Radar should be there..25-2 sort of..it has black on it tho..I've reduced it's rate as far down as I can without causing problems with WOLO-TV's feed.. The complexity of the transport prevents killing the sub feeds altogether..

Other ABC stations don't use the DTv to carry their analog feed..

thanks!

Diana will we see a card for an HTPC in the near future?

That's programming deals not technology, so I wouldn't put any big dollars on it.

"
It would be interesting to know how many cablecards they have out in Columbia, though - any idea Diana? I bet it's less than 30.




I can't share specifics, but it is not a signifcant number.

That is slightly problematic... you go there first and inquire whether they have one. If yes, then you have to go home and get your old one and return to the office. _____
Bruce


And hope they haven't given out the One that was there the first time you stopped by.


3250 = active DVI Bruce

Will these limitations continue with the new Cable Card 2 cards? If so I can see some serious arguments being made about TWC support of Cable Cards


If by Cable Card 2 cards, you mean Two-Way Cable Cards, then the answer is no. As long as they are two-way they can pick up SDV, et all.

^^
Thanks

One last question.

Do you have to leave the box on for it to record. On my old box I would always turn it off and it would still record. However, I tried to tape something last night and it did not tape and then this morning I started recording something and turned the box off and it stopped recording.

Sorry, not really following your description, but yes, the DVR records with the power off.

And hope they haven't given out the One that was there the first time you stopped by.

3250 = active DVI Bruce
brain *****. what else can I say. (been long time since I had one of those puppies)
:)

Sorry, not really following your description, but yes, the DVR records with the power off.


My DVR is not recording when I turn it off. I was recording something and turned it off and it stopped recording and I had something set to record during the night time hours while the box was off and that did not record either.

Is there a setting somewhere that may fix this?

Maybe you have a bad tape.

ouch..

My DVR is not recording when I turn it off. I was recording something and turned it off and it stopped recording and I had something set to record during the night time hours while the box was off and that did not record either.

Is there a setting somewhere that may fix this?
Powering down by hitting the button on the front plate should not affect its ability to record. Do a a cold reboot... the easiest way is to unplug the power cord from the back of the box and wait for at least 10 seconds. Then plug it back in and wait for the time to come back on (takes several minutes). It seems the boxes internal memory occasionally gets corrupted. The reboot will clear it and the box will usually reload the correct code. Anytime you have problems with the box not recording correctly do a cold reboot. If that fails to work, then call TWC and report same to a CSR.
_____
Bruce

Should be more better now..there seems to have been a problem with the ABC HD reciever..
Thanks, Bob. The pic and sound were excellent....well except for an occasional interruption in sound and a little digital feedback...but I can definitely live with it for a broadcast that excellent.

The guests for my SB party were oohhhing and aahhhing over my HD and Sony 50" SXRD.

I just finished watching the Super Bowl which I recorded on my HD DVR from WOLO's OTA signal. I was out of town today so I got started watching a couple of hours late when I got back. Overall, it looked great, just the (very) occasional minor glitches that I usually get because of my distance from the transmitter. Thanks, Bob! :)

Tonight I'd had the DVR tuned to ABC-HD since an hour before the Super Bowl. During the second half of the game, I decided to jump back a few minutes to replay a commercial. Much to my surprise, the only thing I was seeing was pre-game video from over two hours earlier! None of the actual game was in the DVR "buffer". (After I changed channels, the DVR buffer started working again.)

And of course, when the recording for Grey's Anatomy started, it started up on the foreground tuner instead of in the background.

What is going on with the 8300 lately?



BTW, the Super Bowl picture looked great!

to whom it may concern:

The Super Bowl in HD looked great, very little pixellation or compression artifacts, and the ones I saw almost certainly came from the Network feed.

-- Cain

Tonight I'd had the DVR tuned to ABC-HD since an hour before the Super Bowl. During the second half of the game, I decided to jump back a few minutes to replay a commercial. Much to my surprise, the only thing I was seeing was pre-game video from over two hours earlier! None of the actual game was in the DVR "buffer". (After I changed channels, the DVR buffer started working again.)

And of course, when the recording for Grey's Anatomy started, it started up on the foreground tuner instead of in the background.

What is going on with the 8300 lately?



BTW, the Super Bowl picture looked great!

I had the same problem. I had to switch the channel a couple of times so that the buffer would start up again. Game looked good last night.

During the Super Bowl, I checked my other recordings and saw the shows (Simpsons, War at Home, Family Guy) hilighted in red like they were supposed to be recorded. Nothing showed up as the night progressed: only the Super Bowl and following shows on 815 were being recorded.

Space became an issue, due to a backlog of stuff to watch, but the night before something odd happened while setting up to record a show at the same time as Saturday Night Live. I was told that I couldn't have TWO shows (not three) recorded at once, and had to cancel one.

So, is there a known bug where one tuner goes away but no error messages directly related to that? I'm going to reset the box when I get home, but maybe it needs more than that...

WOLO did a great job with the superbowl. The HD was a big hit at my get together last night.

Regarding the 8300... I'm also seeing a lot of unstableness. I was watching a show last week and had it recording at the same time so that my wife could watch it later. When she went to finally watch the recording it didn't show up in the recorded list.

This is an interesting copy from a CNET email I got this morning about Cable Cards -- which may be dying a slow death? -- not the email -- the cable cards :p

6. CableCard dies out
Digital Cable Ready
Thanks for nothing
The idea behind CableCard is a powerful one. Instead of having that ungainly HD set-top box sitting below your TV, the whole thing is shrunk to the size of a PC card that can slide right into the back of your set. Alas, the original (that is, current) version of CableCard has at least two fatal flaws: it's a one-way system, which precludes access to the video-on-demand features, beloved by consumers and cable companies alike; and it's limited to a single-tuner design, which makes it all but useless in DVRs. Both of these shortfalls were set to be corrected in the next version of CableCard. But the current rumor mill has cable companies wanting to dump CableCard altogether in favor of a downloadable software-based access system. I'm betting that industry support for CableCard continues to evaporate, with cable companies doing everything in their power to steer consumers to good old-fashion set-top boxes while they haggle over a replacement technology. Yes, the vast majority of new HDTVs we'll see this year will continue to be CableCard compatible (a.k.a. Digital Cable Ready), but entry-level models--such as Panasonic's forthcoming PX60U plasmas--will drop them in the interest of lower prices. Not that many people will care, especially the guys at Best Buy and Circuit City, who currently have to explain the concept so that they can sell overpriced single-tuner DVRs to uninformed customers. My advice: Go minimalist and buy a TV that doesn't have any sort of tuner--or a slot for it--built in. They're called HD monitors, and they're going to be very big this year.

...
* Auto HDMI/DVI - If you are using the HDMI port, you will see this option instead of the Pass Through option. Resolution is automatically formatted to the scan rate supported by the TV.
...
I would be careful with this one since for Samsung DLP TVs it selects the highest supported resolution (1080i), not the native one (720p).

Bob,
Just wanted to add my thanks to your WOLO team for last night's broadcast of the SuperBowl. Appreciate your hard work and tweaking the bandwidth as well.
_____
Bruce

Thanks to all for the comments,and you're most Welcome..All of Diana's spots aired too!

This is an interesting copy from a CNET email I got this morning about Cable Cards -- which may be dying a slow death? -- not the email -- the cable cards :p

6. CableCard dies out
Digital Cable Ready
Thanks for nothing
The idea behind CableCard is a powerful one. Instead of having that ungainly HD set-top box sitting below your TV, the whole thing is shrunk to the size of a PC card that can slide right into the back of your set. Alas, the original (that is, current) version of CableCard has at least two fatal flaws: it's a one-way system, which precludes access to the video-on-demand features, beloved by consumers and cable companies alike; and it's limited to a single-tuner design, which makes it all but useless in DVRs. Both of these shortfalls were set to be corrected in the next version of CableCard. But the current rumor mill has cable companies wanting to dump CableCard altogether in favor of a downloadable software-based access system. I'm betting that industry support for CableCard continues to evaporate, with cable companies doing everything in their power to steer consumers to good old-fashion set-top boxes while they haggle over a replacement technology. Yes, the vast majority of new HDTVs we'll see this year will continue to be CableCard compatible (a.k.a. Digital Cable Ready), but entry-level models--such as Panasonic's forthcoming PX60U plasmas--will drop them in the interest of lower prices. Not that many people will care, especially the guys at Best Buy and Circuit City, who currently have to explain the concept so that they can sell overpriced single-tuner DVRs to uninformed customers. My advice: Go minimalist and buy a TV that doesn't have any sort of tuner--or a slot for it--built in. They're called HD monitors, and they're going to be very big this year.

http://cabledatacomnews.com/jan06/jan06-1.html

Found this article last month for downloadable system. Sounds great, if they can make it work. Not sure what can be done for folks currently stuck with one way cablecard, if anything.

Did I hear right that WOLO would be broadcasting the local news on Sunday thru Friday at 6 and 11 in HD?

I thought I heard that at the tail end of the super bowl during one of the local break-ins.

Nooooooooo... Even if you did hear that. Ain't gonna happen... :eek:

Wolo does local news? :D

Wolo does local news? :D
They have that new "news center" located in some building right in front of the capitol. Reckon they "film" there and zap it electronically to (shhhhhh.....you know where). Then after it is magically deliciousized, it comes back in the finished broadcast stream that zapped to the tower (and cable head-end) and then to all the viewers :)
_____
Bruce

Live from Main & Gervais.. with the help of Diana's bretheren over at Time-Warner Telecom..

Thanks ..All of Diana's spots aired too!


Well that IS the most important thing ;)

Will the TWC HD dvrs be receiving any medicine for their ailments? :confused: :confused:

What is wrong with the sound on 810? No center channel?

They have an issue with switching for Courting Alex. I have call WLTX every time this show has aired to get it switched to 5.1. I think it is some kind of log error/ auto switch problem with this show. They are quick to respond so I ain't hatein the home boy!

Does anybody here watch "The Office?"

I just watched my DVRed copy of last Thursday's episode and something really weird happened about midway through. The picture froze, but the audio kept going. I changed channels, I paused and restarted, I stopped and restarted...nothing helped. Finally, I just figured that there was some glitch with NBC so I continued "watching" (listening actually) and the picture FINALLY came back...when the commercial break came in (figures). The rest of the show was shown with no problems, but the "frozen" section lasted around 3-5 minutes.

I checked the "office" thread here at Avs and no one commented on this phenomenon so I'm figuring it was a local issue. Did anybody else here see this?

I channel-surfed through "The Producers" on AMC (or whatever) last night, and the image was frozen while the soundtrack played on. Didn't see that on any of the other channels, but I only stop on my 63 or so Favorites anyway...

IrmoGamecoq,
Yes the recording of office did the same thing to me. i dont think it happened during the live showing, just the recorded one.

xtreme - Thanks, glad to hear I'm not the only one. Have no idea what happened though.

Seems like the DVR's have been getting extremely buggy lately from what I've been reading. I still have the 8000HD and I have been lucky enough to avoid most of the bugs. But about 2 weeks ago or so I think they did an update because it had rebooted and when I turned it on it went to channel 1. But now when I channel surf using the up/down channel buttons it takes between 5-10 seconds to change the channel and when I go into the guide I have to wait at least 10 seconds before I type in what channel i want to view the guide for or otherwise it drops the guide and changes the actual channel. Its very annoying. And I have been unable to ever get it to record every episode in a season, every time I select that option it only records the first one. Like for example Monk on Fridays at 10pm, the season premiere was jan 10th, so I went in and told it to record that one and selected the option for every episode at that time and then the next week it didnt record it, luckily they play the same episode a few times per weekend but it constantly skips episodes so I have to remember every week go in and set it to record. Seems like they could get these problems fixed once and for all. The DVR functions are nice but half the time they dont work, its almost worth it to just drop that and go buy an HD-Tivo and be done with it, you know its going to work right. TWCSC gets away with buggy equipment because they say you're only leasing it not buying it.

