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Chattanooga, TN - HDTV

241K views 2K replies 183 participants last post by  63rodder 
#1 ·
First post to the forum, thanks to others that I've already learned from. Couldn't find a Chattanooga post so thought I would start a thread.


I'm in North Georgia, between 18 & 22 miles from most towers. Just installed the Winegard 7084P in the attic on Friday and it's working great, I think. Signal runs through Hughes HTL-HD (got the $99 deal) to Sony KP51-WS500. I think the antenna is working great because I've got sw 1.06 on the receiver which means no signal meter for now. Good audio and video with no break up on either so assume I've aimed fairly well.


On to the question portion. I get WRCB, WTVC, WDEF and WTCI all fine (analog & digital). Also get WDSI (Fox) good in analog but I didn't pick up the digital signal in the channle scan. Didn't pick up WFLI (WB) digital either. Both of these towers appear to be in the same (very close) location as others I'm picking up well. Anyone in the Chattanooga area getting these channels that I can't pick up?


Also tried to do a manual channel add on the HTL-HD but it tells me the channel is unavailable. Any advice on trying to add these manually so I can try to tweak my antenna pointing?


Thanks!
 
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#2,055 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by HemiCuda70 /forum/post/19597154


So, what's the verdict on EPB HD vs Comcast HD? Any less pixelation? Comcast's compressed HD drives me nuts when I'm not 15ft away from the screen.


EDIT: Fiber is in the ground. Waiting on the ONT installers.

Sorry, it's been a while since I checked here. Been too busy watching orgasmic quality HD.


I too had that issue with Comcast, and I don't know if I"m just used to it at this point, or it's less. Every fiber of my being wants to tell you that it has much less pixelation as that is what it seems like. It seems less obvious to me, but I still notice it on occasion. Again though, could be that I'm just subconsciously ignoring it at this point.


The internet is immaculate, though. I host 99% of the games I play. I uploaded a torrent yesterday at 15mbits a second. Which is just...Wow.


On a side note, I'm a little peeved that EPB does not have any 3D channels. Comcast only had 2-3, but I was positive they would get ESPN 3D pretty quickly, but still no.
 
#2,056 ·
My router CPU is throttling my bandwidth to about 2/3 of what I can get plugging straight in, but it's 30/30 to their interface as advertised.


I haven't seen much difference in EPB and Comcast HD although the Comcast SD is a bit sharper. My wife is getting used to it I think. I still have the Comcast DVR hooked up. Since I'm paid through the end of the month I figured why not. I'm still on the fence myself over picture quality, or it's a setting on the TV I haven't hit yet.


I notice pixelation almost no matter how little. Worked with compressed videos too much I guess.
 
#2,057 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by HemiCuda70 /forum/post/19704356


My router CPU is throttling my bandwidth to about 2/3 of what I can get plugging straight in, but it's 30/30 to their interface as advertised.

I wondered if it was my router's CPU or the NIC cards... I guess that means it's probably the CPU. Kinda sad that a P2 or P3 CPU can't keep up with 30Mb/s speeds.


I just don't want to have to build a new router and migrate all my settings over. Though... It might give me a chance to play with a different router distro. (I currently use Smoothwall) I'm not so sure my VIA-C7 (1.5Ghz) processor will be enough, though.
 
#2,058 ·
My set-up on my PC is quite a beast. I don't have any problems.


I got gifted a Linksys E3000 dual band router and that hasn't had any issue getting my speed out wireless. THe PC is the only thing that I've been able to hardwire and it has no qualms with the speeds. Again though, it's pretty new and has been upgraded.
 
#2,059 ·
I ditched the IP blacklist on the router and ran another speed test. 17down, 20up. Marginal increase so I'm assuming it's not software related.


I'd lose tons of features and flexibility, but it would probably be cheaper for me to go with a hardware firewall instead of building a faster linux machine. I have tomato on a linksys router, but it goes tango uniform doing file transfers larger than a few meg via SSH. I'll figure something out eventually.
 
#2,060 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by HemiCuda70 /forum/post/19682003


In the mean time, does anyone know why the HD CW (53-1) feed is offline and when it'll come back up? I'm only getting a black screen from it.

BUMP.


Oh, my spare electroline amp claims to handle all TV frequencies whether Antenna, Cable, or Sat. Can anyone verify it'll work as a (near) zero-loss splitter for OTA? If so I'm going to try to tune in the WNGH tower. Signal levels drop too low on the Chatt locals going through a normal splitter if I'm not pointing right at them.
 
#2,061 ·
Hello my name is Brian, I am new to the site I recently switch my cable providers I had Comcast now I have AT&T U-Verse so far I am very happy but with one exception FOX Local is not broadcasting in HD, all the other HD channels are good but FOX, I had no issuses with Comcast is anybody else having this issue, I call AT&T was on the phone for about an hour the other day and they said every thing was fine.
 
#2,066 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by maharg18 /forum/post/19881218


Just noticed that EPB has increased our total HD streams to 6, but the DVR still can only record 2SD/2HD at one time. If they could bump that up to 2SD/3HD I'd be set. Or if they'd allow us to get a second DVR that would be fine too.

They're working on better equipment. What they have now (U-verse boxes) was purchased just to get their foot in the market. Bigger storage and more streams are in the works for this year.


Also of note, it takes 2 streams to make an HD feed. Good to know the stream count got bumped already. I think they're still at 20MB per HD channel though with the current hardware.


