new bitrate readings from cox (i am doing it a bit differently now though.. should be a bit more accurate)

700 PBS-HD = 12.93 (heroes of the brazos... their local stuff is usually less than real pbs-hd programming)
705 FOX-HD = 13.7 mbit (what i like about you... WB-HD since there isnt any FOX-HD)
710 CBS-HD = 15.81 mbit (numbers)
720 ABC-HD = 13.58 mbit (nba basketball)
730 NBC-HD = 15.67 mbit (e-ring)
732 ESPNHD = 16.64 mbit (nets vs pistons)
734 DSC-HD = 18.88 mbit (BBC Proms 2004)
735 UNI-HD = 12.31 mbit (medial investigation)
736 IN-HD1 = 16.09 mbit (boxing)
737 IN-HD2 = 14.12 mbit (maroon 5 concert)
744 STZ-HD = 12.22 mbit (hostage)

I did these readings by taking a 1 min capture. then you divide that by 7.15 to get the average bitrate over those 60 seconds. (I will do more of these over time to get a more accurate reading)
(http://www.cheezmo.com/blog/C2054552301/E1250796217/)

I think all of cox's HD is vbr now as they all fluxuate (when viewing the realtime bitrates in theatertek player they all jump up during action). Personally I dont mind VBR (all my mp3's are vbr) as long as the base stays somewhat high. (starz, uni, fox and abc are all low imo but suprisingly they all look pretty damn good) ABC is low by cox standards but Im really suprised with it.... no hint of pixelization thus far (granted it is 720p and I have only seen one show so far [in justice] so the superbowl should be more telling)

All HD channels are 1920x1080 and 1280x720, so no downrezzing.

FOX44CE --
any updates on increased power and/or the height of the antenna? Thanks in advance!
Jonnyb99--

Sorry I haven't been on for a while. I've been in Seattle for my sons' retirement ceremony. (US Navy - 26 years)

We added heat sinks and a fan to the combiners and are now at 3.5 KW.
The antenna move has been approved by my corporate office.
We are waiting for the tower lease contract modification approval.

As to 5.1 surround:

We pass 5.1 through from FOX (It is encoded at FOX in tha ASI stream and passed directly through the splicer). We encode the 2 channel stereo WB audio in a 5.1 stream (for compatibility with FOX), but as noted the 5.1 HD-SDI decoder and ASI encoder needed for the WB HD satellite feed are about $19K.

It also requires an HD-SDI digital video delay because WB 5.1 is delayed 260 ms to make room for stereo, Dolby E and 5.1 in the satellite feed. (Another $8K)

This is the reason that mostly only major markets and O&O stations air WB 5.1.

(WB only added 5.1 in June after we were already carrying it in HD)

(So far we have invested over $90K to air it delayed in HD and SD from servers)

We were going to look at doing 5.1 this year but with the UPN/WB merger nobody knows what is going to happen with the affiliation agreements (It could go to KWTX/KBTX or KWKT/KYLE). Only time will tell.................. I love broadcasting!

Didn't seem to help out here. :( In fact, looks like even less signal now than before.

labman --
what transponder(s) are the Houston locals on at 103 degrees?

labman --
what transponder(s) are the Houston locals on at 103 degrees?
As I recall, 24 and 32 were showing signal for me, I'll have to check for others later.

Oops, I mis-spoke! The active transponders on the 103 sat (network 14) are 23 and 31.

I swear i'm hallucinating....

I have ABC HD on Cox.

And just in time for the SuperBowl!

Life is good.

As I recall, 24 and 32 were showing signal for me, I'll have to check for others later.

Oops, I mis-spoke! The active transponders on the 103 sat (network 14) are 23 and 31.


Thanks labman. I finally received my AT9 dish today. I installed it this afternoon and everything is up an running fine.

FOX44CE --
thanks for the update. I'm still not able to receive KYLE either. Glad to hear you'll be able to raise the antenna. Thanks again!

I swear i'm hallucinating....

I have ABC HD on Cox.

And just in time for the SuperBowl!

Life is good.
Yeah, funny how some things just don't happen until just in time for a major TV event like the SB. :rolleyes:

Thanks labman. I finally received my AT9 dish today. I installed it this afternoon and everything is up an running fine.

It wasn't really that hard, was it? The only thing I felt was a little confusing about it was which of the three slots to put the extra lnb mount into. I guess I got it right, since it works. Enjoy!

Can someone tell me if it is encripted? My PC tuner cant get ABC in HD from cox.

I was able to watch about 10 minutes of something on ABC in HD on channel 99 yesterday, but after that it went all black. Someone on here mentioned it was on channel 79 but that is showing up as encripted on my card.

i replied on texags... but i dont know why it wont appear for you (my guess was the bryan not having the "digital rebuild" yet where cs does. I know my friend just recently switched to cox (the brien guy from the avs party) and he told me yesterday that he didnt have the feed.

Can someone tell me if it is encripted? My PC tuner cant get ABC in HD from cox.

I was able to watch about 10 minutes of something on ABC in HD on channel 99 yesterday, but after that it went all black. Someone on here mentioned it was on channel 79 but that is showing up as encripted on my card.

Are you using a DVICO card? My brother is using one of their tuners (Fusion 5 Lite) and he tells me that channel 79 (which is where KXXV-HD is, or at least where it showed up in the channel scan last time I did it) is showing up as encrypted in his software for some reason. I'm using a MyHD card myself and did not have that issue. I'll get him to look at it later to see if he can get it to work...

the pregame is up and in HD on cox.... looks really good and no pixelization (which is a good sign imo)

It wasn't really that hard, was it? The only thing I felt was a little confusing about it was which of the three slots to put the extra lnb mount into. I guess I got it right, since it works. Enjoy!


No it wasn't difficult. I don't understand why I read about how so many installers have trouble. I don't even have a digital signal meter and I didn't have any problems. The manual had a zone coverage map of the US for the extra LNB attachment and we are in Zone 3. If you're looking into the dish, the Zone 3 slot is the furthest one to the left. I wonder if it makes that big of a difference. Anyway, I am enjoying the H20 so far. I think it has better PQ when watching both HD and SD material. Bring on some more MPEG4 channels D*!

SynthDude2001,

Yes, I am using a DVICO card. I get all the other HD channels in College Station.

This sucks :(

So where did you guys get your AT9 dishes from? What kind of deal did you get?

So where did you guys get your AT9 dishes from? What kind of deal did you get?


I got mine from a dealer on ebay. The total was $115 with the shipping. I also purchased the new Zinwell WB68 multiswitch from another dealer on ebay. The total for that item was $28 with the shipping.

got a question for those that get kxxv ota... when watching the superbowl last night (and the signal was very stable.... only saw 2 sorta drops over the 10 or so hours it was on). but one thing I noticed is that every so often there is a few green horizonatal lines in the picture. Just wondering if its a kxxv problem or something cox is doing?

Its not your typical macroblocking or dropped signal for a second.... and it only lasts for a few milliseconds (just enough for you to see it).

I got mine from a dealer on ebay. The total was $115 with the shipping. I also purchased the new Zinwell WB68 multiswitch from another dealer on ebay. The total for that item was $28 with the shipping.

Wow, that's a pretty good deal on that multiswitch. That's the one that works with the AT9, right? Did you try to get any kind of credit from D*?

Wow, that's a pretty good deal on that multiswitch. That's the one that works with the AT9, right? Did you try to get any kind of credit from D*?


Yeah, I think the retail on that switch is around $100. I was pleased. It is the one that works with the AT9, although I found out you don't absolutely have to have it. I installed it anyway. I have not tried to get any more credit from D* -- I still have over $100 and I am getting the HD pack free for a year.

You can order the H20 from D* and they'll upgrade your dish. I managed to get it done for free.

You can order the H20 from D* and they'll upgrade your dish. I managed to get it done for free.

Have you "moved" to Houston though? Most of us moved so we could get local Houston channels because the Waco/B/CS channels weren't up yet. Trying to get D* to install a dish at your billing address instead of your Houston service address might be a challenge. :)

You can order the H20 from D* and they'll upgrade your dish. I managed to get it done for free.

Wow, so you got the AT9 dish, the new multiswitch, and the H20 for free? I didn't think D* was upgrading for free in this area yet. I am glad I did it myself though -- especially after reading the numerous horror stories on this forum about how D* techs can't seem to get the installation done correctly. Did your installer seem knowledgeable about what he was doing?

You can order the H20 from D* and they'll upgrade your dish. I managed to get it done for free.

When I talked to D* on Saturday when I activated the H20, they said the dish would be $99 including a free install for my house in Spring. Maybe I should call again. Or maybe that deal is for people who buy the receiver from D*. I'm not complaining though. They paid me $ to take the receiver.

Maybe I should go around town and look for an AT9 to "borrow". If I remember correctly, somebody has one mounted on a piece of plywood.

Since I need 5 feeds, I guess I need the multiswitch. How many feeds come off of the AT9? Four? Or I guess I could use the one RG6 run from the voOm dish since I'm only feeding one receiver. You guys know how I love multiple dishes.

TNT-HD on D* (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=642101) is finally coming. Just in time for the NBA All-Star game.

TNT-HD on D* is finally coming. Just in time for the NBA All-Star game.

That is great news! I have been missing that channel ever since I signed up with D*.

Cool! D* humpers unite. Go HD leader!

good for d* (although its going to make their pq even worse)

d* subs can thank dish network for that channel.... they knew once dish added espn2 and uniHD (which until that point were d* only) they had to wakeup.

and d* isnt even the dbs hd leader.... dont kid yourself spank... E* has that crown and will likely have it until 2007.

this can only put more pressure on cable co's to get all the avaliable national channels (even though i dont expect cox to add anything until cebridge takes over). Im plenty happy with cox lately for getting fox and abc online. But that will only last a few months.

the hdtv programmin forum is hillarious now.... until today there was constant bitching about directv.... and now they are back to "directv is god" again. They make tsip tshirt fans look good.

this can only put more pressure on cable co's to get all the avaliable national channels (even though i dont expect cox to add anything until cebridge takes over). Im plenty happy with cox lately for getting fox and abc online. But that will only last a few months.

