So can someone tell me how to get 41-1/56-1 on my SIR-T150? I am running v2.0 and have about 50% on my strength meter on channel 41-0 but it never resolves to 41-1. I can receive all of the other local stations-any suggestions on how to force it to resolve the PSIP? I've tried manually adding it as well as constantly changing back and forth to 41 to try to "catch" the PSIP with no luck.

Thanks!

Tom

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.

I emailed the station engineer with this problem.

Jim

Originally posted by TomInMa
So can someone tell me how to get 41-1/56-1 on my SIR-T150? I am running v2.0 and have about 50% on my strength meter on channel 41-0 but it never resolves to 41-1. I can receive all of the other local stations-any suggestions on how to force it to resolve the PSIP? I've tried manually adding it as well as constantly changing back and forth to 41 to try to "catch" the PSIP with no luck.

Thanks!

Tom

See the discussions in the hardware section re the 150 tuner and rev 2 code vs 1.8 code. Many people have found that the 1.8 code works on more stations. My Samsung 150 with 1.8 was working fine on channel 41, till I updated to the 165 tuner, which also mostly works.

channel 41 is still playing with the psip, so there are day to day variations. Currently I am having trouble with my Zenith tuner getting them, and that always worked back when my Samsungs didn't.

If someone in the area has a LCD or Plasma HDTV display, I am wondering if you can give me your observation comparing Ch. 5's HD resolution against Ch.2, 4 or 7. I'm toying with the idea of acquiring a TV that can pass native 720p resolution, and I'm wondering if it would be worth my while, what with MNF going HD next fall. I would appreciate any input from Boston area viewers, especially if you have seen 720p upconverted to 1080i, side by side with a native 720p set. I have never seen Ch.5 on a 720p set. It looks great on my Mits WS65087, so I don't know if it would be worth it or not to upgrade. Again any input and/or suggestion is welcome.

Originally posted by Benji
If someone in the area has a LCD or Plasma HDTV display, I am wondering if you can give me your observation comparing Ch. 5's HD resolution against Ch.2, 4 or 7. I'm toying with the idea of acquiring a TV that can pass native 720p resolution, and I'm wondering if it would be worth my while, what with MNF going HD next fall. I would appreciate any input from Boston area viewers, especially if you have seen 720p upconverted to 1080i, side by side with a native 720p set. I have never seen Ch.5 on a 720p set. It looks great on my Mits WS65087, so I don't know if it would be worth it or not to upgrade. Again any input and/or suggestion is welcome.

I think you need to ask yourself if the upconversion artifacts are bothersome to you now? I have a crt projector and can switch 1080 or 720, and I can see 720 is slightly better with 720 sources, but I never bother to switch it down to 720. But most shows I watch are in 1080, and I have to switch on the back of the tuner, which is very inconvenient.

jhe...when you say 720p is slightly better, are you referring to the actual resolution, or the lack of motion artifacts. Have you ever seen MNF in 720p HD when it was on? If so, how would you compare it to Ch. 4's SEC Game of the Week, or HDNet's football telecasts (if you have Directv). I don't want to spend that much $$$ if the difference is insignificant. I wish I could see an actual 720p display to make my own decision. But the only ones in my area (plasmas) are fed DVDs and are not connected for OTA broadcasts.

Hello all,

I subscribe to Shrewsbury Cable HDTV package which includes Discovery HD, along with NCB, CBS and ABC. The question is, do any of these stations use Dolby Digital 5.1 sound in any of their programs?? I have a coax cable running form the cable box to the receiver but it never detects Dolby sound when the HDTV channels are on.........

All all that are having the audio problems with WLVI, I just got off the phone with the station's engineer, Franco, they did a software upgrade of thier encoder after the first of the year and it seems that this is when the problem occured. The software upgrade was suppose to fix problems with PSIP issues, but it seems that it caused the Audio Sync problem. Also, they are progressing on the power increase and hopefully it will be going up soon, he could not give a date, but it is progressing. I will give updates as I get them.

Jim

PS: No response from WFXT yet.

Anyone can call the WFXT main number and ask for Engineering. I just did. The first engineer I got I asked if I could talk to "someone familiar with their digital broadcasts" and was told the main guy was out but the guy on the phone said he would forward the message on. I told him specifically that they haven't been passing widescreen shows since the middle of december and that specifically, last night, Macolm in the Middle which said it was widescreen in the intro was not actually broadcast in widescreen. I said it would be nice if they could get it fixed by Tuesday night in time for 24.

It probably wouldn't hurt for more people to call in - I figure the more people who complain the more likely they are to take the problem seriously. The number I called was the main one listed in superpages - (781) 467-2525 which I think is answered by a switchboard operator type.

What can be done to get the Boston stations to begin updating their program guide information? It sure would be nice to be able to use the digital program guide, but none of the Boston stations send us any guide info! Is their anything that can be done, or must we wait for the stations to get their acts together? Does anyone think that I am expecting, or asking for too much here?

Originally posted by Soycrema
Hello all,

I subscribe to Shrewsbury Cable HDTV package which includes Discovery HD, along with NCB, CBS and ABC. The question is, do any of these stations use Dolby Digital 5.1 sound in any of their programs?? I have a coax cable running form the cable box to the receiver but it never detects Dolby sound when the HDTV channels are on.........

Currently the only local station passing Dolby 5.1 is channel 5-1 on its HD broadcasts only. I can't speak for Discovery because I use Directv. To clearify, 5-1 passes 5.1 on ABC-HD programming. Occassionally Chronicle is shown in HD but in 2.0.

Originally posted by Jakes
What can be done to get the Boston stations to begin updating their program guide information?

I would like this as well, since I discovered that my set has such a program guide. There is some info in there on some channels but most of it is blank and says "regular schedule"

Hi,

I have been reading the recent posts on FXT and my problem seems to be different - I am getting the video feed (no widescreen coming through) but the sound quality is absolutely horrible. It is about 20 dB louder than all other stations (2.1,2.2,4.1,5.1,7.1,23.1,39.1 and 41.1). Even turning down the volume (an immediate response when the volume is that much higher) doesn't do anything for the quality of the sound.

I am running a SIR-T151 Sammy and this was not an issue up until about a month ago.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Chris

I just called Fox25 and talked to the new department and asked them to pass a message along to engineering wondering about the widescreen digital broadcast. They woman seemed to appreciate it and actually be willing to do it...

At the very least, maybe they'll realize that there ARE people watching... :-)

I don't have any great love for Fox High-Resolution TV, but I have less affinity for the poor upconverts they give us...

Re: Looking for 720p v. 1080i comparison

I have my Sam165 set for 1080 and view on my Pioneer 503CMX. I
occasionally try 720 but prefer ch5.1 viewed with the output set to
1080. It's the motion artifacts that are bothersome. BTW, I use the
component output not dvi.

I just started to receive 7.1 and 38.1 tonight for the first time so I
can't comment on those yet.

BTW, The SEC game that I viewed on 4 a couple of weeks ago was awesome!

The Sam165 also does a pretty good job of converting my cable
box (sa3100) s-video output for the panel

As mentioned by jhe, it is a pain to switch formats. Not hard, but a pain.
And I can't do a side-by-side comparison.

Is there some technical reason why ABC uses 720p all the time? I could see using 720p for video documentaries and sports, but if one wanted to convert film to HDTV, 1080/24p is the obvious and best choice without any question whatsoever, with 1080i as a second choice. So could they switch formats on a show-by-show basis if they wanted?

My rather brief experience with HBO-HD and Discovery HDT is that my settop always locks on a DD signal, but the number of channels coming through are either 5.1 or 2.0 depending on the program.

Chris

Channel 5 has been advertizing tomorrows Chronicle as being in HD. The program is about Mt. Washington.

Also-- I have been receiving DD5.1 from HDNET since last week on my Sony HD100.

Jay

Originally posted by Soycrema
Hello all,

I subscribe to Shrewsbury Cable HDTV package which includes Discovery HD, along with NBC, CBS and ABC. The question is, do any of these stations use Dolby Digital 5.1 sound in any of their programs?? I have a coax cable running form the cable box to the receiver but it never detects Dolby sound when the HDTV channels are on.........

I did a quick check tonight, and I did not get detection either. I did however get detection OTA via my HD 100. I will check tomorrow. I cannot check HBO or Showtime from cable I receive those from D*. Do you receive HBO or Showtime Shrewsbury Cable?

On a another subect, I have been experiencing audio drops/pops on the local’s channels (287,285,284) and not Discovery HD. This seems to occur when first switching to a channel and only when using digital audio. Is anyone experiencing the same problem?

SOYCREMA...Just occurred to me that your cable box connection is by coaxial cable. Does your box have an audio digital output? If so, that may be the only way to pass 5.1 DD through.

I was a beta tester for Shrewsbury HD cable, and have been watching it since last August. Shrewsbury cable does pass 5.1 DD through when it's available from the networks. ABC (local WCVB-DT) and HBO both pass 5.1 DD through when available. I believe some of the Discovery programs are also presented with 5.1 DD.

-D

imho the fox25 picture looks noticeably better now on my 1080i tv now that it is upconverted to 720p by WFXT. but WFXT/25.1 remains unwatchable due to their ever-present PSIP problems which force my sony TV to very-often blank the picture and put up the dialog boxes "25.1 is now available on 31.1" <click exit> "31.1 is now available on 25.1" <click exit> <lather> <rinse> <repeat>

Originally posted by Benji
jhe...when you say 720p is slightly better, are you referring to the actual resolution, or the lack of motion artifacts. Have you ever seen MNF in 720p HD when it was on? If so, how would you compare it to Ch. 4's SEC Game of the Week, or HDNet's football telecasts (if you have Directv). I don't want to spend that much $$$ if the difference is insignificant. I wish I could see an actual 720p display to make my own decision. But the only ones in my area (plasmas) are fed DVDs and are not connected for OTA broadcasts.

Again I'd say it is up to you. Some people are very bothered by upconverts. Others aren't. For me sharpness is everything, and I see huge differences in my two current tuners (Samsung 165 and Zenith 420), when both are set to 1080i. I prefer the extra sharpness on the Samsung.

I would say the 720 shown in 1080i looks more like a loss of sharpness than motion artifacts, but they are clearly motion artifacts if you go up really close. The difference seems less to me than the difference between tuner brands.

As to the shows you mention, I would find it difficult to compare differences unless they were both on together and I could AB switch them quickly.

Maybe you could find a store equipped with HD disks or tapes that could do an AB comparison for you.

Anyone else having reception problems tonight? I was having issues on almost all my OTA channels and a friends network HD channels (ABC, NBC, etc) were pixelating and breaking up on his Shrewsbury Cable HD feed. Are we being jammed by an alien lifeform?

-JR

From Cambridge: I was able to get everything with an outside-mounded Silver Sensor, but I could not leave well enough alone. So I switchted to a UHF-75 from RS and it worked well but required the rotor to get WB and PBS, so I then went to a CM2001 thinking the wider-angle would help -- but lost 56 and 25 and the VHF analog was ghost-city. So now I have a VU-90 VHF/UHF and the analog looks funny with it -- like it is pixilized! I wonder if the angled VHF rods are causing that look (can anyone comment on this aspect of antenna design?). And it gets FOX-DT but still not WLVI-DT even though they look fine analog. Sigh. Maybe I will get a CM4248 but then not sure what to do about VHF. Maybe a tiny VHF tied to it or even the CM2001 with the UHF section sawed off since I just need VHF for surfing and not so much for watching. See, my RCA groups the channels together with a program guide so I like to have some VHF analog.

all the channels were as-usual last night for me in southern NH except for 7.1 which was doing the psip shuffle and also sometimes had carrier but no picture and other times had picture but no audio.