BTW, how did you find out the stream count went up?
 
#2,067 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by HemiCuda70 /forum/post/19881605


They're working on better equipment. What they have now (U-verse boxes) was purchased just to get their foot in the market. Bigger storage and more streams are in the works for this year.


Also of note, it takes 2 streams to make an HD feed. Good to know the stream count got bumped already. I think they're still at 20MB per HD channel though with the current hardware.


BTW, how did you find out the stream count went up?

If you go to the system resources screen or whatever it's called, it says something like "Streams: 0SD/6HD (WAN) / 2SD/2HD". Sure enough, I was able to record 2 HD's and view 2 more HD's on two other TV's at the same time.


Any idea what hardware they are planning on going with later this year?
 
#2,070 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by HemiCuda70
I got a notice in the mail a few weeks after I canceled service that hinted to this. EPB must be putting a hurt on them
I wish I had EPB as an option... I don't see VEC (local power) offering it anytime soon. Or it would be nice if Comcast would give me some more bandwidth that 250 gig a month... I can use that faster than ever now!
 
#2,072 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by HemiCuda70 /forum/post/19886490


I got a notice in the mail a few weeks after I canceled service that hinted to this. EPB must be putting a hurt on them

We got the upgrade in Athens also, not sure it has anything to do with EPB, we certainly have little to no hope of any real competition here. I got a letter today saying they will be sending me another modem, because the one I currently have won't handle the new speeds.
 
#2,074 ·
I recently switched from Comcast to EPB. Yes, I wanted the faster internet speed but I also expected better, or at least as good HD quality as I was getting from Comcast. My HD channels are higher quality images than the SD channels but are definately not 1080i. I had epb come out to check the signal levels and they say all is OK. Nothing has changed except the comcast to epb install.

I have also noticed on the SD channels that the frames are often too large to fit the frame (cutting off the channel marker in bottom right corner) on certain channels. Some channels also at times look like bootleg movies as if somebody recorded it with a camera in a theatre.

I'm not trying to bash epb. I still prefer it to Comcast. I have no desire to go back with Comcast. I think I would rather just put up a digital antenna than use comcast again but I would like a higher quality TV service from epb.

Anybody aware of these issues systemwide or is there possibly a problem at my location only?

Thanks. Most of what you guys discuss is over my head but I do enjoy learning more on this forum.
 
#2,075 ·
What I've seen of our EPB HD service is very close in quality to OTA for the channels I can compare. A lot of my frustration has been with differing screen sizes when trying to do side by side comparisons. The larger screens really show the compression artifacts vs my LCD monitor.


I have a couple of SD quality issues, but I think it's splitter related. They split it 4 ways at the box and I split it another 3 at the PC. If I have room in the old Comcast housing I'm going to replace the EPB splitter with an 8-port electroline amp. That should clear up SyFy.


We do agree that the SD image quality is a bit lower on EPB that Comcast. At least by appearances. However, my analog tuner cards seem to smooth out the roughness well enough; or I'm just getting used to it.
 
#2,077 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jalon7 /forum/post/20034481


I recently switched from Comcast to EPB. Yes, I wanted the faster internet speed but I also expected better, or at least as good HD quality as I was getting from Comcast. My HD channels are higher quality images than the SD channels but are definately not 1080i. I had epb come out to check the signal levels and they say all is OK. Nothing has changed except the comcast to epb install.

I have also noticed on the SD channels that the frames are often too large to fit the frame (cutting off the channel marker in bottom right corner) on certain channels. Some channels also at times look like bootleg movies as if somebody recorded it with a camera in a theatre.

I'm not trying to bash epb. I still prefer it to Comcast. I have no desire to go back with Comcast. I think I would rather just put up a digital antenna than use comcast again but I would like a higher quality TV service from epb.

Anybody aware of these issues systemwide or is there possibly a problem at my location only?

Thanks. Most of what you guys discuss is over my head but I do enjoy learning more on this forum.

I haven't experienced any of the problems you describe. In fact I would say that EPB picture quality is pretty much on par with Comcast, maybe even slightly better. A couple of questions:


- What connection are you using from the set top box to your TV?

- Under Settings - Television - Screen aspect ratio and high definition What do you have it set to?
 
#2,078 ·
I'm using HDMI cable between my setop box. Its the Cisco DVR HD box. I have a Sony Bravia 46" LCD 120HZ 1080P TV. Under settings it gives me the option of; full, wide & auto wide. I have it on "full". I believe this displays in the original aspect ratio as it is originally broadcast.

Sometimes HD is awsome, sometimes it is not. I know it can only display only as good as the original program. I try to base comparisons on Fox News HD, CNN HD etc... studio scenes when I think the original content should be full HD.

I really like using epb it just seems maybe whoever they have on the the TV end of things is not detail oriented.

I was watching WDSI Fox 61 the other day on my old 27" CRT. Channel 7 on epb. This is not HD I know but the image was thin and tall as if they just squeezed the wide aspect feed onto the SD channel. Sometimes the images are obviously too large to fit the complete picture on the screen. I've noticed this on my widescreen LCD as well as my other old fashioned CRT's.

Oh, maybe makes a difference, I dont have set top boxes on my other TV's.

I'm thinking epb is just having some growing pains and putting their primary focus on their internet product instead of the TV.
 
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