Cincinnati, OH - HDTV [Text View] - Page 41

Bill R (# 2)

11-11-08, 05:25 PM

One thing to note is that only WCPO, WXIX, and WLWT are uploaded in HD. All the others are in MPEG4 SD. Hopefully, they will all be in HD soon. Also, this service is being offered on a new MPEG4 only Dish service called Eastern Arc and is only available to new customers. Existing customers cannot order this service until 1 February 09 believe. However, if I understand it correctly, if you have received the new smart cards (updates security on Dish receivers) to insert into your Dish VIP receiver (722, 622, ,211, etc.) and have a dish pointed in the right direction, you can receive these channels. I have not received my new smart cards but I have read people are beginning to receive them.

The Cincinnati HD channels will be available from DISH on Nov. 19th. Hopefully WKRC-HD will be available by that date but it has not been uplinked yet. I did check with WKRC and according to the person that I talked to, their parent company, Newport TV, LLC, does have an agreement with DISH for them to carry the WKRC-HD signal.

I did have an extra dish so I pointed it at the 77 degree satellite. In case anyone needs the pointing information for the Cincinnati area the azimuth setting is 173 degrees and the elevation is 45 degrees. If you are using a dish 500 with an "I" adapter the skew is 90 (no skew). As of today there are 15 active transponders on the 77 degree satellite. Our HD locals will be on transponder 04. On that transponder I am getting a signal of 60 on this cold wet day (I am using a ViP722 receiver and that is a very good signal on the new signal scale). Right now none of the channels show in the EPG but when they are available to subscribers the HD channels will be on channels 5160 - 5163 according to the uplink report. Of course, if you wish, you can map them to their OTA channel number, i.e. WCPO on 009-01.

If you currently have a 1000.2 dish it is very easy to add the dish for 77 degrees. You do NOT need the "eastern arc" 1000.4 dish. You can use a dish (dish 300 or 500) with a DISHPro LNB and run one wire from it to the "LNB in" on the dish 1000.2. After aiming the dish (use transponder 01, 04, 12 or any active transponder to get a signal) all you need to do is run a switch test. If you currently subscribe to SD locals the HD locals will be available as soon as DISH makes them available (Nov 19th). You do NOT need to call DISH.

Anyone that has any questions can PM me.

jimp2244

11-13-08, 01:51 PM

We will get a total of 6 NFL games this week, all in HD! OTA-only viewers will get 4 games. Cable/Dish-only viewers will get 5 games. CBS has the double-header this week.

Thursday Night Game:

8:15pm NFLN NY Jets at New England $
Bob Papa, Cris Collinsworth

Sunday Day Games:

1pm FOX (19 WXIX, 45 WRGT) Philadelphia at Cincinnati
Kenny Albert, Daryl Johnston, Tony Siragusa

1pm CBS (7 WHIO) Baltimore at NY Giants*
Greg Gumbel, Dan Dierdorf

4pm CBS (12 WKRC, 7 WHIO) San Diego at Pittsburgh
Jim Nantz, Phil Simms

Sunday Night Football:

8:15pm NBC (5 WLWT, 2 WDTN) – Dallas at Washington
Al Michaels, John Madden, Andrea Kramer

Monday Night Football:

8:30pm ESPN – Cleveland at Buffalo+
Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski, Tony Kornheiser, Suzy Kolber, Michele Tafoya

+Cable Only
*Bonus game for OTA viewers
$ Requires pay-TV provider that carries NFL Network

Notes:
1pm CBS game is blacked out in Cincinnati. OTA viewers can watch via WHIO (Dayton) to avoid the blackout.

Starting this season, all NFL games will be produced in HD. All games will also be broadcast in HD with possible rare exceptions: Because of HD transport capacity limitations at CBS, there may be instances where a 4pm game will need to be in SD temporarily until 1pm games finish. Note that even this is unlikely to occur, and that there are only two times all year where this even has the potential to occur (maybe three depending on NBC Flex). Also, you may see halftime highlights on CBS in SD.

As always, let me know if any information is incorrect or needs to be updated.

Bubster

11-13-08, 02:18 PM

As always, let me know if any information is incorrect or needs to be updated.

Nup, just wanted to give my yearly thanks for your efforts in giving us the NFL schedule every week.

Nitewatchman

11-13-08, 06:26 PM

Notice WOTH-LP+WBQC-CA are now frequently running DTV conversion promo for WOTH-LP 25(the other channel) which seems to suggest we should see a DTV signal from WOTH-LD soon, with 4 "subchannels". It also contains an ad for TNT Picture Co., which I believe has installed some antennas for some of our members ... video also up on their website :

http://www.wbqc.com/woth/index.htm

Assume WOTH-LD signal would be on their digital companion channel 47 (25.1,25.2,25.3+25.4 are mentioned in the promo), as I'm not finding DTV flash cut app or CP on FCC site for them for 25 ..... The promo seems to indicate WOTH-LP 25 (analog) will go dark when they get their DTV signal up ... Of course, Also note WBQC-CA also has a CP for digital companion channel 20 ....

Also note WBQC/WOTH GM in following article from June said they were planning on Converting WOTH to digital before end of DTV Transition[assume he meant for full service stations - i.e. feb 17, 2009] ...

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2008-06-07-digital-tv_N.htm

blbrodbeck

11-13-08, 07:01 PM

blbrodbeck

11-13-08, 07:06 PM

I would expect the subchannels to be shopping channels. Anyone who watches WOTH now would see that it's mostly just infomercials already.

Nitewatchman

11-13-08, 07:28 PM

I get WOTH-LP and WBQC-CA just fine("snow free") from North Of Middletown/about 15 Miles SW of Downtown Dayton. Suspect I should be able to receive their DTV signals just fine as well given the info specified in their Construction permits at FCC site.

While it's true WOTH has a fair share of paid-programming+home shopping(Jewlery TV), probably more than WBQC, I wouldn't say it's "mostly" infomericals ... CFL Football, various motorsports programming, Punk'd, Lincoln Ware Show, Old Movies (Roy Rogers was on yesterday afternoon)/etc/etc ....

If someone tuned to some of the "big 4 affiliate" full-service stations in the area on weekend afternoons when no network sports programming was airing, they might think they run "mostly infomericials" as well ....

See WOTH-LP Schedule here :

http://titantvguide.titantv.com/apg/basic.aspx?siteid=1461

Anyhow, I'd guess we might initially see WBQC programming on one of the subchannels/WOTH on the other .... (do note that lately, in the mid-afternoon hours, WBQC/WOTH has been simulcasting the same programming -- Old movies) ...

BTW, WRCX-LP 40 Dayton, recently became Dayton's ION affiliate .... And, beginning a couple of weeks ago, WRGT-DT (Fox Dayton) is running ThisTV programming(secondary) at times on their MyTV subchannel .....

From A Buick 8

11-14-08, 07:28 AM

Anyone in NKY with insight cable. I have tried to let my TV scan the channels over and over and no digital ones are there. I had them about a week ago but nothing now. Anyone else have this problem.

jimp2244

11-14-08, 07:38 AM

As an FYI, the Thursday Night Football game on NFL Network between the Bengals and Steelers next Thursday will be simulcast on WLWT, presumably in HD as usual. WLWT will show regular NBC programming on 5-2. If you're interested in seeing the NBC shows in HD, you can do so on WDTN-DT Dayton.

I'll be switching my DVR to grab The Office and 30Rock from WDTN-DT while watching the Bengals live on WLWT-DT.

Trip in VA

11-14-08, 08:39 AM

Anyhow, I'd guess we might initially see WBQC programming on one of the subchannels/WOTH on the other .... (do note that lately, in the mid-afternoon hours, WBQC/WOTH has been simulcasting the same programming -- Old movies) ...

I'm quite curious to see what WOTH-LD will have for subchannels. I, too, imagine WBQC will be on 25-2 or something, but as for the others, I wouldn't be surprised to see something like Bohemia Visual Music show up.

- Trip

ncincy1

11-14-08, 10:17 AM

I talked to Elliott Block (WBQC/WOTH) owner a few months ago and he said they would "fire up" the DTV signal around the end of November. At that time he said they would broadcast WBQC programming on one of the sub-channels - maybe 25.2?
He did not discuss plans for the other sub-channels - wonder what they will be: Univision? RetroTV? ThisTV?
As far as signal, it should be even better than the analog - according to Elliott.
So, yes, in Northgate and beyond should be no problem with the signal.
Note: You can go to the FCC Website and view the signal contour map (for both WBQC LD and WOTH LD)

jimp2244

11-14-08, 10:29 AM

I am very much looking forward to a clean picture from WOTH-LD.

Bill R (# 2)

11-14-08, 12:02 PM

Anyone in NKY with insight cable. I have tried to let my TV scan the channels over and over and no digital ones are there. I had them about a week ago but nothing now. Anyone else have this problem.

Insight is moving stuff around to make room for more HD channels (their Digital 4.0 service). They have moved the local HD channels and it looks like they don't have the mapping right so channels are not mapped to their proper number. Channel 5.1 is on 94.1, 9.1 is on 116.33, 9.2 is on 116.34.

Also, you may want to check your signal strength on the digital channels. They are MUCH lower (for me) than they were before. I had to add an RF amp to pick up some of them. It is likely that they will fix the mapping problem and get the signal strength correct in the next week (or so) so, right now, I'm not going to reset my channel list.

By the way, it doesn't do any good to call Insight. The people that answer the phone don't have a clue about local HD clear QAM channels and told me that I need a cable box to get ANY HD channels.

Bill R (# 2)

11-14-08, 12:10 PM

I talked to Elliott Block (WBQC/WOTH) owner a few months ago and he said they would "fire up" the DTV signal around the end of November.

I got some information that it may be as soon as next week. Start checking digital channel 47 on Tuesday.

The analog feeds will stay on the air until February 17th (the analog channel cutoff date). Low power stations like WBQC and WOTH are not required to shut down analog but they are going to on that date.

From A Buick 8

11-14-08, 12:55 PM

Insight is moving stuff around to make room for more HD channels (their Digital 4.0 service). They have moved the local HD channels and it looks like they don't have the mapping right so channels are not mapped to their proper number. Channel 5.1 is on 94.1, 9.1 is on 116.33, 9.2 is on 116.34.

Also, you may want to check your signal strength on the digital channels. They are MUCH lower (for me) than they were before. I had to add an RF amp to pick up some of them. It is likely that they will fix the mapping problem and get the signal strength correct in the next week (or so) so, right now, I'm not going to reset my channel list.

By the way, it doesn't do any good to call Insight. The people that answer the phone don't have a clue about local HD clear QAM channels and told me that I need a cable box to get ANY HD channels.

Ok that is good to hear, you are right about not doing any good to call them. They were of no help. Right now when i scan i am finding no digital channels. When i first set the TV up (back in October) i had about 26 digital channels.

jimp2244

11-14-08, 03:08 PM

I got some information that it may be as soon as next week. Start checking digital channel 47 on Tuesday.

The analog feeds will stay on the air until February 17th (the analog channel cutoff date). Low power stations like WBQC and WOTH are not required to shut down analog but they are going to on that date.
I suppose all of this is good for those with digital converter boxes as the vast majority do not have the analog pass-through ability. Having WOTH-LD on the air will make that point moot in this area for general TV viewers.

Nitewatchman

11-14-08, 04:39 PM

I am very much looking forward to a clean picture from WOTH-LD.

Attached is screenshot I just took which demonstrates my WOTH-LP (analog) reception From 32 Miles North of their Transmitter, and some 12 miles outside their 74dBu "noise-limited" service contour ... Yes, the receive antenna setup exceeds "FCC Planning factors" by a bit ..... (Note I'm within the 51dBu Predicted service area/"noise-limited" contour for WOTH-LD or WBQC-LD digital companion channel CP's -- Which should be a good thing concerning WSD's ....)

Update, Oh yeah :

suppose all of this is good for those with digital converter boxes as the vast majority do not have the analog pass-through ability.

It's also good they're going to operate on 47, IMO, as it means less available spectrum in the area for WSD's (at least WSD's which aren't hacked) .... If they had flash cut on 25, they'd be N+1 to WCVN-DT (and N-1 to WBDT, and Post-transition WBDT-DT), anyway, and 45~47 would be "open" for use by WSD's .... I haven't read through the new WSD rules yet, though to see what they decided regarding 1st adjacent channel protection ...

ncincy1

11-14-08, 04:42 PM

I got some information that it may be as soon as next week. Start checking digital channel 47 on Tuesday.

The analog feeds will stay on the air until February 17th (the analog channel cutoff date). Low power stations like WBQC and WOTH are not required to shut down analog but they are going to on that date.

Thanks Bill! - Any news regarding the sub-channels programming - other than the obvious?
Will we get all 4 right away?
Wonder what Mr. Block plans to program on 25.3 and 25.4?

jimp2244

11-14-08, 05:34 PM

Attached is screenshot I just took which demonstrates my WOTH-LP (analog) reception From 32 Miles North of their Transmitter, and some 12 miles outside their 74dBu "noise-limited" service contour ... Yes, the receive antenna setup exceeds "FCC Planning factors" by a bit ..... (Note I'm within the 51dBu Predicted service area/"noise-limited" contour for WOTH-LD or WBQC-LD digital companion channel CP's -- Which should be a good thing concerning WSD's ....)I can get a picture that clean on my analog TVs, but my HDTV has trouble tuning the LP analogs. I'm sure it's the analog tuner in my HDTV (which is interesting because using the picture in picture tuner it comes in clearly). I can get a perfect picture, but it involves turning the antenna slightly differently than I have it aimed for best reception of my digitals. My assumption is that I'll be able to recieve the digital without dropouts, and so it will make the channel more "easily accessible" to me...

Oh, also WOTH and WBQC content will return to my analog sets, which currently use the Zenith converter boxes, and therefore can't get the analog LP channels without disconnecting the box/using some sort of switch.

Nitewatchman

11-14-08, 06:35 PM

I can get a picture that clean on my analog TVs, but my HDTV has trouble tuning the LP analogs. I'm sure it's the analog tuner in my HDTV (which is interesting because using the picture in picture tuner it comes in clearly).

Unless overamplifcation is involved, Sounds like selectivity issues regarding the analog TV receiver("tuner") involved + however the internal "split" is accomplished for the PIP tuner(presumably, the signal level going through the PIP tuner is less than the other) -- some are better than others, and there is really no info available before purchasing to give an idea concerning which ones may or may not have issues ...

Much the same is true in the DTV receiver world given manufactuers/reatailers are "expecting" most people to use their TV's with Cable/satellite, and that we don't have required DTV reciever performance standards (except in some regards per some A74 recommendations as are required by NTIA for the CECB's) ....

I have no problem issues of this sort here with analog "tuners" in most of my equipment, exception involving a couple of JVC J-VHS decks, and the NTSC "tuner" recent Mag+Phillips HDD/DVD recorders with ATSC+NTSC "tuners", (luckily, I rarely actually use the NTSC tuners involved) ... On those, WKOI-DT creates digital looking "hash" to WBQC-CA 38, Same thing(but even worse since both are in exact same direction) regarding WRCX-LP 40 and WHIO-DT 41(even though I'm in the biggest null in their DA pattern) And since a (assumed) nearby Quallcom transmitter has fired up on ch 55, the same is true on WCVN 54 .....

Splicer010

11-14-08, 06:57 PM

What type of programming do these stations have???

Bill R (# 2)

11-14-08, 07:09 PM

Thanks Bill! - Any news regarding the sub-channels programming - other than the obvious?
Will we get all 4 right away?
Wonder what Mr. Block plans to program on 25.3 and 25.4?

I asked about sub-channels and was told that they are "still evaluating options". There could be as many as three in addition to WOTH on 25.2. I think that the picture quality will be "acceptable". WPTO has five channels (when they are not doing HD) and they look fairly good (better than what I get on their analog channel).

And one other thing that I didn't mention in my other post: At this time there are no plans for HD.

Bill R (# 2)

11-14-08, 08:30 PM

Ok that is good to hear, you are right about not doing any good to call them. They were of no help. Right now when i scan i am finding no digital channels. When i first set the TV up (back in October) i had about 26 digital channels.

