Hey guys, happy new year!
I just called WCPO and asked them to flip the switch. The lady gave me a very quick response of "that is what ABC is sending us". I just checked the programming thread and everywhere else they have it in HD. I watched the tournament of roses in HD, now I have to watch the game in SD with their stupid 9 logo taking up the screen, so they havent even tried the HD feed.

So, could someone else call because the lady wont listen to me anymore.
I am a BIG HAWK fan and I want to watch them in HD

Thanks guys

Junkyard...

It worked....they switched at 1:33 --- only missed a half hour :>)

Thank you CincySaint. You really are a Saint. I had to have another member of my household call because they wouldn't listen to me any more.

Once again, the WCPO HD broadcast is crap!!!! It looks as though the lines on the field and the ABC logo are made out of LEGOS!!! I had hopes that they would have it fixed by Alias time, but my hopes are very quickly fading.

I wonder if there is a way for D* to give us the ABC East feed since the WCPO feed is not up to par.

I think the lack of response from WCPO about the 'jaggies' and not flipping the switch just show the character of that station. I have always watched their news, but now I am thinking of switching to another station because WCPO just doesn't seem to care. They need to fix the 'jaggies', it only appeard after the move and they need to add 5.1 surround sound which they told us would happen shortly after the move.

UPN 38 looks great up here in West Chester, much improved from 25 and I noticed that it now looks better than it did early this morning. I think it is great that we still have smaller stations in Cincinnati and not just huge national programming all the time. I also look foward to seeing UPN-HD in the near future from UPN 38.

Close game right now, but I would bet that LSU won't be able to take the beating from the Hawkeyes much longer.

Go Hawks!!

I'll cut 'em slack on the switch flip. It's New Year's Day. The odds that the "usual" MCO is on duty may be slim. As for the jaggies issue, corporate is going to have a look at it, but it won't be in time for "Alias." It apparently doesn't affect everyone.

Well if the 'jaggies' dont affect everyone, what source are they looking at? I have seen it on OTA and on Time Warner Cable. These are the only way to see that station. I don't understand what would take so long for them to figure it out. We have seen in emails with our comments and pictures showing the problem with the score board, 1st down line, and the ABC logo.

Originally posted by JunkyardDogg
Well if the 'jaggies' dont affect everyone, what source are they looking at? The CE has one of the very early Sony CRT sets. But I don't know what STB he has. He doesn't see it. Friend of mine with the same model HDTV I have, but driven by Insight's HD DVR doesn't see it. Two other associates who call me when there's the least little issue haven't mentioned it.

Of course, that doesn't mean that it's not there :)

All the WCPO execs are welcome to come over for the BCS bowls and see how crappy it looks!! I wonder if there is some way that we can report it to the FCC and if there is anything that they can or will do about it. I wonder if WCPO is highly compressing their feed for some reason.

It's not an FCC issue. They could transmit in 480p, if they wanted. They could also run 3 subchannels which, I guarantee you, will mess up the HD picture far worse than the jaggies issue. The issue, itself, seems to be baffling. I know Jeff and I both have tried, to no avail, to get other engineers to even take a guess as to what the issue is. No clue.

If you haven't sent them a nice paper letter describing the problem, I suggest you do that. Those get much more attention.

Oh, and welcome to the forum! Just noticed your post count.

I see what you mean about the jaggies. This is the first time I've tried HD on WCPO (WKEF is refusing to switch the feed on after repeated phone calls).

Thanks. I've been monitoring for months but finally decided to put my 2 cents in

I have also sent WCPO at least 3 e-mails from their web site explained the problem in depth and the few that things that I'm able to try to help eliminate it with no response in the slightest. I honestly don't think they care since there is nothing we can do about it and the number of HD subscribers in Cincinnati is pretty low. If one of their advertisers called and complained and threatened to pull ads if it wasn't fixed, I bet there would be someone looking at it immediately!!

ktarkington

The more advertisers who have HDTVs, the better. I'm convinced that's what got WKRC-DT airing the local breaks a year ago. Prior to that, they just left it on CBS-HD feed during primetime.

Of course, those advertisers also have to have HD tuners <G>.

You can e-mail all you like, but paper mail carries much more weight than e-mail. Trust me on that.

yep.. wcpo looked like sh*t today (and still does for the rose and fiesta bowls) .. I am sending another letter via snail mail..

jim

You can e-mail all you like, but paper mail carries much more weight than e-mail. Trust me on that.

That's because paper mail has to go in the public file. Right?

So do some e-mails, but yeah, that's basically it. Sign 'em and put a return address on them. Anonymous stuff is shredder bait. And the "flies with honey" analogy is ever so true.

Lack of posting activity should not be misconstrued as lack of intererest. I check these forums daily.

Jaggie update: I saw a small amount of distortion around abc bug (nothing around yard markers/field logos) on bowl day. Not enough to compare to legos. In fact I though capital one bowl looked stunning, also a very good game.

Please add DD 5.1 on local ABC, NBC and CBS.

WCPO (ABC) has not done 5.1 since they moved to their new building.

WLWT (NBC) and WKRC (CBS) don't have 5.1 capability (although somewhere in this thread it's posted that 5.1 may be coming to one or both stations this year).

I did notice the jaggies on the ABC logo, score bug, and on the announcers mic flags at the beginning as well. Also on horizontal objects (such as bleacher decks) during camera pans. Now that I can (sometimes) receive the WCPO signal, I will try to get a direct capture of both WCPO and WKEF using my FusionHDTV PC tuner during one of the upcoming HD bowl games. That is, if WCPO comes in (reception at my place is flaky) and WKEF is actually passing the HD feed (sometimes they aren't on the ball).

Originally posted by 1450kHz
I did notice the jaggies on the ABC logo, score bug, and on the announcers mic flags at the beginning as well. Also on horizontal objects (such as bleacher decks) during camera pans.

I will say that the quality of WCPO's HDTV broadcast of the bowl games on New Year's Day is better than SD, but the picture quality difference was very apparent when switching from the Tournament of Roses Parade on Discovery HD Theatre to WCPO. The quality and detail of the floats in the Rose Parade was stunning compared to the detail of the football games on ABC.

If you are having trouble seeing the problem with the broadcasts from WCPO, then watch the Sugar Bowl tonight. Get really close to your TV and look at the quality of the picture. After the game is over, watch the replays on sportSCenter on ESPN-HD and I believe you will see the difference in quality.

During the football games the grass and crowd are both "fuzzy" and pixilated. Other horizontal objects would be railings around the stadium during the Rose or Citrus Bowls you could see a noticeable "strobing" effect. Watch for these things tonight (Sugar Bowl) and tomorrow (Orange Bowl).

It seems to me that they are compressing the video and it is most apparent on wide shots where there is more detail to show. I only make this assumption based on my experience with working with web graphics and the little work i've done with Digital video.

I will try to remember to post problems during the games tonight and/or tomorrow so others can look at the detail of those objects.

I agree that the WCPO feed is by far the worst one and they are definitely compressing the video. It is definitely not true 720p or even upconverted to 1080i.

However, I would watch tonight for the differences, but I can almost guarantee that when I get the chips and beer ready for the big game tonight and turn on wcpo - hd, it will be 4:3 standard definition as it usally always is for the first half of any game.

Does anyone here have contact numbers or know who to call when the local affiliates (especially wcpo) do not have their feed on? I have time warner as my provider and nobody there ever has a clue as to what is going on. I ask them why the game isnt in HD and they tell me "Its not being broadcasted in HD". This is where they are mistaken. I do not waste my time and I know very well what games are/ are not being broadcasted in HD. I know for sure the game tonight is and will probably have to call again unless somebody knows a direct way to reach WCPO. Any other of the local numbers would also be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

The numbers are at the beginning of this topic. Fourth post. I don't have WLWT-DT posted because, having a computerized MC, they so rarely miss. But you can call their main number and go through the phone tree to get the assignment desk.

I will make sure to keep those numbers handy.

just make sure everyone writes them via snail mail!! I have posted my letter to them earilier in the forum

jim

WCPO does send out a 720p signal, and prior to them moving to the new studio, they had excellent HD. However, during the move something went wrong installation and must have done something to the HD receiver that they have. Since 'jaggies' are only seen on ABC HD direct feed, I would guess that is where the problems are. WCPOs local upconverted programming doesn't have the problem.

Also, if someone with a HD card could check the bandwidth WCPO is sending out might help us. That weather channel shouldn't need anything above 1-2mbps of their signal.

Originally posted by terryfoster
I will try to remember to post problems during the games tonight and/or tomorrow so others can look at the detail of those objects.
Look at the numbers on the field for, at stairs (when showing the crowd), the yard lines on endzone cameras, anyone in the crowd on wide shots, and the two dashed lines outside of the sideline zone for the strobing problem. Watch the field and the crowd for a "shimmer" which is caused by the compression problems as well. Wow, that boom camera shot coming out of commercial really showed the jaffies on the yard lines.

For Example: See attachment

Number 2

3rd and last

great pics ktarkington - the 2nd one really shows it.. now if we can just get simialr wkef caputres..

nitewatchman.. any update for us? it seems all the letters have gone nowhere fast!

jim

Well, this is kind of stupid, when I changed my STB to 1080i my WCPO picture quality has gotten alot better. I still contest that this is not an equipment problem on my end because thesee problems go away on ESPN-HD. So to all of you out there like me that thought passthrough would be better, try playing around with those settings.

Unfortunately I olny get about a 9 to 13% signal from wkef. Anyone else in NKY able to get any stations from Dayton?

Tark.. we gotta work on your antennas, son! I get around 80% on WDTN, 70% on WKEF and 50% on WHIO, so long as there's not a front moving through. However, I have nothing to capture them with.

OK, jim and company. Certainly if that's what I saw I'd be an upset viewer. I don't see it with my cable connection. . .truly. Haven't seen that kind of image in HD on any channel. Does over the air contribute somehow? Is Insight getting a direct feed?

I could have gotten captures but gave up hope on WKEF actually putting the HD feed on. I guess they did after I turned off my setup.

I couldn't get WCPO to lock on yesterday. I'll try to get some captures today.

Originally posted by hroeder
Haven't seen that kind of image in HD on any channel. Does over the air contribute somehow? Is Insight getting a direct feed? It shouldn't matter. A fiber link would come after the encoder and would be identical to the OTA feed. What's the native resolution of your display? Friend of mine has a 1080i set on Insight and he doesn't see it, either. My theory is that something's happening to the datastream that gives some chipsets fits during side conversion.

DrDon: I'm running 1080i on all HD channels. I have an Hitachi 50v500a. . .lcd projection. DVI input direct from the cable box.

Did anyone else enjoy the peacocks on Vegas last night? Someone at WLW obviously forgot to play the local commercials.

I am also running at 1080i. Native resolution is 720P. I have a Samsung DLP HLP-5063W and a Directv HD10-250 Tivo receiver. I perviously had the RCA HD receiver and still have the same issue.

Ok, posted a request for help with the jaggies issue on the Hardware forum using Tark's pic. Look it over and PM me with anything I need to change on it: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=490893

I may also need help keeping it bumped.

I am using a Samsung T165 tuner with output resolution set to 720P into my DLP projector.

i put together a speadsheet last month of who was seeing the problem and what their equiptment was.. of course I cant find it now.. lol.. i did send it to nitewatchman.. maybe he has it

jim

DrDon,

I have my antenna up in an attic since I live in appt style condos. I might need to get a larger antenna, but I don't know how big a difference it would make. If I could pick up ABC from Dayton, I would quit watching WCPO altogether!!!

Once I stuck a CM 4248 in the attic, I got the Big Three somewhat. Once they all came up in power, I got them rather well. FOX and WB Dayton are tough to pull in. WRGT-DT is sandwiched between WXIX-DT and WKRC-DT and you have to shoot through WXIX's tower to get 'em. I've only gotten them when one or both 29 and 31 were off the air. A buddy over by the mall put up a small combo on the roof and gets them pretty well, too.

Does anyone in town sell the CM 4248 or do I need to get it online?

Originally posted by ktarkington
...If I could pick up ABC from Dayton, I would quit watching WCPO altogether!!!

Sure, but then you would have to put up with the video freezes and total signal dropouts every 5 minutes. I'm not sure that it's worth it. WKEF has had that same problem for years, but refuses to fix whatever's causing it.

Paul

Sounds like out local ABC affiliates are on the ball!! Always willing to help out the consumer.

Originally posted by jim tressler
i put together a speadsheet last month of who was seeing the problem and what their equiptment was.. of course I cant find it now.. lol.. i did send it to nitewatchman.. maybe he has it
jim

Here's the reports from folks at the time that were NOT seeing the problem(this was all I could find at the time(Nov) from the the posts back to the time we first started seeing the issue late last summer) :

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

Reports/Equipment list from folks who Do NOT see/have not noticed the jaggies issue on WCPO-DT during ABC HD :

1. Motorola 6208 box, fed by DVI input into my Hitachi 50V500a. (via Insight Cable N KY)

2. Equipment unknown - (Via TW cable, Loveland, ohio)

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

Attached is the spreadsheet with the list of folks(and their equipment and means of delivery - OTA/TW/Insight/etc) having the problem. I zipped it, as If I recall correctly, XLS attachment won't work.

All of the above went to WCPO's CE, and all the reports can be found previously in this thread. He said it would help him with his research on the issue, and I passed along his thanks to everyone here at the time for the reports about the issue.

Originally posted by Paul210
Sure, but then you would have to put up with the video freezes and total signal dropouts every 5 minutes. I'm not sure that it's worth it. WKEF has had that same problem for years, but refuses to fix whatever's causing it.

Paul

You know, I have to say I sort of regret that WDTN switched from ABC, given the current situation. <jinx alert ahead> You could(and still can, but now with NBC HD) pretty much allways count on WDTN-DT for ABC HD(not to mention DD 5.1), and the same is true for WLWT-DT with NBC HD. Of course, WCPO-DT has allways been very reliable with ABC HD as well, if only it weren't for these d*(n"jaggies" ....

In any event, on other matters ... noticed that since at least yesterday, I'm not getting PSIP remapping from WXIX-DT, I'm seeing them only on 29-3.

Seems like some other "stuff" has been going on PSIP wise from a couple of the Dayton stations as well. For instance, WDTN-DT is now properly sending EIA-708 captions on 2-1(HD service) so I can "see them" on my Zenith HDV 420 receiver -- WDTN-DT is now showing up as 50-3(SD) and 50-4(HD) on DTC-100 with PSIP turned off, used to be 50-2(HD), and 50-3(SD). With PSIP on, it's the same remap as normal. 2-1(HD), 2-2(SD). WHIO-DT is now showing up on my DTC-100 with PSIP turned off as 41-3(HD) and 41-4(SD) (used to be 41-1+41-2). 7-1/7-2 remap is as usual.

I'd guess they are probably working on being compliant with the "new" FCC PSIP rules/requirements, which go into effect "requirement wise" in a little over a month, I think. Unless they get some sort of waiver, WKEF/WRGT better get busy on the PSIP remapping as well .... I'll have to turn PSIP on on the DTC-100 and see if PID's for the analogs are working for any of those now, as last I checked, WCVN-DT was the only one that really seemed to be working ....

