said before, I'm fairly certain that 80% Mr. Powell tacked onto the ruling applies to digital receivers as well as signal penetration.

I don't even think there are any definitive numbers as to what percentage of the US population has digital tuners. It's very hard to quantify because as we know, most HDTVs don't have digital tuners and people buy them to watch DVDs. This has been changing slowly, but I would suspect that well under 5% of the US population has a digital tuner. If it was 2% I'd be suprised.

I expect analog to go away in 2006 or within 2 years after that, at least in major markets. I see nothing to indicate
it has to happen everywhere simultaneously.

As for 80% "capable of receiving" meaning everyone has to own a DTV or set top box for OTA I don't see why that would ever happen. Most people seem to be on cable and could care less. Their cable box will supply the digital channels as soon as the analog switches off. They already have to for the one or two digital only channels already on the air!

But this 80% rule was written by Congress not Chairman Powell I think, which is one reason no one can agree on what it means.

For even more confusion on this issue be sure to read:

http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Masked-Engineer/f-MO-market.shtml

I sent an email to WB56 asking if it was possible to have the SAP
stream turned off (since they weren't putting anything on it
anyway.) I got the following response...


I disabled the second stream in the encoder for now. We will need to enable this when we move to sending sap full time on the hd signal.


Another part of the message indicates someone else contacted them
about the same thing.

Looks like us Panasonic owners might be OK for now.

-Bob

Originally posted by DaveFi
Don't expect analog to go off in 2006. Like I said before, I'm fairly certain that 80% Mr. Powell tacked onto the ruling applies to digital receivers as well as signal penetration.

I don't even think there are any definitive numbers as to what percentage of the US population has digital tuners. It's very hard to quantify because as we know, most HDTVs don't have digital tuners and people buy them to watch DVDs. This has been changing slowly, but I would suspect that well under 5% of the US population has a digital tuner. If it was 2% I'd be suprised.

I expect analog to go away by 2006 or within 2 years or so after that, at least in major markets. I see nothing to indicate it has to happen everywhere simultaneously.

As for 80% "capable of receiving" meaning everyone has to own a DTV or set top box for OTA I don't see why that would ever happen. Most people seem to be on cable and could care less. Their cable box will supply the digital channels as soon as the analog switches off. They already have to for the one or two digital only channels already on the air!

But this 80% rule was written by Congress not Chairman Powell I think, which is one reason no one can agree on what it means.

For even more confusion on this issue be sure to read:

http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Masked-Engineer/f-MO-market.shtml

Anyway I do have a question, for Bob Hess or someone else in the know:

Seems to me at some point stations will realize they could save a lot of electricity and a lot of money by just broadcasting digital only, like the stations in Florida and in NJ. And once they realize that most of their viewers that actually use antennas already do get digital reception, they will have a lot more incentive.

So, does the FCC require stations to renew their analog licenses in 2006 in order to keep their digital ones?

Or does every one have to stay on the air with analog until the final switch date decided on, and they everyone goes off and changes their digital channel (if desired and below 52) at once?

oh, *that* 94%, jhe :) i thought the requirement was for 85% of homes to be able to receive the dtv signals somehow. i figure that a huge portion of that percentage will be people with the same settop boxes they have now - as i expect many cable companies to convert dtv->ntsc near their headends and then broadcast the same-old-same-old ntsc & 'digital cable' over their cable plants. i wonder if that sort of setup would count towards the 85%. or more probably i misunderstand the whole thang.

jhe,

Let me address your question in a different way. Our company is buying new NTSC transmitters to replace old transmitters. Several this year and more next year. We will probably be purchasing a new backup transmitter for NTSC 38 in the next few months. We will support NTSC until we are forced to turn it off or until the last viewer goes away. Do I think 2006 will happen? I would not bet the farm on it. On the other hand, we will also operate first-rate full-power digital facilities to support the new technology.

- Bob

I would imagine cable companies relaying DTV signals any way they see fit would apply to the 80% rule.

That of course brings up some disturbing questions about just what they will be relaying. Comcast has some limited commitment to HDTV now, and that's good because they are pretty much the last cable company left. Whatever Time Warner and Comcast do will decide the future of HDTV.

I don't see the Republican administration passing a "force carry" rule on either of these companies. The fact that Powell approved the Comcast/ATT merger right after the elections was not a good sign. The consumer groups trying to prevent the merger were saying that it wouldn't be beneficial to the consumer, while Comcast said it would keep the costs down. A matter of days after the merger Comcast announced a huge price-hike.

Bob,

So with cable as big as it is, and all the small stations screaming to the FCC they can't afford to go digital seems like we will start seeing the reverse of the start up of digital very soon:

It will be the small stations wanting to switch off their analog signals first, followed last by the biggest stations.

Confirmed - WB56 audio works on my Panny STB. Thanks
to the WB56 engineering staff for the quick work.

quick reception related question, Is WHDH-DT any more difficult to pick up than 2/4/5 DT?

I just received my Samsung 165 and with a simple uhf antenna I can
get DT from 2/4/5 but not 7 (aka 42). I can even view 23.

I'll be picking up a new/better UHF antenna in the next couple of days so
I have no doubt that can improve things.

(btw, my location is Brookline, NH, almost right on the ma/nh border)

thnx

At my location, 25 miles west of boston, WHDH has always been
the most difficult Boston station to receive. The DT's for 2, 4, 5,
25, 38, and 44 (when it was on the air) are solid, but 7 requires
very careful aiming of the antenna - and even then reception is
tricky. (Jury is still out on 56 - I wasn't able to get a lock for the
first few weeks they were on, but now they appear to be solid --
this might have been configuration issues).

-Bob

WLVI is still not 100% (and I do not mean power), I am able to receive it with a 66% signal on my Samsung TS160 STB(great picture, no problems) but my HiPix card only gets a max of 30 on the signal, barely enough to lock it in without break up, it's kinda weird that all the other stations get similar signals except WLVI.

Jim

Hi, I'm new to the AVS forum, so please bear with me. I just found out that I can use my 1st. Gen Mitsu TV (WS65903) with my Samsung SIR T150, awesome, right? I now need to know which antenna/amplifier would work best. I live on the Woburn/Burlington line and need an inconspicuous indoor antenna. Should I be able to get all the stations, and which antenna/amp should I get? I greatly appreciate any feed back, since I have never set HD up before off the air.

Thanks a TON!

Matt

Matt, First of all you need line of sight in the direction of the Needham towers. I use a relatively inexpensive Radio Shack VHF-UHF amplified set-top antenna. I positioned it on a window sill facing the Needham direction. From 30 miles SE of Needham, I'm able to get rock solid signals on 2, 4, 5 and 38, and a good signal on 7, barely good signal on 25, and non-useable signal on 56.

why was 7.1 law & order special spinoff unit in upconverted 4:3 instead of real HD last night? the samsung digitall banner was there but the start of the show was 4:3. thankfully cbs was on the ball with 16:9 '_the agency_

line of sight to the antennas - i doubt that is so strict.. i'm 50 miles away behind lots of trees - is that line of site? i suspect the top of the xmit-antenna is below the horizon from here.

Tveli,

They switched to the HD feed of Law and Order after the first commercial break. You could see they were playing around with things, as the bars changed between black (which I assume is the NBC feed) and grey (the local feed) during the commercials. WHDH still seems unable to correct the lipsync problem, though...

Matt,

I'm having good luck with the Zenith Silver Sensor, available at either Sears, CC, or buy.com. You should just be able to point the antenna towards Needham and get a signal. My apartment faces away from Needham, and I still get all of the Boston stations without a problem, but I'm on the sixth floor, which gets me above most of the other buildings between me and the towers. I'm only 7-8 miles away which helps.

If you have an old antenna lying around, that might be worth a try as well. Just try to get it as high as you possibly can, and facing the towers if possible.

Good luck,
Jeff

thanks for the info, jckessler... i haven't noticed a lipsync problem with my sony tv. back when i used a samsung T150 for a while i did notice occasional lipsync problems that would go away if i changed channel and then changed back to the original channel...

This is a little offtopic, but since we're all from the Boston area-

Comcast/ATT started offering digital cable with full DD 5.1 passthrough on their DCT-2224 boxes. The first box I got broke immediately (had no s-video or digital audio output of any kind). I went down to the office the next day and the lady brought me back a box with S-Video and coax/optical outputs. Big suprise considering on their website they still say they do not support 5.1, but there is a hell of alot of 5.1 programming. HBO, Sho, Starz! and Encore were all passing it through. The music channels are good too, everything else digital (including audio only channels) is output 48/16 DD 2.0, while the analog channels are 48/16 PCM.

It's not HDTV (hard for me to watch 4:3 interlaced), but this could be a nice precursor that Comcast is truly going to offer HDTV over cable in our area sooner than later. Only thing my box is missing is the high-speed data ports for the HD attatchment. I'm sure once they offer HDTV they'll swap out boxes.

Bob Hess:
Does UPN 38 have access to programming from other UPN stations? I am specifically asking because UPN 21 in Dallas produces a weekly sports program in HD called Xtreme Motion that would be great to watch and would finally be some HD programming for UPN DT-39. In a press release from last month, HDNet will be carrying the program starting next week.

http://www.hd.net/2002-prarchive/2002-11-12-01.html

Even if I had DirecTV it would still be nice to see some local OTA HD.

Thank you for you help
Matt Wozniak

Ok, I tried the Radio Shack amplified antenna, didn't work. I just got the Zenith, and I get channels 5 and 2. Any suggestions how I can get more channels? Maybe an amplifier? Any suggesiton would be helpful!! I would like to get Fox (for 24) among others. I cannot get the antenna outside because I live in an apartment, first floor. Thanks again for the help!

Matt

Around 9 tonight, could not get NBC or Fox either; and I usually receive them without a problem. Antennas are an interesting beast, I have a CM 3021 on my roof and a Terk 55 indoors, when one doesn't work, I can usually get reception with the other (although I did not try the terk tonight because I was watching Alias) Reception can sometimes be weather dependent. Just keep trying, don't give up yet!