I decided to do a re-scan this evening to find out where the local digital channels are now on Insight. Here is what I found out: First, none of the locals are currently re-mapped to their OTA channel number. Here is what my scan found:

Ket1 - 85.33
Ket2 - 85.34
KetKyHD - 85.35
Ket Ed - 85.36
CET-HD 85.43
CET World - 85.44
WLWT-HD 94.1
WKRC-DT 94.31
WLWT-WX 94.32
WOTH (OTA ch 25 converted to digital) - 109.7
WCPO-HD 116.33
WCPO-WX 116.34
WXIX-DT 116.43

Insight does not carry the digital feed of WSTR-DT. The CW (12.2) is on channel 25 on the analog tier.

Signal strength is still way lower than it was a week ago. I had to add a 10 db RF amp to bring the signal up to level where the picture did not break up.

dr1394

11-15-08, 11:10 PM

Anyone successfully Demux WLWT-DT Video streams recently? If So, what Demuxer are you using? Also, if anyone has any ideas concerning what may be going on involving the below(and if it may or may not be something wrong on WLWT's end), appreciate any thoughts, Thanks!

The reason I ask is, I'm running into a new problem involving demuxing WLWT-DT Transport Stream I've never ran into before -- I should say, I haven't demuxed WLWT-DT's TS is quite a while, so I don't know how long this has been going on, but I do know I haven't ever had a problem demuxing streams from WLWT-DT's TS before, including involving 23.976fps material.

Problem I'm having is, there seems to currently be a intermittant, although very frequent problem which is making it impossible with any of the TS demuxers I have handy to properly demux WLWT-DT's elementary Video streams, at least involving telecined 23.976fps material(such as sourced from film) ... It's happening for either 5.1 or 5.2 Elementary Video streams - But the issue seems more prevalent on 5.1, presumably because there's more 29.97fps video content involed on 5.2 - --- such that for further processing (for editing, IVTC'ing/reencoding such as with X.264/etc) I can't find a way to sync the A/V streams for the remux, other than to use ProjectX for the Demux and allowing it to drop all the frames with the PTS(presentation time stamp) errors ....

Usually when these sorts of issues/oddities with Streams happen involving timecodes(such as timestamp gaps) I've been able to find some sort of way to "get it to work right"(for example, using a different demuxer - W6RZ's Xport, MPEG2streamclip/etc), but, unless there is a dumuxer that works/supports whatever it is "new" WLWT is doing(unless of course WLWT is just doing something "wrong", which seems a possibility), which I haven't tried, so far I'm at a loss to come up with even an "idea" that "might" work ...

Follows is example of the error of interest(I think) I'm getting ("InGOP PTS - presentation time stamp Difference = [x]ms" being the "error" of concern here, I believe), in this case as reported by ProjectX, which unlike some of the other Demuxers I use, will just drop frames/GOP's when such errors occur rather than allow, for example incorrect timecode info to be written which will result in inability to sync the A/V streams when they are muxed, later :

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

!> dropping GOP# 525 @ orig.PTS 01:06:24.471 (358602476), errorcode: 20
!> Pics exp/cnt 15/15, inGOP PTS diff. 66ms, new Timecode 00:04:17.991
!> PTS difference of 54054 (00:00:00.600) to last exported GOP detected
!> dropping useless B-Frames @ GOP# 526 / new Timecode 00:04:17.991
!> dropping GOP# 527 @ orig.PTS 01:06:25.606 (358704578), errorcode: 20
!> Pics exp/cnt 15/15, inGOP PTS diff. 100ms, new Timecode 00:04:18.425
!> PTS difference of 60060 (00:00:00.667) to last exported GOP detected
!> dropping useless B-Frames @ GOP# 528 / new Timecode 00:04:18.425
packs: 4236735 100% 798847156

=============================================

It seems to mostly-* be happening with the 5.1 Video stream, and also mostly(or completely?) Telecined 23.976fps material.

* - I say "Mostly", as it may be either "mostly" or "completely" --- But not necessarily "completely", as so far with the limited testing I've done for various reasons I've been unable to verify the whether or not these are true "mostly" or "completely" .... I haven't for example yet "closely examined" frame by frame to see whether some of the Ad-based content where the problem is occuring to see whether it was "orignally" 23.976fps or 29.97fps video ...

However, I do know it's not specific to only NBC programming, as I caught it happening during some commericials during WLWT Local News .... I've also noticed it with some test captures happening much less frequently on 5.2(At the times it happened, indeed it was during commercial breaks+involved content in the "video window" which *could* have been 23.976fps material) ..

To give an idea how "signifcant" a problem this issue is, One evening earlier this week during NBC HD Programming(sourced from Film) I did a 15+ Minute capture test of WLWT's TS, and I could only demux+properly recover(with projectX such that Audio/video would be in Sync after remuxing) only about 3Min 46 sec of video from 5.1 ..

Also earlier this week, as a extra "check", I captured+ attempted to demux about 1/2 of NBC's HD broadcast of "Chuck" and it was a mess, but I had no problems whatsoever Demuxing/editing out commercial breaks then remuxing the other 1/2 of HD "chuck" from WDTN-DT ...

Oh, almost forgot -- I should also note I checked the Captured TS's with MPEG2-TS error checking software(MPEG2repair, TSpacketeditor), but no errors-* were found.

* - NO errors such as various encoding errors MPEG2repair can detect, or continuity/TEI errors which could potentially involve reception issues on my end ...
I believe the issue is that ProjectX does not support telecine flags (repeat_first_field and top_field_first). After all, ProjectX was developed in Europe where telecine is uncommon.

You can tell if a clip has telecine flags with xport. At the end of the demux, xport reports the number of MPEG pictures and the number of display fields they represent.

coded pictures = 915, video fields = 1830

If the number of video fields is not exactly twice the number of coded pictures, then telecine flags are present.

Ron

microbob

11-16-08, 05:23 PM

Ch 47 maps to
25.1 WOTH
25.2 WBQC
25.3 Color Bars
25.4 Tower Cam

I have a weak signal at my location in Grant County KY but they are now on the air testing so they may not be at full power yet.

Trip in VA

11-16-08, 05:57 PM

Ch 47 maps to
25.1 WOTH
25.2 WBQC
25.3 Color Bars
25.4 Tower Cam

I have a weak signal at my location in Grant County KY but they are now on the air testing so they may not be at full power yet.

Awesome.

Nitewatchman, I know you're busy, but any chance you can get me some TSReader data on this one? And maybe again once they begin regular programming on 25-3 and 25-4?

- Trip

ThoraX695

11-16-08, 05:58 PM

Ch 47 maps to
25.1 WOTH
25.2 WBQC
25.3 Color Bars
25.4 Tower Cam

I have a weak signal at my location in Grant County KY but they are now on the air testing so they may not be at full power yet.

I'm pulling it in fine off my main antenna and rabbit ears here in Madisonville, as of 5:53 PM.

25.3 is labeled as WBQC-TV
25.2 is labeled as... WKRP-TV?!?! :eek:

All audio (according to the display on my surround sound system) is PCM 48, not Dolby 2.0. :confused:

There is no detail or guide information yet.

Great start guys! :D

Bill R (# 2)

11-16-08, 06:41 PM

25.2 is labeled as... WKRP-TV?!?! :eek:

Attached is a screen shot of 25.2. Brock Broadcasting has been granted the WKRP-TV call letter so this is what 25.2 will be from now on.

blbrodbeck

11-16-08, 06:46 PM

I am able to receive these channels in Northgate with my attic antenna. But, not with my set top antenna.

ncincy1

11-16-08, 07:11 PM

All channels on Digital channel 47 look awesome!
WOW, what a difference - welcome to the world of DTV ....
25.1
25.2
25.3
25.4
Coming in at 100% signal strength in Sharonville with "rabbit ears".

Bill R (# 2)

11-16-08, 07:24 PM

I just checked my digital converter box on the kitchen TV and it had already picked up the channel 25 digital channels. It is a DTVPal and does "maintenance" when it is off and periodically checks for new channels.

The signal over here in Northern Kentucky is very good. I am getting almost as good of a signal on WOTH-LD as I am getting on WXIX-DT.

They need to get the sound fixed on 25.1, add the PSIP data but it is really a good start for Brock Broadcasting. Going digital is going to get them a lot more viewer especially if the get something interesting on 25.3 and 25.4.

One question that I do have: WBQC had a application to use channel 20 for their digital channel. Now that they are using 25.2 (ch. 47) are they giving it up?

blbrodbeck

11-16-08, 07:28 PM

25-3 has audio on it now.

Bill R (# 2)

11-16-08, 08:13 PM

As far as correcting the call sign on 25-2 goes. Has anyone watched for an actual station ID yet? I'd love to know what channel we are really getting.

The station (25.2) is showing the programming for WBQC. My corrected post stated that Brock Broadcasting has been granted the WKRP-TV call letters so WKRP is REALLY in Cincinnati now. They will be running promos for that soon.

You have to remember that we are seeing "live testing" and the digital station will be on and off the air at various times. 25.1 currently has no audio (it did eariler) and 25.3 (color bars) is just for testing (it should change latter this week). PSIP data should be added soon so we can get listing of what is on.

robmadden1

11-16-08, 11:17 PM

WKRP-TV is not showing for Cincinnati: http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?state=&call=wkrp&arn=&city=&chan=&cha2=69&serv=&type=0&facid=&list=1&dist=&dlat2=&mlat2=&slat2=&dlon2=&mlon2=&slon2=&size=9

Trip in VA

11-16-08, 11:25 PM

Many thanks to Nitewatchman, who was amazingly fast at getting me a capture of WOTH-LD. I've posted the capture here:

http://www.rabbitears.info/screencaps/oh-cin/168413-0_0.htm

And it's listed on my site's listings here:

http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=station_search&callsign=woth

- Trip

robmadden1

11-16-08, 11:26 PM

Reception here in Delhi for 25.1 through 25.4 sucks. It's very bad on my indoor antenna. Very pixelated. singnal strength is between 37-42 I can get the same strength on 43.1 and no pixelation. I wonder why I am getting so much pixelation?

robmadden1

11-16-08, 11:45 PM

Will the signal strength for 25.1 get better for Tuesday or is this the power they are staying at? If so it sucks for me in Delhi I wont beable to get it without the heavy pixelation then with my indoor antenna.

robmadden1

11-16-08, 11:59 PM

I fixed my problem just needed to move my antenna. Still low singnal but really no pixilation.

Nitewatchman

11-17-08, 04:34 AM

You can tell if a clip has telecine flags with xport. At the end of the demux, xport reports the number of MPEG pictures and the number of display fields they represent.

coded pictures = 915, video fields = 1830

If the number of video fields is not exactly twice the number of coded pictures, then telecine flags are present.

Ron

Thanks much for the excellent suggestion(and for Xport, BTW) ... Indeed, WLWT is using Telecine flags, and the problem I'm apparently having is certian tools I'm using apparently aren't supporting the telecine flags.

Anyway, it seems to me flagging repeated fields for the decoder to draw rather than encoding them would improve encoding efficiency when Telecined material from 23.976fps sources is broadcast, which seems like a good idea ...

However, I'm a bit surprised I'm not having an issue with it from WLWT-DT on one of my Hardware decoders(used in Zenith HDV420 receiver). As in the past on several occasions when certian stations in the area sending 720p have had settings such as "repeat field detection"(for Harmonic Encoders) enabled on their encoder, the HDV420's decoder apparently didn't draw the flagged but not encoded frames involved(resulting in frequent apparent dropped frames during telecined 23.976fps material, such as sourced from film), but none of my other MPEG2 video decoders(software or hardware) had a problem with it .... Also, as reported by others when this issue has arisen in the past, it seems several other makes/models of DTV receivers are effected by this issue, even newer models.

Anyway, Xport Demux of a little over 14 minutes from WLWT-DT's TS (their HD program) from tonight during SNF (with a bit of commercials apparently telecined from 23.976fps source) Xport reports :

coded Pictures = 25225, video fields = 51280

Approx 2.0329 times more video fields (because of the repeated fields) instead of 2x more as it would be if repeated fields were encoded rather than flagged. The ratio not being greater in this case because most of the content involved(football coverage rather than commucerianls) is 59.94i and unique fields/sec ...

I've Also attached Xport's full text output for this demux, below as xportinfo.txt.

Thanks again, Ron, as I was dumb for not checking that, and If you hadn't posted that, I don't know how long it might have taken me to figure it out. Especially as I thought previously a change in how WLWT was implementing telecine flags might possibly be an issue involved. But, I had made some bad assumptions for various reasons( Which I won't go into as it would get rather involved) and dismissed the thought of it possibly being THE main or only issue involved ...

I believe the issue is that ProjectX does not support telecine flags (repeat_first_field and top_field_first).

Yes, that Definitely seems to match what's going on with ProjectX. As for example, for ProjectX demux of the WLWT-DT HD program stream from TS cap from the football tonight, as was true with testing with other earlier caps, the errors ("errorcode20's") for the most part pretty much more or less begin and end exactly where the apparently telecined, sourced from 23.976fps material(commercials and portions of opening of NBC's SNF) is ...

I also verified the material involved was telecined by running it(using the TS or the bits0001.mpv demuxed with Xport) through Dgindex with "honor pulldown flags" on. Then using following simple AVIsynth script/plugins specified(they actually autoload with current version of Avisynth, but so you know what they are) and looking at portions of it in VdubMpeg2 -- Where it's telecined from 23.976fps material, for each 5 frames pattern, as expected I get 3 non-combed "clean" frames and 2 obviously interlaced/combed frames(such as during commercial sourced from film), but during the live football coverage, every frame is obviously interlaced/combed .....

LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files\AVISynth 2.5\plugins\DGDecode.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files\AVISynth 2.5\plugins\LeakKernelDeint.dll")
MPEG2Source("C:\hdtest\bits0001.d2v")

When I did this, I also noticed in VdubMpeg2 that it was properly recognizing the correct length of the video stream(i.e. DGdecode was recognizing and decoding the repeated/flagged fields properly), thus matching the length of the Audio stream (14 Minutes 15 seconds, approximately) ...

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

Anyway, I've also done some further testing, and apparently the main problem issue I'm dealing with is not only does ProjectX not support the Telecine Flags (which isn't a problem since I can for example use Xport for the demux) --- Neither, apparently do some of the other tools I'm using -- Most of which were also developed in Europe, primarily for use with their use of DVB --- Although, except for this, for the most part they have very worked very well here for my purposes ...

Such as tools I use for frame-level editing -- For example, If I demux with Xport, when I load the video/Audio Ess into frame-level editors I'm using (usually use cuttermaran), The video stream is indicated as significantly shorter than the Audio stream, and, thus will not be in sync after cutting, given it's apparently not recoginzing the flagged(not encoded) repeated fields, and it also thinks there are errors in temporal reference, and that not every GOP has a sequence header ...

I can use Packet level TS editor such as H2M instead before demuxing(cuts Only at i/key frames) but I can cut in at P or B frames with the frame level editors I'm using, or even reencode only specific frames and do cut outs at P or B frames -- But, that creates timestamp gaps and at the cuts, and mpeg2repair often reports corrupted ac3 frames at the cuts ... I'll have to do some further testing, with H2M (again) as I don't recall whether or not (after running it Mpeg2repair before Xport Demux) those issues cause issues with Xport demux regarding A/V sync after remuxing the streams (such as after reencoding them), but seems like I recall running into some issues ...

So, to deal with WLWT streams now, If packet level editor doesn't work out, or I can't think of another solution --- it seems I will need to find a Frame-level editor(which I would prefer anyway) somewhere which properly supports the telecine flags ... I don't mind paying for it if necessary as long as It doesn't cost TOO much, as this is only for archiving purposes for personal use, and really, just as much for the fun of playing around/experimenting with this stuff --- and as long as I know it's going to actually WORK, beforehand ...

