Got snail mail from GCI today. They are enabling the dual tuner and I-Guide on Nov 1!

This also was told to me today by a CSR and the Tech who came to my house and swapped out my box. (dual tuner)

I was having the audio/video dropouts some of the other posters here have talked about.

The Tech said he thinks the problem is with one of their fiber nodes, (hillside area) but swapped the box anyway. He said alot of folks were having this issue.

Got snail mail from GCI today. They are enabling the dual tuner and I-Guide on Nov 1!
I see the change in the TV Guide but not sure about the tuner yet. What's the easiest way to tell if it's enabled?

I generally like the new Guide, but I'm not crazy about the placement of the fast forward indicator. It's good to have, but why not at the very bottom or very top? :mad:

My fast forward indicator comes up at the bottom of the screen. Maybe you can change a setting on yours?

I was fairly happy with the upgraded firmware/software on the 6412 until about 10 min ago when I tried to use my skip button. Now I'm pissed... They removed the skip function. It appears that GCI is not the only cable provider to do this. There are a lot of people on other threads complaining about comcast doing the same thing. DAMN!!!
Anyone else notice this?

My fast forward indicator comes up at the bottom of the screen. Maybe you can change a setting on yours?

I was fairly happy with the upgraded firmware/software on the 6412 until about 10 min ago when I tried to use my skip button. Now I'm pissed... They removed the skip function. It appears that GCI is not the only cable provider to do this. There are a lot of people on other threads complaining about comcast doing the same thing. DAMN!!!
Anyone else notice this?
Thanks for pointing out the indicator location. I'll fool with the settings.

I haven't used the skip function. I always use fast forward since you can press it twice and move along pretty quickly.

So is this I-Guide only for certain models? I don't have a dual tuner or a new guide at all. My box is the 80 GB version. I've been thinking of exchanging it because of the %@#*& audio dropouts and skipping...and pixelization. I just need to get my HD recordings transfered to DVD before I take it in, though. Fun stuff.

So is this I-Guide only for certain models? I don't have a dual tuner or a new guide at all. My box is the 80 GB version. I've been thinking of exchanging it because of the %@#*& audio dropouts and skipping...and pixelization. I just need to get my HD recordings transfered to DVD before I take it in, though. Fun stuff.
It may only be for the 6412. You have the 6408? I think I have a 120GB drive.

How are you transferring to DVD from the STB?

So is this I-Guide only for certain models? I don't have a dual tuner or a new guide at all. My box is the 80 GB version. I've been thinking of exchanging it because of the %@#*& audio dropouts and skipping...and pixelization. I just need to get my HD recordings transfered to DVD before I take it in, though. Fun stuff.


GCI CSR told me the other STB's would have the software upgrade around the 15th of November.

was watching TV @ around 4:15 this morning when box shut off and the LED was flashing "DL". After a while turned back on with the new i-guide =). (DCT6208 Box)

From playing around with it so far seems much better than the old guide. Channel switches occur almost instantanous now instead of waiting 1-1.5 seconds. Also, skip is removed (as someone else mentioned) but the FF is *WAY* better. I like the length of program indicator tivostyle bar on the bottom as well.

Only bad thing i guess is the removal of skip and my page up and page down keys on the remote no longer seem to work. Oh well

Well, I was liking it, till that enormous ad banner popped up on the bottom of the guide eliminating an entire channel of viewability from the screen.
heh, oh well

I like the iGuide for the most part. It's still not nearly as easy as the Tivo, but at least I can live with it now. I have to agree that it was better before that huge Ad showed up at the bottom of the guide. My box lacks the Dual Tuner function, but I can tell that it's there now. (Pressing A/B on the front panel lights up the A/B light.)

Justin: Did you have your remote customized or something? My Harmony remote still makes the Page Up / Page Down function work. Although the Favourite view is not a default of the Guide yet, it is easier to get to. The Quick Menu seems to remember what you last used, so if you want to use the Favourites view of the Guide, you can just push Menu and then Select to get to that mode. I'd prefer it to be a setting on the Guide, rather than a separate function. But it's easier to get to now.

The channel changing speed has definitely improved, and not just on the SD channels. Although time will tell if the skipping, stuttering and pixelization are fixed, it seems good so far today.

The stupid Ads that were on the Info bar are gone, and the display-time for the "flip bar" is now adjustable down to 2 seconds. I wouldn't mind if it never displayed, only showing the Progress Bar instead, but I don't run GCI.

Brayton: Still using the same remote GCI gave me, don't know which model it is, but its definately different than the standard remote which GCI bundles with the regular GE Digital Boxes (the remotes with the flip down casing on the bottom).

Mine has a green list button and an "a" "b" and "c" button if that helps.
I'll probably be picking up either the Universal Media remote or the Logitech Harmony when I get my Xbox 360 on Tuesday morning :cool: :cool:
Maybe that will restore my page up/down functionality

12:23 am right now, watching tv and the ad bar on the bottom is gone
:eek:

Wonder if GCI only displays the ad banner during the afternoon/evening

7:30am and my ad bar is gone too...
Nice!

I'm surprised more people don't miss the skip. Yes, the FF is much faster than it used to be, but I find it really hard to stop right at the end of the commercials.

I'm sure they removed "Skip" because advertisers don't like it. The fast forward and rewind on the box is definitely not like a Tivo in that it's literal. The Tivo compensates for your reaction time by jumping back or forward once you hit Play again. ie, Press FF three times to zip through something, then when you hit Play, the Tivo will jump back to where it would have been when you actually started to press play. Compensation for reaction times, in either direction.

I use the Logitech Harmony 880 for my system. I like that the setup guide will let you find buttons that you didn't know existed for a component. :-)

Does anybody here use DTV/Dish for thier cable and what do you think of it? I currently don't have cable tv, but I've been debating about getting a service, just not sure which one it will be at the moment. I was also thinking about getting Clearwire for broadband.

One more question. Is there any sort of TV/AVS club/meeting here in Anchorage? Anybody interested?

Thanks,

Lee

im interested

Justin K i sent you a message a few weeks ago and you didnt respond. It was about recording from the STB via firewire. Did you get it?

I live in Eagle River and want to see what Hidef OTA broadcasts look like on my set. If i go to radioshack what do i need and how do i receive the channels OTA?

anyone have one of the 1080p sets yet.

Justin K i sent you a message a few weeks ago and you didnt respond. It was about recording from the STB via firewire. Did you get it?

pm sent

does anyone know where to get a longer cable for my projector?

i had a 25ft cable be4, vga to 3rca cable, and its not gonna be long enuff here in this house, different location of my audio gear,
not sure how long the cab;e has to be but im looking at getting probably another 25ft cable,
im thinking a vga to vga cable or hd15 or wutever its called

any good stores in town that i could get the cable from?

does anyone know where to get a longer cable for my projector?

i had a 25ft cable be4, vga to 3rca cable, and its not gonna be long enuff here in this house, different location of my audio gear,
not sure how long the cab;e has to be but im looking at getting probably another 25ft cable,
im thinking a vga to vga cable or hd15 or wutever its called

any good stores in town that i could get the cable from?

You might try Frigid North (http://www.frigidn.com/explorer.htm)

I have had custom cables made from http://www.pacificcable.com/

im thinking about getting a Python 50ft or 75ft component cable from pacific cable and then cut one side of the rca's off and put a vga connector on it
or get a cat5 networking cable and solder the rca's and vga connectors onto the cable
it'll be cheaper to kind of make the cable myself

peace

im thinking about getting a Python 50ft or 75ft component cable from pacific cable and then cut one side of the rca's off and put a vga connector on it
or get a cat5 networking cable and solder the rca's and vga connectors onto the cable
it'll be cheaper to kind of make the cable myself

peace

If you wanted to go really cheap you could get some RG6 and make your own component video cable.

Does anybody here use DTV/Dish for thier cable and what do you think of it? I currently don't have cable tv, but I've been debating about getting a service, just not sure which one it will be at the moment. I was also thinking about getting Clearwire for broadband.

Lee

Lee
I have Dish. On the whole, I like it better than what I had with GCI. If you have an HD tv, get the 942. Do not get the 921! The software is buggy.

Upside of Dish over GCI:
More channels available, both SD and HD.
Cheaper per month (at least it was when I switched 4 years ago, probably still is)
200 hours of SD recording time (25 hours HD recording) with the 942.
Better user interface for the DVR.

GCI over Dish
GCI has KTUU in HD, I put up a roof top antenna.
GCI takes care of any problem, you are much more on your own with Dish.
There may be more out of pocket expenses with Dish, depending on what system (SD or HD, number of receivers, ect) you want.

Also, Dish and Direct are going to upgrade their systems from MPEG2 to MPEG4 sometime soon (maybe in 6 to 12 months, they have not announced a time frame), so it will require a new receiver for new HD channels. The older receivers will work for existing channels for the foreseeable future, but will eventually need to be replaced.

A excellent site for Dish/Direct is http://www.dbstalk.com/

Jim,
What kind of total upfront cost are we talking for HD DVR with dish? Do you need a special dish for the HD channels?

If you are a new customer to Dish, you can get a promotional package that includes the 811 (HD, but not a DVR) for nothing. If you want a 942, they are $250. The Dish web page for Alaska is out of date, as it discusses the 921, not the 942.

http://www.dishnetwork.com/content/getDish/disclaimers/puertorico/proffer/index.shtml

You might be able to get a better deal from one of the local installers, such as MicroCom.

Most of the channels are on the 119 satellite. Some people in town use a 24", a 1 meter dish is more common, I put up a 48" for it. The "119" means that it is located at the 119 degree orbital location.

The HD is carried on two satellites right now, 110 and 129. 110 has the most important (HBO, Showtimes, Discovery, HDNet TNT and ESPN) 129 has 10 channels of what used to be the Voom satellite service. I tried a 48" dish for 110, but due to the low angle, heavy rain clouds (snow does not seem to effect it as much) over the mountains caused the signal to drop out for an hour or so. I switched to a 6' dish and have not had any dropouts since. I have a 36" dish that I am going to put up to get 129, but have not gotten around to it yet.

Dish has a new satellite going to the 110 slot that should be operational by April 06. There probably will be major changes then. The rumor mill has it that this satellite has a lot spot beams that will be used for the local TV stations in HD. There are 7 transponders dedicated for Alaska, meaning that we should have between 14 and 21 HD channels. The satellite is higher powered than what is there now, so a smaller dish is possible. This is very speculative, as Dish has not made any announcements.

FYI, I have no connections to any of the Dish installers, I am just a customer.

Is all the other equipment required to get HD free, or do you have to buy the bigger dishes?

I think that the standard free installation only includes the dish and other equipment for 119. One of the installers could give a better answer than I could.

When I signed up for Dish, I did not have an HDTV, so I did not pay that much attention to what was on 110. I got a 501 DVR receiver (40 hours) and all of the other equipment for nothing. I got the 48" dish upgrade for free in exchange for doing my own installation. I later purchased a 510 (100 hours) for about $200 and a 921 for $1000. The 921 was not a good buy, as it has been very buggy from the the begining and still is, the price dropped to $600 8 months after I bought it, and has since been replaced with the 942.

Has anyone seen the HP 5580/6580 1080P DLP sets in any Alaska stores? Currently the online retailers (HP, TVAuthority, Crutchfield) do not ship to AK. Does anyone have experience with using freight forwarders out of Washington?

Jim, where are you located at? How is your OTA reception of KTUU and KAKM HD? Do any of the others have their SD DTV carriers up? I'm on GCI HD, which has been working well.

I must give props to KTUU for their serious commitment to HD programming. They only had a few shows in HD at first, but are now showing just about every available HD program. Although every once in a while ER or WW will slip by in SD - they probably miss their downloads every now and then. FYI the last I heard KTUU news is probably still a couple years out until they are able to produce HD.

I used to be waiting on pins and needles for KYES/UPN HD programing - but that was before Star Trek: Enterprise was canceled - I haven't watched them since. Sorry, Jeremy...

I noticed that KTVA is now showing that they are broadcasting on 28.1

From the programming link on the KTVA website (http://titantvguide.titantv.com/apg/ttv.aspx?siteid=53666)

Anyone with a OTA tuner to verify this? Any HD content?

Cheers

I can pick up a 1080i KTVA signal on both 11.1 and 28.1. So far, all of the content has been standard definition. I am hoping to see some HD programming soon.

Good news for a few of you with GCI cable. I know it was mentioned before about audio/video dropouts. I too started having these dropout issues on channels 2 and 13. I swapped out my DVR and have been watching for about 1/2 hour now with no dropouts.

I was also given the new phase 3 DVR as previously mentioned in the thread. It says phase 3 on the label but doesn't have an RF out however. It does have HDMI and SATA ports on the back though. No judgment yet on any picture quality increase.