Matt,

I'd imagine being on the first floor is going to make things tough. You may be getting a lot of multipath, since you're not above other buildings.

Keep trying different antenna positions around your apartment. You may be able to find "sweet spots" where the signal is good.

An amp may or may not help. If you have a weak signal, an amp will help. If you're dealing with multipath, an amp might actually hurt, since both the main signal and the multipath will be amplified. To get some idea of what the problem might be, look at analog UHF channels 25, 38, 44, 56. How do they look? If you're getting lots of ghosting, you have a multipath problem. In this case, an attenuator rather than an amp might actually help.

Good luck!

For various reasons, I needed to do a rescan on my Panny DST-51 this weekend. All the stations seemed to come back as expected, except that WSBK-DT did not map to 38.1 as it had previously. It comes in fine, but shows as 39.1 and no station ID. Has something changed with the WSBK PSIP, or is this just another DST-51 anomaly?

I have not seen this problem mentioned on the Boston thread. Anyone here notice this problem?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=196294&referrerid
=738


Bob Hess
WBZ

Originally posted by HDTVGeek
For various reasons, I needed to do a rescan on my Panny DST-51 this weekend. All the stations seemed to come back as expected, except that WSBK-DT did not map to 38.1 as it had previously. It comes in fine, but shows as 39.1 and no station ID. Has something changed with the WSBK PSIP, or is this just another DST-51 anomaly?
Nothing has changed at WSBK.

Bob

Originally posted by woz
Bob Hess:
Does UPN 38 have access to programming from other UPN stations? I am specifically asking because UPN 21 in Dallas produces a weekly sports program in HD called Xtreme Motion that would be great to watch and would finally be some HD programming for UPN DT-39. In a press release from last month, HDNet will be carrying the program starting next week.

http://www.hd.net/2002-prarchive/2002-11-12-01.html

Even if I had DirecTV it would still be nice to see some local OTA HD.

Thank you for you help
Matt Wozniak
Matt,

Once we have our infrastructure built out, there will be some HD content on WSBK. Should be done some time in the first quarter 2003. In the meantime, we are airing WSBK's Paramount HD movies, locally, on WBZ whenever possible. I will look into the program you mentioned.

Bob

I have tested several tuners with WLVI-DT and anyone with trouble seeing the station should note:

Panasonic DST-50 old code works

Panasonic DST-50 newer code fails on audio, but I assume
works for now, since they went back to 1 audio track temporarily (see rjd post). Hope Panasonic fixes this before they have to go back to 2 audio tracks!

Samsung Sir-T150 with 1.8 code works now, but failed earlier for a week or two.

Samsung Sir-T150 with 2.0 code currently fails. Channel won't map.

Samsung Sir-T165 fails. Channel won't map.

Zenith 420 works.

39 no longer remaps to 38 on the Zenith HDV420, either.

Jimg-
You said the national PBS HD feed shows "tracks ahead" and 5pm, and "travels in europe" at 7:30pm. Were you referring to NHPTV's schedule? If WGBH is now showing Rudy Maxa's HD show I would be very happy, but have never seen it broadcast yet.

Also, my Hipix shows WGBH on 2-2 is broadcasting full HD at 45mbps. It used to be multicast, but I don't think it is at this time-- PQ seems much better now.
Spearse

I, too, am having trouble with TV38 DT. I first noticed it Sunday. Although I show a good signal strength (87!) I can get no picture or sound. Trying to tune to 39 doesn't help -- it used to map quit nicely and quickly to 38-1. For others who seem to be having the same problem (or to Bob Hess) any help?? I am tuning on the RCA DTC-100.

Thanks.

Similar remapping here. On Sunday 12/8/02, 38-1 changed to 39-1 on my Zenith 1080. The signal is still same strength and picture is fine.
Have not checked it today yet.

Keith

Originally posted by pezdoctor
Similar remapping here. On Sunday 12/8/02, 38-1 changed to 39-1 on my Zenith 1080. The signal is still same strength and picture is fine.
Have not checked it today yet.

Keith
We will be taking a look at our PSIP unit to see if there is a problem.

Bob

I am interested in HDTV in Boston area but this thread seems to be old. The newest entry is from 2001. Is there a more current thread?
Thanks,

I am interested in HDTV in Boston area but this thread seems to be old. The newest entry is from 2001. Is there a more current thread?

Here is the latest: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=176159

But in summary, all major networks are live(except 44 PBS), but some are at a low power status.

Jim

Originally posted by Bob Hess
I have not seen this problem mentioned on the Boston thread. Anyone here notice this problem?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=196294&referrerid
=738


Bob Hess
WBZ

Haven't particularly noticed this on CBS, but I have noticed it on PBS-HD. I'll pay more attention to CBS to see if I can verify the problem.

-JR

Bob,

There doesn't seem to be any PSIP for Ch38 this evening..


PAT:
PID = 0000, length = 16, version = 1, section = 0/0, TSID = 0x0557
Program 1: PMT PID = 0010

PMT:
PID = 0010, length = 86, version = 0, section = 0/0, Program = 1
Registration ID: Format ID = 47413934(GA94), info (0 bytes)
Smoothing Buffer: Leak Rate = 18000000 bits/sec, buffer size = 512 bytes
Name = "prog1"

PCR PID = 0011
Elem PID = 0011, Video
Video stream: 29.97fps, constrained
Video stream alignment: video access unit
Elem PID = 0014, AC-3 Audio
AC-3 Registration
Complete Main, 48KHz, 2/0 channels, main = 0, textLen = 0
Languages: ENG
Video stream alignment: Slice, or video access unit

Total records scanned = 766464

0000 = 594
0010 = 594
0011 = 564751
0014 = 16717
1FFF = 183808

Bob Hess...Is there something different about your WSBK-DT signal today? I am getting a strong enough signal on my DTC-100 (46-50) to get reception but am getting no picture/sound and the "weak signal" message. I am getting both strong signal and picture however on my Hughes E-86. This has been going on all day. I normally get good reception on my DTC-100 on any signal above 35.

Originally posted by spearse
Jimg-
You said the national PBS HD feed shows "tracks ahead" and 5pm, and "travels in europe" at 7:30pm. Were you referring to NHPTV's schedule? If WGBH is now showing Rudy Maxa's HD show I would be very happy, but have never seen it broadcast yet.

Also, my Hipix shows WGBH on 2-2 is broadcasting full HD at 45mbps. It used to be multicast, but I don't think it is at this time-- PQ seems much better now.
Spearse

As for the programming question:
With the exception of the rare local programming pre-emptions (such as UNH hockey last season), NHPTV passes through the PBS-HD satellite feed. (And I really can't see a difference in picture quality when I do a side-by-side comparison between NHPTV's HD feed and the PBS-HD satellite feed.) I'll check tonight/tomorrow night to confirm the 5 pm "Tracks Ahead" and the 7:30 pm "Travels in Europe" on both PBS-HD feed and WBGH 2-2. Also, check weekends for some of the special programming. (i.e. Sunday at 6pm is used for an encore of an HD-program. And often Sunday at 8pm is Nature/etc. usually widescreen but occasionally HD.)

As for WGBH-HD:
Yes I agree the WGBH-HD feed is much improved lately. [Although not as good as their initial debut last September when it was a full channel for HD, and they were passing through the PBS-HD feed directly.] However, like others on the forum, I can see differences between WGBH's 2-2 & the PBS-HD feed. There are still some slight motion artifacts, etc. which is to be expected since WGBH is also doing a SD channel (2-1). [Note: For the time being, I'm happy with the duo-cast, since our local cable often has interference problems with channel 2, and off-air 2-1 is crystal clear.]

Furthermore, when you "do the math"....
On one hand, with full HD, there is a little bandwidth left over for some datacasting, but not a SD channel. Yet on the other hand, I don't think the PBS-HD feed is a full 45 mpbs either. Is the HiPix measuring the bandwidth of the 2-2 subchannel, or the bandwidth of all the subchannels? Can you also report on the PSIP information?

--
In summary...
Yes it's great having both channel 2 digital, and PBS-HD.
Yet at the same time we want the picture quality to be the best it can be! Fortunately there's hope, because when channel 43 gets back, there's a chance we can have both full-time, full-bandwidth HD channel, as well as 4 digital SD channels. (When you contribute to WGBH, to earmark the funds towards HD, every vote er, dollar counts.)

hi - i have noticed on my 34xbr2 that 38.1 is now 39.1 .
also last night, interesting new failure mode on 7.1,
starting around 9:15 PM ... first there was
picture but no audio, and then there was audio but no picture.
tv reported "no signal", at the same time it was happily
giving me the 7.1 audio! :|

35.1 has been absent for me lately - maybe i'm just
not getting it via reflections off icy trees now, or whatever.

WSBK-DT should be showing up on 38.1 as of about 9:00 AM this morning. We had a problem in the ATSC encoder. Thanks to everyone for pointing this out.

Bob

WSBK-DT should be showing up on 38.1 as of about 9:00 AM this morning. We had a problem in the ATSC encoder. Thanks to everyone for pointing this out.

Wouldn't it be nice if ALL of the stations in Boston area monitored this thread, there would be no issues then. Thanks to Bob Hess and his engineers in adressing the problem so quickly!

Jim

Hi I am a new member of the forum,but have been reading it for a while. I just purchased a new Sony 36xbr800. I called ATT broadband and they said they would have HDTV ready in 1q2003 after the name change to Comcast. Reading other forums from different cities, if you have an HDTV cable box you do not need an ATSC tuner.