WKEF screen shots for comparison (Direct caps from FusionHD card via Time Warner QAM):

Picture 1 (http://home.woh.rr.com/khz1450/snapshot_j0001.jpg)
Picture 2 (http://home.woh.rr.com/khz1450/snapshot_j0002.jpg)
Picture 3 (http://home.woh.rr.com/khz1450/snapshot_j0003.jpg)
Picture 4 (http://home.woh.rr.com/khz1450/snapshot_j0004.jpg)
Picture 5 (http://home.woh.rr.com/khz1450/snapshot_j0005.jpg)
Picture 6 (http://home.woh.rr.com/khz1450/snapshot_j0006.jpg)

Do you think if we called the I-Team, they would do a report on themselves!!?? HAHA That would be great. I bet Howard Aigne would do a report on another channel! Man, that would be some funny stuff.

I watched Materese do a story on HDTVs, once, never mentioning the fact that his own station broadcasts in HD. Or any other, for that matter. Of course, he's syndicated, now, which may be why he left it out. But I found that funny.

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
Attached is the spreadsheet with the list of folks(and their equipment and means of delivery - OTA/TW/Insight/etc) having the problem.

You can add me to the list of people that have the dreaded jaggies. Played around with different settings today during the USC - OU game, and in every case the jaggies remained. Here's the relevant info:

Monitor: Hitachi 42hdt51 TV
Reception: TWC & OTA
Cable Box: TWC Pace - connected to TV via component jacks

Modes tested using cable box: pass, 1080i, 720p, 480p, 480i
Modes tested OTA: 720p via WCPO on channel 9.1

When I got close to the TV and looked, it really looked like compression artifacts to me. Not only did the yard lines show the jaggies, but I couldn't believe how lousy the individual players looked up close. Much worse than the WKRC 1080i signal looked on Sunday during the Colts - Broncos game. This supports the notion that it's compression causing the problem. Of course this wouldn't explain why some people apparently don't see the jaggies while viewing the WCPO signal, but perhaps they aren't receiving the same signal. I could certainly believe that the WCPO techs aren't actually looking at the broadcast signal when they say that they don't see the problem. They could be plugged in before the compression occurs.

CincyKev
One week and counting as an HDTV consumer

Did anyone notice wcpo was putting local bugs in hd yesterday.. no jaggies on them! lol


make sure everyone writes via snail mail to wcpo as well.. here is my letter, revised and resent...



===========================================
WCPO / WCPO-DT
C/o Mr. Bill Fee, General Manager
1720 Gilbert Ave.
Cincinnati OH 45202

WCPO / WCPO-DT
C/o Engineering
1720 Gilbert Ave
Cincinnati OH 45202

January 3, 2005

Gentleman,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank WCPO for providing a Digital High Definition broadcast for the ABC network in the Cincinnati area. There are many geographic locations of the United States that are not yet served by digital and or High Definition programming, the effort that you put forth is highly commendable.

I have been viewing HD broadcasts for the past 6 months and am very impressed with the picture difference between analog standard definition and high definition. Since we are fortunate in Cincinnati to have all of our local network affiliates broadcasting in HD, I have been able to compare the quality of the broadcasts and have noticed some unexplainable artifacts in the WCPO broadcasts.

The problems became apparent to me while watching Monday Night Football early in the season. I noticed what I would call jagged lines (jaggies) on the TV screen when a camera would pan slowly across the field. The yard markers would not look smooth and would almost “ring” on the screen. An additional term could be considered “interlacing artifacts”. As mentioned earlier, these are most easily noticed on the yard lines as they are shown in a diagonal, especially when the camera does a slow pan. Also, the onscreen graphics look very blocky - i.e. what should be round, like the ABC logo, actually looks like it is made up of squares. Another example, during the Bengal’s Monday Night game the edges of the tiger in middle of field were "shimmering" very noticeably in many shots, as was anything else with edges given certain angles to the shots.

My first reaction to this was it is either an ABC network problem or a problem with my equipment. (Hitachi 51F510 TV, Hughes HTL-HD Receiver, OTA antenna) I was able to turn my over the air antenna north towards Dayton and receive WKEF, ABC Dayton. The issue was not and still is not present on their broadcasts. Also more recently I have read about others in Cincinnati with the same issue through the Audio and Video Science forum.

In recent weeks, now that I see the issue clearly, I have noticed the “artifacting” issue on some degree in all of the HD broadcasts. Most recently the HD showing of the Rookie, the “jaggie” issue was very clear when straight edges were shown against the backdrop of the corn field. Finally, the HD broadcasts of the BCS Bowl games over this weekend clearly showed the issues again.

I hope that this information is helpful to you so you may be able to track down and correct the problem. If I can be of further assistance, please feel free to contact me at 513 or via email at .

Again, Thank you for the time and effort you put forth in your HD broadcasts.

Sincerely,

Jim Tressler
Hamilton Township, Ohio

What I saw last night were yard lines breaking up with a certain high angle camera shot. Mostly end zone camera. Looked exactly like the photos that were posted yesterday.

Looked to me like a light reflection problem. Or something to do with the angle of the camera. It almost seemed like the production crew was aware of what I was seeing, because they wouldn't stay with that shot but for a second or two.

Did not see anything wrong with player shots or other graphics.

I've not seen this type of line breaking up before. But I guess I've watched more football on ESPN and WKRC. . .Never saw anything close to this on HDNet. . .of course Mark Cuban spends for the right image. . .

So you can count me now as someone who has seen what you've been talking about.

I am with TWC, at least for now, and I'm using the Pioneer Voyager 3510HD box and it is acting strange lately. The guide at times will lose all the info and other times the remote acts really sluggish, hitting a button sometimes takes 4 or 5 seconds to work. New batteries too.

What HD box is the best one available now that supports all the resolutions as well as this one? I'm about ready to switch back to Dish or DirecTV if I find any good deals.

Thanks for your help,
Curt

I have been using Time Warner since the olympics. I have a Pace box. At the time, what research i could do on the forums seemed to indicate this was the best one out there. I have been happy with it. Only glitch i have had was last Friday night the DVI output was not working. I was able to use component no problem. I called TW, tried a number of things to no avail, but it all started working again Sat morning automagically.

Originally posted by bsherm
I have been using Time Warner since the olympics. I have a Pace box. At the time, what research i could do on the forums seemed to indicate this was the best one out there. I have been happy with it. Only glitch i have had was last Friday night the DVI output was not working. I was able to use component no problem. I called TW, tried a number of things to no avail, but it all started working again Sat morning automagically.

I have been using the Pace box as well. It did seem from the forums that the Pace was the best box Time Warner in cincy was offering. I too have sluggish remote issues. It is a bit tough to deal with since I came from Dish Network and had a UHF remote. But it's not the end of the world. At least I'm getting HD!!!! I will be switching out the pace for whatever HD DVR box they get when they are available. They keep saying "soon". I just hope the DVR box has a comparable picture to the Pace. It will be tough to ignore if it is obviously less sharp. I've read the SA8000 is kind of soft and the SA8300 is better. I guess I will eventually see.

If you are using the Pioneer, you may want to switch to the Pace. I think it is the only one they are getting in new right now. I think the only Pioneers are the ones they already have. I have had no issues with the DVI on the Pace and it definitely is a bit sharper than Component.

Thanks bsherm & mchuckp. What is the model number of the Pace box? I will call them and see if I can take mine in and switch.

I believe it is the 550, but I think they only have one model

Thank you I will give them a call.

Thank you I will give them a call.

Originally posted by bsherm
I believe it is the 550, but I think they only have one model

http://www.pacemicro.com/corporate/products/prodinfo.asp?PID=DC550

Originally posted by CincyKev

Of course this wouldn't explain why some people apparently don't see the jaggies while viewing the WCPO signal, but perhaps they aren't receiving the same signal. I could certainly believe that the WCPO techs aren't actually looking at the broadcast signal when they say that they don't see the problem. They could be plugged in before the compression occurs.

CincyKev
One week and counting as an HDTV consumer

How sure are we that some aren't getting the jaggie problem? Is it possible that some just don't "notice" it? Some of us are more discerning than others. I had a crowd at my house on New Year's Day and no one mentioned jagged yardlines to me. They were all in awe of high definition television. I have not seen any reason why some would have this problem and not others. I am of the opinion that it is a universal problem. The pictures posted on this site very clearly show the issue...a strobbing effect most prevalent on far away yardline shots.

Has any "tech" at channel 9 admitted that these pictures depict a problem? I'd prefer they say they don't know at this time what the problem is as opposed to refusing to admit the problem exists.

Originally posted by bsherm
I have been using Time Warner since the olympics. I have a Pace box. At the time, what research i could do on the forums seemed to indicate this was the best one out there. I have been happy with it. Only glitch i have had was last Friday night the DVI output was not working. I was able to use component no problem. I called TW, tried a number of things to no avail, but it all started working again Sat morning automagically.

What kind of TV do you have? I have the Pioneer 3510 and I've been told the DVI doesn't work so I have not yet spent for the DVI cable. You are the first I've read that is able to use any DVI from TWC.

Originally posted by jim tressler
Did anyone notice wcpo was putting local bugs in hd yesterday.. no jaggies on them! lol


make sure everyone writes via snail mail to wcpo as well.. here is my letter, revised and resent...



===========================================
WCPO / WCPO-DT
C/o Mr. Bill Fee, General Manager
1720 Gilbert Ave.
Cincinnati OH 45202

WCPO / WCPO-DT
C/o Engineering
1720 Gilbert Ave
Cincinnati OH 45202

January 3, 2005

Gentleman,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank WCPO for providing a Digital High Definition broadcast for the ABC network in the Cincinnati area. There are many geographic locations of the United States that are not yet served by digital and or High Definition programming, the effort that you put forth is highly commendable.

I have been viewing HD broadcasts for the past 6 months and am very impressed with the picture difference between analog standard definition and high definition. Since we are fortunate in Cincinnati to have all of our local network affiliates broadcasting in HD, I have been able to compare the quality of the broadcasts and have noticed some unexplainable artifacts in the WCPO broadcasts.

The problems became apparent to me while watching Monday Night Football early in the season. I noticed what I would call jagged lines (jaggies) on the TV screen when a camera would pan slowly across the field. The yard markers would not look smooth and would almost “ring” on the screen. An additional term could be considered “interlacing artifacts”. As mentioned earlier, these are most easily noticed on the yard lines as they are shown in a diagonal, especially when the camera does a slow pan. Also, the onscreen graphics look very blocky - i.e. what should be round, like the ABC logo, actually looks like it is made up of squares. Another example, during the Bengal’s Monday Night game the edges of the tiger in middle of field were "shimmering" very noticeably in many shots, as was anything else with edges given certain angles to the shots.

My first reaction to this was it is either an ABC network problem or a problem with my equipment. (Hitachi 51F510 TV, Hughes HTL-HD Receiver, OTA antenna) I was able to turn my over the air antenna north towards Dayton and receive WKEF, ABC Dayton. The issue was not and still is not present on their broadcasts. Also more recently I have read about others in Cincinnati with the same issue through the Audio and Video Science forum.

In recent weeks, now that I see the issue clearly, I have noticed the “artifacting” issue on some degree in all of the HD broadcasts. Most recently the HD showing of the Rookie, the “jaggie” issue was very clear when straight edges were shown against the backdrop of the corn field. Finally, the HD broadcasts of the BCS Bowl games over this weekend clearly showed the issues again.

I hope that this information is helpful to you so you may be able to track down and correct the problem. If I can be of further assistance, please feel free to contact me at 513 or via email at .

Again, Thank you for the time and effort you put forth in your HD broadcasts.

Sincerely,

Jim Tressler
Hamilton Township, Ohio

Do you realize how politically incorrect your letter is? What if a female tech gets ahold of it?:)

Originally posted by Curt Jett
I am with TWC, at least for now, and I'm using the Pioneer Voyager 3510HD box and it is acting strange lately. The guide at times will lose all the info and other times the remote acts really sluggish, hitting a button sometimes takes 4 or 5 seconds to work. New batteries too.

What HD box is the best one available now that supports all the resolutions as well as this one? I'm about ready to switch back to Dish or DirecTV if I find any good deals.

Thanks for your help,
Curt

I have that box too and it's normal for it to sluggishly go through the HD channels especially when you're going from HD to analog and back again like the channels between WCET HD and KET HD.

Originally posted by Sea Ray
What kind of TV do you have? I have the Pioneer 3510 and I've been told the DVI doesn't work so I have not yet spent for the DVI cable. You are the first I've read that is able to use any DVI from TWC.

I have the Sony KV-32HS420. The input is actually HDMI. I bought a DVI to HDMI cable and it has worked great, minus the mysterious 12 hours or so last weekend. The DVI output was the primary reason I went with the Pace box.

Anyone out there have a HD10-250? I was wondering if it skips on channel 9 in HD for anyone.

I was watching CourtTV on TWC about 12:45am (an hour ago) with my wife....some Dominic Dunne show I think. Anyway, commercials came on and low and behold, TWC ran a commercial advertising their HD DVR. It was some guy watching TV in a lazyboy talking to his friend on the phone. He was telling him how he was watching a show in HD and taping a game on the DVR at the same time. His friend says something on the phone and he replies with something like. "no, when I play back the recorded game it is in HD as well." Then the commercial ends with TWC's phone number to call to get HD DVR.

So, of course I call (hell, I've been calling every two weeks for about 6 months now checking on the HD DVR). The CSR says, nope, not available yet. She says they should be out by the end of the month. So I ask why are you advertising it? She didn't even know they were running commercials on it! (I know, a big shocker.)

Well, it at least looks like they will finally be out soon! I just hope it's the 8300 model, and not the 8000. The CSR didn't know what model they were testing/deploying.

Has anyone seen this problem from a non-end zone camera?

As I said above I saw it on the USC game for the first time.

The two shots I saw on ESPN yesterday, which replayed similar angles did not seem to have the same strobe effect.

Some of the technical people here might answer whether or not this is a result of lights shining on the white lines through the camera lense when they are at a certain angle? It seemed to me that it was almost always on long shots of the field.

As to artifacting on graphics, I have not seen that.

Originally posted by hroeder
Has anyone seen this problem from a non-end zone camera?

As I said above I saw it on the USC game for the first time.

The two shots I saw on ESPN yesterday, which replayed similar angles did not seem to have the same strobe effect.

Some of the technical people here might answer whether or not this is a result of lights shining on the white lines through the camera lense when they are at a certain angle? It seemed to me that it was almost always on long shots of the field.

As to artifacting on graphics, I have not seen that.

I have always only seen the jaggies on the rarely used fixed end zone or fixed corner of the stadium cameras that seem to only be used for stat overlays and bumpers in and out of commercials. I have never seen on-the-field jaggies from the normal cherry-picker sideline camera, the handheld sideline cameras, or the "sky-cam" cameras. I can't recall seeing them with the blimp camera either.

I see the Legos in the score/time remaining box all the time. I have never noticed any issue with the ABC/Ch 9 logo bug in the bottom corners before.

Hope this helps.

Originally posted by ktarkington
Anyone out there have a HD10-250? I was wondering if it skips on channel 9 in HD for anyone.
It's an HR10-250, but yes I have one. However, I have never had an HD channel skip due to what I would believe to be an issue with the HDTiVo.