Now what do you mean that will only last a few months? The happiness or FOX and ABC in HD with Cox?

the happieness with what cox has added recently.... there is still alot they dont have.

tnt, espn2, mtv, etc

granted i really only want tnt and scifi (even though scifi doesnt exist)

Hi everyone, I'm having trouble picking up a channel through the Cox feed here oncampus (edit: in a dorm, in College Station at A&M that is), I was wondering if someone might be able to help me.

I have a FusionHDTV5 Lite card, and I can pick up ABC (RF 79), and PBS and CBS (RF 65). However I cannot pick up anything on RF 66 (i.e. FOX or NBC). I've tried manually adding the channel too, but it doesn't work. Anyone have any ideas on what to try?

I upgraded to the 3.3 Final version of the Fusion drivers today, and I noticed a new option to save all of the settings for the card to a file (although you always could through regedit I guess). So if anyone else in Bryan/College Station with Cox has this card, they could probably dump their settings to a file, and that might help. I'd appreciate it.

I know another guy has a problem with the fusion cards and getting specific channels (abc). So it sounds like its a issue with dvicos cards and working with our cable system. If they dont work with a channel scan I think you are pretty much sol.

and since you are in the dorms im going to assume you are a student.... if so get out to reed now (thats where im headed right now). Free pizza and admission. :)

and if you arent going.... damn 2% er ;)

So Dave (and any other "Houstonians" ;) ) , do you plan on getting the AT9 dish before the end of the month? The reason I ask is when D* goes to a lease plan on March 1st, it might be harder to get one without them insisting on having it installed. Not sure how long the supply on Flea-bay will last, either. Thoughts?

Justing looking for a deal on one.

Justing looking for a deal on one.
It appeared you were already looking for one, so I was just starting to get concerned for our "First Houstonian"! :D

So Dave (and any other "Houstonians" ) , do you plan on getting the AT9 dish before the end of the month? The reason I ask is when D* goes to a lease plan on March 1st, it might be harder to get one without them insisting on having it installed. Not sure how long the supply on Flea-bay will last, either. Thoughts?


Will the new HD DVR be available only on a lease program? I would much rather purchase my own equipment.

Yeah, that's been on my mind as well.
On another note, besides TNT-HD being announced, rumor is that D* may be getting MTV HD soon. Rock (or Rap :rolleyes: ) on!!

I'm not sure what I'll do. I'll probably just wait and see what happens. It'll be interesting how they'll handle the lease program for owners of the HD-Tivo. Heck, if a satcard for D* comes out, I'll get that and switch to MCE 2005 / Vista.

I'd hope they add National Geographic before MTV, but whatever.

What's the format of MTV-HD going to be? Are they actually going to play music videos again?

What's the format of MTV-HD going to be? Are they actually going to play music videos again?


According to their website, they feature music programming from MTV, VH1, and CMT. Their website (www.mhd.tv (http://www.mhd.tv)) is pretty informative.

labman --
before I installed my AT9, my H20 was showing 28.2 in the channel guide. When I repeated satellite setup after the AT9 installation, I couldn't get 28.2 to show. How can I add that channel? Thanks in advance :)

Did you have 28.1 or 28.2 before?

I'm not sure what I'll do. I'll probably just wait and see what happens. It'll be interesting how they'll handle the lease program for owners of the HD-Tivo. Heck, if a satcard for D* comes out, I'll get that and switch to MCE 2005 / Vista.

It will be vista only... (although somebody still needs to get me vista ;))

and for the record im still loving mce2005.... just wish i had 3 or 4 tuners for it so i could drop my firewire into it (it does work recording firewire into mce05 but it takes over my existing tuner)

Did you have 28.1 or 28.2 before?


I had both in my channel guide. I wasn't actually receiving either one, but now when I try to tune to 28.2 it says 'channel not available'. 28.1 is still listed in my guide.

I will have to check when I get home, but I don't think mine is showing either one right now. I did a rescan the other day, and since there was nothing there it may have disappeared for the time being. But I was getting a couple of Austin stations for a while! Also, KPRC-DT was showing up, even though the antenna was pointed towards Wacko.

Fellas --
I came home early from work this afternoon and decided to try and pick up 28.1 and/or 28.2 (by the way, I got my guide straightened out so 28.2 is showing up again). I am not able to fully lock onto a signal on either channel, but I am at least showing a picture on both! I was really beginning to wonder if either channel actually existed OTA. Hopefully with a little more power and an increase in height of the antenna, we'll be good to go!

Thanks FOX44CE! Keep up the good work!

We have another KYLE-DT sighting?? :D

rain does funny things for signal strength.

Kprc Olympics

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

Once again we have a big event, and very high expectations. NBC has managed to disappoint many on previous attempts, but I expect this event to fair much better.

The Olympics will be in High Definition and it will be the same coverage that you can see in our analog Ch2. It should be fairly straight forward for us to do simultaneous switching in our HD and SD channels, but it is not something our operators do everyday, so we are trying to get them to be extra careful. On the network side, until the coverage does not begin, I am not sure if the signal we get delivered for HD will live up to the standard of the recent Superbowl, where pristine network video and encoding make it much easier for an affiliate to deliver a clean product.

We will be sustaining our multicast during the Olympics, but we have already increased the bandwidth dedicated to HD to our all time high of 17Mbps. Weather Plus will be existing temporarily with a whopping 1.5Mbps and our live doppler will remain with 500Kbps. A statistical multiplexer is in place which may do a little borrowing from Peter to pay to Paul, and during the most demanding video in HD, it will be taking from the other two to ensure best performance. I had some miscalculations last night when I first try to set this up which resulted in some breakup during 16:9 content, but I think I have corrected it. I will be watching tonight and will be ready to make adjustments if necessary.

And those who have not been here before and feel tempted to ask the question, we do not intend to drop the subchannels during the Olympics. We are dedicating 17M out of 19M (the .4 goes to PSIP), so 90% of our bandwidth is dedicated to this stream. Although it may sound like quality could be improved 10% if I gave it all, that is not true, as the incremental benefit goes away pretty quickly above 15M. So with 17M of bandwidth, you could think of a quality 98% as good as video using 19M (just a number I came with from my experience with this encoder).

I may try to keep an eye on this thread throughout the Olympics, but if you need answers on reception of our DTV or other HD related issues don't hesitate to email me at dtv@kprc.com.

Thanks for your patience,

Edgar Zavala
Assistant Chief Engineer
KPRC-TV/DT
Houston

PS.any comments I write here will be my opinion and not the official policy of our Station...

I don't know if this will make any difference for us with D* HD LIL, but I thought it was pretty cool that they allocated more bandwidth for the Olympics. I read that KTRK ABC 13 did the same thing during the Superbowl (I believe they completely turned their subchannels off).

rain does funny things for signal strength.


You're right about that jag.

good for the ota people... wonder if kcen is going to have full bitrate tonight as well (although have they ever done the subchannel?)

Did setting up your local markets make 28.2 appear or did you have to manually add it? I hope it is in the guide now. Makes it a lot easier to check for if it is there and you don't have to scan or check signal strength.

Did setting up your local markets make 28.2 appear or did you have to manually add it? I hope it is in the guide now. Makes it a lot easier to check for if it is there and you don't have to scan or check signal strength.


Yeah I had to set my primary local market to 77840 and my secondary local market to 77345. I had them reversed.

Johnny, are you having trouble with the Houston locals on the H20 tonight? KPRC is breaking up badly, although according to the Houston thread that may be a local issue. However, the others aren't coming in at all, and my signal strength on transponder 23 on the 103 bird is only at 12, whereas transponder 31 is good at 64.

kcen was perfect tonight other than the one break for the ending pavaratti (sp). They switched to SD and didnt come back until the next commercial break.

But over the whole 4 hours I saw one breakup which is pretty good imo.

Im going to capture the very beginning montage to my computer for "permenant storage" as its quality was excellent.

bitrates for kcen for the opening ceremony was just over 16.5 mbit average. Took 6 one min clips throughout the show and all were right at 16.4-16.6. I did notice a small amount of pixelization but only on the fastest motion stuff (probably 10-15 times over the 4 hours it got fast enough, it did it but took alot to make it pixelate)

Johnny, are you having trouble with the Houston locals on the H20 tonight? KPRC is breaking up badly, although according to the Houston thread that may be a local issue. However, the others aren't coming in at all, and my signal strength on transponder 23 on the 103 bird is only at 12, whereas transponder 31 is good at 64.


Sorry labman, I wasn't even home to check it out, so I can't comment. I'll give the Olympics a look see this afternoon and see how things are today.

WHOOOP!!
What a game! :D

yeah it was even if we tried too hard to give it away.

I was actually able to tune in 28.2 for a few minutes tonight! I caught a snippit of the WB's 'What I Like About You' in HD!

On another note, does anyone know what's wrong with KAMU? I'm showing 100% signal strength, but nothing's on.

working fine on cox

working fine on cox


KAMU is working fine or KWKT?

KAMU is fine OTA for me. Looks like there is some SD program on 12-2, as well. BTW, the Houston locals were back up today on the H20.

KAMU is working fine or KWKT?

all local channels have been rock solid tonight like usual (kxxv, kwkt, kbtx, kamu)... sans kcen but thats a not their fault (kcen is actually rock solid too [as the logo doesnt drop out] but the olympics were acting crazy earlier as being reported by pretty much everybody on the HDTV Programming forum.)

just a heads up for the cox humpers here... cox has the new moto 6416 hd-dvr (has a 160 gig hard drive in it vs the 120). will be very nice for the hd recordings.

but i have been told we want to wait a few weeks before going to get them because they are waiting for some software updates to fix some issues with them.

Jag...do you know if they have them in stock already. I'm ready to jump on it now, as my current phase III is far from bug free. It usually requires a daily reboot from studdering HD channels.

he said they have them (but made it sound like they wernt giving them out yet due to the bugs). I asked tom way to email me the second they are avaliable to us (he made it sound like it would be ~2 weeks for the new software/fireware to process)

And that is wierd about yours.... I never have to reboot mine unless I record some stuff via firewire (where it messes up the ff/rw until you reboot). And I just added a second hd-dvr and its been perfect too so far. It does studder from time to time (once a week maybe) but changing the channel up or down and going back fixes it every time. And it never has happened to a recording.

Is there a place here in town that I can pick up a pair of THX Optimizer Glasses or something similar to help me calibrate my display?