Hi I am a new member of the forum,but have been reading it for a while. I just purchased a new Sony 36xbr800. I called ATT broadband and they said they would have HDTV ready in 1q2003 after the name change to Comcast. Reading other forums from different cities, if you have an HDTV cable box you do not need an ATSC tuner.

hey there mgpt6, welcome to avsforum.

even if comcast offers HD over cable when they say they will, i bet they will only offer the pay channels, but not all 7 or 9 or 12 OTA DTV channels we can pick up around here.

one of the newer OTA channels,
WLVI has been broadcasting some nice HD material lately too,
so out of all the 7,9,12,whatever dtv channels we now have 5 which broadcast HD material, if i am counting correctly.

you might be very happy if you try a settop box from tweeter on 30-day-evaluation, with a rudimentary antenna setup such
as an outdoor-antenna-pointed-out-the-window-on-some-chairs-next-to-your-tv. :)

last year i tried a bunch of STBs
from tweeter, each for 30 days, connected to a 480p 4:3 TV.
there's no real downside on a 30-day-money-back evaluation, eh?

I'd second tveli's suggestion to try OTA. Circuit City has the low-end Zenith box for $400, which is working well for me. Best buy and Tweeter also should have the Samsung T151 for around $450.

If you're reasonably close to Needham (where the towers are) you'll probably have good luck with reception...

I think once you get HD going, you won't want to wait for AT&T to get their act together.

Jimg,
Thanks for the great post. I will confirm Hipix reporting that 2-2 is full 45mbps (or if it is reporting subchannels in that as well). If Hipix is correct, that would lead me to believe WGBH is sending HD on 43 dedicated now??

How do you receive PBS-HD? I have Dish but they don't carry PBS-HD.

Finally, I saw that 2-2 carried Smart Travels last night at 7:30pm as you said, this is fantastic. Wonder if they send it every night like NHPTV did.

Spearse

Originally posted by tveli

.......................
even if comcast offers HD over cable when they say they will, i bet they will only offer the pay channels, but not all 7 or 9 or 12 OTA DTV channels we can pick up around here.
........................................
we now have 5 which broadcast HD material, if i am counting correctly.


I count DTV channels at 12, but it depends which day you look! We should be at 13 soon with WGBX-DT back I hope!
(And channel 35 WNDS-DT has indeed been off quite a bit lately!)

and HDTV channels at 7:

WGBH-DT 19 (2)
WCVB-DT 20 (5)
WBZ-DT 30 (4)
WLVI-DT 41 (56)
WHDH-DT 42 (7)
WENH-DT 57 (11)
WMUR-DT 59 (9)


plus Fox channel 31 (25) part way there, but still better
than any cable NTSC.

Is anyone else having issues receiving the WB (WLVI-DT 41)? I have a Samsung SIR-T150 with firmware v1.8. This seems to be very much like the issues with WGBH a couple of months ago.

I must admit that I didn't know WLVI was on the air until yesterday, but I'd like to know if other people are having the same issues.

Thanks!

Oh, I'm in Natick if that is a problem... about 8 miles west of the towers.

Originally posted by bradbissell
Is anyone else having issues receiving the WB (WLVI-DT 41)? I have a Samsung SIR-T150 with firmware v1.8. This seems to be very much like the issues with WGBH a couple of months ago.

I must admit that I didn't know WLVI was on the air until yesterday, but I'd like to know if other people are having the same issues.

Thanks!

Oh, I'm in Natick if that is a problem... about 8 miles west of the towers.

I'm in Natick as well and WLVI-DT 41-1 is coming in just fine tonight on my Zenith DTV1080 . . .

I cannot receive WLVI-DT on my SIR-T165, the hd light flashes a few times (which it doesn't do on vacant channels), and then goes to analog static.
No problems with my E86 hooked to the same antenna, other than being a bit slower to lock in than the other digital channels.

Is anyone else having issues receiving the WB (WLVI-DT 41)? I have a Samsung SIR-T150 with firmware v1.8. This seems to be very much like the issues with WGBH a couple of months ago.

They are still operating at very low power and have minor PSIP problems still, I am using the Samsung TS-160 and get WLVI 41 with incomplete PSIP data, but I still can receive it here in RI, albeit 63% signal.

Jim

Originally posted by spearse
Jimg,
Thanks for the great post. I will confirm Hipix reporting that 2-2 is full 45mbps (or if it is reporting subchannels in that as well). If Hipix is correct, that would lead me to believe WGBH is sending HD on 43 dedicated now??

How do you receive PBS-HD? I have Dish but they don't carry PBS-HD.

Finally, I saw that 2-2 carried Smart Travels last night at 7:30pm as you said, this is fantastic. Wonder if they send it every night like NHPTV did.

Spearse

Sorry, HiPix must be doing the accounting for both of channel 19's subchannels. WGBH is multiplexing PBS-HD and their own channel 2 on digital channel 19. Channel 43 is not on the air. The good news is that the HD subchannel is very good, with only minimal artifacts compared to the PBS-HD satellite feed. I congratulate WGBH for doing a very good job in giving us the best of both worlds multiplexed on a single 6MHz channel.

As for the programming, WGBH passes-through the PBS-HD feed just like NHPTV. So expect Tracks Ahead at 5:00 pm and Travels in Europe at 7:30 pm. Check www.pbs.org/digitaltv for the "initial broadcasts" of programming.

Yes last night was especially good....
5:00 Tracks Ahead, 5:30 The Face of Jesus, 7:30 Travels in Europe, 8:00 demo loop, 9:00 Secrets of the Dead (widescreen), 10:00 Kilamanjaro (widescreen).


As for the satellite receivers, they're the "standard".
I get PBS-HD via a "big dish" system with a Unity Motion MPEG-HD receiver (i.e. the direct PBS-HD feed on satellite AMC-3 Ku). Also there at times when Nebraska Public TV retransmits it on their [recent start-up] C-Band HD channel, which I get with a 4DTV/HDD-200 receiver.

As for the antennae, "long-range" UHF and "standard" Big Dishes.
I get NHPTV off-air with a 7' UHF dish or the 8' long Blake UHF "B" Yagi. The PBS-HD satellite feed is received with either my 5' or 7.5' C-Band Dishes. Yet, for WGBH I only need the compact Silver Sensor antenna. (Early adopting does have its "you get to pay" privileges!)

Because my HDTV can show 2 HD inputs side-by-side, I can do a reasonable comparison. One thing to point out is that
NHPTV which is virtually in-sync with the PBS-HD satellite feed, but I see a full 2 second delay between WGBH and the PBS-HD satellite feed. NHPTV is a re-transmit of PBS-HD, while WGBH is a re-encoded, mixed with digitized channel 2 feed (hence the delay). [Remember 100% digital isn't necessarily 100% lossless! -- Dish and DirecTv are both 100% digitally transmitted, however quality suffers because they do a lot of compression.] If you get locals via satellite on Dish or DirecTV, compare that picture quality with that of off-air. Furthermore, if you get a chance to see a network feed on a studio monitor, it looks fantastic. (Add a doubler or quadrupler and you'll mistake the upvert for high-def.) However, when you see a HD-feed on a HD Studio monitor, it looks better than real. (Maybe that's why Bob Hess can't do a studio tour -- we wouldn't leave!)

jimg,

Just curious, what type TV do you have? I would love to be able to see two HD sources at the same time.

Thanks,

Dave

Hi All
I am about 6 miles from the towers and get a strong signal indication for channel 41 on my SIR-T150. However I get no picture or sound. It is as if the receiver gets the signal but can not decode anything.

Does anyone have a suggestion as to what I should write to WLVI to make them understand the problem?

Henry Gale


Originally posted by bradbissell
Is anyone else having issues receiving the WB (WLVI-DT 41)? I have a Samsung SIR-T150 with firmware v1.8. This seems to be very much like the issues with WGBH a couple of months ago.

I must admit that I didn't know WLVI was on the air until yesterday, but I'd like to know if other people are having the same issues.
Thanks!
Oh, I'm in Natick if that is a problem... about 8 miles west of the towers.

WLVI-DT has some PSIP problems that they are working on.
I have found them to work most of the time on my SIR-T150 Samsung, but sometimes I lose it for a week or so when something goes bad in the PSIP. I have rev 1.8.

Even when my box works a friend with rev 2 code can't see the channel at all on his newer box.

My new 165 never works.

Safest way I have found to be sure of getting WB HD is to use a Zenith box (420). This seems to virtually always work, but still requires trying both 41 and 56 as channel numbers. Sometimes only one of them works.

I also am having problems getting channel 56 (41). Same symtoms as others; get a signal, but no picture or sound. I have no trouble getting all the other stations. Sure looks and feels like the PSIP problem GBH had earlier this year.

Jimg,
Another great post, thanks! I salivated at your setup description. Question, do you know what the PBS-HD feed schedule is, or do you just have to watch or record it and review it later? I missed the Kilimanjaro show last night, would kill to see it. In all my searches I have never found a "schedule" for PBS-HD other than the link you posted for "premier" digital events.
Thanks!
Spearse

I got a black screen from the WLVI-DT signal for the first two weeks or so that it was on. Then suddenly it began to work. Then sometime this week I'm back to the black screen again. I (unfortunately) own a Panasonic TU-DST51.

I did a $2 expirement on my old tv,waiting for my new Sony 36xbr800. I attached a RS dual bow -tie uhf antenna. I got a picture on 25,27,38,44, 62,66, and 68 aswell as 21 and 32. Got color but picture was snowy. Got nothing on 20,23,30,42 at 3pm today. What does one see if anything when tuned to a digital channel on an NTSC tuner?Does this sound like i will need an outdoor antenna for OTA or will I have to hope that ATT/Comcast has a good product next year?

You don't see anything of value when tuning an NTSC tuner to an ATSC channel, they're completely different signal formats.

If your picture is snowy, yes you may require an outdoor antenna or pre-amp. I have an attic mounted CM3021 which I tried using without the pre-amp but analogs were snowy and unstable at best; with a Winegard medium gain pre-amp they're entirely watchable. This translated directly to my DTV reception taking it from hit and [mostly] miss to pretty much rock solid.

mgpt6,

Please give us a better idea of your location. That might allow you to get better information.