Originally posted by tveli
all the channels were as-usual last night for me in southern NH except for 7.1 which was doing the psip shuffle and also sometimes had carrier but no picture and other times had picture but no audio.

I've got picture/no audio since last evening on 7-1. Might be time to fire off an email to Jim Shultis at WHDH although he probably already is aware of the problem. Incidentally, the pic/no audio is on both my Hughes and DTC-100.

Normal reception for me (I never turned to check on NH.)
Except:

41 was bad on both my tuners. I got video once or twice,
for a few seconds, but never when aimed toward the good signal on the meters. One tuner never got sound. Never seen this before. Neither tuner stayed long enough to watch.

I have seen nights where I had to detune from the peak meter reading due to multipath to get the best glitch free picture. But this was worse. It was like the meter was wired backwards suddenly.


42 was their usual blank screen when the PSIP is wrong.

(Tuners used: Samsung 165 and Zenith 420)

I got no picture on 7-1, until I realized that they are broadcasting on 42-1 now, instead of 42-2. Once I punched in 42-1 manually, everything was fine.

I was also having problems in Cambridge last night with all the stations. Generally lower signal levels, and much more difficulty getting 23-1 to come in, nothing at all on 9-1 (are they on the air?) 38-1 has become impossible for me as well...


Edit: Scratch all this; when I was on vacation, my window screen was reinstalled. Grrrrrr. I'm sure once I remove it, my reception will be back to normal. Funny how those Faraday cages work...

And 7-1 still appears to be 42-2. But I did have to put in 42-1 once get something other than a black screen. Something must have changed on their end.

Does anyone know what WFXT is doing with their 16x9 broadcasts? It's bad enough that the "Fox Widescreen" football games have been 4x3, but I was very disappointed that 24 was last night as well. What do they say when people call them? Do they have any idea what they're doing?

SMK

Originally posted by Soycrema
Hello all,

I subscribe to Shrewsbury Cable HDTV package which includes Discovery HD, along with NBC, CBS and ABC. The question is, do any of these stations use Dolby Digital 5.1 sound in any of their programs?? I have a coax cable running form the cable box to the receiver but it never detects Dolby sound when the HDTV channels are on.........


I checked last night and audio was passed thru Shrewsbury cable on 284 and 285 I was unable to check 287 as I was unable to get 7 (OTA) last night.

I did find a minor setup problem on my receiver for cable; you may what to check your receiver setup. (Cable was not set to "auto" for the digital input).

For Shrewsbury Cable Users:

Are you experiencing any digital audio “drops/pops” on 284, 285, or 287? When I first tune to these stations I experience audio “drops/pops” any where from a second or two to a minute of audio cuts. This only occurs with digital audio out.

I do not experience any problems on 280.

Is any one else having this problem?

Thanks

You can email Fox25 at their website:
www.fox25.com
[then click 'Your Ideas' for a feedback form]

I sent an email this morning, but we might not get a diect reply. It can't hurt to send more emails, especially if you want to see NFL playoffs this weekend in real Faux Widescreen.
;-)

Keith

I checked last night and audio was passed thru Shrewsbury cable on 284 and 285 I was unable to check 287 as I was unable to get 7 (OTA) last night.

I did find a minor setup problem on my receiver for cable; you may what to check your receiver setup. (Cable was not set to "auto" for the digital input).

For Shrewsbury Cable Users:

Are you experiencing any digital audio “drops/pops” on 284, 285, or 287? When I first tune to these stations I experience audio “drops/pops” any where from a second or two to a minute of audio cuts. This only occurs with digital audio out.

I do not experience any problems on 280.

Is any one else having this problem?

Yes Tom I also have the same problem with the coax cable going to my receiver, but I did get DD 5.1 from ABC the other night so at least I know the digital out is workin from the cable box. I have not had any problems with the digital audio out, I will check again tonight just in case.

Thanks [/QUOTE]

Benji,

Thank you for your input, yes, my cable box has a coax audia cable connected to my receiver for DD 5.1

Jose

as folks are asking ...

last night (Tues 1/7) reception was good in So. NH except:

WMUR DT 59(9) seems to be off the air completely

WBZ DT30(4) had very minor glitching (maybe three moments of digital hash during JAG) usually -- they are rock solid. Where others said they had problems -- are we having sunspot activity ??

WFXT DT31(25) is still not passing the widescreen. On Sunday == they broadcast the Football PreGame in Widescreen with black bars on the side -- making everyone really skinny! For the game -- they just passed the pillar boxed 4:3 signal.

WLVI DT42(56) On my RCA DTC-100, I had been having no trouble with 'LVI at all, but since the "upgrade" they did, I now get a "freeze-run" effect on the channel -- even with great signal strength! About once a second, the picture freezes and then run. I guess this is my tuner reacting in its own way the the same issiues others have reported

Lets hope FXT has things set for football Saturday, eh ??

WFXT UPDATE:

I received an email from the station's engineer with an update to the widescreen problem, here is the email:

I wanted to let you know that we are still sorting out some technical problems with the widescreen format and some equipment combatibility issues while trying to broadcast in 480p from the new facility. This probably won't be addressed until I return from my vacation next week.
I also wanted to thank you for your help.
Talk to you soon

Bill Carr

I've talked to Bill on the phone previously and he is very helpful, so this should be resolved next week(hopefully)

Jim

First to answer TomL's question, no, I have not had problems with audio dropouts recently, but I did when I was a beta tester last August. I had one of my 3100HD box exchanged and that seemed to fix it. Another beta tester and I had similar problems, and we think they were temperature related. Might want to call SCC and ask to swap boxes.

On another note, I've noticed off and on that during scenes of fast motion (camera pans, sports events, etc.) I see what looks like frame drops or motion judder/stutter on many of the HD channels (Discovery on 280 and WCVB on 285 in particular). I notice it maybe a handful of times during a program, and it's very subtle (split second pauses) but noticable.

Any other Shrewsbury subscribers seeing this? I emailed Wayne Cullen at SCC, but haven't heard back yet.

Thanks,
-D

DMILANI,

I am seeing these frame drops as well on all the hd channels. I am glad know that it isn't only my problem.

I also have noticed that the audio is not in sync with the video on 287. Have you noticed this too?

Derek

Derek,

I don't watch 287 much, so I haven't noticed. I'll check it out and report later.

-D

-D

Thanks. Also, have you asked them if they would consider adding fox?

Derek

Yes, I've asked about new channels, and I was told they were expecting to add a few more in the "New Year" but never got any details of what and when. In particular, for WGBH-DT, they are waiting for the FCC to give license to cover, which should happen soon.

-D

See my latest FCC update in:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1723042#post1723042

Changes for WTIC-DT in Hartford CT could affect some local
Boston Area viewers of WFXT-DT. This is especially for those with channel 30 WBZ-DT problems, from CT analog 30.
Now you will have two channel 31's to contend with.

Probably will kill WFXT-DT's requests for more power also???

Hi DMILANI,

I have not recently had audio dropouts. I had them for a while back in August, but they have not regularly occurred since then.

On the judder/stutter I do recall seeing it only once in the last week during camera pan. Since it only occurred once, I dismissed it as minor signal loss.

I'll keep an eye out for it.

As I was typing this message, I got a response from SCC on future channel offerings. HDNet is one possible offering that they are currently investigating. No other channel specifics were noted. (I had requested ESPN-HD after March 30th, WSBK-DT and WGBH-DT) I hadn't asked about FOX (since they aren't really broadcasting in HD).

Scott

Hi Scott. Glad to see there's a small group of us here that can exchange ideas and issues related to SCC.

Please keep an eye out for this motion issue, as I think it's not subtle once you see it and know what to look for. I did get an email back from Wayne at SCC saying they would look into it. I mentioned Derek K. was also seeing this. The more people that email/call them, the quicker they will jump on this.

I'm thinking the problem must be on the headend, as the 3100HD box is used throughout the country, and I've never seen any posts related to this problem that we're seeing in Shrewsbury. I even started a thread a long while back when I was seeing this problem mostly on HD-HBO, but never got any substantial responses.

See ya,
-D

Originally posted by Derek K.
DMILANI,

I am seeing these frame drops as well on all the hd channels. I am glad know that it isn't only my problem.

I also have noticed that the audio is not in sync with the video on 287. Have you noticed this too?

Derek

The only audio sync problem on 287 I was able to verify it was also occurring OTA. This was also noticed by others and reported in this thread.

Video on 285 I was also able to verify this was occurring OTA this past weekend. I have not seen any other problems except the audio problem for the local channels.

I will call SCC tomorrow about the audio problem I am having.

Tom

Tom, when you say you verified the video problem on 285 was also occurring OTA can you be more specific? Are you saying you saw frame rate issues or motion studdering during fast moving scenes OTA?

If so, I've never seen that with OTA with my HiPix or MyHD cards (or my previous Samsung OTA tuner). We're not talking picture video dropouts (I may not have explained it well above) or pixelization. It's like the video hiccups for a split second. This seems to occur on all channels (including Discovery and HBO).

Let us know if you see this anomoly during smooth camera pans, etc., as it is easier to pick up on scenes like this.

-D



Originally posted by TomL
The only audio sync problem on 287 I was able to verify it was also occurring OTA. This was also noticed by others and reported in this thread.

Video on 285 I was also able to verify this was occurring OTA this past weekend. I have not seen any other problems except the audio problem for the local channels.

I will call SCC tomorrow about the audio problem I am having.

Tom

On ABC last weekend (SAT & SUN) it was almost like a 1/4 sec freeze and a wave like motion artifact which occurred several time on both SCC and OTA. I thought the problem was a Network issue, I have not seen this occur again. This is what I thought you were referring to, I have not seen any thing other than the rare occasionally green squares on the local channels. I do not have HBO or Showtime from SCC, and I have not seen any problem with Discovery.

Bob Hess: I just picked up a new Zenith Sat-520 HD receiver. I can receive 38-1 on my DTC-100 with a fairly strong signal,but the Zenith won't accept either 38-1 or 39-1. I do get analog 38 (snowy pic). The DTC-100 and 520 are attached to the same antenna line. Do you know of any reason the Zenith won't accept the WSBK-DT signal. And if anyone else in the area has the 520, are you receiving 38-1 (39-1)? Thanks for any input.

Incidentally, I can get digital 2, 4, 5, 7 and 25 with the Zenith, but not digital 38.

Originally posted by Benji
Bob Hess: I just picked up a new Zenith Sat-520 HD receiver. I can receive 38-1 on my DTC-100 with a fairly strong signal,but the Zenith won't accept either 38-1 or 39-1. I do get analog 38 (snowy pic). The DTC-100 and 520 are attached to the same antenna line. Do you know of any reason the Zenith won't accept the WSBK-DT signal. And if anyone else in the area has the 520, are you receiving 38-1 (39-1)? Thanks for any input.