You could look for the Avia DVD. It comes with the color filters. Somebody might be able to order it for you if you don't like buying it online.

I've been having some troubles with my Cox HD-DVR also. It basically can't record well in HD when it is set to record. This is strange because live HD is fine and it is recording then also. (Is it writing to the hard disk when it is recording live tv, or maybe just to some short term memory?) As a couple of examples...I paused 24 the other day...when I hit play a few minutes later, it was skipping horribly. Also, I set the... erm... my wife set the box to record Desperate Housewives in HD and we went out. When we came back to watch it, about half of it recorded and then it just completely skipped to the end.

I am curious if this is probably the box, or maybe because I am not in the rebuild area yet (very north Brian). I guess I'll find out in a couple of weeks if I can exchange it for one of the new boxes.

its buffers an hour on each tuner... 24/7 (thats one feature i really dont like with it because imo when the device is off there is no reason to buffer.... all its doing is killing the hd's longevity.)

as for your problem... which model do you have (is it one of the newer phase III boxes)? If you dont want to wait for the newer one you can always go in and exchange it for a new box (its completly free to do that as it will for the upgrade).

On a related note... anybody watch abc-hd lately? these past couple of days I have been getting breakups on abc-hd (invasion last night) and just in general on abc-hd. Just wondering if its the wiring in my house again or is it a problem for everybody. On my recording for invasion last night it would breakup for a split second every 2-3 mins which is far too much.

One of my buddies at work just got cox hooked up at his house yesterday. They brought him an HD DVR. He is our MIS manager, so naturally he checked out the harddrive that was being used, and low and behold, it was a 160GB drive.

Is it possible that they are already allowing the release of the new box?

possibly.... i know tom way said they have them at cox but he told me they wouldnt be giving them out yet (maybe somebody screwed up). I also know I had a friend who got a dvr from cox (back in the phase II -> phase III swapout) and he got a phase III box by just going there and getting the one they gave him (which was a bit odd because it was when they didnt "officially" have them yet)

have him report back to you after a few days and see if hes noticed any "problems"... tom way didnt go into detail about what kind of issues they were having with the new boxes. Also ask him if hes getting "starz" for free too. thats one thing that makes me not want to go get a new box would be losing that channel.

It probably is a phase III box since I just got it hooked up a few days before the super bowl. Another thing that is strange is that when I signed up, I was put on the HBO free for 6 months deal, but I don't get HBO-HD. Shouldn't I be getting that as well?

my friend signed up under that deal... and for whatever reason he wasnt getting hbo hd (something about its not included in that deal) but he was able to bitch at the csr's and they did activate it for him so if you complain enough you will eventually get it.

I get starzhd as well. I would assume that even with a new box we will get it. It seems to effect only rebuilt areas.

so have you been having abc problems lately?

Ive been looking at my abc signal strength and its:

SNR: 33.7 (good)
AGC: 77% (fair)

it almost always has correctable errors (anywhere from 30-250). Im just trying to see if its local to my system or affecting everybody (so i know if i need to schedule a site visit to see whats wrong with my signal). And its wierd because this only started after the weekend (up until this monday or so abc-hd was perfect)

And actually right now the signal better (maybe one breakup every 30 mins)... i noticed it especially last night (for lost and invasion) where it would breakup every 2 mins.

I adjusted my antenna this afternoon and 28.2 is coming in a little stronger. Lots of breaking up still, but we're getting close! By the way, I thought Legally Blonde looked horrible! Maybe the transfer is bad?

FOX44CE --
are we at full power yet? Has the antenna been raised yet?

where has fox44 been lately? i wanted to ask him if it would be possible to lose the blue background on fox-hd (and just have the fox44 part with a transparent background).

so have you been having abc problems lately?

Ive been looking at my abc signal strength and its:

SNR: 33.7 (good)
AGC: 77% (fair)

it almost always has correctable errors (anywhere from 30-250). Im just trying to see if its local to my system or affecting everybody (so i know if i need to schedule a site visit to see whats wrong with my signal). And its wierd because this only started after the weekend (up until this monday or so abc-hd was perfect)

And actually right now the signal better (maybe one breakup every 30 mins)... i noticed it especially last night (for lost and invasion) where it would breakup every 2 mins.
It's been coming in fine for me.

So where did you guys get your AT9 dishes from? What kind of deal did you get?

In my scramble to get a dish the Friday before the Superbowl -
I found one at a place called DSI in Houston (N Fairbanks, just
a mile or so SE of 290 and 8).

I paid $120 total for the AT9 dish and the right multiswitch to go with it.

DKC

P.S. Thanks for all the good info everyone here - I was able to
get the Superbowl in HD (D*) for me and my friends on my new tv.

Does anyone have a recommendation on front speakers?
I blew one of mine a month or so ago, taking a channel out
on both of my amps. The current ones are Dahlquist that
I paid $1k for about 20 years ago. I wanted to wait until
next year to replace them with upgrades, was wondering
if I could find something cheap but acceptable until then.

Welcome to our humble board! :)
Needing some front speakers, huh? Well, I still have some old Sony's, center and L/R, I got at BB a few years ago. :D Depends on what you are willing to spend, of course. The usual recommendations are Polk, Paradigm, Onix Rockets, Bose (j/k, of course!). SVS, the killer sub maker, has just come out with a line of full range speakers as well. The possibilities are endless!
Where, roughly, are you located? Do you live in B/CS and "moved" to Houston for D* locals?

So, who else is staying up for the big TNT-HD switch-on? :p

you know its going to be way past your bedtime....

Yep, it's up. Can't wait to watch some NBA games on TNT in HD. :D

Yeah, I checked before leaving for work. SWEEEEETTT!!

The stretch-o-vision sucks, but the only programming I normally watch on TNT will be in HD. I am curious to see how some of the movies look. Red Heat is on later tonight.

The stretch-o-vision sucks, but the only programming I normally watch on TNT will be in HD. I am curious to see how some of the movies look. Red Heat is on later tonight.

I had TNT-HD with Voom and I remember the movies being shown as follows:

Any film with an OAR of 1.85:1 was 'stretched' and looked distorted.

Any film with an OAR of 2.35:1, 2.40:1, etc. was 'zoomed' to fill the whole screen but was not distorted.

Granted, I have not watched TNT-HD in almost a year, so something may have changed. I personally prefer the 'zoomed' presentations, even if you do lose a little of the picture.

OAR or death! ;)

OAR or death!

I meant I prefer the 'zoomed' presentations on TNT-HD over the 'stretched' presentations. Ultimately I wish all the movies I watch/record on television were OAR. :)

I remember the X-Files looking like crap. I think the only thing I watched on TNT-HD on voOm was the NBA.

where has fox44 been lately? i wanted to ask him if it would be possible to lose the blue background on fox-hd (and just have the fox44 part with a transparent background).

Sorry, the format of the logo and legal ID are determined by our local and corporate promotions departments. I have no input. Just do what I'm told.

I adjusted my antenna this afternoon and 28.2 is coming in a little stronger. Lots of breaking up still, but we're getting close! By the way, I thought Legally Blonde looked horrible! Maybe the transfer is bad?

FOX44CE --
are we at full power yet? Has the antenna been raised yet?

Money approved, Tower contract complete, now we have to wait on an interference study by our consulting engineer.

Sorry, the format of the logo and legal ID are determined by our local and corporate promotions departments. I have no input. Just do what I'm told.

figured as much.... but what about providing "feedback" from people in your area? (surely our opinion has to count for something ;))

also smallville was screwed up last night.... there was no audio for it (not sure if its something that needs to be looked into)

Welcome to our humble board! :)
Needing some front speakers, huh? Well, I still have some old Sony's, center and L/R, I got at BB a few years ago. :D Depends on what you are willing to spend, of course. The usual recommendations are Polk, Paradigm, Onix Rockets, Bose (j/k, of course!). SVS, the killer sub maker, has just come out with a line of full range speakers as well. The possibilities are endless!
Where, roughly, are you located? Do you live in B/CS and "moved" to Houston for D* locals?

Yes, in live in Bryan and did the "move" thing temporarily. As soon as I get
the SquareShooter up for Fox/WB locally, I may move back - the only thing on ABC
worth watching for me is Lost and that is losing momentum.

For speakers, I wanted to find something locally pretty quick that would hold
me for a year or so while I save up for the ones that I want.
(Which might be 2 years from now if I have to replace the amps too.)
The 'endless possibilities' is what is stumping me at the moment.
Probably just wait and go for another pair of Paradigms (I have center and
sides now) whenever I can find somewhere to listen/buy and afford the time
to travel there.

Yes, in live in Bryan and did the "move" thing temporarily. As soon as I get
the SquareShooter up for Fox/WB locally, I may move back - the only thing on ABC
worth watching for me is Lost and that is losing momentum.

For speakers, I wanted to find something locally pretty quick that would hold
me for a year or so while I save up for the ones that I want.
(Which might be 2 years from now if I have to replace the amps too.)
The 'endless possibilities' is what is stumping me at the moment.
Probably just wait and go for another pair of Paradigms (I have center and
sides now) whenever I can find somewhere to listen/buy and afford the time
to travel there.

probably your best bet so it matches the rest of your system...

me personally im saving up for the new yamaha receiver (that supports hdmi switching) and the svs speaker system (heard nothing but raves about them and their subs are the best bang for your buck)

me personally im saving up for the new yamaha receiver (that supports hdmi switching) and the svs speaker system (heard nothing but raves about them and their subs are the best bang for your buck)


I brought home an HTR-5990 a couple of weeks ago and I love it! I upgraded from the HTR-5640, which I had really enjoyed. But I must say that the 5990 blows the 5640 out of the water. I even mounted a 6th speaker for DTS-ES and DD EX encoded material. I have my HR10-250 and my H20 run through the 5990 via HDMI. To top it all off, I upgraded my sub to a new Klipsch Synergy SUB-12. Granted, I upgraded from a 150 watt, 8" Yamaha sub, but the SUB 12 is awesome! It has more than enough power for me, and I love A LOT of great sounding bass. To me, Yamaha is the best in A/V equipment (at least for my price range).

figured as much.... but what about providing "feedback" from people in your area? (surely our opinion has to count for something ;))

also smallville was screwed up last night.... there was no audio for it (not sure if its something that needs to be looked into)

FOX44 Bug blue background:

Havn't received more than a couple of complaints about that and the format is set up to match our Analog station bug. (No complaints about that one at all)

WB Smallville audio:

Same problem occured last night with "What I like About You".