Good news for a few of you with GCI cable. I know it was mentioned before about audio/video dropouts. I too started having these dropout issues on channels 2 and 13. I swapped out my DVR and have been watching for about 1/2 hour now with no dropouts.

I was also given the new phase 3 DVR as previously mentioned in the thread. It says phase 3 on the label but doesn't have an RF out however. It does have HDMI and SATA ports on the back though. No judgment yet on any picture quality increase.
Borg,

Thanks for posting this. I've been looking for the Phase III box. I called GCI and went into the store a couple of months ago, but no one knew what I was talking about.

Too bad they opted against the RF output. Who knows what these big wigs are thinking when they limit our ability to use their service!

I may see about getting a phase III box as an add on, then I can really evaluate the difference in PQ and return the one that fairs more poorly.

I may see about getting a phase III box as an add on, then I can really evaluate the difference in PQ and return the one that fairs more poorly.

Cool, let us know how it goes!

Does anyone know the firmware version for the GCI Phase III boxes? I have a Pioneer 74TXI receiver with HDMI In/Out and supposedly, firmware post 12.22 is supposed to fix the HDMI/HDCP receiver "repeater" issue where the cable box will not transmit the video to the display device via the receiver HDMI out port (only directly connected to video display). Apparently, many of the STB vendors did not properly implement the HDMI/HDCP standard and were in the process of fixing this via firmware upgrades.

Thanks.
Chris

Does anyone know the firmware version for the GCI Phase III boxes? I have a Pioneer 74TXI receiver with HDMI In/Out and supposedly, firmware post 12.22 is supposed to fix the HDMI/HDCP receiver "repeater" issue where the cable box will not transmit the video to the display device via the receiver HDMI out port (only directly connected to video display). Apparently, many of the STB vendors did not properly implement the HDMI/HDCP standard and were in the process of fixing this via firmware upgrades.
Thanks.
Chris

I'm showing 12.18 and I don't have a HDMI switcher to test that for ya...

Thanks for checking that.

Good news for a few of you with GCI cable. I know it was mentioned before about audio/video dropouts. I too started having these dropout issues on channels 2 and 13. I swapped out my DVR and have been watching for about 1/2 hour now with no dropouts.

I was also given the new phase 3 DVR as previously mentioned in the thread. It says phase 3 on the label but doesn't have an RF out however. It does have HDMI and SATA ports on the back though. No judgment yet on any picture quality increase.



Well, I went to go return my GCI dual tuner box today because I too was having the drop out issue. However, they were closed so I had to hook my box back up. Long story short, I'm no longer having dropouts (on my same box). I've been watching channel 2 for about a hour (history of frequent dropouts) and I am having no dropouts. Maybe by unplugging it, it created a reboot. So, if you want to fix the dropout issue and don't want to get the new box, try unplugging it for a bit. Thanks Borg for the updates.

Jim, where are you located at? How is your OTA reception of KTUU and KAKM HD? Do any of the others have their SD DTV carriers up? I'm on GCI HD, which has been working well.


I live in the Klatt area, just to the south of Klatt elementary. I was concerned with the metal roof of the school interferring with my reception, so I picked up a large rooftop antenna from Frigid. My Hitachi TV locks onto KTUU, KAKM and channel 22 with a rock solid picture - no dropouts at all. However, the Dish 921 reciever pixelates on KTUU so that the picture drops out to black for a second or 2 every couple of minutes.

Also, Dish does not have the electronic guide for KAKM, the SD KTVA channel, any subchannels and for local stations that Dish does not carry on the satellite. The end result is that I don't know what is on KAKM HD or any of the subchannels, so that makes it hard to figure out what there is to watch.

I have tried several configurations for the OTA connections, right now I have a splitter to send the signal to both the 921 and the TV. The 921 will record 2 programs at the same time, but somtimes there are 3 programs on up against each other, so I watch the one on KTUU HD live and record the other 2. The down side is that I can't skip thru the ads if it is live. How quickly we get spoiled. :)

PS I just got back from 3 weeks in Kona. I had to put up with a 21" TV, no DVR, no interactive guide, no premium channels and a grainy cable signal. How 20th century! :D Don't you just feel sooo sorry for me? :p

Please don't spank me for going way off topic. :o

I'm scratching my head about cell phone service. I'm with ACS on an analog phone that has to be replaced. What are the pros and cons of CDMA (ACS) vs. GSM (GCI) particularly here in Anchorage? Any links to help me research. Google has been limited help. Great for understanding the technology, but not for a practical decision about service here.

Thanks for indulging.

It looks like KIMO is now broadcasting an SD digital signal on 9.1 I see it on both my Dish 921 receiver and the TV.

It looks like KIMO is now broadcasting an SD digital signal on 9.1 I see it on both my Dish 921 receiver and the TV.

Everyone cross their fingers... SuperBowl XL is on KIMO this year. Lets hope for HD by Feb 5!

Cheers

Everyone cross their fingers... SuperBowl XL is on KIMO this year. Lets hope for HD by Feb 5!

Cheers


I'll cross my fingers, but I'm not holding my breath...


pstrisik: Check out alaska digitel; they seem to have some good deals. Don't know anything about the technologies though.

pstrisik: Check out alaska digitel; they seem to have some good deals. Don't know anything about the technologies though.
Thanks Borg. The deals are pretty straightforward. It's the technology that is very difficult to evaluate!

Please don't spank me for going way off topic. :o
I'm scratching my head about cell phone service.


Hey, fine by me. This is a great thread for techno-savy folks in our area.

The CDMA technology used by ACS is great, but so is GSM (GPRS/EDGE) used by Cellular One and GCI. However it is a much simpler issue to get a cool GSM phone - it's the standard used by most of the world. If you followed CES, probably 90% of the phones they show off are GSM. If you'd be interested in any sort of a PDA integrated phone, GSM is practically the only choice.

If you stay in Anchorage and are interested only in voice calling, ACS, GCI, and Digitel can all serve you well, choose the best price/plan for your habits. If you spend a lot of time traveling around the state, ACS and GCI have much wider coverage than Digitel.

Thanks MaCro,

That's reassuring. I can get a better deal with GCI right now since I have other of their services, they offer miles, and they are offering better deals on higher end phones than ACS. I surprised that the coverage is better for GCI than Digitel, though. I thought there were only two systems and the various companies that market them have the same coverage (eg, GCI and Cellular One are the same, I think). But I've been wrong before (once or twice ;) ).

Everyone cross their fingers... SuperBowl XL is on KIMO this year. Lets hope for HD by Feb 5!

Cheers

Think we will see another "wardrobe malfunction"? HD would be a asset for that. Then again, it could be just a big bust. :D

GCI is now offering CableCard tuners for those devices which accept them (most new HDTVs). This is a PCMCIA card that inserts into your TV which allows you to tune into all the digital SD and HD channels to which you subscribe. The card does not provide a program guide or pay-per-vew channels.

Since they weren't available here until now, I hadn't spent much time investigating what devices support them. I've seen stuff to suggest other DVRs like TiVo will support them in the future. Also PCs running the next version of Windows Vista are supposed to support cablecard HDTV.

To get a cablecard, call GCI customer service (1-800-800-4800). It costs about $5/month, like a regular DCT cable box. A technician will be scheduled to visit and install the unit. I don't beleive retail stores have them in stock. As this is new, it's possible not all CSRs are up to speed on them, but if they check with their supervisors they should be able to add the proper codes to your account and schedule the visit. You should also read your TV manual and have it available for reference.

Wow, I thought for sure that we'd be some of the last people on earth to get CableCard. I also saw some of the coverage of the ATi system for using CableCard with Vista Media Center. That was the only thing from CES that really made me drool with anticipation. I could get rid of this huge, heat belching, ugly interfaced Motorola box and really get started on a home network with media support. It's a geek's dream come true. haha!

Speaking of CES, I just got back from Las Vegas and caught the last day of CES on Sunday. Saw the new SED televisions... and improvements to LCD big screens.

But as for what's on KAKM-HD, go to the TVGuide website at TVGuide default page (http://www.tvguide.com/default)

Everyone cross their fingers... SuperBowl XL is on KIMO this year. Lets hope for HD by Feb 5!

Cheers

does this mean no hd for the superbowl


i was gonna ask if abc has a hd channel but i guess not

why would abc not have the superbowl in hd or wutever the local abc channel is for us, kt something i don't know
wutever it is on gci

my tv set up looks so much better with a 1080i picture vs wutever reg cable is,
i know the few hd channels we have look just as good as my samsung hd850 dvd player upconvert to 1080i

laters

my tv set up looks so much better with a 1080i picture vs wutever reg cable is,
i know the few hd channels we have look just as good as my samsung hd850 dvd player upconvert to 1080i

laters

Mostly because KIMO is one of the poorer stations in town. They've had poor audio / video quality for years, so if that's gone unchecked for this long, they must not have the money for new gear. And since GCI gets its feed from KIMO, it's not like GCI can show HD versions of ABC without KIMO feeding it.

None of my DVD players do any more than Progressive, but even then, I can still see a clear difference between HD and DVD. I've never seen what an upconverting (1080i) DVD player can do, but I would think that there's still a noticable difference.

What kind of display do you use? CRT, DLP, LCD, Plasma?

dlp
infocus x1a
with a samsung hd-850 with the remote code


laters

I'm pleased to report that the 30 second skip function DOES WORK with the new phase 3 boxes!

Does anyone with the GCI HD box (the one with hdmi) know if the box outputs a signal (via either the coax out or RCA out) to a vcr even though the hdmi is connected? In other words, can one record to a vcr instead of the box itself despite the hdmi being hooked up?

I'm pleased to report that the 30 second skip function DOES WORK with the new phase 3 boxes!

Shhhhh... GCI might be lurking

Does anyone with the GCI HD box (the one with hdmi) know if the box outputs a signal (via either the coax out or RCA out) to a vcr even though the hdmi is connected? In other words, can one record to a vcr instead of the box itself despite the hdmi being hooked up?

You can probably find the answer in this thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=558602) , or someone can probably answer the question.

Cheers

You can probably find the answer in this thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=558602) , or someone can probably answer the question.

Cheers

Great! Thank you!

Does anyone with the GCI HD box (the one with hdmi) know if the box outputs a signal (via either the coax out or RCA out) to a vcr even though the hdmi is connected? In other words, can one record to a vcr instead of the box itself despite the hdmi being hooked up?
GCI's version omits the coax out. I assume the RCA outs would work the same as with the Phase II (DVI) box. I never tried it though.

I don't see why it would de-activate the legacy outputs just because you use the HDMI connection. My box will run all the connections simultaneously. What I *like* is that the legacy connections won't show the on-screen displays that the box generates when changing channels, displaying the Guide, etc, when you tell it to output 480p for SD content. This lets my Tivo capture from the S-Video / Line out connections without ever having to see the cable box channel banners, etc. And since those connections only support 480i, the Tivo still gets a usable signal. Great side-effect.

Anyone notice that Channel 657, PBS HD, seems to pixelate more than other HD channels during complex scenes? It doesn't seem to handle water close-ups, transitions of scenes that are changing / active, etc. The slow-moving show they have on now looks fantastic.

I don't notice any more artifacts on KAKM than other channels. Unfortunately I see them on SD and HD content more than I'd like. It seems to be the constant battle between finite bandwidth and more programing, and I've seen it on all digital platforms, whether cable, dish, DVD, or video teleconferencing. Nonetheless, HD content is much more appealing to me, even if I notice occasional "macroblocking" during fast frame updates.

Anyone notice that Channel 657, PBS HD, seems to pixelate more than other HD channels during complex scenes? It doesn't seem to handle water close-ups, transitions of scenes that are changing / active, etc. The slow-moving show they have on now looks fantastic.

KAKM is trying to squeeze 2 HD signals and an SD signal over their limited bandwidth. This might be useful if they had anything worth seeing on channel 7.3, but it appears to always be the same thing that's on 7.1 when I watch it. Blah.

I just want to see Masterpiece Theater and Mystery! in HD and they can't even do that.

I picked up an inexpensive 45dB indoor antenna made by Philips today and low and behold, it pulls in KAKM-HD (7.1) and KTVA-HD (11.1) really well. I get my KTUU-HD via cable. I'm located near the Totem theaters, the family room (where the tv is) faces due west, and the large windows probably help with reception.

A cheap alternative to paying for GCI or installing a rooftop antenna....

I picked up an inexpensive 45dB indoor antenna made by Philips today and low and behold, it pulls in KAKM-HD (7.1) and KTVA-HD (11.1) really well...

Is KTVA in true HD or just SD as someone had said earlier in the thread? If it is HD I need to be calling GCI to find out why we don't have that one yet...