Last night, "Lost" was unwatchable due to breakup, audio drop-outs, etc which I am attributing to the heavy rain we received last night. I'm in Ross Township, about 20 miles from the WCPO tower.

Lost had three or four breakups early on on Insight Cable. But none after midpoint. (Best show on TV right now.)

lost was fine (other than the jaggies) for me - watched hd from 8:15 on - no breakups

I had about 15 breakups throughout Alias last night. All other HD content seems to tape correctly. I'm not sure if it is something else to do with the signal that WCPO is putting out. If this happens on all HD content, this thing is going back. I am 2 for 2 in having bad HDMI ports on these things. Apparently it is a known issue.

I too have the HDTivo & the rain caused a very little bit of Pixel-lization during Alias but otherwise was ok. (any others get a "late" recording start thru tivo 9:01pm so missed "previously on Alias opening - bad info sent by broadcaster, I guess?)

Just "ok" is the operative word here. After the Orange bowl & Alias I've been reminded again how much poorer the PQ of WCPO is than any of the other locals here. Common guys : it's jaggie, it's grainy, no DD, etc....let's catch-up & "man-up" WCPO!

ktark...I haven't had any issues with my HDTiVo...check out the HDTiVo forum over at tivocommunity.com...the HDMI port is definitely a known issue and has been resolved for units manufactured after Nov 22. I have a Nov 5 unit and knock on wood have not had a problem.

Like I stated above, I have not had any issue with any HD feed other than WCPO. I'm passing it off right now as weather related....although their problems with Legos and jaggies are leading me to believe there is something technologically wrong over there.

Don't give up on the HDTiVo...try to get one with a Nov 22 or later manuf. date.

Alias actually started at 9:01PM. So the info was correct.

Originally posted by chrisdow
I too have the HDTivo & the rain caused a very little bit of Pixel-lization during Alias but otherwise was ok. (any others get a "late" recording start thru tivo 9:01pm so missed "previously on Alias opening - bad info sent by broadcaster, I guess?)

Just "ok" is the operative word here. After the Orange bowl & Alias I've been reminded again how much poorer the PQ of WCPO is than any of the other locals here. Common guys : it's jaggie, it's grainy, no DD, etc....let's catch-up & "man-up" WCPO!
Alias started at 9:01 because Lost runs for 1:01 and starts at 8:00. As for WCPO, I agree that they are easily the worst for HD among the big 4. Heck, even the PBS stations do better than WCPO and they are publicly funded...sheesh.

So, I don't understand how Time Warner and ESPN operate. Both networks knew that ESPN2 HD was coming out. So I was hoping to watch the premier of ESPN2 HD and the Bearcats tonight. But guess what? A simple call to TWC let me know that they plan on carrying it but don't have an expected date. That is such a bunch of crap. Anyway, what else can I do. Please, everyone with TWC HD call and complain / ask about when it is going to be available.

Those of you with PC tuner cards/TS reader/etc, could you please check out the following post at below link, and if possible send Ron the info from the WCPO-DT transport stream(during ABC HD might be a good idea). If anyone here can figure out what is going on, it would probably be Ron. Thanks.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4931928#post4931928

Originally posted by 1450kHz
WKEF screen shots for comparison (Direct caps from FusionHD card via Time Warner QAM):


It's interesting what some of those look like(at least here for whatever reason) via IE 6 's image tool, which resizes(or resamples/etc) the image to fit the "window" being used... they look just fine of course viewed 1:1, at "actual" resolution .....

Originally posted by luebster
Alias started at 9:01 because Lost runs for 1:01 and starts at 8:00. As for WCPO, I agree that they are easily the worst for HD among the big 4. Heck, even the PBS stations do better than WCPO and they are publicly funded...sheesh.

Someone needs to step up and lay down some definitions to what you are allowed to call "HD". If I never saw HD before and went to a friends house to catch Alias in HD, I would think the whole HD hype was pretty lame. Alias is a pretty sorry excuse for something called HD.

I wish someone would set standards. They should at least have 2 levels that should be coded in the program description. One for true HDTV and one for upconverted digital feeds. Alias didn't look much better than watching it on a standard TV other than it being widescreen. For those of you with TNT HD, they show older programs like Law & Order that was filmed for a 4:3 TV and clip off the top and bottom to make it widescreen and call it HD.

Someone needs to nip this stuff in the bud early or everyone and their brother is going to have an HD channel that is poorly done upconversions and this will become the norm rather than people actually doing true HD.

Just my two cents after much disappointment last night.

BTW: yes I saw jaggies on Lost and Alias over TWC via Pace 550 box w/ DVI.

Sorry, I don't see the problem with last night's Alias, other than some weather related interference.

Personally, I don't want to watch no HD programing any more. I don't get Fox in HD yet, so I've pretty well stopped watching Fox shows. (Not that there was much to watch to start with.)

TNT does not clip off anything

they take a 4:3 picture zoom in on it and stretch it out a little so the distortion isn't as bad as doing a linear stretch

this is still pretty bad because they don't tell you what is HD and what isn't..you basically have to figure it out for yourself.

I was very disappointed with Alias last night. I have had my Hitachi 57S715 for 2 weeks and the big sales pitch to my wife was "Alias in HD!!" I calibrated my set with the Aladdin DVD (THX) and watched the movie before Alias with my wife and daughter and we were very impressed with the image quality and upconversion. My DVD player is not even a progressive scan!! The dark scenes in Alias were very difficult to see and it seemed as if at times the picture was overly grainy. I had no problems with my antenna as my signal strength was near or above 90%. I guess I will have to listen to my wife complain and question why we paid more for the integrated HD tuner every Wednesday night :(

Alias did not have an "Previously on Alias" because they have been told to dumb it down and to make it so that people who decide to watch it for the first time this year won't be lost. That is why the new SD^ type group was created last night.

As for the HD Tivo. I got it at Best Buy and got the Service Plan, so since this is my second one with a bad HDMI port, I am going to wait till I know the new versions are out and go take it back then.

As for the lights and angles with the football games, it has absolutely nothing to do with the HD feed from ABC and the football game. What looks really crappy on WCPO looks perfect on ESPN HD sportscenter when they show the replays.

With my HD Tivo, it seems as though I'm getting video and audio skips on Channel 9 whether it is HD or not. I'm still waiting to see if I get it on any other channels. I taped some FOX HD stuff last night and it was perfect. Has anyone had any issues when taping 2 HD shows at the same time? I'm wondering if I am killing the box.

Originally posted by LoganZ
I was very disappointed with Alias last night. I have had my Hitachi 57S715 for 2 weeks and the big sales pitch to my wife was "Alias in HD!!" I calibrated my set with the Aladdin DVD (THX) and watched the movie before Alias with my wife and daughter and we were very impressed with the image quality and upconversion. My DVD player is not even a progressive scan!! The dark scenes in Alias were very difficult to see and it seemed as if at times the picture was overly grainy. I had no problems with my antenna as my signal strength was near or above 90%. I guess I will have to listen to my wife complain and question why we paid more for the integrated HD tuner every Wednesday night :(

Yes, Alias was very grainy. I didn't see any colors popping out at me like many shows on other networks. Even Lost, just before it, looks pretty good. Othere than the jaggies, it had pretty nice resolution and great color. It was a bit grainy at times buy pretty good.

In my opinion, I don't consider Alias HD. Shows on HD net, INHD, & Discovery Theater are true HD.

I see 3 types of HD:
1. True HD (ex. HD Discovery)
2. Good upconversion digital feeds (ex. Desperate Housewives, Carnivale, Cold Case)
3. standard upconversion digital feeds (ex. Alias, Law & Order on TNT)

I just think they should have to label the shows for what they truly are. I have not researched what goes into upconverting shows, but there are obvious good ones and bad ones. A lot of stuff on TNT HD is really annoying to look at. Some of their stuff is pretty decent. I watched Fellowship of the Rings about a month ago on there and is was awesome. Law and Order, I have a hard time watching. HBO has some incredibe looking films like Daredevil, Last Samauri, Carnivale. Of course they have some bad ones as well.

I just don't want all the networks to think they can just throw up a half-asssed upconversion and say look at us, we do HD now. They should label it for what is truly is. So those doing true HD and get some credit for being ahead of the game.

Calibrating one input on the Hitachi doesn't calibrate all of them. The Hitachi has separate memory for each input. My son has a 57S and I have a 50V. (The LCD is much easier to calibrate.) But you have to calibrate each input. Or at least try the same settings.

Alias wasn't dark or grainy on my set. Nor was Lost. There was some break up that was weather related.

I believe the actual definition of HD is recorded in HD or converted from a 32mm film. Watch Stalag 17 on HDNet. . .it looks as good as anything recorded on an HD camera.

CSI, Vegas, current originals of Law and Order, NCIS, etc. are all gorgeous on my set. Yes the best images seem to be HDNet, but that's because Mark Cuban puts his money behind his product.

Originally posted by mchuckp


In my opinion, I don't consider Alias HD. Shows on HD net, INHD, & Discovery Theater are true HD.

I see 3 types of HD:
1. True HD (ex. HD Discovery)
2. Good upconversion digital feeds (ex. Desperate Housewives, Carnivale, Cold Case)
3. standard upconversion digital feeds (ex. Alias, Law & Order on TNT)

I just think they should have to label the shows for what they truly are. I have not researched what goes into upconverting shows, but there are obvious good ones and bad ones. A lot of stuff on TNT HD is really annoying to look at. Some of their stuff is pretty decent. I watched Fellowship of the Rings about a month ago on there and is was awesome. Law and Order, I have a hard time watching. HBO has some incredibe looking films like Daredevil, Last Samauri, Carnivale. Of course they have some bad ones as well.

I just don't want all the networks to think they can just throw up a half-asssed upconversion and say look at us, we do HD now. They should label it for what is truly is. So those doing true HD and get some credit for being ahead of the game.

You might want to read some of the posts in the programming forum and understand the differences between film based and video based shows as well director's intent.

A lot of shows have color tones(like CSI) or grain..When you transfer from film, you get grain.

Not every movie or show is going to look like Across America on HDNet..

Would a movie like Payback be any good if they shot it on video? Obviously not..the blue color tone and the grain add the gritty nature of the film..Would Alias be the same show if it were colorful like Smallville? No, of course not..this is a spy drama, not a comedy or a comic book

Just because a film transfer doesn't look like something on DiscoveryHD doesn't mean that it's an upconversion..Original film is actually at a higher resolution than HD

Also, you said that LOTR looked awesome on TNT..this was cropped from its original aspect ratio and looked terrible(now this looked like an upconvert) imo..take a look at some of the extended editions that were aired in OAR on starz and you'll see a huge difference between that and what was on TNT.

Daredevil and The Last Samurai were also cropped from their original aspect ratios and would've looked significantly better in OAR

We could argue all day on what one person considers good and bad and you are right, this belongs in another forum. So I will let the subject die. Just after being disappointed with the quality of some shows and seeing folks posting on here about alias last night, I just felt like throwing out there the concept of the industry labeling different grades of HD so that a bunch of networks don't start up HD channels in the coming years and do a crappy job and label it as HD. It's like recording an MP3 onto a CD and calling it "CD QUALITY".

Thanks everyone for hearing my gripes. I should just be happy to have at least some HD when many people don't.

Alright subject done. Let's talk about Jaggies again.

Here is an odd one for you guys. How do I get rid of the spider in my Hitachi 50V715? It is inside and sometimes projects a shadow onto the screen. I am hoping the thing gets fried. Any suggestions?

On the HD box topic -

I have tried 3 of the TW HD boxes and the Pace wins hands down. The DVI works flawlessly with TW here in Cincinnati and if you set the box to 1080i there are no long pauses or delays in between channels when surfing. In my opinion standard def looks better upconverted anyways but some of you may prefer its pass through feature which will send through the native resolution.

Was also wondering if anyone had any time frame on fox HD or Espn2 HD. I have read several posts from people with contacts at TW and WXIX claiming that a deal will either be reached / or fall through by January 20th.

If anyone has any other info on these 2 channels, please post.

Originally posted by tbenson81
On the HD box topic -

I have tried 3 of the TW HD boxes and the Pace wins hands down. The DVI works flawlessly with TW here in Cincinnati and if you set the box to 1080i there are no long pauses or delays in between channels when surfing. In my opinion standard def looks better upconverted anyways but some of you may prefer its pass through feature which will send through the native resolution.

Was also wondering if anyone had any time frame on fox HD or Espn2 HD. I have read several posts from people with contacts at TW and WXIX claiming that a deal will either be reached / or fall through by January 20th.

If anyone has any other info on these 2 channels, please post.

I have been calling weekly about Fox HD and about HD DVR. I called today and was told they had no information on either one for release. I did not ask about ESPN2HD. If I had to guess, I think that one will be awhile.

I hate that you hear different things all the time. It seems that they better do their best to get Fox HD before the superbowl or they could potentially lose a number of customer.

Originally posted by cokebear
Here is an odd one for you guys. How do I get rid of the spider in my Hitachi 50V715? It is inside and sometimes projects a shadow onto the screen. I am hoping the thing gets fried. Any suggestions?

Cokebear,

Check the Rear Projection section under Display Devices. Just take off the screen, clean out the webs, and get rid of the spider!

Cokebear..

Leave your shoes near the TV when you go to bed. Spiders can't resist. :D

...not to rant on another (poor quality feed) but did anyone notice how bad Law & Order looked last night on WLWT-DT? Really redish & grainy & times not sharp...I thought WLWT-DT had been pretty good on other recent stuff....WXIX-DT on football is the best hands down, so this weekend will be fun!

I called last night about ESPNHD2 and they said that the negotiations are in progress.. Nothing else is knows.

I consider this very crappy since throughout the game they were HD this and HD that, who saw the game in HD besides themselfs?

You can send ESPN a note, here:
http://sports.espn.go.com/sitetools/s/contact/espntv.html

Yea, I sent an email to both TWC and ESPN. I also called TWC and suggest that everyone do that as well. Go bear cats!

This was sent to TWC-
So, I don't understand how Time Warner and ESPN operate. Both networks knew that ESPN2 HD was coming out on Jan 6th. I was excited about ESPN2 HD and was hoping to watch the premier of ESPN2 HD and the UC Bearcats last night. But guess what? A simple call to TWC let me know that you plan on carrying ESPN2 HD but don't have an expected date. I still can not believe that it took over a year to get ESPN HD. I would have assumed that with the contract negotiations with ESPN it would have also included ESPN2 HD to be available on the premier date of Jan 6th. What else can I do besides switching to dish which is looking better and better every day, plus a lot cheaper. I hope you all can get your dealing with ESPN, FOX, and WB on track soon so we can have all the good HD programming like other cable companies and the satellite companies.

kinda funny how directv made the press release about espn2hd, and then last night.. nothing.. lol

Originally posted by jim tressler
kinda funny how directv made the press release about espn2hd, and then last night.. nothing.. lol
So Directv did not have ESPN2hd either?

They will, they just didn't have it at launch. Same for ESPN-HD, IIRC.