Well, with my RCA set I cannot get WLVI with a Radio Shack VU90 and cannot get FOX or WLVI with a CM2001 but can get everything with a Radio Shack UHF75. And all along I get the analogs just fine. So do what I do -- buy a new antenna every two days until they all work. I know it worked with your other receiver but everything is so finicky that I bet another antenna would work. I assume you have a rotor but if not you might have ghosts which are causing the Zenith to not lock on so try some other antenna angles.

Did anyone else lose WSBK 38.1 last night at ~8:00? I was getting a strong signal until just before the start of Enterprise. Then the video started dropping out followed shortly after by the dreaded "No Signal". It came in and out a few times over the next few minutes with my Samsung T150 showing the signal bouncing between half scale (strong signal) and zero. Then it went out and never came back. I live about 13 miles from the antenna and I've never had a problem with 38 before.

Originally posted by dhp
Did anyone else lose WSBK 38.1 last night at ~8:00? I was getting a strong signal until just before the start of Enterprise. Then the video started dropping out followed shortly after by the dreaded "No Signal". It came in and out a few times over the next few minutes with my Samsung T150 showing the signal bouncing between half scale (strong signal) and zero. Then it went out and never came back. I live about 13 miles from the antenna and I've never had a problem with 38 before.
We are not aware of any problems with WSBK-DT but are checking the stream to verify.

Benji, how is your signal strength in the Zenith. Anyone else have problems with WSBK-DT, 38.1, in Zenith receivers? We do not own a Zenith so I can't verify.

By the way, there were a few questions about the lack of a program guide on our stations. Frankly, we have been focusing on the HDTV infrastructure of our three stations and the program guide has not been on the front burner. I am hoping to have something up before the end of the year.

Bob

Kinda off thread but there's some great info about HD production and explaination of the 720P vs 1080i argument HERE (http://www.jonasjensen.com/multi.htm)

-JR

Originally posted by rsilvers
Well, with my RCA set I cannot get WLVI with a Radio Shack VU90 and cannot get FOX or WLVI with a CM2001 but can get everything with a Radio Shack UHF75. And all along I get the analogs just fine. So do what I do -- buy a new antenna every two days until they all work. I know it worked with your other receiver but everything is so finicky that I bet another antenna would work. I assume you have a rotor but if not you might have ghosts which are causing the Zenith to not lock on so try some other antenna angles.

I agree regarding the rotor part. I regularly switch between a Zenith and Samsung tuners. There are many stations that will not come in on one when the antenna is aimed for the other, even though normally each works about as well as the other when the antenna is aimed for it.

Originally posted by Bob Hess
We are not aware of any problems with WSBK-DT but are checking the stream to verify.

Benji, how is your signal strength in the Zenith. Anyone else have problems with WSBK-DT, 38.1, in Zenith receivers? We do not own a Zenith so I can't verify.

By the way, there were a few questions about the lack of a program guide on our stations. Frankly, we have been focusing on the HDTV infrastructure of our three stations and the program guide has not been on the front burner. I am hoping to have something up before the end of the year.

Bob

Bob Hess,

No problems with my Zenith on 39, but it is a 420 model.

Originally posted by Bob Hess
By the way, there were a few questions about the lack of a program guide on our stations. Frankly, we have been focusing on the HDTV infrastructure of our three stations and the program guide has not been on the front burner. I am hoping to have something up before the end of the year.

Bob

Thanks for the reply Bob. I look forward to the day when the program guide information is available. However, the HDTV aspect is infinitely more important to me.;)

Scott,

I was thinking of emailing SCC to request more HDTV channels....could you let me know their e-mail address please?
Thanks!

Jose

Thanks for checking Bob - BTW when 38 went out I continued to receive the other Boston stations (4, 5, 7, 25, - No 56, but I have never been able to receive 56) with no problems.

I live in Shrewsbury and recently got HDTV. I have a 53" Pioneer Elite rear projection TV with the 3000HD cable box video directly connected to it via component video, and the audio goes through my Rotel equipment.

Last night (Wednesday), and several nights for that matter, all my HD channels were either hiccuping (black screen or frozen picture) or breaking up both in the audio and video signals. My wife forced me to switch back to the analog channel so she could watch the Bachelorette show (I think on 285). Boy was she annoyed.

On some nights, I have no problem at all, so I doubt it's something on my end.

Maybe some of us should get on the phone and see if the glitches are occurring at exactly the same time. Send me a private message if you want my phone number.

Nick

Attn : Moderator

I thought this thread was to address Boston BROADCAST issues?
Nothing against you Shrewsbury Cable guys but this thread is long enough without your interesting but off-topic discussion !
Maybe a separate thread is in order for SCC stuff ?

Regards,
Steve Longo

Agreed, maybe use this thread for SCC specific posts:

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

-D

Originally posted by SuperVision2010
Attn : Moderator

I thought this thread was to address Boston BROADCAST issues?
Nothing against you Shrewsbury Cable guys but this thread is long enough without your interesting but off-topic discussion !
Maybe a separate thread is in order for SCC stuff ?

Regards,
Steve Longo
I'm probably in the minority, but I like one stop shopping. I find the Shrewsbury comments interesting on this thread.

Bob

Originally posted by johnrobinson
Anyone else having reception problems tonight? I was having issues on almost all my OTA channels and a friends network HD channels (ABC, NBC, etc) were pixelating and breaking up on his Shrewsbury Cable HD feed. Are we being jammed by an alien lifeform?

-JR

Absolutely..... It is becoming so frustrating trying to battle all of the uncertantities. The only channel that came in strong last night was ABC (5-1), everything else was sporadic and low strength.

Mitchman

Bob Hess: The Zenith 520 does not have a signal strength meter, only a bar at the bottom of each station going from weak to normal to good. I get good signals on 2, 4, 5, and 7, and weak+ signal on 25. But 39-1 refuses to lock in therefore no strength bar. Hopefully I'll figure it out before baseball season!

Pixelation complaints seem to be growing, and I don't think it is just coincidence we have snow.

I wonder how many of the cable companies are prepared to reaim their antennas once snow covers the ground! It cures most of my pixelization problems.

The Boston stations are pretty stable now, esp ones on air over a year. Sometimes something breaks or they get bad code upgrades, but this is usually obvious, since it will make only one station go bad, and not all.

Generally pixelization troubles are usually at the receiver end. Sometimes, due to very bad locations or distance in the far fringe you have to live with it.

I am in a worse location than most viewers, and get all 13 current area stations (12 on air these days). I have bothersome pixelization problems (say more than two glitches per evening not obviously caused by a plane overhead, which I can't fix) on only 2 of these, one is local, one in the fringe.

Bob Hess,

My Zenith 420 has a meter. 39 reads good as any other channel. Doesn't necessarily mean much though since 41 reads fine too, but won't come in on that tuner currently. Have to switch to my Samsung 150 (rev 1.8 code) or 165 for that one.

So I guess the 520 is quite a different tuner from mine.

thurs channels?

anyone have 4.1 or 7.1 on a Samsung165?

4.1 went out today (had it last night and I'm getting 38.1 great)

7.1 has been out since tuesday

thanx

Yes -- I too lost signal on UPN 38 -- just before Enterprise. It was with the antenna pointed where it always is and I had never had any trouble before. I found rotating the antenna east about 20 degrees gave me enough signal to regain picture and watch the show without a glitch, but signal strength was down to the mid 50s where it has always been in the mid 80's.

I am suprised at how good 38 broadcast looks with essentially just a "zoomed in" standard def picture - a nice way to broadcast until true HD arrives

Seeing the same thing as jhe on the Zenith 420. Everything is fine except for 41, which won't come in at all.

Last night Fox was showing up as 31-2 instead of 25-1, so something must be going on with their PSIP data...

I was able to receive WSBK 38.1 again last night (after losing it the night before). There were, however, some problems again at just about 8:00PM. The voice was fine but I had the picture freeze for relatively long periods of time (5 - 10 seconds) several times over a 5 or 10 minute period around 8:00 PM. There was also several episodes of severe pixelation. I watched the signal strength and it seemed to drop slightly (one "line" on my Samsung T150) when there was a problem. In fact I could see the dropped line on my meter flashing quickly during the problem. I wonder if there was actually a much more significant, but short lived, drop of power and my meter could not keep up with it to show the full fluctuation. That is just speculation on my part. After 5-10 minutes everything cleared up and WSBK was solid for the rest of the evening. Once again, the other Boston stations (except for WLVI which I've never received) had no problems last night.

One final note: I received a reply from WLVI to the e-mail I sent complaining about the lack of signal. They said they are aware of the problem that certain receivers are having with their signal and are investigating.

Originally posted by dhp
I was able to receive WSBK 38.1 again last night (after losing it the night before). There were, however, some problems again at just about 8:00PM. The voice was fine but I had the picture freeze for relatively long periods of time (5 - 10 seconds) several times over a 5 or 10 minute period around 8:00 PM. There was also several episodes of severe pixelation. I watched the signal strength and it seemed to drop slightly (one "line" on my Samsung T150) when there was a problem. In fact I could see the dropped line on my meter flashing quickly during the problem. I wonder if there was actually a much more significant, but short lived, drop of power and my meter could not keep up with it to show the full fluctuation. That is just speculation on my part. After 5-10 minutes everything cleared up and WSBK was solid for the rest of the evening. Once again, the other Boston stations (except for WLVI which I've never received) had no problems last night.

No problems at WSBK last night.

- Bob

Originally posted by jjk58
thurs channels?

anyone have 4.1 or 7.1 on a Samsung165?

4.1 went out today (had it last night and I'm getting 38.1 great)

7.1 has been out since tuesday

thanx
4.1 has been stable. No transmission problems.

- Bob

Originally posted by etcarey
I am suprised at how good 38 broadcast looks with essentially just a "zoomed in" standard def picture - a nice way to broadcast until true HD arrives

I have to disagree with you here, etcarey. I hate how UPN crops their digital broadcast by chopping off the bottom and top of the picture. I want OAR. I find it so distracting that I usually watch UPN via cable so that I can see the whole picture.:mad:

I have to disagree with you here, etcarey. I hate how UPN crops their digital broadcast by chopping off the bottom and top of the picture. I want OAR. I find it so distracting that I usually watch UPN via cable so that I can see the whole picture.
-------------------------------------------------------------

I completely agree with Jakes on this one. I can not bring myself to watch UPN38 because of the silly zoom and crop. Please, just leave 4:3 programming 4:3 and let the user zoom/crop/stretch it if they want to. Standard def zoomed and cropped is a waste of bandwidth, IMHO. On the upside, UPN38 signal has been solid.

I would rather have a standard 4:3 on WSBK, but I tolerate thier 14:9, but since they changed thier morning schedule this past week, I have been watching it less and less.

Jim

Another vote for leaving 4:3 material 4:3.

UPN 38's setup is really annoying.

Originally posted by Bob Hess
4.1 has been stable. No transmission problems.

- Bob

Interesting. I was unable to receive WBZ last night also, but I just assumed it was some problem at the source as this station has typically been my best received and most reliable signal. I'm in Bolton with an RCA-DTC100. Now I'm concerned. This morning, I'm barely picking it up (signal strength on the DTC-100 is around 30, which is marginal). If there's no transmission problems at the source, I wonder what could be up. Anyone else having trouble? If I miss the Steelers on Saturday in HD, I am going to be severely bummed...