D-Rock - Regarding the "season pass" functionality of the DVR, I have to agree, but it's always been that way for me. It's far better for me to just choose "record all, regardless of time slot or whether it's a new episode" (I know the wording's not right there) and then delete any episodes that are re-runs after they've recorded. Otherwise, I've found that it will often not record new episodes as a result.

Yes, I've noticed some bugginess lately too with my DVR (8000HD) but I don't think I've been getting that slow of a response time from my channel-changing/program-guide-viewing.

A cold boot seems to have gotten both tuners to work again.

Any channel-change issues may end up being related to a recording in-progress causing the buffer changes to be slow, but that's just a guess...

If you are watching a recorded show and you have 2 shows set to record . When the second tuner tunes in the schedhuled program you have set to record, you are then forced out of your recorded playback. This has not been fixed by in the last two weeks TWCSC.

I didn't see this in the posts at all, but has TWC updated the HDCP software yet or are they still running HDCP 1.0? I am wondering if it's worth the hassle of re-wiring the HDMI cable back up from the 8300 through the receiver for HDMI switching.

I would love to be able to use my receiver for what I bought it for....

Also, I have been having some issues with the box recording some scheduled new shows...is it the box or is the show not tagged as "new" in the broadcast?

If you are watching a recorded show and you have 2 shows set to record . When the second tuner tunes in the schedhuled program you have set to record, you are then forced out of your recorded playback. This has not been fixed by in the last two weeks TWCSC.

not happening here. last night i was playing back a movie i had recorded and at 9 pm 2 scheduled programs started recording without disrupting the playback.

re: recording 'new'episodes--no issues here with that either, that's how i have most series set to record. recently however, that old issue with the guide not recognizing new episodes on ABC-HD 815 reared its ugly head again so i have those series set to all episodes in the time slot.

Last night during a recorded playback the channel switched at 9:59 for ER and at 10 for Without a Trace. FWIW: I haven't missed anything on Wolo-DT. (I think :o )

Wow, the pixelation is just dreadful on the WIS HD channel for the Olympic Opening Ceremonies.

The ceremony is awful enough thus far without the terrible picture quality. :(

Yeah Tigers, I agree. I was hoping that maybe WIS would take a tip from WOLO on the superbowl and suck some bandwidth from their sideband digital channels... Come on WIS...I can't watch 2 weeks of pixelation...

Looks just like Athens.

Didn't look that great here either..I'm sure hard to encode material, such as swimming, will
look really bad..

Met expectations...unfortunately
____
Bruce

swimming, will look really bad..Especially on snow! Wrong Olympics Bob :P

Bob thought the polar bear club was going to break through the ice in the hockey arena and swim... :-)

Seriously though, this HD looks worse than anything I've ever seen on WIS. Maybe its a network problem to be fair to WIS. I mean, very little in HD looks better than the Jay Leno Show, but tonight, they can't even get these HD commercials to look good during the olympics.

heck, even the opening credits on SNL pixelate terribly.

on the bright side while the pixelation is as bad as the last summer olympics, at least the audio is in sync now. last olympics was like a badly dubbed foreign film.

Especially on snow! Wrong Olympics Bob :P

Ouch! You can tell I don't follow olympics..Ok..no beach trip for you!! :D

The NBC network HD feed is marginal at best (UHD), and the local passage is dreadful from Wis-DT.

Interactive Update for all TWCSC Digital/HD Customers:

The 2006 Olympics Experience!

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7112244#post7112244

Anybody else getting break ups, pixelation, etc. on WIS-DT? Trying to watch the Olympics in HD ought not be this fruststrating.

NBC network problems because of the snow in NY.


http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=643314

Anybody else getting break ups, pixelation, etc. on WIS-DT? Trying to watch the Olympics in HD ought not be this fruststrating.

I agree.
However, try WOLO-DT where the Green Mile is almost unwatchable.
Maybe the snow/weather is also to blame.

I agree.
However, try WOLO-DT where the Green Mile is almost unwatchable.
Maybe the snow/weather is also to blame.
Tonight was a HD triple header so I surfed between WOLO (The Green Mile), WLTX (Die Another Day ) and WIS (Olympics) . I had absolutely no problem receiving WOLO-DT tonight. Ditto WLTX though their volume levels were significantly higher than the other two (kept me busy changing volume on my a/v receiver).

My Samsung (SIR-T150) however lost sync with WIS-DT every few minutes (complete loss of picture). I had no such reception problem with WOLO or WLTX. Pixelization was about what it was earlier today and yesterday.... darned annoying. The overall PQ was at times marginal and seemed to have little detail. Talking head shots in the studio were the best available and were generally okay. The Luge competition video today, produced in SD, was somewhat better than I expected. Nor did I see any venue lighting problems today; IMO, last nights opening ceremonies suffered tremendously from low light levels.
____
Bruce

I tried to watch the Olympics last night in HD from about 10PM-10:30PM, and it was a nightmare. I used to think pixellation was annoying, but losing allpicture and sound for several seconds every minute or two is unwatchable. I put up with this for almost a half an hour until my wife got completely pissed and we stopped watching.

I'm assuming this is a multicasting problem for WIS ?? Surely the NBC Network feed was not this bad (anyone here have NBC on a dish or some other source than WIS ??)..

Anyhow, if there is anyone from WIS here, can we please turn off all those digital sub-channels, at least for the Olympics ?? I'm gonna assume that more folks want to watch the olympics in HD than the weather channels, or radar ..

-- Cain

PS I now see why ABC, ESPN and FOx went with 720P HD.

Cain, it was bad here on both TWC and OTA, so suspect a network problem..

And yes, seems 720p isn't so bad afterall..

Cain, it was bad here on both TWC and OTA, so suspect a network problem..

So you were getting NBC-HD from some channel OTA other than WIS ???? I was not complaining about TWC, I'm complaining about WIS.

I understand some of the dropouts may have been a network issue, but the bad compression artifacts and pixellation are symptoms of too little bandwidth, IMO.

-- Cain

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=643688

BAHRENDT@wistv.com

They have broadcast a digital simulcast from day one. I was told once on the phone that they broadcast the digital simulcast because "not everyone has a HD set". The weather plus subchannel replaced a static radar channel. I would suspect their HD level is less than 14 mb. Athens this last summer was unwatchable. Some of the programming yesterday afternoon looked ok to be honest. The interactive guide from TWC is 1st class.

Cain,

I just posted on the Boston OTA group. I had problems here with the Olympics last night. Opening Ceremonies were fine but last night was horrible. Signal even dropped from HD to SD at times.

They have broadcast a digital simulcast from day one. I was told once on the phone that they broadcast the digital simulcast because "not everyone has a HD set". The weather plus subchannel replaced a static radar channel. I would suspect their HD level is less than 14 mb. Athens this last summer was unwatchable. Some of the programming yesterday afternoon looked ok to be honest. The interactive guide from TWC is 1st class.
Back in January I exchanged emails with Ken Thayer/WIS engineer who said their two sub channels together consume about 4.5mB/s bandwidth; Weather plus 2.8mB/s; SD simulcast 2.0. After you factor in overhead (PSIP), that leaves about 14mB/s for their HD service. I also fail to understand the reason for a SD multicast. I have asked WIS's management and engineering why and they have not (will not?) answered that question.
____
Bruce

Maybe Bob can lead us into why Wolo does the same thing.

edit: I think I remember him stating their analog is alongside. That does not seem to be a argument for Wis.

WOLO's Analog is carried in the DTv stream,but you never see it as we use 45 mb/s total for transport..and it doesn't affect the HDTV rates. As the SD on 25-2, There are several business reasons why we do this. :cool:

Plus, 720p can support 2 sd's if done properly, if our HD looked as bad as others here say our competition does, then no way would we do 2 SD's. PSIP data takes
about 1 mb..

IMHO, running 1080i at anything less than 16 mb/s is unacceptable, especially without statistical multiplexing. There/s just No way around the math here. 720p at 14 mb is fine except for certain high-motion events. WBTV(CBS) here runs 2 sd's & 1080i..the Charlotte threads make it very clear how viewers here feel about that, as well as how it looks..

So you were getting NBC-HD from some channel OTA other than WIS ???? I was not complaining about TWC, I'm complaining about WIS.
-- Cain

Yes, WCNC via OTA.. They're running 1080i @ 14 mb/s..with their weather channel
at 3 mb/s.. (audio adds about an additional .7 mb/s to the above rates..)

I flipped over and am watching the NASCAR Daytona qualifying on NBC/WIS-HD. At times, the picture looks very grainy. Is that what you call pixelation and is that normal because of the motion or is that what we get when we look at WIS and NBC?

I suppose the race at 4 p.m. today on TNT will help sort some of this out, but I'm learning and was interested in what this is and what is causing it.

Thanks in advance.

... I understand some of the dropouts may have been a network issue, but the bad compression artifacts and pixellation are symptoms of too little bandwidth, IMO.

-- Cain


I have a hunch that many of the Olympics motion artifacts we are seeing on WIS-DT are not due to issues with the station or any cable plant but rather the backhaul feed from Torino to NBC in NY, and maybe a little bit from 50 field to 60 field conversion artifacts. If you read through the general threads in the AVS HDTV Programming area ( http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=34 ) you see many similar complaints, so we are not alone in this.

There is only a finite amount of bandwidth available out of Europe and there are hundreds of broadcasters competing with NBC for that resource. Maybe NBC can't get (at an affordable price) enough bandwidth to bring back a pristine 1080i signal? And what about concatenated MPEG compression? The mezzanine level compression of a 1080i HD signal can occupy 270-360 MBs, and while that degree of compression gives very good pictures, it is not lossless. I suspect NBC is using considerably less than 360 MBs for the backhaul. Now add to that a second round of MPEG compression to the ATSC rates (under 19MBs) and you have a recipe for serious motion artifacts.

Just my educated opinion as I don't know in fact what the technical specs for the NBC distribution of Olympics programming is.

I flipped over and am watching the NASCAR Daytona qualifying on NBC/WIS-HD. At times, the picture looks very grainy. Is that what you call pixelation and is that normal because of the motion or is that what we get when we look at WIS and NBC?

I suppose the race at 4 p.m. today on TNT will help sort some of this out, but I'm learning and was interested in what this is and what is causing it.

Thanks in advance.
I believe "Pixelization" can include artifacts described as either macroblocking or mosquito noise. The former shows itself as literally blocks (small to large in size) and the latter as flickering bits. The grain you are seeing might be the latter. In layman speak (as I understand it), you get pixelization when there are not enough available bits in the datastream to properly form the picture on the screen. Instead you see fuzzy images (poor detail) and/or macroblocking.
_____
Bruce

The same issue I described below is also showing up with the TNT broadcast now. I guess TNT is using NBC's equipment since they are using their announcers, etc. But at least (at least I think) there isn't the issue of what I saw earlier today being a WIS problem. Apparently it's just the speed, movement, motion, etc., and probably not just a local problem. Or maybe it's a feed from NBC/TNT.

Apparently some cameras being used by NBC/TNT aren't high definition but are widescreen versions. Some shots are widescreen but aren't as sharp as high definition.

TNT-HD (17mb) will look a little better than Wis. NBC(Wis 14mb) broadcast by nature is very soft, and Fox's 720p is about the same. Audio on Fox is much better than NBC or TNT.

HDNET broadcast a lower tier Nascar division that looks spectacular in video and audio quality. HDNET sports is the benchmark for all HD sports. INHD can be close when they get a good source to pass along.

TNT here on TWC is @ 14mb..same as DSC-HD..Comparing DSC-HD on my Mits 62" DLP
against the two satellite services, TWC is a distant 3rd..

So sorry TWCNC can't provide you the same quality video as our all SARA TWCSC does for us. :D

Well. I guess you just became Diana's best bud... :D

Well. I guess you just became Diana's best bud... :D
chortle

I've seen both dish and directv on display and quite honestly have not been impressed. People with both services do not seem to be real happy with the video downrezzing that both of them are doing. I can't check bitrates with my stb, but I can check to see that I am getting 1920x1080. ;)

I am not a fan of SARA software that the DVR uses.