Originally posted by jim tressler
kinda funny how directv made the press release about espn2hd, and then last night.. nothing.. lol
Um...no. It's not funny. ;)

I recorded the SD version on 209 and hit guide at every TV timeout to check for it.... my wife thought I was nuts. :rolleyes:

Oh well, at least the 'Cats realized how awful the black numbers looked on their red unis. I hated the reds unis last year. This year, with white numbers, the red unis actually look really sharp. They would have looked even sharper (pun definitely intended) on ESPN2HD.

lol.. good point chris! go cats!

Originally posted by jim tressler
kinda funny how directv made the press release about espn2hd, and then last night.. nothing.. lol

I don't watch much sports, but I do flip around all the HD channels quite a bit just because I like to check out the video quality of various programs.

It seems that whenever I flip to ESPN HD, I always see SD with bars on the side. Just out of curiosity, how much of ESPN's stuff is actually HD? It seems like 95% of the time I flip to the channel it isn't.

Just a side not about TWC and ESPN negotiations: I spoke with a CSR back in late October when I was first looking to sign up for TWC from Dish Network. I think this was somewhere around the time that ESPN HD started on TWC. He told me that negotiations took a long time because ESPN wanted way too much money for the rights to carry the channel. He said that HD Discovery Theater and TNT HD come free with the standard digital package because Discovery and Turner does not charge for these stations so TWC passes them on to us without cost.

He said that the majority of the cost of the HD Tier (INHD, INHD2, HDNET, HDNET Movies, & ESPN HD) is ESPN HD. He said the other stations are all pretty cheap by comparison.

Not sure if all this is true, but it is what I was told. I would guess it will be a while before we see ESPNHD2 is available. They will likely go through the whole thing again.

I hope the rumors of getting FOX HD soon is true. "24" will be much more enjoyable in widescreen HD rather than 4:3 and analog.

Hey Mike, long time no talk...the new addition to the family is really eating up my time!

Anyway, it is true that ESPN carriage is expensive relative to most of the other channels. Yet, they can charge what they charge because according to all the ratings, ESPN is the highest rated advertiser-financed cable station.

Regarding the amount of content on ESPN HD (and now ESPN2 HD), it really boils down to the number of trucks that are physically available. For each live event, ESPN must drive an HD-equipped production truck to the venue. I don't know how many trucks ESPN owns, but I know the actual production of these trucks is very limited and are being scarfed up quickly.

So I think the content on ESPN HD is really determined by truck availability more than anything else. As time goes on, and ESPN is able to acquire a larger fleet of trucks, the amount of HD programming will increase.

Also, more of the in-studio programming is moving to HD, such as NFL Live, Baseball Tonight, NHL 2Night (whenever the NHL decides to resume play :rolleyes: ), probably the hoops version of College GameDay, and on and on, to join Sportscenter, NFL Countdown, and NFL Primetime. The challenge still remains that most of the highlights will still be SD...again, due to a very thin fleet of HD trucks.

And just to keep this on-topic, I don't know how all of that affects TW Cincinnati. ;)

luebster is exactly right... trucks are the issue! as far as espn hd - they are lucky to get 2 live events per week in hd.. that being said, they supposedly did all 3 college hoops games in hd last night.. but its like someone said.. if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, did it make a sound? :)

jim

I learn something new everyday. Can anyone tell me, is any regular network shows actually shot with HD cameras or is it all upconverted? Is stuff on the HD specialty channels and sports events the only things on that is shot with HD cameras.

If anyone can point me to a thread that discusses these kinds of things that would be cool. I'm a novice and would like to get some background.

HD cameras have become more prevelant in the industry. For example, Robert Altman's last feature film, Company, was shot on HD. (Info via HDNet interview.)

As to ESPN, Even though some of the content, like PTI, is originally SD, it is still broadcast in 1080i with side bars. Flip back and forth between the two channels and you should see the difference. Sports Center is now broadcast fully in HD. Yes some of the highlights are upconverted, because very few local channels have capability to do live HD of sports they broadcast.

WCPO has responded to my latest letter.. progress is being made!!!!

Jim,
Our Motorola Encoder that makes the images for HDTV is one of the first MPG
Encoders on the market. Basically it is very old and outdated by today's
standards. In order to fix this we should replace our encoder with a new
state of the art model which is more refined in detail and redrawing of fast
action such as football. I've been working on a solution to either replace
or upgrade this unit to have it redraw in more detail to solve this jagged
edge problem you are experiencing. Hopefully within the year I'll have this
resolved, thanks for being patient. Any questions please call or email me.


Thomas W. Talley II.
WCPO-TV Chief Engineer
1720 Gilbert Ave.
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
513-852-4021 Office

Originally posted by hroeder
Even though some of the content, like PTI, is originally SD, it is still broadcast in 1080i with side bars.

Just to be clear, ESPN broadcasts at 720p.

Mike, shows like Lost, CSI, Without a Trace, Jay Leno, and Sportscenter are recorded and/or broadcast live using HD cameras. I don't know if there are separate 720p and 1080i cameras...

Now, it is possible to upconvert a 480i signal to one of the HD rezzes and it will seem like HD, but the PQ just isn't there. The reference to highlights on Sportscenter bears this out. The games in HD are amazing, but when they have to show a non-HD highlight reel, oh boy...still slightly better than SD, but certainly not HD.

Originally posted by jim tressler
WCPO has responded to my latest letter.. progress is being made!!!!

Jim,
Our Motorola Encoder that makes the images for HDTV is one of the first MPG
Encoders on the market. Basically it is very old and outdated by today's
standards. In order to fix this we should replace our encoder with a new
state of the art model which is more refined in detail and redrawing of fast
action such as football. I've been working on a solution to either replace
or upgrade this unit to have it redraw in more detail to solve this jagged
edge problem you are experiencing. Hopefully within the year I'll have this
resolved, thanks for being patient. Any questions please call or email me.


Thomas W. Talley II.
WCPO-TV Chief Engineer
1720 Gilbert Ave.
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
513-852-4021 Office
Someone actually took the time to personally respond! Amazing.

And they acknowledge there is a problem, are pretty sure they know the cause of the problem, have a plan to resolve it, and have chosen to articulate all of that to you. Doubly amazing!

Jim, I think a letter of thanks for taking time to do this on behalf of all of us in the Cincy forum would be appropriate. ;) And a small thank you to you is appropriate as well...so, thanks!!!

Hopefully the new unit will be in before college/pro football starts up in August.

That is great news. I can finally sleep at night knowing they are working on fixing the issue. :)

Originally posted by jim tressler
WCPO has responded to my latest letter.. progress is being made!!!!

Jim,
Our Motorola Encoder that makes the images for HDTV is one of the first MPG
Encoders on the market. Basically it is very old and outdated by today's
standards. In order to fix this we should replace our encoder with a new
state of the art model which is more refined in detail and redrawing of fast
action such as football. I've been working on a solution to either replace
or upgrade this unit to have it redraw in more detail to solve this jagged
edge problem you are experiencing. Hopefully within the year I'll have this
resolved, thanks for being patient. Any questions please call or email me.


Thomas W. Talley II.
WCPO-TV Chief Engineer
1720 Gilbert Ave.
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
513-852-4021 Office

That's great you got a reply Jim. However isn't this a new problem this year? Has WCPO had this problem all along? I was under the impression that MNF in the fall of 2003 was free of jaggies...

its new to me as I just joined the hd ranks in july - but from what others have said, things were ok before the studio move.. which happened in the spring of last year..

also much thanks goes out to nightwatchman and drdon as they both have done a lot more than me.. :) I just write letters .. lol .. they talk the language!

Did we ever get a post on here about a good dish or antenna installer for Northern KY? That Antenna Guy is out of business, last I read. I'm looking for someone to run an extra cable from my existing Directv Oval dish to "an anticipated" HD Tivo, which requires the extra line. I cant do it myself because I think it requires a new hole-in-the-wall and jack, which is beyond my abilities. I wonder what this would cost me.

ItzMe:

When I bought my HD-Tivo they included installation of the new dish, multi-switch and the required extra cable.

jkeane, because I follow the TivoCommunity forums, I learned how to negotiate with Directv (who I presume are the "they" you're referring to) in an effort to get a billing credit upon buying these normally $1000 HR10-250 units. To make a long story short, Directv is going to give me a $250 billing credit. I've also found a reliable online retailer offering the units for as low as $850, but they only offer installs for new customers. I presume they can do that because Directv pays them for getting a new customer. As a result, neither Directv or the online seller are willing to foot the bill to have someone come out and add my extra line.

So can anyone recommend someone cheap, good, and reliable?

jkeane, I presume you're still loving your HR10-250?

Hi ItzMe:

I was in the first group to get an HD-Tivo and I do continue to love it. I made the comment to a friend over the holidays that I'd probably give up drinking before giving up the Tivo! If you knew me, that's a serious commitment.

My first unit died on me after a few months but it took only two days to get a replacement. I'm sorry I don't know any good installers. I'd be interested in finding a good antenna person in the Symmes Twp. area as well.

Originally posted by jkeane
Hi ItzMe:

I was in the first group to get an HD-Tivo and I do continue to love it. I made the comment to a friend over the holidays that I'd probably give up drinking before giving up the Tivo! If you knew me, that's a serious commitment.


That's just WRONG.
:p

Well, I got this from TWC today. Now I am confused and mad.

The FOX affiliate, Raycom Media, has not granted Time Warner Cable permission to carry the HDTV signal of FOX at this time. Some hi-definition television sets have the ability to receive and decode the hi-definition signal over the air on UHF channel 29 while some may require a tuner/HD decoder. Our ultimate goal is to provide our customers with the widest variety of hi-definition programming available, and we are hopeful that both parent companies will continue talks and reach an agreement soon.

If we can ever be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us either by e-mail at customerservice@cinci.rr.com or by phone -- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week -- at (513) 469-1112 or (513) 469-1145.

Originally posted by zekyl
Well, I got this from TWC today. Now I am confused and mad.

The FOX affiliate, Raycom Media, has not granted Time Warner Cable permission to carry the HDTV signal of FOX at this time. Some hi-definition television sets have the ability to receive and decode the hi-definition signal over the air on UHF channel 29 while some may require a tuner/HD decoder. Our ultimate goal is to provide our customers with the widest variety of hi-definition programming available, and we are hopeful that both parent companies will continue talks and reach an agreement soon.

If we can ever be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us either by e-mail at customerservice@cinci.rr.com or by phone -- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week -- at (513) 469-1112 or (513) 469-1145.

Well I just hope that is just a canned answer that basically means we cannot tell you anything is official yet. I got something relatively similar in reference to the availability of the HD DVR a while back via email. Seems like you get "nicer" answers over the phone. Many of the CSRs don't have much info but I can say that I've been pretty impressed with how nice they have treated me as I call them weekly.

Yea, I figured it was a canned answer, but just hoping for more. You never know I guess. I do call them a lot too and they are always nice.

jkeane-U could check out BB whose selling the unit (as part of 10% off weekend) $900 & they may offer installation 4 new customers too! - & $200 D* credit should be a minimun which makes the unit somewhat reasonable...

ItzMe: Did U get the HDtivo b4 5/04? -just can't have others getting stuf b4 me? :) -of course the TWC guys still have lots of catching up to do to both of us. :-)

Might want to check all the DirecTV MPEG-4 threads before you sink too much into new equipment. While I sort of think MPEG-2 on the Ku sats isn't going anywhere for a couple of years, the TiVos aren't upgradeable. I suppose they'll always do OTA HD and DirecTV SD, though.

chrisdow:

I think you have ItzMe and just me (jkeane) reversed...that's okay, I spend large parts of my life thoroughly confused.

I received my HD-Tivo in the first shipment...they sent me a certificate saying I was number 72 in the country. I don't remember the specific date. I'm not normally this early of an adopter--I usually wait at least for the first price break. Unbelievably, it was my wife who pushed to get it. We first had a stand alone Tivo and then a Directivo and she got used to watching things on our schedule. When the HDTV came along, she was upset that we had to sit down at specific times to watch things. Since I do everything to please her...and she cooks, too!

chrisdow, No, I've been posting about an anticipated HR10-250, sometime in my near future. I still have obstacles to address before I buy it, mainly this need for the extra line issue. Also note that while BB is $900 plus tax with a 1yr warranty, **************** (on-line) is $850 with a 5 yr warranty and free shipping for TivoCommunity users. They come highly recommended on the TivoCommunity boards, and if needed they replace the unit by mail seamlessly.

Don, I've been following that MPEG-4 stuff, and I conclude that its a matter of waiting a year or so before I have HD Tivo, or dealing with a transition that is a few years away; and we consumers "may" be assisted with by Directv when it happens. The consensus on the boards seems to be that if we get OTA HD locals, as we do, this isn't as big of an issue. Hard to say, though. You're right that it IS an issue.

Itzme..

I'm with you. Just wanted to make sure everyone had seen it. Since 99% of my HD watching is OTA, it wouldn't affect me, either. But it does have me thinking "price drop." <g>.

i think directv will take care of those of us with hd irds or hd tivos... if i were getting a hd tivd now I wouldnt worry about it..

So... question for the Sat folks. If I finally give up on TW serving me as a customer (no ESPNHD2, no FOX HD, barely UPN) what would be involved in switching over.

The key to me is the OTA, would I need to buy a Hi-Def tuner, or does the DirectTV HD setup include a tuner for the antenna (my TV does not have an integrated tuner). Obviously i would need an antenna, and from discussions here, I assume there is no such thing as a functional inside antenna (not counting attic setups as inside).

Despite all the retoric back and forth, monthly costs seems pretty much the same, it appears it is the setup cost of Sat that is an issue.

Here I go with the WCPO thing.

I've got a 98% signal on digital channel 10, but My HD Tivo is skipping about every 3 to 5 minutes. It does not do this on any other HD channel. I wonder my Tivo is just not understanding the signal that they are sending out for some reason.

I hope they replace that Motorola real soon here.

Bsherm,
I have TWC still, and I am also upset at their lack of service of the HD channels. I know some is not thier fault, poltics and money get in the way. However, I am thinking of switching too. I do current have an OTA HDTV reciever so I can get FOX19 and WB64. I am using a Radio Shack powered antenna. It rotates to help grab the correct signal for the particular channel. You can even set the antenna to match you remote ir signal, so when tuning to channel 19 WXIX HD it will spin the antenna to the correct saved location. This antenna is a set top indoor antenna. It is not the best setup, but it works fairly well and I am in the lower level of a condo partially underground. I am able to get all the local stations with this setup. If TWC gets their act together I and gets FOX19, I will probably sell off my antenna and HDTV OTA reciver. I would like to see WB64 on TWC HD as well. I have not even contacted them as of yet to see thier status. I do know that Voom includes OTA reception and they seem to have a ton of HD channels. If I switch to SAT, I am pretty sure I would move to Voom. It might be worth taking a look at Voom. I have not heard of any good or bad things about Voom as of yet. I hope that answers some of your questions about OTA reception.

Originally posted by zekyl
Well, I got this from TWC today. Now I am confused and mad.

Don't be confused and mad...just say to yourself... "Raycom". ;)

They're doing the same up here in the NE part of the state. Raycom owns the CBS and UPN affiliates in the Cleveland market, and TWC's Akron/Canton systems don't have rights to carry the HD versions of them either. Neither does one of the other major MSOs that serve NE Ohio, Adelphia. They recently cleared the HD 19/43 for I believe Comcast in Cleveland, and I think Cox already had it, so maybe there'll be progress.