Originally posted by Bob Hess
4.1 has been stable. No transmission problems.

- Bob


thanx, I checked again this am and 4.1 is back viewable.
(?? no changes to the setup) and 7.1 is there as well...

Of course not willing to let working things work, I started messing
with the antenna(s) and was also able to pickup wfxt(31) here in
sNH for a brief time.

Originally posted by mythical_phenix
Interesting. I was unable to receive WBZ last night also, but I just assumed it was some problem at the source as this station has typically been my best received and most reliable signal. I'm in Bolton with an RCA-DTC100. Now I'm concerned. This morning, I'm barely picking it up (signal strength on the DTC-100 is around 30, which is marginal). If there's no transmission problems at the source, I wonder what could be up. Anyone else having trouble? If I miss the Steelers on Saturday in HD, I am going to be severely bummed...
I am also a viewer besides working for WBZ. Last night I watched CSI and Without a Trace and the picture was stable. I also continue to use a DTC-100. After trying almost every other receiver on the market, I keep going back to the old trusty DTC-100.

Bob

I will take it one step forward- Not only do I want the picture OAR, but I want it native resolution as well, no upscaling. Leave it to the consumer to decide how to display the broadcast. I thought that was part of the advantages of digital?

Well -- I would like 720p sent as 720p for sure. And 1080i as 1080i. Every set is designed to handle every format so I don't see why they cannot switch formats on a show by show basis. But I am glad they upscale the analog channels. Let's face it -- their expensive upscaler is better than whatever is in my set -- and doing it before transmission is probably helpful to the final signal-to-noise-ratio.

Originally posted by DaveFi
I will take it one step forward- Not only do I want the picture OAR, but I want it native resolution as well, no upscaling. Leave it to the consumer to decide how to display the broadcast. I thought that was part of the advantages of digital?

I vote for all 1080i with upconverts at the station. If they follow the low res broadcast as low res they will start selling space on the other 3 sub channels.

Then when a hd broadcast comes along we'll get HD downconverts because somebody bought the 3 subchannels at the time of the broadcast.

And if we lose HD I want analog back. The digital channels are only worth the hassles for Hi Def.

What's up with FOX. Is it just me? I tuned over to 25-1 and nothing. I performed a quick channel scan and Fox digital is now on 31-2. The worse part is that the game is not widescreen. According to the thread on the HDTV programming forum, it is supposed to be.

Am I doing something wrong? I have a DTC-100. Anyone else getting the game in widescreen? What channel?

- Hal

I just called the Fox news desk and they transferred me to the control room. The guy I talked to (Frank) said they are having a problem and are working on it. - Hal

Off topic: Why does Fox-25 have this information on their web site? I have heard of waivers for CBS on Dish, but what is this Direct TV waiver?

- Hal

---------------------------

To Request a Waiver for a Satellite Dish/Direct TV:
Include your name, and address, and let us know if you have an outdoor antenna.


Mail to:
Satellite Waiver Request
PO Box 9125
25 Fox Drive
Dedham, MA 02027-9125

For all of our friends in Boston (and with ExpressVU):

I spoke with the Boston Fox affiliate earlier this week. They are still trying to resolve issues arising from their recent move. They weren't sure about being able to pass EDTV this weekend, but they are optimistic they'll be back on track in the near future.

Thanks Ken. I guess we get regular 4x3 tonight. - Hal

Who knows? They may fix it during halftime.

I talked to Frank too. He (thankfully) seemed fully aware of what the problems were and how everything worked. At least they know we're out there and watching... And at least we now know they're not just hopelessly clueless (I was begining to wonder if they forgot!)

They can apparently do 720p now according to the guy I talked too. We'll see if that means anything useful in the near future though (i.e., Fox passes anything better than 480p...)

Like I posted 3 pages ago regarding WFXT, here is a link: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=1722535#post1722535

The engineer is on vacation and this problem will be addressed this coming week.

Jim

wfxt has been having trouble sending widescreen pictures through to us but i think it's nice they've been broadcasting without the 31.1->25.1 psip shuffle ...
the absence of the 31.1->25.1 mapping makes wfxt watchable on my set - it doesn't constantly tell me "31.1 is available on 25.1" & "25.1 is available on 31.1" ...

I got a call from Michael, an engineer at WLVI today, and they fixed the audio issue, it was related to the PIP and the software update to the encoder, the audio is back in sync for us TS-160, HiPix and other unfortunate souls that had the problem.

Jim

Bob Hess...Problem with not getting a lock on 39-1 solved. I returned the Zenith 520 and picked up a Sammy TS160. I get between 70-80% signal on 39-1. No problem now getting any Boston digital (except for 41-1 which is out of range in Taunton). The Sammy has the strongest tuner of any STB I've tried so far (6 of them in all). With a 30% signal on 31-1,I get no dropouts and/or artifacts of any kind. That's my weakest station (other than 41-1). I highly recommend the TS160 (except for 480p-slightly stretches the image).

yup, wlvi looks good again!

bob (myhd user)

To Bob Hess if you are out there.

Bob this past wekends games came through as being very soft. I called into the control room on Sunday to see if there were any problems and was told that because of snow on the ground the picture may have been effected. I was also told that when you up the power sometime in future that this problem would go away.

My question is this true?

I have enjoyed many programs with no problems and especially the college games the last 2 years where the picture was perfect however the NFL games left allot to be desired.

Thanks in advance

Benji,
I am still seeing at least 60-70% signal on ALL of the Boston stations, including 41-1, down in Warwick R.I. (using Zenith 1080 with indoor antenna).

Keith

Originally posted by steverobertson
To Bob Hess if you are out there.

Bob this past wekends games came through as being very soft. I called into the control room on Sunday to see if there were any problems and was told that because of snow on the ground the picture may have been effected. I was also told that when you up the power sometime in future that this problem would go away.

My question is this true?

I have enjoyed many programs with no problems and especially the college games the last 2 years where the picture was perfect however the NFL games left allot to be desired.

Thanks in advance
Steve,

I suspect the person you talked to does not have a clue. The digital picture is a "what goes in is what comes out" technology. Nothing we can do on our end to make it appear soft. We operate at maximum power allowed by the FCC. We cannot increase power beyond that point.

Bob

am still seeing at least 60-70% signal on ALL of the Boston stations, including 41-1, down in Warwick R.I. (using Zenith 1080 with indoor antenna).

I know, it is funny how people here in the Warwick area can get WLVI with a good signal (I get 69% with a TS160 STB) and people closer to Boston/Needham can't get it at all.

Jim

Bob,

Thanks for the info I thought that it was a strange response. Any idea why the picture would have come accross as soft and not up to the standards of the college games this past fall?

Originally posted by vfrjim
I know, it is funny how people here in the Warwick area can get WLVI with a good signal (I get 69% with a TS160 STB) and people closer to Boston/Needham can't get it at all.

Jim

WLVI-DT has an antenna that beams the signal East. The beam is broad, so anyone from NE to SE of Needham should see the most signal.

Signal coverage to the West will be weaker, but should still be receivable with large antennas in good locations.

http://www.fcc.gov/mb/video/tvq.html and search for WLVI
then look at their antenna polar plots.

Originally posted by pezdoctor
Benji,
I am still seeing at least 60-70% signal on ALL of the Boston stations, including 41-1, down in Warwick R.I. (using Zenith 1080 with indoor antenna).

Keith I live in a condo and have an adjoining apartment building blocking some of the signal in the direction of Needham. I live on the bottom floor. Even so, I get 93% on 20 and 30, and 77% on 42 and 19. I can get 31 with a 30%, but no 41.

Originally posted by Benji
I live in a condo and have an adjoining apartment building blocking some of the signal in the direction of Needham. I live on the bottom floor. Even so, I get 93% on 20 and 30, and 77% on 42 and 19. I can get 31 with a 30%, but no 41.

Even in a good direction I don't think 41 can tolerate much blockage, when you are over 20 miles out. It is very weak at my house at 12 miles, where I am blocked. 31 is quite a bit stronger, at least till 41 gets their proper power level.

41 is back on my Zenith Tuner. Fox is still at 31-2 and not remapping to 25-1. I haven't gotten a blip on 59 (WMUR) in a while. Are they still down or is something interfering with my reception?

has wgbh-dt been transmitting at low power lately? i rarely am able to watch 2.1/2.2 any more - not sure what changed - other than all the snow up here! all the other boston channels work as well as ever for me.

Hi All,

Is anyone else out there having a problem with the audio level and quality on Fox25? It has made the channel unwatchable for the past few weeks for me, it was fine before that. I am running a Samsung SIR-T151.

Thanks,

Chris10

Has anyone else north of mass noticed a signal strength drop in both WCVB-DT and WMUR-DT ?? Both stations have been solid for months -- now both are very difficult to get at all. Have the Hearst-Argille Stations gone low power ??

Originally posted by etcarey
Has anyone else north of mass noticed a signal strength drop in both WCVB-DT and WMUR-DT ?? Both stations have been solid for months -- now both are very difficult to get at all. Have the Hearst-Argille Stations gone low power ??

I'm west of you by ~8-10 miles and 5DT has changed a bit as my antenna
direction has been a bit more picky, but other than that, the signal
strength is the same.

9DT is non-existent and has been for the month that I've had
my receiver. A few days back, I could have sworn that I saw 60s
signal show up on 59 (analog). I have more antenna work to do...

Sometimes I wonder if WFXT is going to go al the way back to broadcating in B&W!

In Boxford- I have had trouble getting ch 7 - WHDH and now tonight WFXT-31, 35 and 60 joined - ch 7 among the missing. Signal strength as measured by my Hitachi xwx dropped into the 40's for all 4 channels.
Does anyone think a rotor will help and if so any specific models e.g. Channelmaster.
I have a roof mounted antenna aimed toward Newton / Needham. The first 6 weeks were great but then ch 7 started dropping out. 2-1,2-2,4-1 and 5-1 are all strong. Would appreciate any suggestions.

wow, it seems like so many people are having reception problems. well, i have to say that i'm getting all the channels with no problems except for fox, using a myhd card with a silver sensor antenna.

bob

Got 59 back; but when I checked they were broadcasting in Stretch-O-Vision. There must be some problems up there.

Everything else seems pretty much normal, although Fox (31) still hasn't gotten their widescreen working properly.

The FCC lists WUNI-DT 29 as being on air with STA. as 1/10/03 on the FCC webpage.

Originally posted by mgpt6
The FCC lists WUNI-DT 29 as being on air with STA. as 1/10/03 on the FCC webpage.

But can anyone receive them ? Sometimes the FCC gets ahead of the station.

Originally posted by jckessler
41 is back on my Zenith Tuner. Fox is still at 31-2 and not remapping to 25-1. I haven't gotten a blip on 59 (WMUR) in a while. Are they still down or is something interfering with my reception?

Both 35 and 59 are still down quite regularly when I look for them.

41 is now back solid, on my Zenith.

Reception of 57 has been extra good lately with this cold weather and the snow cover.

Originally posted by Lyson
In Boxford- I have had trouble getting ch 7 - WHDH and now tonight WFXT-31, 35 and 60 joined - ch 7 among the missing. Signal strength as measured by my Hitachi xwx dropped into the 40's for all 4 channels.
Does anyone think a rotor will help and if so any specific models e.g. Channelmaster.
I have a roof mounted antenna aimed toward Newton / Needham. The first 6 weeks were great but then ch 7 started dropping out. 2-1,2-2,4-1 and 5-1 are all strong. Would appreciate any suggestions.