I had my master control upconvert and called WB TOC.

They changed their audio formats without letting us know.

The delays between PCM (Stereo), Dolby E, and AC3 (5.1) have been eliminated and AC3 is enbedded in broadcast format. (No re-encoding is needed now).

I re-locked my delay server decoder on AC3 and tested it through my Tandberg AC3 encoder. Lip synch is good and audio sounds much better even on my stereo monitoring setup. Let me know how it sounds tonight and tomorrow on your home theater.

Money approved, Tower contract complete, now we have to wait on an interference study by our consulting engineer.

Great news! Keep us posted!

WB Smallville audio:

Same problem occured last night with "What I like About You".

I had my master control upconvert and called WB TOC.

They changed their audio formats without letting us know.

The delays between PCM (Stereo), Dolby E, and AC3 (5.1) have been eliminated and AC3 is enbedded in broadcast format. (No re-encoding is needed now).

I re-locked my delay server decoder on AC3 and tested it through my Tandberg AC3 encoder. Lip synch is good and audio sounds much better even on my stereo monitoring setup. Let me know how it sounds tonight and tomorrow on your home theater.

Does this mean we'll get the DD 5.1 soundtrack on WB shows that are recorded using DD 5.1?

Great news! Keep us posted!



Does this mean we'll get the DD 5.1 soundtrack on WB shows that are recorded using DD 5.1?

You should be getting DD 5.1 now an all programming. Syndication and Local Breaks are encoded 5:1 with only two channels of audio. FOX and WB audio is passed through DD and will contain 5 channels on any show that originates that way from the network. Both FOX and WB encode 5:1 with two channel stereo for all shows not recorded 5:1. (Just like we do for Syndication and Local Breaks)

In other words, YES:)

speaking of the wb.... whats the story on "the cw" network that upn and wb are merging into?

i know kbtx the day before the merger was announced got the upn feed in the b/cs area (but in sd only). Have you guys heard if it will be you or kbtx/kwtx that get the agreement to do the cw's network programming? At this point I would prefer if it was you simply because you do HD vs kbtx/kwtx which only do SD. Granted a plus on kbtx/ktwx is no stupid blue bug at the bottom. ;)

also have a question for the OTA guys... did anybody happen to catch T3 last night? I just made some demo recordings off of it and the average bitrate is still down at 15.7 mbit but honestly it looked awesome and no hint of pixelization on kbtx.

I did notice when needed in action sequences the bitrate does spike up to 17.5 mbit and when there is no action (black screens etc) it drops down to the 2mbit range. I know before it was pretty much constant 18.0 mbit. I am beginning to think kbtx when getting that fiberline to cox put some sort of variable bitrate device in there to make the transmission more "effecient". So looking for opinions on cox subs as well as to the quality of T3. (shame you d* guys dont have firewire.... then we could really do a comparison). I wonder if its part of the "digital rebuild" possibly too (improved mpeg2 decoders because I have noticed the actual bitrate on kcen is down some too but havent noticed quality loss at all).

And to be honest I really like VBR (all my mp3's are vbr encoded) which helps on filesize but Im not sure if thats what cox is really doing (tom way isnt too helpful on these kinds of technical things otherwise I would have asked him directly)

I actually recorded T3 last night...I only ended up catching the last ~15mins of it (was elsewhere for most of the movie), but what little I did see, impressed me as far as picture quality. I've got to get around to editing the recording soon (removing commercials/null packets) because it's taking up 16GB on my hard drive right now...

I could analyze the file for bitrates but I'm not sure exactly how to look at how the bitrate changes over the length of the file...

you could do it a couple of ways.... theatertek displays the realtime bitrate (in the status section).

also there is a program called TSreader lite that can show realtime bitrates too (its a free program)

to do my readings i took 4 60sec captures and figure the bitrate by dividing filesize by 7.15 and averaging the 4 readings.

What program are you using to edit out commercials? I never had much luck editing the ts files.

What program are you using to edit out commercials? I never had much luck editing the ts files.

I'm using the trial version of VideoReDo Plus for now...seems to work great. I'd also used HDTVtoMPEG2 in the past, and it works pretty well, but it isn't as accurate and seems to mess with the displayed playing time of the output file.

cool... ill look into that editor.

and one of these days we need to trade movies.... ive got quite a few myself (i would really like to get T3 but already deleted my DVR)

Ive got:
Titanic
Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King
Spider-Man 2
Sin City
National Treasure
Shark Tale
Wing Commander
Harold and Kumar go to White Castle
The Incredables
Band of Brothers (but this is a huge one ~90 gigs)

Im getting ready to put a server in my house with a huge raid array (probably 4x250 or 300 in a raid 5 because ive already filled a 120 and 200 with hd and tv episodes) Plus I want to be ready for media center with vista and cable card.

Sounds nice...I've only got a handful myself (since I don't get the premium channels, only the locals) but the collection is slowly growing :p

I just added a 250GB drive last week (my other 250 and 80 were filling up fast...) and already that's starting to look a bit small. It never ends...;)

yeah when storing hd long term you just never have enough.... hence my massive raid array (actually looking at prices now and it seems the best deal is 320 gig drives so I will have 960 gigs of drive space granted it wont be that much "actual" space but it should hold me over for a while)

and dont forget we have starz ;)

thats the only premium i have now.

i am looking forward to band of brothers on hd-dvd (that will save me 90 gigs of space)... im sure it will cost a ton of $$ though.

I can definitely wait until the HDDVD/Blu-ray thing is sorted out...I'll be buying a PC drive at some point, but I'm not interested in paying $600 (or whatever the intro price will be) for one.

And...when you have only a PC tuner, everything that's encrypted (that you don't get) is a "premium" channel to me :p

true...

and the only real drive i will be looking at is the xbox360 hd-dvd addon.... and Im going to move my media pc into a closet when vista comes out and use the 360 as my main tv/hdtv tuner and recorder, dvd/hd-dvd player, music player)

so when vista rolls around and i get cable card i will only have a xbox360 and receiver on my theater room. (im really hoping they have the ultimate edition be able to manage raid arrays like server2003 can)

That sounds like it'll be a very nice setup. I probably won't bother to do anything more expensive or involved than my current simple computer setup until I move out of the dorms...not much point (or money) for now I think.

I have toyed with the idea of trying to call Cox and see if I can get a "real" cable setup with more HD channels, but I'm not even sure if that's possible here. At the same time, I use my monitor as a display, and I have no idea what outputs their cable box has or if its DVI/HDMI output requires HDCP (which my monitor doesn't have).

i know it has hdmi but i dont know if its hdcp enabled.... my projector is hdcp enables anyways so i wouldnt be able to tell.

also have a question for the OTA guys... did anybody happen to catch T3 last night? I just made some demo recordings off of it and the average bitrate is still down at 15.7 mbit but honestly it looked awesome and no hint of pixelization on kbtx.


I caught a few minutes toward the end. It looked great to me and I was glad to hear it broadcast in DD 5.1.

speaking of the wb.... whats the story on "the cw" network that upn and wb are merging into?

i know kbtx the day before the merger was announced got the upn feed in the b/cs area (but in sd only). Have you guys heard if it will be you or kbtx/kwtx that get the agreement to do the cw's network programming? At this point I would prefer if it was you simply because you do HD vs kbtx/kwtx which only do SD. Granted a plus on kbtx/ktwx is no stupid blue bug at the bottom. ;)

Mmmm, you must not be watching WB on KWKT-HD because the "stupid" blue bug isn't there on either the SD or HD station during WB programming. (FOX turns it off at the end of FOX prime and we don't turn it back on until after WB) :)

As to the "CW" situation:

The latest statement by the CW network is that the affiliation decision will be made on a market by market basis. The network is requiring affiliates to air 100% of their programming "in pattern". Because of FOX we can't do that.

However KWTX-UP is not carried on Time Warner Cable in Waco (58% of the market) and it can't be carried in HD on either KWTX-DT or KBTX-DT.

We will see................................................

Mmmm, you must not be watching WB on KWKT-HD because the "stupid" blue bug isn't there on either the SD or HD station during WB programming. (FOX turns it off at the end of FOX prime and we don't turn it back on until after WB) :)

As to the "CW" situation:

The latest statement by the CW network is that the affiliation decision will be made on a market by market basis. The network is requiring affiliates to air 100% of their programming "in pattern". Because of FOX we can't do that.

However KWTX-UP is not carried on Time Warner Cable in Waco (58% of the market) and it can't be carried in HD on either KWTX-DT or KBTX-DT.

We will see................................................

I figured they were going to require an actual channel..... and that was kind of my question was if the hdtv will matter (since kbtx is in a better position imo in that they subchannel it so they dont have the timeshift problem). Theoretically they could also pipe the cw-hd feed to cox with that fiber line (mike wright said as much in one of the emails i sent him but there were no plans at the time to do it but at that time they hadnt even launched upn). Just wondering if you had any inside info yet (that network isnt that far off from starting).

the only show I watch on the wb is smallville but i would hate to lose smallville hd a few months after we get it. plus a "cw" network could have some decent programming.

And for the record WB programming looks excellent w/o that blue thing in the bottom right corner. ;) (i just wish wb would frame the logo in a 16x9 window vs the 4x3 they do now)

I figured they were going to require an actual channel..... and that was kind of my question was if the hdtv will matter (since kbtx is in a better position imo in that they subchannel it so they dont have the timeshift problem). Theoretically they could also pipe the cw-hd feed to cox with that fiber line (mike wright said as much in one of the emails i sent him but there were no plans at the time to do it but at that time they hadnt even launched upn). Just wondering if you had any inside info yet (that network isnt that far off from starting).

the only show I watch on the wb is smallville but i would hate to lose smallville hd a few months after we get it. plus a "cw" network could have some decent programming.

And for the record WB programming looks excellent w/o that blue thing in the bottom right corner. ;) (i just wish wb would frame the logo in a 16x9 window vs the 4x3 they do now)

Yea, I've had other complaints about the WB logo.
The way they do it now they don't have seperate downstream keyers HD and SD.
The 4:3 analog feed is just a downconverted and chopped version of the HD feed.