Nope...KTVA is not HD yet

[QUOTE=Muskeg]I picked up an inexpensive 45dB indoor antenna made by Philips today and low and behold, it pulls in KAKM-HD (7.1) and KTVA-HD (11.1) really well...QUOTE]

Is KTVA in true HD or just SD as someone had said earlier in the thread? If it is HD I need to be calling GCI to find out why we don't have that one yet...

It's SD, but it's nice to know that when they flip the switch, it can be tuned in.

If it is HD I need to be calling GCI to find out why we don't have that one yet...


Lets call them anyway to find out why we don't have the digital SD feed!! (Ch 11 on GCI)

Why would you want it? You have KTVA analog which is clearer. Don't ask me why the digital signal looks so poor. I don't think KTUU's SD signal looks as bad.

Any rumblings of KTBY doing a digital feed to GCI? Watching "24" with KTBY's freaky audio is just about annoying.

Any word on if KIMO is going to "test" a HD feed during the super bowl?

KIMO isn't going HD until the fall.

What's up with FOX? No digital signal at all? When?

KIMO isn't going HD until the fall.

Yeah, probably the fall of 2009...
Glad I didn't hold my breath for a HD superbowl.

Has anyone picked up KTUU in 5.1 audio yet? They said last week that they were hoping to have it ready for the Olympics opening ceremonies (tomorrow night).

My KTUU & PBS signals are... still there but I'm getting 'no data'... worked just fine last night. Could it be my SIR-T451? I can still get CBS if I re-position my SS.

I'm pulling KTUU OTA. Last nite, during Law and Order, The audio went out. It was weird. I could hear the background sounds, (traffic, ect.), but no dialog. PBS and Wealth tv worked fine. Anyone else notice this? Hope my tuner isn't borked.

Last night (when it was working) I noticed the sound was F'ed up too, it's like only the 'rear' channels were being sent, but not really... it eventually fixed itself

Has the ktuu/kimo/kakm tower gone on strike?

I'm not getting anything from any of the stations.

yay! I'm not the only one... It might be due to the high winds in that area... either that or they're (hopefully) bumping up the power :D

From KTUU's website: http://www.ktuu.com/cms/anmviewer.asp?a=3519&z=1

Anchorage, Alaska - KTUU-TV is currently off the air for those using an antenna, including the digital signal, due to an equipment failure. The outage will not affect viewers who subscribe to GCI cable.

The transmitter on the Anchorage Hillside is temporarily out of service due to drifting snow and high winds.

Engineers are aware of the problem and are currenly working as quickly as possible to remedy the situation.

Is KAKM-DT still on the air? They share the transmitter with KTUU. If it's not the transmitter it's probably the microwave link across the inlet.

Edit: I see someone reported other OTA stations are down as well. Everything's okay on GCI cable, FWIW.

Has anyone picked up KTUU in 5.1 audio yet? They said last week that they were hoping to have it ready for the Olympics opening ceremonies (tomorrow night).

They must be tryin... but it ain't workin.

On GCI cable 652; ER had audio out of all speakers except the center channel. My receiver (Denon 3803) did switch to Dolby Digital 5.1. I'm using a toslink cable from the Moto 6412.

Lucky for me, the wife insists on watching that show live, so I was able to switch the cable box to channel 2 when I heard the screams...

Cheers

Yep...KTUU's 5.1 audio must be having probs. My Name is Earl, The Office, ER showed up as 5.1, but the center channel was nonexistent. Hope they get it fixed tomorrow, as I'm having family over for dinner and olympic opening ceremonies in hd! And I'll have to re-wire something to get the audio if the hd signal isn't going to provide it.

I have spent another $200 in the last couple of weeks to have the winter games in HD.

only to have the entire tower die on the eve of the broadcast.

no GCI here.... only MTA no feed.

Just got a response from the man at KTUU. They're going to be in contact with NBC to see if they can get the 5.1 straightened out for tonight's ceremonies, but if not, they'll try to re-wire so that the old audio is available.

Sorry, folks. I've been meaning to get on here for quite a while, but haven't had the time.

Update:
The wind yesterday blew the microwave dish out of alignment that carries our signals from Glen Alps to Goose Bay. That'd be Ch 2, Ch 7, and Ch 13. We aggregate our stuff at GA and use a single feed to GB. We tried to get up there yesterday afternoon right after we went off air but couldn't make it. Whiteout conditions from the Park entrance up - we couldn't see the road - and the last several hundred yards was drifted completely shut.

By 5 the weather had cleared a little - still a lot of wind, but it had quit snowing - so we went back and after a few runs at the road managed to break through the drifts and get to the parlking area. Walked the rest of the way, dug out 4 feet of new snow at the door and got inside. All our signals are reaching GA just fine. But the return link from GB showed no signal.

One of Ch 7's guys got out to GB around 8p and said there is no received signal there either. From what we could tell from the ground, it looks like the dish at GA has moved. We have a call in to some guys to try to get it realigned today so we can get back on. I'll update status later.

As to the 5.1 - we just got the equipment installed and programmed Wednesday (working feverishly to make Olympics). But the only 5.1 material we get is the Prime time feed from NBC. Since their reality shows -eg Biggest Loser - aren't 5.1 we had to wait for Law and Order to check it out and as you've noticed - no L/R dialog channels. There was surround and a little center channel, but that's it. So yesterday morning we went over the equipment hookup, found some wires incorrectly connected, and fixed it (we thought). I didnt get a chance to check last night since I didn't get home til 9, but apparently same problem. We'll try to get it fixed today or go back to the stereo feed until we can get it resolved. I'll update you on that later too.

I'll be back... (insert gratuitous movie line here)
Lance

Thanks a lot for keeping us updated, Lance.

Thanks a lot for keeping us updated, Lance.

Lance--- Welcome to the thread. Great info and easy to understand.

Now if we can only get news on when KTBY, KTVA, KIMO, KYES will be giving us HD content. We need reps from those stations to give us some accurate information.

Cheers

Thanks for the update Lance.

Update:

Well, we got it back on this afternoon. Wha a pain. We were at Glen Alps all morning. Bob Dickinson from KAKM spent 4 hours standing in the wind and snow30 feet up on the tower securing our microwave dish which had broken loose from its mount and was hanging on the tower by one loose bracket. We saw gusts in the 50mph + range and got about 6" of new snow while we were there.

The dish is temporarily mounted with a comealong and a bunch of 1/2" rope holding it in place. When the weather clears we can work on a permanent fix.

Then something happened in our path from the station to Glen Alps right after we'd headed down. The analog transmitter went down. (We couldn't BUY a break today. Anyway we went back up and made some adjustments and got it running again although it was a little noisy. We think it was a fade problem due to the amount of snow/rain in the path.

ANyway, I'd had another crew working on an alternate solution that we now have ready if anything else quits. We set up an alternate microwave path through our News van and our Eagle River receive site to Goose Bay. If the main path quits again, it'll take us about an hour and a half to get to GB and switch the wiring around to get the analog back on. It'd be analog only which is a big drag for us HD fans, but it'd be better than nothing...

On the 5.1, we got everything switched back to the stereo feed this morning before we headed for the hill. On my system if I force the receiver to do Dolby ProLogic, I get a pretty good surround image. It's not 5.1 but better than nothing tonight. We talked to the equipment vendors today but didn't have time to pursue an answer. We'll be on a conference call with Dolby and the vendor Monday and get this sorted out. I hope to have the true 5.1 up for Monday night's Primetime Olympics. I'll let you know.

Lance

Wow... Y'all are awesome to get this stuff fixed in these conditions.

Looking forward to the 5.1 audio, not so much for the Olympics, but the Daytona 500 is Sunday aweek. I'm sure the bobsleds will sound great with 5.1... but think about 43 800 HP cars at Daytona...

Lance... you have any insight on the progress of the other stations in the Anchorage area. This summer the World Cup is being televised on that so called Alaska Superstation, real football in HD is so much more enjoyable.

Cheers

Daytona WILL be awesome - I didn't even realize we were doing it until you mentioned it. Last year I think FOX carried it. It is VERY cool in 5.1 - especially if you crank up the subwoofer! We'll be ready!

I do know most of the engineering staff at the other stations, but I won't comment on their status or what they're doing. I don't know anything of theirs firsthand, so it'd just be gossip. I will say that most of them are doing the best they can with the resources they have available. Very little happens as quickly as we would wish, but we're all looking to accomplish the same end result - viewer satisfaction. What I would suggest you do is to contact each station and ask to speak to their Chief Engineer. He's the person most qualified to tell you what you want to know.

Sorry if that sounds like a cop-out. I will tell you that I'll let you know anything I can about what's happening with digital TV at Channel 2.

And thanks for the props. We like to be appreciated. My guys are all busting it to get this stuff going and going right.

Lance

Many thanks to Lance for the bangup job. The Olympics were terrific tonight, even in pro logic :) It was a real treat. I'm looking forward to the upgrades.

Have a great weekend Lance!

Something you might be interested in -
This tuner has been geting pretty good press in the professional trade forums recently. If you're inteested in turning your PC into an HD PVR, check out this USB tuner at:
Copperbox: OnAir Creator (http://www.copperbox.com/lite/onair-creator.php)
It's a 5th generation chipset which is supposed to be much better at multi-path discrimination and more selective. I've ordered one and will let you know how it looks after I get a chance to play with it for a while.

This 5th gen chipset should help with some of the issues we see with OTA reception here in Anchorage - especially if you're in the west end of town. It's very difficult in most of that area to get OTA on Channel 2 (10) or Ch 13 (12) due to the proximity of Ch 11's analog tower. The signals all run together and the tuner can't discriminate where the edge of the channel is so it doesn't show anything. We've had some success in this area by critically aligning the antenna, but sometimes even that doesn't help. If this box does a better job, it could open up the possibility of someone in town selling an STB here that would be worth buying.

I know many of you are using cable to receive your HD, but I want to make sure we maintain that free OTA signal for the 40% of the area that doesn't have cable. (And besides - I don't have a PVR yet and ya gotta have toys, right?) :D

Lance

Lance, many thanks to you and your associates for the hard work repairing the OTA signal. I am using a channel master 4228 antenna I installed last week. It seems to do real well at pulling digital channels 2, 7, 11, and 13. No dropouts (yet) from any of those.

Livin large in Spenard

:( Aaaarrgghhh!

Before I hear from you all - tonight's Olympic coverage will be in SD instead of HD. NBC uplinks all its HD feeds from a location in New York. The big snowstorm currently smothering the Northeast is causing the uplink signal to fade so much that the HD downlinks all over the country are throwing a fit. Just like our air broadcasts - we either get a perfect picture or none.

Our Master Control Operator is keeping an eye on the feed and if it stabilizes we'll switch back to it. But if it stays bad we'll continue on the SD feed (it's uplinked from a different location so isn't affected by the storm.)

NBC is trying to get anotheruplink facility online in LA but I doubt it'll happen tonight. Hopefully they'll have it worked out by tomorrow.

Lance

BTW, we went back up to Glen Alps this morning before the wind came up again. The come-alongs and rope seem to be holding. Keep your fingers crossed.

Lance you stole my thunder.

Thanks for keeping us informed.

BTW, we went back up to Glen Alps this morning before the wind came up again. The come-alongs and rope seem to be holding. Keep your fingers crossed.

Have any pics you could post of the work that was done there?

Cheers

Sorry, I didn't think of it until we were already up there and I didn't have my camera with me. I'll try to get a couple of the temp repair Monday or Tuesday and post them for you.
Lance

I noticed last night that the KTUU HD feed (cable) seemed to go back and forth between HD and the standby 4:3 digital feed. It wasn't doing that during the afternoon olympic show.

double post

Muskeg,
Check my 9:34pm post from last night. Seems to be OK now. We got the HD back late last night. Today's Nascar Daytona qualifier seems to be OK in HD.

But we lost our main NBC satellite system last night as well. We have parts coming and it should be back up tomorrow. Won't affect the NBC feeds as the secondary dish is working OK.

I swear, this equipment comes equipped with a crisis detector. The more important the event and the higher the stress level of the tech department the more likely this stuff is to fail...

Lance

Muskeg,
Check my 9:34pm post from last night. Seems to be OK now. We got the HD back late last night. Today's Nascar Daytona qualifier seems to be OK in HD.

But we lost our main NBC satellite system last night as well. We have parts coming and it should be back up tomorrow. Won't affect the NBC feeds as the secondary dish is working OK.

I swear, this equipment comes equipped with a crisis detector. The more important the event and the higher the stress level of the tech department the more likely this stuff is to fail...

Lance

I noticed a couple things about the broadcast last night that put a question mark over my head. When switching to the SD feed, it looked like it had been compressed really bad. Some distant images would look blocky, just as an overly compressed JPEG would. Was that because the HD equipment was processing the feed, instead of passing it straight through? I don't notice this on normal SD-via-HD broadcasts, such as the News and other low-fi shows.