I think rotors help everyone. You can expect 35 to be missing sometimes lately, but the rest should be there for you like normal. But you can't expect not to have to re-aim your antenna with all the snow on the ground, unless there are no hills around you.

You should always expect to aim your antenna north to get 35, 57, 34 (60) or 59. If any of these come in when aimed at Needham it is pure luck.

As for what kind, you really have two choices:

1 Go cheap like most everybody does and get a Channel Master with IR remote. The remote is convenient but the rotor will drift and need regular re-sync. also it has little braking action, so strong winds can blow it off.
Cost is under $100.

2 Go deluxe. No IR remotes, but you can get models to hook up to your computer. No sync'ing needed, since they use a potentiometer for feedback. Make sure you get one with digital controls, so you can set it to 1 degree steps.

These come in various strengths for different windloads.
Plan to spend $800 and up. Check out HyGain brand, and forget about their low end models that are like higher priced Channel Masters without the remote. Note that many are made for tower platform mounting (also great for mounting to a board on the floor of an attic!) Some will mount to a mast.

wmur 9.1 is always flakey for me, because my antenna is pointed in the opposite direction. when it is receivable for me, the signal strength is the strongest i've ever seen for any station - around 90% . i did notice last night that wmur-dt was broadcasting in lamo-o stretch-o-vision. oh well, no big loss, since i get 5.1 reliably.

i continue to get all the boston dtv stations as reliably as ever. the only oddities i've noticed are with wfxt recently.

one such oddity reminded me of the symptoms reported by the dude with sirt151 and audio problems. on my tv, it was like this last night: if i tune 25.1 i see wfxt-dt, but get zero audio. if i tune 31.1 i see wfxt-dt with solid audio. i did not watch long enough to see if it would do the "psip shuffle" where it forces my tv to blank the screen and alternate between showing "25.1 is available on 31.1", "31.1 is available on 25.1" . so from my viewpoint wfxt reliability and picture quality have improved compared to when they were broadcasting in 480p and with the psip-shuffle.

Originally posted by tveli

has wgbh-dt been transmitting at low power lately? i rarely am able to watch 2.1/2.2 any more - not sure what changed - other than all the snow up here! all the other boston channels work as well as ever for me.


I'm guessing you maybe be having a snow problem. It has been coming in fine up here in Manchester. I've got my antenna in the attic and there has definitely been a drop in signal levels with all the snow on the roof.

Re: ABC problems in So NH



Originally posted by etcarey
Has anyone else north of mass noticed a signal strength drop in both WCVB-DT and WMUR-DT ?? Both stations have been solid for months -- now both are very difficult to get at all. Have the Hearst-Argille Stations gone low power ??


Not sure if this is related but odd none the less:

Last night I did a quick scan on my DCT-100. When it was finished 5-1 was gone. I tried manually entering it as 5-1 and it just went to the analog station. I then entered 20 and it re-mapped to 5-1. I've never encountered anything like this before.

Originally posted by Lyson
In Boxford- I have had trouble getting ch 7 - WHDH and now tonight WFXT-31, 35 and 60 joined - ch 7 among the missing. Signal strength as measured by my Hitachi xwx dropped into the 40's for all 4 channels.
Does anyone think a rotor will help and if so any specific models e.g. Channelmaster.
I have a roof mounted antenna aimed toward Newton / Needham. The first 6 weeks were great but then ch 7 started dropping out. 2-1,2-2,4-1 and 5-1 are all strong. Would appreciate any suggestions.
I hate rotators! (unless you want to look at multiple tower farms)

I'd try a Channel Master 4228 before I tried the rotator, if all you want is Needham.

Bob

Anyone know if our Boston CBS affiliate (WBZ) can pass through DD5.1? I've never seen them do it before, but that doesn't mean that they can't. The Grammy's will be in DD5.1 and it would be great to hear it that way. Anyone?

Originally posted by jjk58
I'm west of you by ~8-10 miles and 5DT has changed a bit as my antenna
direction has been a bit more picky, but other than that, the signal
strength is the same.

9DT is non-existent and has been for the month that I've had
my receiver. A few days back, I could have sworn that I saw 60s
signal show up on 59 (analog). I have more antenna work to do...

Yes -- direction and pick-up on WCVB-DT has been a lot more "picky" -- as others posts have also said. And for those of us in NH, it is easy to see that WMUR-DT is just broadcasting at minimal power when they are on at all. Where both station are owned by the same company and they both seemed to "phase out" at the same time, I was wondering if they had both decided not to run the DT transmitters at full power to save $.

We are so close to the towers that both 60 and 50 bleed into their neighboring stations -- a definite problem when trying to get MUR, eh ??

Originally posted by Jakes
Anyone know if our Boston CBS affiliate (WBZ) can pass through DD5.1? I've never seen them do it before, but that doesn't mean that they can't. The Grammy's will be in DD5.1 and it would be great to hear it that way. Anyone?

I believe I recall Bob Hess of Ch.4 saying several thousand posts ago in this thread that WBZ is 5.1 ready, just waiting for CBS to send it through.

Originally posted by Benji
I believe I recall Bob Hess of Ch.4 saying several thousand posts ago in this thread that WBZ is 5.1 ready, just waiting for CBS to send it through.

Thanks Benji. Maybe it's time to start a new thread, eh?

Originally posted by Benji
I believe I recall Bob Hess of Ch.4 saying several thousand posts ago in this thread that WBZ is 5.1 ready, just waiting for CBS to send it through.
Correct!

What is going on with NBCs "Ed." It says "HDTV where available but I am not getting widescreen.

Me too. No ED Hi Def.

Why is this so HARD!

Me too. No ED Hi Def.

Why is this so HARD!

Maybe I'm being too simplistic here, but why is it left up to a 'person in the control room' to have to throw a switch to have a widescreen show transmitted in widescreen format?? [please correct me if I'm wrong]

You use a low tech approach....you get a low tech result.
Last night's broadcast of 'Ed' was a good example. I started watching, then realized after a few minutes that it was 4:3, and then saw a few possible attempts to change to 16:9, until it finally change more than half way into the show. [I'm sure it was a local viewer calling to 'remind' them to change the format that finally made it happen.]

If there's no automated switching process, this can potentially happen on ALL high-def broadcasts, can't it....??

Confused,
Keith

Thought you guys might get a kick out of an email from a viewer who just could not get reliable reception from his good looking outdoor, expensive, Terk antenna. The morale of the story: good looking and expensive is not always the best way to go!

"Thanks so much for the advice. After considering getting a better
looking antenna to put on my roof, I ended up getting the ChannelMaster
3021 (man, is it ugly!) you recommended. I hooked it up inside planning
on moving it out my window to assess direction and strength, and was
shocked to get a solid picture while the thing was lying flat on my
desk!

So strong was the signal I gave up on roof mounting and put it in
my attic, where the ugliness is irrelevant - I get PBS (-1 & -2),
BOS CBS, NBC, ABC (SuperBowl!!!), FOX-25, 38, all in the very strong
range with no glitches so far! 56 is a little worse, but no glitches
since I mounted the antenna in the attic.

Thanks again so much for your recommendations, and I will forward
them to many (stark electronics was great and fast!)."

Bob Hess
Director, Broadcast Operations/Engineering
WBZ-TV, WSBK-TV, WLWC-TV, WBZ-AM

Any more word on WFXT and their ability to pass widescreen from the network? Would be nice for football this weekend...

Did anyone catch Smallville on Monday? I can just about get WLVI perfectly if I precisely point my Silver Sensor in the right direction, scrunch down under it and lie in front of the TV. Lol.

Anyways, I noticed some strange banding artifacts in Smallville. It wasn't blockiness you'ld get from a weak signal, it was something else. I noticed that they are broadcasting in 1920*1088. Could this account for it? I am upscaling to 720p.

i caught smallville on tuesday, and i noticed that there are a lot of compression artifacts during fast pans. everything looked all right in scenes without any fast motion. i didn't really notice any banding artifacts. here are some screenshots (i just learned how to do screen captures! :)). the compression artifacts are more obvious on the larger pictures:

a "normal" scene:
http://public.moukki.net/hd/smallville1s.jpg (http://public.moukki.net/hd/smallville1.jpg)
click on picture for larger version

moving through the weeds during the battle scene in indonesia:
http://public.moukki.net/hd/smallville2s.jpg (http://public.moukki.net/hd/smallville2.jpg)
click on picture for larger version

pete being kicked across the hallway by lana/tina greer:
http://public.moukki.net/hd/smallville3s.jpg (http://public.moukki.net/hd/smallville3.jpg)
click on picture for larger version

clark fighting clark/tina greer at the talon:
http://public.moukki.net/hd/smallville4s.jpg (http://public.moukki.net/hd/smallville4.jpg)
click on picture for larger version

bob

Yeah, I guess that's what I was noticing. It looked pretty crappy as far as HDTV broadcasts go- but I've seen worse (Winter Olympics come to mind).

It is interesting that WLVI is broadcasting in 1920*1088- I wonder what's in those 8 extra pixels?:D

I suspect the real reason why WLVI doesnt look as good is because (according to my HiPix card anyway) the broadcast is at 14.11 Mbps, rather than the 19 or so that for example WBZ uses.

Sal

as far as i can tell, i'm receiving a 1080i signal. when i edit out the commercials using hdtvtompeg2, it says the picture is 1920x1080, and if you look at the resolution of one of the larger screen captures, it's 1920x1080. maybe something wrong with your decoder?

bob

I just checked the FOX pregame in it is not widescreen or DD5.1 as some people are reporting. I called the switchboard and left a message with Steve James the VP of engineering. However, he probably will not get the message until tomorrow. Does anybody know how to get in touch with the control room?
Thank you.

Call 781-467-2525 and hit 3 to get the news room. Ask them to transfer you to master control and they'll do it.

I just spoke to them (3rd week in a row!) and they said they think they're switching it on for the game but are awaiting approval and the tech wasn't in yet (they currently do NOT have it set up to automaticaly swich to the local feed for commercials since they just got new equipment.) Anyway, politely bug them/ask them about this WS stuff and hopefulyl they'll make it more of a priority.

At the very least, the folks at WFXT are quite friendly and knowledgeable of the situation. :)

Thanks for the info Bill, I just called and was told it would be switched over at 3. Lets cross our fingers!
I asked him about DD5.1 and he said there was nothing about it in his memo.

Finally FOX 25 did it.

Thanks FOX.

I haven't been able to get Fox for days. When I saw they were actually doing this one in widescreen, I gave it another try. After 5 minutes of pointing my outdoor RS UHF antenna all over, I never got much more the 25 on my DTC100. Not even a hint of a picture. I can usually get around 45, which has dropouts, but is worth it for WS. Oh well..........

I flipped the format switch on the back of my Sammy 160 to 480p, and the widescreen on FOX25 actually looks somewhat better than the 1080i upconvert. I'm not sure why. I think 25 broadcasts in 720p. Maybe it's the progressive scan thing that works better whether it's 480 or 720. Oh well, back to the game.