Early HDTV adopters screwed by HD-disc rules

http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/early_hdtv_adopters_screwed_by_hddisc_rules.html

glad my projector is hdcp compliant ;) (thats one of the bigger reasons I upgraded my ae100 to the ae700).

but yeah it does suck. i will have to buy a 40ft hdmi cable before i get hd-dvd/blueray.

Well, I guess no HD-DVD/BluRay in the bedroom unless I get a new video card for the 43" plasma. Jag, I'm also looking for a ~40 ft HDMI cable. Any suggestions?

Also, is anybody using both the HDMI and component connections on the HD-TiVo? I know that they both can't be active at the same time, but if the display connected to the HDMI is off, will the component then become active? I'm trying to feed both plasmas. D@mn D* for not giving us HMC! I guess I could try a component switch. Some of those things work both ways right? As a switch or a splitter.

i actually found a few (dont remember where now) but they were sunder 50 bucks. ill have to look again but they looked of good quality.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10231&cs_id=1023102&p_id=2742&seq=1&format=2&style=
theres a 33ft I was looking at.

just wait for media center spank (if they ever release that d* cablecard)... its better that craptivo anyways and you can get 360's at all of your tv's and have a hmc that way. imo the extender concept of media center is even better than what voom was going to do because all you need a each tv is a 360 (or the new vista extenders) but i only use the 360 since its the only hd one avaliable. but since it streams completly from media center there is no need for a box at each tv. Granted vista will need to support 2 cablecard2.0's for a total of 4 tuners. One cablecard imo wont cut it.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...format=2&style=
theres a 33ft I was looking at.


I ordered a shorter version of this HDMI cable from monoprice to use between my H20 and the HTR-5990. It did not work at all. I only paid $8, so I wasn't too upset. I picked up an Acoustic Research HDMI cable from BB and it works great. Just throwing in my two cents worth.

you bought a 5990 w/o telling me? dammit.... i want a "review" of the receiver. this is the one im looking at getting to replace my 5770..... also how much did you pay for it? (i havent seen em less than 650 so far)

you bought a 5990 w/o telling me? dammit.... i want a "review" of the receiver. this is the one im looking at getting to replace my 5770..... also how much did you pay for it? (i havent seen em less than 650 so far)
Damn, jag, where have you been, that's old news!! That was posted way back here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7156346&&#post7156346).
I also like the fact that there may be another real bass freak amongst us!! :cool:

you bought a 5990 w/o telling me? dammit.... i want a "review" of the receiver. this is the one im looking at getting to replace my 5770..... also how much did you pay for it? (i havent seen em less than 650 so far)


Jag --
dude, sorry, I thought you saw my first post. I upgraded from the HTR-5640 and let me tell you man, even though I'm no audio expert, the HTR-5990 blows it out of the water! I'm actually hearing things in movies I never heard before! The YPAO feature is cool. After running the automatic setup, I made only a couple of minor adjustments. Of course, I love how the HDMI is incorporated. I also like the versatility of the zones. You can actually have 3 zones listening to 3 different sources using this one receiver! When my wife and I move to a bigger house I'm going to incorporate that feature. As for price, I have also seen them for around $600 online, but I went ahead and bought it and the Klipsch Synergy SUB-12 at BB so I could get service plans for both. Both were on sale when I bought them and I got no interest financing until 2009 with my BB credit card (total cost was around $1400 with the service plans and tax).

It sounds like KBTX has improved their audio track. The volume level on non DD 5.1 material used to be so soft, but it sounds much louder now. That always bugged me so I'm glad they fixed it.

For those interested in an HDMI switch, check this out:

5x1 Enhanced HDMI Switch w/ Equalizer (http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=101&cp_id=10110&cs_id=1011002&p_id=2777&seq=1&format=2&style=)

And here's a review of the product:

5x1 Enhanced HDMI Switch w/ Equalizer Review (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=640183)

Sounds like a pretty decent price to me :)

This question is for you D* subscribers. I have read posts in other threads hinting toward the ability to save HD material from a DVR to a computer hard drive. I have PM'd several people but have not received a reply. Is it possible to transfer HD material from the HR10-250 to a PC?

You'd need to do some serious hacking for it to work. How? I don't know.

works perfectly fine with the cox dvr ;) as well as directly into a computer although its only local channels that you could do that with on cox but that also applies to ota signals too...

archiving hd is great though... but i already need more hd space and i have 350 gigs of drive space in my computers now.

This question is for you D* subscribers. I have read posts in other threads hinting toward the ability to save HD material from a DVR to a computer hard drive. I have PM'd several people but have not received a reply. Is it possible to transfer HD material from the HR10-250 to a PC?
Did you check with Ursa on the Houston OTA forum? I think he may have done something to that effect, not positive though. Don't quote me on that! ;)

There was a yahoo group at one time with detailed instructions. I don't know how far along they got with the encrypted stuff.

well I got my xbox 360 today.... havent even started playing games yet (mesing with media center) and its awesome. Just like sitting at the real thing (sans some video codecs missing which is the only negative thing I can say about it). Hopefully somebody will figure out how to add missing codecs in but other than thats its great.

Awesome. Where'd you end up finding one?

that game trader place in the mall (next to dillards). I go their last one and had to buy one game and one accessory (which kinda sucked) but I was going to get madden and an extra wireless controller anyways.

I already sent a friend request to you dave (not that we have any of the same games yet). just madden until doa4 and pgr3 get here (have been shipped)

Already accepted. I'll be curious to see how streaming HD from your media center performs. I'd imagine there won't be any issues.

Does anyone know if Cox has started giving out the new HD-DVRs yet?

labman --
have you been getting a poor picture on the MPEG4 version of NBC out of Houston? I think my audio sync issues are finally okay with all the channels, but the last couple of days KPRC has looked horrible. Maybe it's a local issue?

the olympics are over probably so they have the weather subchannel back.

the olympics are over probably so they have the weather subchannel back.


Could be I guess. But I don't remember it being this bad before the Olympics. And it definitely wasn't this bad when I was receiving it OTA. All the other Houston HD locals look fine through D*, so I think it may be a station issue. I'll post in the Houston thread and see if anyone knows what's going on.

Does anyone know if Cox has started giving out the new HD-DVRs yet?
Havent heard anything from Tom Way. I would suspect they already have the new software by now. I do wonder if they ever fixed their supply problems to a point where we can go in and trade them w/o having to get on a waiting list.

But the tom way thing doesnt suprise me.... he seems to travel alot lately (he will be on for a few weeks all the time and then not reply at all for the next two). Probably doing meetings for cebridge takeover.

Hello fellow TWC customers, the following is info gathered from emails to TWC Executive Fred Dressler. These are his quotes.

Future HD channel update

ESPN2-HD - hopeful to have espn2hd in time for baseball.
STARZ-HD - End of the year at the earliest
CINEMAX-HD – is almost done
TMC-HD - is done
Wealth TV-HD - are not in the works
Outdoor Channel 2-HD – are not in the works
MHD (MTV) - will take many months to conclude.
National Geographic-HD - No Word
Food Network-HD - Scripps has not yet made us a proposal.
HGTV-HD - Scripps has not yet made us a proposal.

Thanks for spreading the word, Andy. :confused:

I was just doing some checking, and it now looks like KCEN-DT is broadcasting the NBC weather-sub on 9-2. Wonder if COX will carry it.... What am I thinking, who cares?? :D

damn... although im thinking they were taking the bw away from it for a while now. kcen has been in the 15-16 mbit range for a while. and no cox wont carry it (unless they make some lame special deal which wouldnt suprise me but they dont carry any of the other hd channels subs)

labman --
have you been getting a poor picture on the MPEG4 version of NBC out of Houston? I think my audio sync issues are finally okay with all the channels, but the last couple of days KPRC has looked horrible. Maybe it's a local issue?
Is it still like that for you? I checked this evening and it seems to be OK to me, didn't have any HD material to compare until just now.

I was just doing some checking, and it now looks like KCEN-DT is broadcasting the NBC weather-sub on 9-2. Wonder if COX will carry it.... What am I thinking, who cares?? :D

I noticed it this weekend when selecting my favorite channels on the H20. Did you watch it at all? I didn't even bother to check to see if it had local info. Just changed the channel in disgust.

BTW, Bada Bing this weekend!

I noticed it this weekend when selecting my favorite channels on the H20. Did you watch it at all? I didn't even bother to check to see if it had local info. Just changed the channel in disgust.

Yeah, it looks like it has the local (Waco area) forecasts and current conditions.

Is it still like that for you? I checked this evening and it seems to be OK to me, didn't have any HD material to compare until just now.


Everything is back to normal for me. Picture quality looked much better last night on both SD and HD material. I'm still having audio sync issues on KTRK ABC 13. Other than that, I have been pleased with the H20 and the AT9.

Texas A&M vs. Colorado/Baylor Information (http://www.aggieathletics.com/index2.php?pageID=1532&CAT=BCST)

I guess us 'Houstonians' can watch the Ags play Friday at 2 PM on KNWS Channel 51. Are local cable subscribers out of luck? That makes no sense to me.

There is a rumour on texags (I don't have enough posts yet to give the link) that the game will be on either 22 or 70 on Cox, depending on if you are in the rebuild area. It hasn't shown up on the guide yet though, so I don't know. On a separate note, what is the expected completion date of the rebuild? They are planning on doing all of B/CS, right?

Chip Howard was talking to Tom Way yesterday on 1150 and Tom said they game would be on for Cox subscribers. I didn't hear what channel though.

well we always could get the games.... just had to have full court. (which sucked). Hopefully next year somebody other than kcen will buy the package locally so we can watch all the games. And they always would appear on cox sports channel the day after.

One interesting tidbit is cox sports channel (digital cable only) will be showing a few baseball games live (3 or 4 on the schedule now). Dont know if its part of a ppv package or not but if they are showing them live i doubt it.

And yes the rebuild is going to cover all of cox served area in b/cs... i know atleast parts of bryan have been completed because my friend who showed up at the avs party switched to cox just before the superbowl and about a week after he got the new channels. (he lives over by villa maria and 2818)

Wouldn't the games be on the channel for ESPN2 since that is the channel Cox is taking down to make room for the Big XII tourney.

just wondering but where has it been stated that they are taking down espn2 to show the game? i wouldnt think cox would need to "make room" for any channels with all the bw added for the rebuilt areas. unless this is for unupgraded areas.