Are the stations all snowy, including 25, 38, 56? 32, 27, 66 I think are at lower power anyway....

If you get 25, 38, and 56 pretty well, I bet you'll have good luck with DTV reception. Otherwise, you'll need a better antenna setup.

Originally posted by jckessler
mgpt6,

Please give us a better idea of your location. That might allow you to get better information.

Are the stations all snowy, including 25, 38, 56? 32, 27, 66 I think are at lower power anyway....

If you get 25, 38, and 56 pretty well, I bet you'll have good luck with DTV reception. Otherwise, you'll need a better antenna setup.
Analog 44 transmits from the SAME antenna as digitals 2, 4, 5, and 38. This is one of the key indicators which should give an idea if he can see the this group of digitals.

Bob

Interesting. I get absolutely horrible multipath on 44; purple bars, many ghosts, the whole bit. It's much much worse than 25, 38 ,or 56, or any other Boston station but get all of the digital stations just fine. This is all from various indoor antennas...

YMMV!!

Originally posted by Robert VanderMolen
I also am having problems getting channel 56 (41). Same symtoms as others; get a signal, but no picture or sound. I have no trouble getting all the other stations. Sure looks and feels like the PSIP problem GBH had earlier this year.

FWIW, WLVI is coming without any problems on my SIR-T150 out here in Ashland. It did momentarily remap to 41-0 and then back to 41-1, so they may be playing around with the PSIP info.

On a side note, does anyone else with a SIR-T150 have problems with FOX-25? While it comes in fine, ch25 often cause the Samsung to reset when I try to change the channel....

mike

Further to the discussion on HD vs. HD+SD program streams, here are some raw numbers.

I can't get Channel 11 (57) - I must be in a black spot. But here are some numbers that I have from WHDH when they were doing SD+HD back in September, and then again just recently.

These numbers are not Mb/s, but rather packets per minute. The transport stream is divided up into 188 byte packets. There are (approx) 766,464 packets per minute. Eack packet has a PID which identifies whether it is audio, video, PSIP, or null (fillers).


These numbers are number of packets in one minute:

WHDH (Sept) WHDH (Dec) WGBH (Dec)
---------- ---------- ----------
SD video 157,492 196,932
SD audio 15,604 7,803 (+ 5,202 SAP)
HD video 553,247 671,816 513,917
HD audio 14,527 15,603 15,603
null 17,907 74,291 24,271

Note the jump in number of null packets for WHDH - not all the SD bandwidth went to HD! Sorry I don't have figures for CH11 or the PBS-HD feed.

_Paul

Is anyone else noticing that Boston Ch 7 (42) audio and video are out of sync? I've had my Samsung 151 for about 2 weeks and all other chanels are fine. I've noticed this every time I've tried to watch this channel. (Recently, last night's Tonight Show and Ed tonight.)

I want to make sure it's not something wrong with my hardware, but instead at the broadcaster end of things. It doesn't matter if I monitor the analog outs or the digital audio outs, both are the same. I believe that the audio is slightly late, perhaps a frame or 2 (or 3), just enough to be annoying to watch. I've also tried cold booting the box.

If it is at the broadcaster end of things....Hello CH 7....PLEASE FIX THIS, already.

Thanks.

Ch. 7's video/audio synch is slightly off, but I had to look very closely to see it. It doesn't really bother me, but I can understand how it may be distracting to some. It's not your equipment.

I am about 20 miles north of Nedham. The best picture was on 38 and 56. The worst was 27 and 62. I did get apicture on 32 but was very snowy. For futher reference I get the full power FM radio stations okay but have problems with lower powered college stations on the 88-92 part of the band

Originally posted by spearse
Jimg,
... Question, do you know what the PBS-HD feed schedule is, or do you just have to watch or record it and review it later? I missed the Kilimanjaro show last night, would kill to see it. In all my searches I have never found a "schedule" for PBS-HD other than the link you posted for "premier" digital events.
Thanks!
Spearse

Sometimes I've seen it on NHPTV's website...
http://www.nhptv.org/programs/prime.htm (this month unfortunately is a copy of analog channel 11's and hasn't been corrected as yet. [I have emailed them]. It should look like last month's: http://www.nhptv.org/programs/digital/nov01-09.htm .)

Also in the HDTV programming section of the AVS forum here, there were posts to other PBS stations who listed the schedule. (Note some of those do add "encore" telecasts / their own "local" programming.)

--

Thanks to Mr. H for getting some numbers for multicasting on WGBH -- too bad he can't get 57! It would be interesting comparing the number for both feeds.
(Aside: the original PBS-HD feed as uplinked is already MPEG compressed. I wonder how perfect the original "true 45 Mbps" feed would be...and how expensive a monitor do you need to see it?)

--

Too bad there isn't an un-biased way of analyzing the resulting picture quality. The purists would say any degration is awful. The multi-channel side would say more channels are better. The plan for the present (with only 1 channel) is to compromise so we can get the best of both. Note that only a small percentage of HDTV viewers have HDTVs that have a true horizontal resolution of 1900+ pixels (i.e. HD Studio monitors, Projectors with 8"/9" tubes, the 23" Apple Cinema HD Display [note the 22" version is only 1600x1200]). For me, I "trade-off" as well. My 21" computer monitor (at 1600x1200) has the better picture quality, but I prefer to watch on the bigger, wider screen of my 34" direct view HDTV.

In 4 or 5 years, there will probably be several lightweight, reasonably priced projectors that can do 1920x1200 resolution, and be bright enough for daylight-lit rooms -- and we won't have to compromise, (except to argue about how much "softness" to add so the displayed image more closely matches the director's intent). Bottom line: sit back, relax, enjoy now...and nit-pick later!

mgpt6

62 and 32 are broadcast out of downtown Boston, not Needham. I don't know about 62, but 32 is a low power station. Those stations are probably not the best for judging how the digital stations will come in.

Sounds like you should be able to get reception. Maybe you'll need a better antenna, maybe not!

Thanks to Bob Hess for the fix AND the post for WSBK DT-39. How nice to know when and why things happen!


And, to join in about WHDH -- I have to say I don't understand how they can broadcast *so much* content for *so long* when it is obviously out of lip synch. It is a distraction and needs to be fixed! Has anyone heard anything directly from the station about this ??

I noticed that my DST-3000 is getting a lot of break-up when watching the HD feed. My MyHD tuner in my PC doesn't have the problem off of the same antenna at the same time. Could it be that the Toshiba can't handle the bandwidth? Or is it that the MyHD card may just be better at handling multipath? I didn't notice this the last time the feed was present or when they were showing the test bars. It seems to have happened since they remapped the SD to 2-1 and the HD to 19-1.

Anyone else seeing a similar problem? Supposedly the Hughes E86 and Toshiba DST-3000 are virtually identical...

Thanks,
-Dave

Originally posted by etcarey
And, to join in about WHDH -- I have to say I don't understand how they can broadcast *so much* content for *so long* when it is obviously out of lip synch. It is a distraction and needs to be fixed! Has anyone heard anything directly from the station about this ??

I just got the following response from WHDH this AM when I inquired about the problem:

Bill,
We think we fixed the problem this morning. Let me know.

thanks,
Art Murphy

Originally posted by jimg
Sometimes I've seen it on NHPTV's website...
http://www.nhptv.org/programs/prime.htm (this month unfortunately is a copy of analog channel 11's and hasn't been corrected as yet. [I have emailed them].

The channel 57 listings for December have been updated.

Thanks NHPTV for promptly answering the emails, as well as promptly updating the website.

It looks like WSBK-DT PSIP has once again gone kaput. It has ceased to remap to 38-1.

Lipsync is better on 7-1, but still off. It's most noticible when people are talking quickly.

Once again I'm getting a strong enough signal on 38-1 on my DTC-100 but it's not decoding the signal. Still getting 38-1 on my Hughes however. As for 7-1, I don't see any improvement in the lip/synch problem.

the problem with the lip sync continues. I had company over last night and could not wait to show them the tonight show. The loved the picture but the lip sync drove them crazy. Who should I contact about this? I have a Sony hd200

Originally posted by Mike5454
the problem with the lip sync continues. I had company over last night and could not wait to show them the tonight show. The loved the picture but the lip sync drove them crazy. Who should I contact about this? I have a Sony hd200

jshultis@whdh.com

I had the lip sync issue last nite, but to solve my problem, after tuning in the station, I would turn off my dd/dts decoder ( you could just shut off your stereo receiver) and turned it back on and the lip sync problem went away, but what a hassle.

Jim

I know this is off the subject of Boston HDTV but I just have to comment. I caught last night's WCVB-DT airing of the Boston Pops Christmas Concert, and I just wanted to announce that I am now officially in love with Martina McBride!

<I had the lip sync issue last nite, but to solve my problem, after tuning in the station, I would turn off my dd/dts decoder ( you could just shut off your stereo receiver) and turned it back on and the lip sync problem went away, but what a hassle.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is NOT a workaround for me. As I mentioned earlier, analog or digital output of my Samsung 151, is equally out of sync on Ch 7-1 WHDH. I just checked it again with tonight's programming and it is still the same story....audio is late about 2-3 frames. TERRIBLE! I realize this technology, is pretty new, but ALL the other Boston stations seemed to have figured this VERY BASIC broadcasting requirement out. Keep trying, WHDH, it's still NOT fixed.

Thanks.

This is NOT a workaround for me.

Sorry, it worked for me, just making a suggestion, I know, the station should fix the problem...

Jim

Zenith HDV420 STB arrived today. Works nicely. After suffering with
the Panny DST51 problem, it's nice to have audio back on WGBH. Its
signal strength meter is a benefit too.

The Zenith also seems to handle reception of WHDH much better -
I didn't see a single glitch all evening. Usually the Panasonic has
trouble holding it all together -- lots of mosaics and audio drop outs.