These, umm, peeing matches between over-air network stations and cable systems over HD feeds do not benefit the customer, of course.

You would think these stations would realize they are losing viewers by not being on the ball and signing contracts with the cable companies. I don't know about any of the other TWC customers out there. But I rarely ever go near Fox or WB just because there isn't any HD. I'm sure I'm not alone on this.

Yesterday's games: The Ram's game was atrocious. The worst images I've seen on my set to date. Both had continual stuttering of sound. But the Jet's game was somewhat better. Didn't see the strobbing much on that natural grass field.

So this seems to be multi-faceted. High contrast between green and white at the upper angle really produces a strobbing effect. Take that high contrast away and you still have some problems, but not has many.

Not a weather night. But the break ups were way too frequent.

I concur. WAY too many dropouts (both audio and video breakups)...what would you say, about once every 10-15 minutes or so?

Certainly not weather related, as we had mostly cloudy skies with no precip. But unfortunately as football fans, we can't show our displeasure by turning the channel. We must watch the games! HAHAHAHA!

Originally posted by hroeder
Not a weather night. But the break ups were way too frequent. It was a weather night in San Diego. The breakups were from the source, not local.

zekyl,

I would do some research on Voom before you switch to them. Granted it's in the D* related forums, but plenty of respected posters seem to think that Voom will be out of business in a year or two...they just aren't getting the subs they thought they would. And they have grand plans of launching several new sats in the next couple of years. The posters wonder where capital required to do that would come from. Do a search here and over at tivocommunity.com.

I might be slightly biased too, as I have D* and am very happy (except for them not flipping the switch on ESPN2HD yet), but like anything else, research it a bit before you jump in.

Originally posted by DrDon
It was a weather night in San Diego. The breakups were from the source, not local.
Don, the breakups for me were more prominent during the SEA/STL game.

I'm assuming everyone else had their signal go from HD to SD for about 30 seconds to a minute on at least 3 separate occasions? I believe this was during the SD/NYJ game...

Originally posted by luebster
I'm assuming everyone else had their signal go from HD to SD for about 30 seconds to a minute on at least 3 separate occasions? I believe this was during the SD/NYJ game... Yep. And you could tell it was at the network end because the bug in the 16:9 area was still there for a bit. I don't remember seeing as many breakups in the late game, but I was out for half of it and well into the barley malt and hops for the rest. But I get a full-scale signal from all the local guys and rarely have any issues.

Luebster,
Thanks for the heads up. I will of course research before I change anything.

Before jumping to satellite, ask these questions, Does anyone, even satellite TV folks have ESPN-HD yet? And...

If I'm not mistaken satellite doesn't offer the two IN HD channels (Mark Cuban's ch 971-2 on TWC) and from what I've heard digital compression is worse in satellite HD channels than cable making the HD pictures not equal to those we receive from TW.

Sea Ray

InHD is only on cable. Mark Cuban's networks, HDNet and HDNet Movies, are on the satellite. ESPN-HD is on DirecTV. ESPN2HD isn't, but the thread in the Programming forum says it isn't on ANYbody. But DirecTV HAS announced they'll carry it.

I haven't seen what TWC HD looks like, but DirecTV beats Insight on HD PQ. And OTA PQ, which is what you'd get with a D* setup, beats cable.

Originally posted by DrDon
Sea Ray

InHD is only on cable. Mark Cuban's networks, HDNet and HDNet Movies, are on the satellite. ESPN-HD is on DirecTV. ESPN2HD isn't, but the thread in the Programming forum says it isn't on ANYbody. But DirecTV HAS announced they'll carry it.

I haven't seen what TWC HD looks like, but DirecTV beats Insight on HD PQ. And OTA PQ, which is what you'd get with a D* setup, beats cable.

Thanks for correcting me, Doc. You are absolutely right. Mark Cuban owns HD Net and in fact makes it very clear that INHD is his rival.

I will go out on a limb and say from my research the concensus is that HD PQ on D* does not equal high quality cable PQ. Of course this would affect HD net and ESPN.

It would make sense that direct feed from your ANT to TV would be of better quality than that received from a cable co. Something else to consider indeed

Today's CBS game really showed the difference of HD coverage. A far superior picture to ABC in Cincinnati. However, there was one point (and only one) that showed a very very brief strobe from the rear end zone camera. So there must be something that that particular angle does to the encoder. But 99.9% of the image was great.

hroeder..
Remember that CBS is 1080i. You WILL see the strobing on an interlaced picture. A 720p won't show it, and a 720p converted to a 1080i (like most of our sets do) should look no worse than CBS did, today.

Doc

Fox(WXIX-DT), who usually does a superior (w/DD) job out of all the locals IMO, really had a a lot of break-ups/pixelization in the 1st quarter yest that renedered it unwatchable - did everyone else get that too? - it was ok the rest of the game...I thought last weeks Atlanta game's PQ looked much better though - maybe it's the snow in lambeau getting to the cameras?? :)

CBS did look great!

Originally posted by Sea Ray
Thanks for correcting me, Doc. You are absolutely right. Mark Cuban owns HD Net and in fact makes it very clear that INHD is his rival.

I will go out on a limb and say from my research the concensus is that HD PQ on D* does not equal high quality cable PQ. Of course this would affect HD net and ESPN.

It would make sense that direct feed from your ANT to TV would be of better quality than that received from a cable co. Something else to consider indeed

From my research, I have concluded the same thing. Cable systems very greatly depending on where you live. I have a friend who's parents have Adelphia cable out on the east side and he says the HD channels are kind of pixelated and he wasn't overly impressed. He came over my house (I have TWC) and was blown away. I don't know if everyone in TWC in cincy will get great signals or if some areas are better than others. I have not researched this. But I've heard good things about TWC in Cincy for HD quality. I can say that I am extremely impressed. I have not seen HD on satellite, so I cannot comment on that.

I do like that I get INHD and INHD2 which is cable only. Of all the specialty HD channels, I watch these the most. I think they have much better content than HDnet. HDNET Movies, IMO, is kind of worthless. I'm not really thrilled with the movie selections they have.

I had Dish Network, (but no HD), before TWC and I thought a lot of their channels were way to digitally compressed. I'm not sure where I will end up in the future for a provider. But I have special pricing from TWC until next December. So at this point in time, I feel very good with TWC. I also like that I can rent equipment and not spend a ton of money on a receiver. I'd prefer to hold off for now on equipment purchases until prices are much more reasonable and I feel that any equipment I buy will be used for a long time.

p.s. It is frustrating that TWC doesn't have Fox HD yet, but hopefully the rumor is true that they will have it before the superbowl. Also, the analog channels kind of suck in PQ, so that is another downer.

zekyl,

Voom has a special going on at this time of a $1 installation fee for up to 3 tv's. Just like TWC, you can lease the box from Voom for $5 each box with NO mirroring fees. It was just annouced at CES that they will have their HD DVR out in March. So if they go out of business in 1 or 2 years, you're not out anything except 70 HD channels. As I'm about to move up to two HD tv's, I've been looking to move from TWC.

Originally posted by APorter
zekyl,

Voom has a special going on at this time of a $1 installation fee for up to 3 tv's. Just like TWC, you can lease the box from Voom for $5 each box with NO mirroring fees. It was just annouced at CES that they will have their HD DVR out in March. So if they go out of business in 1 or 2 years, you're not out anything except 70 HD channels. As I'm about to move up to two HD tv's, I've been looking to move from TWC.

I am in the same position. my TWC Special is ending in March so I will probably end up with Voom unless they get more HD channels and keep the pricing that I have now. Last I heard Voom is giving out bigger dishes that work a lot better during rain. But then again I love reading the dreaded Sat installer storis doing all kinds of funky things.. and my house is less than a year old.

From what I understand, Voom uses the same installers that install Dish and Directv. My subdivision is two years old and my neighbors that have had either one of the above mention sats installed have had no problems. If you have any neighbors with satellite already installed, check to see how their install went.

So is anyone with the HD Tivo concerned about DirecTV ending the relationship with Tivo. I'm wondering if I should take mine back and wait for the DirecTV DVR. It is supposed to be networked and all. I would bet it would do the MPEG4 compression that the current one will not do.

I'm not worried at all. I'm assuming DirecTV will do the right thing and replace equipment at little or no charge. They certainly won't want to start a stampede to cable or Dish.

I just about fell out of my chair ... Just caught TBN actually promoting
Over the air digital TV ... They actually talked about DTV STB's and antennas, as well as touting their multicasting capabilities, which apparently 6 of their DTV stations are doing.

The guy even mentioned that even though TBN isn't doing HD, you can also use your DTV receiver to get HD from CBS/etc ....

Attached screenshot via OTA from TBN LP translator W61DE Cincinnati - Which, BTW recently filed an App with FCC to move to 36 ....

Forum member hugenbdd sent me a WCPO-DT bitstream from Saturday's playoff
game. I've attached a close-up of the pixel structure. Note that vertical
pixels are almost always paired. Some piece of equipment in their signal
chain is down-sampling from 1280x720 to 1280x360.

Ron

dr 1394

If you could post this same message and attachment to the Hardware forum thread I started, it'd probably be most helpful. I'm still of the opinion that something in the bitstream is causing OUR receivers to redraw the same line twice, since not everybody sees the issue.

Thanks

Doc

I'm sure this must have been asked about a million times, but although I did a search here, and in the hardware forum, I couldn't find anything.

So here's the question setup: I've noticed about a 1.5 second lag between the video signal from an analog channel (received either OTA or via cable) and the HDTV version of the same channel received over the air (say analog 5 and digital 5.1). Given the encoding/decoding and compression/decompression that must happen for HDTV, I can understand this lag. I've also noticed about a 1.5 second lag between an HDTV channel received OTA and the same channel received via cable (say digital 5.1 and cable 905). Thus there is about a three second delay between the analog channel reception and the HDTV channel received via cable (analog 5 <1.5 sec> digital 5.1 <1.5 sec> cable 905).

So here are my questions. Why is there a delay between digital 5.1 and cable 905? What is Time Warner doing with the signal that they receive for an HDTV channel that requires 1.5 seconds to process? Will the delay between analog and HDTV channel reception decrease as video processing equipment gets faster?

CincyKev

Cincykev

Same thing. TW decodes the ATSC signal from the station and re-encodes it to QAM, roughly doubling the amount of processing time.

Don't know if it was some sort of experiment or accent, but on a few primetime occasions, I've caught CBS digital and analog nearly synchronized, which means CBS had the digital feed advanced a tiny bit. Probably not on purpose.

Now, you want to see some serious delay, move to satellite. Add the delay a couple of round trips to space will give you and it gets funny. Toward the end of the day on Sunday, all the ST channels are carrying the only game still going. I'll see the same play on WKRC analog, then a second later on WKRC-DT, then another 5 seconds later on DirecTV.

Hey-What's the consensus on HD processor settings for watching original broadcast at the same output? That is to say, that if CBS broadcasts in 1080i for Colts game would the PQ be best to set my box (HDTivo) at 1080i or would it be equally as good to leave it at my preferred setting of 720p?

Also, did anyone else notice that during 24 last nite that the "Fox" logo was halfway missing/off the bottom right corner? (I did get a new TV, so it could be a setting I missed - but works fine to fit all other stations' HD content???) The DD while Jack Bauer's saving the world is pretty awesome too!

Chris..

WXIX-DT has never programmed the Fox splicer for their bug, so it's running in "default" mode, which is the blue fox logo flush right and all the way at the bottom. You don't see it all because there's some overscan on most displays. Same thing happens in other markets where they didn't bother programming the bug, too. I'd hesitate to call it to their attention for fear they'd either move it, or stick in that annoying full-color Fox19 bug which would burn into my screen. I've seen the bug done correctly on other stations where it's very small, but still very readable. MUCH less obtrusive than the screen-eating SD bugs the stations use now.

The 1280x360 would definitly explain the lego affect that we are seeing, especially on the ABC bug at 11 o'clock on the screen. Same with the lines on the field looking as though they are also switching between one of the 360 lines every couple of inches or so.

ok.. do we take this info to wcpo?

I would say that it couldn't hurt. They have been so responsive to the e-mails, snail mail, and requests in the past!!

Let's give them time to bring the issue to the attention of corporate engineers, which is supposed to happen this month. Started the Hardware thread with the hopes of getting a definitive "this is what's causing the problem" answer so we could give them a specific thing to look at backed up by those in the know should corporate not be able to resolve the problem.

Is this the Corporate Engineer that you are referring too?

Thomas W. Talley II.
WCPO-TV Chief Engineer
1720 Gilbert Ave.
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
513-852-4021 Office

Based on the reply that was posted earlier, It looks like they are not trying to resolve anything, just waiting until the new equipment arives in Q4.

Nope.

so doc you are saying dont do anything with it because it wont help

ktarkington - yep.. mr. talley is the one that responded to my snail mail

jim

Originally posted by dr1394
Forum member hugenbdd sent me a WCPO-DT bitstream from Saturday's playoff game. I've attached a close-up of the pixel structure. Note that vertical pixels are almost always paired. Some piece of equipment in their signal chain is down-sampling from 1280x720 to 1280x360.
Ron

Thanks for looking at that Ron. That certianly would seem to explain it. I'm surprised it even looks as good as it does at the times during ABC HD(except around the ABC bug during HD) when the "jaggie" aspect of the issue is not noticable ...

FWIW, I did notice that around the time we started to see the problem, the local DTV Station ID bug(the graphic, as well as the posistion - the bug is not the same as on the analog) insertion changed. I'm not sure if they started using something new for that or not, although I know that in the past, I had heard they had planned to add equipment which would allow them to insert graphics(weather warnings/etc) besides just a seperate bug for the DTV station -- I'm not sure, but I had assumed at least in the past that the "old bug" was inserted by the encoder.

BTW, I sent their DOE (the fellow at WCPO-DT I was corresponding with about this earlier, it wasn't their CE as I believe I had incorrectly mentioned in another post) a note with the info, as, I suppose there may be some chance they may not know ..... I thought it was a good idea anyway ... I agree with Doc that we should be patient and give them time to address the problem(especially since the word is ABC is upgrading it's HD distribution system, including equipment at the affiliates, which probably won't happen at WCPO until late this year, if not later) although I personally didn't see any problem with passing this info on to them .....

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

Couple of other comments concerning subjects of recent discussion:

On the Blue WXIX-DT Fox "splicer bug", I checked it here by reducing overscan on one of my displays to less than 0%, and it is definitely on the very "edge" of the frame -- A 0% overscan bug -- unless, that is my receiver(Zenith HDV420) is cropping part of the frame out, If I recall correctly when I checked it, via component output it does seem to crop out part of the top, where the line 21 captions/etc go with NTSC, although the 608 line 21 captions do pass through via 480i/composite out.

The WRGT-DT Fox Dayton Splicer Bug is in the same Place as WXIX-DT's, however, it's very small in comparison(about the same size as the WPTD/WPTO "16 HD/14 HD bug" and is "left+top Justified" so to speak, so you can have up to about 4-5% overscan and still get it all on screen.

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

On the Delay issue between analog+digital stations, my understanding is, the biggest part of it is usually because of the extra time needed by the MPEGII encoding/decoding process for digital station done at the station and also by your STB. Doesn't matter whether your getting it via cable or OTA, as the same encoder is used for both at the station.