The other thing I wondered about was if NBC was doing the recording in both 1080i and 780p, depending on the venue? The Speed Skating event looked great in 1080i, but the "i" reared its ugly head and caused a lot of pixelation during fast movements. (Does that depend somewhat on the quality of the encoding equipment?) I noticed that the Figure Skating looked a touch softer, but had absolutely no pixelation. That led me to think it was sent in 720p. (If only 1080p was the official standard from the start.)

The SD feed is compressed more than the HD feed. If you look at the ratios we use to transmit those, of the 19.2 Mbps available in our feed, we use 14 Mbps for the HD feed and 3Mbps for the SD feed. The rest is ancillary stuff like Audio, PSIP, and overhead data. What we did last night was feed our upconverted SD through the HD side of the system. Those issues could have been caused by the upconvertor card, the HD encoder, or the multiplexer that mixes the HD packets with the SD stuff. In my experience, SD viewed through the HD chain always looks a little wierd, and many of those compression artifacts are just going to be a fact of life for us unfortunately. ALL the material you see through whatever mechanism to get it to you is SEVERELY compressed from the original acquisition which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 100-150Mbps.

For your second question - NBC is doing the entire coverage in 1080/50i and converting to 1080/60i for broadcast here. No 720p material at all. The pixelation is a result of mpeg encoding where most of the frames are interpolated - that's the way they jam so much information into a low bit rate. Only every 20th frame or so is actually transmitted - the rest of the material is interpolated by looking at the material in the last interframe and the next interframe, then calculating where objects in the frame should be for the ones in between. It works great with slow action or talking heads, not so well with fast movement. If you switched n=back and forth last night between the HD and SD feeds on our OTA signal during the speed skating, the difference was pretty dramatic.

Lance

KTUU spoils us! :)

Sweet! The 5.1 is working!!!!

Yeah, we were pretty sure we had it figured out this afternoon but had to wait til we went to the Olympics live to try it. It Worked ! Hallelujah! Now we have to get the mechanism worked out to turn it on and off as we swap sources between 5.1 and 2/0. You'll probably notice stuff going on with our audio for the next few days while we sort it all out.

Thanks for your patence everyone.
Lance

duh... dyslexic fingers... that'd be "patience", not patence...
Lance

Now we have to get the mechanism worked out to turn it on and off as we swap sources between 5.1 and 2/0. You'll probably notice stuff going on with our audio for the next few days while we sort it all out.
Lance

Noticed one commercial tonight without audio... (why am I watching live TV? oh its the Olympics of course... refraining from more sarcastic comments...)

Great that the 5.1 is working... the skate show tonight just doesn't drive the sub... <grin>

Cheers to KTUU!

sounds like an enjoyable weekend. We just got a whopping 2 inches in fairbanks. :)

Noticed one commercial tonight without audio... (why am I watching live TV? oh its the Olympics of course... refraining from more sarcastic comments...)

Great that the 5.1 is working... the skate show tonight just doesn't drive the sub... <grin>

Cheers to KTUU!

Yeah, I caught the commercial without audio too. Actually there were 3 but only one was obvious. They were all Dept of Public Safety spots and I don't know if you noticed, but they were all 16:9 HD spots - the first local ones that have aired in Alaska. (BTW, they DID run with audio on Friday, Sat, and Sunday.) Well we are pretty sure we have that fixed today, so they should be OK tonight.

Keep watchin! We're trying really hard to get this together!
Lance

sounds like an enjoyable weekend. We just got a whopping 2 inches in fairbanks. :)

Well, I don't know if "enjoyable" is exactly the word I'd use, but it was definitely an intersting, busy, stressful, expensive one. :)

Lance

Just in case anyone is watching us right now (1:30pm), we've got a crew up at Glen Alps doing the permanent repair on the microwave dish. THe digital signals are the first to go and they'll probably be on and off for an hour or so until the repair is completed and everything is tuned in again.
Lance

Work at Glen Alps is done now - 2:40pm. Everything should be stable until we see our next big wind anyway.
Lance

Lance,
Thanks for all the updates. It's good to have you on here. I don't suppose you can convince the other Anchorage station's engineers to sign up for the forum and contribute to the thread...??

I'll see what I can do.

Actually, I'm thinking about another plan... Maybe you all could let me know what you think of this.

How about a forum type web site here in Anchorage with sections for each of the stations, cable companies, satellite carriers, hardware, antennas, interference issues, etc. That way you wouldn't have to wade through all the posts looking for something about a particular station's issue. I think it'd be easier to get the other stations to participate. Maybe. It'd be better for us anyway. And if we promote it locally we'd probably be able to get a lot more participation.

Now I'm not thinking this'd be sponsored by the station. I'm thinking about doing it on my own.

So what do you think? Enough interest for me to try this?

If you want to email me directly, my address is hankins@clearwire.net.

How about a forum type web site here in Anchorage with sections for each of the stations, cable companies, satellite carriers, hardware, antennas, interference issues, etc. That way you wouldn't have to wade through all the posts looking for something about a particular station's issue. I think it'd be easier to get the other stations to participate. Maybe. It'd be better for us anyway. And if we promote it locally we'd probably be able to get a lot more participation.

Now I'm not thinking this'd be sponsored by the station. I'm thinking about doing it on my own.

So what do you think? Enough interest for me to try this?



Great idea...

It would be good to include the local TV stores and get them to promote the forum. Buy a TV, and here is a website to ask your questions.

Cheers

Yeah, I'd pay a visit if you set it up. Although, it's going to be hard to beat AVS forum's one-stop-shop for everything audio-video.

The idea would be to complenent this forum not take its place. There's a lot of great stuff here at AVS that I wouldn't even try to duplicate. I come here in the hardware forums all the time looking at what the best TVs, stb, home theater system is. But I think this place falls down a little at the local - what's happening in your town - level. Reading through a 13 page thread with 50topics in it isn't the easiest way to find anything out. So what I'm proposing would help organize that local information and make it available that might appeal to a wider audience than we are here (that'd be the Geek Squad).

And yeah, I'll probably try to enlist the local AV dealers for some banner ads and maybe some $$ to help support the board.

I'll start looking into it in earnest and see what I can do.
Lance

Sounds like a great idea, Lance. I'd be willing to help out setting up & contributing to the site.

Matt

You're right Lance, this forum can be a real pain to find something.

What are you going to name the site?

It'll be called AnchorageHD.TV and we're starting the process now. I'll let you know when we get closer to launch...

Lance

Back to the quality of the Olympic coverage for a minute. I found this on another board and cecked with NBC. They say it's true:

The in-studio cameras are HD and many of the venues are actually 16:9 SD upconverted to HD. Here's a list of what's what:

HD Events:
Opening and Closing Ceremonies
Ice Hockey - Both Sites
Figure Skating
Short Track Speed Skating
Speed Skating
Ski Jumping
Aerials
Moguls

- Where the host broadcaster has elected to do SD coverage, mostly for difficulty in cabling issues and lack of availability of HD trucks in Europe, they will offer 16:9 SD coverage. NBC will upconvert the 16:9 SD to HD format.
SD Events:
Alpine Skiing
Nordic Skiing
Snowboarding
Bobsled
Luge
Curling
Biathlon

That will definitely have some impact ofn the quality of the signal, but I'm guessing most of us wouldn't notice it. While it's true that some things are being shot in SD, the quality of that SD is a lot higher than you might think. It converts to almost as good a picture as true HD would have been to begin with. However, you would see more pixelization because of the lower bit-rate capture as we dscussed before.

Overall, I've been pretty impressed with the whole thing. They're doing a pretty good job. I'm just haveing a tough time staying awake through all that figure skating/dancing... <Yawn>

Lance

Back to the quality of the Olympic coverage for a minute.

but I'm guessing most of us wouldn't notice it. While it's true that some things are being shot in SD,

Lance

Thanks for the update... note to self... cancel eye doctor appointment... :D

HD quality aside... how much of the commentary is done from the trailer vs actually being at the event? :rolleyes:

Cheers

I counted 22 cameras in use at the luge. I figured that there's no way they had 22 HD cameras available...

HD quality aside... how much of the commentary is done from the trailer vs actually being at the event? :rolleyes:


Not 100% sure (now hedging on any info being given...) but I believe all the "expert commentators" are in studio. They do have folks at the actual events to talk to the competitors, but for the most part the commentators are seeing the exact same feed you and I see.

Having done about a bazillion remote events - from mushing to bball, soccer to news stuff - I have to tell you that commentating at the event has its pitfalls. When I used to work for another station here in town (a long time ago) we used to put the announcers at the start line for dog mushing. Worked OK but I still think it would have been just as good for them to have been in the studio. But at another station (in Boise) we did a lot of parades. For that you almost HAD to have the announcers on site or they couldn't see enough of what was going on to make semi-literate comments about it.

With an event like Skiing or biathlon where the course is long and there's nowhere (except the blimp) you can see the entire thing - it makes a LOT more sense to put them somewhere quiet with a good feed or 2 to watch that lets them actually evaluate what's going on.

My 2 cents.
Lance

Lance: Thanks for all of the hard work and great info! :)

I have a question on OTA pixelization that maybe you can shed some light on. I am a Dish subscriber with a 921 receiver and an Hitachi TV with an HD tuner. I installed a large roof top antenna - the deep fringe recommended antenna from Frigid (14 element IIRC). On channel 2 HD, the 921 pixelates every minute or so, but the TV is rock steady. KAKM HD is much more stable than 2.

I live 200' to the south of Klatt elementary school, which has a large metal roof directly between me and GB. The roof is about 15' higher than my antenna.

Also, channel 11 transmitter lies only 3 degrees off of the line between me and GB.

There is a radio transmitter about a mile away from me. Installing an FM trap helped, reducing the pixelization by about 1/2. I install a preamp, but that made the problem worse.

I am assuming that the problem is multipath, but don't know if the problem is the metal roof or channel 11.

Do you have any recommendations on improving the signal?

Jim,
I suspect your problem is more related to the Ch11 inline issue than multipath, but may be a little of both. The big issue with multipath is that refelcted signals arrive at the antenna out of phase with the direct sicnal and partially cancel the direct one. So a reflection from in front of you like the metal roof wouldn't provide a large difference in path length and therefore not much cancellation. Usually multipath is more a problem for significantl off-axis signals but not always. On an analog set multipath shows up as ghosting. In dtv it causes a hole in the freqency spectrum which the receiver may be able to compensate for if it's a newer model - 4th or 5th generation tuner. The early tuners were not very good with multipath and it didn't take a lot to cause them to display no signal.

The Ch11 problem is more likely to be the culprit. One thing we've noticed ove the last couple weeks is tha propogation in general has been changing. I'm guessing it has to do with a lot of weather factors like moisture content in the air, layers of significantly different temperatures, etc. and ice in the Knik Arm moving in and outwith the tide. At my place near the airport some nights I get very poor reception (and poor Clearwire internet service) while other nights everything is 5/5.

I wonder about hte Dish receiver. Maybe someone else has some experience with this stb that they could give us. If your TV tuner gets the signal solid, the stb should do the same with the same setup. Maybe it's actually older technology - an early generation tuner - and is more affected. Not sure.

Only way to tell if it's Ch11 or multipath that I know of is to put a spectrum analyser on the signal and look at it. That gives you a pretty graphic representation of what's up. I might be able to come out next week and take a look with you if you want. Call the station andask for me if you want to do that. We're still trying to get a good hadle on propogation here in town and I'd be willing to do that.

As for preamps - I haven't found one yet that works with the digital signsls reliably and gives you enough gain to do any good. I tried 3 or 4 different ones at my house and found that anything over 10db of gain trashed the signal completely. Critical antenna aiming was much more help than preamp gain.

Lance

Here's something I pulled off a trade mag site this morning - may be of interest to Nascar fans for this weekend:

NBC Airs Nascar Daytona 500 in Hi-Def

John Consoli

FEBRUARY 15, 2006 -

NBC will air the 2006 Nascar Daytona 500 on Sunday, Feb. 19, in high definition, televising the action with 76 cameras, including 10 in-cars, from Daytona Speedway. The telecast will also feature a "crew-cam" helmut camera worn by a jack-man in Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crew to capture pit stop actioon. NBC will also have a "squash-cam," a lipstick-sized camera buried in the grass in the oval that will give viewers the effect of being squashed by the race cars as they speed by.

NBC's coverage of the 48th running of the Daytona 500 will begin at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, with a one hour Bank of America Countdown to the Green pre-race show, following by the race.

NBC will air Winter Olympics coverage before and after the race.

In 2004, the last time the race aired on NBC, which alternates coverage with Fox, the race was watched by 33.5 million viewers and posted a 10.6 national rating with a 24 share, according to Nielsen Media Research data.