Anyone else lose WFXT-DT? It vanished during Seinfeld last night (11:15 or so) and hasn't come back since...

Anyone else lose WFXT-DT?

Yep, same here in RI.

Jim

WFXT did go off last night. It looks like they turned off
the transmitter.

I've got the same problem as reported by others with WLVI on my Samsung T150 in Ashland. I get all the other stations fine with no dropouts. Is the consensus that this is :

a. A firmware problem with the t150 (based on some posts, it looks like the newer firmware has a problem)
b. A problem with the WLVI transmission that many receivers seem to handle but not the T150.
c. A problem with me. i.e. the station and the receiver are fine, I'm doing something stupid.

Does anyone have a contact at WLVI? WGBH was very responsive a couple months ago when we had a similar problem.

you folks seeing psip problems with WLVI? from my 34xbr2 perspective WLVI has the same buggy psip-encoder that WFXT and many fox affiliates have...

as for whdh lipsync, ya, i finally did notice it a couple nights ago - not sure if that was before or after the most recent attempted fix by the whdh engineers. naturally it is going to drive me nuts now ;) i will experiment with both digital & analog audio output from the tv to see if that makes a difference.

in other news, 35.1/derry-NH is back on the air in b&w as of last night! oh the memories!

anyone got a URL/clue on how to know in advance when WGBH is going to be broadcasting non-demo-loop-HD on 2.2 !?!?!? thanks...

From ch 7:

We have been working to solve this for several weeks. We found one
major problem on Friday, and eliminated it. We are now fine tuning in
an attempt to make the lip sync perfect.

Thank you for your patience.

Jim Shultis
Director of Engineering

I think WGBH does pass the national feed through; they had the Duncan Philips piece on last night, and the European travel show as well. There is more than just the demo loop on 2-2.

Major lip sync issue with 2.2 tonight.

umm anyone else notice that 25-1 is now broadcasting 1080i?? I thought all of their programs were in 480p??? why would they even do this????

-nate

Is it me or is 25.1 breaking up a lot? I have a full signal ~70 or so, same as before, but since they came back on the air I have been getting terrible breakups.

Jim

Fox 25.1 is coming in on my Sony HD200 as 720p. What gives?

I watched 24 straight through this evening without any problems.
Also saw most of the WB56 news without problems. The Zenith box seems
to be a lot more robust than my old Panasonic.

Originally posted by tveli

anyone got a URL/clue on how to know in advance when WGBH is going to be broadcasting non-demo-loop-HD on 2.2 !?!?!? thanks...


The NHPTV has been great at listing the PBS satellite feed schedule:
http://www.nhptv.org/programs/prime.htm

(Note that WGBH is 24/7 while NHPTV is "evenings and weekend afternoons", but extends the hours in the event of non-demo-loop HD programming.)

I've noticed that FOX is coming in @ 720p as well. However, for the last week or so I've had much trouble picking it up. I'm in Boston and am able to get all other stations with no/few dropouts. Recently, FOX has been unwatchable. No matter what antenna angle/position I try, I can't get a dropout-free signal for more than 5 seconds at a time.

Anyone have ideas? I don't have cable / satellite and am experiencing major Simpsons withdrawal! Up until recently, FOX was one of the easiest stations for me to get!

FatNoah, same issue here with 2 different tuners like I posted above ^^^

Breakups occuring with a 77% signal.

Jim

No problems with Fox here (except when they vanished completely a couple of nights ago). It's my strongest signal.

Are they really upconverting their signal now? My Zenith box doesn't tell me what format the stations are using.

HI,

I lost Fox a couple of days ago too and since it came back, both my HiPix and my DISH 6000 are having problems. Signal is locked at 85, and audio is ok but video keeps doing the mosaic pattern every few seconds. The Hipix does report the signal as 720p.

Sal

Hi guys!

I just moved to a condo in Shrewsbury and I'm wondering if anyone here has had luck with receiving local DTV channels? I tried last night with my Radioshack double bowtie antenna (I was told this is the best indoor antenna there is) and could not get a signal from any channel. I have a Dish 6000 with 8VSB tuner. Any advice?
Thank you!

Jose

Shrewsbury has HD cable, which I bet has the best reception you could hope for ;-)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=191183

- Jim

Jim,

Thanks for the info!!!
Could you please let me know what they charge for their HDTV service? and do you have to buy the box? or rent it?
Thanks !

Jose

Soycrema...Have you tried placing your antenna on a window sill that faces in the direction of Needham? Digital signals are very delicate and need as much of the signal as possible to do a lock. Just placing the antenna on top of your TV will probably not work, especially in an apartment complex.

Also, the RS Bow-Tie IS NOT the best indoor antenna. Try the RS VHF-UHF amplified indoor antenna. I've tried the bowtie with "0" success in Taunton, but the amp. antenna pulls in most of the Boston digitals for me, with 100% signals on 4-1 and 5-1.

Thanks Benji. I did try movingthe antenna all over the house and even outside on the patio but could not get a signal at all, I'm pretty sure I was facing the towers but there are other buildings around my area, maybe that is blocking the signal?

don't you think northborough is a little far to use the RS bowtie? I'm not sure, but check out your reception on UPN 38 analog. If you get this clear, the bowtie should do ok. Otherwise, try an amp on the bowtie perhaps.

Curiously, I was getting a good video signal last night BUT the volume was 'muted' by about 25db below normal----which necessitated having to turn the volume way up for Fox but not for any other station. [on my Zenith 1080]
??

Keith

Originally posted by Beefcake
don't you think northborough is a little far to use the RS bowtie? I'm not sure, but check out your reception on UPN 38 analog. If you get this clear, the bowtie should do ok. Otherwise, try an amp on the bowtie perhaps.
Analog channel 44 is probably a better channel to use as a yardstick for possible digital reception. Analog 44 broadcasts from the same tower and the SAME antenna as digitals 2, 4, 5, 38, and 43. Analog 38 is on a different tower.

Bob

Sal,

I see the same thing you do. I get a perfectly strong signal, stronger in fact than nearly any other station, but I get video breakup every three seconds...it's like clockwork and I don't see it on any other channels. Someone else has be having this problem as well. Anyone?

-n

What's up with WFXT-DT? Has anyone noticed they haven't been passing through the widescreen stuff since they turned off/on the transmitter?

Anyone know someone to contact there? I know it's not HDTV, but still better than 4:3...

Originally posted by Bob Hess
Analog channel 44 is probably a better channel to use as a yardstick for possible digital reception. Analog 44 broadcasts from the same tower and the SAME antenna as digitals 2, 4, 5, 38, and 43. Analog 38 is on a different tower.

Bob

I find this interesting. What sort of a metric should analog 44 provide? I'm in Bolton, with a Winegard HD9095 antenna in my attic. When I tune in analog 44, I barely receive it. Lots (I means lots) of snow, and no color. Yet, I receive 20-x, 30-x, 31-x, 39-x and 42-x fine. I don't receive 41-x at all, and 19-x only occasionally (usually when it rains it comes in fine, now what is up with that?).
--

Re: mythical_phenix, reception of digitals but not good 44 reception ==>

Testing channel 44 to judge how your digital reception should be is a great idea, but it may not work for everyone, especially if you are using different tuners for digital and analog, esp when different brands and ages.

I have seen tuners that can pull in a fine analog picture with a little snow, and others where you don't even see a station present at all. There are very big variations in tuners.

Best digital tuners I've seen for sensitivity are the Zenith and Samsung. Best analog ones I've found are the Samsung and RCA digital tuners with NTSC.

If you check 44 with an old TV with a typical 10 year old analog tuner, things could look pretty hopeless.

Originally posted by mythical_phenix
.........................
I don't receive 41-x at all, and 19-x only occasionally (usually when it rains it comes in fine, now what is up with that?).
--

Rain increases your ground bounce signal, and multipath off of hills. This can make things much better or much worse for your tuner, but for sure reception will be different.

Originally posted by jhe
Testing channel 44 to judge how your digital reception should be is a great idea, but it may not work for everyone, especially if you are using different tuners for digital and analog, esp when different brands and ages.

I have seen tuners that can pull in a fine analog picture with a little snow, and others where you don't even see a station present at all. There are very big variations in tuners.

Best digital tuners I've seen for sensitivity are the Zenith and Samsung. Best analog ones I've found are the Samsung and RCA digital tuners with NTSC.

If you check 44 with an old TV with a typical 10 year old analog tuner, things could look pretty hopeless.
I talk to many, many viewers on the phone. Most are not Forum users. I tell them all to point their antenna (and I recommend the Channel Master 3021 or 4228 in most cases) for the best signal from analog 44 and not to worry if there is noise in the picture. Most call back and say it worked great. Obviously, if serious multipath is a problem, this will not work in all cases, but it does work in most cases. Forum members should know, however, that WSBK's analog and digital transmitters are broadcasting from different towers, unlike every other station in the Boston market.

- Bob

Bob Hess,

I'm not disagreeing with you. 44 would be a good place to start for most people for sure.

I was just trying to offer a possible explanation of how mythical_phenix could get the digitals but have trouble
with 44 reception.

I have edited my post to try to make that clearer.

I'd also like to know what's going on with WFXT-DT. 24 was not in widescreen this past week.

What's up with WFXT-DT? Has anyone noticed they haven't been passing through the widescreen stuff since they turned off/on the transmitter?

For those who can't sleep at night....

The HD version of North Dallas Forty will be on WBZ-DT from 3 AM - 5 AM this Saturday night/Sunday morning. These Paramount movies will eventually be aired on WSBK-DT (at civilized times) once we complete our HD infrastructure.

Bob

Another vote for "What's up with WFXT-DT?".

Last night, using a HiPix, I got picture breakups every four seconds and the audio is down in the mud (~20dB lower), but it does show as 720P. I used to receive it without problem when it was 480P.