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

I did try the following with the football/commercials cap from tonight and it worked fine -- Basically -- demux with Xport, run through DGindex, then reencoded it to DVD compliant 720x480 16x9 NTSC Video/Mux into VOB container and it worked just fine, note it's the first thing I have tried that does work -- In more detail for anyone interested :

1). Demux with Xport

2). Run "bits0001.Mpv" through Dgindex (Honor pulldown flags)

3). Left AC3 audio alone, Reencoded video as 16x9 NTSC, 720x480 DVD compliant video (instead of keeping it HD/using X.264/AAC audio which is the other reencoding I do, usually muxing to a mp4 container) --- did it like this For (probably)faster encoding time, and since I often reencode some material to DVDVideo anyway as a useful test --- Used HC encoder and 1-pass CQ, Using AVIsynth script below as input. Note: For Avisynth users : In cases such as these with most of the material involved being 29.97fps interlaced video, I might also have used a Bob Deinterlace of some sort/resize/seperate fields/selectevery(4,0,3) for TFF interlaced encoding -- But While using the following/doing an interlaced resize via field shift correction results in something that seems a bit softer/I believe has less vertical resolution, it also has less aliasing artifacts and is faster :

LoadPlugin("C:\Program files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\ColorMatrix.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\Program files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\DGDecode.dll")
mpeg2source("C:\hdtest\bits0001.d2v")
ColorMatrix(Mode="Rec.709->Rec.601",interlaced=true,threads=2)
Global NewHeight = 480
Global NewWidth = 720

# Pick one manually, DirectShow has no idea
AssumeTFF()
#AssumeBFF()

SeparateFields()

Shift = (GetParity() ? -0.25 : 0.25) * (Height()/Float(NewHeight/2)-1.0)

E = SelectEven() . Spline36Resize(NewWidth, NewHeight/2, 0, Shift)
O = SelectOdd() . Spline36Resize(NewWidth, NewHeight/2, 0, -Shift)
Echr = SelectEven() . Spline36Resize(NewWidth, NewHeight/2, 0, 2*Shift)
Ochr = SelectOdd() . Spline36Resize(NewWidth, NewHeight/2, 0, -2*shift)

Interleave(E, O)
IsYV12() ? MergeChroma(Interleave(Echr, Ochr)) : Last
Weave()

----------------------------
4). Used Muxman to Mux into VOB (Note: I also use Muxman with DVDauthoring software I use)

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

Probably way more than anyone wanted to know ....

Nitewatchman

11-17-08, 06:00 AM

Many thanks to Nitewatchman,

Your Welcome ... I allways am excited to see a new station on the air. Especially as, Other than over the last 10 years with DTV, it's not something we get to see all that often.

I Had noticed WOTH-LP ANALOG apparently drastically reduced Power (and/or TX antenna height) Eariler this weekend, and had guessed it might have something to do with getting the digital on air soon. And, I had been checking it occasionally, but didn't notice them up until just after flipping to 47 and checking it just after watching the race and a bit of the post-race coverage on ABC this evening (About 7:40pm EST) ...

One question that I do have: WBQC had a application to use channel 20 for their digital channel. Now that they are using 25.2 (ch. 47) are they giving it up?

Just a guess, but, I'm guessing WBQC is probably mainly currently running on a WOTH-LD subchannel so they can get the WBQC signal on Digital until such time they convert WBQC to digital ....

As for WBQC-CA's Digital Companion channel CP(construction permit from FCC) for channel 20 ... They *could* potentially use it, at some point, but they could also potentially not use it and at some point flash cut WBQC to digital on 38 instead ...

terryfoster

11-17-08, 06:43 AM

Heads-up/Reminder regarding Thursday Night Football. NBC's Thursday programming will be available on 5-2 (and whatever TWC and Insight channels). It doesn't appear that WLWT-DT will be running those shows on 5-1 late at night. So, don't forget to set your DVRs.

jimp2244

11-17-08, 07:45 AM

jimp2244

11-17-08, 08:14 AM

Trying to remote into my home system to see WOTH-LD, and it appears to me that either channel 47 is off the air right now or there is something wrong with my setup (could easily be my setup). I also noticed that I'm not able to pull in even WCPO-DT and since I believe WOTH-LD broadcasts from WCPO's tower, I'm thinking maybe they are doing some of the tower work right now? I am able to receive WLWT-DT, WKRC-DT, WXIX-DT, WCET-DT, and WSTR-DT currently... It's just a bit hard to troubleshoot these things when I'm not physically present! Anyone else noticing the same thing?

Bill R (# 2)

11-17-08, 09:26 AM

Trying to remote into my home system to see WOTH-LD, and it appears to me that either channel 47 is off the air right now or there is something wrong with my setup (could easily be my setup).

Anyone else noticing the same thing?

As of right now (9:27 AM) WOTH-LD and all the subs are up. The sound is horrible on 25.1 (showing the jewelry channel right now). 25.2 looks and sounds fine. 25.3 (color bars) and 25.4 (Skyline Cam) now are doing audio tone tests.

robmadden1

11-17-08, 09:40 AM

If your getting sound on 25.1 and 25.2 then I dont know why my lcd tv is not getting any sound. I have not had any sound all night and its 9:40am and still no sound. I do recive CC on 25.2. I just want audio.

jimp2244

11-17-08, 09:46 AM

As of right now (9:27 AM) WOTH-LD and all the subs are up. The sound is horrible on 25.1 (showing the jewelry channel right now). 25.2 looks and sounds fine. 25.3 (color bars) and 25.4 (Skyline Cam) now are doing audio tone tests.Thanks, Bill. I guess I'll have to wait until I get home to have fun. :)

gerhard911

11-17-08, 09:49 AM

Or record HD off of WDTN during the normal time slot.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner !

I just finished aiming my antenna and adding WDTN to my BeyondTV channel line up. I don't want to even imagine what a pixellated mess WLWT will be. One more reason to hate on the Bungles.

robmadden1

11-17-08, 09:50 AM

Trip in VA

11-17-08, 10:08 AM

I'm almost sure they know about it. It just came on the air yesterday; I'm sure they're working on it and trying to hammer out all their issues one at a time.

- Trip

robmadden1

11-17-08, 10:30 AM

i had to toally put my antenna in the opisite direction of where i had it to get 25.1 without the pixelation. now i get 54 with a lower singnal strength then what I had before but its ok its still watchable with no pixelation.

robmadden1

11-17-08, 10:50 AM

How did 25.2 get the call letters of WKRP-TV when it's assigned to a station in Tennessee until 2011? http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?state=&call=wkrp&arn=&city=&chan=&cha2=69&serv=&type=0&facid=&list=1&dist=&dlat2=&mlat2=&slat2=&dlon2=&mlon2=&slon2=&size=9

Bill R (# 2)

11-17-08, 11:12 AM

How did 25.2 get the call letters of WKRP-TV when it's assigned to a station in Tennessee until 2011?

Good question. I asked and was told that Brock Broadcasting now has the "rights" to the WKRP-TV call sign.

I don't believe that the station in Tennessee is on the air and it could be that they gave up the call sign. FCC data is sometimes slow so maybe there is something pending that we just haven't seen yet.

Bill R (# 2)

11-17-08, 11:19 AM

I just called 38 to tell about audio problem and the woman that answered could not give the guys the thing about some proplr not getting audio since they where out at the tower site hooking things up. She said to call back to night to see if one of the master control people might be there. So I can get my audio problem taken care of. The may not even know people are having problems with the audio or not getting any at all, the ones working at the tower site.

Rob,

I think the lack of any audio might be a problem on your end. I checked both of my HDTVs that have digital tuners and both are getting the audio. Both TVs also are connected to DISH Network HD DVRs (with OTA ATSC tuners) and the audio is there on them. I checked with two of my neighbors who have digital converter boxes and they have audio. Don't know what the problem could be but you might want to try deleting the channel and adding it again.

Trip in VA

11-17-08, 12:13 PM

Rob,

I think the lack of any audio might be a problem on your end.

I disagree. The TSReader data shows that WOTH-LD is outputting MPEG-2 audio instead of AC-3 audio like most stations. Some boxes will play the MPEG-2 audio, but some others don't handle it properly.

- Trip

robmadden1

11-17-08, 12:50 PM

Bluestraw

11-17-08, 01:00 PM

Nitewatchman,

Did you try Videoredo Plus for your edits? This is frame-accurate, and doesn't cause the same timestamp issues as H2M does.

robmadden1

11-17-08, 01:04 PM

The rescan did not even give me audio. Should I contact them again about my audio issue?

Trip in VA

11-17-08, 01:20 PM

I'm pretty sure it's an issue at their end but I'd wait and see if they sort it out in the next two or three days. It's only been on the air since yesterday and they may not have everything sorted out yet.

The audio is being sent as MPEG-2 audio and not Dolby AC3. AC3 is what's included in the ATSC standard; I don't think MPEG-2 audio is officially included, but don't quote me on that, I'm not sure.

- Trip

jimp2244

11-17-08, 01:32 PM

I have a Sharp Aquos lcd tv and its not even a yr old so it cant be my tv but I can retry scanning and see if it fixes the audio issue. Also is thier new tower in Delhi thier is a new tower right past Need and Devils Backbone. the tower has a triagle thing on the top with lots of point on it. its right down the road from where I live. I saw 3 guys working on it I was just speculating this from what the woman said about the guys working on the tower.
Almost guaranteed that's a cell tower...

Give them a few days to sort out the issues of bringing a new station online. If you're still having audio problems a week or more from now then it might be time to contact them.

robmadden1

11-17-08, 06:10 PM

wbqc is now WKRP because I saw the logo on a promo for a tv show on 25.2 but still no audio for me. I called back and got a guy and told him I could not decode the mpeg2 audio with my tv so he will be looking into it. I told him about the ac3 audio that all the other local stations use it.

Here's thier website: http://www.wkrp.tv/

pjpjpjpj

11-18-08, 08:54 AM

Not complaining, just checking in – around 8:30 pm last night, my system (OTA antenna, HD Homerun, SageTV) gave me horribly loud, garbled audio, on 25.1 and 25.4. 25.2 was fine and clear, 25.3 was a test tone. The audio was the same on 25.1 and 25.4 (25.1’s audio was being played over the skyline cam on 25.4). It sounded like when you have the audio input level turned up too loud – like when you use the headphone jack instead of “line out” from an old CD player into a stereo system, and have the volume up too high.

As I said, I am not complaining – I know they are still working out the bugs. I did send an email to “zap2it.com” (where SageTV gets their EPG data) asking them to add the channel(s) in their lineup, so that my EPG doesn’t just show “No Data”. I kinda doubt they’ll get there for a while (maybe not until February).

I am anxious to see what WKRP and “Skyline” end up being (since presumably 25.1 will be WOTH and 25.3 will be WBQC, as they are now).

Although I may just need to disable the channels so that my wife doesn't spend every evening plopped on the couch watching old "Matlock" reruns. You'd think she was 85 years old or something. :rolleyes::D

robmadden1

11-18-08, 09:06 AM

Master Control said the setup they got for 25.1 is what they are likely going with. I called at 9am to tell them I was not getting any audio they said they would leave a message for the chief engineer. I would recomend if more ppl call maybe they will fix the audio so I can get audio. Heres thiier number: 513-681-3800 Please help me out and report your audio problems too like the messed up sound you are getting and like me no sound at all. Thier email in case you dont want to call: info@wbqc.com

ncincy1

11-18-08, 10:01 AM

Guys - Just got off the phone w/Elliott Block owner of the new WKRP.
1.) They are fully aware of the audio issues on 25.1 and 25.4 and are working on it
"as we speak"
2.) They are adding a fifth sub-channel very soon.
3.) 25.2 will stay WKRP (old WBQC)
3.) 25.3 will probably be a shopping channel
4.) 25.5 will probably will be a weather channel/with skyline shots (nice!)
3.) He's in contact with RTN and Univision as possible choices in the future.
Stay tuned.
J.

robmadden1

11-18-08, 10:18 AM

Thanks for the heads up on them working on the audio issue. I just hope it will fix my no audio issue on all the sub channels 25.1, 25.2, 25.3, and 25.4.

robmadden1

11-18-08, 10:41 AM

This my explain why I am not getting any audio.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATSC_Standards

tvnick

11-18-08, 11:21 AM

jimp2244

11-18-08, 01:24 PM

You don't actually think it will be fixed faster if more people call in and complain do you? More calls do not make Engineers work faster.It depends. If they are not aware of the issue or don't believe it is an issue/believe it's an end-user issue, etc. then more calls certainly would help. However in this case where they are clearly aware of the issue, more calls probably won't help, although if they are getting a lot of calls at least it would show them that people are watching...

In this particular case though I would agree that the prudent thing to do would be to wait and see, giving them a chance to bring their stuff online and iron out bugs as they come along, also realizing that it is a small time operation that may not have the resources of larger stations in the area. If problems remain after a couple of weeks, the "wait and see" idea may need to be re-evaluated.

robmadden1

11-18-08, 02:07 PM

ncincy1 told me he is having the same issue as me but with a Sony tvs if I remember correctly not decoding the audio.

ncincy1

11-18-08, 02:48 PM

Since the owner (Elliott Block) is fully aware of the audio issues - including his engineers - my advice is just to "chill".
If you feel so inclined, anyone can call the station and discuss the issues (and most likely get the same answer).
Stay tuned!
J.

Splicer010

11-18-08, 03:07 PM

Don't worry rob...Zero audio on 25.1 25.2 25.3 25.4 on my LG-LST3510a ATSC tuner...So you are not alone...

Nitewatchman

11-18-08, 03:38 PM

The TSReader data shows that WOTH-LD is outputting MPEG-2 audio instead of AC-3 audio like most stations. Some boxes will play the MPEG-2 audio, but some others don't handle it properly.....

....The audio is being sent as MPEG-2 audio and not Dolby AC3. AC3 is what's included in the ATSC standard; ....

Yep, that's apparently what's going on, apparently many of these receivers only support AC3 for audio ... My Zenith HDV420, and Mag DVD/HDD recorder with ATSC receivers can't currently decode their audio, but Zenith DTT900 CECB and Sony HDTV can, and I can do it via "HTPC" as well, .... I haven't checked the Hissense box yet or a Philips DVD/HDD recorder ....

Update: I don't know if stations are specifically "required" to send AC3 audio ... Might be an issue similar to the ATSC Table 3 video resolutions, which I do recall were not adopted as a requirement ...

BTW, I noticed the other day WSTR has been sending an (additional) MPEG audio stream lately as well (an ES at 0x0035 PID, I'm not sure if it was there the last HTML from TSreader I sent you for them). Last I demuxed it and checked there didn't seem to be actually any decodable audio present .....

Anyway, I'm not sure why/haven't figured out why at this point, but also, the HDV420 is not recognizing/using the VCT Major/Minor channel info. It's showing 47.1~4 rather than 25.1~4, but all my other receivers are mapping to 25.x just fine ....

I haven't had much time to think about it/compare what they are doing with the MPEG2 PSI(program specific information) and PSIP information that Tsreader shows vs. what other stations are doing. But at first wild guess Was thinking/wondering perhaps it might involve the PID addresses(for PMT's or the ES's) not using the "program paradigm" -- I.e. The way it is usually done being PMT PID for first program stream at 0x00[x]0, Video ES Pid at 0x00[x]1, primary audio at 0x00[x]4, etc .... Then again, that doesn't seem to make much sense as the HDV420 is finding all 4 program streams just fine (and decoding the video at least), it just doesn't seem to be recognizing the VCT info ....

Nitewatchman,

Did you try Videoredo Plus for your edits? This is frame-accurate, and doesn't cause the same timestamp issues as H2M does.

Thanks for the info/suggestion. I haven't yet, I might have to download the trial version to give it a try if I can't find/come up with a workable freeware/open source alternative that supports what WLWT is now doing with the Telecine flags .... And, from what I've heard(a Lot of good things about VideoRedo), at some point I might want to D/L it and Ask Santa to unlock it, anyway ...

update: I'll have to do some more testing with what I have as well, as I have used H2M (or TSPE) in the past and have been able to deal with the timestamp gaps from the cuts(I can in other cases w/o the telecine flags involved at least) -- and, I can "fix" the errors, including ac3 frames which sometimes get corrupted at the cuts with H2M (although I'm not positive in 100% of cases when that happens I can maintain sync of A/V after reencoding/remuxing/etc) ... Also, for my purposes, it's really no big deal if I'm limited to cut in/out at Key frames ....

The main thing with that sort of thing is of course, I don't want to find out I've got issues with A/V sync AFTER a 12 hour long HD reencode of a 2 hr movie with x264 .... LOL ....