The pre-race show will feature NBC Tonight Show host Jay Leno driving the pace car; Fergie of the group Black Eyed Peas singing the National Anthem, and a performance by rock band Bon Jovi.

Lance
Dish has a new HD receiver just out called the 622. It has MPEG4 capabilities that Dish is going to use for all future HD channels. I just read a post on dbstalk.com that reports the OTA tuner in the 622 does a better job of locking onto the signal than the 921 or 942. I'm going to upgrade to the 622, but not until April 1, as that is the date that Dish has set for customers that have the 921/942 to upgrade for $99.

I got the 921 on Dec 31, 2003, making me one of the very first 921 owners in the country. The 921 has always had stability problems and needs to be rebooted every 2 weeks or so. I bought the Hitachi TV 3 months before the 921, so the tuners are about the same age, but the Hitachi is definitely better.

So, if you are interested in seeing how the signal propagates, I am more than happy to let you see what it's like at my place. Otherwise, I think that I will wait for the 622 and see how it does. I don't think that anything could be done about it anyway. It's not like KTVA will move their antenna for me. ;)

Jim,
OK. I wondered if your boxes might be older. those are probably 3rd gen receivers and all of those had issues if conditions aren't pretty close to perfect. My 4th gen LG receiver does a much better job. I'm currently waiting for my 5th gen USB box to show up. I plan to hook it to my laptop and do the PVR gig with it.

So let's wait til you get your new box in April. If you're still having problems at that point, I'll drag out the test equipment and we'll see what's up, OK?

Lance

At the open of the skating comp tonight they showed the commentators - set up at a desk at the top corner of the ice. There was a bank of monitors set up in front of them so they could see the feeds, but they could also look over them directly to the ice. Interesting stuff.

Lance

At the open of the skating comp tonight they showed the commentators - set up at a desk at the top corner of the ice. There was a bank of monitors set up in front of them so they could see the feeds, but they could also look over them directly to the ice. Interesting stuff.

Lance

I just wish those guys wouldn't tell you what is going to happen, but instead what just happened.


HD quality aside... how much of the commentary is done from the trailer vs actually being at the event?


What I should had asked, How much of the commentary is done live vs voice over in the cutting room?

In the snowboard half pipe, before Shaun White last run, the camera showed him at the top for a good 2 minutes while the announcers went into a long bio about him and that he was the last competitor to compete in the event, that all others were done. But, if you looked at his visor, you could see from the reflection that another competitor was completing their run and awaiting their score.

I guess in a perfect world we would have continuous coverage with a different channel for every venue. We could see all competitors in an event, instead of only the selected few. :D

Cheers

... But, if you looked at his visor, you could see from the reflection that another competitor was completing their run and awaiting their score.

I guess you could call that a "drawback" for broadcasters broadcasting in HD...it's much harder to fib... Something you probably wouldn't have noticed in SD.

HA!

Actually I'm pretty surprised that we haven't heard more this year from the Sports Nazis - sorry, FANS - demanding that all these events actually be shown live no matter what time of day they occur, since if it's pre-recorded it's a complete waste of time... (they have no real lives - just TV)

Lance

Looks like KTUU's HD feed is kaput. I was hoping to watch the women's hockey game for the gold, but 2.1 is showing standard def.

Laaaaaaance!!!! :p

Sorry, but here's the deal. We've discovered that due to the age of the HD server we use for delay, it won't do 5.1 audio. So until the Olympics are over we're keeping the system set up for the live 5.1 feeds. But that means that wehen we HAVE to delay something - like today's show or the 4-5pm daily feeds - they have to air upconverted or there's no announcer audio. (This whole audio thing is a LOT more complicated thans we originally thought.) So that's why it looked like it did. Sorry, but I can't do both with the equipment we currently have. I spent most of Thursday, all of Friday, and about half of today on the phone and email with everyone up through Dolby's support techs trying to get answers to this problem. We may have figured out a solution, but I'm not sure corporate is going to buy into it since it's going to require spending another $15-20K to resolve. (We're already in about $9K for the Dolby Digital encoder...) When I get an answer later this week, we'll decide where this is going but I can pretty much guarantee that we'll be back to a 2/0 stereo feed (Dolby Prologic) at the end of the Olympics until we can get some more equipment in and installed to fix this.

So sorry for the upconverted - but I can't switch back and forth at will - we have to physically rewire part of the chain to make the switch back and forth. We'll be back to live Olympics tonight in prime time...

Lance

Thanks for the update. We know you're all working on it.

Is it true that the stations at Goose Bay are trying to switch to VHF channels for HDTV?

I'm thinking about installing some sort of outdoor antenna this summer.

Anyone else having a problem pulling in KYES OTA? Was fine a couple of days ago. Now, signal is strong, but no picture or sound. (talking about digital channels 22.1, 22.2, 22.3, and 22.4)

Is it true that the stations at Goose Bay are trying to switch to VHF channels for HDTV?

I'm thinking about installing some sort of outdoor antenna this summer.

Channels 2, 7, and 13 at Goose Bay ARE using VHF channels 10, 8, and 12 respectively for DTV. An outdoor antenna is almost always a good idea. Would need to know what area of town you're in to say for sure, but in general, yes. Get the outdoor antenna. Ch 11 is UHF (Ch 28) from Spenard and 5 is UHF (Ch 22) on the hillside. Also Ch 33 (KDMD) from Eagle River.

Good luck.
Lance

Boy is my face red. Maybe this is why that Silver Sensor antenna of mine works less than well for those Goose Bay stations.

Roginator, I thought you were on the right track but....are the stations supposed to move more to the UHF frequencies?

Right now we have a mixture of the two. I picked up a silver sensor and cannot get a lot of the stations but my rabbit ears with a UHF loop get all of them to a certain degree.

Is it true that we'll need to have an antenna that is set up for both VHF and UHF?

The station assignments as they currently are are the permanent assignments. A station might petition to change to a different channel in the future, but at this point the ones we're on are the ones we're planning to stay on.

So- Yes, you need to be able to receive both UHF and VHF if you want to get all of them.

The Silver Sensor is an OK UHF antenna but it doesn't get the Vs worth beans. If you want that style of antenna I'd suggest a Terk HDTVi Antenna Pro. It looks a lot like a Silver Sensor and has that same directivity, but also has a set of rabbit ears in the back. I have one in my office at the studio and it works pretty well for an indoor type antenna. Of course an outdoor antenna will work better in almost all conditions if you can put one up.

Lance

Thanks Lance. About the outdoor antenna...

I live in the South Anchorage area, O'malley & West 100th. I would like to try using an antenna in my attic. I wonder if you have any opinions on that.

Thanks!

I'm about to head to Eagle River to see about buying a highly-rated Radio Shack indoor antenna. If that doesn't work, I'll probably investigate an outdoor antenna.

I'm only 15 miles from the transmitter in Goose Bay -- and I can get the other nearby UHF stations ok with the Silver Sensor on another antenna input if needed.

See: http://www.hdtvexpert.com/pages/antin.htm

Thanks Lance. About the outdoor antenna...

I live in the South Anchorage area, O'malley & West 100th. I would like to try using an antenna in my attic. I wonder if you have any opinions on that.

Thanks!

Should work, but issue would be whether your attic is high enough to get the antenna up where nothing is in the way. One of our people her at Ch 2 has a house near there and he had to go about 10 feet above his 2 story to get a decent signal. Each case is different. You get a little attenuation through the roof if you put it in the attic, but usually is OK. Biggest problem there is getting alignment correct since you can't see where you're pointing. Several antenna options are available in town- suggest you go see the folks at Frigid North. They're a little more on the ball than the Rat Shack folks, although those would work as well.

Make sure you don't put any active (powered) splitters or amplifiers in the line. I have yet to see one of those here that doesn't foul up the signal.


Let me know how it works out. We're still trying to figure out the variances in different areas of town.

Lance

I'm about to head to Eagle River to see about buying a highly-rated Radio Shack indoor antenna. If that doesn't work, I'll probably investigate an outdoor antenna.

I'm only 15 miles from the transmitter in Goose Bay -- and I can get the other nearby UHF stations ok with the Silver Sensor on another antenna input if needed.

See: http://www.hdtvexpert.com/pages/antin.htm

Roginator,
Interesting article. I still have reservations about the amplified antennas, but I'd like to know how it works out for you. I personally tried a Philips amplified indoor antenna a couple months ago and found pretty poor performance. As soon as you started to crank up the gain, the noise added to the signal caused the dtv signals to unlock. Finally gave up on it in favor of a standard yagi. Also tried various combinations of line amps - straight 10db gain to variable 20 db. And tried a couple of amplified splitters. All of them caused issues with the digital signal. They worked pretty well on analog, but they made the digital noisy enough that the receiver coud no longer lock.

Lance

Thanks Lance. About the outdoor antenna...

I live in the South Anchorage area, O'malley & West 100th.

Jason
I have mixed results with the KTUU HD signal. Did you read my posts about it? You might have the same problem with interference from KTVA. It just depends on how good your tuner is.

Ok, I picked up the last Radio Shack 15-1880 internal antenna in town (I think).

Alas, it was quite a letdown. I'm beginning to suspect the MyHD-120 card isn't the world's best HDTV receiver.

I fiddled around with the antenna in various rooms attached to a shielded cable running into ant-2 on the MyHD card with very poor results. So I figured I'd just plug the thing directly into ant-1 on the MyHD card. With only 3' of cable, it didn't leave much room to turn the antenna, but I found I got a usable signal from KAKM-HD aiming it north. Then I thought I'd try it again in my bay window. So I unplugged it from ant-1 and reattached it to the cable that was hooked up to ant-2. Once again I got the decent signal for KAKM-HD.

Then I noticed something -- the MyHD TV application was still using ant-1 WITH NOTHING ATTACHED TO IT!! Either I was getting a super-duper signal that didn't require an antenna (mind-boggling) or there was leakage between the two antenna connections on the card. It appears there is leakage between the two antenna ports.

To summarize, I can get KAKM-HD somewhat better than I did with the Silver Sensor antenna, but can't get a usable signal from KENI-HD at all with the Radio Shack antenna. As for KIMO, I think I've gotten a usable signal from that for about 2-3 seconds.

I'm curious. What power levels are the 3 stations at Goose Bay using? Do they vary at different times of the day?

Looks like an outdoor antenna is in my future once the snow melts.

Oops..guess I'm showing my age with that reference to KENI being a TV station. I meant, or course, KTUU.

KAKM is at full power with about 50KW, KIMO is at half power with 20KW, and KTUU is at the maximum the FCC would allow - 21 KW. We have interference issues with Ch 11 in the Valley, so could not run at originally proposed 50 KW. Those figures are all Radiated power from the antenna, not the actual transmitter outputs.

Those figures should allow perfect reception anywhere within 50-60 miles of Goose Bay with any reasonable antenna. Before I moved here I was in Boise where most all the stations were operating at significantly less power and were being received at 90-100 miles away with no issues. (They were on a mountaintop giving them the equivalent of a 5000 foot tower, but hey...)

Transmitted power is not the issue here. Interference and multipath seem to be the big culprits. Of course as those factors increase, receiver quality becomes a more significant issue as well. If your tuner is more than 2 years old, chances are it's part of the issue.

Lance

I would like to hear Lance's thoughts on the constant audio and video drop-outs we see with GCI. ( I have the dual tuner Moto box. 6412) This seems to only be a problem with the local channels. I rarely see it on any other channels except the locals.
Are the local stations working with GCI to correct this or is the problem within GCI's network?

Thanks

I would like to hear Lance's thoughts on the constant audio and video drop-outs we see with GCI. ( I have the dual tuner Moto box. 6412) This seems to only be a problem with the local channels. I rarely see it on any other channels except the locals.
Are the local stations working with GCI to correct this or is the problem within GCI's network?

Thanks

I had the same issue. It was fixed by swapping the box for a new one.

Yea, I am on my third box, each time the problem seems to be corrected for a while than comes back????????

I would like to hear Lance's thoughts on the constant audio and video drop-outs we see with GCI. ( I have the dual tuner Moto box. 6412) This seems to only be a problem with the local channels. I rarely see it on any other channels except the locals.
Are the local stations working with GCI to correct this or is the problem within GCI's network?

Thanks

I don't have cable and was not aware that there was an issue. I can only address how we get our signals to GCI, I don't know about anyone else.

The output of our HD and SD encoders is fed directly to GCI via a fiber link. They are not using off-air pickup. Once it reaches their plant, they decode the fiber feed, strip any of what they consider "extraneous data" and recode it in the QAM format for distribution on their system. There's a lot of manipulation there but I hadn't heard any complaints before. Could someone record me a sample of what you're talking about so I can see it? (A VHS tape or DVD would be fine. Doesn't actually have to be an HD record...) If I can see it I can probably talk intelligently about what the problem might be... ;)

Lance

Here it is late Sunday afternoon and I've just finish showering off the insulation I wore today in the attic.