Tom Way said it himself yesterday on Chip Howard. He said that was a compromise they had to make. I don't know if it is because of bw or some other reason.

Ahh ok... I was referring to the two channels dave listed on the texags "rumor" post becuase those 2 channels are not espn2. I would think it would have something to do with cox only has an "agreement" to carry 4 or 5 total espn channels and to not violate that agreement they had to take one down to add espn+.

Hopefully they pull it off w/o any problems because this reeks of something that might have "technical problems"

haven't posted on here in a while, but thought i'd throw my humor into things.

Got into the new house in Cypress, get all Houston channels at 94+, except for WB (mid 70s). I pointed the SquareShooter toward BCS and get KBTX in the 70s at night. Sometimes I couldn't get that off of Greens Prairie. :)

LOL! At least you will be able to keep up with the goings on back here in Aggieland. :) Wow, and 2 UPN stations, too! :D
I have a sister who lives down the road from you around Hockley, and they sometimes watch KBTX analog (I'm not sure why, though!).
Good luck and keep in touch.

Well, I've already talked to Sid. Anybody else have any recommendations on security systems?

Well Baylor vs CU is up on cox channel 22... so this bodes well for tomorrow.

Im setting up orb on my computer so I can watch from work tomorrow. :)

I'm just taking the afternoon off. Screw trying to watch it from a computer screen. :p

it actually works really well... just have to hope my cable modem doesnt die tomorrow.

Does anyone have TV Guide On Screen, working, in the Waco area? It came as part of a HD recorder and it hasn't worked since I brought it home a week ago. The PBS station that broadcasts the signal seems to have mixed results receiving on their own receivers.

michaeldowns@charter.net

Does anyone have TV Guide On Screen, working, in the Waco area? It came as part of a HD recorder and it hasn't worked since I brought it home a week ago. The PBS station that broadcasts the signal seems to have mixed results receiving on their own receivers.

michaeldowns@charter.net

there arent very many wacoites in this thread.... its mostly us b/cs people.

btw for the cox subs here.... anybody try that 9.0 mbit new faster internet? just wondering if its actually close to the quoted speeds. My 4.0 is pretty much rock solid at 4.0 but 9.0 is a pretty big jump from that. Shame its so expensive (55 bucks a month vs 40 for the 4.0) or I might be tempted to try it.

well now that we are officially dancing what are the odds we actually get to see aggie basketball in HD? Has CBS announced the sites that will be HD equipped yet? (so we know who to root for)

Now that Cox offers all the networks in HD, if they would add HDNet and HDNet Movies, I would be sold.

Now that Cox offers all the networks in HD, if they would add HDNet and HDNet Movies, I would be sold.
They may be sold before you are! :D

True. Also wish they would add ESPN2 and TNTHD.

you probably will get your wish when cebridge takes over... they already have an hdnet agreement in houston so chances are we will get it too. Hopefully they work out inHD agreements too because I personally prefer the inHD channels to HDnets. Also remains to be seen what other channels we might lose (espn, uni, disc, hbo, sho, starz, etc).

Im relatively certain we wont lose any of the locals and if we do i doubt it will be for long (might be a money issue).... But cebridge takeover is going very slowly so Im betting they keep things as is until they have most of the channel agreements done so there is as little "change" as possible.

It will be a very interesting couple of months as we find out more information on the takeover. It could be much better than cox (alot of the smaller companies in the US have the best HD lineups) or much worse.

Well, no HD for the good guys:

http://cbs.sportsline.com/cbssports/schedules/page/collegebasketball

yep saw that.... the one good thing is atleast the "curse" doesnt come into play.

Sup guys... been a long time.

Thought I'd drop in and say hello. Finally moved over to CS to get on the Cox Rebuild... ahhhhhh it's nice. :)

Take it easy,
Ishman

Wassup Ish! Did you get any new theater goodies with the move?

well kbtx is dropping the ball big time yet again.... since they keep switching feeds they always forget to flip the switch again.

I REALLY wish they would turn on the HD feed 24x7 for the tourny. Even when they are SD (like the game earlier in jacksonville) it looked so much better than the SD crap (when not in HD mode).

I always wondered why they don't just keep it on. SD has always looked way better with the switch on. Is it a $$$ thing?

i dunno but i would contribute to a fund.... ill take the side bars any day over the crappy looking SD.

especially since the ags will be on later.... no reason they couldnt turn on the HD for that. its not going to be hd but would looks much much better.

Somebody should place a call to kbtx master control (or somebody who would have a contact there) and ask if they could "forget" to disable the SD crap feed for us.

Wassup Ish! Did you get any new theater goodies with the move?

Unfortunatly, no I haven't.. I just became a member of the wonderful world of mortgages and property taxes.. so my theater budget sucks right now.

Got a nice new tv stand, and a good case for my HTPC.. I'll take a pic and post soon.

Marc

Update on KYLE-DT status:

As of 12 Noon today (Saturday 03/18) KYLE-DT is broadcasting from the 300 foot level of our transmission tower on FM 2818 West of Bryan. At the time of the move, the antenna was re-oriented for optimum coverage of Bryan/College Station.

The transmitter was shut down at 8 AM while the antenna was moved from 142 feet up to 300 feet.

The transmitter was brought back up to 4 KW ERP at the completion of the antenna work.

We will be performing reception testing around the B/CS area this coming week.

Let me know if the signal is improved at your house. Thanks for the help guys!

Update on KYLE-DT status:

As of 12 Noon today (Saturday 03/18) KYLE-DT is broadcasting from the 300 foot level of our transmission tower on FM 2818 West of Bryan. At the time of the move, the antenna was re-oriented for optimum coverage of Bryan/College Station.

The transmitter was shut down at 8 AM while the antenna was moved from 142 feet up to 300 feet.

The transmitter was brought back up to 4 KW ERP at the completion of the antenna work.

We will be performing reception testing around the B/CS area this coming week.

Let me know if the signal is improved at your house. Thanks for the help guys!

Cool, thanks for the update. All I have is a Silver Sensor indoor antenna, but I'll see if I can pick up KYLE-DT when I get back to College Station tomorrow and report back with my results. :)

I'm researching the PBS time code that supposed to be broadcast with PBS stations in Waco and Killeen. I can go to Dallas or Houston and no problem, but Central Texas, no "apparent" signal. I've talked to Best Buy and Circuit City and they've had products returned because the time will not self set on the tv, vcr, pvr, etc. Does anyone reliably get time updates from KWBU or KNTC? I don't want to approach them with a problem if it's mine, but I've talked with enough people that can't get it to make we wonder.

#%^@ I can't believe the way that game ended!!! :(

Update on KYLE-DT status:

As of 12 Noon today (Saturday 03/18) KYLE-DT is broadcasting from the 300 foot level of our transmission tower on FM 2818 West of Bryan. At the time of the move, the antenna was re-oriented for optimum coverage of Bryan/College Station.

The transmitter was shut down at 8 AM while the antenna was moved from 142 feet up to 300 feet.

The transmitter was brought back up to 4 KW ERP at the completion of the antenna work.

We will be performing reception testing around the B/CS area this coming week.

Let me know if the signal is improved at your house. Thanks for the help guys!
WOW!! It is coming in good for me right now! :) Checked signal strength, and it is showing from 60-65 on the HD-Tivo. Great job FOX44! Thanks.

I checked it earlier and it was in the 40-50 range. Way better than before. Might call for a move back outside (or moving obstructions in the attic).

Great showing for an overmatched team. Sucks it ended with Acie getting shoved to the floor.

#%^@ I can't believe the way that game ended!!! :(

yup.. but i knew we were going to stop getting the breaks, just hoped we would have gotten a shot at dook.


on the cox front... has anybody gone to swap thier dvr for the 160 gig version? i havent heard anything from tom way lately.


Also dave.... oblivion comes out today/tomorrow :) (cant wait to get my hands on that game)

I'm researching the PBS time code that supposed to be broadcast with PBS stations in Waco and Killeen. Does anyone reliably get time updates from KWBU or KNTC?

Mike, I talked to Tony, he said they've had some power problems and it's apparently messed up the timecode generator.

He said he's going to look into it this week and call me when he thinks it's going again.

Also dave.... oblivion comes out today/tomorrow :) (cant wait to get my hands on that game)

Yes it does. :D I haven't gotten a call from Gamestop, so my guess is tomorrow. I just wish it came out last week when I had most of the week off.

Yes it does. :D I haven't gotten a call from Gamestop, so my guess is tomorrow. I just wish it came out last week when I had most of the week off.

you actually preordered it? im going to wait a week or so and get it off fleabay/half.com. The videos look amazing though.

Of course. Saving $10 isn't going kill me, so why wait. :D

:( :confused: still nothing for me here in south CS as far as Fox goes. waaaaaaahhh

:( :confused: still nothing for me here in south CS as far as Fox goes. waaaaaaahhh

Yeah, still nothing here either (on campus). Not too surprised though since I just have the indoor antenna.

Update on KYLE-DT status:

As of 12 Noon today (Saturday 03/18) KYLE-DT is broadcasting from the 300 foot level of our transmission tower on FM 2818 West of Bryan. At the time of the move, the antenna was re-oriented for optimum coverage of Bryan/College Station.

The transmitter was shut down at 8 AM while the antenna was moved from 142 feet up to 300 feet.

The transmitter was brought back up to 4 KW ERP at the completion of the antenna work.

We will be performing reception testing around the B/CS area this coming week.

Let me know if the signal is improved at your house. Thanks for the help guys!

Signal strength has improved for me, but it is still not rock solid all the time. I have my OTA connected to my H20. I have not tried it with my HR10-250. I may try to get another CM 4228 to replace the one that was damaged in that ice storm a couple of months ago. I really believe I would have better luck. Thanks again FOX44CE for your efforts.

Geeesh D* sux! They pushed down some kind of channel update for the Waco-B/CS stations today for the HR10-250's and now I can't tune to KCEN 6-1. I can tune to their HD channel manually but that does nothing for the guide or TiVo capabilities....

Am I correct in understanding that the HR10-250 guide for local HD channels is sent down from D* and that they get their info from Zap2IT?