Anyway, I'll need to work out a viable solution for this, given other area stations could also start using the flags as well, but of course for NBC HD programming at least for now I can also just use WDTN instead of WLWT ...

jimp2244

11-18-08, 03:52 PM

I'll need to work out a viable solution for this, given other area stations could also start using the flags as well, but of course for NBC HD programming at least for now I can also just use WDTN instead of WLWT ...So, is this a "problem" with the way WLWT is doing a particular thing? Or is what they are doing perfectly valid and the software you have just doesn't "deal" properly with it? Just trying to understand what's happening.

goshenhd1234

11-18-08, 04:32 PM

Hi everyone!:) Long time watching the postings first time at adding my thoughts. I am not getting audio on channel 25/47 as well. The Sanyo Tv scans and finds channel 25. When I go to it it's not there. The computer has wintv and it brings up the following all with no audio. WOTHLP, atsc2,atsc3,atsc4.
atsc2 is either 25 or 38. atsc3 is color bars, atsc4 is the tower cam.
I will take them time to get it together I'm sure, we'll have to be patient.
Thanks! Jeff

Bluestraw

11-18-08, 04:52 PM

So, is this a "problem" with the way WLWT is doing a particular thing? Or is what they are doing perfectly valid and the software you have just doesn't "deal" properly with it? Just trying to understand what's happening.WLWT are doing a very good job - by using this method of encoding, they are getting more 'quality per transmitted megabit' than any other local. You can see this by running an 'mpeg2repair' log on any capture from WLWT - you will see the 'bits per pixel' score close to 0.30, which is about as high as you can get even from a station running no subchannels (and also not using telecine flags). Seems some equipment 'breaks' when 720p stations try using this principle, but for 1080i there are no such issues. WLWT ranks as one of (if not) the best quality NBC affil in the country because of their single subchannel and efficient coding :)

ThoraX695

11-18-08, 06:39 PM

They've started a scroll on "Skyline" 25.4 with some more information, namely programming and digital TV conversion information. Plus a request to the viewers to start telling their friends and neighbors about the new digital channels.

25.1 - WOTH
25.2 - WKRP (the rebranding of WBQC, with live and local programming)
25.3 - WBQC (new programming)
25.4 - Shopping
25.5 - 24/7 Weather (obviously not on the air yet)

We'll see how this flushes out, particularly when February 19 hitsl

P.S. The audio on 25.1 sounds much better now. :cool:

ncincy1

11-18-08, 06:51 PM

Yep.
Audio is fixed on my Sony's - "How about you Rob"?
The scrolling text on 25.4 is a little choppy, but hey -they have only been doing this for a little more than 48 hours!

Trip in VA

11-18-08, 06:55 PM

Any chance I can get a new capture to see what they've got going on now?

- Trip

robmadden1

11-18-08, 07:06 PM

Still no audio for me but i'll rescan and see if it fixes it.

robmadden1

11-18-08, 07:13 PM

Rescaned and still no audio.

ThoraX695

11-18-08, 07:20 PM

Any chance I can get a new capture to see what they've got going on now?

- Trip

Nothing's changed. They were showing their (I'm assuming) near-future lineup.

25.4 "Skyline" just went blank in the last few minutes.

robmadden1

11-18-08, 07:25 PM

Instead of I want my MTV. I want my audio on 25.1, 25.2, 25.3, and 25.4 lol.

blbrodbeck

11-18-08, 07:27 PM

Could the audio be a Bit Rate problem? (I think Bit Rate is the correct term.) I remember about a year ago I couldn't get audio on a channel on one of my TVs. It turns out that they weren't broadcasting it at 48,000 Hz. They were incorrectly broadcasting at something like 32,000 Hz. I remember at the time I could get the audio on one TV, but not on another. This example was from one of the T/W cable only QAM WCET Channels.

Splicer010

11-18-08, 07:30 PM

Instead of I want my MTV. I want my audio on 25.1, 25.2, 25.3, and 25.4 lol.

Ditto... ;)

25.1 - WOTH
25.2 - WKRP (the rebranding of WBQC, with live and local programming)
25.3 - WBQC (new programming)
25.4 - Shopping
25.5 - 24/7 Weather (obviously not on the air yet)
Where is this coming from??? I still have color bars on 25-3...25-4 is NO SIGNAL...25-1 & 25-2 have no audio...

Trip in VA

11-18-08, 07:50 PM

Nothing's changed. They were showing their (I'm assuming) near-future lineup.

25.4 "Skyline" just went blank in the last few minutes.

If people are starting to get audio, then something has changed in the bitstream, and a new capture would confirm it.

But since a lot of people still don't have audio, I guess that didn't happen...

- Trip

robmadden1

11-18-08, 07:56 PM

I would call them again but I don't want them to get pissed from me calling all the time.

William Smith

11-18-08, 08:13 PM

Stereo audio (non 5.1) must be Dolby 2/0 with 48Khz. sample with a minimum bandwidth of 192 kbps. The audio stream type in the TVCT must be 129 and the PCR should be the Video PID.

Someone check their stream with TSreader and report the results.

William

Trip in VA

11-18-08, 08:18 PM

http://www.rabbitears.info/screencaps/oh-cin/168413-0_0.htm

There's the information I have from Sunday evening, thanks to Nitewatchman.

- Trip

William Smith

11-18-08, 08:41 PM

wrong stream type on the audio and the video should be encoded at 704 X 480 to match table 3.

Trip in VA

11-18-08, 08:44 PM

Table 3?

- Trip

robmadden1

11-18-08, 08:49 PM

William tell this info to ncincy1 he has connections with the owner.

William Smith

11-18-08, 08:58 PM

ATSC Table 3 .. The table that listed the 18 ATSC formats... I don't think the table was formally adopted by the FCC but its a good idea to follow it.

Trip in VA

11-18-08, 09:02 PM

I'm watching a station that does 720x480 as we speak. It may not be an official format, but plenty of stations do it and it doesn't seem to hurt anything.

The bad audio type is definitely a problem here, and it's not the first time I've seen it... nor, I figure, will it be the last.

- Trip

Nitewatchman

11-18-08, 09:39 PM

Or is what they are doing perfectly valid and the software you have just doesn't "deal" properly with it?

Implementation of the telecine flags is perfectly valid for any MPEG2 video decoders or software for processing MPEG2 video streams which properly support the telecine flags.

Sending telecine(pulldown) Flags in order to flag repeated fields when fields/frames are repeated in this case, involving a 29.97fps(59.94 interlaced fields per second) broadcast during any telecined programming sourced from 23.976fps sources(such as from film) "tells" the decoder to redraw the repeated field when required, rather than their encoder having to encode the repeated information as actual, coded "picture data". That improves encoding efficiency, but only when there are repeated fields or frames, which is typically mostly only when telecined material sourced from film(or other 23.976(24p) sources, such as 1080p/24 HD video) is airing. And, note it appears they're doing it on both 5.1 AND 5.2.

The issue I'm dealing with is that some of the software I use for demuxing or (re)muxing and for frame-level editing after dumuxing for further processing before reencoding(DVD or X.264) for archiving purposes doesn't support these Telecine("pulldown") Flags -- Probably mostly because the software involved was developed in Europe, probably mainly for their use with their Terrestrial DTV system and where as Ron noted, use of such telecine flags is probably uncommon in general given the broadcast standards involved.

Demuxing WLWT streams with Xport or Dgindex's demuxer works fine, and apparently from the limted testing I've done so far, even MPEG2Streamclip's(developed in UK I believe) demux may support their stream and the telecine flags(I've found editing with MPEG2streamclip to be a bit cumbersome, but that should work as well) - Packet level editing of the TS before demuxing (such as with H2M) works fine as well.

Further testing Indicates the software involved also doesn't support the flags as implemented with DVD compliant video that has nothing to do with WLWT. As, I just tested some of that software with material I had encoded previously for DVD Video at 23.976fps with Pulldown flags added by the encoder I use(software based) and the software involved has the same problems(more or less) it's having with WLWT-DT Video streams ... Exception being that Mplex is Muxing the DVD compliant A/V streams fine, unlike was the case with WLWT's streams(Using it like this for example which has worked for any HD streams I've tried with it before : mplex -f 3 -b 786 -r 19200 -output.mpg test.m2v test.ac3 ).... Oh, BTW, Note that any DVD player I've ever used seems to support the telecine flags ....

Anyway, at first I thought otherwise, but It's also possible this is something they've been doing for quite a while. I was thinking it was something that must have began recently, since I haven't ran into the issue with them before ... But, looking back through some of my archived/reencoded material, the only things I have which I had reencoded (and demuxed their stream) from WLWT was a HD broadcast of "The Incredibles" from about a year ago, and 2008 WEBN HD Fireworks .... And, it may very well be the case that I used H2M to edit "The Incredibles", and either DGindex or Xport to demux those streams In which case that software would have worked with the telecine flags, and I wouldn't have noticed a problem .... For the Fireworks broadcast, I'm pretty sure I used ProjectX for the demux, but there would not have been any Telecine Flags Involved, since there were no commercial breaks for the show, and I trimmed the TS cap before hand with H2M so it began and ended with the show.

"DVR'ing" via HTPC/Playback, and decoding/viewing WLWT video/audio streams works just fine here currently(and allways has), although I don't know whether or not *all* decoders out there support what they're doing with the telecine flags -- They should, However, as I described in earlier post, While it's working just fine with what WLWT is doing with their 1080i and 480i streams, When it's a 720p broadcast, I have one (Decoder in Zenith HDV420) which it seems does *not* support implementation of flagging repeated fields for the encoder to draw rather than them encoding the repeated information when the broadcast is 720p --- if I'm thinking about it correctly, what should be the same(or similar) flags(implemented via turning "repeat field detection" on for example on harmonic decoders) when they are implemented with a 720p broadcast vs. 1080i. Although, I think in this case the "fields" involved are actually also complete(1280x720) progressive frames rather than 2 1920x540 interlaced frames ...

At least, it hasn't worked on the Zenith as implemented on occasion in the past by several 720p stations in the area, while at the same time all my other decoders have handled it just fine ... Such as when WRGT-DT/WKEF or WSYX-DT enabled the "Repeat Field Detection" setting on their Harmonic Encoders, and it's also happened with WXIX-DT involving the "film detection" setting on their Harris Net/VX encoder. And I think it's also happened from WCPO-DT, although I can't verify that as I wasn't in contact with their engineers/etc. about it as was the case involving WRGT/WKEF and WSYX on those occasions, and as JYDogg has reported on this thread involving WXIX and his communication with them ..... I only know the same, apparent issue (apparent dropped frames with the Zenith during programming sourced from 23.976fps sources but not effecting my other decoders) occured for a time from WCPO ... Thankfully, that hasn't happened in quite a while from any station, although, I believe the problem there also wasn't that they were doing anything "wrong" ...

Just trying to understand what's happening.

I'm not sure how much detail you need, or what your level of understanding is regarding some of this ... so apologize if some of the above or below is "not enough" or is "too much detail" which you're already familiar with ....

Anyhow, I do the same thing WLWT is doing after returning 23.976fps source material telecined and broadcast at 29.97fps, or 59.94fps(for 720p) to 23.976fps(with various AVIsynth filters/etc) when reencoding 23.976fps material to DVD video at 23.976fps and having the (software) encoder add pulldown flags so the decoder in DVD player(Which will output 480i at 29.97fps interlaced, or 480p at 59.94fps) will draw the repeated fields, rather than them being encoded as picture data ... That way, I can use all the "available bits"/space I have available on say, a DVD+R for unique picture data, rather than to "use up bits" to encode the repeated picture data in the repeated fields/frames.

For a 1080i or 480i/29.97fps broadcast of a properly telecined 23.976fps source, 1 in every 5 frames will be duplicates, if you Bob deinterlace it (double frame rate), where P=non-duplicate progressive frame, D=Non-duplicate, it will have the following cadence : PDPDD - PDPDD - PDPDD - a 2:3 cadence. for a 720p/60 (59.94fps) broadcast, 3 of every 5 frames will be duplicates -- Also Like this - PDPDD - PDPDD - PDPDD also a 2:3 cadence. So, it's easy to see why it's useful/more efficent to flag the repeated fields for the decoder to draw when 23.976fps source material is involved rather than to use up bits to encode the repeated fields as coded picture data as if they contained unique pixels that were "different" than the last frame or field ...

Seems some equipment 'breaks' when 720p stations try using this principle, but for 1080i there are no such issues.

Yes, that seems to be the case at least --- see my previous comments on that in this post and in earlier reply to Ron about decoder in my Zenith HDV420 having such issues with stations sending 720p and sending these flags, but not with WLWT's use of the telecine flags --

Other than the general issue involving lack of proper DTV receiver standards possibily being involved, I wonder why that is?

Nitewatchman

11-18-08, 10:10 PM

ATSC Table 3 .. The table that listed the 18 ATSC formats... I don't think the table was formally adopted by the FCC but its a good idea to follow it.

Hi William, allways good to hear from you ...

I'm pretty sure table 3 wasn't adopted as a requirement ....

Agree it's a good idea to follow ... I don't know for sure, but my understanding is most decoders can handle resolutions not in the table(but supported by most MPEG2 decoders) for the most part OK --- Note: If I recall correctly, WCPO was at one time sending 528x480 for their weather service, as you know, a commonly used resolution used with MPEG2 by cable providers ...

MPEG audio, though/ and/or wrong stream type in TVCT from WOTH-LD ... If they get everything else straigtened out besides that, I would think it's not going to help if many receivers can only utilize AC3 decoders for audio from DTV stations, which I'd think may be a good possibility .....

I just checked, note VLC will decode their audio currently using MPEG audio decoder ....

Attached zip file has current TSreader HTML export/output for WOTH-LD with thumbnails ... Unless I'm missing something as I just looked at it quickly, Only thing I notice has changed is that they've currently dropped the video for program #4 ....

robmadden1

11-19-08, 01:57 AM

For some odd reason 19 strength went down for me from in the 80's to around 65-67, I wonter why this happened could it be from the new cell tower down the road from me causing this if they have turned it on? also since this happemd wket ans 25.1 though 25.4 has had a signal strength increase. 25 is now sitting around 62-65 and KET is 64-65. 43.1 through 43.5 is between 50-58. i am still using my same radio shack indoor antenna the spaship looking one with a remote and I have not moved it since I set it up for 25.1 through 25.4. My strength was normal when I did the changes to get 25.1 on 19.1 on Monday.

emp41112

11-19-08, 09:39 AM

I see that Time Warner added a slew of HD channels today for Cincinnati. Former Adelphia areas are only getting a few of those. Anyone know why? I tried calling customer support, one operator said it was and upgrade issue with equipment in Amelia, and no time frame has been set to upgrade. Called back and another operator said that there was NO plans to upgrade the equipment.

Anyone got any other info? Will the former Adelphia areas get all the HD channels at sometime in the near future? Is it time to switch to D-TV?

Thanks!
Matt

jimp2244

11-19-08, 11:06 AM

We will get a total of 7 NFL games this week, all in HD! OTA-only viewers will get 6 games. Cable/Dish-only viewers will get 6 games. FOX has the double-header this week.

Thursday Night Game:

8:15pm NFLN (WLWT) Cincinnati at Pittsburgh !
Bob Papa, Cris Collinsworth

Sunday Day Games:

1pm FOX (19 WXIX, 45 WRGT) Philadelphia at Baltimore
Announcers TBA

1pm CBS (12 WKRC) NY Jets at Tennessee
Jim Nantz, Phil Simms

1pm CBS (7 WHIO) Houston at Cleveland*
Kevin Harlan, Rich Gannon

4pm FOX (19 WXIX, 45 WRGT) NY Giants at Arizona
Announcers TBA

Sunday Night Football:

8:15pm NBC (5 WLWT, 2 WDTN) – Indianapolis at San Diego
Al Michaels, John Madden, Andrea Kramer

Monday Night Football:

8:30pm ESPN – Green Bay at New Orleans+
Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski, Tony Kornheiser, Suzy Kolber, Michele Tafoya

+Cable Only
*Bonus game for OTA viewers
$ Requires pay-TV provider that carries NFL Network
! Simulcast in HD on WLWT 5-1

Notes:
Enjoy your choice of 3 games OTA at 1pm on Sunday!