I went to Frigid North Saturday morning to buy an antenna but the guy helping didn't know too much and the antenna I wanted was buried up on a shelf he couldn't get to so he told me to come back later. I ended up getting an RCA "fringe" antenna from Home Depot 10 minutes later. It has VHF and UHF elements, boom length of 120", no amplifier and easy enough to assemble. I knew I was going to mount it in the attic so I bought some mounts there and some cable, I was good to go.

Installed the antenna in the attic and pointed per Antennaweb.org. I ran the 100' RG-6 down into my living room and attached it to my FusionHDTV5 tuner in my PC. Voila! KIMO, KTVA and KAKM. KYES was in the oposite direction so it wasn't coming in much at all. But Darnit KTUU was still about 15dB on my card and not being received.

Then I added a FM trap I had bought earlier since I live about 2 miles from some FM towers in Klatt park (Thanks Jeremy Lansman and Mr. Parker for scouting that out) BAM! a gain of about 5db and KTUU coming in strong enough that there were zero dropouts for the couple of hours I watched it.

I left this setup till the morning where I was still receiving KTUU in about 17 to 19db, KIMO was 20-21db, KAKM was 17-18db and KTVA at like 30db. These are all measured from the Fusion card in my PC.

Well goody, I thought I'd run the main line and multiplex it through the house. What a dipshit idea, and I'm a EE so I know better. Friggin lost KTUU and KAKM to what I can figure is roughly a 10-12db drop. KTUU now was at about 8db KAKM was about 5db. It was worse, thats what I eventually ended up with after shortening cable and using more quality connectors. So yea, remember those 3x4 multiswitches are essentially a 4 way splitter for VHF/UHF signals.

I have a cheapo plug in amplifier and I added that in line before the switch and I got everything back to varying degrees.

What I've figured thus far is often folks use a pre-amp on their antenna to boost the signal. So I guess I'll be trying one of those soon.

After further fiddling with the new Radio Shack internal antenna, I found a location in my bay window that allows me to get "acceptable" reception of ALL the stations in Anchorage -- without even moving the antenna.

KIMO seems to lock on only some of the time, but the others seems fairly reliable. Signal strengths for the Goose Bay stations are just barely enough.

We'll see if this reception holds up in the coming days with different weather conditions...

What I've figured thus far is often folks use a pre-amp on their antenna to boost the signal. So I guess I'll be trying one of those soon.

I've heard good things about one of the Channel Master pre-amps, but I'm no expert. Too bad they cost as much as a small antenna! Supposedly a good one will act the same as giving you a much bigger antenna.

I didn't even realize that Home Depot had an antenna. I stopped at Lowe's on Friday to see what antenna stuff they had - not a whole lot. One antenna and just enough accessories to put up a simple antenna against a house.

Have you thought about an amplified splitter? I'm pondering building a new house and have wondered how I would wire for TV. My current idea is to have a couple of amplified distribution splitters - one for OTA broadcasts from an antenna and one for cable. Then I'd use a dual coax wall plate in each bedroom and the living room/study.

Or is better to have a big loop with some sort of tap for each room? Is that even possible?

I put up a Channel Master 4228 antenna outside on a rotator. It pulls in all the local digital signals with no dropouts. ( I do have to spin the thing to get KYES and KDMD, but I usually don't go there anyway.) When I bought the antenna (online) I also bought a Channel Master 7777 mast mounted preamp, thinking it might be needed. But I don't need it. In fact, when I had it connected, I couldn't get squat. I think it over amped the tuner.

As an aside, I also am experiencing audio dropouts through GCI. (I have basic cable). If I change the channel, then come back to where I was, the audio feed comes back. Weird.

As another aside, I talked to Jeremy Lansman, President and chief engineer @ KYES. He said that since WB had bought UPN, that the UPN feed would be going away. I asked what they'd be replacing it with. He said possibly WB, depending on the money thing.

Have you thought about an amplified splitter? I'm pondering building a new house and have wondered how I would wire for TV. My current idea is to have a couple of amplified distribution splitters - one for OTA broadcasts from an antenna and one for cable. Then I'd use a dual coax wall plate in each bedroom and the living room/study.

Or is better to have a big loop with some sort of tap for each room? Is that even possible?

I did look at amplified splitters online. They are about the same price or more expensive than the typical Winegard or Channelmaster pre-amp. When looking at amplified multiswitches they often don't amplify terrestrial signals. I can't say I fully know about all the switches/amps, I only briefly looked at them. I will have to consider very carefully what I do since I plan on adding a 3x8 splitter in the future....

I'm pondering building a new house and have wondered how I would wire for TV. My current idea is to have a couple of amplified distribution splitters - one for OTA broadcasts from an antenna and one for cable. Then I'd use a dual coax wall plate in each bedroom and the living room/study.

Or is better to have a big loop with some sort of tap for each room? Is that even possible?

I am in the process of wiring the electrical system in a new house for a friend, and what we are doing is to install a dual system, Cat 6 inside of flexible plastic conduit and RG6 not in conduit. Both systems have a distribution panel in a closet on the main floor and an individual run to each bedroom, TV room, kitchen and rec room. If you are not familiar with it, the Cat 6 is the newest standard for data, with gigabit/second capacity. Eventually, the Cat 6 will be replace with something faster, such as fiber optic, so the conduit will allow the system to be upgraded.

The RG6 will work for right now to send SD TV around the house. I think that pulling everything to a central point gives more flexibility than running a loop around.

I have a cheapo plug in amplifier and I added that in line before the switch and I got everything back to varying degrees.

What I've figured thus far is often folks use a pre-amp on their antenna to boost the signal. So I guess I'll be trying one of those soon.

If you have a good signal, then the internal line amp will compensate for cable loss but if the signal is fringe, then that amp will amplify the snow (noise) as much as the signal and it will actually look worse. Best then is to use an antenna amp and then check to see if you still need a line amp within the house.

I installed the Channel Master CM7777 last night at my house in S. Anch. Worked like expected. KTUU was 20-22db. KIMO ~26db, KTVA ~29db and KAKM ~25db.

Now if KIMO would get some HD going so I can see some of March Madness in Hidef I would be really happy.

I did look over at the FCC applications and saw KTBY had another construction permit application. Its exactly 6 months after they last applied for an extension. Maybe we'll see something from them this summer?

Anyone else near the Jewel Lake and Dimond area? I am wondering how reception is (and about equipment choices)before I go up on that icy roof. I live in a hole of sorts, so i am not hopeful.

I've got AnchorageHD.TV up and running at a minimal, but probably useable, level. The entry page is pretty lame, but I'll redo it as I go along. The forums are set up and ready to use. Go there and let's see if wecan get some more local dialog going.

www.AnchorageHD.TV (http://www.anchoragehd.tv/)

Lance

I am in the process of wiring the electrical system in a new house for a friend, and what we are doing is to install a dual system, Cat 6 inside of flexible plastic conduit and RG6 not in conduit. Both systems have a distribution panel in a closet on the main floor and an individual run to each bedroom, TV room, kitchen and rec room. If you are not familiar with it, the Cat 6 is the newest standard for data, with gigabit/second capacity. Eventually, the Cat 6 will be replace with something faster, such as fiber optic, so the conduit will allow the system to be upgraded.

The RG6 will work for right now to send SD TV around the house. I think that pulling everything to a central point gives more flexibility than running a loop around.

I recently did structured wiring on a new house. It consisted of 1 each of the following to each room: 1 x Cat 5, 1 x Cat 6, 2 x RG6, 2x 16ga speaker wire. For the main TV locations I also ran HDMI. I think that would suffice for any upgradability issues. I personally believe fiber optic will never be used in residential applications, but hey, if you've got the money, might as well!

I've got AnchorageHD.TV up and running at a minimal, but probably useable, level. The entry page is pretty lame, but I'll redo it as I go along. The forums are set up and ready to use. Go there and let's see if wecan get some more local dialog going.

www.AnchorageHD.TV (http://www.anchoragehd.tv/)

Lance

Excellent! Thanks a lot for the effort, Lance. I hope we can all help build an informed HD community in Anchorage!

Anyone else notice that sometime this last week the "30-second skip" function was removed again from the Phase III boxes for GCI cable? The skip function worked fine last weekend. Firmware is now 12.31, I think it was 12.21 or something prior. Anyway, nothing like new "less improved" features.....

Yep, sure did!

Last time they did this on the 6208 I called and the tech rep didn't even know what a 30 sec skip was. It was a waste of my time... I think I'll pass on the phone call this time...it's pretty much hopeless.

Anyone else notice that sometime this last week the "30-second skip" function was removed again from the Phase III boxes for GCI cable? The skip function worked fine last weekend. Firmware is now 12.31, I think it was 12.21 or something prior. Anyway, nothing like new "less improved" features.....

You might like this.

http://www.anchoragehd.tv/bb/viewtopic.php?t=11

Here's what I got from the link on that page...
Nice of them to consider the 30 sec skip function a "Bug."


Firmware
Version 12.x firmware is used by the 6412 Phase III and the 3412

Version 12.31
Available: 2006-02-23
Bugfixes:
Disabled 30-second skip feature

Did anyone take the plunge and buy the new HD-A1? If so, where did you get it?

Or for that matter, has anybody bought/seen the xbox360 HD adapter?

Edit: I went around yesterday to Sears, Walmart, and Shimeks looking for the HD-A1. The guys at Shimeks said they aren't going to have any for acouple of weeks, and that they heard that BestBuy had 2 in which sold immediatly.

does anyone know if i can pull recorded shows off of my motorola dct6412 3

and if so how do i do it?

i want to send some tv shows to my brother in the sand box (iraq)

peace

Bump to avoid archiving.

does anyone know if i can pull recorded shows off of my motorola dct6412 3

and if so how do i do it?

i want to send some tv shows to my brother in the sand box (iraq)

peace

There used to be a thread in the HDTV forum that describes how to hook up via firewire to a win XP machine and do it... It looked fairly involved from what I saw a while back. Things may have changed by now though.

There used to be a thread in the HDTV forum that describes how to hook up via firewire to a win XP machine and do it... It looked fairly involved from what I saw a while back. Things may have changed by now though.


joakwin, pm me, I have the single tuner (DCT6208) but I archieve HD from my box via firewire with no problems.

Anyone have a successful experience recording shows off of GCI using MythTV?

Considering a new HTPC build, and testing waters before jumping in and getting my feet wet.

Anyone have a successful experience recording shows off of GCI using MythTV?

Considering a new HTPC build, and testing waters before jumping in and getting my feet wet.

I record off the Motorola boxes directly to my PC just fine, never tried MythTV.

Side note, anyone seen the new Atlas DVR's GCI is handing out? They are very nice with flashy blue LED's up front, SATA, Firewire, USB, Ethernet, HDMI etc, only downside was it didnt work with the D-VHS drivers I use to cap from the Moto boxes. The CS rep said they are phasing out the moto boxes and will be handing out Atlas boxes to new customers.

Justin,
Do you happen to have a link?

GCI's site still shows the motorola, and the only thing I could find on the net was for the atlas dvr universal remotes, which it looks like what comes with the motorola currently.

Justin,
Do you happen to have a link?

GCI's site still shows the motorola, and the only thing I could find on the net was for the atlas dvr universal remotes, which it looks like what comes with the motorola currently.


Hmm, I saw the Atlas branding on the remote so I thought that was the brand of the cable box as well, maybe its a diff brand, Ill see if I can grab a model number and some specs off it later tonight. Physically it looks MUCH different than the Moto boxes. (especially when the front LED indicator is lit). Sigh, yet another manufacturer adding hyper-blue LED's to an electronic device. :p

Ok did some googling, it looks like its not an Atlas, my mistake, its made by Pace Micro, model is a TDC775 Tahoe. Here's some specs I found

http://www.pacemicro.com/corporate/products/productDetails.asp?nav=products&fullid=products_DCABLE&productID=DCABLE-TDC775%20Tahoe

http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/825/pace_micro_technology

The GCI store on Northern lights had *STACKS* of these behind the counter if you want to swap your moto box for them. Id guess they had 75-100 easy.

I originally had a 6208 (single tuner), I wanted to swap it out for a Moto dual tuner and from what I had read earlier it should have been a Moto 6412 but I got this Tahoe box instead. Swapped the Tahoe back in for a Moto dual tuner but the model number was DCT3416 instead of a 6214 :confused: . Oh well, its dual tuner and firewire works so Im satisfied :) I really liked that Tahoe box but its a shame the firewire didnt work else I woulda kept it. From the specs it had 40GB of extra HDD space and a functional SATA port as well.

Hmmm...cool. How was the software? Was it the same "tv guide" front end? Did you happen to test the SATA port with an external HD?