-Gary

So, does anyone have some contact infomation for WFXT? I am really tired of watching a broken up picture.

Jim

I too am seeing WFXT breakup every 5-6 seconds. I'm not sure if it's just a marginal signal or something at the broadcaster. The very repeatable, cyclical nature of the problem looks to me more like an encoding problem at the source. WFXT had been working without problem prior to about a week ago. I'm using a Samsung 151 with a yagi and preamp on the roof about 20miles NW of Needham. All other Boston stations are fine.

Bob Hess...Now that the AFC finals and semifinals will be in HD, how about using your vast influence, and trying to get CBS to do the wild card games also?

Wonder what's up with FOX-DT25 not showing today's game in FOX WIDESCREEN HIGH RESOLUTION? Maybe Rupert Murdoch has personally taken control of WFXT!

WFXT all broken up here in attleboro,singial strength 85 whats up
gene

Originally posted by gene avallon
WFXT all broken up here in attleboro,singial strength 85 whats up
gene

That's called: FOX HIGH-RESOLUTION VIDEO!

nfl playoffs in HD!? nice!
fox in 720p? !
that does not compute.
"norman, coordinate!!!"

thanks for the pbs satellite schedule URL/info everyone !

I am with you people. FXT is breaking up so I've started thinking that my TU-DST51 is acting up but when I pulled the spare - same thing and on TU-DST50 also the same. What'sup with them ?

PBS has some really nice tests HD loops "over Italy" "over Greece" - no sound... sigh......

wfxt is breaking up on my hipix tonight during futurama, king of the hill, simpsons & malcolm. But it is coming in without a problem on my rca dtc-100.

Well, there is one problem - NO WIDESCREEN! They have been doing this since at least last tuesday when 24 was not widescreen. I even called the news line and on Friday and got myself transfered to engineering, some guy with a name like Bob Mahr(?) who said he would look into it, but 90 minutes later when Firefly ended, the signal was still not-widescreen - in fact it was both letterboxed and pillarboxed! What the hell is their problem?

hmm, tried to post this from home earlier but i guess it didn't take.

my 34xbr2 shows 25.1 is "HD-16:9" now. so presumably that means 720p. and indeed their local news broadcast did look a bit sharper. also i am seeing lots of picture-breakup,
many per-minute.

is 25.1 going to source some material in 720p now!?!
that would be awesome. surely it is worth some temporary
glitches & testing on 25.1 if their goal is to broadcast real HD material! *football* ! ! ! ! !

No, Fox will not be true HDTV anytime in the near future.

I'd be happy with just the old, stable 480p broadcasts again.

Originally posted by DaveFi
No, Fox will not be true HDTV anytime in the near future.

I'd be happy with just the old, stable 480p broadcasts again.

ditto... I was really pissed when I had to watch 24 with audio/video breaking up every few seconds. I got the gist of the show, but it was really, really frustrating. From now on, TIVO as backup!

Earlier this evening I was still seeing breakups on my MyHD, it looked like my Toshiba DST-3000 was handling it, but I didn't watch for too long.

-Dave

Just saw a commercial for tonight's (Christmas Eve) "Chronicle" on ch. 5. It will be in HD. Subject is trains.

Anyone with problems getting WLVI-DT 41 (56) on their tuners, may want to try again.

The PSIP issues got better enough so last night I was getting it on my Samsung 165 tuner for the first time.

fyi, wmur 59.1 is now doing the psip shuffle to virtual 9.1 . 35.1(would be 50.1) has been broadcasting audio only .

Bob Hess,

Just updated my Massachusetts Area DTV list for WGBH-DT and WGBX-DT license to cover filings.

Does this mean channel 43 (44) will be back very soon?
And less low power operations for channel 19 (2)?

Originally posted by jhe
Bob Hess,

Just updated my Massachusetts Area DTV list for WGBH-DT and WGBX-DT license to cover filings.

Does this mean channel 43 (44) will be back very soon?
And less low power operations for channel 19 (2)?
Not my stations! I'll see if I can find an answer.

Bob

Thanks Bob. I figured you'd hear something with your tower about to glow from all the stations on at once!

And I havn't forgotton WLWC-DT. Just anxious to see if I can get it. I gather it is still in a holding pattern?
28 analog comes in but very snowy for me.

Originally posted by jhe
Thanks Bob. I figured you'd hear something with your tower about to glow from all the stations on at once!

And I havn't forgotton WLWC-DT. Just anxious to see if I can get it. I gather it is still in a holding pattern?
28 analog comes in but very snowy for me.
Still holding. Grrrrr.....

WLWC has a directional antenna with all of the signal shooting towards Rhode Island. It is a flame thrower in that direction. We receive it at our Boston studio with 4 phased channel 28 yagis at 300 feet! Perfect picture!

Bob

Originally posted by Benji
Just saw a commercial for tonight's (Christmas Eve) "Chronicle" on ch. 5. It will be in HD. Subject is trains.

thanks benji,

it was good, i've recorded it. instead of commercials they had black spots.

Originally posted by atmosfera
thanks benji,

it was good, i've recorded it. instead of commercials they had black spots.

I watched it as well. The 720p signal (even upconverted to 1080i on my display) looks awesome. I can't imagine how good it must look on a native 720p display. The Super Bowl and next season's MNF will be a real treat. Too bad the Pats will be on the outside looking in this time. Note to Bob Hess: I think ch. 4's 1080i looks awesome also. Just wish CBS could throw in some 5.1 DD.

I'm not sure if any of you have sent e-mail to WFXT (from their web site at http://www.fox25.com/) to complain about the breakups creating an unwatchable picture, but I just sent an e-mail today. I'll let you know what kind of response I get. I referenced this thread to let them know mine was not an isolated problem but we might get a better response if more of us send them complaints directly.

After looking at the WFXT transport stream, I think that the picture breaks up every 4 to 5 seconds with certain HDTV tuners because some of the transport stream packets do not conform to the ISO 13818-1 1994 standard.

More specifically, in packets where the "adaptation field control" = 2,
the "continuity counter" periodically gets stuck at a fixed value for 1/2 to 1 second, rather than being equal to the value it had in the last packet with the same PID.

As a test, I wrote a little C program which reads each packet in a MyHD
file into a memory buffer (making sure that the 0x47 sync byte is in buffer location 0), modifies the continuity counter if necessary, and writes the file back out. MyHD can correctly play the modified file.

Here is the code fragment which reads/modifies each packet:

unsigned char buf[188];
unsigned int pid[8192];
unsigned char continuity_counter;

pid = ((buf[1] & 0x1F) << 8) + buf[2];

if ((buf[3] & 0x30) != 0x20)
// If the adaptation field control is not 2, save the current
// counter value for this PID.
continuity_counter[pid] = buf[3] & 0x0F;
else
// If the adaptation field control is 2, replace the possibly
// incorrect counter value with the value from the last packet
// with this PID.
buf[3] = (buf[3] & 0xF0) | continuity_counter[pid];


I don't have the time to try and take this up with someone at WFXT.
Perhaps someone else does.

Lip synch problems on 2-2 but not on PBS from NH. Anyone have any idea what gives?

My picture breaks up on Fox 25.1 with my HiPix tuner but not with my Zenith HDS520. I sent a message to Fox from their web site.

Does anyoe know if they are aware of the problem?

-- Rich

problems with fox on my dish 6000.

Originally posted by D_Doherty
Lip synch problems on 2-2 but not on PBS from NH. Anyone have any idea what gives?

NHPTV is just "passing through" the PBS-HD satellite feed, while WBGH 2-2 is decoding the PBS-HD satellite feed and re-encoding it along with the digital channel 2 feed.

WGBH has done some tweaking already. (Indeed with the delays of my stereo's Dolby Digital decoding, it isn't too bad for me.)
I
Send an email to WGBH letting them know which tuner you are using. Or better yet, try to get the STB manufacturer's tech support to talk with WBGH -- Often it's just a case of relaying information on how to tweak the encoder.
(I am going that route so my Samsung 165 will be able to timer-switch to 2-2. [i.e. if 2-2 is specified, it always goes to 2-1.] )

I'm a complete newbie here - just got Samsung tuner hooked up to attic antenna last night. Definitely noticed the lach of synch between audio and video on ch 2-2 (but not 2-1, and not on any other stations/channels). Good reception otherwise.

I'll drop a note to WGBH, but is there some obvious or easy fix I should be exploring?

Bob P
Wellesley

How come the upsampled Boston TV looks vastly better than AT&T digital cable?

I don't think it is the umsampling, or the datarate. I think AT&T is getting a poor input to their codec. Does anyone know how AT&T is fed? Can't they get fed a better signal? They are wasting bits encoding noise.

I would love for some station to send colorbars some night. CBS never goes off-air. FOX and UPN do go off air, but show a logo rather than colorbars. What would be great is if they could show colorbars with their logo on it.

There's nothing digital about AT&T digital cable for virtually all channels below 100. On the broadcast stations you get the same signal with or without digital cable.

The upsampled digital (OTA) stations look so much better because you're getting full color bandwidth and resolution not subject to NTSC limitations..

They also look better, because they use supper scaling before
transmittion and with digital there is no noise introduced.

-- Rich

One word...COMPRESSION.
I'm pretty sure CATVHD is compressed. OTA is not.

-JR

I've started watching FOX on cable again because I can't deal with their poor DTV signal. BTW, did anyone get either FOX game in widescreen this weekend? I checked and it was 4:3 for me...

Sombody call FXT-DT!!! Please!!
-JR

I was having trouble with Fox yesterday. Are they using low power? Are they the same tower as WB/WLVI?

Sombody call FXT-DT!!! Please!!

I called WFXT today and talked to William Carr, a station engineer and he was not aware of the problem. He told me the reason that the station was down a few weeks back was that they were relocating and that this problem occured after the move. He will be looking into this and finding out the problem. I also told him about this thread and this forum.