Originally posted by steve5097
I haven't been able to get Fox for days. When I saw they were actually doing this one in widescreen, I gave it another try. After 5 minutes of pointing my outdoor RS UHF antenna all over, I never got much more the 25 on my DTC100. Not even a hint of a picture. I can usually get around 45, which has dropouts, but is worth it for WS. Oh well..........

Steve,

I had the same issue as you with Fox with my DTC100. I could not get a signal no matter what I tried. I then did a channel search, and Fox reappeared on 31-2 instead of 25-1, solid as a rock.

Have you tried a new channel search?

Larry

Yep... widescreen here on 31-1 (WFXT-DT)

Still not the CBS quality however w/ this EDTV stuff....

i agree benjii. I think that if you switch to 480p it looks better. Im glad they finally switched it over to wide for todays game.

-nate

I tried my Samsung 151 @ 480p.

I don't notice much difference...

Then again I have only had an HD receiver for 1 week now!

Just getting used to no vaseline on the eyeballs...

Benji,
FOX only does 480p.
Larry,
I don't think it's a mapping problem, because I'm getting readings in the 20's. I'm going to try moving the antenna again at halftime. If that doesn't work, I'll try the remap. Thanks for the suggestion.

Steve...I'm going to have to disagree with you on FOX25's format. I tried out a Zenith 520 receiver last week. The Zenith shows in the front window what format the digital stations are broadcasting in, and both 5-1 and 25-1 came up in 720p while the other Boston digitals showed 1080i.

If you're talking about FOX Network, I agree that they send a 480p signal but 25-1 upconverts it to 720p.

I think the picture looks pretty good on Fox; you can tell its not HD in the wide shots, but everything else looks good.

Yea, it looks pretty good, but lets face it...this is only the appetizer until the CBS broadcast is served up.

Yea, it looks pretty good, but lets face it...this is only the appetizer until the CBS broadcast is served up.

Benji,
Fair enough. I was really just trying to make the point that FOX's picture is only ED content. ABC regular football is also broadcast in 720p, but it's still fundamentally SD PQ.

j_murdock, yeah, thanks, i agree that snow is affecting my 2.1/2.2 reception. usually it is watchable in the evenings, thankfully. actually it's the major ice-dam which are really going to be a problem when melting starts. no worry of that in the near-term, -14F at my home early sunday, and we had a water-in-pipe freezing problem. (the pipes didn't freeze - they are always frozen, thankfully - it's the water inside the pipes that froze!)

in 25.1 news, i watched some NFL yesterday in both real-HD on CBS and upconverted-to-720p on WFXT-DT. usually 25.1 was showing nice widescreen which looked decent but not super. sometimes it was definitely in lame-o-stretch-o-vision though. clearly WFXT-DT is making a good effort and kudos to their engineers for doing just about the best they could possibly due given Fox's restrictions/refusal to do real-HD .

Fox seemed to switch during the game; I only noticed on my 4:3 display when stretched commercials started showing up.

I switched to widescreen, but there was a white flashing line going across the top of the screen, that usually is there only for upconverted, non-widescreen material. This was so distracting that my guests requested that I switch it back to 4:3. This line was not present on the other Fox widescreen presentations I have seen.

It also appeared that Fox wasn't filling the screen; there was blank space above and below the picture, within the 16:9 frame. With the upconvert to 720p there shouldn't be a loss of resolution, but there isn't a good reason not to use the whole screen either.

I give the engineers the thumbs-up for getting us back widescreen football, but I was disappointed that they didn't get this fixed before game time.

CBS-HD: WOW!!!!

About 3 weeks ago I stopped being able to get 41-1 on my Samsung 151. The front panel signal strength light is blinking on and off as it always used to, but instead of locking on after about 5-10 seconds (and becoming a solid light) it just keeps blinking, never finding any video or audio. I tried peaking the signal with my rotor many times over the past couple of weeks, all without success. All other Boston stations and area NH stations (when on air and antenna pointed their way) work fine.

I remember reading here a few weeks back that WLVI got new firmware for their encoder or some such upgrade around 1st week in January...right about the time I stopped getting them.

Is anyone else able to get this channel with a Samsung T-151? It smells like an encoder/decoder incompatibility and not a signal strength problem to me.

I'm about 20 miles NW of Needham.

Thanks.

I too noticed the switch during mid-game. I thought my eyes were freaking out until it switched back about 5 minutes later. Overall I was unimpressed compared to CBS's showing. I did appreciate the widescreen and some of the angles were actually pretty good but a lot of it was blurry and pixelated. Keep trying Fox.

On the note of Fox, does anyone else have trouble with their shows dropping audio and pixelating from time to time? I don't have problems with any of the other channels except Fox. The signal strength is the same as the other stations according to my decoder but it seems like it cuts in and out at times.

That station and network is a disaster I have all kinds of problems with them and only live about 12 miles from the towers.

SGlorios,

I am running a 151 here in No Attleboro and am getting 41-1 fine (after the initial 5 to 10 seconds it locks in and holds the station).

I am however having terrible audio problems with WFXT 25 (tuning in on 31-1). The sound is about 20 decibels higher than any other station and very poor quality even when I turn the volume down - are you getting FXT OK?

Thanks,

Chris10

Chris10,
Other than a somewhat weaker signal than most, WFXT 25 (31-1) on my Samsung 151 is fine in Littleton. I wonder if there are different firmware revs for the 151?

No Boston Public in 16 x 9. FOX managed to 'flip the switch' for yesterdays playoff game. Why not everything else?

Originally posted by Benji
If you're talking about FOX Network, I agree that they send a 480p signal but 25-1 upconverts it to 720p.

Does that mean that my Mitsubishi HDTV, that will only do 480P or 1080i, will be upconverted again by my DTC-100?

I am new to this thread. What is the deal with the super bowl? Will it be in HD?

Originally posted by elbig
I am new to this thread. What is the deal with the super bowl? Will it be in HD?

yes.

bob

Originally posted by j_murdock
Does that mean that my Mitsubishi HDTV, that will only do 480P or 1080i, will be upconverted again by my DTC-100? The DTC-100 upconverts 720p to 1080i.

Originally posted by elbig
I am new to this thread. What is the deal with the super bowl? Will it be in HD? The Super Bowl will be carried in 720p HD by WCVB-DT in Boston.

I have a North Shore viewer looking for a good antenna installer. Any recommendations?

Bob
WBZ

I just hooked up a Silver Sensor to my DTC-100 and things are looking a whole lot better than the other antennae I was using, but I'm still missing ABC (ch. 5) and Fox (ch. 25).
I'm located in South Boston.
Can someone help me out on this issue? Thanks, Jan

Bob Hess...I'm good at installing rabbit ears, if that's any help!

I did not get widescreen on the playoff game using a dish 6000.

Originally posted by Bob Hess
I have a North Shore viewer looking for a good antenna installer. Any recommendations?

Bob - look for one of my posts somewhere in this thread for a recommendation of Pete Charbeau of Suburban Satellite. He does great work. In fact, here you go:

Pete Charbeau Suburban Satellite (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1548011#post1548011)

I would be careful with this guy I used at my house and he did a good job. I recommended him to a friend who hired him and did 1/2 of the job and was no where to be found after that. It was like he vanished into thin air.

Just my 2 cents

Again, I have a question for the experts in the field.....

A viewer who lives in Sandwich, on the Cape, asks if he can receive the DTV signals from Boston. I am aware of several viewers on the Cape. Anyone on the Forum? If so, what kind of antenna works best out there?

Bob
WBZ

Hey Bob Hess, there is a problem on WSBK-DT today, at 11:23am, the audio is being distorted, especially in the right speaker (digital audio channel), it just started happening, it is not occuring on other HD channels or analog WSBK.

Jim

So how would my OTA reception be in the Washington Sq (Beacon St, Brookline) ? Also, any rumors of HD cable, in the city? (I know the cable system is ancient and is in the process of being upgraded... ) It is Mediaone-ATT-Comcast in the city, I assume?

I live in Waltham now, so I have DTV and get OTA perfectly... That's the only thing keeping me here... :o

Originally posted by Bob Hess
Again, I have a question for the experts in the field.....

A viewer who lives in Sandwich, on the Cape, asks if he can receive the DTV signals from Boston. I am aware of several viewers on the Cape. Anyone on the Forum? If so, what kind of antenna works best out there?

Bob
WBZ

Hi Bob,

I live in Harwich and receive most of the Boston DTV signals all the time and others (Fox & WB) sometimes. I am using a CM4248 w/ 7775 amp feeding trusty ole DTC-100 and MyHD. I am also testing a vertically stacked pair of Blakes with better results which I'll put on my roof if it ever gets warm again. Your viewer in Sandwich should have better results than I do unless the bridge is in the path. I'd be happy to help any way I can.

Stan

Originally posted by vfrjim
Hey Bob Hess, there is a problem on WSBK-DT today, at 11:23am, the audio is being distorted, especially in the right speaker (digital audio channel), it just started happening, it is not occuring on other HD channels or analog WSBK.

Jim
We're looking into it. Thanks.

Bob

I live in Falmouth - and I have set up a few systems. By far the best setup was the CM4248 with the 7775 amp with the dtc-100. We are getting 2.1-2.2-4.1-31.2-25.1-38.1 very nicely with little to no dropouts and sometimes 56.1 is watchable

If someone wanted vhf as well the wineguard hd8200 with the 7775 amp picks up quite a bit of the analog stuff from Boston and Providence, but it is a monster and looks like a 747 landing on the roof :)

I would also like to thank Bob Hess once again for all the help and information he provides to the forum. I was wondering if some of us hdtv freaks could come up for a site tour on a weekend sometime ???

John

Originally posted by vfrjim
Hey Bob Hess, there is a problem on WSBK-DT today, at 11:23am, the audio is being distorted, especially in the right speaker (digital audio channel), it just started happening, it is not occuring on other HD channels or analog WSBK.

Jim
Fixed. Thanks for reporting the problem. Our master control personnel do not generally monitor the audio channels for the DT stations. We do have alarms that let us know if the audio disappears, but not if there is distortion.

Bob

Originally posted by jalferes
I was wondering if some of us hdtv freaks could come up for a site tour on a weekend sometime ???

John
If you go back a few years on this forum, I mentioned a site tour and got a lot of interest. We actually had one scheduled and had to cancel. I will try to schedule a tour of our transmission site for a Saturday in the next few months.

Bob

Bob - I'd love to come out for a tour. Let us know if/when you're able to schedule something.

Joe

Bob,
Can we all take turns throwing the ED/HD "Switch"?!?!
:D

-JR

Sorry if already asked/answered (no results when I searched) but is ABC (WCVB) planning on broadcasting the SuperBowl in 5.1?

Originally posted by agacek
Sorry if already asked/answered (no results when I searched) but is ABC (WCVB) planning on broadcasting the SuperBowl in 5.1?

YES.

Originally posted by Bob Hess
If you go back a few years on this forum, I mentioned a site tour and got a lot of interest. We actually had one scheduled and had to cancel. I will try to schedule a tour of our transmission site for a Saturday in the next few months.

Bob

Thanx Bob ! Count me in !

I'm not sure if I should have created another topic for this...

I have the HD-200 and my oval dish (currently using the round dish) and antenna are being installed on Monday (day after the Super Bowl, bad thing...).