Starting this season, all NFL games will be produced in HD. All games will also be broadcast in HD with possible rare exceptions: Because of HD transport capacity limitations at CBS, there may be instances where a 4pm game will need to be in SD temporarily until 1pm games finish. Note that even this is unlikely to occur, and that there are only two times all year where this even has the potential to occur (maybe three depending on NBC Flex). Also, you may see halftime highlights on CBS in SD.

As always, let me know if any information is incorrect or needs to be updated.

robmadden1

11-19-08, 11:36 AM

I contacted Elliot about the audio issues let him a voicemail with all the changes that need to be done to have the audio problem corrected. I even left my name and number in case he wanted to contact me. I sent a email also explainging what the audio setup should be from what William said.

robmadden1

11-19-08, 11:44 AM

I noticed since my signal degrade on 19.1 from the 80's to 67-69 its now back in surround sound during the day and not just for fox national programing.

ncincy1

11-19-08, 06:16 PM

Looks like Fox 19 has removed the "Tube Music Network" text on sub-channel 19.2 and replace it with .... well... nothing. It's a blank screen.

That leads me to believe one of 2 things.
a.) It's a mistake and the "Tube Channel Announcement" text will be back or
b.) They will (finally) add some new, exciting programming on 19.2

The reason I'm more confident about option "b" is that maybe since WOTH/WKRP is now digital Fox 19 decided to move plans forward to program something on 19.2 instead of that announcment that's been there - forever.

Thoughts? Rumors? Speculation? Hmmm...

blbrodbeck

11-19-08, 06:25 PM

19.2 has said "The Tube" now for over 1 year, without their even being a "Tube" anymore. That's pretty pathetic. Wake Up WXIX! Do something.

ncincy1

11-19-08, 07:03 PM

Yep.
Long overdue - from what I'm reading online and trade magazines stations are beginning to finally "see the light" regarding rboth increased revenue and rating potential by smartly programming their sub-channels.
Stay tuned!

Splicer010

11-19-08, 07:14 PM

Sent email to Info@WKRP.TV today...

Nitewatchman

11-19-08, 08:03 PM

WBQC-CA analog is currently off air/has been since I've checked it earlier this afternoon, WOTH analog still apparently operating with lesser facilities than usual ...

Anyway, I think it is pretty cool WOTH/WBQC are asking folks to send signal reports and comments about the programming/etc, per the text info that has been running on 25.4 ....

For those who didn't see this, checked 25.4 a little before 4pm, and noticed their "skyline" (tower) cam was shooting a Tower Worker doing some work Attached is a screengrab (sorry about the quality) ...

ohiogal

11-19-08, 09:06 PM

i am noticing wkoi tbn is screwed up i have a good signal but i am getting sound droppouts an picture screw ups. they have done this way too many times.

blbrodbeck

11-19-08, 09:21 PM

Ch. 25 Digital Channel info. is still off by 4 hours on all channels.

My 19.2 is still labeled "TUBE"

Nitewatchman

11-19-08, 09:21 PM

Nitewatchman,

Did you try Videoredo Plus for your edits?

Quick Update on this ....

I D/L the Trial of VideoRedo+ and gave its frame level editor a try with a CAP from WLWT-DT(HD from film based source+commercial breaks) from last night between 10:30~11pm ....

It seems it also isn't handling The Telecine flags correctly as it involves a certian, specific issue.

Basically, that issue is, at cuts what ends up happening are invalid field order transitions. While it seems most players/decoders can handle that, it can still be a problem for Dgindex/Dgdecode(which can correct the invalid field order transitions, but that doesn't allways work out as well as one might think) and using AVIsynth frameserver/Scripts as input for reencoding ...

I also tested this specific issue via cutting with H2M and MPEG2Streamclip (I haven't tested TSPE yet but assume the same thing will happen), and the same thing happens.

Here is the error Mpeg2Repair reports at the cut, using VideoRedo(or H2M or Mpeg2Streamclip), Note I also scanned for errors before editing the TS, and there were none :

Sequence Frame 3124(13-B) / Time 0:02:07 :
VideoWarning: Unexpected TFF/RFF flag change in previous GOP.

DGindex reports invalid "field order transition" under the same circumstances ...

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

Someone else has run into this problem, such that this issue is explained much better than I just explained and in more detail here :

http://www.videoredo.net/msgBoard/showthread.php?p=38390

While there is a possible workaround he suggests in that post I plan to investigate, it may involve a little more work than I'm willing to put into it ....

I wonder how many stations are implementing these flags? I'd bet probably not many ..... especially given it doesn't help improve efficency for the material that most needs it ... such as for 1080i Live sports broadcasts ...

Update regarding further testing :

I tried a couple of short Test reencodes to DVD video(about 4 minutes of content, 2 minutes before the cut/2 minutes after), one using a H2M Edit, and one using a VRD+ Edit(output TS) - . .. I used MPEG2streamclip to demux the VRD+ file(yeah I know I could have done it with VRD, but wanted to further test MPEG2SC demux), and Xport to Demux the H2M file ....

They *both* turned out fine, using muxman to mux to the VOB's ...

Some of the details concerning how it turned out being successful I think may have involved : 1). having/using dgindex corrected d2v file regarding invalid field order transition in Dgindex d2v.

Also, using TFM/Tdecimate(using TFM d2v parameter and, Hybrid=1 to blend the "video" frames, as there were portions when there weren't dupes in every 5 frame sequence) for IVTC to 23.976fps (adding the pulldown flags at encoder) -- 2). Note if I specified the field order for TFM as TFF = Order=1, field=1, or used the Non-corrected "field order transition version of the D2V file, the script wouldn't run, avisynth threw a exception .... I'm being lazy+will have to look at the TFM/Tdecimate readmes, again, but if I recall correctly it may have something to do with tfm using info from the d2v file and properly "figure it out" ... At least in this case, as there isn't any evidence the field order is wrong at any spot in the output ....

However, I had to run ac3fix on the AC3 audio from the HCM cut, as there were corrupted ac3 frame/wrong frame lengths at the cut. Note I didn't use a MPEG2repair "fixed" TS on the H2M edited TS before demuxing or reencoding the video, as I wanted to see what happened regarding the corrupted ac3 frames it reported (even if I had, I'm sure I would have still had to run ac3fix on it) ....

I don't want to sound too optimistic, as so many things can go wrong with this type of thing --- but at least it looks like I'll have some sort of chance Of ending up with something that works if I want to reencode anything from WLWT, or presumably any other stations that start sending the telecine flags ...

robmadden1

11-19-08, 10:56 PM

As of 10:56pm November 19th still no audio for me on 25.1, etc.

Bluestraw

11-20-08, 09:44 AM

Jeff,

All the NBC 'O&O' stations use this encoding. It is even more important for them as they have less bitrate for the main channel (they typically have 2 subs), so squeezing the most quality per bit is a good thing! You may think that telecine'd material doesn't benefit so much, but personally I think any extra quality is a good thing!

Yep.
Long overdue - from what I'm reading online and trade magazines stations are beginning to finally "see the light" regarding rboth increased revenue and rating potential by smartly programming their sub-channels.
Stay tuned!For Fox stations I agree since they have no control on the bitrate of th main channel. But for the other main nets, the best thing they could do in my opinion is kill ALL subchannels and devote the bitrate to the highest possible HD quality! We are lucky in this area with WLWT and WCPO and their bitrates, but in my opinion 1080i material suffers badly once you 'waste' too many bits on the subs...

jimp2244

11-20-08, 09:58 AM

Jeff,

This probably won't help as I think you're looking for more "raw" tools, but I do use BeyondTV to encode recordings from WLWT to mpeg-4 and the like and have never had any problems...

Nitewatchman

11-20-08, 11:58 AM

All the NBC 'O&O' stations use this encoding.

I'm sure there are probably more doing it as well. But if the NBC O&O's and WLWT (or even all the Hearst 1080i stations) were the only ones doing it, that's not many out of a little less than a couple of 1000 stations on air ....

You may think that telecine'd material doesn't benefit so much, but personally I think any extra quality is a good thing!

I didn't say that. [update: Oh yes, Why would I? As I mentioned earlier, I essentially do the same thing WLWT is doing when I IVTC film based telecined material, and reencode to DVD Video at 23.976fps +add the pulldown flags - I do that to improve quality+encoding efficiency]

I appreciate the extra quality, and I think it does benefit (telecined material only), I even see it vs. WDTN during HD programming sourced from Film --- although, it's difficult to explain, and I believe "overall" most would probably not say they would see much if any difference between WDTN and WLWT HD video ..

However, again it's the programming sourced from video sources which doesn't benefit much from the use of RFF/TFF flags which needs the improvement the most ....

I think what a station does regarding, for instance, bandwidth allocation should involve concern for the quality involving most demanding content to be encoded such as, in this case, 29.97fps/(60i) video during live sports broadcasts....

Note that I am *not* saying WLWT isn't doing that ....

I do know that prior to sometime in Mid-2004 or so, some of the Best HD quality I have seen via MPEG2 @ < 19Mb/s came from WLWT ... What especially comes to mind is 2002 HD Olympics (HDNet/NBC "partnered" on that coverage), 2002/03 Triple Crown(also involved HD net in one or both of those years) ..... And, I suspect WLWT's multicasting of "weatherPlus" doesn't have much to do with why I haven't seen that sort of "quality", including from WLWT-DT especially given how they are implementing WX+, and since they are using a more efficent encoder vs what they were using back then ... I suspect it has more to do with NBC distribution issues discussed previously elsewhere .....

Bubster

11-20-08, 01:38 PM

Job woes are forcing me to ditch my TWC digital box so I plan on just getting analog service and buying a decent tuner for my now ancient Samsung DLP. I want to be able to easily tune the Local HD stations via the QAM tuner that my tv is too old to have.

Suggestions? B&M or online is fine, also not afraid to spend a little more for a decent one. I figure I'll save tons over the long haul. Before you ask, to get OTA, I would have to install an antenna on the roof of a place where the homeowner's association likely will not let me and the only legal areas I have (mandated by the FCC) would not cut it.

Thanks in advance!

Splicer010

11-20-08, 03:02 PM

robmadden1

11-20-08, 04:07 PM

I finally got audio on 25.4 since its in mono. Jittery (meaning going out every few seconds) but I got audio. Still nothing on 25.1, 25.2, 25.3 since in stereo.

robmadden1

11-20-08, 04:31 PM

As of 4:30pm no more jittery auido on 25.4 pecfect audio now in mono. A little low but I got audio. I normally set my volume level at 18-22 but as they got it now i have to put it up to 29 for normal listening level. Max volume on my tv is 60.

Splicer010

11-20-08, 05:04 PM

Absolutely zero audio at all on 25-4 for me or any of the other channels...What are you hearing???

robmadden1

11-20-08, 05:35 PM

The audio from 25.1 on 25.4. try rescanning and see if you get audio. It should be in mono. Did you recently check to see if it has audio?

Nitewatchman

11-20-08, 05:58 PM

Jeff,

This probably won't help as I think you're looking for more "raw" tools, but I do use BeyondTV to encode recordings from WLWT to mpeg-4 and the like and have never had any problems...

As I noted in some of my most recent post it seems I have found a way to deal with it that seems to work for me, at least regarding testing I've done so far :

But what I'm still looking for currently, is a frame-based editor(freeware or that doesn't cost too much) which properly+entirely supports the TFF/RFF flags, including involving correcting invalid field order transitions caused by the editing which have occured at some cuts using every editor(including VideoRedo+) I've tried so far .....

Splicer010

11-20-08, 06:03 PM

The audio from 25.1 on 25.4. try rescanning and see if you get audio. It should be in mono. Did you recently check to see if it has audio?

I don't have to rescan...I directly tune to any channel that is on the air...One of the nice things about the LG LST-3510a that I use...

What I meant before was...What audio is being played??? It is a tower cam of the city...What type of audio are they playing along with the picture???

robmadden1

11-20-08, 06:08 PM

Tower cam with audio from woth 25.1 on 25.4.

Splicer010

11-20-08, 06:50 PM

I finally got audio on 25.4 since its in mono. Jittery (meaning going out every few seconds) but I got audio. Still nothing on 25.1, 25.2, 25.3 since in stereo.

Tower cam with audio from woth 25.1 on 25.4.

So now you are getting the audio from 25.1??? Regardless...I got nadda...zero...zip...:(

robmadden1

11-20-08, 06:59 PM

I only get the audio on 25.4 nothing else give them a call and let them know the problem.

Thier number 513-681-3800

For you to undertand the audio is what I should be getting on 25.1 but I am getting in on 25.4 and not on 25.1. The audio from jewlery tv is on 25.4. Do you understand now?

Splicer010

11-20-08, 07:14 PM

Thanks for clarifying...I have already emailed them and told them what tuner I was using including the antenna setup and signal strength as requested on 25-4...I also left my name and phone number...Now presuming they are reading their emails since they are asking for them I feel calling is not going to change things...I am sure they are aware of the issue...I also sent the link to this thread...

Update...On the phone with them now and they are aware of the problem and are working on it...

ncincy1

11-20-08, 07:48 PM

They are "good people" over there at Block Broadcasting. I really wish them the best!
Let's here it for the little guy trying to do something different in a very difficult economy.

robmadden1

11-20-08, 07:49 PM

They are aware of it because I keep them updated on if the changes are working for my tv. The woman that answers the phone during the daytime is really nice and is glad I told her today that I finally was reciving audio for the first time on 25.4. She got off the phone with me and then called her boss to tell him that I was finally getting audio at least on 25.4 letting him know the changes that he is doing is working for some people.

Splicer010

11-20-08, 08:23 PM

ThoraX695

11-20-08, 09:21 PM

i am noticing wkoi tbn is screwed up i have a good signal but i am getting sound droppouts an picture screw ups. they have done this way too many times.

I haven't had a problem with my old attic or new rooftop antenna (thanks to TNT Picture Company (http://www.tntpicturecompany.com/)!) picking up WKOI on analog or digital.

Do you mind if you can share a little bit about your setup and location?

ThoraX695

11-20-08, 10:19 PM

From the CET Tech Info blog (http://cet-techinfo.blogspot.com/2008/11/want-to-know-more-aboiut-dtv.html): WCET is going to run a call-in show this Sunday and answer questions about DTV. It will run from 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM.

ncincy1

11-21-08, 05:10 AM

Oh please...:rolleyes:

Don't pat yourself too hard on the back...You may break your arm...;)

Others have also informed them of what is going on...myself included...:p

Ouch!:eek:

pjpjpjpj

11-21-08, 07:57 AM

pjpjpjpj

11-21-08, 08:00 AM

WCET is going to run a call-in show this Sunday and answer questions about DTV. It will run from 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM.
And the odds of any callers being under age 60 are??? :D:D:D

I'm picturing this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRMAwXSbAnw

Bubster

11-21-08, 08:51 AM

and the odds of any callers being under age 60 are??? :d:d:d

i'm picturing this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brmawxsbanw

lmao!!! :D:D

ncincy1

11-21-08, 10:37 AM

You MADE my day with that clip ....thx.
Freakin' hilarious!!!

Bill R (# 2)

11-21-08, 01:13 PM

And the odds of any callers being under age 60 are???

Why another one of those "everyone over 60 has no idea about the digital transition" posts?

I am one of those "well over 60" people and I have been giving talks (to teacher groups, senior centers, etc.) for over 6 months about the transition. I have hooked up well over 2 dozen DTV boxes for people (MUCH younger than myself) who just don't understand the manual or were afraid that they would get electrocuted (LOTS of those).

There are LOTS of people of all ages that don't understand the digital transition in spite of all the money that is being spent and all the ads that are being shown. Please don't single out seniors. When you do you are just showing your ignorance.

robmadden1

11-21-08, 05:25 PM

Still no audio on 25.1, 25.2, 25.3 as of 5:25pm Nov. 21.

Splicer010

11-21-08, 05:37 PM

I hope you called them and made them aware of this dilemma...

On another note I have been having some picture break-up today on all 4 channels...

ThoraX695

11-21-08, 07:31 PM

And the odds of any callers being under age 60 are??? :D:D:D

I'm picturing this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRMAwXSbAnw

"Will all of this make Jack Benny come back?"