Here's someone else's review here on AVS from a different market (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9226234&&#post9226234)

I'd like to hear a bit more about it before jumping ship with the motorola...
Anyone else grab one of these?

Just found this thread too:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=659367

Hmmm...cool. How was the software? Was it the same "tv guide" front end? Did you happen to test the SATA port with an external HD?

Here's someone else's review here on AVS from a different market (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9226234&&#post9226234)

I'd like to hear a bit more about it before jumping ship with the motorola...
Anyone else grab one of these?

It has the exact same TV guide interface. Noticed a few quirks tho. When accessing the mneu (Menu button while cable box is turned off) you no longer get the White screen with all the options to adjust, it comes up with a live feed in a little blue box overlay. It had most of the same options, however, noticeably missing was the 4x3 override option. The only thing they have is auto-pillarbox which just stretches a 4x3 image to a 16x9 frame. Also, using the dual tuners was a bit different. On the moto its seamless, you can record from another channel and then switch to a different channel seamlessly with no popups. I was recording Enemy Of The State off StarzHD and then switched channels and this prompt came up saying "Do you want to switch to the other tuner?" instead of just automatically switching. I didn't test the SATA but when i hooked up the firewire cable from my box to my HTPC an external drive was detected under removable storage but Windows wouldn't let me access it. The other negative thing I noticed was the remote was far less responsive to button presses versus the moto. I literally had to mash the buttons down HARD to get them to respond. Tried same remote on Moto 3416 and it works fine so I dunno :confused: One of the nicer things was that it had independent resolution settings allowing for native signal passthrough. So for example you could set 720p and 1080i both to yes and then display something like HDNet in 1080i and ESPN at 720p instead of having everything converted to 1080i or 720p.

Hi Justin,

Noticed a few quirks tho. When accessing the mneu (Menu button while cable box is turned off) you no longer get the White screen

Just a little background to the TDC775 (aka Tahoe). It is not a clone of the 34xx/64xx. Both boxes run TV Guide, but the PowerMenu and Diagnostics have significant differences and Tahoe has a number of features that are not available on the other DVRs (i.e. a functional SATA port etc.).

More details on these differences can be found in the TDC 775 Thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9455822#post9455822).

In this particular case, it was intentional that video is visible when you are changing video attributes.


noticeably missing was the 4x3 override option.

Could you describe what this feature does? Does this auto-switch to 480i?

On the moto its seamless, you can record from another channel and then switch to a different channel seamlessly with no popups. I was recording Enemy Of The State off StarzHD and then switched channels and this prompt came up saying "Do you want to switch to the other tuner?" instead of just automatically switching.

This particular pop-up is presented by TV Guide. The version of TV Guide is likely different between the two platforms. When both boxes are at the same level of TV Guide, this difference will be gone.

firewire cable from my box to my HTPC an external drive was detected under removable storage but Windows wouldn't let me access it.

External 1394 drives are not currently support on the TDC775. External SATA drives are supported.

If you or Borg have additional questions, please let me know.

@lindend

the 4x3 override lets you select a format to display 4x3 SDTV content in. The motorola boxes let you set it to 480i, 480p, or off (1080i). Whatever setting you have it on, all 4x3 content will be converted to that particular resolution, ie if you have ti @ 480p, all SDTV will be shown in 480p. We needed this for our plasma downstairs because excessive black bars would probably resulkt in burn in. Unfortunately, our Samsung plasma does not have any sort of Zoom options in 1080i so the only option was to choose auto-pillarbox and the image was just stretched to fill the image and everyone looked like fat midgets (TNT-O-VISION). I needed the motorola's ability to out @ 480p so I could use the panorama/zoom features of my TV and have a decent 4x3 SDTV viewing experience.

@lindend

the 4x3 override lets you select a format to display 4x3 SDTV content in. The motorola boxes let you set it to 480i, 480p, or off (1080i). Whatever setting you have it on, all 4x3 content will be converted to that particular resolution, ie if you have ti @ 480p, all SDTV will be shown in 480p.

Ok, so this is the same issue you raised on the TDC 775 thread correct?

BTW, sorry about misspelling your name in my previous post. I've corrected it.

Lindend,
There is a thread on our local HD forums about the pace box if you are interested:
http://www.anchoragehd.tv/bb/viewtopic.php?t=131

Hi Borg,

Thanks for the link. I'll check it out.

Ok, so this is the same issue you raised on the TDC 775 thread correct?

BTW, sorry about misspelling your name in my previous post. I've corrected it.


Yes same issue (along with not being able to get firewire working) another user mentioned the lack of 4x3 override as well. Was a really nice box tho, I really liked the look of the LED display up front. I need the ability to record via firewire to my PC tho so that was the deal breaker.

The GCI rep @ 5th ave. mall confirmed that these Tahoe boxes will be the new standard box being given out to digital cable subscribers. The Moto boxes are officially replaced it seems. (I believe I grabbed the very last moto dual tuner box out of all the GCI stores, had to goto 4 different stores just to find one in stock for me to pickup.)

Ok, anyone up off dearmoun getting any OTA channels? I get locals over GCI cable but decided to check out an antenna feed because Ive read it should be bitter PQ wise (GCI compresses the bejesus out of thier feeds). In any event, bought an RCA AND525 UHF/VHF antenna from BB and hooked it up and get *ZERO* channels. Tried with the amplifier gain at off, medium, and max. Manually tuned to the CBS-DT channel and pulled up my TV diagnostics info and had a signal strength of 40-45 % and it my TV kept flashing "lock" and "unlock" repeatedly - no picture and no audio. I figure I should at least be able to get CBS (its in the "yellow" small antenna range on antennaweb for my address) Antenna is hooked up directly to my Sony 40xbr2 LCD which has ATSC/QAM tuners. My buddy lives about 3 miles from me down around O-Malley and he got all the OTA's just fine with his silver sensor. :confused: I'll try and exchange for a diff antenna tommorow after class if time permits, but I found it a bit strange that I get no digital or no analog signals whatsoever.

The indoor antennas I tried all REDUCED the signal except for the Silver Sensor. See if you can borrow your friend's to test it out.

Let us know if you can get the Goose Bay stations (KTUU and KAKM).

Hi Borg,

Thanks for the link. I'll check it out.

Lindend, Is the new pace box HDMI 1.3 capable, or even firmware upgradeable to 1.3?

Lindend, Is the new pace box HDMI 1.3 capable, or even firmware upgradeable to 1.3?

It's HDMI 1.1 and can transmit DD 5.1 to any HDMI receiver/repeater (I'm not aware of any Cable operator transmitting 7.1 or the new codecs in their content).

As far as upgradability, can't comment on that.

Do you have some type of compatibility concern?

Not yet, but I probably will when I upgrade my audio/video to the next gen.

My question is mainly out of curiosity for now...

mmmmmm, first time we get the superbowl in HD this year :) :) :) :) :)
Now if only we could get Fox for the world series :rolleyes:

mmmmmm, first time we get the superbowl in HD this year :) :) :) :) :)
Now if only we could get Fox for the world series :rolleyes:


NASCAR starts this Sat... on FOX :(

NASCAR starts this Sat... on FOX :(

Hey there! I'm over here in Kodiak and we get our "Digital, HDTV" on Wed the 14th! I am personnaly P.O'ed that we do not have Fox in HD! What gives? I have a Sony KDL46V2500 LCD 1080p and the PQ is horrible because of the stupid cable we have here! I cant wait to see the upgrade on Wed! Or should I say I cant wait to hear GCI's excuses for why my signal is so bad! Sorry had to vent! :mad: :mad:

Jim,
I suspect your problem is more related to the Ch11 inline issue than multipath, but may be a little of both. The big issue with multipath is that refelcted signals arrive at the antenna out of phase with the direct sicnal and partially cancel the direct one. So a reflection from in front of you like the metal roof wouldn't provide a large difference in path length and therefore not much cancellation. Usually multipath is more a problem for significantl off-axis signals but not always. On an analog set multipath shows up as ghosting. In dtv it causes a hole in the freqency spectrum which the receiver may be able to compensate for if it's a newer model - 4th or 5th generation tuner. The early tuners were not very good with multipath and it didn't take a lot to cause them to display no signal.

The Ch11 problem is more likely to be the culprit. One thing we've noticed ove the last couple weeks is tha propogation in general has been changing. I'm guessing it has to do with a lot of weather factors like moisture content in the air, layers of significantly different temperatures, etc. and ice in the Knik Arm moving in and outwith the tide. At my place near the airport some nights I get very poor reception (and poor Clearwire internet service) while other nights everything is 5/5.

I wonder about hte Dish receiver. Maybe someone else has some experience with this stb that they could give us. If your TV tuner gets the signal solid, the stb should do the same with the same setup. Maybe it's actually older technology - an early generation tuner - and is more affected. Not sure.

Only way to tell if it's Ch11 or multipath that I know of is to put a spectrum analyser on the signal and look at it. That gives you a pretty graphic representation of what's up. I might be able to come out next week and take a look with you if you want. Call the station andask for me if you want to do that. We're still trying to get a good hadle on propogation here in town and I'd be willing to do that.

As for preamps - I haven't found one yet that works with the digital signsls reliably and gives you enough gain to do any good. I tried 3 or 4 different ones at my house and found that anything over 10db of gain trashed the signal completely. Critical antenna aiming was much more help than preamp gain.

Lance

Lance
Some months ago, we had a conversation about the OTA signal problems that I was having with my Dish 921 receiver. I upgraded to a Dish 622 two weeks ago and am happy to report that the 622 locks on to Channel 2 HD signal just fine. :)

Jim

Hi everybody

I upgraded both my Dish and GCI equipment a couple of weeks ago and thought that I would offer my opinion on the Dish 622 vs GCI TDC775 Tahoe.

Picture quality:
All channels except locals: Dish. The picture has better detail and less motion artifacts.
Locals: GCI. Dish does not carry the local channels in HD. I do have a rooftop antenna connected, but Dish does not have the EPG info for KAKM HD and the guide for KTVA HD shows the info for NBC. :confused: This makes it very hard to set the DVR to record any HD off of either 7 or 11. The 622 Channel 2 HD does show the correct info. The 622 OTA for 2, 7 and 11 picture quality is better than GCI. However, the problems with the EPG out weigh the slight difference in picture quality.

User interface: Dish. I can record 3 channels simultaneously (2 from satellite and one OTA), the PIP works, the hard drive is bigger for about 200 hours of SD storage, the channels are in a better order in the guide, the guide is faster to scroll thru, no TV guide ads in the guide, 4 favorite lists instead of 1, Dish has Name Based Recording (record only new episodes of a program skipping repeats for example) and a 30 second skip forward.

Costs: comparable, but Dish just raised the price $5/month for the "everything" package. and I have not sat down with the bills to do a complete comparison.

Number of channels available: Comparable. Each has a few minor channels that the other does not. GCI has Starz HD, Dish does not. Dish has the old Voom channels on satellite 129, but due to problems with it, Alaska can not get it. Perhaps they will fix it in the future with the launch of a new satellite.

Bottom line for me: Dish. Just my 2 cents worth.
Jim

Hey there! I'm over here in Kodiak and we get our "Digital, HDTV" on Wed the 14th! I am personnaly P.O'ed that we do not have Fox in HD! What gives? I have a Sony KDL46V2500 LCD 1080p and the PQ is horrible because of the stupid cable we have here! I cant wait to see the upgrade on Wed! Or should I say I cant wait to hear GCI's excuses for why my signal is so bad! Sorry had to vent! :mad: :mad:

It's not GCI's fault. Fox isnt transmitting a OTA DTV signal yet so GCI can't carry it. I keep hearing alleged launch dates, but it inevitably gets delayed. I'm still waiting <impatiently>

WORLD SERIES IN HD DAMNIT! :mad:

Is there a list anywhere for what we can get over GCI cable with a QAM tuner? On my Sony Bravia KDL-40S20L1 I get the basic channels 2-16 and then I get some random channels as well as HDNET and TNT HD, but without audio. I was kind of hoping I'd at least get the same channels I got with the old NTSC cable, without the need for a cable box to get more than very basic cable.

Anyways if I have some time this week I'll try to make up a list of what I can get in Juneau with a QAM tuner, shouldn't take that long not like its much.

Here's what I can pick up in anchorage:
2.1 nbc
7.1 pbs
11.1 cbs

Hey folks, glad I found this forum. Just dipping a toe in the water with this stuff. I'm up at the end of Eagle River Road (past the Nature Center). Analog TV reception on any channel (VHF or UHF) with indoor rabbit ears is iffy. Only channel I'm interested in receiving right now is the KAKM-DT on 7.1. I have no problems with making my own antenna, altho I may wait a month or two before trying to put it up high (that snow and ice thing).

So here's my first question: On antennaweb, they say the 'channel' is 7.1, but that the "Frequency Assignment" is 8. Is that VHF channel 8?