Jim

Looks like they fixed it, both my TS160 and HiPix are receiving WFXT 25.1 fine now, no more breakups. :)

Jim

Better, but still upscaled to 720p and very soft. It doesn't look quite right. I'd rather have it back at 480p and let us decide to upscale it.

Lets see if they pass through widescreen correctly. I tend to doubt it if they're upscaling...

Originally posted by vfrjim
I called WFXT today and talked to William Carr, a station engineer and he was not aware of the problem. He told me the reason that the station was down a few weeks back was that they were relocating and that this problem occured after the move. He will be looking into this and finding out the problem. I also told him about this thread and this forum.

Jim

Thank you! It looks much better on MyHD!

-Dave

Anyone else with a Zenith 1080 (or possibly other receivers) find that FXT's volume level is still approx. 25 db lower than all the other stations??
[maybe it's just me....]

Keith

Keith,

It's not just you. I have a HiPix card and the audio on WFXT-DT dropped around 20-25 db about on or about the time they switched to 720P.

-Gary

WXFT is still no good. Not passing through the widescreen shows.

I find very low volume on a Dish 6000. However, the breakups appear to be gone. Hope it is fixed by the playoffs on Sunday.

I'm just glad that WFXT is giving us a stable, watchable broadcast again.

Thanks to those in this forum for making the difference!

FOX,

thanks for taking care of the problem ! No more breakups (TU-DST51). 720p is good (a bit soft) but on Plasma looks MUCH better then 480i. When they will start transmitting staff shot with HD cameras then we all will see a dramatic increase in PQ as going from 480 to 720 was the first step.

Way to go !

No, no. All screwed up. There's something wrong over there, all they're doing is taking the analog signal and upscaling it, they're not passing through the national digital feed. Personally I don't like it when they force upscaling on you. My HDTV receiver does a much better job of it.

A sure tip-off of the analog upscale is the primetime shows. As I mentioned, the widescreen ones are still 4:3, and the 4:3 ones used to have the "FOX" logo off to the right side in the black bars.

Hi,

I am getting an upscaled picture on Fox25 but there are no video breakups. The audio is absolutely terrible and makes the station unwatchable. I am using a Sammy 151.

Chris10

I just sent an email to WLVI (wb56@tribune.com) to tell them that a significant portion of their potential audience cannot receive their digital signal. Again, we may get a better response if more of us send email to complain about the problem.

Originally posted by dhp
I just sent an email to WLVI (wb56@tribune.com) to tell them that a significant portion of their potential audience cannot receive their digital signal. Again, we may get a better response if more of us send email to complain about the problem.

Do it before the HD Rose Parade broadcast!

41 PSIP has improved, and works fine now on my Samsung tuners.

If your problem is the low power, you might want to write the FCC. I think they are the ones forcing them to super low power for now.

Originally posted by dhp
I just sent an email to WLVI (wb56@tribune.com) to tell them that a significant portion of their potential audience cannot receive their digital signal. Again, we may get a better response if more of us send email to complain about the problem.

What's the problem you're having? I get it with the SIRT-151 and an indoor antenna in Boston with strong reception. It doesn't map to 56, but that doesn't bother me so much.

Originally posted by jhe
Do it before the HD Rose Parade broadcast!
...

jhe, why do you say this? Isn't the parade being carried on CBS, ABC & NBC?

ABC and CBS. Does this mean ABC will show 720p and CBS will show 1080i?
And if so, are they sharing cameras or will ABC use a 720p/60hz camera and CBS a 1080i one?

BTW, Circuit City in Braintree has 7 open box RCA F38310 38" tubes left with built in tuner and DirecTV receiver. They also have the new model Terk S25 3-LNB dish. I bought my second one today. I think you have to spend $4000 to meet or beat it, and it is in the $1300 or less range.

Originally posted by Jakes
jhe, why do you say this? Isn't the parade being carried on CBS, ABC & NBC?

You are correct I see, according to Titan, the others have it in HD too. Titan doesn't list it on WLVI at all.

I just saw it listed as HD on the WLVI web site, and I thought the other networks were doing low def.

Not that there's much to watch on it, and its only 480i, but WNDS-DT (35.1) seems to have sorted out some of its problems and is back on the air with stable audio and video.

whatsup with listings on Titan TV ? CBS, NBC and ABC all have different program length ? Does anyone know if any of networks will omit commercials for this program ?

HAPPY NEW YEAR !

I saw an ad for channel HGTV that said they would broadcast it without commercials. I will be watching it on Discovery HD theater which should be almost commercial free. Some WB stations will also be carrying it in HD but I do not think Boston is one of those. The different lengths is probably because they will not show the entire parade.

FYI - I just spoke with WHDH about the Rose parade in SD instead of HD as listed by TitanTV. They were notified that the parade would not be sent in HD. Too bad, it would have been a great HD venue.

yep, too bad that none of major networks can "afford" to give us a New Year present of watching Parade in true HD and without commercials - shame on them !

:(

I personally think that the parade looked great on WLVI, at least one network had it.

Jim

Is anyone else getting a weaker signal than normal from WGBH (19)? Previously all Boston channels registered 100 on my Mits HD-5 (except WLVI), now GBH is bouncing between 27 and 82.

Originally posted by Jakes
What's the problem you're having? I get it with the SIRT-151 and an indoor antenna in Boston with strong reception. It doesn't map to 56, but that doesn't bother me so much.

My T150 does not find WLVI when I scan for channels. I have never been able to receive it. I'm about 13 miles from the Needham antennas and I've got a two bay Winegard antenna. in my attic. I get every other Boston station with a strong signal and a clear picture. I was assuming that it is some kind of a format problem with the signal they are transmitting.

What a surprise, WLVI had the parade in HD without commercials. It was the same feed as Discovery. Thank you very much!

Antennas recommended in Brookline/Boston area

What antenna setup would people suggest for OTA HDTV in the Brookline/West Roxbury area? I am on a low hill (maybe 200 ft) with a pretty clear west-southwest exposure-very residential, no buildings over two stories. We are surrounded by lots of big trees, however. Antennaweb.org indicates I should receive several stations even with a small multidirectional antenna. However, I noticed some discussion that WENH HDTV content is superior to WGBH. A medium directional antenna with preamp is recommended for WENH.

Are these recommendations reasonable based on your experience? What difference should I expect with the different antennas recommended?

I am absolutely new to HDTV and can use some orientation to OTA antennas as well as specific recommendations (manufacturer, model numbers, expected reception, etc.). I am reading and learning but would like to get started with OTA sooner rather than later while continuing my self-education. Given that the thread "Status of Boston DTV Tower???" currently contains 123 pages, getting up to speed may take some time.

Any help and specific recommendations will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Dave

I am in Harvard Square and I had no luck with anything when it was near my set. Once I got things on the roof, everything worked. All antennas. I could not find a single position that get every channel using a Radio Shack UHF only outdoor Yagi -- so I am going to replace it with a $23 ChannelMaster 2001 from Stark Electronics. I also decided to get a rotor just because I may never find one position best for everything. I am not sure what to say, except you cannot go wrong if you go all out and get a mast and rotor!

Skip the amp. Seriously. Use RG6 coax, not RG59.

Originally posted by dhp
My T150 does not find WLVI when I scan for channels. I have never been able to receive it. I'm about 13 miles from the Needham antennas and I've got a two bay Winegard antenna. in my attic. I get every other Boston station with a strong signal and a clear picture. I was assuming that it is some kind of a format problem with the signal they are transmitting.

Denis,

Your setup and mine sounds eerily similar. I'm located near the Framingham and Southborough borders. Like you, I'm using an attic mounted Winegard antenna (though mine is the 8 Bay PR-8800). I'm also using a Samsung SIR-T150 (v1.8). Except for the first week when they were having PSIP issues, I haven't had any problems receiving WVLI's signal.

Which version of the T150 firmware are you using? Have you had any luck manually tuning into their signal?


mike

Originally posted by dhp
My T150 does not find WLVI when I scan for channels. I have never been able to receive it. I'm about 13 miles from the Needham antennas and I've got a two bay Winegard antenna. in my attic. I get every other Boston station with a strong signal and a clear picture. I was assuming that it is some kind of a format problem with the signal they are transmitting.

The major WLVI format issue has been dealt with, but
that exposed a "time-out" as well as a "timer" issue with the Samsungs. The good news is that WLVI did tweak their encoder, and the Samsungs can handle it well.

Due to WLVI's low power and the multipath issues we have in MetroWest, WLVI 56-1 doesn't lock-on immediately with the Samsungs. It times-out initially before it can validate it as a digital signal, so it switches to analog 41-0. (Don't know yet whether it is an equalizer issue or a minor PSIP format issue. There is a "one-hour-early" time problem in the PSIP, but that only affects the T165's timer recordings.)

The trick is to get it to lock on JUST ONCE so it remembers that 41 is digital. I was lucky that I was able to use my rotor to "peak" for the best possible (highest signal strength/lowest multipath) signal using another STB, then after a couple of tries [we're playing "beat the time-out" here], I was able to get it to lock-in so I could set it as a "favorite channel". Now, it can take 10-15 seconds or so for it to lock in (I just ignore the "No signal" warnings). Because the Samsung knows 41 is digital, it doesn't "time-out" and can now handle a wider range of signal conditions.

----
When you try, start at 25-1, since WFXT is also weak, then
select 41. If it times-out and sets 41-0 analog, go back to 25-1 and repeat a couple of times. Then if you have a rotor, move the antenna slightly and repeat. (Remember you only have to get it to lock in once!) After locking-in and saving as a favorite, re-peak your antenna for all the Boston stations. If you don't have a rotor, borrowing an indoor antenna or taking the STB to a friend's house might be quickier and easier than tweaking (then restoring) the attic antenna.

Originally posted by vfrjim
I personally think that the parade looked great on WLVI, at least one network had it.