Kevin does win the prize today. I already sent his comment about NBC Olympics Now to Corporate and they are all very excited to get unsolicited positive feedback - Kevin is a lot of TWC'ers and Biap'ers best bud today!

TNT-HD (17mb) will look a little better than Wis. NBC(Wis 14mb) broadcast by nature is very soft, and Fox's 720p is about the same. Audio on Fox is much better than NBC or TNT.

HDNET broadcast a lower tier Nascar division that looks spectacular in video and audio quality. HDNET sports is the benchmark for all HD sports. INHD can be close when they get a good source to pass along.
I thought the picture on TNT-HD was a little better than NBC/WIS today, but there was still a little bit of the "graininess". I agree with everything else you say here. I'm really not a huge NASCAR fan but I do like it when FOX does their "Crank-It-Up" on the races....it sounds good on a surround sound system, but I guess we'll have to wait a few months for that.

do not seem to be real happy with the video downrezzing that both of them are doing..

Yes.. amazing that the sat guys can downrez, but cable legally can't..that seems a bit wrong to me.. not that I want TWC downrezzing, the low bit rates are bad enough... :(

For anyone into the skating the picture on UHD is great and the daily 6:00pm show "Olympic Ice" is the best thing about the Olympic telecast so far. Dick Button and Scott Hamilton host and tonight they had Michelle Kwan's tearful explanation of why she had to withdraw. They also showed the American pair doing the first triple something-or-other and the magnificent Chinese performance. Also some explanation of technique using a golf club and tennis racket showing similar athletic moves people can relate to. I have not watched this channel much but now I am glad TWC found room for it.

Does anyone have an answer for, or problem with, WLTX/CBS channel 810 being so much louder than almost every other channel. This afternoon golf, of all things, was louder than the NASCAR race on TNT-HD....imagine that.

Seriously, is this just an issue for me or an issue discussed here before? I bypass my TV for sound and go from stb to receiver and this is the only channel where it's a major issue.

Does anyone have an answer for, or problem with, WLTX/CBS channel 810 being so much louder than almost every other channel. This afternoon golf, of all things, was louder than the NASCAR race on TNT-HD....imagine that.

Seriously, is this just an issue for me or an issue discussed here before? I bypass my TV for sound and go from stb to receiver and this is the only channel where it's a major issue.

Wltx has been louder since they launched their channel. Even more noticeable because of the switching from 2.0 to 5.1. My audio receiver flashes +4 on the display when I switch to this channel. I make a habit of adjusting the volume before I tune or playback anything from CBS.

No is hasn't been discussed much here, or if ever. I do not think it is as noticeable when played back through the television speakers. (I do not have this hooked up).

Well, 810 wasn't louder for "Courting Alex" the other day. Had to scrap watching the one on the DVR when the (I guess) center channel was too low but stuff like the laughtrack and some sound effects were at the right level. Cranked way up, the stuff that was working was too loud to try to listen to the voices.

Perhaps THIS week...

WLTX is louder through my receiver as well, but I just never complained about it. I'm just glad they finally went to Dolby 5.1

Well, 810 wasn't louder for "Courting Alex" the other day. Had to scrap watching the one on the DVR when the (I guess) center channel was too low but stuff like the laughtrack and some sound effects were at the right level. Cranked way up, the stuff that was working was too loud to try to listen to the voices.

Perhaps THIS week...

They(WLTX) forgot to flip the 5.1 switch. When they do this there is no center channel. Happened quite a lot during the NFL games.

Just Call and tell them to send a message to master control to switch to 5.1 audio on the HD channel. They do without to much of a fuss. If you can't hear the center channel just cut on the caption,read and start calling the news room.

Just Call and tell them to send a message to master control to switch to 5.1 audio on the HD channel. They do without to much of a fuss. If you can't hear the center channel just cut on the caption,read and start calling the news room.I'll save this for the few times I watch stuff live. The DVR means I do whatever I want at night then get to the shows I want days later. Captions are something I didn't even think of, though...

I'm new to this board and just am amazed with the info available from everyone. I was wondering if anyone involved with TWCSC can give me an update on CBS (WBTW). I'm about 5 miles to far from the ota reception and its not available in HD on TWCSC. Just wanted to see if anyone has any info...Thanks
Daren

I'm new to this board and just am amazed with the info available from everyone. I was wondering if anyone involved with TWCSC can give me an update on CBS (WBTW). I'm about 5 miles to far from the ota reception and its not available in HD on TWCSC. Just wanted to see if anyone has any info...Thanks
Daren



This is where you find info for your area:


http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=186712&highlight=myrtle+beach

WOLO's Analog is carried in the DTv stream,but you never see it as we use 45 mb/s total for transport..and it doesn't affect the HDTV rates. As the SD on 25-2, There are several business reasons why we do this. :cool:

Plus, 720p can support 2 sd's if done properly, if our HD looked as bad as others here say our competition does, then no way would we do 2 SD's. PSIP data takes
about 1 mb..

IMHO, running 1080i at anything less than 16 mb/s is unacceptable, especially without statistical multiplexing. There/s just No way around the math here. 720p at 14 mb is fine except for certain high-motion events. WBTV(CBS) here runs 2 sd's & 1080i..the Charlotte threads make it very clear how viewers here feel about that, as well as how it looks..

FWIW, to me WOLO and WACH have the nicest all-around picture. WACH could improve their local upconverted programming, it tends to always have a muddy look. Network programming looks great.

Wouldn't by chance have a native 720p monitor?

Kick to live recording from recorded playback has still not been fixed by TWC. (3Weeks)

Wouldn't by chance have a native 720p monitor?

LCD, 1366x768. STB set to Fixed 720p. Discovery HD is also excellent converted to 720p.

Kick to live recording from recorded playback has still not been fixed by TWC. (3Weeks)

Lately I just have to look at my 8300 the worng way and it reboots. It's getting very "annoying".

Greetings,

I'm a member over in the TivoCommunity, but haven't posted on the AVS side of the house.

I'm a DirecTv w/ Tivo user who wants HD. I've decided to give TW a shot, and use the TW HD DVR until the Series 3 HD Tivos come out (if ever!). The installer is coming Friday afternoon.

Diana, is there any hope that TW will support the multistream CC's? I'm under the (perhaps wrong) impression that that is two way commo with the multistream cards, which improves the user experience. Is that a standard that has been developed yet?

Forgive my ignorance, and thanks for any light you can shed.

David

Yes, TWC will support the Two-Way Cable Cards when they are developed. Last date I heard is the first models 'should' be available this summer. I don't know how solid this timeline is.

Well after a week of winter olympics I would have to say that universal hd has a MUCH better picture then the NBC channel. ;)

Well after a week of winter olympics I would have to say that universal hd has a MUCH better picture then the NBC channel. ;)

well you can say that again....oh wait, you already did...

tough crowd here!

nothing against local nbc, just going by what i see. any way anyone else notice the 2 new channels? i'm not a fan of the 4 digit number, now i have to push 0 three times just to get to channel 3. i would think TWC would be able to fit them in some where below 999.

Yes I saw them and I don't like the 4 digit numbers either, just got comfortable with punching in 3 digits.

i have to push 0 three times
Sometimes you wonder if life is worth living.

nothing against local nbc, just going by what i see. any way anyone else notice the 2 new channels? i'm not a fan of the 4 digit number, now i have to push 0 three times just to get to channel 3. i would think TWC would be able to fit them in some where below 999.

you don't have to hit the leading 0s, just hit 3 and wait, or 3 and select if you're more impatient. i've never entered any leading 0s when changing channels.

I don't see any new HD channels on my TWC guide. :rolleyes:


There doesn't seem to any 4 digit channels here in Lexington.

I don't see any new HD channels on my TWC guide. :rolleyes:


There doesn't seem to any 4 digit channels here in Lexington.

Got them on mine (White Knoll/Red Bank). Global cfg was updated a little before noon today. My 8300 has rebooted a few times today, so that may be why. Try keying 1100 or 1104 and see what you get.

1100 and 1104 are there but are not HD. They are infomercials and movie trailers on mine. Am I missing something?

The 2 new channels are not HD, they are Advertising Free on Demand, ultimately there will be 14 of them from 1100 to 1114. This is a corporate thing down to the channel numbers, we didn't want to do 4 digits either, but as mentioned above for a one or two digit channel number just enter the 3 or 33, etc and it will go there, you don't have to preface with zero's.

The 2 new channels are not HD, they are Advertising Free on Demand, ultimately there will be 14 of them from 1100 to 1114. This is a corporate thing down to the channel numbers, we didn't want to do 4 digits either, but as mentioned about for a one or two digit channel number just enter the 3 or 33, etc and it will go there, you don't have to preface with zero's.
Diana,
Are we scheduled to get ESPNHD2 and/or National Geographic HD in Columbia/Lexington anytime soon? If not, I, for one, sure would like to have them.

More OD....ohwell

More OD....ohwell

Don't you mean "FREE" OD? :)

Are they Advertising for "Free" OD, or is it Ad Free OD? :confused:

I was thinkin' of another 4 letter word.

Well after a week of winter olympics I would have to say that universal hd has a MUCH better picture then the NBC channel. ;)

Definitely, not even close. I assume it is the limited bandwidth of WIS-HD....

Diana,
Are we scheduled to get ESPNHD2 and/or National Geographic HD in Columbia/Lexington anytime soon? If not, I, for one, sure would like to have them.


Lex - one thing the long standing members of this forum can attest to is I don't make promises that are out of my control.

Both services you mention are still being negotiated by the Corporate programming group. Due to the nature of the negotiations, I have no idea when the deal will be completed (read - they don't tell us anything about deal points or if the deal is close to completion). When the deal is completed they send us an email and tell us and we work very hard to be the first TWC Division to add the product. The last two additions, ESPNHD and Universal HD - TWCSC was the first - ESPNHD was added within 2 hours of getting the email on a Friday afternoon. Universal HD took a smidge longer but that was because we had to do a 30 day notification to Cable Card subs because they lost channels in order for the bandwidth to be devoted via SDV to HD channel additions. That shouldn't be the case going forward, so we intend to work hard to keep our record of first launches intact.

And customer desire for the product is not anything we ever question.

pressing the zeros isnt the bad thing. the bad thing is, my macros enabled universal remote has to be reprogrammed now.

Due to the nature of the negotiations, I have no idea when the deal will be completed (read - they don't tell us anything about deal points or if the deal is close to completion).Are there any channels that are past the contract stuff and just waiting on available bandwidth?

Could you list the Top 10 Requested Channels, so I can see where CinemaxHD stands?...

Are there any channels that are past the contract stuff and just waiting on available bandwidth?



Nope bandwidth is not the issue now, its all contracts.

I don't have a list of the top 10 in order because our intent is to add them when the deal happens, so that could be #10, then #2, then #6, etc.

Lex - one thing the long standing members of this forum can attest to is I don't make promises that are out of my control.

Both services you mention are still being negotiated by the Corporate programming group. Due to the nature of the negotiations, I have no idea when the deal will be completed (read - they don't tell us anything about deal points or if the deal is close to completion). When the deal is completed they send us an email and tell us and we work very hard to be the first TWC Division to add the product. The last two additions, ESPNHD and Universal HD - TWCSC was the first - ESPNHD was added within 2 hours of getting the email on a Friday afternoon. Universal HD took a smidge longer but that was because we had to do a 30 day notification to Cable Card subs because they lost channels in order for the bandwidth to be devoted via SDV to HD channel additions. That shouldn't be the case going forward, so we intend to work hard to keep our record of first launches intact.

And customer desire for the product is not anything we ever question.
Being in the customer service business myself, I can understand your position about making promises. My motto is "Under promise and over deliver."

I guess sometimes I just fall victim to the advertising hype (on demand or not) to "Contact your local cable operator to request that XYZ be added to your channel lineup."