My question is this:

Has anybody had any success with an indoor antenna in the Merrimack Valley (I live in Haverhill)? Possibly the Silver Sensor I read about in these posts? Maybe with an amplifier?

If it would, at least I'd be able to watch the game, and I'd eventually use it in another room at some point. If not, I'd just return it to CC.

Any comments are appreciated.

Hi Briankrich,
I live in North Andover. I have had great success with an outdoor antenna installed in my attic. Not exactly what you asked, but maybe it is an option for you. I get all the channels with a very strong signal using a channel master UHF DIAMOND QUANTUM (http://www.channelmaster.com/pages/u1.htm) and a Winegard DA-0405 amp. (http://www.winegard.com/products/accessories/acc_television_signal_amps.html)

Regards,
Hal

Thanks for the info Hal, it brings some questions to mind for me.

Tweeter sold me a CM3014 and a CM7778 pre-amp (and a rotor of course), I hope for their sake I am able to get OTA signals strong enough....

I'll find out next Monday when they install it...

For the Superbowl, I would definitely try an indoor antenna. If it doesn't work right away, with enough coax, you can probably find a spot where it will bring in the game.

I mean, it is the SUPERBOWL. No Pats, but still the premier HD Sports event. If you have any friends nearby that use an antenna to get the UHF analog channels, and they get either 38, 44, 56, 62 and 64 then your odds are good. I don't exactly remember which of these channels are broadcast from the same towers in Needham as the HD signal, but I get all of these when my attenna is pointed to Needham. Maybe somebody can post (again) which analog signals come from the HD tower.

- Hal

WBZ weak?

I'm in Arlington Heights, where I have a lot of reception problems, but I can get a number of stations from Needham.
Back in the Fall, I had no trouble getting WBZ, but lately, I've not been able to reliably get it. Does WBZ have a very weak signal? Or could there be some other reason why I can get other stations from Needham but not WBZ?

I'm really frustrated, as WBZ has some of my favorite HD programming.

My only other explanation would be some kind of multipath effect that is a problem with WBZ but not other stations... ?

Chuck...I'm getting my usual 100% signal from WBZ. Maybe you need to re-aim your antenna. WBZ and WCVB remain, by far, the strongest Boston digitals.

Originally posted by Chuck_McDevitt
WBZ weak?

I'm in Arlington Heights, where I have a lot of reception problems, but I can get a number of stations from Needham.
Back in the Fall, I had no trouble getting WBZ, but lately, I've not been able to reliably get it. Does WBZ have a very weak signal? Or could there be some other reason why I can get other stations from Needham but not WBZ?

I'm really frustrated, as WBZ has some of my favorite HD programming.

My only other explanation would be some kind of multipath effect that is a problem with WBZ but not other stations... ?

to no particular reason WBZ is breaking up on my setup in Malden ? I've tried to rotate CM 4228 with no luck. All other stations are coming clean.
Any idea when PBS will add sound to their feed ?

Hi,

I am way over in Coventry Ct and can get digital stataions Fox, NBC and PBS very strong from the Boston (Needham?) area. It looks about 70 miles on the map.

Not a beep at all for WBZ and I get WCVB just enough to see what a great picture I'm missing.

I am using a UHF only antenna with a UHF only preamp.

I can't understand how the signal can go this far but I still can't get WTNH (ABC) in connecticut.

Anyone know what is going on with Fox. I still get no widescreen and the digital audio is very quiet (analog is ok). I have a dish 6000.

I don't know why this happens, but yesterday WBZ was giving me a "weak signal" indicator on my Proscan (DTC-100 clone) receiver. Then I performed a channel scan, and WBZ can in as solid as ever. This seems to happen every so often and not just with WBZ but with others as well.

Does this happen with other tuners as well?

- Hal

Originally posted by nobail
I don't know why this happens, but yesterday WBZ was giving me a "weak signal" indicator on my Proscan (DTC-100 clone) receiver. Then I performed a channel scan, and WBZ can in as solid as ever. This seems to happen every so often and not just with WBZ but with others as well.

Does this happen with other tuners as well?

- Hal

i'll try to re-scan with Panny TU-DST51 and see if it will help with WBZ. I've re-scanned 4 weeks ago and was playing with channel mapping. I guess if channel mapping is on and the station does some work (maintenance, tuneup etc.) we need to re-scan channels.

Originally posted by Chuck_McDevitt
WBZ weak?

I'm in Arlington Heights, where I have a lot of reception problems, but I can get a number of stations from Needham.
Back in the Fall, I had no trouble getting WBZ, but lately, I've not been able to reliably get it. Does WBZ have a very weak signal? Or could there be some other reason why I can get other stations from Needham but not WBZ?

I'm really frustrated, as WBZ has some of my favorite HD programming.

My only other explanation would be some kind of multipath effect that is a problem with WBZ but not other stations... ?
Chuck,

Everything has been normal at WBZ. No transmitter or digital stream problems at all.

Bob Hess
Director, Broadcast Operations/Engineering
WBZ-TV, WSBK-TV, WLWC-TV, WBZ-AM

Originally posted by davidb281
Hi,

I am way over in Coventry Ct and can get digital stataions Fox, NBC and PBS very strong from the Boston (Needham?) area. It looks about 70 miles on the map.

Not a beep at all for WBZ and I get WCVB just enough to see what a great picture I'm missing.

I am using a UHF only antenna with a UHF only preamp.

I can't understand how the signal can go this far but I still can't get WTNH (ABC) in connecticut.
David,

You probably are getting interference from Channel 30 in Hartford. WBZ's digital signal is on channel 30.

Bob

Bob Hess...I don't understand the problems some of these folks are having. WBZ and WCVB continue to register 100% on my Hughes receiver with an indoor antenna. My problem is trying to get WFXT and WLVI.

I still have problems with 4, 5, 25, and 2 from time to time I am begining to believe my dst 3000 just doesn't hndle multipath all that well because there times for weeks on end that it works great and then I seem to have nothing but problems. It is extremely frustrating especially when I have to listen to my wife complain. I hope that there are some new boxes comming out that do a better job. I have not really been impressed with this receiver.

Originally posted by steverobertson
I still have problems with 4, 5, 25, and 2 from time to time I am begining to believe my dst 3000 just doesn't hndle multipath all that well because there times for weeks on end that it works great and then I seem to have nothing but problems. It is extremely frustrating especially when I have to listen to my wife complain. I hope that there are some new boxes comming out that do a better job. I have not really been impressed with this receiver.

Unfortunately tuners have a long way to go. I currently use a Samsung 165 and a Zenith 420, and I need both to get my locals (stations within 60 miles).

The Samsung generally excels on channel 57 my most distant station, and regularly beats out the Zenith. But the Zenith handles many more multipath reflections, which is especially important with snow on the ground. I am only 12 miles from Needham yet the Samsung breaks up sometimes on 41, and it is also hard to aim the antenna just right. The Zenith not only gets it fine, it usually can get the other Needham stations without re-aiming for each. This I can never do with the Samsung, at least while we have snow cover.

I am also only 12 miles away from the towers. So do you think the Zenith is a good investment?

I am not in any rush as I have already spent a small fortune on all this equipment but at some point I will get another receiver I guess I will hold out as long as I can till some new stuff hits the market.

Any suggestions for an Attic antenna in the Hills of Holden? Anyone in the Worcester area using an indoor mounted antenna? Thanks

Originally posted by atmosfera
i'll try to re-scan with Panny TU-DST51 and see if it will help with WBZ. I've re-scanned 4 weeks ago and was playing with channel mapping. I guess if channel mapping is on and the station does some work (maintenance, tuneup etc.) we need to re-scan channels.
re-scanned without channel mapping...
still no luck :(

Steve,

I'm in a strong signal, but multipath prone location in Cambridge, and the Zenith 420 is doing well for me. I face away from the Needham towers on the sixth floor, but get everything but Channel 19 (2) without repositioning my indoor antenna (Silver Sensor). Analog channel 44, for example, looks like garbage, with many, many ghosts. The other analog UHF stations come in better, but there is always some ghosting.

I'm certainly picking up reflections of neighboring buildings, and get relatively few breakups, maybe a few each night. Certainly not enough to be distracting.

I would consider getting one from CC just to try out. They have a generous return policy.

re: recent reception problems. I'll throw my two cents into this, since I see a number of posts regarding changed reception conditions. I've had a Winegard HD9095 antenna in my crawl space since last March. With a DTC-100, I received 20-x,30-x,31-x,39-x,42-x without problem, 41-x never, and 19-x only when it rains. Since the beginning of January, I have been unable to get 20-x at all, and 42-x breaks up quite a bit. Also, I suddenly started to get WMUR (59-x) out of Manchester NH. Normally I would just wait for some spontaneous healing to take place, but what with the Stupor Bowl rapidly approaching, I needed to take some action. I've been really hesitant to do anything with my antenna since it's in, well, a crawl space, but this past weekend I did indeed crawl up there. It's just hanging from the rafters by a cord on each end, so I tied a piece of garden twine to each end of the antenna, and ran them over to the crawl space entry point. Then, I just moved the antenna around by a few inches in the horizontal plane. Bingo. A few inches more easterly and now I get 20-x and 42-x again, 30-x still fine, and now 19-x comes in. 19-x still breaks up occasionally, but at least I can see it. I no longer see 59-x. 39-x has become marginal. So what's up with all that? Snow? Sunspots? Cold weather? Moon phases? El Nino? Who the hell knows. Further testing shows that 20-x is still bad in the morning, but gradually improves over the course of the day such that at 6:00PM or so, its fine...
--

Originally posted by steverobertson
I am also only 12 miles away from the towers. So do you think the Zenith is a good investment?

I am not in any rush as I have already spent a small fortune on all this equipment but at some point I will get another receiver I guess I will hold out as long as I can till some new stuff hits the market.

I guess it all depends how satisfied you are with what you have now, and how long you can wait. I am hoping for a big improvement in tuners next year. But for now the Zenith saves me from much antenna tweaking. I would certainly recommend it for anyone with bad multipath on local channels. But it is missing some features, like most PSIP support. The Samsung tuner 165 also has firewire, and an overall sharper picture. I would rate both far superior to my old Panasonic and RCA tuners.

Jhe,

Thanks for the imput I have to admit it isn't always bad only when I really want to watch something it seems to have a problem. I am probably making it sound worse than it is but it is very frustrating to spend thousands of dollars on this stuff and not have it work 100% of the time.

I keep telling myself that this is new technology and be paitient because over all I am pretty satasfied.

I will be looking to get a new receiver at some point but I want to make sure the next one I get does the job for awhile.

Hi noticed that on ATT Broadband audio of WCVB on 805 and audio of WHDH on 807 but no video. Could it be the channels for HDTV for those channels? Called recently to them, claim rollout of HDTV in early spring

just to add to reception problems...

until recently -- the Boston stations were *always* strong and clear and I never had to move the antenna...

recently (two weeks??) -- reception on *every* channel is more picky. I haven't lost any channels but I have to set antenna direction for almost every channel change ( makes it a pain to channel surf, eh ??)

a few of us seem to have experineced these changes at the same time. what could have changed for *all* of us ??

As of sometime Saturday, I've lost WHDH-DT on my Hughes E-86. I'm however receiving a strong 90% signal on the signal meter. I'm still getting 7-1 on my DTC-100 with no problem. I'm assuming others with Hughes-based receivers are having the same problem. I sent Jim Shultis at WHDH an e-mail informing him of this.