Well, if one of our local stations would pick up Retro TV... perhaps it can. ;)

Nitewatchman

11-21-08, 07:56 PM

Best of Jack Benny show airs occasionally on The ThinkTV (WPTD or WPTD) stations .... Their schedule currently indicates it's next on at 8pm on 14.2 tommorrow evening, and was last on this moring at 8am on 14.3 ...

Go here , and type in "Jack Benny" to search for more airtimes ....

http://www.thinktv.org/onair/onai_broadcast.php

BTW, "thisTV" (runs on WRGT 45.2) has some classic TV in the wee hours in addition to all their movies, and I even recall seeing Ozzie And harriet a couple of times on WKRC 12.2 .....

Splicer010

11-21-08, 08:04 PM

I must say that I really enjoy 'thisTV' on 45-2...Sure hope it sticks around...

ohiogal

11-21-08, 11:30 PM

pjpjpjpj

11-22-08, 09:25 AM

Why another one of those "everyone over 60 has no idea about the digital transition" posts?

I am one of those "well over 60" people and I have been giving talks (to teacher groups, senior centers, etc.) for over 6 months about the transition. I have hooked up well over 2 dozen DTV boxes for people (MUCH younger than myself) who just don't understand the manual or were afraid that they would get electrocuted (LOTS of those).

There are LOTS of people of all ages that don't understand the digital transition in spite of all the money that is being spent and all the ads that are being shown. Please don't single out seniors. When you do you are just showing your ignorance.

Good gracious, man, it was a joke. An excuse to post a link to that video (which you have to admit, is amusing). Lighten up.

Of course there are people over 60 who understand it (though you did say you are giving talks at Senior Centers... :cool: ). And there are obviously people under 60 who don't. Want another stereotype? The people under 60 who don't understand it are probably just too stubborn to read the manual or admit they need help. :D Want another stereotype? Most of them are probably females who frankly don't care enough to bother reading about it (I'm married to one). :D

Those, again, were jokes. Of course there are females who understand this stuff. There's one who surfs the forum at my HTPC software site who knows more about HTPCs, networking, and general PC stuff than anyone (and yes, she is one of probably 3 females who frequent a board with probably 300 posters, but I digress....)

Again... it was a joke.

Bubster

11-22-08, 02:45 PM

Lawyer jokes, fat guy jokes, we live in a society with no sense of humor! I enjoy a good non-pc joke more than the average guy, even when I suffer from the same fate as the punch line. Most people in our "sue everyone" society are trained to have their feelings hurt and complain sadly.

I don't get it either pjpjpjpj.

jim tressler

11-22-08, 02:52 PM

amen!!!

ncincy1

11-22-08, 06:55 PM

I feel the pain. I sent to my mother-in-law who i thought had a sense of humor - obviously not.
Yes - the whole world needs to chill - "lighten up" - LIFE IS SHORT!

ncincy1

11-22-08, 09:45 PM

Let's hope someone in Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky sees the wisdom to program This TV network on one of their sub-channels. Already "part-time" in Dayton on 45.2 to compliment MyNetwork TV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_TV

WXIX 19.2?
WOTH 25.4?
WLWT 5.2? (when Weather Plus goes away in late December)
????

Of course, I'm still hoping for RTN (Retro Television Network) also.

http://www.rtnville.com/

One more "weather" sub-channel will be plain stupidity.

Finally, I don't see anyone in this market having the boldness to go 24/7 local news like the do in Indy and other cities.

Hmmmm????

Bill R (# 2)

11-23-08, 10:52 AM

Let's hope someone in Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky sees the wisdom to program This TV network on one of their sub-channels. Already "part-time" in Dayton on 45.2 to compliment MyNetwork TV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_TV

WXIX 19.2?
WOTH 25.4?
WLWT 5.2? (when Weather Plus goes away in late December)
????

WXIX, 19.2 might become "THIS TV" (I have heard the name MGM mentioned when talking to someone I know at the station).

WLWT has said that they will continue to keep 5.2 for weather and "other things". Rumors are that it is likely to become a news, weather, sports, and traffic station.

ncincy1

11-23-08, 07:06 PM

WLWT needs something to boost poor news ratings - being LAST in HD local news doesn't help things.

ThoraX695

11-23-08, 08:19 PM

I caught the second half of the live WCET DTV call-in show. They covered the usual topics of converter box coupons, how to hook things up, why people can't get Channel 9, and so forth. They mentioned WOTH's new digital channels too. The best part in my opinion is when they plugged tvfool.com (http://www.tvfool.com/) at the end of the show. :D

blbrodbeck

11-23-08, 09:22 PM

They also said Ch. 9 will be switching to a new transmitting antenna in the Spring. Hopefully that will solve everyone's problems.

ThoraX695

11-23-08, 10:07 PM

They also said Ch. 9 will be switching to a new transmitting antenna in the Spring. Hopefully that will solve everyone's problems.

I believe they're going to start using circular polarization for their transmitter too.

It's going to be a fun ride going through 2009 with all of the post-transition changes including new transmitters, transmitter height changes, polarization changes, transmission pattern changes, increased transmission power... :)

dtv insider

11-24-08, 08:14 AM

I believe they're going to start using circular polarization for their transmitter too.

It's going to be a fun ride going through 2009 with all of the post-transition changes including new transmitters, transmitter height changes, polarization changes, transmission pattern changes, increased transmission power... :)

I believe the new antenna is just a top mount channel 10 antenna and the circular polarization is for the new handheld receiving devices.

Just a question how, raising the transmitter height help with signal out of the antenna ???

pjpjpjpj

11-24-08, 10:04 AM

Just a question how, raising the transmitter height help with signal out of the antenna ???

Doesn't help with "signal out", just reception. The higher the transmitter, the more chance the signal becomes "line of sight" over Cincinnati's many hills. And the more direct the transmission path, the better the chance for reception.

Of course, for those close by, "better" reception could become worse reception if it's so good that it causes multipath problems (signals bouncing off of things and coming back at other angles and out of phase)....

As ThoraX695 said above, it's going to be an interesting ride. I am crossing my fingers that I am at a location where things will stay the same or slightly improve. I'm already 100% digital (don't have any analog tuners), so my only real concern is the move of WKRC from UHF to VHF. I get WCPO fine now (the only VHF channel I currently want), but you just never know how this will affect things.

And as the the "ThisTV" ideas above... while I would welcome anything useful on one of our many local spare subchannels, I fear that re-runs of any old show will just give my wife more "stuff" to watch/record for no reason. :( :rolleyes: :eek:

jimp2244

11-24-08, 11:05 AM

Doesn't help with "signal out", just reception. The higher the transmitter, the more chance the signal becomes "line of sight" over Cincinnati's many hills. And the more direct the transmission path, the better the chance for reception.
I think he was joking... Transmitter and antenna are two different things. The transmitter is on the ground... I'm imagining a large transmitter being hoisted up and placed on jacks to get it just a little bit higher. Maybe it will keep it from getting wet when the transmitter room floods? ;)

Bill R (# 2)

11-24-08, 12:06 PM

And as the the "ThisTV" ideas above... while I would welcome anything useful on one of our many local spare subchannels, I fear that re-runs of any old show will just give my wife more "stuff" to watch/record for no reason. :( :rolleyes: :eek:

That is always a possible problem. :mad:

Speaking of subchannels, some time back there was some information that CET (WCET) would add another subchannel. I believe the rumor was the CREATE was going to "added back" (they did have CREATE as a substation at one time and replaced it with WORLD). Has anyone heard anything lately?

skylab

11-24-08, 01:02 PM

That is always a possible problem. :mad:

Speaking of subchannels, some time back there was some information that CET (WCET) would add another subchannel. I believe the rumor was the CREATE was going to "added back" (they did have CREATE as a substation at one time and replaced it with WORLD). Has anyone heard anything lately?

Lets hope WCET doesn't add an additional subchannel. Between it, WPTD and WPTO, there are plenty of PBS programming options. WCET's HD content looks the best because it only has one subchannel. All of the subchannels on WPTO and WPDT (4 or 5 each) look horribly bit starved.

WCET, WPTO, and WPTD are available OTA and via cable in both Dayton and Cincinnati. It would be nice if WCET worked with WPTO and WPTD to divy up the programming. Here is what I would suggest:

1. WCET goes full bitrate HD eliminating the subchannels (WCET is currently 5.1).

2. WPTD eliminates its HD channel and gives its full bandwidth to the SD subchannels.

3. WPTO does only one HD subchannel in the evening and during the day eliminates the HD subchannel in favor of four SD subchannels.

robmadden1

11-24-08, 01:12 PM

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6616487.html

A DTV nighlight bill, which would allow broadcasters to continue an analog signal for 30 days past the Feb. 17, 2009 cut-off date, passed the Senate by unanimous consent Thursday, according to the office of its sponsor, Sen. Jay Rockefeller.....

jimp2244

11-24-08, 01:41 PM

Lets hope WCET doesn't add an additional subchannel. Between it, WPTD and WPTO, there are plenty of PBS programming options. WCET's HD content looks the best because it only has one subchannel. All of the subchannels on WPTO and WPDT (4 or 5 each) look horribly bit starved.While WCET only has 48-1 and 48-2, they have left room in their stream for an additional subchannel (CrEaTe to be specific). They pass CrEaTe on to Time Warner, but remove it from the OTA stream replacing most of it with null packets. It's very wasteful and their engineer was unable to give me a good answer for why they do it. So, the end product you get from WCET HD is as if there were two SD subchannels, but we only get to watch one of them.

Probably the best PBS PQ around here comes from KET, such as WCVN 54. They cross-convert PBS 1080i to 720p which helps it look better with less bandwidth. There is noticeable detail lost in the cross conversion but there is also noticeable less artifacting in their HD broadcasts than from WCET or the ThinkTV stations.

pjpjpjpj

11-24-08, 04:05 PM

Frankly, I don't care what they do with CET/WPTO/WPTD, I just wish they wouldn't show first-run programs on the SD subchannels instead of the HD counterpart. Example (yeah, I've mentioned this before): the first airing of "Cook's Country" by either of these three is on 14.3 (or maybe 14.2?) in SD, on Thursday afternoons. The next rerun of it on 14.6, finally in HD, isn't shown until over two weeks later. So my HTPC, set to record it at "First run", gets that SD version.... and of course my wife would rather watch a new episode "now" than wait two weeks to see it in HD. :mad:

Yeah, I know I could set it to only record on 14.6 and therefore get the HD showing (to my wife's dismay), but wouldn't it make more sense for any channel that has HD capability to show everything in HD first?

Nitewatchman

11-24-08, 04:49 PM

I believe the new antenna is just a top mount channel 10 antenna and the circular polarization is for the new handheld receiving devices.

Current antenna for WKRC analog (future antenna for WKRC digital) Also uses CP according to their operating permit.

The new handheld receiving devices will be using upcoming ATSC M/H (Mobile/Handheld) standard. M/H will use AVC/H.264 for video encoding, but the bandwidth penalty for the increased robustness (for mobile reception/etc) will mean a M/H low quality SD program service will use(more or less) about a SD subchannel's worth of a stations 19.39Mb/s payload ....

It remains to be seen whether or not M/H will be successful, but if it is, one can certainly imagine many stations will likely want to implement it .... Which means, of course, less bandwidth available from those stations for fixed HD and other SD multicast services ....

XmtrMan

11-24-08, 08:30 PM

Current antenna for WKRC analog (future antenna for WKRC digital) Also uses CP according to their operating permit.

We've been CP on channel 12 since 1985...A bit before mobile devices were a consideration.

dtv insider

11-24-08, 09:37 PM

[QUOTE=pjpjpjpj;15141980]Frankly, I don't care what they do with CET/WPTO/WPTD, I just wish they wouldn't show first-run programs on the SD subchannels instead of the HD counterpart. Example (yeah, I've mentioned this before): the first airing of "Cook's Country" by either of these three is on 14.3 (or maybe 14.2?) in SD, on Thursday afternoons. The next rerun of it on 14.6, finally in HD, isn't shown until over two weeks later. So my HTPC, set to record it at "First run", gets that SD version.... and of course my wife would rather watch a new episode "now" than wait two weeks to see it in HD. :mad:

I talk to the people at WPTD the reason "Cook Country" HD show is two weeks later is because PBS doesn't send the HD show at the same time it sends the SD show.

If you have a question just call and talk to the people in know.

dtv insider

11-24-08, 09:49 PM

[
WCET, WPTO, and WPTD are available OTA and via cable in both Dayton and Cincinnati. It would be nice if WCET worked with WPTO and WPTD to divy up the programming. Here is what I would suggest:

WCET is not on the cable system in Dayton city limits it stops at south boundary of Dayton limits.

I think your will see programs and sub channels change with 14,16, 48 become one happy family. I do not think you we see less sub channels. You may see more sub channels on 48 after the new encoder is installed.

Nitewatchman

11-24-08, 09:55 PM

We've been CP on channel 12 since 1985...A bit before mobile devices were a consideration.

Yes, and I think we've discussed CP here a bit before -- There are of course folks who are/have been using non-H polarized Rabbit ears and whip antennas with fixed receivers(analog and DTV) as well as for portable analog TV reception .....

p.s. - So we're clear on this I did not intend to agree with, or say that M/H is the reason why either WKRC/DT is/will or WCPO-DT will use CP ...... In fact, that is why I politely pointed out in last post that WKRC analog is using CP ....

Trip in VA

11-24-08, 10:28 PM

I know I don't live in the area and really don't have much of a right to say anything, this lineup would seem most logical for the combined 14/16/48:

14-1 PBS14-SD
14-2 "14 Prime"
14-3 "14 Again" (currently "16 Again")
14-4 PBS Kids
14-5 PBS World

16-1 PBS16-HD
16-2 PBS Create
16-3 Ohio Channel

48-1 WCET-HD
48-2 MHz WorldView
48-3 Documentary Channel

Assuming, of course, that the newly combined group would want to pick up those services for 48-2 and 48-3. Both are very interesting services (I watch MHz all the time at college).

Of course, that's just what I think. Nobody has to live by it. :D

- Trip

Nitewatchman

11-24-08, 10:34 PM

WCET is not on the cable system in Dayton city limits it stops at south boundary of Dayton limits.

WCET is also on TW Cable in other areas of Dayton Metro area, such as in Fairborn, Ohio, NE of Dayton.

You can go here + check out the channel lineups for different communities :

http://www.timewarnercable.com/CustomerService/CLU/TWCCLUs.ashx?menu=15382

robmadden1

11-24-08, 11:29 PM

Still no audio on 25.1, 25.2, and 25.3 as of 11:29pm November 24th.

jimp2244

11-25-08, 07:56 AM

Last night on 25-1 they had TSN's (Canadian ESPN) coverage of the CFL (Canadian Football League) Grey Cup (their Super Bowl). Very entertaining game although I will have to get used to their different rules.

pjpjpjpj

11-25-08, 08:02 AM

I talk to the people at WPTD the reason "Cook Country" HD show is two weeks later is because PBS does send the HD show at the same time it sends the SD show.
Did you mean "...PBS doesn't send the HD show..."?
Otherwise, I am confused. :confused:

dtv insider

11-25-08, 12:50 PM

Did you mean "...PBS doesn't send the HD show..."?
Otherwise, I am confused. :confused:

Yes, it that speed typing last night

Bill R (# 2)

11-25-08, 01:24 PM

Still no audio on 25.1, 25.2, and 25.3 as of 11:29pm November 24th.

This afternoon I am not getting any sound on 25.3 or 25.4. They are now showing a shopping channel on 25.4 (I liked the Cincinnati Skyline CAM shot better).

robmadden1

11-25-08, 01:37 PM

I called and let WKRP know thier is no audio on any of the sub channels 25.1, 25.2, 25.3, 25.4.

robmadden1

11-25-08, 01:42 PM

I notice alot of pixelation on 25.4.

Nitewatchman

11-25-08, 05:16 PM

I've done some quck checking and it looks like in addition to WLWT-DT, ThinkTV stations WPTD-DT and WPTO-DT are making use of the telecine (TFF/RFF) flags as well ..... Note : I don't know if they've upgraded Encoders since last I had heard several years ago that they were using(for the HD) Harmonic MV400 ....