Thanks.

pressing the zeros isnt the bad thing. the bad thing is, my macros enabled universal remote has to be reprogrammed now.

why? mine doesn't; in fact, i didn't even know my 8300HD had changed to 4 digit channels until i read it here.

re: the olympics--i think the HD picture on WIS looks great, just as long as the camera is stationary and nobody in the picture is moving. ;)

Our little friend the channel jump is back again, but this time it is even worse.

It use to be that if you were watching a recorded program you would get dumped to a new recording just starting if you had two new programs being recorded at the same time. Now you just need any single recording to fire up and you will be dumped, regardless if you are watching a recording or live TV. Very annoying.

Don't the software people ever test their product before they release it?

It seems to me lately they use the "throw it at the wall and see if it sticks" approach to software development...

scruffy7,
i have my remote hot key programmed to press 0 then 0 the 3 or 8 then 0 then 5. i will have to go back and add a enter after all the commands now.

More OD....ohwell

Yeah its a good thing they went to SDV.... so they can add more B.S. OD channels full of advertising. We all want more HD channels, its been over a year since ESPN2-HD started broadcasting and it'll be a year in march for ESPN-U and we still dont have them. And the NFL Network is going to start broadcasting NFL games on Thursday nights this upcoming season and we dont and probably wont have that channel either, its just ridiculous that TWC is always the last to add new channels.

The 2 new channels are not HD, they are Advertising Free on Demand, ultimately there will be 14 of them from 1100 to 1114. This is a corporate thing down to the channel numbers, we didn't want to do 4 digits either, but as mentioned above for a one or two digit channel number just enter the 3 or 33, etc and it will go there, you don't have to preface with zero's.

If they were smart, they would automatically go to the channel after you enter the third digit as long as the first two entered weren't 11. That would have made it as painless as possible for 99% of the channels.

Maybe they should change the name of this to WHINE and MOAN Forum. It's just TV!

:rolleyes: Only the 2nd post and already trolling... :rolleyes:

It doesn't look like it's mentioned, but the center channel of the Saturday HD broadcast of USC/UK on CBS went out for most/all of the second half.

If it wasn't a premium commentator team (Dick Enberg and Clark Kellogg), I wouldn't have minded as much. Was that a local thing though?

It doesn't look like it's mentioned, but the center channel of the Saturday HD broadcast of USC/UK on CBS went out for most/all of the second half.

If it wasn't a premium commentator team (Dick Enberg and Clark Kellogg), I wouldn't have minded as much. Was that a local thing though?


Absolutely a local problem by Wltx-DT :(

Maybe they should change the name of this to WHINE and MOAN Forum. It's just TV!


Are you related to Gary ? :p

Now Kevin, you actually came to mind here.. :D

He is my apprentice.

:rolleyes: Only the 2nd post and already trolling... :rolleyes:

Been lurking a while. Often too busy to post, calling engineers about color bars on their HD channel.

Been lurking a while. Often too busy to post, calling engineers about color bars on their HD channel.

"It's Just Tv".. :D

Of course, I'd take that over certain programming.. :p

Maybe they should change the name of this to WHINE and MOAN Forum. It's just TV!

Its just TV...but it's my money and I AM the customer and the customer is always right.......make sense?

The customer is always right? What planet are you from...? I'm rarely right according to my customer service up here at Toledo's Buckeye Cablesystem...I really miss my TWC and Diana.

We miss you too Mark - hopefully it will get better soon.

The customer is always right? What planet are you from...? I'm rarely right according to my customer service up here at Toledo's Buckeye Cablesystem...I really miss my TWC and Diana.
Yes...the customer is always right. But never said that anybody/any company necessarily subscribes to that.

The customer is always right? What planet are you from...? I'm rarely right according to my customer service up here at Toledo's Buckeye Cablesystem...I really miss my TWC and Diana.

Having a choice of Cinemax-HD ,Starz HD, or the NFL Network-HD would make for a little more patience for me. ;)

Its just TV...but it's my money and I AM the customer and the customer is always right.......make sense?

Sure, that makes sense. :rolleyes: Not questioning whose money it is, we all have to spend it. Not questioning who is right or wrong. My point is this whole HD, digital thing is called a transition for now. This implies an evolution, or movement toward something. I get the feeling several folks here think we should have perfection now, and failing that, they must point out each and every little glitch, and often in a not so nice way. :mad:

There are several dedicated folks from various industries who, of their own volition, chose to take part in the discussions here. Often the discussion is, for lack of a better word, whining. Commercials switching screen size, switchers that did not switch for part of a program, basketball games not in HD, and the often unmerciful bashing of stations, or cable companies that have yet to achieve the level of excellence some think, demand, they should.

I expect some stations have their hands full trying to keep 2 feeds going, as well as a steep learning curve for the new technology. Also the new equipment required for this transition has probably put a strain on some station's pockets. The folks who approve the decisions on how and when to spend money are likely not sitting at that station, or reading AVS Forum.

New technologies, and upgrades often have bugs. I tend to give folks the benefit of the doubt about how they are working through the problems. Pointing out shortcomings is fine, but some of the comments here are about some pretty trivial complaints, and often very nasty.

The same is true of some, and their "requests" that certain HD channels be made available NOW. Not sure how it works in their business, but most folks reading this don't get to make the big decisions. Diana has been made aware of, repeatedly, the desire of some to have new channels added, but some still feel the need to post a rather nasty, or sarcastic rant about the total lack of caring and concern for their needs on the part of Time Warner. Pretty sure if it was in her control, she'd already have these channels up and running. Decisions about which channels to add, HD, or On Demand are not made locally, as has been pointed out.

Ask, complain about the slow response, or what choices were made, but keep in mind that the folks reading this likely did not make that choice, and are here voluntarily trying to provide information and answers, so I think we should cut them a break, and not subject them to some of the comments that are made. Like this 4 digit channel thing, wasn't her decision, not gonna change, deal with it, be grateful you don't have a worse problem.

If the data I have seen is correct, a very large percentage of the population doesn't have the ability to even see HD, so I count myself as one of the fortunate, rather than someone who has to put up with all the imperfections. Those who chose to buy an HD set sooner rather than later, are seeing television evolve, and working through the problems. It is just the way it works now. Technology will overcome most everything given time. Distance, multicasting, bandwidth, even our friends at the FCC. No one from the Network level on down to the Engineer, Technician, or Customer Service person is TRYING to ruin anyone's TV viewing experience.

Just feel the space here could be used for more positive, constructive purposes than some choose. Not personal, just don't like whining. :)

I expect some stations have their hands full trying to keep 2 feeds going, as well as a steep learning curve for the new technology. :)

Absolutely... In our case not just one station, but multiples.. :eek:

Nice post .. :)

Not personal, just don't like whining. :)
Yeah, yeah. The fact remains the most common problem is someone neglecting to flip the switch when HD comes on. And that deserves some whining.

Tonight was a HD triple header so I surfed between WOLO (The Green Mile), WLTX (Die Another Day ) and WIS (Olympics) . I had absolutely no problem receiving WOLO-DT tonight. Ditto WLTX though their volume levels were significantly higher than the other two (kept me busy changing volume on my a/v receiver).

My Samsung (SIR-T150) however lost sync with WIS-DT every few minutes (complete loss of picture). I had no such reception problem with WOLO or WLTX. Pixelization was about what it was earlier today and yesterday.... darned annoying. The overall PQ was at times marginal and seemed to have little detail. Talking head shots in the studio were the best available and were generally okay. The Luge competition video today, produced in SD, was somewhat better than I expected. Nor did I see any venue lighting problems today; IMO, last nights opening ceremonies suffered tremendously from low light levels.
____
Bruce
Just going through some older posts when I noticed this complaint.....
Our modulation level is set to be the same as our analog channel. I don't know how everyone else does it. If you change between 19 and 19-1 you will NOT hear a volume change. This makes surfing from SD to HD and back seamless for WLTX-HD viewers. I personally hate the fact that I have to turn up the volume if I switch to watch HD and then go to a show that is not offered in HD on another channel and then have to turn the volume down again.

Our modulation level is set to be the same as our analog channel. I don't know how everyone else does it. .

I have found that no two receivers will give the same result in that respect.. The guys at Dolby tell me there is no standard for matching analog to digital levels within demods.. :(

I'm not going to take up server space and bandwidth by quoting HDWow but this message is in response to her/his post in response to my post.

Even though you use my quote in your message, I don't think you were necessarily directing your post just at me. If you were, please at least have the decency to note that in an earlier post, I agreed with Diana about making promises and that I have not made any sarcastic or nasty posts toward her. If not, here's my response anyway.

Every business has its challenges. It just so happens cable and television are in an evolving technology business, but they also have little direct competition...almost a monopoly (especially cable). And, yes, its fairly highly regulated, too. My employing company is in an industry that is very mature but wall-to-wall with competition, and we're highly regulated, too. Everyday, we have to meet or beat the competition to succeed and it takes hard work, communication, and feedback (constructive and non-constructive) to make us better. Then on top of that, we have to deal with a regulator that is a part of the federal government. So, it's not like TV stations and cable companies have their own little unique set of challenges to deal with and they deserve a break just because of that. Every business has it's challenges...get on with it and take the criticism/feedback for the way it's intended. It's the customers way of saying something isn't right....rightly or wrongly.

Yes, some of us do complain occasionally about TWCSC. But I don't think much of the flack is directed at Diana. In fact, when I first started reading this thread about a month ago, I was (and still am) thoroughly impressed that she cared enough to visit this forum....Thank you, Diana.

Nothing personal, but I don't think there is whining here. Dictionary.com defines whine/whining as:

"To utter a plaintive, high-pitched, protracted sound, as in pain, fear, supplication, or complaint.
To complain or protest in a childish fashion.
To produce a sustained noise of relatively high pitch: jet engines whining."

Since we can hear nothing on this board it can't be those parts of the definition. Do you really think the feedback on this board can be defined as complaining or protesting in a childish fashion?

I don't think so. But if I did, your posts would be whining, too.

Have a great weekend.

I have found that no two receivers will give the same result in that respect.. The guys at Dolby tell me there is no standard for matching analog to digital levels within demods.. :(
Bob,
We use our Harris Pro demod and our RCA demod. Both show the same output levels if input to a audio meter. We tune to our analog signal and then to our HD signal. Then set the input audio levels to make the corresponding output correct.

When it comes to volume levels, I don't know if WLTX-DT was too high or WOLO/WIS-DT too low... the result was I had to constantly ride the gain control that night. Can't say I have noticed if the problem continues lately or not.

Bruce

The one to reference to is FOX Network (during Network time only!) via WACH.. As that audio has no local intervention involved, and comes direct from the encoders setup by those who know far more than we do out in LA with the aid of the Dolby engineers.
That's the source that I trust most, and even then they have some issues.

Based on that, what do you all hear between all the Columbia stations?

I have matched WCCB's settings and levels to that of FOX Network, and then transferred those settings to WOLO's Dolby gear. Naturally, I as well as Dan, can't do much when-If the incoming levels from network change..

However, with Dolby, it's not just a matter of "setting" the level..it's far more complex. There
is some detailed white papers on what occurs on the Dolby website.

Glad to have this discussion. I have only a digital audio hookup from my 8300 to my Pioneer VSX 1014TX.


PBS- HD (WRLK-DT) -Normal listening is -20. Very little 5.1 to compare. Sound level is good fro the most part. However, content is questionable. :p

NBC-HD WIS-DT Normal listening is -15. ok for the most part. Too much LFE rumble for no reason. Even during the local news. :confused:

CBS-HD Wltx-DT Normal listening -27 Very hot :o , and quite frightening for the NFL games. The Grammy level was -15 which is the only time I seen their audio passage to normal. The seem to have a problem with their 5.1 switching. Especially in regards to live broadcast.

Abc-HD Wolo-DT Normal listening is -15 which I consider to be normal. Very little issues with audio from this channel.

Fox-HD Wach-DT Normal listening is -12 which is a little low. AI is a lot lower than other Fox Programming. Have seen the sub turn off due to no LFE track. Local audio used to be way too low,but that has been corrected.