Thanks!

You realize that PBS-HD isn't the same as local PBS?

Hm, no, I hadn't really thought about it. But the stuff I'm interested in (Great Performances, Masterpiece Theater and stuff like that) probably is?

Word of the KTBY / Fox antenna up on the Hilton downtown and broadcast to start in the near future.

Lance
Some months ago, we had a conversation about the OTA signal problems that I was having with my Dish 921 receiver. I upgraded to a Dish 622 two weeks ago and am happy to report that the 622 locks on to Channel 2 HD signal just fine. :)

Jim


Jim,
Glad to hear you're getting us fine now. We're still seeing occasional problems with NBC - last week we had 3 days straight where there was no center channel in the 5.1 - but overall, they're doing pretty well.
Lance

For more skinny about what's going on with DTV in Anchorage don't forget to stop by www.AnchorageHD.tv (http://www.AnchorageHD.tv)
See ya there!
Lance

Word of the KTBY / Fox antenna up on the Hilton downtown and broadcast to start in the near future.

Nice!
How soon?

Nice! - How soon?

"Hopefully in time for NFL preseason"

Almost there !!!!!!

Hi all!

I'm just getting back into thinking about getting an HDTV antenna to put on my roof here in the Spenardagain neighborhood in Anchorage. I'm wondering if there are any local dealers that would sell me a good antenna for the job, or if online retailers would have more of what I need. Anyone using just an antenna to get their TV? I'd like to drop my Dish satellite in favor of an antenna, since the only TV we watch is on local channels.

Do I need a VHF/UHF antenna or only UHF? Mid or long range? What's the current thinking about this in the ANC?

Thanks!

Anyone have any news if GCI might be adding any channels any time soon(like before 08)? Right now the selection is pretty poor TBH. I want to upgrade to a nicer TV, but can't really justify it with only a few channels.

I dropped GCI for D i rect TV just for the HD channels they are really coming through for us right now and it looks like it is just getting better all the time. Not to mention the football package . Still nobody seems to be getting Fox anytime soon ? I hope we get it before 24 kicks back in .

Can anyone with directv post their complete satellite signal strengths for comparison of what to try to achieve.
101,110 and 119 for certain, all transponders.
99 and 103 if you have MPEG 4 equipment.
Also if you have MPEG 4 please give a brief description of your dish hardware setup.

Thank you in advance

Doctor j

Posted this on anchoragehd.tv as well hoping for some answers :)
Hey guys!
Moving to Eagle River area (still looking for houses) at the end of June. What I have found so far is the following.
1) Antennaweb tells me nothing is available in the Eagle River area.... - You guys agree?
2) ABC still not in HD up there and nothing known yet - anyone know anything new?
3) DirectTV only gives me CBS and PBS in HD - Fox hopefully coming, but still up in the air. Do you guys know about the other channels?
4) Dish gives me a pretty decent local HD offering

Questions (besides above)
1) Some post here stated that due to location of satellites Dish gives better strenght than Direct tv. This was an old post is it still correct according to you guys? Lets assume I don't live right next to a mountain like my in-laws...
2) Any succes with waivers around here so I can get national feeds? Obviously this is mostly interesting for ABC since that doesn't exist, but also Fox for fotball sundays..
3) Any issues with getting Sunday Ticket via Direct TV in HD there? Aware of the blackout rules
Final question - how is the cable company in Eagle River area assuming I move into an area that is served. Are there multiple companies I need to look at? Also is anyone of them better for anything above dial-up internet

Bought my first digital 50-inch around 2002 and got one of the first HD-DVR's that Time Warner gave out so this is going to be a BIG change for me...
Appreciate any and all answers!

I too am moving to Eagle River shortly. Not sure whether I will go with GCI, Direct, or Dish. As a side note for those who have satellite, who do you use for internet service since cable internet would be out?

AT&T is just now rolling out their Wimax service in Anchorage. According to the card I received in the mail yesterday, the slow 384 kbps service is only $19.99 combined with local and long distance. Speeds up to 2Mbps are available.

The less than useful website is http://www.attalascom.com/

Then there's Clearwire?, MTA?, GCI? Did I miss anyone? Oh yeah, cellular modem service via ACS Wireless.

Unfortunately the alaska people are all over at this site: http://www.anchoragehd.tv/phpBB3/

Now I was thinking about going direct tv (if possible). There are other houses that I can see up the road with direct tv, so think it will work but won't be sure on how good until they come out there. Then I was thinking of going GCI with cable, but it would be expensive. AT&T would be an option as well as MTA. MTA also does tv, but not sure how good they are.

Finally it looks like our basement won't be done for a few months so probably going to get GCI first since the downstairs will have the home theater and at least 2 other tv's. So figuring that getting 2-3 HD satellite boxes should be done at the same time to get the best possible deal....

UPDATE: Direct Tv followed by Dish seems to be the best options for HD programming in Alaska. GCI cable provides some HD locals that you cannot get as of yet on Satellite. No NBC HD on the satellites.

The link posted #473 seems to be fairly active and certainly more active than here. Would love to keep this going if anyone has any info. Why hasn't Direct Tv picked up locals in HD?? We can't even get the national ABC/NBc HD stations. I don't want to set up an air antennae to get the locals in HD!!

Well the issue now for us in Alaska is a semi-active forum that is getting spammed to death by advertisers or this inactive thread - hoping some of you subscribe to this - time to migrate back???

GCI is best option for locals. I just went to D* and am kind of regretting it right now

Yeah but the hd programming on Direct TV blows away the GCI options. Believe it or not it is KTUU that won't set it up.

Not sure I agree with D blowing away GCI. GCI just added a ton of channels. I have just switched to D but it is only for the ST ticket package. I was very happy with the HD options and it was getting better by the day.

Having NCB local in HD was worth a lot - MNF is going to piss me off when I watch it.....

Also from the KTUU people they have given their feed to D - D doesn't have the space now. Probably next year so that also means that if ABC ever goes HD then they will fall in the same boat - pure speculation

Sorry about the spam to AnchorageHD.TV. I've been unable to gain administrative access to the web server to upgrade and fix phpBB to stop the spam registrations. I hope that someday I can either get this information from Lance, or even work out a transfer of the domain. But one thing is for certain - I can't log in every day to delete spam, when a bot can just post again or re-register.

I'm getting kinda angry with KIMO. GCI was ace adding a load more HD channels but KIMO is still dropping the ball. Now with College Football starting back up, and the final 11 races of the NASCAR season on KIMO I'm wanting KIMO in HD more than ever. What do we need to do get them to pull you know what out of you know where?

Not sure I agree with D blowing away GCI. GCI just added a ton of channels. I have just switched to D but it is only for the ST ticket package. I was very happy with the HD options and it was getting better by the day.

Having NCB local in HD was worth a lot - MNF is going to piss me off when I watch it.....

Also from the KTUU people they have given their feed to D - D doesn't have the space now. Probably next year so that also means that if ABC ever goes HD then they will fall in the same boat - pure speculation

But without adding premiums you are only getting about 20 hd stations. I get over 50 basic HD stations (100+ HD with the premiums) and I can watch 1080p movies. A couple of those stations like 101 is exclusive to direct and has excellent programming.

I agree with posts about KIMO not having HD, is there some way to let them know that (in case they don't already) that there are quite a few of us that do not watch their programming because they only broadcast in SD? Or maybe let ABC know that they or getting a lot of the Anchorage market and pressure KIMO to broadcast in HD!!!!

How do you do the 1080p movies? Downloading through the receiver? Do you know how much data you are using up per movie or how long this takes?

Since I cancelled the GCI package I gave up my unlimited data so that part sucks...

It payperview through the satellite. A phone line needs to connected for billing but there is no download and load on bandwidth (I am stuck with MTA DSL and fix usage). It doesn't look as good as a bluray and they are 5.99.

Nice to see KIMO is still stuck in the 20th Century when it comes to HD. Would have been nice to see tonight's BCS Championship game in a decent picture that doesn't look like someone took a #2 on my screen :mad:

or last week's Winter Classic!! Aren't they broadcasting in HD on GCI?

or last week's Winter Classic!! Aren't they broadcasting in HD on GCI?

The Winter Classic was on NBC and in HD (looked quite good too!). GCI has quite a few HD channels, but KIMO/ABC isn't one of them. They don't even have an HD OTA broadcast yet.

One has to wonder if they will ever be HD at this rate.

Since KIMO was just sold, it's looking better! Why would the old owners dump money into HD if they were just going to turn around and sell the station?

Since KIMO was just sold, it's looking better! Why would the old owners dump money into HD if they were just going to turn around and sell the station?

The first thing the new owners need to do is get rid of the slogan 'Alaska Superstation' !

Didn't know it was sold -- Great news

Now we need them in HD and D* to put up NBC in HD

I filed a waiver with DTV to get NBCHD out of LA so I could enjoy the Olympics. The funny thing is that KTUU has to approve the waiver and it can take 45 days. Between Vs and KTUU on DTV I am frustrated. Needless to say I got an over the air for the Olympics. Is it DTV or KTUU that is holding up the HD broadcast? I thought it was KTUU?

How do you expect to get a waiver approved? They provide you with the local channel through D there is no requirement for this to be in HD. I looked into that route too, but did not file as there is no way that they should approve it if you live in the Anchorage area. Separately you say that you are getting it OTA then definately there is no way you will get the waiver approved -- sorry.

KTUU has stated that they have now agreed with D*. The answer is complicated as KTUU wanted money (from what I read on AnchorageHD before that site went under). Then finally KTUU gave up on it but now D* claims to be out of room so they won't put up the HD feed. Very annoying but hopefully with the next satelitte launch we will get there

How do you expect to get a waiver approved? They provide you with the local channel through D there is no requirement for this to be in HD. I looked into that route too, but did not file as there is no way that they should approve it if you live in the Anchorage area. Separately you say that you are getting it OTA then definitely there is no way you will get the waiver approved -- sorry.


Glad you have it all figured out. You haven't submitted a waiver or followed through on the process yet you seem to know the outcome?

KTUU doesn't know that I am barely getting it over the air. I pay for locals and HD channels in Direct TV and my topographic and micro-conditions could certainly prevent me from getting it all together. My filed argument is that there is only one NBC station in the state, I don't live in Anchorage, and I would like NBC in HD. The supervisors at DTV thought it warranted a shot so I got nothing to lose. I will let you know how it turns out - but you already know.

lol

if you get it great for you and I would spend my time submitting a waiver.

"if you live in the Anchorage area." -- That statement has a big fat if in front of it

Separately you say that you are getting it OTA then definately there is no way you will get the waiver approved -- sorry. -- ok that one has no if. The rules are pretty clear - if you can get OTA then you shouldn't get a waiver approved.

I can't get OTA in Eagle River but I can get the KTUU via Direct TV. All the reading I did about the waiver rules came out pretty clearly and stated that if I can get any signal (SD or HD) from the local station then I will not get a waiver approved. If you are in the KTUU "broadcast area" AND can get Direct TV then you SHOULD not qualify for the waiver.

IF KTUU still grants you the waiver then one big FAT Congrats to you - that would be fantastic and I would submitt mine right away. BUT per the rules you do NOT qualify.

As you say that doesn't mean it wouldn't be worth trying.

Anyone know if GCI has updated their HD-DVRs in the past year or so? I have the Pace 787 and it'd be great to have a bigger hard drive.

Anyone else notice that it appears KTUU HD is on now on DIRECTV EXCEPT downconverted to SD?

There are now always blacks bars on the top and bottom of the screen for HD programming and bars on left, right, top, and bottom for non HD programming.

So Tandrin -- have you gotten any reply on your waiver? Just curious and hope it worked so I can apply

Thanks!

Shut down....but I heard back in three weeks!

That was quick -- sorry it didn't work out. As I said I didn't think it would, but I would have LOVED if it did....

I did email Direct TV again about it and they said sorry and confirmed that it was because of space.

Now with that said while looking around at some sites this weekend there are some issues with the new satellite. The speculations are that the fix they came up with can be applied to the spot-beam satellite as well (which apparently didn't reach expected capacity). The stuff is a bit over my head as it got real technical :) but they are doing stuff the next 1-2 months that people think will open up to more local channels. I am hoping it will work and expect that we will know before the end of the summer which means BEFORE football season :)

I had heard ABC was recently sold, but when I stopped by KTBY's office at Benson and Denali today I found the door locked and a sign saying to go to ABC at 2700 E Tudor if you have questions. The tech staff was still there broadcasting.

Did I miss a story in ADN? Or is this an accidental scoop?

I hadn't heard anything about KTBY or KIMO. Would be nice to finally get KIMO in HDTV, as the station now looks just horrible (GCI Cable). I don't even bother watching and instead stream in HD online from ABC.com