I know on my DTC-210 it uses PSIP from the local affiliate, but I have NEVER seen my HR10-250 use any PSIP information other than to lock on to the proper video & audio sub-channel. (Otherwise I think by now I would have seen some information show up on some of the manually scanned channels)

on the cox front... has anybody gone to swap thier dvr for the 160 gig version? i havent heard anything from tom way lately.

I didn't know they had a 160 gig version out yet.. but I can tell you that I'm on my 3rd box. These things are becomming more and more problematic.

The signal decoder on my first box went south (was getting less than 12db STN)
The second box had a flaky hard drive that would lock up during the middle of playback
The third one just runs about 135 degrees and really heats up the place.

I'm starting to not like these boxes as much as I used to. The interface it great, no doubt, but these problems are getting annoying.. especially now that it's a 20 minute drive to the Cox office. :confused:

You must have some bad luck... i have 2 of them and not a single problem on either (also never had any problems on the phase II box)

btw dave hows oblivion? i saw you were on it pretty much all last night.

Geeesh D* sux! They pushed down some kind of channel update for the Waco-B/CS stations today for the HR10-250's and now I can't tune to KCEN 6-1. I can tune to their HD channel manually but that does nothing for the guide or TiVo capabilities....

Am I correct in understanding that the HR10-250 guide for local HD channels is sent down from D* and that they get their info from Zap2IT?

I know on my DTC-210 it uses PSIP from the local affiliate, but I have NEVER seen my HR10-250 use any PSIP information other than to lock on to the proper video & audio sub-channel. (Otherwise I think by now I would have seen some information show up on some of the manually scanned channels)

What changes were made? I didn't check last night. Is KCEN completely gone? Did they add that stupid weather subchannel? The D*/tribune/zap2it guide can be very frustrating, especially for TiVo users. I'm still waiting on 28-2, the HD subchannel for Fox, to be added.

6-1 appears to be working on mine, as well as 9-1 and 9-2, although it is breaking up some due to poorer signal during the day. Guide data is there as well. :confused:

I guess I got someone's attention last night because it's working again today. But there was definitely something going on yesterday because there were some HD channel lineup changes that showed up, 6-1 quit working (yet 9-1 and 9-3 worked manually).

My other two HD receivers had absolutely no problems picking up KCEN. Generally when the HR10-250 quits working so does my RCA DTC-210, but the 210 was fine.

I have a quick question.

I only have a 15-1880 from radio shack, but it is actually pretty decent for the size.

I get 3xPBS and CBS+UPN but Fox is exactly the opposite direction of CBS, so what does one do about this? Do youguys just buy a huge Antenna or do you buy two and orient them in different directions or what? Thanks

(BTW I live in emerald forest area)

I have a quick question.

I only have a 15-1880 from radio shack, but it is actually pretty decent for the size.

I get 3xPBS and CBS+UPN but Fox is exactly the opposite direction of CBS, so what does one do about this? Do youguys just buy a huge Antenna or do you buy two and orient them in different directions or what? Thanks

(BTW I live in emerald forest area)
Yes, I believe that antenna is practically a legend for its reception abilities relative to its size, if that's the one I'm thinking of. What direction are you pointed at now, since for you KBTX and KAMU are not exactly the same direction, either? Since you live in Emerald Forest (South side of town), you might get away with pointing towards FOX. Reason being that KBTX is at a strong enough power that most around here can pick them up practically from any direction the antenna is pointed. Still, you may not be able to pick up FOX, since it is on the opposite side of town and much lower power. But hey, it's worth a shot!

To whom it may concern:

KWTX-TV announced today that they have contracted to carry the CW network when it debues in the fall on their secondary digtial channel (10.2). I assume this applies to KBTX also (3.2) but I'm not sure.

Communications Corporation has contracted to pick up MyNetwork (AKA:FOX2) when it debues in fall to replace the WB on it's WB affiliated stations.

This includes KWKT/KYLE which will replace the WB with MyNetwork on the existing two hour delay.

KWKT-HD will be simulcasting MyNetwork in HD as we have been the WB network.

Well so much for smallville in HD after the CW takeover... looks like Im going to have to talk to Tom Way/Mike Wright to see if they can add the HD feed with the fiberline.

Was the A&M-LSU game in HD? The reason I'm asking is because CBS (KBTX) showed the game winning shot :( in HD during the tu-LSU game. I didn't think our game was in HD, but maybe I'm just going senile.

It wasn't in HD, but now that you mention it, that replay was in HD, wasn't it? I still question the senile stuff though.

hmm...has anyone else noticed ABC-HD on Cox not actually being in HD lately? A few times over the past week or so I've been flipping through channels, when there should have been something in HD on ABC, but it wasn't (like the basketball game right now)...also I now see the "ABC 40" logo instead of the channel 25 one from Waco. Is there any reason why they'd now be passing through the local KRHD non-HD feed instead of the KXXV-HD one from Waco..?

the basketball game yesterday didnt have the HD logo.... you sure it was supposed to be in HD? (usually if it doesnt have the logo its no HD). I didnt notice last sunday it was off but thats it (there was something sunday that was HD listed but not shown).

Also D* subs.... got a question. Is there a thread somewhere dealing with the new "lease" pricing of D* equipment? Ive heard some bad things about them pulling the dish "pay a few hundred upfront for the ability to lease". I am looking at getting my dad on a lease program (he has D*) but no way would i advise him to pay them too much "upfront" and still have to pay a lease. But Ive never seen exactly what things cost.

I haven't looked into the lease stuff just yet. No need to until the HD-DVR comes out. That sucks if they're making users pay upfront to lease.

Yes, I believe that antenna is practically a legend for its reception abilities relative to its size, if that's the one I'm thinking of. What direction are you pointed at now, since for you KBTX and KAMU are not exactly the same direction, either? Since you live in Emerald Forest (South side of town), you might get away with pointing towards FOX. Reason being that KBTX is at a strong enough power that most around here can pick them up practically from any direction the antenna is pointed. Still, you may not be able to pick up FOX, since it is on the opposite side of town and much lower power. But hey, it's worth a shot!
I have tried pointing it at fox, but I only get a signal that bounces between 25% and 50% so it is basically not viewable. When I do that my kbtx signal goes to 35-75% which makes it chop. KAMU gives me a perfect signal basically wherever I point the antenna. I should say though my antenna is inside on the ground floor 5 feet over the ground, perhaps if I put it up inside the attic I could get all of these channels at once, I may try that, but I will need to run a coax line down through the wall to get it to work. If I try that I will let youguys know about my sucess.

BTW I appreciate your response.




Well so much for smallville in HD after the CW takeover... looks like Im going to have to talk to Tom Way/Mike Wright to see if they can add the HD feed with the fiberline.

In the article here (http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/24/news/companies/cbs_warner/index.htm) it says that smallville will be on CW.

In the article here (http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/24/news/companies/cbs_warner/index.htm) it says that smallville will be on CW.

Which is exactly why i want cox/kbtx to add it. there is a .01% chance CW will ever be on HD over the air (mike wright has said as much) unless they do a time shifted thing like fox or build a second HD broadcast tower (both of which are very remote but could happen because kbtx will be the cw affil). But cox laid a fiberline to kbtx (since its right across the street) and was told they would have the avaliable bandwith to support multiple HD feeds to cox so the only way to get the new CW network in HD might be cox only.

the basketball game yesterday didnt have the HD logo.... you sure it was supposed to be in HD? (usually if it doesnt have the logo its no HD). I didnt notice last sunday it was off but thats it (there was something sunday that was HD listed but not shown).

ABC is still not showing up in HD for me tonight, even though TitanTV lists all of tonight's primetime shows as being in HD. There's not much I watch on ABC right now, but I still think it's strange that they're not showing the HD signal on cable anymore (at least the last several times I've checked in the past week or so)...

Plus I still see the local "ABC 40" logo instead of the channel 25 (Waco) one...

yes tonight kxxv is showing SD.... and the audio is horrible as well (just turned it on for boston legal) is sounds like there is severe scratching on the right speaker.

We are supposed to be getting the waco feed (or we were) but I will send tom way an email tomorrow and see if i can find out whats going on.

well there are def some interesting developments on abc.... its HD now with an ABC40 logo but the sound is off (so my recording of lost is all messed up). Good thing I will be able to torrent it tomorrow.

But it is very interesting that abc on cox now has an abc40 logo.... it could possibly be something coming for the ota guys but i think its too early to tell.

EDIT: And even MORE interesting, the feed on cox is 17.7 mbit (or has that much bitrate allocated to it so most likely this is the direct feed coming out of NY or whereever since the kxxv feed is nowhere near 17 mbit... it was in the 12-13 mbit range). I hope we get to keep abc at this high bitrate, i thought lost ddi look better tonight (and it looks amazing).

One thing is wierd though the moto boxes are overcompressing it or something because the logo is cutoff on my screen but the 1 min captures I took the logo is right (and not cut off) so cox/abc are messing with some things.

Speaking of ABC being messed up on COX, while I was watching Heist on NBC-HD, it went from HD to SD with 20 minutes left in the show. So the rest of the show was in SD. I don't know if this is automatic or someone at COX or NBC is switching things. This is the first time i've seen this happen with NBC, and I watch alot of NBC-HD. Maybe it is linked with the ABC problems. Dunno :confused:

Speaking of ABC being messed up on COX, while I was watching Heist on NBC-HD, it went from HD to SD with 20 minutes left in the show. So the rest of the show was in SD. I don't know if this is automatic or someone at COX or NBC is switching things. This is the first time i've seen this happen with NBC, and I watch alot of NBC-HD. Maybe it is linked with the ABC problems. Dunno :confused:

Its a nbc national problem... and has been a problem for a long time.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=659293

well there are def some interesting developments on abc.... its HD now with an ABC40 logo but the sound is off (so my recording of lost is all messed up). Good thing I will be able to torrent it tomorrow.

But it is very interesting that abc on cox now has an abc40 logo.... it could possibly be something coming for the ota guys but i think its too early to tell.

EDIT: And even MORE interesting, the feed on cox is 17.7 mbit (or has that much bitrate allocated to it so most likely this is the direct feed coming out of NY or whereever since the kxxv feed is nowhere near 17 mbit... it was in the 12-13 mbit range). I hope we get to keep abc at this high bitrate, i thought lost ddi look better tonight (and it looks amazing).