I know I don't live in the area and really don't have much of a right to say anything,

I certianly appreciate your contributions and thoughts.

CET-HD looked great from about Nov 2002~early 2003 (until they began multicasting) ....

Since as they say, a pic is worth 1'000 words, See below attached screenshots and descriptions from WPTD-DT's current HD (I believe this was 29.97fps interlaced content - Not telecined material which can benefit from use of TFF/RFF flags) ... These are pretty typical of issues CET and ThinkTV have with MPEG2 encoding and not allocating enough bandwidth for the job ...

WPTDa probably doesn't look too awfully bad on a small PC monitor, I included this one to help demonstrate the issues in the other attached pics were not something caused by decoding or processing(converting to jpg/etc) issues on my end .... but it's not a frame that's all that difficult to encode, either .... (Note: Resized from 1920x1080 to 853x480 so I could attach it here)

WPTDb isn't during a scene transition, and no, neither the plane nor the camera pan are moving all that fast .... (note: Resized from 1920x1080 to 853x480) ... yep, this is often what it looks like during somewhat difficult to encode content ..

WPTD6 is during a scene transition and involves content that is quite difficult to encode/is bandwidth demanding ... This is only a portion of the frame, which I did not resize and just "cropped out" this portion of the frame so I could "fit it" in an attachment here --- note the rest of the frame looks like this as well ... It's of a big "wall of flame" type explosion at an airshow ....

I wish them luck finding a "better MPEG2 encoder" which will signfiicantly improve such issues, and allow them to provide an acceptable quality HD service with 1080i and bitrates in the range of 7Mb/s~11 Mb/s or so (what they're currently doing), or in WCET's case wit ha max of about 14~15mb/s or so .... I don't think they are going to have much luck with that, however .....

As Jimp2244 noted, I think KET has demonstrated 720p+2 SD can be done with decent results -- I also think 1080i+1 640x480 low quality/low bitrate service(such as what WLWT does wit Weather+) can probably be somewhat acceptable with use of the newest/most efficent encoders. But, I have personally yet to actually see 1080i work well during difficult to encode content and any Multicasting(surprise, surprise, just what ATTC found and recommended), and I think 480i(or maybe 480p) 16x9 is better suited rather than HD to what ThinkTV is currently doing and has been doing for some time ....

Now, that's not to say I'm not impressed with some aspects of what ThinkTV or CET have done with DTV .. Particuarly, I think if you overlook the poor HD quality issues, what thinkTV has done regarding providing 10 *different* program services, 2 of them HD, all of them 24/7 I think has been quite impressive .... I suspect if it were the case they were doing that with VC-1 or H.264, and if it were the case all our receivers could easily and inexpensively be upgraded to support VC-1 or H.264 decoding, then what they are doing would probably work out quite well indeed ....

Trip in VA

11-25-08, 05:21 PM

I've seen some stations do 352x480i. I imagine you could cram two of those in with an HD without doing too much damage.

- Trip

Nitewatchman

11-25-08, 05:46 PM

352x480 is not listed in ATSC Table 3 .... some decoders(manufactuers seem to typically be using ATSC specs when designing their receivers, although most MPEG2 decoders should support non-table 3 resolutions as well) could have issues with it ...

In other words, you might end up with an issue somewhat like we have with WOTH and them sending MPEG audio rather than AC-3 (dolby) audio and many receivers not supporting their audio currently ... And, MPEG audio not being in the ATSC specs .....

Depending on the quality of the source, I think KET's SD services at 704x480 look quite good (for SD), So does for the most part ThinkTV 14.2/14.3 and 16.2 and 16.3 at 704x480 ... I can't say the same about WDTN's 640x480 SD subchannel, or what NBC programming looked like on 5.2(640x480) last Thursday night (I surfed over there a couple of times, while watching the game on 5.1, but to actually "watch it" later, Of course I DVR'd some of the NBC HD programming via HTPC in HD from WDTN-DT ...

In any case, as it involves cable carriage, which I think likely is of importance to them --- I'd have to review the FCC rules on this matter again, but I'd think there *ought* to be some possibilities per the merger of CET being carried in Dayton "city limits* and WPTO could be carried by TW Cincy (according to info on ThinkTV website they are not) ....

It also seems to me given that areas of Dayton DMA north of I-70 (although generally sparsely populated) won't have access to The Cincinnati stations, whearas most who won't be getting WPTD who are in Cincinnati market will have access to KET in addition to WPTO and WCET (and many of those being in KY) ..... Perhaps It might make sense to program WPTD in more of a "one size fits all" sense, whearas there seem to me to be more possible options with WCET and WPTO ...

Not that they care what I think either, but personally I'd vote for a high quality 1080i HD service with no multicasting from one or the other (when available, available oppurtunistic bandwidth could be put to some use as well) -- and again, personally, --- For all I care, they can fit as many SD subchannels as they want on the other station ...

jdhughes63

11-25-08, 07:05 PM

I have a note on my calendar that WKRC starts their HD newscasts tomorrow (Wednesday, November 26th)
Has anyone heard if it is on schedule or has it changed? I have heard no promotions on their channel.

blbrodbeck

11-25-08, 09:10 PM

I think it was said that the 26th would be the earliest. I believe that's the day that sweeps end. I haven't heard anymore since then.

Nitewatchman

11-25-08, 09:38 PM

Past several days I've been taking TS caps when Telecined material was airing from the Cincy/Dayton stations which are sending 1080i and testing them to see whether or not they are sending Telecine(pulldown) flags :

Here's the list :

Of the stations sending 1080i, these are sending TFF/RFF Flags during Telecined material, including on all or some SD 480i subchannels. I say "all or some" because there was no telecined content running during the caps I took on some of the subchannels. Such as 16.5 "Ohio Channel" for instance, so I couldn't check those or say for sure, but suspect they very well may all be setup from ThinkTV for the TFF/RFF flags .... WBDT-DT's 26.2 SD, and WLWT-DT's 5.2 SD (Wx+) are indeed sending RFF/TFF flags .... :

WLWT-DT
WBDT-DT
WPTD-DT
WPTO-DT

Of the stations sending 1080i, these are not currently sending the TFF/RFF flags currently, Including on any SD subchannels :

WDTN-DT
WCET-DT
WHIO-DT
WKRC-DT
WSTR-DT

Note : I also checked WRGT's "MyTV/ThisTV" subchannel during a ThisTV/MGM film - No TFF/RFF flags there currently. I have not yet had a chance to check WCVN's SD services(right now when I was going to do it, there's nothing Telecined running on KET1 or 2) or WKOI's SD. I also did not check WCPO 9.2 since I'd probably have to catch the E/I programming to have a shot at catching any telecined content there ....

Except just for the heck of it from WXIX/Fox Splicer for my cap of "Terminator:SCC" last night, I didn't check any of the other 720p services, as If they were I think I would know because previous experience indicates my Zenith Decoder would drop frames in such a case.

blbrodbeck

11-25-08, 09:40 PM

25-1 & 25-4 have the same programming right now. Same with 25-2 & 25-3. In each case one channel has sound & one doesn't. So, they are probably testing to resolve their Audio issues.

Splicer010

11-25-08, 10:16 PM

25-1 & 25-4 have the same programming right now. Same with 25-2 & 25-3. In each case one channel has sound & one doesn't. So, they are probably testing to resolve their Audio issues.

No audio on any of the channel 25 stations for me yet...Still patiently waiting...

robmadden1

11-26-08, 12:59 AM

I have no audio period on all of 25's sub channels.

Nitewatchman

11-26-08, 01:49 PM

As of 13:30 EST 11/26/08, WOTH-LD now sending AC-3 Audio on 25.2, 25.3, 25.4.

25.1 still (currently) MPEG audio.

Zenith HDV420 here is decoding audio from them the first time on what it sees (w/o VCT) on 47.2, 47.3 and 47.4.

Still don't know why all my other receivers are recognizing and using WOTH-LD VCT Major/Minor channel # info, but the HDV420 isn't. I wonder if it is possible may be because of the TSID info they're sending - They're currently sending TSID ID = 1 (Hex = 0x0001) ? They stil aren't sending EITs, but I wouldn't think that should have anything to do with it, and the HDV420 doesn't support or display the EIT info, anyway ....

TSreader cap of WOTH-LD from 13:30 EST attached ...

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

Update : Crap, should have waited a few minutes, at 1:45pm, They now have AC-3 audio on 25.1 as well (Zenith HDV420 decoding it just fine as well) ... Here's the new info for the Elementary Audio stream at PID 4129 (at hex address 0x1021) :

Elementary Stream PID 4129 (0x1021) AC-3 Audio
AC3: Bitrate 224 Kbps Sample Rate 48 KHz
AC3: Mode complete main Coding 1/0 C
Descriptor: Registration Descriptor
Format identifier: 0x41432d33 (AC-3)
Descriptor: ISO639 Language Descriptor
Language: eng
Audio type: clean effects

From TVCT :

Stream Type 0x81 (AC-3 Audio) ESPID = 0x1021 Language = eng

From Program 1 PMT :

Stream Type: 0x81 AC-3 Audio
Elementary Stream PID 4129 (0x1021)

Splicer010

11-26-08, 02:17 PM

19-2 'The Tube' barker channel is back on air...

robmadden1

11-26-08, 04:45 PM

I still don't have audio on 25.1 and 25.2 in stereo but I do have audio on 25.3 and 25.4 in mono.

goshenhd1234

11-26-08, 04:54 PM

On WinTv I have the following WOTH-LP Picture ok, No audio. Two others show up as Atsc2 and Atsc3 one is I'm guessing WBQC, Bernie Mac show, the other is the shopping channel. Both now have audio. The Sanyo Hd set scans and finds "25" but doesn't store it. Looks like they are slowly making progress.
Hope when everything is working good the sub channels are decent programming. I'd like to see RTN too, as some have mentioned. Jeff:)

robmadden1

11-26-08, 05:10 PM

I notice on WKOI d1 43.1 has alot of color artifacts in the video.

Nitewatchman

11-26-08, 05:23 PM

WOTH-LD had AC3 audio working on all 4 subchannels for about 15 Minutes~30 Minutes or so, beginning around 1:45pm Today.

From what I can tell there seems to currently be no decodable audio streams on 25.1 or 25.2. The bandwidth for them is allocated+being utilized, but if they are encoding anything, decoders aren't recognizing it. Also, some of the info which describes to decoders how the audio streams are encoded(which was there between 1:45pm~2pm but isn't now) is missing for the Audio streams for program 1 and 2 (25.1+25.2).

25.2 and 25.4 also are setup currently to send both AC3 and MPEG audio streams. While it's certianly possible to send multiple audio streams per program, I hope they realize they do not need to send the MPEG audio streams at all, as all DTV receivers should decode properly configured AC3 audio streams, but many won't decode MPEG audio.

robmadden1

11-26-08, 05:36 PM

Nitewatchman why don't you give them the info you have it may help them out. Try calling WKRP with your info. They may take all the help they can get. (513) 681-3800.

blbrodbeck

11-26-08, 06:06 PM

John Kiesewetter reports on WKRP

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=PluckPersona&U=5c49394b12564ab6832411d82ad3a991&plckController=PersonaBlog&plckScript=personaScript&plckElementId=personaDest&plckPersonaPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3a5c49394b12564ab6832411d82ad3a991Post%3abcc 8c104-b171-4464-b58b-4de64acdec93&sid=sitelife.cincinnati.com

Splicer010

11-26-08, 07:39 PM

25-1 No Audio...25-2 no audio...25-3 hum bars in picture...have audio but slightly distorted...25-4 PQ fine...Audio slighty distorted and audio level rising and falling consistently...All this on my LG LST-3510a ATSC tuner...

Lotsa work still needed but PROGRESS is being made!!! Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Nitewatchman

11-26-08, 08:03 PM

Nitewatchman why don't you give them the info you have it may help them out. Try calling WKRP with your info. They may take all the help they can get. (513) 681-3800.

I don't think anyone(including them, and I'm assuming they're monitoring or checking their off air signal, including perhaps with the use of DTV receivers available to consumers, such as some of the DTV converter boxes) would be able to decode any audio on program 1+2 currently. So if they are not aware of the current issue yet I'm sure they soon will be.

AC-3 Audio is currently present for both WBQC-CA and WOTH-LP's programming as they are currently also providing it on 25.3 and 25.4, and as others have posted they are aware of and are working on their audio issues.

I'd be happy to talk to them though, I've been watching them since the Early 90's, and have talked to Block several years ago via email and enjoyed our conversation about DTV and their possible plans for it at the time, and I'll probably send them a "signal report" at some point since they asked for it on air, or they can contact me via AVSforum PM if they wish .....

John Kiesewetter reports on WKRP

WBQC-CA callsign remains WBQC-CA. (the CA means "Class A"). WKRP-LP callsign is currently used by a LP station in TN.

WBQC's current use of "WKRP-TV" is not using it as a callsign -- It's like WKRC using "Local 12" instead of "WKRC", or WOTH using "The OTHer channel". You will still see WBQC-CA in WBQC's legal ID's.

blbrodbeck

11-26-08, 08:21 PM

That is always a possible problem. :mad:

Speaking of subchannels, some time back there was some information that CET (WCET) would add another subchannel. I believe the rumor was the CREATE was going to "added back" (they did have CREATE as a substation at one time and replaced it with WORLD). Has anyone heard anything lately?

Here's something I found on a WCET blog.

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

Hello, I was wondering why CET only has 2 HD channels, And Channel 14 from Oxford (I Think) has 6. I would think CET would be able to have that many as well. Just a thought. I feel guilty when I watch a different PBS station.

Thanks
Karl

Karl,

Good question. CET is providing the highest bit rate in the Greater Cincinnati area for our HD programs in an attempt to give the viewer the best possible picture in HD. We do have a total of 5 channels available on Time Warner Cable but as of this time we provide 2 program streams on our digital over-the-air broadcast. One channel uses the lion's share of the available bits to provide our HD service and the remaining bits are dedicated to one SD channel, "World."

We recently applied for a grant to purchase a new device that may allow us to keep a robust HD service and still have perhaps two SD channels.

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

This was dated July 1, 2008 and in one of the added comments Jack Dominic, VP & COO of WCET said "I think when we add the new DTV exciter we will be able to add a channel."

Nitewatchman

11-26-08, 09:46 PM

^ blbrodreck,

#1). I believe you should ask Dominic for permission before reposting that here. Somehow, I'm guessing that you did not do that .....

#2). I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but FWIW, f I were you, I would reconsider posting that(or links to it) here at all in any case for various reasons which should be obvious given the recently announced CET/ThinkTV merger ....

dtv insider

11-26-08, 09:52 PM

[QUOTE=blbrodbeck;15160143]Here's something I found on a WCET blog.

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

Hello, I was wondering why CET only has 2 HD channels, And Channel 14 from Oxford (I Think) has 6. I would think CET would be able to have that many as well. Just a thought. I feel guilty when I watch a different PBS station.

Thanks
Karl

Karl,

Good question. Actually they provide only 1 HD Channel each and those channels are considered by some not to be HD. Channels 14 and 16 have chosen to provide this less robust High Definition channel by reducing the bit rate for the HD channel and using the bandwidth saved to provide several standard definition (SD) channels. CET is providing the highest bit rate in the Greater Cincinnati area for our HD programs in an attempt to give the viewer the best possible picture in HD. We do have a total of 5 channels available on Time Warner Cable but as of this time we provide 2 program streams on our digital over-the-air broadcast. One channel uses the lion's share of the available bits to provide our HD service and the remaining bits are dedicated to one SD channel, "World."

We recently applied for a grant to purchase a new device that may allow us to keep a robust HD service and still have perhaps two SD channels. I don't see us moving to 5 channels like 14 or 16 as this reduces the quality too much.

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

This was dated July 1, 2008 and in one of the added comments Jack Dominic, VP & COO of WCET said "I think when we add the new DTV exciter we will be able to add a channel."

You have to remember this was before the CEO of Think TV become the president of the new group ( Think TV WCET) and we know what he did to WPTD/WPTO-TV

blbrodbeck

11-26-08, 10:25 PM

OK I can't delete the entire post. So, I edited some of the comments out & deleted the link. It wasn't my intention to cause anyone any problems.

boyphenom666

11-28-08, 04:22 AM

This tv has Mr. ED and the patty duke show, and they showed Road to Hong kong with bob hope and Bing Crosby. i am just so tickled that they show movies like that. They show elvis movies too. i am anxious to find out what they will do with 19.2, i really wish someone would get retro tv.