If you notice, WCVN 54+KET1 WCVN-DT are very close(just a slight echo in the audio between the two here) to being "in sync" with each other. As William has explained previously, This is because, it's the same video/audio(sent via a ATSC compliant stream to all the KET transmitter sites, from a central KET "encoder"), feeding both the analog+digital -- which is decoded at WCVN transmitter site before it's sent to the analog WCVN transmitter, and which isn't decoded on the digital station until it reaches your decoder/ STB(via OTA or Cable).

Originally posted by DrDon
I'm still of the opinion that something in the bitstream is causing OUR receivers to redraw the same line twice, since not everybody sees the issue.


In which case, I'd think all the pixels for 1280x720 would actually have to be there in the datastream, with most decoders(except perhaps the ones with the moto chipsets), basically, just ignoring "half" of that data? How could that happen ?

I also still don't understand why we don't see the issue during upconverts .. Besides the stuff from ABC for the HD feed(sat receiver, decoder/etc), and the upconverter itself, I wonder what else would be different ...

I'd really like to see a screen-cap(even from a digital camera, say of a close up of ABC bug during HD) from one of these non-affected chipsets ....

I wonder if there are truely any "non-affected" chipsets. I think that there are people who just don't see it or recognise it in the way that we might. I had a friend over to watch the games last week and hear me complain that the quality is soooo crappy, and he thought it looked so great. He couldn't tell the difference between the games on Saturday and Sunday.

Nitewatchman
Have we "defined" the non affected chipsets yet? I noticed in the hardware thread it was stated that insight didn't have the issue. Yet I have insight and also (OTA) and saw the issue in both places.

I have a Moto 6208 that I also recorded some of the football game on. I will get those off the box and onto my PC and hopefully either I can figure out what the pixel's are or I can send the to DR1394 and he can tell.

However, this may take me a day or so to do before I can report back.

Dave

Originally posted by hugenbdd
Nitewatchman
Have we "defined" the non affected chipsets yet? I noticed in the hardware thread it was stated that insight didn't have the issue. Yet I have insight and also (OTA) and saw the issue in both places.

I have a Moto 6208 that I also recorded some of the football game on. I will get those off the box and onto my PC and hopefully either I can figure out what the pixel's are or I can send the to DR1394 and he can tell.

However, this may take me a day or so to do before I can report back.

Dave

Not to an extent that I'm aware of other than the few folks that have reported here that they are not noticing the problem seem to be using the moto box via insight - I'm not sure what the WCPO folks are/were using when they weren't "seeing" (or noticing) the problem .... Not of course saying it isn't "there" on everything, as it is evident from the spreadsheet jim put together, some folks with insight/moto box Are seeing it ....

What I'm most curious about concerning your equiment is -- presuming that you can feed either to the same display -- does what you are seeing OTA+cable look exactly the same, or is the issue less noticable via the 6208/etc ?

Thanks,

Didn't the hardware guy answer saying that they were having a problem with their encoder?

It makes computer sense that the high contrast green/white at certain angles would produce the strobe. It was very clear on the artificial turf game this past weekend. On my Motorola 6208. But on the grass game was barely noticeable.

There was also one instance in the WKRC coverage, which was generally excellent, when there was a strobe on that high end zone camea. About thirty or forty yards downfield.

So we have two conditions combining. A particular incident that is difficult to encode. (I used to watch all football games without going through my old Replay when I had one. . .because it had problems with fast action closups. --non-HD issue. But an mpg encoding issue.) That is combined with an old encoder, which is failing per the engineer. And they have plans to replace it.

I watch a few other ABC shows and haven't seen a problem. CBS and NBC seem better, and certainly HDNet blows them all away. . .

Nitewatchman
Yes it looks identical.

I see it both on a 720p Digital Projector from both OTA (MyHD 100) and Moto 6208. I also see it on my Sony 34 xbr with a second moto 6208. The Sony XBR is a 1080i monitor, so it's showing up for me on both displays.

I can't belive people don't notice it, it is very evident. My father even said something when we were watching the game.

Again, let me take a look at the Moto 6208 capture and see what TSReader Lite says about the stream.

Is there a possibility that this is only occuring during the football games? or Live Broadcasts of HD? Or has it been determined that it's during everything ABC broadcasts in HD?

Dave

Originally posted by hugenbdd

Is there a possibility that this is only occuring during the football games? or Live Broadcasts of HD? Or has it been determined that it's during everything ABC broadcasts in HD?
Dave

Since late summer, I've seen the constant jaggie appearance(NOT MPEGII compression artifacts) around the ABC bug in everything ABC sends HD from wcpo-dt and, I've occasionally noticed the problem along certian edges/etc in other(non-live dramas+movies sourced from Film) programming as well - Which makes sense if they're "really" sending 1280x360 thats coming from a 1280x720 source .... Such as during Rose parade, also in Dramas(there was a movie a while back where they had a shot of a pickup in a parking lot, and you could see the problem along the top edge of the truck bed - I mentioned it somewhere back in this thread). It is just most noticable during football, such as shots from the pressbox end zone cams.

In direct comparisons with WKEF-DT Dayton, the problem is just not there from them. Also, again, this was NEVER an issue from WCPO-DT before their studio move over the summer. Even during ALL the MNF HD games for 2003-2004 season(which was well after they switched to sending 720p, they switched from upconverting to 1080i at the station in spring 2003 - MPEG compression artifacts were a bit of a problem from them during bandwidth demanding source material when they were sending 1080i - I don't think the multicast SD subchannel helped that -- but, that was solved when they switched to "straight" 720p).

I don't think the encoder is the problem here, unless it's having a problem "interfacing" with some new equipment, or, unless there is a configuration issue which wasn't addressed after their studio move ...

And yes, I agree, its very noticable, at least to me AFTER I first noticed it -- I do know though, a lot can depend upon the display/calibration issues/etc. Anyway, It often looks quite similar to "standard" interlace artifacts, but MUCH MUCH more pronounced, than say interlace artifacts due to my STB's conversion of 720p to 1080i to support my display's native 1080i support, from WKEF-DT/ABC HD during MNF HD football, or for that matter, what was the case from WCPO-DT prior to last summer --- although, occasionally(but rarely), I certianly have noticed short, very pronounced "instances" of interlace artifacts from 1080i sources, such as say, WKRC-DT during a HD CBS football game, but it's pretty rare for them to be anywhere near as noticable as anything we've seen from WCPO-DT during ABC HD since last summer ...

It happens during all WCPO HD broadcasts. Look at anything that has a bright color and you will see jaggies. Another great place to look is the rating that comes on in the top right at the beginning of shows or when the come back from commercial. Looks like it was built with legos. It is also very clear when credits in white go across the bottom of the screen.

We need to invite WCPO engineers to come and write on this forum. It would help out the issue. I think this affects everyone, the people who don't see it don't know what to look for. The other possibility is that their screen is too small to notice. On my 65", it is very noticeable. Also has anyone checked the bit rate of WCPO? In addition to 'jaggies', I have noticed some artifacts during the football games that looks like over compression. I watched some of the Colt's game, I noticed some varying in the brightness, 'strobe' effect, but it is nothing like the problems with WCPO.

I have not seen logo or graphic type problems on other broadcasts. But I don't watch a lot of ABC.

See the three posts at below link and pics/comparisons attached to those posts between WKEF-DT+WCPO-DT during ABC HD for some things to "look for" to notice the issue :

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4595107#post4595107

Note that the jaggies around the "standard" ABC bug during all ABC HD on WCPO-DT(again that's not there on WKEF-DT) in Lower RH corner of screen is very similiar to the jaggies around the ABC bug in the MNF score bug.

In addition to pics+decriptions at link above, and the reports with the equipment list via the spreadsheet from Jim, I also sent WCPO DOE the link to this thread, but keep in mind, sorting through all the posts here to search for info that is relevant to their work can be overly time consuming for them.

Does anyone have any idea what make / model the HD DVR will be provided by TW cincy?

I checked the stream today from the Motorola 6208 (insight dvr). The moto DVR and the OTA stream are right around 14 megs. I'm not sure what dr1394 is using to check the pixels in the stream. But with using tsreader lite, it reported that the streams were 1280x720, but it could just be using header information and not the actual content.

Hopefully DR1394 will take a look at the Moto clip and be able to tell if it's the same as the OTA clip.

Dave

If I understand correctly(which I may not be), I think Ron is saying what he saw seems to indicate, basically that their encoder is sending 720p(1280x720), but all the "unique" pixel data that should be there, isn't due to the sampling of the signal(Which is maybe uncompressed HD-SDI at that point? Just a guess, don't know how it works at ABC affiliates) something is doing at 1280x360 ...

So, In essense, the 720p we're getting would seem to be "sort of" like a "line doubled" version of 1280x360, with some piece of equipement -- presumably in the chain(for ABC HD from them, I don't think it's happening that way for local or any SD programming that is being sent through their upconverter, but I'm not sure about that), I'd think perhaps something that's before the encoder that is doing the sampling at 1280x360 instead of 1280x720 for some odd reason ...

In other words, and, I don't know how correct this would be, but I suppose you could look at it as being a lot like 1280x720 from ABC which is effectively being downrezzed to 1280x360, and then "upconverted"(but not very well), in a sense to 720p ... In which case I'd think the data rates/rez the encoder is spitting out would need to be about the same as if it actually allways "stayed" 1280x720 throughout the chain, all the way to your display even though all the actual unique pixel data that should be, doesn't seem to actually be there ... 14mb/s seems about right for a 720p HD video stream, given what would be needed for the SD weather service, and Audio/PSIP and the like.

9:48pm edit note: I didn't say that right earlier,(and still might not be LOL!), so went back and edited the above ... 10:05 edit note #2 : Doh! Had to go back and edit again as I thought a little more about it ...

Anyone else experiencing no audio on WCPO during NYPD Blue?

Aporter -- Yep ...

The Jaggies around the ABC bug on WCPO-DT is still there presently, but I did just notice that simultanously when the local bug insertion was keyed around 10:15pm or so(I forgot to look at the clock right when it happened) during NYPD Blue HD, The audio stream disappeared completely ... Audio is fine, and of course no jaggies around the bug on WKEF-DT, ABC HD Dayton ...

Update 10:27pm : Audio is back during the current WCPO-DT commercial break(Both Nat'l+local ) ... OK .. Audio back during HD NYPD Blue after the break ending 22:27 EST...

If I understand correctly(which I may not be), I think Ron is saying
what he saw seems to indicate, basically that their encoder is sending
720p(1280x720), but every 2nd line is not containing(more or less) the
"unique" pixel data that should be there ...
Yes, that's correct. The MPEG-2 video stream is still 1280x720, but the
effective resolution is 1280x360. Here's another example from hugenbdd's
1394 capture. The arrow points to an area that shows individual 1280x720
square pixels (due to over quantization, since that GI encoder is having a
difficult time at 14.5 Mbps).

I'm using a "reference" software decoder and Photoshop to create these pics.
This is what's in the bitstream, there's no receiver issue going on here.

BTW, the second sub-channel on WCPO-DT is pretty interesting. It is 528x480
resolution, which is the first time I've seen a non ATSC Table 3 resolution
in an OTA bitstream. It also doesn't have any I-frames, but instead uses
progressive intra block refresh in P-frames. The bitrate is 3 Mbps.

Ron

Is WXIX-DT on the air? I haven't been able to pick them up during prime time for a few days. Sorry if this is a repost.

Oops!! Someone at WCPO-DT put My Wife and Kids on at 11:00 instead of the news. Was on for about three minutes.

Originally posted by psm0110
Is WXIX-DT on the air? I haven't been able to pick them up during prime time for a few days. Sorry if this is a repost.



They are still there, but the PSIP generator is not working and shows up as 29-3. I still get them on my Zenith Monitor/HDTV, but my Samsung sirt150 will not pick upWXIX-DT 29-3 even after a rescan. You will have to wait until they fix it or maybe try a rescan on your receiver.

Originally posted by dr1394
BTW, the second sub-channel on WCPO-DT is pretty interesting. It is 528x480 resolution, which is the first time I've seen a non ATSC Table 3 resolution in an OTA bitstream.
Ron

Ah hah! I take it those weird, small vertical flashing bars on right side(probably in the "overscan" area, or cropped out as out of 4x3 frame by many STB's) are within the 528x480 frame?

The service/programming itself used to be a bit different, If I recall correctly, they redid it a bit back in 2002 or so... It used to usually be just the radar, with occasional A/V of their weather staff doing forecasts, I don't know if they were actually using a "actual" standard ATSC resolution back then, if so, it would have had to be one of the 640x480 4x3 formats ...

It was a little before I picked up a ATSC receiver, but I'd heard that at least at first they also used it to send NASA TV at times. Currently, I do know the "big" cableco's in the area carry that service, some of the smaller ones might do so as well.

Ah hah! I take it those weird, small vertical flashing bars on right
side(probably in the "overscan" area, or cropped out as out of 4x3 frame by
many STB's) are within the 528x480 frame?
The 528x480 frame seems okay (see attached). More likely, your receiver doesn't
know how to decode 528x480 properly and the flashes are just uninitialized
reconstruction frame buffer pixels. 528x480 is used a lot on digital cable
systems, but satellite uses 544x480 instead.

Ron

Originally posted by tbenson81
Does anyone have any idea what make / model the HD DVR will be provided by TW cincy?

I wish I knew. I have asked them several times but the CSRs always say they don't have that information. I'm pretty sure that early beta testing was with the SA8000 HD. The manual is posted on their website. But I knew they had a lot of bugs. I was told back in November that they were trying "something new". It seems that a lot of Time Warner areas around the country are using the newer SA 8300. From what I've read, it seems to be a decent machine. It also has HDMI, however the HDMI doesn't seem to be active in all areas. Hopefully ours will!!! I'm waiting for one as well and I'm not going to be thrilled to see a DVI or HDMI port on a box and have to use component.

Have you heard anything about availability yet? I call them weekly and they keep saying "soon".

FYI: In case you didn't know, there is a waiting list for them. You have to call them to get on it. I've been on it since late October.

I have been on the waiting list for a while also but nobody ever seems to have any accurate information. I have a DVR now and a pace box for HD. I am almost content to just record non HD stuff on the DVR and watch all the HD shows live. The pace box that I have now is awesome and the DVI port works great. I guarantee that I will switch this out with the 8000 / 8300 and the DVI will not work on the new box.
I have also heard that they have had all sorts of problems and a lot of bugs and I dont think I want to deal with the hassle until they get it perfected.

As far as a timeline goes - this was posted on cincinnatihdtv a few days ago

"According to the Time Warner CSRs, FOX19 HD will be available on Time Warner prior to the Super bowl as well as the HD DVR. Keep checking back for more updates. Thanks go out to tkamil and Josh for the updates"

Someone recently was asking about how DirecTv compares to Time Warner Cable for HDTV. Well every few days I come across threads like the one below. This viewer is complaining about the compressed signal D* was feeding him for the Ohio State basketball game last night on ESPN-HD. The more posts I see like this one, the more I give pause to jumping to satellite.