One thing is wierd though the moto boxes are overcompressing it or something because the logo is cutoff on my screen but the 1 min captures I took the logo is right (and not cut off) so cox/abc are messing with some things.

That is interesting...I'll have to check on it tonight to see how it looks for me. At what point was it HD? I checked at some point early last night, around 7pm (at least I think it was last night) and it still wasn't in HD when it should have been. Maybe it was by the time Lost was on, I'm not sure; didn't check (I actually had a friend ask me if I'd recorded Lost and I told him I didn't bother because of the poor picture/sound quality I'd seen earlier that night).

If it is HD now, especially at a higher bitrate, that's great news. Actually, now that I look at tonight's listings, it looks like I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see anything in HD on ABC...

both lost and evidence were in HD... didnt check before that and the only 2 shows i record each week from abc are lost and invasion.

I just happened to look at the ABC channel really quick (even though there's nothing in HD on tonight), and now I see that HD ABC40 logo outside of the SD 4:3 frame, when before I just saw the logo inside the frame (of the upconverted SD picture). So that looks good for it being in HD again...will have to check again tomorrow night to be sure though. I assume they're still just doing stereo sound instead of 5.1?

Edit: And about the logo, it does seem really close to the edge of the 1280x720 frame, a few pixels away at most. Maybe since I'm watching on a PC monitor instead of a proper "HDTV" device I don't have the same overscan issues that you do? Who knows, just a total guess. Not that I'm complaining at all about that logo being way off in the corner though :)

Yeah if anything its a problem with the moto box overscanning it.... i dont even think lcd can overscan when its at its native resolution (and i have the moto box running at 720p)

The sound will be very interesting because last night for lost it was silent (even though the stereo was lighting up 2.0) if we are indeed getting the national feed into cox (which if the bitrates hold true) its a possibility we could get 5.1 (and would be a reason for 2.0 to be silent last night). Having abc in 5.1 would be great but I still think we wont know until this whole process is over. At this point though its still a pipedream.

A major breakthrough for me tonight; I actually received an almost watchable signal from 28-1 and 28-2 (KYLE)!
My signal meter was locked on at 33%, which on my Zenith 520 is the breaking point between 'bad' and 'normal'.
This is the first time I've ever gotten anything except a 'no signal' message on these.

FYI, www.apple.com has the Sony HDR-FX1 HD camcorder for $1995.95. Great price (or price mistake) for those of us with too much money.

FYI, www.apple.com has the Sony HDR-FX1 HD camcorder for $1995.95. Great price (or price mistake) for those of us with too much money.
Thanks!! I just ordered two!!

I got mine! :D

Thanks!! I just ordered two!!

Just two? I need that many for the bedroom alone.

I guess ABC (KRHD/KXXV and/or Cox) is still messing with stuff...I was looking at the listings yesterday and saw that The Ring was supposed to be on in HD later in the night, so I set up a recording...only to see that once it came on, it was once again not in HD and didn't even seem to have any sound. :confused:

abc has been offline all weekend for me.... just showing black screen.

ABC has been fine for me. Lost looked and sounded great.

you talking kxxv out of waco (or that directv feed)?

I really want to know if kxxv is still showing their feed or if they moved to a non logo one... since tom way is being slow to reply its hard to know if they are truly getting a national feed (since there is an abc40 logo vs the kxxv one on the ota feed they used to have). this also could have something to do with whatever fiberline they had put in.

I was mainly talking about the D* feed since that is where I have all my season passes setup for, it's more reliable. I checked KXXV 25-1 this evening, but there is nothing in HD on tonight at all, so can't help on that front today. I set up to Tivo "Boston Legal" on 25-1 tomorrow night to see if it's HD, all of the shows for tomorrow night are displaying the HD logo. I did see that they are displaying the "News25" bug next to the ABC bug, so it must be the feed from Wacko, not KRHD-40. Sounds like for some reason COX is not showing the HD 25-1 feed.

yeah they used to have the direct kxxv feed but now they seem to have a abc40 feed (and its bitrate is excellent for abc [nearly 18 mbit vs the 13 from kxxv] so its probably a feed direct from ny or whereever). Hopefully they get the sound issues resolved.

I was just perusing the wishlist for the Astro's games, and it appears that UPN on 3-2 may have some usefulness after all! :eek: It appears they will have several upcoming games ( if not blacked-out :rolleyes: ), starting with tomorrow's game. :)

I was just perusing the wishlist for the Astro's games, and it appears that UPN on 3-2 may have some usefulness after all! It appears they will have several upcoming games ( if not blacked-out ), starting with tomorrow's game.


Good news for Astros fans. Does anyone know why the Rangers game was blacked out on ESPN yesterday?

Honestly, if 3-2 starts showing all the the non-FSN Astros games (similar to KNWS in Houston), I might just wet my pants....

Wait....

too late.

Honestly, if 3-2 starts showing all the the non-FSN Astros games (similar to KNWS in Houston), I might just wet my pants....

Wait....

too late.
Better run to the store!! :p

http://www.yourfamilyshealth.com/womens_health/bladder/depends.jpg

If you check here (http://upnbcs.com/), there is a link to the right that says Astros/Rangers. If you click on that it brings up a schedule that looks like the games UPN will broadcast.

http://www.kbtx.com/unclassified/2529431.html

or the direct page...

It's just a damn shame they are going to waste their bandwidth on all those Ranger games.

cox is really doing a kickass job tonight...

astros game on 20 (upn)
and the rangers on 22 (leased access)

would be very sweet if they used 22 if 20 is full (to carry both games)

and abc-hd is back with sound.... and in HD (with abc40 logo). still 2.0 though.

BITRATE READINGS: (3/4/06)

(700)PBS-HD ========= 13.98 (American Masters)
(705)FOX/WB-HD ====== 13.2 (Gilmore Girls)
(710)CBS-HD ========= 15.52 (CSI:Miami)
(720)ABC-HD ========= 17.76 (Boston Legal)
(730)NBC-HD ========= 15.66 (Law & Order)
(732)ESPN-HD ======== 18.74 (Womens NCAA Basketball)
(734)DISC-HD ======== 18.04 (Fantastic Festivals)
(735)UNIV-HD ======== 10.45 (Showdown)
(736)INHD-HD ======== 15.52 (2005 World Series Film)
(738)INHD2-HD ======= 12.55 (The Man who never Was)
(742)Starz-HD ======== 13.11 (Kill Bill vol.2)

Don't feel too bad about the ABC sound being 2.0, KXXV has never had DD5.1. That's another reason I am grateful to have the D* ABC-HD feed. That's weird they are still showing the KRHD-40 logo even though it is an HD feed, because 25-1 still shows the News25 logo on their feed.

well im 99% sure they arent getting the waco feed... and like i said abc is now 17.7 mbit which is a huge upgrade over the waco feed which was ~13mbit.

I caught part of Boston Legal on ABC earlier (just enough to see that it was in HD, I didn't actually watch the show) and I thought the picture quality was probably better than any 720p I've ever seen (or at least that I can recall seeing). The framerate did seem strange (fast?) to me, but that could easily have been because I'd just awoken from a long nap and was disoriented at the time. :p

Hopefully they stick to this high bitrate feed...(and don't keep switching back and forth between HD and SD every few days)

I wish UPN woudn't have shown that Astros game last night... :(

Hi, New to the forum and to HD.

Just bought a Sony KDSR50XBR1 TV and the Sony DHG-HDD500.

Can anyone in BCS tell me if they use TVGOS with OTA or Cox? I was told that Cox does carry the channel with the signal, just curious about OTA mostly.

Thanks!

Just wondering but wth is TVGOS?

As for your OTA vs cable if you dont have directv (and can lie about an address to possibly get houstons locals... it is a bit of a pain to do) cox will be the much easier route.

OTA you will only get PBS, CBS and eventually fox/wb reliably. (unless you have a $200+ antenna setup on a very high pole... and even still it wont be as reliable as directv/cox)

COX has PBS, CBS, FOX/WB, NBC, ABC.

TVGOS is TV Guide On Screen

more info at tvgos com web site...darn 5 post rule!

Basically its a free onscreen guide service that the Sony DVR uses. I just have a thing against paying monthly fees, so I bought a no fee DVR that uses that onscreen guide.

ahh... well unless your tuner is a qam enabled tuner (which i would doubt) you wont be getting any cox feeds on it (unless you were smart enough to get one with cablecard support where you could pay the 2.00 a month or whatever it is for a cablecard).

Otherwise you are stuck with ota only (which means cbs and pbs for now)

Oh yeah, the DHG-HDD500 is cable card equipped. Really nice recorder. 60 hours HD, 400 hours SD.

Cox is supposed to install tomorrow AM. 2 cable cards, one for the TV one for the DVR.

then you will be golden... let us know how it works (with the recording). I will be interested to know.

Apparently tweeter out in CA dumped a bunch on the market for $250 because they were slow moving inventory.

So a bunch of folks snapped them up and put them on ebay. They retail at CC for $1000 but I got mine in an unopened box with the receipt off ebay for $625, then I bought the sony warranty for $69 for 3 additional years.

yipes.... thats alot of $$$ (but thats me). Ill take my $15/month cable dvr until we get vista with cablecard support (which should also be free for guide... it is with mce2005).... but thats me. ;)

I talked to cox cable before making these choices. Their DVR box is $20 or so a month. My service with 2 cable cards (and an additional programming fee for second digital services) is 60.17 + tax. With one dual tuner DVR and the same exact digital package its $79+ tax. Had I only a single cable card it would have been $52 a month + tax.

I would have bought that DVR by the time FIOS arrives and I doubt I will early adobt do I would probably have bought it more than 2 x over before switching.

When vista arrives you will still need a cable card ready type device to capture HD/digital so thats going to be a while and extremely costly. I believe ATI plans to be first to market with their HDTV Cable card Vista device but since its all pushed back to January.....

cox lied to you about the dvr then.... its 9.95/month to rent and then 4.95 for the guide service... unless you were looking at getting 2 boxes.

And yeah I will be on cox until fios comes to town as well.... since they should be offering a cablecard as well (which is why im looking at vista and use a mce box now for my SD programming)

On vista we will see.... Will be interesting to see how much they cost (personally I dont see them being more than 100 bucks per device but we will know more as jan gets closer)/