Sorry if you took my rant personally Lex. It was not intended that way, but when you threw "my money" in there with the "make sense?" comment, it caught my eye, so I used your quote. I will return the favor, and not waste the bandwidth quoting your reply. Thanks for the definition of whining. I used it because I was not sure I could get the word I really wanted to use posted. ;) Again, sorry if you thought it was directed toward you, but I don't think I said that. Maybe a little bit of a guilty conscience connected to your response. :D

I could waste a whole lot of bandwidth debating competition, and our government, but that could go on for years, and cost millions of lives. Such that it is, we don't have to pay anyone to see HD. Can't imagine going back to free TV, so while it does hurt a bit, I write the check for cable, and HSD. Phone not available here yet, speaking of competition.

I am old enough to remember :( my Father on the roof, with my Mother yelling out the window when the picture looked good, only to have it go bad again about the time he climbed down. Also old enough to remember, when we finally got it, 5 channels on cable, and Dad "whining" about having to pay to watch TV, and still using the antenna for Philadelphia stations our "crummy" cable system did not carry. It's still the same today, I just have a better understanding of why it is what it is. Some folks are still yelling out the window, some by choice, many are just, unfortunately, stuck, but it is "free".

The discussion between the Bobs and Dan, and the requests for feedback is a constructive, positive thing. It will should result in a better viewing experience for folks if the quirks with the audio are resolved. Folks comparing their experiences with certain stations at particular times is something else that can improve things. Discussions about specific equipment, antennas, amps, etc. and experiences using them are good. Pointing out flaws with TW equipment that may not have generated enough calls to detect a pattern, or a specific model having problems, especially after an upgrade, is good. Sort of thought that was the general purpose of this place. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough about the difference between those discussions and what I was whining about, but I think it was obvious to most. ;) Just think some could, and should be nicer, and more constructive.

I rely a great deal on feedback from numerous sources during my work day. Regulation, and budget prevent me from doing some things I know would work better. I am not upset when someone points out something I may have missed. I gave up perfection for Lent a few years back, and never picked it back up. I am also very capable of whining about my predicaments, but I also accept the response I sometimes get, "Quit your whining!" :o

Just for the record, it is he. No, I am not related to Gary. He may be loaded, so I am not sure if it would be a good thing, or not. Seems like a decent enough guy, but he can be a stickler for subjects. :D

Thanks for the comments, and have a great weekend yourself. I know I will, I have HD, and they are racin' in California. :)

I am not related to Gary. He may be "loaded"...

And in what context are you making that comment.. relative to Gary that is?? :D :eek:

I can't make sense of that whole little paragraph so I'll take it as a compliment. :confused: Talk about loaded. :eek:

[QUOTE=LexHiDef]Every business has its challenges. It just so happens cable and television are in an evolving technology business, but they also have little direct competition...almost a monopoly (especially cable). . [QUOTE]

Hi guys - always interesting when I haven't had a chance to get here in a couple of days... Don't worry about me, I have thick skin and I know TWC is far from perfect - although it is my goal to get it as close as possible for HD viewers in the area I serve. Plus the learning we get from your comments more than makes up for a few snide comments.

BUT I take serious offense to the quote above. Not sure how you don't see the dish guys as stiff competition, or how having a minimum of 3 providers in the market is almost a monolopy. And by the way, while its not the case in Columbia - in the rest of the state we face hardwire competition from 5 other cable companies.... so SC is a pretty competitive market for video providers.

Oh yeah - and I took offense to the UNC comments last year... but that's about it.

Hello - headed to Greensboro again for another 2 day meeting. Please report any issues to 866-892-7201 in the meantime.

Have a great week.

Not sure how you don't see the dish guys as stiff competition, or how having a minimum of 3 providers in the market is almost a monolopy.The trees in the lot behind my back yard probably make you a monopoly. A dish would have to be placed so it can't be seen from the street, eliminating most of the good angles. Although, since I would be keeping RoadRunner anyway I've had no reason to try a dish yet...

Diana, I am sorry you take serious offense to my quote. I should have been more specific-instead of saying" almost a monopoly", I should have used the proper term--oligopoly. I'm sure you know that is a market dominated by a small number of sellers.

First, let's discuss on a broad scale....let's say on a national level...media companies, in general, since my comments said, "It just so happens cable and television are in an evolving technology business, but they also have little direct competition...almost a monopoly (especially cable)."

Ted Turner, a Time Warner director, said the following in 2004 about big media. His comments can be found at: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0407.turner.html

"First, the "competitive presence of cable" is a mirage. Broadcast networks have for years pointed to their loss of prime-time viewers to cable networks--but they are losing viewers to cable networks that they themselves own. Ninety percent of the top 50 cable TV stations are owned by the same parent companies that own the broadcast networks."

"These big companies are not antagonistic; they do billions of dollars in business with each other. They don't compete; they cooperate to inhibit competition."

Again, I'm sorry you took serious offense to the quote from my post, however, it's really not even my assertion, it was a Time Warner director's. When a Time Warner director says stuff like this, what are we, the consumers, to believe?

Next, to the local level. When you say, "...having a minimum of 3 providers in the market...", what providers are you referring to? TWCSC, 2 dish companies, and OTA? Not trying to be a smart aleck...just trying to figure out what/who they are. Even with 3, 4, or 5 providers in a market, it's still an oligopoly. Some of the information I read says oligopolistic competition can lead to several outcomes. My experience has been, in any business or market, it too often brings apathy.

"...while its not the case in Columbia - in the rest of the state we face hardwire competition from 5 other cable companies..." Are you saying that in some communities in other parts of the state, consumers can choose from at least 2 and possibly up to 6 cable companies? If thats what you're saying, I find it very interesting that many consumers in SC have a choice between at least 2 cable companies, but in the Columbia market, there is only one cable choice. Why is the Columbia market different?

Thanks for reading and replying. I admit this discussion has caused me to do some research on the industry, etc. I was interested to find out there is a bill in the SC State House and/or Senate right now about competition between video providers.

Are people still having problems with the" kick to live recording" from a recording playback?

For about a week now I have been having a few issues.

1) While watching any program, recorded or live, if another program begins to record, the cable box will kick me out of my recorded or live program and into the program that just began recording.

2) If a program begins to record while the DVR is turned off but my TV is turned on it will send a signal to my TV. I am unsure if my description makes sense, but my DVR will be turned off with no power signal on it's display and the TV will be turned on. I will have no picture on screen but the power light is on for the TV. A scheduled recording begins on the DVR and all of a sudden the TV comes to life and the scheduled recording begins playing on the TV. While this is happening the DVR readout still reads like it is powered off.

Does this make sense and does this sound like anything that is happening to any of you?

Are people still having problems with the" kick to live recording" from a recording playback?
Yes

I haven't had any recording issues as of late but then again there hasn't been anything to record :) i read some people were talking about the digital connections so i thought i would share. i'm running hdmi out to the tv and fiber optic to my receiver (pioneer vsx-72txv). if i want to watch true DD i have to go into the cable box menue and select digital audio out. thats all fine and good but i cant get any audio through the tv unless i switch the audio back to hdmi. anyone know a way around this? what about hooking up analog cable from the box to the tv? thanks in advance.

Are people still having problems with the" kick to live recording" from a recording playback?

Yes.

Yes. And it's particularly frustrating when you've paused a live program and are about 10 minutes behind and you get kicked out and loose the last 10 minutes of a program you've been watching!

Yes, some of us do complain occasionally about TWCSC. But I don't think much of the flack is directed at Diana. In fact, when I first started reading this thread about a month ago, I was (and still am) thoroughly impressed that she cared enough to visit this forum....Thank you, Diana.

I criticize TWC a lot, possibly more than anybody, and exactly ZERO of my flack is directed at Diana. She does a great job and has in the past personally helped resolve a few issues for me. What I mainly criticize is their dragging of the feet adding new channels. Seems it takes a major event such as the Daytona 500 or the Superbowl before they'll add a channel in HD. Now that they have gone to SDV according to the TWC hype bandwidth should no longer be an issue and now they're adding OD informercials :rolleyes: Great use of all that extra bandwidth that was freed up. How bout when are we going to get something worth while. National Geo. HD, Starz HD, Cinemax HD (this channel is owned by TW, shouldnt they be able to turn it on now???), ESPN2-HD, NFL Network SD & HD, ESPN-U. Thats just what I can think of off the top of my head.

The trees in the lot behind my back yard probably make you a monopoly. A dish would have to be placed so it can't be seen from the street, eliminating most of the good angles. Although, since I would be keeping RoadRunner anyway I've had no reason to try a dish yet...

Very true. Its either TWC or nothing at all for me. As far as I'm concerned TWCSC is a monopoly, there are ZERO other cable companies to choose from. Thats the definition of monopoly. I understand TWC takes offense when you call them a monopoly, because that word has such negative connotations, but its really the truth, they are a monopoly. Because as much as the dish companies want you to believe that they are a threat to cable they aren't and the cable companies realize this. Dish companies have basically reached their maximum market saturation point, their level of new subs minus cancelled subs has basically come to a break even point. I keep hoping that soon Bellsouth will offer cable tv over the phone lines like Verizon and SBC are starting to do. I've been following this closely and boy the cableco's are all up in arms pissing and moaning to congress and state legislators about this, they realize their monopoly might be coming to an end and finally getting some direct competition. In areas where the phone company offers tv also, the cable rates have declined by about 10% on average.

As much as I despise TWC I'm not going to move just so I can get a dish. But I can promise that will enter into the decision the next time I decide to move, will I have to rely on cable to get my TV. My TW bill is more than my electric bill and I dont get any premium movie channels, just basic digital cable and the 6.95 HD tier with one cable box (a HD-DVR) and RR. Its ridiculous to pay that much every month and not be able to get what you want.

<snip> As much as I despise TWC I'm not going to move just so I can get a dish. But I can promise that will enter into the decision the next time I decide to move, will I have to rely on cable to get my TV. My TW bill is more than my electric bill and I dont get any premium movie channels, just basic digital cable and the 6.95 HD tier with one cable box (a HD-DVR) and RR. Its ridiculous to pay that much every month and not be able to get what you want.

Curious why you (and mikepaul) can't/won't you go with a dbs provider since you are so down on TWCSC? FWIW, we can't get TWC's digital phone service here in my area; our local phone company here (FTC) is reportedly the stumbling block (it appears they don't want competition for land line phone service). Maybe some day....

Bruce

If I had to choose I would rather have the less, but better picture quality HD channels of TWC, than the compressed channels of satellite. Not to mention the HD locals.

No digital phone here because of Alltel. But, they are allowed to package Dish Network.

If I had to choose I would rather have the less, but better picture quality HD channels of TWC, than the compressed channels of satellite. Not to mention the HD locals.

Amen! :D

If you're interested in the digital phone product, you should look into Vonage. I switched away from Alltel some time ago and couldn't be happier; plus, I'm saving about $17 a month with more features that I previously had.

Kevin

Curious why you (and mikepaul) can't/won't you go with a dbs provider since you are so down on TWCSC?
Didn't realize I was DOWN on TWC. I look at my bill, and I'm not unhappy with the individual costs, but when I look at the total I could be happier. Some of it has to do with $6+ for franchise fees which I guess is us paying back TWC for the money they have to pay Columbia to be a, ummm, monopoly.

I actually won a dish setup last year, plus a year's service and the NFL football package, but when they wouldn't agree to install HD equipment I got a check for $800 instead and turned that into an over-the-range microwave. Trying to install that would have proven if the trees were an issue. So I'm back to spending my own money to get 'cheaper' pay-TV than cable, and I'm not sure I can pull that off once I unbundle what I'd use the dish to replace.

If I'm down on anything, it's those commercials which make out like cable is almost perfect compared to satellite, which on a daily basis turns out to be false advertising. G4 was audio-only yesterday, other channels break up badly on rainy days, and groups of channels disappear when something goes wrong at the receiver. Perhaps if I was to get a dish I'd run into more glitches that I do with cable, but if it did turn out to be cheaper and I was getting what I wanted most of the time, it might be worth my while. Too bad I'm too cheap to investigate, and no free dish and service seems forthcoming this year...