Jim


what is WLVI ? none of my Panny STBs are regestering it.

I am in Malden with pretty good antenna on the roof.

Originally posted by vfrjim
I personally think that the parade looked great on WLVI, at least one network had it.

Jim


what is WLVI ? none of my Panny STBs are regestering it.

I am in Malden with pretty good antenna on the roof.

Originally posted by vfrjim
I personally think that the parade looked great on WLVI, at least one network had it.

Jim


what is WLVI ? none of my Panny STBs are regestering it.

I am in Malden with pretty good antenna on the roof.

thanx

Any thoughts on whether or not WFXT will pass through the widescreen 480p broadcast of the playoff games this weekend?

I'm guessing they won't, which brings me to my second question. What is the # you guys have called and actually been conected with someone on a weekend to request it? All I've gotten is a recording or the news line.

atmosfera,
WLVI (WB 56) is found as either 56-1 or 41-1 (on my Zenith 1080).
They are currently at low power, which explains why you might not see it at all, or may see it with poor signal quality.

Did you try a manual channel scan for digital 41?

Weird thing happened tonite. I activated my TS160(Samsung) STB with direct tv and WLVI(41.1) was automatically remapped to 56.1 and 41.1 now disappeared, so anyone that is using the TS160 as a stand-alone box and not subscribed to D*TV, your mapping issue could be a direct tv problem.

Jim

I disovered that on my second RCA F38310. I noticed that it was remapping digital channels to the familiar analog numbers. I learned it was a preference called "download off-air program guide" but I could also see how DirectTV might do the same thing. Now that I understand it, I like it, and set up my other set to do the same thing. If I manually punch in 41.1, it will jump to 56.1 and display the same thing.

Originally posted by vfrjim
Weird thing happened tonite. I activated my TS160(Samsung) STB with direct tv and WLVI(41.1) was automatically remapped to 56.1 and 41.1 now disappeared, so anyone that is using the TS160 as a stand-alone box and not subscribed to D*TV, your mapping issue could be a direct tv problem.

Jim

WLVI has mapped to 56-1 for a while now. However,
WLVI has been tweaking their PSIP as some STBs have had problems decoding it. (Their time entry in the PSIP is still an hour off, but that's a minor issue.)

Your TS160 may have received an update via DirecTV that better handles PSIPs or indirectly caused it to re-check and re-map.

Originally posted by pezdoctor
atmosfera,
WLVI (WB 56) is found as either 56-1 or 41-1 (on my Zenith 1080).
They are currently at low power, which explains why you might not see it at all, or may see it with poor signal quality.

Did you try a manual channel scan for digital 41?

thanx,

I've tried manually and no luck :( I might be behind behind couple of tall concrete buildings and lowpower stations are not getting through to me... sigh....
I would love to record rose parade but none of the major networks carried it in true HD and besides commercials usually spoil the experience.

I live in Boston and Use a HiPix HDTV card. I view on a Pioneer 503CMX 50" plasma, which has native resolution of 1280x720. HiPix enables me to set the resolution differently for each station.

What resolution should I set for each of the Boston area stations...I have never really understood this.

The HiPix supported resolutions are:

1) 1920x1080 i 59.94Hz (16:9)
2) 1280x720 p 59.94Hz (16:9)
3) 720x480 p 59.94Hz (4:3)
4) 1440x1080 i 60.00Hz (4:3)
5) 1024x768 p 60.00Hz (4:3)
6) 1360x768 p 60.00Hz (4:3)

I had thought I should set everything to #2 (1280x720p) the plasmas native resolution, but am now thinking otherwise/

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

--Caleb

ABC broacasts at 1280x720 -- so you are all set with ABC if you set it at that.

The others send at 1920x1080i. Send that to the set and let it scale it down. Chances are, the scaler in the monitor is optimized for the way the plasma displays things, and it can bring it down better than the card.

Fox -- try 720x480p

Thanks R Silvers

Does this change if a station is broadcasting a HD show vs a normal digital?

--Caleb

No, it does not change as the "normal digital" is upsampled to be the same number of pixels as when they send HD.

don't the 1080i stations actually send 1440x1080 rather than 1920x1080 ?

Thanks for the detailed response jimg. Still no luck with WLVI. BTW: I get 7.1 at a signal level of half scale on my Samsung T150 (this is actually a strong signal). Fox 25.1 comes in only one tick less than that with a perfect picture. Maybe I should rent a room in Needham and bring my tuner just so I can get it to recognize 41.1 as digital, just once.

My Samsung is firmware version 2.0.

1440x1080? I did not think so. Why would it be 1440x1080 and not 1920x1080?

I just changed my antenna from a Radio Shack UHF only yagi to a Channel Master 2001 with a rotor and can get WLVI analog (but with ghosts) but the digital just don't lock. This CM2001 has lots of ghosts. Must be the wide acceptance angle.

Thanks for the detailed response jimg. Still no luck with WLVI. BTW: I get 7.1 at a signal level of half scale on my Samsung T150 (this is actually a strong signal). Fox 25.1 comes in only one tick less than that with a perfect picture. Maybe I should rent a room in Needham and bring my tuner just so I can get it to recognize 41.1 as digital, just once

I never had the T150, but had a similar problem with a RCA DTC-100 and I had signal, enough to receive WLVI, but it would not show up. It ended up being a "phantom" signal, it was actually showing 7.1's signal strength, it was weird. How I solved my problem was that I told the RCA not to acquire on air guides and rescanned the stations. After that, no mappings would be done and all channels showed up as thier "tuned in" channel # (for example, 20.31.41 etc, none were mapped over) but atleast I was able to get WLVI after that.

Jim

for the moment i can't adequately elaborate the reason the 1080i stations are really sending 1440x1080 instead of 1920x1080 but i have seen this referenced repeatedly in current articles about HDTV - the really good articles - such as this one i think: http://www.jonasjensen.com/multi.htm .

All that says is that in Japan they changed 1920 to 1440 and Sony requested we do it here because they find that at the alloted data rate it would be better to have less resolution because there are visible compression artifacts at 1920x1080i. That is true. It is one more reason why 1280x720 is better.

thanks, rsilvers... i have seen reference to the 1440x1280 thing elsewhere, but i'm happy to be wrong about this! naturally from a technical basis i prefer 1920x1080, even though i doubt my TV could render any visible difference between a 1440x1080 signal compared to a 1920x1080 (sony 34xbr2).

Someone counted the aperture mask on the RCA F38310 that I have and it was 960x1063 or something like that. I forgot exactly.

If you look at your screen up close, you will see about 20 black lines per inch. Multiply 20 by how many inches wide your screen is, and that is the physical limit on resolution. If you ask Sony why they did this rather than have 1920, they would say something about people liking their TVs bright and their focus groups where they interview people suggest that people respond to brightness over resolution using average program content.

Anyone having this problem? I have the TS160 STB and when tuning in WLVI 56.1, the picture comes on then about 4 seconds later, the audio comes on, and it is out of sync for the whole 4 seconds, I am getting 70% signal, so that is not the problem, anyone have this problem?

Jim

anyone here from SE Massachusetts? or providence areas?

Cape Cod here :D

Marshfield comes in signal ~60/100 on my RCA F38310 with a $23 Radio Shack UHF-only Yagi in the attic. No preamp. 27 miles from the tower.

Originally posted by sasrlp
anyone here from SE Massachusetts? or providence areas? Yes

What happened to the playoff games in HDTV ??

It's my understanding the HD starts next week with the Divisional games, not the wild card games.
Gregg

Titan tv listed todays game on CBS in hdtv

Originally posted by jalferes
Titan tv listed todays game on CBS in hdtv

Titantv quite often gives misinformation. The HDTV games are divisional playoff games and the AFC Championship, not wildcard games. And, of course, the Super Bowl will be in 720p HDTV on channel 5.

i thought that the CBS game would be in HD -- well -- next week at least! But now Ch 25 is taking the widescreen network feed and squeezing it into a 4:3 frame with sidebars. Still, they seem to be trying to pass the widescreen. I hope they have it fixed for Monday night.

Also -- I am experiencing my first troubles with WLVI-DT. Anyone else having different problems with them today that weren't before today ??

Anyone having problems with Ch 25? I think I'm having a problem picking it up on the HD tuner of my Mitsubishi 65511. I just watched the AFC game without any problems. I'm in Sharon, in case that matters.

25.1 has been fine here since 4:00PM

Anyone having the same problems as me as I asked above ^^^^?

I did a complete reboot of the TS160 and reset it to defaults using the service menu and now the video comes on, 4 seconds later the audio syncs up on my DD decoder, but now the audio is AHEAD of the video by 4 seconds instead of behind, I tried Dolby Digital and PCM settings and neither will sync up, is anyone having a audio sync problem with WLVI with ANY STB? This is driving me crazy.

Jim

I have the Sammy 160 and have the exact same problem...The audio sync has been off by several seconds for a few days. I suspect it's the station since it was O.K. for the Rose Parade then went out of sync a day or so later....

Originally posted by vfrjim
Anyone having this problem? I have the TS160 STB and when tuning in WLVI 56.1, the picture comes on then about 4 seconds later, the audio comes on, and it is out of sync for the whole 4 seconds, I am getting 70% signal, so that is not the problem, anyone have this problem?

Jim
i'm having a similar but different problem with wlvi--when i switch to wlvi, the sound comes on for a couple of seconds and then goes away. if i switch to a different channel then back, sound comes back on for a couple of seconds then goes away again. the picture is fine--no breakups. i'm using a myhd card.

bob

OK, since I am not the only one having this issue, I sent an email to the station engineer.

Thanks guys/gals

Jim

For the love of god, if someone knows who to contact at FXT, call them and tell them they're not passing through the widescreen shows!

I'd suggest asking them to change it back to 480p too, as I thought it looked better that way. But that's up to you I guess. I bet you they don't even realize they're upscaling to 720p.