BTW I thought the game looked good on TWC.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=494605

Not defending DirecTV, but ESPN-HD is generally extremely good. I've seen varying degrees of quality on CBS, too, especially when it comes to basketball. Don't know what it is about that sport that gives HD fits. I think it's all the flash photography. But if the game looks like it's suffering from artifacts, yet SportsCenter's spinning graphics are as clean as a whistle, I rather doubt the blame is D*'s. I know that the highlights of CBS-HD football games look as good or better on ESPNHD (via DirecTV) than the game did on WKRC-DT (which uses the full bandwidth, but not the best encoder)

If anyone would like to see D* in HD for themselves, the Cincinnati Bell Store in Florence Mall has a dandy DirecTV setup they keep tuned to SOMETHING in HD most of the time. Had the game on last night. Don't know if it's all CB stores or just this one. I just found it quite amusing that a phone store would have a better quality HDTV display than either Sears or HH Gregg (talk about ARTIFACTS, both have really crappy demo loops, IMHO).

Speaking of CinBell & D*, has any existing CB & D* sub successfully got the discount CB has been advertising?

I called CB & they told me I had to call D*. I called D* and they claimed they had no arrangement with CB (imagine that).

Ladies and gents?

Originally posted by tbenson81
I have been on the waiting list for a while also but nobody ever seems to have any accurate information. I have a DVR now and a pace box for HD. I am almost content to just record non HD stuff on the DVR and watch all the HD shows live. The pace box that I have now is awesome and the DVI port works great. I guarantee that I will switch this out with the 8000 / 8300 and the DVI will not work on the new box.
I have also heard that they have had all sorts of problems and a lot of bugs and I dont think I want to deal with the hassle until they get it perfected.

As far as a timeline goes - this was posted on cincinnatihdtv a few days ago

"According to the Time Warner CSRs, FOX19 HD will be available on Time Warner prior to the Super bowl as well as the HD DVR. Keep checking back for more updates. Thanks go out to tkamil and Josh for the updates"

I to am running a non HD DVR right now along with the PACE for HD. My DVR is on my 32" non-HD TV though. I do like the PACE box but I really want to record HD. A lot of times I cannot watch shows while they are live so I have to record them in SD and watch them on my 32". It's better than nothing for now, but it drives me crazy knowing something is available in HD but I can't watch it.

Yes, they seem to have had quite a bit of problems with the HD DVRs they were trying. But consider it a good thing that they didn't release them to us. It sucks that it is taking longer but they don't want to be exchanging them out all the time and gobbling up tech support all the time. I wish I could get one today, but if it means getting one that works well, I'm willing to wait a few more months if I have to.

I do have my fingers crossed for an active DVI or HDMI!

Originally posted by mchuckp
I to am running a non HD DVR right now along with the PACE for HD. My DVR is on my 32" non-HD TV though. I do like the PACE box but I really want to record HD. A lot of times I cannot watch shows while they are live so I have to record them in SD and watch them on my 32". It's better than nothing for now, but it drives me crazy knowing something is available in HD but I can't watch it.

I'm running my TiVo off of the SD output on my Pace box. This allows me to tune into NBC-HD and record it to TiVo with the option of watching it live off of the DVI port. When I play back these shows off of my TiVo then I adjust my zoom/aspect ratio on my TV so that I'm watching the show off my TiVo in widescreen. I know that it still isn't HD, but it's at least the entire picture.

_____
Patiently waiting for HD-DVR to be rolled out, Time Warner and Raycom to make a decision, and ESPN2-HD.

Originally posted by dr1394
The 528x480 frame seems okay (see attached). More likely, your receiver doesn't know how to decode 528x480 properly and the flashes are just uninitialized reconstruction frame buffer pixels.

Thanks again for the info on this stuff. The below is probably a lot more than you wanted to know, but should describe why I was interested in this .....

I sort of figured something like that might be the case. I only noticed it because I had a receiver(Zenith HDV420) hooked up to a PC monitor, and, I noticed it(hidden by about 4% overscan, which this display needs) when adjusting geometry issues/overscan on the el cheapo 26" HD display(Direct View CRT) I use with the Zenith box now. .... I think the flashing bars are only there when I output 480p, 720p, or 1080i from the STB, not there at 480i. The "blue" on the left hand side is a little "different" depending upon output resolution as well. At 480p, it seems to just continues on forever ...

I might be a little hazy on this, as it was over a year ago, but I had also tried to measure some of the static graphics on the weather service to check various geometry issues on the "el cheapo" display at different scanning rates - Mainly, just to make sure AR was correct at 1080i. I wanted to try this, as I didn't have a way to send a crosshatch pattern or any other test patterns to the display at 1080i, but had already calibrated geometry(as best I could anyway, this set especially has some "issues" for sure, especially with bowing in certian areas) on the display with test patterns at 480i/p.

But, It didn't work, as I found the measurements I took from the weather channel graphics weren't even quite the same(close, but not quite) to get proper AR(H size/V size settings/etc) for the weather channel at different scan rates ... If I recall correctly, it may even have been different at 480i/480p, which I knew were already OK. Which I thought was odd, as from what I could tell, Other programming sources seemed fine, and I pretty much knew everything should have been the same at 480i+p(given both were calibrated with cross hatch pattern), and I also knew that the H-Size/V-Size "offsets/settings" for 1080i from the factory were really pretty close if not right on the money anyway ...

So, this, along with those flashes had me thinking the receiver was doing something a little odd for some reason that seemed to only be an issue with this weather channel, but I had no Idea why until now ... I would presume that the (HxV) "pixel ratio" is being handled by the receiver a tad bit differently for different scan rates, although, just looking at it instead of trying to take "measurements", you can't really tell the difference, it looks fine.

Personally, I like they way they've got that set up. Including, that if you "crop/zoom" it to fit 16x9 and preseve proper AR, all the "important" info in the frame is still there, and it still "looks" properly framed for 16x9, even though you're really cutting off some stuff from Top and bottom(just mostly the "blue" on bottom, and a bit of the radar screen+the "9 weather tracker" graphic"). I use it all the time, as it gives me all the weather info I need at a quick glance. And I'd swear, the female computer voice from the NWS audio just tried to sound Sexy when she said "MiamisBURg", with about that inflection ;)

Anyway ... Attached is a close up(taken with digital camera) of a portion of the RH side of frame, showing what the "flashing bars" on R.H. side looks like at 1080i, 720p+480p(this is 1080i) -- I had to go into service menu and reduce H-size in order to see them, and, only way I see them at all is if I set the receiver to make the "4x3" "fit" 16x9 --- The flashing bars aren't there in the "black bar" area if I view the "actual" AR as 4x3, in which case the receiver seems to crop out small areas on the sides, to make sure you don't get any "junk" in the black bars should it occur for whatever reasons .... If I recall correctly, I don't recall seeing them on my other set/receiver(RCA F38310 - Has integrated DTC-100 inside) if I reduce overscan/set H-Size in service menu so I can see the very edges - The DTC-100 in this case I think would be outputting 540p.

Newbe here to HDTV. I live in a subdivision that only allows the small D* type dished to be mounted outside. I cannot put up a CM 4228 as I wanted. What do you guys suggest? I have a small RCA HD "rabbit ears" type antenna that I can get 5 and 12 on in HD but rarely can get 9 and never have been able to get 19. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

John

I suggest you Goggle "OTARD" and read some of the results. Also search it here for some threads and experiences. HOA's are limited in the types of antennas they can restrict.

I am only able to see the guide for WCPO but no programming and no audio. Was fine last night. Any issues?

tellall

Originally posted by GadgetJunkies
Newbe here to HDTV. I live in a subdivision that only allows the small D* type dished to be mounted outside. I cannot put up a CM 4228 as I wanted. What do you guys suggest? I have a small RCA HD "rabbit ears" type antenna that I can get 5 and 12 on in HD but rarely can get 9 and never have been able to get 19. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

John


Gadget

You can put up an antenna on your house if you want. Your HOA cannot tell you not too. It states on the FCC website that dishes under a meter and an antenna within 12ft from the roofline. If the HOA tells you to take it down, show them the document from the FCC website. The 4228 should get you a really good signal. Just use a tripod/chimney or eave mount. You could also try your attic, which is what I do.

tellall..
WCPO-DT is fine on my Samsung. However, WXIX-DT is not.

Whats wrong with WXIX-DT? Looks good here.

Thanks JunkYard. Anyone have any good places around here to pick up the CM 4228? I see it on Ebay for around $60 + $23 S/H.

Originally posted by JunkyardDogg
Whats wrong with WXIX-DT? Looks good here.

Their PSIP appears to be hosed. Some receivers don't deal with that too well, and different model receivers sometimes react differently to this sort of thing. I first noticed last Monday that they weren't remapping to 19-1 on my Zenith receiver, but I'm getting them fine on 29-3...

I did a recscan with my Samsung SIR-T151 and nuthin' for WXIX-DT. However there was a surprise between 12 and 48, I get Think 14 DTV now!

Still I'd prefer the Super Bowl to Arthur...

I'm a D* subscriber with the Sports package (i.e. All the FSN stations), but it appears the UK vs. Vandy game is blacked out. What the hell? Why would I pay a premium to watch other regions' Fox Sports Network that get blacked out? In other words, I can watch I Max on Fox Sports South but I can't watch the UK game. That is total BS!

I called D* and I got a guy talking about regional programming rights..blah blah. I'm pissed off! Anybody else have the same issue?

Sorry my first post in forever is a rant but I'm fired up. ST and the Sports package were the reason I left cable. Thanks for listening to me bi*ch.

dixon - unfortunatly college basketball is blacked out unless you are in the local market or have the espn game plan, just like mlb or nfl or nba.. its that way for everyone - cable and dish - it all boils down to the benjamins! and we the consumer get hosed as usuall

Gadget - true an HOA cant stop you from putting up an antenna, so have at it.. they can however require you to go through a reasonable approval process and they can limit where you put the antenna as long as its reasonable, however, if there is only 1 spot you can get it to work, then they cant deny you.. for example, in my hoa - the only place we dont allow the dish is on the front of the house, just looks better that way. good luck, but dont let them tell you no!!

jim


Originally posted by GadgetJunkies
Newbe here to HDTV. I live in a subdivision that only allows the small D* type dished to be mounted outside. I cannot put up a CM 4228 as I wanted. What do you guys suggest? I have a small RCA HD "rabbit ears" type antenna that I can get 5 and 12 on in HD but rarely can get 9 and never have been able to get 19. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

John

Thanks for the info. I am thinking of going with the CM 4228 and putting it on the vent from the firplace (we don't have an actual chimney). That would put it about 10ft off the ground with a clear path SW. I think this is the direction it needs to be pointed based on antenna.org. Do you think this is high enough?

Greetings-

I just recently discovered this thread, what a great resource. Reading a good bit of it I feel as if I have read the history of HD in the Cincinnati area.

I'm a long time DirecTV customer and just made the switch to HD today. As an aside if anyone has any interest DirecTV sent me their new branded receiver, the H10. I got the nice discount many others have gotten but FYI it's become quite a bit harder since the beginning of the year. First CSR didn't even want to honor the 6 mo HD part of the deal I had made last week when ordering.

In any case I do have some issues with the OTA side of things and in the interest of being able to watch football in HD this weekend I was hoping to lean on the expertise here because I have precious little time between now and 4pm Saturday and I want to spend it wisely :)

Basically my house has a very old existing antenna/cabling . The antenna itself is about 6 ft long. Its mounted on about a 4 ft mast at the very peak of the roof.

The issue is I am not able to get a very good signal. Some channels are fair, some are unwatchable.

I am in Sun Valley/Grants Lick. Right on the AJ Jolly Golf course, maybe 7-8 miles south of Alexandria.

My antenna web data is-



WKRC-DT 12.1 CBS CINCINNATI OH 343° 17.0 31
WCPO-DT 9.1 ABC CINCINNATI OH 344° 17.5 10
WLWT-DT 5.1 NBC CINCINNATI OH 340° 18.0 35
WXIX-DT 19.1 FOX NEWPORT KY 336° 18.5 29
WCET-DT 48.1 PBS CINCINNATI OH 340° 18.0 34
WCVN-DT 54.1 PBS COVINGTON KY 331° 11.9 24

The 2nd to last column is of course 'miles from'.


There several potential points of failure-

1 The antenna has a few broken elements

2 The cabling is old flat ribbon cable and I cannot see most of the run to check for damage et al.

3 The antenna is pointed due north and as you can see that's 20+ degrees off for some stations.


The right thing is to probably buy a new antenna, point it accurately and run new cable. I'd like to do that right with some amplification because I do have some trees to contend with esp when the leaves return. Not likely I can research and find the right antenna and get a good install done before Saturday.

So in the interest of time, I guess my question is: What's the biggest difference I can make in the meantime? Getting to the antenna is not a trivial matter so I haven't gotten up there yet. Is the antenna doomed because it has a few broken elements? Would getting it aimed correctly make the biggest difference?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Peace . . .

Originally posted by tbenson81
Does anyone have any idea what make / model the HD DVR will be provided by TW cincy?

The beta testers all have SA8000 units - and they are pretty junky. I may have a bad box, but I have to reboot a few times a week, and it is very slow to change channels... It is also very slow to respond ((when it works at all) when using the DVR controls to rewind,etc. during a live show.

TW said they are on their 5th version of the 8000 already, still tryinig to work out problems. They claim the hard drive is the biggest issue. To me, it looks like software is the problem. Why they don't go to the 8300 and dump the 8000 I'll never know... But we're talking about TWC - always a year behind everyone else.

What subdivision in Liberty Township? I did a lot of the subdivision planning out there in the mid - late 90's , most of the township sits high, so as long as you are not down in a hole - like off of maud hughes of down by Gregory creek, you will have excellent reception!

10 feet off the ground could be ok - depends how close you are to your neighbor and wheather or not you point right at their house.. anyway to get it on the roof? without knowing the situation the roof or ridge would be better.. but it could work fine where you propose.. its mostly trial and error!

jim



Originally posted by GadgetJunkies
Thanks for the info. I am thinking of going with the CM 4228 and putting it on the vent from the firplace (we don't have an actual chimney). That would put it about 10ft off the ground with a clear path SW. I think this is the direction it needs to be pointed based on antenna.org. Do you think this is high enough?

I'm in Cedarbrook off Cin-Day Rd just north of Millikin. I think I'll have a clear line where I want to put it. Any suggestions of where to pick up a good antenna around here?

Originally posted by smackman
The beta testers all have SA8000 units - and they are pretty junky. I may have a bad box, but I have to reboot a few times a week, and it is very slow to change channels... It is also very slow to respond ((when it works at all) when using the DVR controls to rewind,etc. during a live show.

TW said they are on their 5th version of the 8000 already, still tryinig to work out problems. They claim the hard drive is the biggest issue. To me, it looks like software is the problem. Why they don't go to the 8300 and dump the 8000 I'll never know... But we're talking about TWC - always a year behind everyone else.

I really hope they don't stick with the 8000. TWC in many other cities is using the 8300 with success. I would think the 8000 is a has been box. Are they getting bargain basement pricing on them?

Well all I can do is wait and see.