It may be the air up here in Toledo or something, but I totally didn't understand the outcome of that last post...

Stop the 1080i Multicast

What and why?

Didn't realize I was DOWN on TWC. I look at my bill, and I'm not unhappy with the individual costs, but when I look at the total I could be happier. Some of it has to do with $6+ for franchise fees which I guess is us paying back TWC for the money they have to pay Columbia to be a, ummm, monopoly.
Sounded to me like you were really down on TWC... sorry. BTW, I doubt your community has given TWCSC an exclusive fanchise (Sumter has not) so doubt they are a true monopoly... just a single source provider for cable. Cable systems rarely compete head on probably in part to high entry/startup infrastruture costs, questionable return on investment and difficulties in securing rights (and reasonable fees) for cable-right-of-ways.

I actually won a dish setup last year, plus a year's service and the NFL football package, but when they wouldn't agree to install HD equipment I got a check for $800 instead and turned that into an over-the-range microwave. Trying to install that would have proven if the trees were an issue. So I'm back to spending my own money to get 'cheaper' pay-TV than cable, and I'm not sure I can pull that off once I unbundle what I'd use the dish to replace.
Cable generally has always been easier to get than DBS and have not required long term contracts. The tradeoff has in turn been higher monthly fees. Cheapest HD is via OTA but then your progamming choices are very limited. And, in case you you want to be able to timeshift/record HD, cable and its (albeit imperfect) DVRs seem to be the best bet for now.

If I'm down on anything, it's those commercials which make out like cable is almost perfect compared to satellite, which on a daily basis turns out to be false advertising.
Marketing fluff that both sides indulge in. Maybe we should call it video spam.

G4 was audio-only yesterday, other channels break up badly on rainy days, and groups of channels disappear when something goes wrong at the receiver.
Does not sound normal at all. Suggest you call TWCSC and have them check it out. Could be a distribution cable in your neighborhood has a problem. Also, try a cold reboot of your converter box/DVR if it starts acting weird. Might be suprised how often that fixes things.

Cable generally has always been easier to get than DBS and have not required long term contracts. The tradeoff has in turn been higher monthly fees. Cheapest HD is via OTA but then your progamming choices are very limited. And, in case you you want to be able to timeshift/record HD, cable and its (albeit imperfect) DVRs seem to be the best bet for now. .

Don't forget about cable's (and satellite's) rate-shaping (bit rate reduction) of the
OTA signals..here,(WCCB) we're being reduced by TWC from 14 mb/s down to 12.. that's 2 mb/s of bandwidth being taken from us that you don't get.
I'll be looking at WOLO there in the next few weeks.. :rolleyes:

Does not sound normal at all. Suggest you call TWCSC and have them check it out. Could be a distribution cable in your neighborhood has a problem. Also, try a cold reboot of your converter box/DVR if it starts acting weird. Might be suprised how often that fixes things.I was home yesterday waiting for a dishwasher to be installed, and several groups of channels were out for a while, including both Showtime HD channels. It's like they think nobody needs to watch them ALL the time, so when they want to fix them they just shut them off.

And I found it odd that when G4 was audio-only, I couldn't get Start Over to work. It claimed there was an error, but G4 was the only one that I tried that was erroring.

Now, I have needed to cold-boot the DVR a few times lately, but that's when I try to change channels, nothing happens so I push the button a bunch of times, and then finally the box responds to all pushes and 12 channels zip by. Can't swear that after a cold-boot any missing channels DIDN'T come back, but there's always a chance they did and I missed it...

Hectic week with the road trip and getting caught back up, so I just got a chance to go through the last few pages.

You guys make my head hurt... its a quarter to 6, I'm just going to go home.

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.

Curious why you (and mikepaul) can't/won't you go with a dbs provider since you are so down on TWCSC? FWIW, we can't get TWC's digital phone service here in my area; our local phone company here (FTC) is reportedly the stumbling block (it appears they don't want competition for land line phone service). Maybe some day....

Bruce

Well I really dont hate TWC. I just find it extremely agonizing that they are usually the last to add new channels. That and their "to hell with what the customer wants" attitude. They know they have us over a barrel so we get what they want us to have when they want us to have it. TWC has its pluses. Like cable and internet coming in on one line, uncompressed HD (hopefully it stays that way), pretty good DVR. They spend almost 2 years negotiating a contract for ESPN-HD, knowing full well that in about 2 more weeks ESPN2-HD would be going on air and in about 2.5 months ESPN-U would be out too and they dont include that too? Are they just plain morons? And this year I guess we'll be missing the Thursday night NFL games too because they dont have NFL channel.

AS I said in my post I cant because of trees. I live in downtown Columbia in Shandon area and my place is surrounded by huge oak trees and with all the leaves the signal cant get through at all other than in the couple of winter months when the trees have no leaves. I do have a directv satellite dish that I first tested when I moved there.

I dont see how FTC can hold up TWC from offering digital phone. TWC owns their own cable lines and should be able to offer any service they want. I'm sure Bellsouth here in Columbia hated TWC offering unlimited phone service in their area but legally there is nothing they could do to stop it.

I actually had the TWC digital phone service for a few months. The quality of service was very good, all of the features worked great. I got it for the first 3 months at half price so it was only like $20/month. But what really soured me on it was when I called to order it, I explicitly asked if TWC would sell my phone # info to telemarketers and they said no way. So I had it installed. They came out one afternoon to install it. The very next day I came home from work and had 8 messages all from telemarketers. And I got a brand spanking new phone number from TWC. It had never been owned by anybody. Everyday I was getting ridiculous numbers of telemarketers calling nonstop all evening long so I finally just cancelled the phone service. TWC sold my info to telemarketers after I made it very clear I didnt want that to happen. Thats why I only use a cell phone, its against the law for them to call a cell phone, every blue moon I get the occassional telemarketer call and all I do is say this # is a mobile phone and they immediately apologize and hang up.

Anyways after looking around I wouldnt use TWC for digital phone service, you can get the exact same thing from packet8 or vonage for half of what TWC charges with cheaper international long distance rates. TWC charges 39.95/month you can get the exact same service for 19.95 from other companies.

Are people still having problems with the" kick to live recording" from a recording playback?

This appears to be fixed.

AS I said in my post I cant because of trees. I live in downtown Columbia in Shandon area and my place is surrounded by huge oak trees and with all the leaves the signal cant get through at all other than in the couple of winter months when the trees have no leaves. I do have a directv satellite dish that I first tested when I moved there.

I dont see how FTC can hold up TWC from offering digital phone. TWC owns their own cable lines and should be able to offer any service they want. I'm sure Bellsouth here in Columbia hated TWC offering unlimited phone service in their area but legally there is nothing they could do to stop it.

I actually had the TWC digital phone service for a few months. The quality of service was very good, all of the features worked great. I got it for the first 3 months at half price so it was only like $20/month. But what really soured me on it was when I called to order it, I explicitly asked if TWC would sell my phone # info to telemarketers and they said no way. So I had it installed. They came out one afternoon to install it. The very next day I came home from work and had 8 messages all from telemarketers. And I got a brand spanking new phone number from TWC. It had never been owned by anybody. Everyday I was getting ridiculous numbers of telemarketers calling nonstop all evening long so I finally just cancelled the phone service. TWC sold my info to telemarketers after I made it very clear I didnt want that to happen. Thats why I only use a cell phone, its against the law for them to call a cell phone, every blue moon I get the occassional telemarketer call and all I do is say this # is a mobile phone and they immediately apologize and hang up.

Anyways after looking around I wouldnt use TWC for digital phone service, you can get the exact same thing from packet8 or vonage for half of what TWC charges with cheaper international long distance rates. TWC charges 39.95/month you can get the exact same service for 19.95 from other companies.
Sorry I missed the detail about "downtown" and "trees".

As to why we don't have digital phone, who knows for sure. I have been told it is a hangup with Farmers Telephone Cooperative (FTC) who serves the majority of Sumter County. The town of Sumter has phone service with Verizon and digital phone service via TWC is available to them. I suspect FTC owns/control many of the poles that TWC uses for distribution and they have not reached an agreement that would allow TWC to use those same cables for services that would then compete with the phone company.

As far as your telemarketer experience ... interesting. I wonder if there are lists out there of the numbers not yet in service that telemarketers have access to (do they issue them still in sequence?). The telmarketers might use demon dialer with those numbers on a daily basis "just in case." As far as switching to any digital service (whether TWC or Vonnage or the like), I am not yet convinced.... to me, land line (switched) telephone service has a record of reliability that the others have not yet met. The price differential though is becoming somewhat compelling for sure.
____
Bruce

The question is:

Are you willing to risk your life if needing 911 service to the cable company, internet, or congested cellular service?

I'm not...

This appears to be fixed.

I came here specifically to post basically the same thing!

Much, much nicer watching a delayed broadcast now...

The question is:

Are you willing to risk your life if needing 911 service to the cable company, internet, or congested cellular service?

I'm not...

As long as you have an exisiting phone line connected to the phone company (disabled/cancelled, or not), 911 service will still work on that line.

As long as you have an exisiting phone line connected to the phone company (disabled/cancelled, or not), 911 service will still work on that line.What kind of install does TWC do that would use my existing phone jacks for their service but leave the old BellSouth line available? Is it a parallel system where 911 finds it's way to where it needs to go?

Once the price drops (hint, hint) so that it's actually cheaper to go digital, I might do it. As has been pointed out, other VoIP services are much cheaper, and I already have virtually unlimited free long distance due to massive Cingular rollover minutes.

Oh, and my HD had no major issues this past weekend...

What kind of install does TWC do that would use my existing phone jacks for their service but leave the old BellSouth line available? Is it a parallel system where 911 finds it's way to where it needs to go?


I'm really not sure to be honest, I just know that we had Bellsouth phone service for a short period of time (needed an actual dial-in for work for a few months), but then cancelled it and went back to cellphone-only again. The phones in the house will still work, but only for 911 emergency service.

Most standard phone wiring and phone jacks have four wires.
This means that most houses are prewired for TWO separate phone circuits.

I use 2-line telephones to select either MaBell (L1) or Lingo VoIP (L2).

If you want to use a single line phone, you can wire the outlet for either L1 or L2
by reversing the locations of the L1/L2 pairs.
I swapped in a two-line outlet in some of my locations: top is L1/L2 and bottom is L2 only

You can Google: "telephone wiring" for more info, incl. fol. websites:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/6808
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/phone_wiring.html
Use CAUTION with INSULATED needle nose pliers: the ring voltage can be quite high...

As long as you have an exisiting phone line connected to the phone company (disabled/cancelled, or not), 911 service will still work on that line.

Not if the cable is out..Not if the internet service is out...not if the cell you are trying to access is at capacity and/or overlaoded.

NO WAY IN HELL WILL I TRUST MY 911 LIEFELINE SERVICE TO THESE. :eek:

I can't remember the last time my wired phone service didn't work..can't say that for the others tho.. :)

Not if the cable is out..Not if the internet service is out...not if the cell you are trying to access is at capacity and/or overlaoded.

NO WAY IN HELL WILL I TRUST MY 911 LIEFELINE SERVICE TO THESE. :eek:

I can't remember the last time my wired phone service didn't work..can't say that for the others tho.. :)

What he was saying is that so long as you're still connected to Bellsouth's wires whether you're a customer or not, you'll still get a dial tone and can still dial 911 (though you can't dial any other numbers).

I cancelled by Bellsouth phone line over a year ago and went strictly cellular but I've kept my phones connected to the jacks just in case I need 911 (God forbid).

What he was saying is that so long as you're still connected to Bellsouth's wires whether you're a customer or not, you'll still get a dial tone and can still dial 911 (though you can't dial any other numbers).

I cancelled by Bellsouth phone line over a year ago and went strictly cellular but I've kept my phones connected to the jacks just in case I need 911 (God forbid).