I also lost 7-1 yesterday on my Sammy 151...

Haven't scanned channels this AM, but it was gone as of last night...

Anyone else notice no DD5.1 on WCVB-DT during MI last night? I found this very odd since every Sat. nite movie on ABC I've seen has had 5.1 audio. I hope this is not an indicator of what kind of audio we can expect for the Superbowl later today.

Originally posted by Bob Hess
I have a North Shore viewer looking for a good antenna installer. Any recommendations?

Bob
WBZ

I have had my Direct TV dish and CM 4228 installed by New England Antenna. They use a spectrum analyzer to find optimum antenna placement which is far superior to using a field strength meter. I have been pleased with the results.

http://www.newenglandantenna.com/

-Dave

The funny part was the intro to the movie was DD5.1, with the ABC logo, etc... But once the real movie started, my receiver switched back to PRO LOGIC mode... :(

Also, did you see the test patterns etc that showed up @ 11pm? Looks like someone forgot to flip the switch back to the local feed, so we got what looked like an ABC test feed (tour of GMA studios in 720P, space shuttle, test audio,etc...)

About 11:05pm someone noticed and the local news was switched on...

Originally posted by jred
The funny part was the intro to the movie was DD5.1, with the ABC logo, etc... But once the real movie started, my receiver switched back to PRO LOGIC mode... :(

Also, did you see the test patterns etc that showed up @ 11pm? Looks like someone forgot to flip the switch back to the local feed, so we got what looked like an ABC test feed (tour of GMA studios in 720P, space shuttle, test audio,etc...)

About 11:05pm someone noticed and the local news was switched on...

it was absolutely AWESOME (test patterns, shuttle) Did you notice the Good Morning America being shot with HD camera in the studio. One word -wow ! Way to go ! Please give me more of these ! :)

Originally posted by Benji
As of sometime Saturday, I've lost WHDH-DT on my Hughes E-86. I'm however receiving a strong 90% signal on the signal meter. I'm still getting 7-1 on my DTC-100 with no problem. I'm assuming others with Hughes-based receivers are having the same problem. I sent Jim Shultis at WHDH an e-mail informing him of this.

Same here with Toshiba DST-3000, but OK on MyHD. They must have screwed up the PSIP as it appears MyHD ignores all PSIP information. ER wasn't broadcast in HD, it looked like a letterbox SD (black boarders all around). Note that the signal strength is pegged at 100.

It is amazing to me that there are still so many problems with this technology after a couple of years!

-Dave

Dave...They are doing something with the PSIP. I noticed today they are sending program info again to the DTC100--something they haven't done for a while. At the cost of not getting anything on my Hughes, I'd rather go without the programming on my DTC100.

I've lost 7 (couple of days) on Panny TU-DST51 - green channel found on display but no program.

Originally posted by HDorBust
I have had my Direct TV dish and CM 4228 installed by New England Antenna. They use a spectrum analyzer to find optimum antenna placement which is far superior to using a field strength meter. I have been pleased with the results.

http://www.newenglandantenna.com/

-Dave

Dave how much did they charge ? My install by a differenty co. was more then $400 (rotor and pole and h/w included)

Andrey

I think the rate is around $80-110 / hour, depending on whether there is one or two installers. I had one installer and ended up spending about $400, but I had my own equipment. Part of what took the time was originally I only wanted to go up 10 feet, ultimately I decided on 20 feet with guy wires, so the roof walking / signal analysis was done twice. I had run all of the cables for the antenna / rotor as well. I actually got up on the roof to save some time when he was anchoring the guy wires.

The equipment was a CM 4228, CM rotor (with remote) and Wineguard UHF only pre-amp - all purchased from Stark Electronic. It was good I had the rotor, the dock strke that was going on at the time had depleted rotor inventories. NE Antenna supplied the two 10' masts, the guy wires and the mast anchor (as well as the cable / F connectors to get the antenna feed into the attic.

-Dave

I cannot recieve 7-1 at all with my HD200. Yesterday there was no audio. Today nothing. Is it my equipment or what is going on? Thanks,

I just installed a CM 4228 in attic. I not only get great UHF, I also get reasonable VHF as well.

Elbig...I have emailed station engineer Jim Shultis at WHDH about the problem. A number of us are having the same problem.

Thanks. I have just installed my HDTV and I was concerned. Can I assume that ABC will bve in 16x9 for the game. It is weird seeing it as a small 4:3 box.

Elbig...my information is that 5-1 will begin 16x9 HD with Dolby Digital 5.1 at approximately 1 minute before 6PM.

I HAVE NO SIGNAL ON ABC. PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS A JOKE!!!
ARRRGH!

-JR

John...check your antenna. I'm getting my usual super strong signal on 5-1. It's a good thing NBC is not carrying the SB. I haven't gotten 7-1 since Saturday morning.

7.1 Working fine on my TS160 and my HiPix card.

I am getting some audio dropout on 5.1. Anyone else?

Sound OK with me. Al Michaels eyes are freaking me out though. Anybody else notice that? There was a HD shot of the stadium to start, but now everything is 4x3.

I guess I should go to the Superbowl thread.

- Hal

Sound has been fine. WOW the Super Bowl picture looks great. Long live HDTV!

Amazingly, I got a signal out of nowhere just a the Star Spangled Banner was playing. I had no reception-related issues during the game. After the presentation of the trophy, the signal went dead...nothing, zip, zilch! Call me crazy, but I swear that WCVB-DT boosted the power just for the game! Whaddya think?
-JR

If you missed it, during the Superbowl WCVB ran a small clip suggesting you send them email about their HDTV programing-

Pretty sure the address was listed as WCVBHDTV@HEARST.COM

Despite a very strong signal, I am currently not receiving any picture or sound on WHDH on either my Hughes or DTC100 receivers.

Thank you DaveFi, I saw the commercial but did not write down the address. It was awesome. ESPN HD. Thank you WCVB. WOW.

Benji, I get a strong signal on 7 but no picture as well. I still can't get over the superbowl in HD- awesome.

I thought the SB looked awesome as well on my F38310. Wondering if anyone in the Boston area was able to view 5-1 in native 720p and what their thoughts are about PQ. I would have loved to have seen what the game would have looked like in 720p as the upconverted 1080i looked as perfect as possible.

Originally posted by DaveFi
If you missed it, during the Superbowl WCVB ran a small clip suggesting you send them email about their HDTV programing-

Pretty sure the address was listed as WCVBHDTV@HEARST.COM

I caught that. However, I thought it was quite ironic how the audio dropped out for that clip.

Benji-

I was able to watch the Superbowl on an HS-10 in the 750p mode. The only difference I can discern from 1080i is some additional contrast and fewer scan lines during rapid movement. All in all, excellent picture once the sun set. The playoff in 1080i seemed a bit sharper.

By the way, from my Charlestown location, a SIR-T160 and SIR-T165 failed to receive WCVB digital- only teh SIR-T151 worked, this with a high gain rooftop antenna.


Lee

I'm still not getting WHDH this AM on either of my two DTC-100's. Signal strength is high 70's to low 80's but no picture.

SMK

Did anyone else have audio synch problems when Madden & Michaels were on screen? I'm using a Mits SR-HD-5 (Hughes clone)?

Originally posted by DaveFi
If you missed it, during the Superbowl WCVB ran a small clip suggesting you send them email about their HDTV programing-
Originally posted by Jakes
I caught that. However, I thought it was quite ironic how the audio dropped out for that clip.

Yeah, I noticed that too. They must have been going nuts after that happened. The one piece of HD they stuck in during the local broadcast slots and they messed up. Well, I was still glad to see they tried. It seemed like a good sign that they would spend valuable airtime plugging HD... (granted I'm sure it was only broadcast on the digital feed)

-- Doug

Originally posted by D_Doherty
Did anyone else have audio synch problems when Madden & Michaels were on screen? I'm using a Mits SR-HD-5 (Hughes clone)?

Yep. Same here with a Sony HD-100.

-- Doug

Benji,

I was viewing it in 720P and it was very nice. I did notice that there were alot of digital artifacts in the distant scenes.

I wonder if the camera's were 720P or 1080i?

-- Rich

Originally posted by Benji
I thought the SB looked awesome as well on my F38310. Wondering if anyone in the Boston area was able to view 5-1 in native 720p and what their thoughts are about PQ. I would have loved to have seen what the game would have looked like in 720p as the upconverted 1080i looked as perfect as possible.

i saw it in native 720p (Panny TU-DST51+NEC50MP1) it looked awesome - though i still believe that 720p is a bit softer then 1080i. it looks very natural (lifelike) vs. 1080 is screaming crisp with UNREALISTIC level of detail and depth of focus on HDCAMs.

Originally posted by pinballfan
Yep. Same here with a Sony HD-100.

-- Doug

same Panny TU-DST51

I'm still not getting WHDH this AM on either of my two DTC-100's. Signal strength is high 70's to low 80's but no picture.

When ever this happens to me on my Proscan (which is a DTC-100 clone), I do a quick channel scan and usually the picture comes back. Did you try this?

I'll try to check mine later today and see if my signal is missing as well. I have no idea why this behavior occurs.

- Hal

I have to say I was disappointed in the Super Bowl Coverage on ABC yesterday. Did anyone else watch the SD broadcast side-by-side with the HD to compare and contrast?? The HD had no virtual line markers, no sky-cam, no Madden telestrator, fewer camera angles, fewer graphics and fewer replay looks. The pictures rarely matched what the talent was talking about and the transitions to production elements (when the HD feed had to take the SD feed for billboards, graphics and tape pieces) were harsh and usually included bad cuts. Sure – the pictures looked great! But what we got on the HD side was a scaled-down broadcast. It was good coverage – but not materially better than an HDNet Sports event – who I think do a great job with very limited resources! Certainly, the Super Bowl was not the kind of network coverage to be expected for a national event.

You can say what you want about FOX not being true HD (sure – I wish they were!) But their NFL ED-TV wide-screen games were fully realized network broadcasts with nothing dropped. I hope ESPN-HD doesn’t go the route that ABC did yesterday. HD broadcasts should be better than the SD – not just better looking!

One thing ABC gets high marks for -- some of the ads were run in full 16:9 HD. The ad for the Matrix Movies was terrific -- as was the one for Daredevil (I missed the Hulk). I think these are the first ads I've seen in HD.

Locally – I watched the first half of the game on WMUR-DT59 (NH) and while they looked great they had *severe* lip synch problems. I switched to WCVB-DT20 for the second half – just in time to catch the local HD promo (the first I’ve seen for any station?). Yeah – it had no audio, but they seemed to have no lip synch problems during the game. Did you notice that all through the game, ‘CVB was identifying itself as DT-20?? I don’t think any other Boston station has done that yet either.

And – yes – as of this morning - WHDH-DT is no longer mapping to 7-1. I had rescan to find them back on 42-1, where they look great, but where my wife will never find them!

I was excited to see the local promo on WCVB during the SB. I fired off an email to them this morning thanking them for the HD SB, and letting them know that I watched along with six guests.

It did seem that WCVB was also positioning its "WCVB-DT20" logo more prominently in its local promos than I recall seeing previously.

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/chronicle/1929314/detail.html

Nice to see WCVB doing some education of the marketplace!

-jeff