ThisTV is also on WSYX 6.2 so I'm guessing it's a Sinclair thing. If that's the case, it may end up on 64.2. I also like the channel and the movies are watchable ... some of the movies are cheesy, but free movies without a premium channel are hard to find. I mean, how many times can a person watch Beverly Hills Cop, Dirty Harry or King Pin?

Bill R (# 2)

11-28-08, 11:02 AM

ThisTV is also on WSYX 6.2 so I'm guessing it's a Sinclair thing. If that's the case, it may end up on 64.2.

From what I have been told (last year) there were no plans to have subchannels for WSTR (they currently don't have equipment that would allow that). Of course, things change and it could happen sometime in the future. With the problem that MyTV has (lack of viewers) WSTR might do better if they put ThisTV on 64.1.

boyphenom666

11-28-08, 04:25 PM

From what I have been told (last year) there were no plans to have subchannels for WSTR (they currently don't have equipment that would allow that). Of course, things change and it could happen sometime in the future. With the problem that MyTV has (lack of viewers) WSTR might do better if they put ThisTV on 64.1.

WSYX 6.2 runs MyTV during prime time, and ThisTV during the rest of the schedule. RTN is another fun channel I would like to see someone bring here. I used to watch a Utah station on FTA Satellite and the shows they were running a few years ago were fun to watch.

Nitewatchman

11-28-08, 06:08 PM

A number of decent, or 1/2 way decent Films have run in HD on MyTV/WSTR ....("Moonstruck" last night as an example), they're the only thing I've ever watched on MyTV. .... BTW, There's a MyTV HD Schedule in the Programming area at AVSforum, currently.

Update -- Here is that thread :

Upcoming MyNetworkTV HD Offerings (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1040714)

It's pretty rare these days that I'll watch a SD broadcast of a feature film(especially 4x3 P&S) these days, and last year up through the summer was a pretty good one for HD film broadcast on the Broadcast nets, given the Writer's strike ..... Holiday season usually is as well ....

WSTR seems to have some issues with their stream though since starting the SEC 1080i broadcasts and around the time they started converting to 1080i (MyTV is 720p) . I'm pretty sure(but not 100% positive) the issues I'm seeing from them aren't due to something on my end ....

It isn't obvious/doesnt really appear that the issue would necessarily be related to the 1080i conversion, though--- It Almost seems like what perhaps might happen if they had an issue with their STL, but I don't know ... And of course, WSTR used to also do 1080i when they were running WB without all the errors in their stream which I'm seeing from them currently .... I thought it was just happening during MyTV feed, but I checked today during a bit of the SEC game and it was happening there as well ....

jdhughes63

11-28-08, 08:15 PM

Friday night at 8pm and I am watching the "new" TW986 channel. Supposed to be ABC Family HD. It is nothing but a 4:3 SD picture. No different than the SD Family channel. So much for all the new HD stations that TW is giving us.

The logo in the lower right of the screen clearly states ABC Family HD, but it is not HD

Bill R (# 2)

11-28-08, 08:38 PM

The logo in the lower right of the screen clearly states ABC Family HD, but it is not HD

We have had ABC Family HD via satellite ever since it was added. The MAJORITY of programs on the channel are not HD. MANY of the so called HD channels have very few hours of true HD programming and/or (worse) they stretch SD programs to 16:9 to make them appear (to the HD uneducated viewer) as HD programs.

robmadden1

11-29-08, 12:41 AM

Getting audio on 25.1 (mono with very little volume going up and down not as bad as 25.4) 25.2 (no audio stereo) 25.3 (mono) 25.4 (mono with volume going up and down) from a rescan at 12:40am.

jdhughes63

11-29-08, 07:52 AM

We have had ABC Family HD via satellite ever since it was added. The MAJORITY of programs on the channel are not HD. MANY of the so called HD channels have very few hours of true HD programming and/or (worse) they stretch SD programs to 16:9 to make them appear (to the HD uneducated viewer) as HD programs.

I like you answer the best, TW sent me an email and told me to unplug my box and then plug it in again to fix the problem. I suspect you are correct. Apparentlly they are not like ESPN who uses colorful side bars to indicate a partiular segment is not in HD. I don't like the stretching either.

robmadden1

11-30-08, 04:14 AM

all ub the subs on 25 has sound but 25.2 and 25.4 have that up and down audio the worrt 25.2 the very worst of the two. 25.1 still has that slight up and down audio.

jimp2244

11-30-08, 12:32 PM

I apologize for the tardiness... Been a little busy around here with Thanksgiving and all. Enjoy the games!

We will get a total of 9 NFL games this week, all in HD! OTA-only viewers will get 7 games. Cable/Dish-only viewers will get 7-8 games. CBS has the double-header this week.

Thanksgiving Games:

12:30pm CBS (12 WKRC, 7 WHIO) Tennessee at Detroit
Jim Nantz, Phil Simms

4:15pm FOX (19 WXIX, 45 WRGT) Seattle at Dallas
Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, Pam Oliver

8:15pm NFLN - Chicago at Minnesota $
Bob Papa, Cris Collinsworth

Sunday Day Games:

1pm CBS (12 WKRC, 7 WHIO) Baltimore at Cincinnati
Ian Eagle, Solomon Wilcots

1pm FOX (45 WRGT) NY Giants at Washington*
Kenny Albert ,Daryl Johnston, Tony Siragusa

4pm CBS (12 WKRC, 7 WHIO) Pittsburgh at New England
Greg Gumbel, Dan Dierdorf

4pm FOX (19 WXIX) Atlanta at San Diego
Matt Vasgersian, J.C. Pearson

Sunday Night Football:

8:15pm NBC (5 WLWT, 2 WDTN) – Chicago at Minnesota
Al Michaels, John Madden, Andrea Kramer

Monday Night Football:

8:30pm ESPN – Jacksonville at Houston+
Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski, Tony Kornheiser, Suzy Kolber, Michele Tafoya

+Cable Only
*Bonus game for OTA viewers
$ Requires pay-TV provider that carries NFL Network

Notes:
Starting this season, all NFL games will be produced in HD. All games will also be broadcast in HD with possible rare exceptions: Because of HD transport capacity limitations at CBS, there may be instances where a 4pm game will need to be in SD temporarily until 1pm games finish. Note that even this is unlikely to occur, and that there are only two times all year where this even has the potential to occur (maybe three depending on NBC Flex). Also, you may see halftime highlights on CBS in SD.

As always, let me know if any information is incorrect or needs to be updated.

Bubster

11-30-08, 01:47 PM

TWC basic service question...

Does the lowest basic $12 month service they have give me the locals in clear QAM? I know the analog service does but I think their new price of $44/month is just ridiculous for as much as I watch TV anymore.

If I can get the HD locals with the basic service that will satisfy my HD sports viewing I think,

Splicer010

11-30-08, 02:06 PM

TWC basic service question...

Does the lowest basic $12 month service they have give me the locals in clear QAM?
If you have roadrunner...yes...:)

Bubster

11-30-08, 04:23 PM

If you have roadrunner...yes...:)

Really? I have to have Roadrunner?
:confused:

Splicer010

11-30-08, 05:28 PM

Really? I have to have Roadrunner?
:confused:

No roadrunner...then they block the reverse path which is the frequencies used for QAM...

robmadden1

11-30-08, 05:34 PM

25.2 no more up and down audio but still in mono.

Bubster

11-30-08, 05:48 PM

No roadrunner...then they block the reverse path which is the frequencies used for QAM...

Awww, that seems so wrong! Thanks for the info though.

Splicer010

11-30-08, 06:39 PM

On the brightside...If you subscribe to roadrunner only...you can still get the clear QAM stations...

robmadden1

11-30-08, 10:23 PM

They talked about WKRP-TV on tonights 10pm news on Fox19 WXIX.

Bubster

12-01-08, 02:29 AM

On the brightside...If you subscribe to roadrunner only...you can still get the clear QAM stations...

Interesting. I can ditch Zoomtown, ditch my HD digital DVR and get RR and the locals in HD and save a crapload of $$$ per month.

:D

Hate to do it but the economy is going to get worse before it gets better I'm afraid. :(
This is good news because now I will be able to afford my COBRA payments!

Thanks for the info. I'm assuming this is stuff TWCincy doesnt voluntarily divulge?

Splicer010

12-01-08, 06:50 AM

Interesting. I can ditch Zoomtown, ditch my HD digital DVR and get RR and the locals in HD and save a crapload of $$$ per month.

:D

Hate to do it but the economy is going to get worse before it gets better I'm afraid. :(
This is good news because now I will be able to afford my COBRA payments!

Thanks for the info. I'm assuming this is stuff TWCincy doesnt voluntarily divulge?

Exactly...All this is assuming you have a QAM tuner either in your TV or a STB...

Bubster

12-01-08, 08:45 AM

Exactly...All this is assuming you have a QAM tuner either in your TV or a STB...

Yup, sure do. Use the QAM tuner already on the bedroom telly. Thanks again!

GregoryH

12-01-08, 01:19 PM

It seems TWC replaced Mojo with MGMHD today. I will miss that channel, but according to EngadgetHD.com we might get 14 new hd channels this month including SCIFIHD and USAHD.
Sorry there is no link, the board will not let me post it.

jimp2244

12-01-08, 04:39 PM

Apparently NBC has completed the switch to mpeg-4 distribution. It was in place for last night's Sunday Night Football game. What do you all think... have you noticed an improvement in picture quality for NBC programming (especially live action such as sports) on WLWT-DT or WDTN-DT?

terryfoster

12-01-08, 04:50 PM

pjpjpjpj

12-01-08, 06:07 PM

Splicer - so if you have TW cable you can get QAM, and if you have roadrunner you can get QAM, but if you have both, you can't? Hmm. Glad I don't have TW, because I would probably have RR too. :D

Bubster - is OTA out of the question for your house? If you are just wanting to get the locals in HD and save money, OTA is, well, free... and most Cincinnatians typically get more than just the channels on TW QAM (but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you are asking only because you are not in a good location to get reliable OTA for all the channels you want...)

Splicer010

12-01-08, 06:38 PM

blbrodbeck

12-01-08, 07:15 PM

Also TWC has no, or very little on screen program information available on QAM.

QAM will now give you all of Dayton Ch. 16 channels, but none of Oxford's Ch. 14 channels. I view it as an even trade off. I have Road Runner & I don't use QAM because I like having the program info.

jimp2244

12-01-08, 10:03 PM

Do we know for sure that WLWT-DT and WDTN-DT were live with that feed last night? I know WDIV-DT went live with that feed on the 25th, but no word on on this thread if WLWT-DT or WDTN-DT have actually switched.
My understanding was that NBC did a flash cut because the mpeg-2 streams had to be removed to make room for the mpeg-4 streams... in other words all stations were switched at once.

Bubster

12-02-08, 04:02 AM

Yea, OTA is out of the question. I exhausted all avenues.

[edit] or did I?

I live in a 12 unit condo (think apartment building). The HOA will not let me put up an antenna on the roof, I am located on the 2nd (middle) floor with my balcony facing north with lots of trees around me. The last resort was that I try an attic type antenna attached to my balcony. I decided this was a gamble.

Rabbit ears (Radio Shack $20 HD contraption someone recommended here as a good cheapie) get me WHIOHD and WSTRHD and that's it! :(

Is the balcony mounted, attic-type antenna a viable solution?

pjpjpjpj

12-02-08, 01:13 PM

If you have both...what makes you think you can't get QAM in the clear???:confused:
Your posts on the previous page, specifically the one that said "No roadrunner...then they block the reverse path which is the frequencies used for QAM..." :)

Bubster - have you put in your info on www.tvfool.com? What part of town are you in? If you are blocked from the south, you might be able to get all the Dayton stations... maybe with a more directional antenna like a "Silver Sensor" (I don't know if this is what you are calling "attic type").

Bubster

12-02-08, 03:27 PM

Bubster - have you put in your info on www.tvfool.com? (http://www.tvfool.com?) What part of town are you in? If you are blocked from the south, you might be able to get all the Dayton stations... maybe with a more directional antenna like a "Silver Sensor" (I don't know if this is what you are calling "attic type").

Attached my tvfool report. Pretty grim eh? All would be well if I could mount an antenna on the roof. The HOA has had too many issues with people simply installing dishes up there without even asking. As soon as I mentioned OTA antenna I am denied instantly.

They can't tell me what to do on my balcony, however.

Splicer010

12-02-08, 05:02 PM

Attached my tvfool report. Pretty grim eh? All would be well if I could mount an antenna on the roof. The HOA has had too many issues with people simply installing dishes up there without even asking. As soon as I mentioned OTA antenna I am denied instantly.

They can't tell me what to do on my balcony, however.

Myself...I don't care for tvfool.com...But that is just me...I feel it goes overboard with the info provided and intimidates people...I use antennaweb.org and have found it to be quite satisfactory for my installations...Here is what it says about your area:

DTV Antenna
Type Call Sign Channel Network City, State Live
Date Compass
Heading Miles
From Frequency
Assignment
* yellow
uhf WSTR-DT 64.1 MNT CINCINNATI, OH 177° 8.8 33
* yellow
uhf WKOI-DT 39.1 TBN RICHMOND, IN Feb 17, 2009 (post-transition) 345° 13.7 39
* yellow
uhf WSTR-DT 64.1 MNT CINCINNATI, OH Feb 17, 2009 (post-transition) 177° 8.8 33
* yellow
uhf WPTO-DT 14.2 PBS OXFORD, OH 345° 13.7 28
* red
vhf WKRC-DT 12.1 CBS CINCINNATI, OH Feb 17, 2009 (post-transition) 176° 14.7 12
* red
uhf WKRC-DT 12.1 CBS CINCINNATI, OH 176° 14.7 31
* red
uhf WLWT-DT 5.1 NBC CINCINNATI, OH 180° 14.0 35
* red
vhf WCPO-DT 9.1 ABC CINCINNATI, OH 175° 14.1 10
* red
uhf WCET-DT 48.1 PBS CINCINNATI, OH 180° 14.0 34
* red
uhf WRGT-DT 45.1 FOX DAYTON, OH 35° 31.6 30
* red
vhf WCPO-DT 9.1 ABC CINCINNATI, OH Feb 17, 2009 (post-transition) 175° 14.1 10
* red
uhf WHIO-DT 7.1 CBS DAYTON, OH Feb 17, 2009 (post-transition) 35° 32.3 41
* red
uhf WKOI-DT 39.1 TBN RICHMOND, IN 345° 13.7 39
* red
uhf WKEF-DT 22.1 ABC DAYTON, OH 35° 31.6 51
* red
uhf WPTD-DT 16.2 PBS DAYTON, OH Feb 17, 2009 (post-transition) 35° 31.5 16
* blue
uhf WBDT-DT 26.1 CW SPRINGFIELD, OH 35° 31.6 18
* blue
uhf WXIX-DT 19.1 FOX NEWPORT, KY 185° 14.1 29
* blue
uhf WPTD-DT 16.2 PBS DAYTON, OH 35° 31.5 58
* blue
uhf WDTN-DT 2.1 NBC DAYTON, OH 35° 31.2 50
* violet
uhf WHIO-DT 7.1 CBS DAYTON, OH 35° 32.3 41
Note:
The above listing is a conservative prediction of stations received. Depending on the specifics of your installation, you may be able to receive stations that do not appear in this list

Doesn't look dire to me at all...In fact it looks better than I have at my house...

As for the HOA they cannot keep you from installing an antenna on the roof of a size to pick-up the local stations...They can prevent you from installiing a large antenna to include stations other than the immediate local channels but past that you are good to go...By law they cannot 'force' you to remove the antenna...The most likely reason others have installed dishes on their roofs without asking is because that is where the installer mounted it...The installer doesn't care they just want to make their money and they are not the ones that have to answer to the HOA...However the HOA cannot make the homeowner remove the dish either...They may want to...and they may intimidate a few...but they cannot legally make them remove them...That is why they (the dishes) are still up ;) ...