I understand that. That is false security..how do you know it still works? How do you know that there hasn't been a lightning hit that killed the circuit or the phone?
Do you check it on a daily-weekly-monthly-yearly basis, or are you willing to ASSUME that it will always work when your REALLY need it? Do you really think
BellLouse will fix it promptly (and for free??) if it doesn't work and you don't have service? :confused:

Not if the cable is out..Not if the internet service is out...not if the cell you are trying to access is at capacity and/or overlaoded.

NO WAY IN HELL WILL I TRUST MY 911 LIEFELINE SERVICE TO THESE. :eek:

I can't remember the last time my wired phone service didn't work..can't say that for the others tho.. :)

I work in networking, I love all the latest and greatest PC/A-V toys out there, but I too am leary of parting with POTS. Not knocking VoIP by any means, as it works well in our office. But when it doesn't, it's a royal PITA. Back during Hugo, my family's power was out for nearly a week, but I don't think we ever totally lost phone service during that time. Not bad...

I understand that. That is false security..how do you know it still works? How do you know that there hasn't been a lightning hit that killed the circuit or the phone?
Do you check it on a daily-weekly-monthly-yearly basis, or are you willing to ASSUME that it will always work when your REALLY need it? Do you really think
BellLouse will fix it promptly (and for free??) if it doesn't work and you don't have service? :confused:

How do you know your 911 service works without calling? :rolleyes:

In any event, yes I do check my phone for a dial tone from time to time and it's still there so what else am I supposed to do? Call 911 monthly and say, "Hey just checking. KTHXBY."?

From LonghornXP

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthr...?t=51362&page=4

"I called Fred and this is what I was told should be coming soon.

TMC HD within weeks (deal is done so weeks is the launching of it on the various systems).

Cinemax HD is expected to have a deal in a couple of weeks.

ESPN2 HD will be done before the start of baseball.

MTV HD and NGC HD are being worked on but no ETA yet but we might see them before or around the summer.

Starz HD and Starz On Demand will be at least 4th QT of 2006 wait.

I hope this helps you all out."


--Hopefully Diana can shed some light on this--

Nope. Until we get the official email from Corporate Programming group that deals are done/we can launch, this information while interensting to forum readers, has no bearing for TWCSC actions.

That Cinemax-HD negotations must be quite hard. :confused:

I understand that. That is false security..how do you know it still works? How do you know that there hasn't been a lightning hit that killed the circuit or the phone?
Do you check it on a daily-weekly-monthly-yearly basis, or are you willing to ASSUME that it will always work when your REALLY need it? Do you really think
BellLouse will fix it promptly (and for free??) if it doesn't work and you don't have service? :confused:

Hey, I use my cellphone on a daily (hourly?) basis and I can't recall the last time I couldn't get service in my normal calling area (i.e. home). It's literally been years. So, needless to say, that service has been "checked" regularly. The 911 service from home is backup to that, in the event of overall cellphone outage or whatever. It's a bonus. If by some chance, my cellphone service is out AND my backup 911 service is out, there's always my neighbors on either side of me. So, I have backup to the backup.

Besides, the phones I use display an error message if a dialtone is not received by the phone.

Just curious though, when was the last time you checked your 911 service? Not your regular phone usage, but your specific 911 service? I'd imagine it was around the same time I did mine.

Btw, through Bellsouth, my phone service for the short time we had it was about $35/month...and that was with no long distance "plan", no caller ID, no voice mail, no call-waiting, no nothing. To me, that's utterly ridiculous and a high price for a "backup" service that I now have anyway. For $35/month I could probably employ a dedicated home-security company to monitor the home *and* provide 911 service.

Now, since we've veered waaaaaaay off-topic, we now return to your regularly scheduled programming...

Now, since we've veered waaaaaaay off-topic, we now return to your regularly scheduled programming...

Amen to that..

and obviously you don't have Allsmell service on your cellphone... :p

and obviously you don't have Allsmell service on your cellphone... :p

:D

Verizon actually, which, from anecdotal evidence from friends/acquaintances, I've gathered seems to be the most reliable of the lot...

That Cinemax-HD negotations must be quite hard. :confused:


Actually negotiations with our 'cousins' can be some of the roughest we encounter. You don't want to ask someone in Myrtle Beach where Turner South is on the lineup.

Ok - its that time of year again! The Men's Big Ten Basketball Tournament!

Tomorrow bright and early I leave for Indianapolis to cheer on my beloved Illini to a Big Ten Tournament Championship. I will not have internet access so please call Customer Service if you have any issues 866-892-75201.

I'll be back in the office Tuesday am!

Go Illini!

I am also a strictly cellular customer, no bothersome telemarketers and my cellphone has GPS and supports E911 although Columbia and Richland county do not yet.

As far as digital phone is concerned, TWCSC has to disconnect you from the local phone company's network from the box outside so that all of your phone jacks inside still work. The way it worked when I had it was the cable modem also included the VoIP stuff in it. You just had to run a telephone cable from it to the nearest telephone jack, that then energized all the jacks in your house. The new cable modem also had a battery backup so that you could still have telephone service in the event of a power outage. As was mentioned earlier in here if you wanted to use the "Line 2" wires in your house for VoIP thats possible and still be connected to the local telephone network on the "Line 1" wires for emergency service, its pretty simple to set it up that way.

Did not pass the Fox-HD network feed last night.

Did not pass the Fox-HD network feed last night.

Nope, they didn't. I saw it on American Idol and came here specifically to post that.

Today during the ACC basketball games, there is no signal from ESPNHD (channel 950). None. I think I had read that when the games were on JP/WOLO (?) then they would be blacked out on ESPN. You would think ESPN or TimeWarner Cable would let us watch SOMETHING on 950, even if it was drag racing or BMX...something. Heck, at least on channel 26, ESPN News was on. I just love paying for something I CAN'T use. And the gall....on ESPNHD the game is probably in high def; on channel 815/ABC/JP/WOLO, it's a non-high def picture.

I guess it's just another example of what Ted Turner said (paraphrased)....these media companies don't compete...they collaborate to reduce competition.

No, but you may be the only that cared.

Well...that certainly was meant as a rhetorical question, but I doubt I am the only one who cares. I would guess there are many ACC, and basketball, fans who, like me, wonder why is it so necessary for them to not be allowed to watch the games in hi def on ESPN.

And I know I'm not the only person who doesn't like to pay for stuff they can't use. :mad:

Sorry, but I'm rightfully aggravated.

ACC game is a JP/Raycom exclusive. HD has nothing to do with rights.


http://www.jpsports.com/index.php?s=&url_channel_id=8&url_article_id=168&url_subchannel_id=&change_well_id=2

ACC game is a JP/Raycom exclusive. HD has nothing to do with rights.


http://www.jpsports.com/index.php?s=&url_channel_id=8&url_article_id=168&url_subchannel_id=&change_well_id=2
Kevin, thanks alot for the link.

That's just the corporate BS we all love to see. This is my favorite sentence in the whole thing:

"Likewise, R/JP is contractually obligated to blackout ESPN in all markets where a local TV station is televising a game in order to protect the local stations that have the broadcast rights to these games."

They could save a lot of valuable resources if they would just say, "We have to maintain our local monopoly."

Very repectfully, I disagree with one thing you say. ACC games are not JP/Raycom exclusives. Just last Saturday night the Duke/NC game was carried on about 4 or 5 ESPN "channels". If I understand it right, today the rest of the country (those not in ACC country) is watching the games in high def on ESPN.

Check this site and one of the paragraphs at the top. http://www.hdsportsguide.com/

I should had said tournament games are...

Ironically JP does not have rights to the SEC Championship game, and it will be shown on CBS-HD. Hopefully Wltx will keep a eye on the DD 5.1 switches.

My 8300HD seems to be having problems with some On-Demand stations. I tried to tune to channels 1100 and 1104 yesterday to check out these new stations, but I receive an error message on both telling me to contact my provider. I have a non-HD, non-DVR box (3100 perhaps) downstairs that tunes both of these stations in just fine. I'm wondering if anyone else is experiencing this same thing, or if this has something to do with my connection. This is happening on some other On-Demand channels too, not just these two newer ones. FYI, my signal has always been top notch on the TV with the 8300. Very rarely have I ever had problems with it, and haven't experienced the dropouts and pixellation to the extent that others have mentioned in the past. So, I don't think it's a problem with a poor signal.

Sorry if this has been answered before, but I just got a tv with a on screen tv guide. I have TW HD digital cable(with a set top box of course). I can't get the guide to do a successful setup. I used 29223 at first, it spent days going through my channels and nothing. I tried 29201, but nothing seems to be happening either.
Any help would be appreciated. The TV is using a g-link wand to access the cable box.

I doubt the TV can pick up much to guide you on from the box, unless there's a 'cable mouse' to let the TV change the box's channel. If so, the TV might include a mode to pick up channel data, maybe from a specific OTA channel instead of cable...

It's that time of year again :D Are the folks at WLTX and TWCSC going to be good enough to provide us with all of the NCAA Tourney games for free again?

I must admit this is the one time per year when I am a huge fan of multicasting.

It's that time of year again :D Are the folks at WLTX and TWCSC going to be good enough to provide us with all of the NCAA Tourney games for free again?

I must admit this is the one time per year when I am a huge fan of multicasting.


But, what will do if we have bad weather? :confused:

Funny Kevin

As many of you are aware, for the past couple of years, the CBS affiliate in the Columbia DMA has provided complete coverage of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament (aka March Madness) via their multiplex channels on our Digital Cable platform. Happily we will be doing this again this year. Unhappily (as always), this is only available in the Columbia DMA. Thursdays Schedule is listed below. I will distribute Friday's schedule (as well as that for subsequent days) as soon as I get them from WLTX. Please let me know if you have any additional questions.


WLTX Columbia CBS - March Madness Schedule



Thursday, March 16th:



Basic Cable Channel 9

12:40 p - Boston College v Pacific

2:40 p - Tennessee v Winthrop

7:10 p - LSU v Iona

9:30 p - Duke v Southern



HD Channel 810

12:20 p - Wichita State v Seton Hall

2:40 p - Marquette v Alabama

4:55 p - UCLA v Belmont

7:25 p - Illinois v Air Force

9:45 p - Washington v Utah State



Digital Cable Channel 811

12:25 p - Oklahoma v Wisconsin-Milwaukee

2:45 p - Florida v South Alabama

4:55 p - UCLA v Belmont

7:10 p - George Washington v UNC Wilmington

9:30 p - Syracuse v Texas A&M



Digital Cable Channel 812

12:20 p - Wichita State v Seton Hall

3:00 p - Nevada v Montana

7:20 p - Gonzaga v Xavier

9:40 p - Indiana v San Diego State

It's that time of year again :D Are the folks at WLTX and TWCSC going to be good enough to provide us with all of the NCAA Tourney games for free again?

I must admit this is the one time per year when I am a huge fan of multicasting.

WLTX is pleased to bring you all of the action from the NCAA basketball tournament again this year. The HD games are available with 5.1 audio this year as well. I hope all of you enjoy the games.

WLTX is pleased to bring you all of the action from the NCAA basketball tournament again this year. The HD games are available with 5.1 audio this year as well. I hope all of you enjoy the games.
Dan,
I hear all 4 rounds of the Masters will be broadcast in high definition by CBS's HD "network". Will WLTX be broadcasting all four rounds live in HD? If so, am I right to assume they will be broadcast on channel 810 on TWCSC?

Thank you.

Yes - CBS HD is always on 810.

Dan,
I hear all 4 rounds of the Masters will be broadcast in high definition by CBS's HD "network". Will WLTX be broadcasting all four rounds live in HD? If so, am I right to assume they will be broadcast on channel 810 on TWCSC?