Smackdown, how do you find the overall picture? I've read some threads that say the 8000 has a soft picture. Have you ever had any other boxes to compare it to? I really hate the idea of going to a new box that has a lesser picture quality.

oh yeah.. milikin sits very high.. no problems there.. as far as where to buy.. lowes carries CM - not sure which ones - i think they have the 3000 series.. you may want to look on line.. Directv brought mine out to me, so I didnt have to look very far. You may want to even look at a roter to get the dayton locals.. especially with all the jaggie problems with WCPO - but for the most part the cincinnati locals do a good job - I think they are more conscious about flipping the hd switch.. and hopefully they all will broadcast dd 5.1 by the end of this year.. As a side note, I noticed that when wxix 19 inserts local adds during hd programming, they only broadcast dd 2.0 - while all national commercials are dd 5.1 (yes I realize that the commercial is not recoreded in 5.1, but the splicer is still pumping it out).. interesting.. ok back on topic..

here are some online places I was looking at:

http://www.starkelectronic.com/
http://www.warrenelectronics.com/

in our area, this is the only authorized dealer (besides lowes)

Dayton Wintronic
3526 Encrete Lane
Dayton, OH 45439
Phone: (937) 293-0871
Phone Number 2: 1-800-231-2255

good luck!

jim

I'll check with Lowe's. There is a wholesale place in Springfield just south of Dayton near the Pioneer Mfg plant that has decent prices on certain items. They carry connectors, and all kinds of A/V equipment there. Got my multiswitch there for a good price. Can't remember the name but I know how to get there. Thanks for the info.

Originally posted by GadgetJunkies
There is a wholesale place in Springfield just south of Dayton near the Pioneer Mfg plant that has decent prices on certain items. They carry connectors, and all kinds of A/V equipment there. Got my multiswitch there for a good price. Can't remember the name but I know how to get there.
Parts Express (http://www.partsexpress.com)

partsexpress is a great place.. unfortunatly they dont carry tv antennas other than the terk clip on and other indoor antennas.. I check them out when I was looking as well.. but they are awesome for everything else.

jim

dixon - unfortunatly college basketball is blacked out unless you are in the local market or have the espn game plan, just like mlb or nfl or nba.. its that way for everyone - cable and dish - it all boils down to the benjamins! and we the consumer get hosed as usuall

Jim, thanks for the fast reply. I was pretty upset last night when I discovered that the UK game that was scheduled on the Fox Sports South and Sun channels wasn't available. I understand broadcasting rights and so on and so forth but here was my example to the DirecTV rep (not that he cared or could change it but I had to tell somebody).

I'm in the Cincy local market so that means that if the Bengals don't sell out, I don't see the game unless the network with the rights buys the tickets or has an agreement with the NFL etc. Anyway, lets say its a 1:00pm game and Cleveland is on a buy week. Would I not see the Bengals game in Columbus, Dayton, Cleveland, etc?

My point is that I'm not in the local market for UK basketball but I subscribe to the Sports package that is totally based on the ability to view other regions local programming. I.E. Fox Sports Pittsburgh or NorthWest or SoutWest, etc. I'm just try to figure out why it is in the interest of the networks to have the blackout in effect for out of market regions and miss out on showing commercials to those folks. Does that make sense? I pay to have a channel that has sports in another area I want to watch. Companies pay money to have ads during the game that I'll never see because the black the whole damn thing out. :mad:

Its mind boggling to me how I can pay $12 for a package so I can watch sports in other areas but yet when a game I really want to see comes on, they black me out. I understand that this subject has been beat to death but I'm tired of the networks and the FCC pulling this S.

(OK, breathe) :p I'll leave this alone and spare you guys from the rest of my rant.

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

HD related topic:

Has anyone wondered that if there is such a shortage of HD equipment (satellite trucks specifically) to handle all of the big events and sports games, wouldn't the companies who make that stuff start producing more or if they have why the networks aren't buying these up for use?

I suppose that the networks could argue that the HD crowd isn't big enough to justify the cost but I would argue that 2005 is the big year for HDTV not 2004 as previously predicted.

Anybody have any thoughts on that?

Concerning WXIX,has anyone figured out when they'll have there generator fixed? my E86 picks them up fine,but TS360 draws a blank.

Dixon4UK,

Well we meet again on a different forum! Haven't spoke with you in a while. How's life after Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow? Maybe we can meet up again when Chaos Theory comes out in March.

Sorry everyone for being off topic. Just thought it was cool to see a familiar name from a different type of forum.

Small world.

mchuckp

dixon.. amen brother.. I wish more people would rant - take the whole hd transition.. we could have had it years ago if the nab and other ******* pricks didnt pitch a bitch.. as far as the hd trucks.. I think more are coming, but if I remember correctly, it takes almost a year to build.. so its a be patient thing

WXIX was fine for me last night.. no problems guide or reception wise - Hughes HTL-HD

Originally posted by 6speed
Concerning WXIX,has anyone figured out when they'll have there generator fixed? my E86 picks them up fine,but TS360 draws a blank.

Originally posted by 6speed
Concerning WXIX,has anyone figured out when they'll have there generator fixed? my E86 picks them up fine,but TS360 draws a blank. Working on it. You might blow an email to psmith@fox19.com with exactly what you wrote right there. Looks like it only affects receivers that depend on the PSIP for channel data. DirecTV receivers get channel data from DirecTV and ignore the PSIP, which is why they work. Some other boxes are able to ignore whatever the glitch is. I'd guess they don't know a third of their digital viewers think they're off the air.

Tim 99

The FIRST thing I'd do is replace the ribbon cable with a balun and some RG-6 and bump the antenna more in the correct direction. I take it the antenna is a combo (both UHF and VHF). At your distance, missing a couple of VHF elements shouldn't hurt anything, especially if they're the elements toward the back. But if you need to replace the whole dog and pony show, run to Lowes, pick up a medium size combo, some RG-6 and a pre-amp. If the wind dies down, you could have everything changed out in an hour or two.

Thanks for link Doc,email sent,when I get a reply I'll pass it along.

Has anyone had any experience with the Terk TV55 antenna? Specifications: *Dimensions: 46" W x 3-1/2" H x 2-1/4" D *Bandwidth: 54 to 806MHz *Output impedance: 75-ohm *Amplifier gain: 10 dB.
Just curious.

I watched Lost and Alias (what part didn't put me to sleep) last night. So did you guys all see jaggies, etc? Because Lost was as good as anything I see on any HD channel. Alias is hard to say, because despite Jennifer Garner, it's become so tedious I'm snoring by mid way.

Originally posted by hroeder
So did you guys all see jaggies, etc?

Yes, the jaggies were there on WCPO-DT when I check it during Lost. The 1280x360 "effective" resolution they are currently sending isn't even HD, regardless that their encoder is spitting it out at 1280x720(p).

It looked great via WKEF-DT, ABC HD Dayton, Though .. Well, except for the 6 video freezes during Alias ... Personally, I like what they are doing with whatever they are using Film stock wise, and "how" they are using it+doing the HD transfer. Yes, it looks especially grainy in some spots, but it also looks VERY sharp+detailed. Last week, I kept wanting to run my fingers through JG's hair for some reason (probably more than you wanted to know there ...)

Originally posted by hroeder
I watched Lost and Alias (what part didn't put me to sleep) last night. So did you guys all see jaggies, etc? Because Lost was as good as anything I see on any HD channel. Alias is hard to say, because despite Jennifer Garner, it's become so tedious I'm snoring by mid way.

I watched Lost and definitely saw the jaggies. Easily seen on the ABC emblem. Also easily seen on distance shots.

Via Time Warner Cable with Pace 550 box to a Samsung 4674 DLP (DVI)

One thing I found interesting last night during LOST. Jaggies were pretty obvious as usual, however, part way through the show there was a Channel 9 banner that popped up at the bottom of the screen for about 5 seconds. It was black, red, and white (I think). Even though the whole show had jaggies at the time, this banner did not.

Did anyone else notice this?

Thanks for advice, I just picked up a new antenna. Hopefully I can get it up on the roof tomorrow because its only doing a fair job laying in the front yard.

BTW I have a DirecTv receiver (h10) and I can't get WXIX right now even tho I get a 75% signal. That kind of stinks considering there's a Div playoff game Saturday.

peace . . .



Originally posted by DrDon
Working on it. You might blow an email to psmith@fox19.com with exactly what you wrote right there. Looks like it only affects receivers that depend on the PSIP for channel data. DirecTV receivers get channel data from DirecTV and ignore the PSIP, which is why they work. Some other boxes are able to ignore whatever the glitch is. I'd guess they don't know a third of their digital viewers think they're off the air.

Tim 99

The FIRST thing I'd do is replace the ribbon cable with a balun and some RG-6 and bump the antenna more in the correct direction. I take it the antenna is a combo (both UHF and VHF). At your distance, missing a couple of VHF elements shouldn't hurt anything, especially if they're the elements toward the back. But if you need to replace the whole dog and pony show, run to Lowes, pick up a medium size combo, some RG-6 and a pre-amp. If the wind dies down, you could have everything changed out in an hour or two.

i noticed the wcpo logo last week.. what sucks is that I'll bet its only a matter of time until we see the storm crap up ..

tim - how do you like the h10 ?

STOP YOU'RE GRINNIN' AND DROP YOU'RE LINEN!

Twcinci now has HD On Demand!!!!! Beginning Jan 17th order up HD movies for $3.95 in HD! I just got the email this morning.

On the Lost note, I'm not seeing the jaggies that everyone else is talking about. I even recorded it to DVD from the HD box and I didn't see anything on it, even after multiple viewings.

I have the Pioneer 3510 box via component video and my set is a Mits 55" that's been ISF calibrated. I haven't had my OTA setup connected in a while.

Troy

I'm a TWC customer. I have the Pace 550 HD box on my HD TV and I have the SA 8000 DVR on my non-HD TV. I would like to hook them both up to my HD TV. The Pace box has a passthrough feature that lets you hook up components through it and pass it through to your TV. I assume this feature is helpful for people with a lack of hook ups and maybe have a dvd player or something.

I was thinking of hooking the SA8000 DVR to it. Does anyone know if this will work? Or do I need to hook the DVR up to a separate input?

I didn't want to mess with splicing the cable line coming in. But maybe it is the only way. Is there a way for me to run both boxes without splices the cable. Maybe it doesn't make a difference, but I really hate splitting lines. I'm convinced it will lower the signal quality I get (which is very good!).

Thanks,
Mike

Originally posted by Troy LaMont
STOP YOU'RE GRINNIN' AND DROP YOU'RE LINEN!

Twcinci now has HD On Demand!!!!! Beginning Jan 17th order up HD movies for $3.95 in HD! I just got the email this morning.

On the Lost note, I'm not seeing the jaggies that everyone else is talking about. I even recorded it to DVD from the HD box to DVD and I didn't see anything on it either after multiple viewings.

I have the Pioneer 3510 box via component video and my set is a Mits 55" that's been ISF calibrated. I haven't had my OTA setup connected in a while.

Troy

You said you got an email from them this morning. Did you sign up for this or do they just email you. I've never gotten any emails from time warner.

Damn. HD on demand is something I really want. Wonder when Insight will go that route?

I saw no jaggies of any kind on Lost either.

Did you sign up for this or do they just email you.

That's a good question, I'm not sure how I got on their email list, but I've been on it for years.

It's Channel 1080 (how appropriate) for those interested.

Troy

:)

For those on here who helped to prod me along in my decision making, I just got my new HR10-250 Directv HD Tivo on Wednesday. Dudes, too cool! Its a whole new way of life compared to HD alone. I just wanted to gloat and thank y'all ;)

I received an email from Rick Oliver (Operations Manager - WXIX) and he informs me that while progress has been made, no deal has been reached between TW and Raycom. Chances that Fox shows up on TW before the SuperBowl is probably slim to none.

Originally posted by ItzMe
For those on here who helped to prod me along in my decision making, I just got my new HR10-250 Directv HD Tivo on Wednesday. Dudes, too cool! Its a whole new way of life compared to HD alone. I just wanted to gloat and thank y'all ;)
Welcome to the world of HDTiVo...you can never go back now. Try to if you don't believe me. :)

Troy
Anyway you can capture the next lost episode to Computer via Firewire or even to DVHS? That way we could have a look at it? and have DR1394 check it out?

If you get it to DVHS I can copy it to a PC.

Thanks
Dave

Hugen,

Neither of my HD boxes has firewire out. :(

Troy

Hugenbdd,

I could possibly record LOST, or any other ABC show on my DVHS. Just let me know, only thing is I will need the tape back, I am getting low on tapes and money!


WCPO-DT has jaggies all the time. Its not just an OTA thing, everyone has it. Just look very closely at the ABC logo, it is not round. It is at the center, but toward the top, you can see that it looks like it is made of legos. The faster we agree on it, then we can switch to talking about how to get it fixed.

I hope WCPO folks are the ones talking about how to get it fixed. As I believe I said before, they are(or were anyway) looking into the issue. But, it may not happen "quickly" ... Lets just hope for sooner rather than later ....

And, it also occurs to me that, if "necessary" it might not make a lot of sense for them to get new equipment, or replace equipment with something new that might not work so well(or be necessary) when ABC does it's HD upgrades .... The latter I keep thinking about being a possible issue for them, as I also remember, they had planned on DD 5.1 as well beginning some time last year, and we haven't heard that from them yet either ...

For instance -- I know I had heard talk about a year ago that ABC expressed some interest in How Fox was doing things with their "splicer" system, so I wonder if is there any chance ABC is moving to something like that for HD distribution to its affiliates as well?

Anyhow, It's probably going to be hard for us to talk about HOW to get it fixed, since we aren't engineers at WCPO with detailed information about how their digital plant is set up, and we don't know how difficult it might be for them to get the resources they "need" approved in order to get the problem "fixed", nor is it likely that we know all the "issues" that may be involved here ....

As for the explanation posted here recently from their CE about the encoder, keep in mind, (just an educated guess here) he may have wanted to make the issue easy to understand, without going into a lot of details, and/or, he may have been limited concerning what he could discuss for various reasons ...

Also, keep in mind, that although we KNOW what the problem is now ("something" on their end is downsampling to 1280x360 before it gets to MPEGII encoding stage, which is happening at 1280x720), that I'd think it may be possible that all equipment(or certian combinations of equipment - STB/Display/display settings/etc) on the viewers end might not "display" the issue in the same way, even though the bitstream from the encoder is going to be the SAME bitstream that gets to TW cable headend, or my decoder via my antenna, or insight's headend/etc.

In other words, I suppose it might be possible that where most of us see a symptom of the issue as "jaggies", others may not, or may only notice the loss in effective resolution, or, perhaps may not notice anything at all, especially if they don't have a 2nd source for ABC HD to compare it to.

I find it hard to believe that the Superbowl won't be available through Time Warner in Cincy in HD because they don't have an agreement yet with Channel 19. Looks like I'm going to have to track down an over the air HDTV tuner instead. They've had forever to get this done. The fact that FOX began broadcasting their NFL game in 720p this season and it not on TW is a joke.

Does anyone else have a problem with NBC wlwt HD's video and audio freezing up about every 10 seconds. All other channles are fine just wlwt seems to have intermittent problems. It seems to be fine for a while and then will occur for an entire day straight. Can anyone shed some light as to why this is happening so frequently on wlwt? I have seen it happen a couple times on abc / cbs but not nearly to the degree of nbc. Thanks