Thank you.
WLTX-DT will broadcast the 2006 Masters on Digital Channel 19-1 (Time Warner Ch. 810) on Thursday and Friday, April 6 & 7 (4:00-7:00 PM each day) and Saturday, April 8 (3:30-7:00 PM) and Sunday, April 9 (2:30-7:00 PM) live from Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga. The third and final rounds of the Masters will be broadcast simultaneously in standard definition by CBS Sports on WLTX-TV.

http://www.wltx.com/press_releases/pressrelease.asp?storyid=36021

WLTX Columbia CBS - March Madness Schedule



Friday, March 17th



Basic Cable Channel 9

12:30 p - Arkansas v Bucknell

2:45 p - West Virginia v Southern Illinois

7:20 p - California v NC State

9:30 p - North Carolina v Murray State



HD Channel 810

12:30 p - Arizona v Wisconsin

2:50 p - Villanova v Monmouth

7:25 p - UCONN v Albany

9:45 p - Kentucky v UAB



Digital Cable Channel 811

12:25 p - Iowa v Northwestern State

2:50 p - Memphis v Oral Roberts

7:10 p - Pittsburgh v Kent State

9:30 p - Kansas v Bradley



Digital Cable Channel 812

12:15 p - Ohio State v Davidson

2:35 p - Georgetown v Northern Iowa

7:10 p - Michigan State v George Mason

9:40 p - Texas v Pennsylvania

WLTX-DT will broadcast the 2006 Masters on Digital Channel 19-1 (Time Warner Ch. 810) on Thursday and Friday, April 6 & 7 (4:00-7:00 PM each day) and Saturday, April 8 (3:30-7:00 PM) and Sunday, April 9 (2:30-7:00 PM) live from Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga.

Thanks, Dan. I can hardly wait. It's the best HD show of the year in my book.

This thread is very informative! I just recently purchased a 50 inch Panny plasma, and I've had a few issues maybe some of you can help me with.

1. I have noticed major pixellation issues during sporting events (especially basketball games), and see many of you have as well. Is their any way to limit this? It appears that many of you watch sports in 720P, but I didn't notice a significant difference between 1080I and 720P.
2. Does it cost more to get the 8300 box? I have the 8000, but I could really use the HDMI output.
3. When I switch to certain HD channels a popping noise comes out of my front speakers. Has anyone else experienced this?

Thanks for your help.

1.CBS-HD-Yes to the pixellation of1080i, nothing can be done by you to improve it.
2. No extra cost, and a far surperior picture, even using component cables.
3. I do not have this issue.

<snip>
1. I have noticed major pixellation issues during sporting events (especially basketball games), and see many of you have as well. Is their any way to limit this? It appears that many of you watch sports in 720P, but I didn't notice a significant difference between 1080I and 720P.
2. Does it cost more to get the 8300 box? I have the 8000, but I could really use the HDMI output.
3. When I switch to certain HD channels a popping noise comes out of my front speakers. Has anyone else experienced this?

Pretty much ditto to what Kevin said.
1. Motion artifacts come with the terrority with 1080i. Multicasting reduces bandwidth which increases potential for pixelization.
2. I too believe the 8300 is the referred DVR regardless of desired input. Picture Quality differences between HDMI and component inputs are reportedly very slight.
3. No. Do not experience that problem here. What kind of connection are you using? (analog, digital; if the latter coax or optical?).

Thanks for the help guys. As for the popping, I use a digital coax cable from the 8000 to my Anthem AVM 20 Preamp. I tried setting the input on the preamp at both auto and digital and still hear the same popping.

For those of you looking for the HD coverage of Marquette/Alabama, there was a situation in San Diego which delayed the game. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I caught some of the Alabama game and I didn't see any pixellation, The lighting was not all that great, but the video was much better than what has been shown the last couple of weekends.
I did find it to be kind of strange that Wltx didn't chose to show the Winthrop game in HD from Greensboro. Their analog feed was quite good. The digital simulcast was internet streaming quality at best.

I picked up the 8300 today and it looks much better than the 8000. I also have not had any popping yet. Thanks for the suggestion.

I caught some of the Alabama game and I didn't see any pixellation, The lighting was not all that great, but the video was much better than what has been shown the last couple of weekends.
I did find it to be kind of strange that Wltx didn't chose to show the Winthrop game in HD from Greensboro. Their analog feed was quite good. The digital simulcast was internet streaming quality at best.

The Winthrop game was on analog. If we put it on HD as well, that means there would be one region of the tournament not available to you the viewer. We want to give everyone the option of which region to watch. Since Winthrop has local ties, We put it on analog so more people could view it.

I thought that might have been the case, but the game was also being shown on one of the sub channels. So, there would had not been anything lost if the Bama was put on the sub.

Note: I just looked back to see how it was supposed to be ,and saw that it was not supposed to be on a sub, but I am pretty sure it was, because I was comparing it to the much superior analog feed.

March Madness - Saturday, March 18

Basic Cable Channel 9
1:10 p - Duke v George Washington
3:20 p - Florida v Wisconsin-Milwaukee
5:50 p - Texas A&M v LSU
8:00 p - UCLA v Alabama

HD Channel 810
1:10 p - Duke v George Washington
3:40 p - Wichita State v Tennessee
5:30 p - Illinois v Washington
8:00 p - UCLA v Alabama

Digital Cable Channel 811
1:10 p - Duke v George Washington
3:40 p - Wichita State v Tennessee
5:40 p - Boston College v Montana
8:10 p - Indiana v Gonzaga

Digital Cable Channel 812
5:30 p - Illinois v Washington

March Madness - Saturday, March 18

Basic Cable Channel 9
1:10 p - Duke v George Washington
3:20 p - Florida v Wisconsin-Milwaukee
5:50 p - Texas A&M v LSU
8:00 p - UCLA v Alabama

HD Channel 810
1:10 p - Duke v George Washington
3:40 p - Wichita State v Tennessee
5:30 p - Illinois v Washington
8:00 p - UCLA v Alabama

Digital Cable Channel 811
1:10 p - Duke v George Washington
3:40 p - Wichita State v Tennessee
5:40 p - Boston College v Montana
8:10 p - Indiana v Gonzaga

Digital Cable Channel 812
5:30 p - Illinois v Washington
Who made the decision to put the Illinois game on 810?

Who made the decision to put the Illinois game on 810?
Probably a certain Illinois fan with connections. :)

Who made the decision to put the Illinois game on 810?

During these rounds there are only two available games in HD at one time. Saturday's venues are the San Diego Region and The Greensboro Region. We are showing two games from each in HD. All of the Games ARE NOT DONE IN HD. If we have a game on analog, the other three regions will be on 19-1, 19-2, and 19-3. That way ALL four regions are available to the Columbia viewers.

Sometimes games are duplicated by CBS on the transponders as games conclude. This is done because there is a twenty minute delay from the end of one game to the beginning of the other game at the same region.

On Saturday's Game there is no HD feed from Greensboro at the time of the Illinois game. So if you don't want Illinois, we can show black......

WLTX is the only station in the area giving you the opportunity to see each game of the NCAA tournament.

During these rounds there are only two available games in HD at one time. Saturday's venues are the San Diego Region and The Greensboro Region. We are showing two games from each in HD. All of the Games ARE NOT DONE IN HD. If we have a game on analog, the other three regions will be on 19-1, 19-2, and 19-3. That way ALL four regions are available to the Columbia viewers.

Sometimes games are duplicated by CBS on the transponders as games conclude. This is done because there is a twenty minute delay from the end of one game to the beginning of the other game at the same region.

On Saturday's Game there is no HD feed from Greensboro at the time of the Illinois game. So if you don't want Illinois, we can show black......

WLTX is the only station in the area giving you the opportunity to see each game of the NCAA tournament.
Dan, it was a joke.

Thank you for giving us so many options.

I appreciate a joke as much as the next guy. However, If you could see what it takes to pull this off every year, there wouldn't be any complaints about resolution or which game is carried on which sub channel. Most stations wouldn't bother with the grief.
I love the challenge and really enjoy all of the tournament myself.
I was switching between game OTA at home last night driving my wife out of the room.
It was great being able to choose the game I wanted to watch.
Sorry for the short tone of the note. It's been a madhouse around here.

On Saturday's Game there is no HD feed from Greensboro at the time of the Illinois game. So if you don't want Illinois, we can show black......




We ALWAYS want the Illinois Game!

University of Illinois Alum '90
President Columbia Illini Alumni Club


We LOVE Dan and the effort his entire staff makes!

<snip>
President Columbia Illini Alumni Club
<snip>

Do the 3 of you rotate that position? :D

Off-thread and I will stop after this, but...

There are 185 U of I Alumni in a 35 mile radius of Columbia - most professors at USC and/or SC State. The President of USC is a U or I Alum and our largest local event pulled almost 50 attendees. Last year we won the award for best small club.

Those of you in Columbia should be grateful to Dan and Diana for making these games available..they aren't here in Charlotte, nor do we carry them in Montgomery.

March Madness - Sunday, March 19



Basic Cable Channel 9

12:10 p - Bradley v Pittsburgh

2:20 p - George Mason v University of North Carolina

4:45 p - Texas v NC State



HD Channel 810

12:10 p - Bradley v Pittsburgh

2:40 p - West Virginia v Northwestern State

5:00 p - Villanova v Arizona



Digital Cable Channel 811

12:10 p - Bradley v Pittsburgh

2:30 p - Kentucky v UCONN

4:50 p - Ohio State v Georgetown



Digital Cable Channel 812

2:15 p - Memphis v Bucknell

5:00 p - Villanova v Arizona

I wasnt home yesterday to see if TWC had all of the correct NCAA games on but its Sunday at 230pm and channels 09, 810, and 811 all have the same game on and 812 has weather not basketball. I guess something happened to getting all the different games.

Edit: Wow that was fast, its 231 and all seems to be well, good catch WLTX.

I wasnt home yesterday to see if TWC had all of the correct NCAA games on but its Sunday at 230pm and channels 09, 810, and 811 all have the same game on and 812 has weather not basketball. I guess something happened to getting all the different games.

Edit: Wow that was fast, its 231 and all seems to be well, good catch WLTX.

The start times we had were a little off. Our switch wasn't supposed to happen until 2:45. However, I noticed the game had already begun, so I called and had them switch early. Sorry if you missed some of the game. We'll watch a little closer next weekend.

Good work and thanks for everything you guys do to make all these games available to us. Too bad a certain local team is not in the tourney or there'd be even more interest...

or interest at all... :p

or interest at all... :p
Yes, we know. Deja Vu all over again.

Being an "ABC" fan, I like how the ACC tourney turned out.. :>)

Hello everyone. I am new to this thread, but not new to Columbia! I live out in the Oak Grove Area.

I am about the make the jump to HDTV. I should be buying a set in a few weeks. Due to the fact that we just bought a new entertainment center last fall, I will be limited to a 37" LCD. Which is actually fine with me, that is all I need. Still deciding which one to go with. Either the Dell or probably the Westinghouse 1080p set that they are getting ready to release (37w3)

My question is about programming here in the Columbia area. What are my best options. what would you recommend if you were doing it again?

I currently am a Dish Network Subscriber. I have been for 4 years. I am very happy with Dish and their service and Price. I do not own any HD receivers. I have a PVR that I have had for 4 years, so I don't pay a monthly fee for it. I only will be watching TV in 2 rooms, maybe a third.

I would love to have a HD DVR when I get up and running, but I will settle for a SD DVR along side a regular HD converter.

I am also curious about TW also. No offense intended to the people here that work for them, but I really hate TW and have vowed to never give them any of my money!! However, I am forced to at least explore them now that i am making my jump to HDTV.

The one thing that they do have that I am pretty sure I can't get elsewhere, are the Atlanta Braves Games in HD. Baseball is my love and the Braves are my favorite team, so their games are on a lot at my home in the summer.

So, do I stick with Dish and upgrade to an HD converter and pull in the local channels via Antenna, or do I look at TW? I would assume Directv would be out of the question, I think from what I have read, the HD is much better with Dish. (Don't care about Sunday ticket)
I like the fact that all of my channels on Dish are digital quality and not the crappy picture quality that TW offers for the first 60 channels or so.

Can I keep Dish for my SD programming and use TW for only the HD content?

Sorry for the long post, but I want to make it as thorough as possible