'Legend of the Seeker' - First run syndication in HD - Page 12

some are, some aren't, some are rather advanced in age.

Agreed.

Me and my wife just got into this show and ran through the first 28 episodes or so in about 3 weeks. Great show, I like how they (in general) keep things moving in the middle of the seasons with major plot points happening that most shows would relegate to only that season finale/premiere window. I'm not crazy about the keeper arc but some good episodes have come out of it. Hopefully it lasts a few more seasons.

I'm going to have fun reading through this thread now, it's been hard ignoring it the whole time and not being able to discuss it online since we were behind.

It is that time again, boys and girls. A new episode is in the grubby little paws of your local station. And presented again, is the timing sheet for this new episode.

 

LotS_207_timing.zip 13.41015625k . file

Wow, I almost completely forgot to record this. Geez, I would of been sooo pissed.

I've now switched from recording it on my local station to recording it on WGN America.

That raises a little question for me: Wouldn't the syndication agreement have prohibited WGN America from broadcasting it? Seems like something kind-of fell through the cracks, no?

Finally some new programing. Welcome back Richard Kahlan and Cara. Sorry Wiz the less of you the better. I like you about as much as the old Nobody Beats the Wiz.

Why?


You would think so. That way it would have stopped exactly what you did.

If he has WGN's HD station on cable or satellite, do they show it in HD?

Over a year after it premiered, WBNX 55 in Cleveland still does not show it in HD.

I'm just thankful this show isn't letterbox on the SD version, like The Office is. I absolutely refuse to watch The Office on WBNX 55 because of that.

The local station put the show in the early morning, and it's floated, at times, ten or fifteen minutes one way or the other, without notice.


As I had expected. Perhaps exclusivity is too expensive these days. I do know that when Ghost Whisperer was put into syndication, it was syndicated to a local channel (WBPX) and two cable networks (Syfy and WE).


It's in HD on both sources. (Ghost Whisperer is HD on WBPX and Syfy; I never checked out WE.)

???
Right, who wouldn't prefer the cropped version when one could at least zoom the letterboxed version and enjoy the widescreen presentation?

What, you prefer to watch movies on DVD pan-n-scan? Ugh!!!

I will give you that LotS is shot 4:3 safe, but movies are not. I hate pan-n-scan. If a TV show or movie is widescreen, I want to see it widescreen, even if it is letterboxed.

Man, I just love this show. I just wish it would follow the books. Oh well, still excellent show, well acted, graphic special effects, etc.

I think-but am not 100% sure, that the Tribune station group is the 'core' station group, meaning that syndicators go the the largest tv station owners first and pitch the show to secure markets in the biggest cities...Tribune did the same for Hercules and Xena, which is why WGN also aired them nationally.

Depends what kind of TV it is. If it's a widescreen picture, then obviously I want a 16:9 picture. Not a stretched P&S 4:3 like some networks show!


I don't. I didn't buy a HDTV to have it reduced to a one size smaller TV(ie a 50 inch becomes a 42 inch with the wasted space). Besides, I'm never cool with horizontal bars. I don't like watching an ant farm.

I really enjoyed this Family Guy joke last week about that OAR crap that wastes over half your screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXxEL78UthA

First off, I though we were talking about letterboxing on a 4:3 analog TV.

As for windowboxing on an HDTV, hit the zoom button and make the 16:9 image fill the screen. Yes. it will sometimes look like crap, since the 16:9 lower resolution umage has to get enlarged.

If I understand you correctly, you'd rather have a 2.35:1 widescreen movie P&S'd to 16:9, than have it letterboxed. Yuch!!!

Sorry about the lateness of the posting.

 

LotS_208_timing.zip 13.541015625k . file

Wow, they put a lot in this episode from the books. VERY impressed. Nice to Verna!!!

Yes, and some of the scenes were absolutely perfect vis a vis the descriptions of the locations in the books.

Another week, another timing sheet. (209, not 29)

 

LotS_209_timing.zip 13.58203125k . file

I'm trying to figure out if the handful of short video breakups throughout the 01/23/10 episode ("Dark") aired on WGN HD were localized to just my house or my cable company (Mediacom)?

Nothing here, except during the pitch black bumpers. I've noticed that FiOS tends to have trouble (every channel, every show) whenever a show includes pitch black bumpers.

Ok, thanks for the quick reply.
The thing is, I just got cablecards installed in my S3 yesterday two hours before Seeker was recorded and this was the first time I recorded from any of the previously encrypted HD channels. I did a signal strength reading on WGN HD and the other channels, well before Seeker aired, and they all came up at 95% strength. Bummer for me.

I had one glitch during the show where there was a 3 second segment of the Haiti Telethon interspersed; and the recording stalled during a commercial break, causing my DVD Recorder to stop and restart recording: but those could have just been my machine. (WGN America HD is in Clear QAM on my system)

I have not read the books, but everyone realizes that Richard is not currently the "Seeker", so some of those prophesies don't necessarily apply to him ?

Wow, Nicci in this episode too!! A book lovers dream come true!!! Really, Really enjoying this season so far!!!

I saw a bunch of breakups in my recording.

I suspect that our locals have reduced the I-frame rate since I've had similar issues when my local CBS station tried reducing it's I-frame rate. For some reason, some decoders handle this much better than others which is why we're getting the conflicting reports.

Ironically, my local that airs Seeker has no subchannels and uses the full bandwidth available to ATSC, so there's no reason for them to be reducing the I-frame rate.

The station engineers are probably striving for more efficiency!
You know that is how engineers think.

Jolene Blalock made an appearance last night but she had way too much clothing on.

But isn't Nicci supposed to be blond, or am I just confused/forgetful?

I'm also watching the WGN HD feed although my local station is playing it in proper 16:9 720p HD. I assume that the series is mastered on 1080 then "downscaled" to 720 instead of the other way around. I've yet to compare the two stations feed side by side, but the quality seems fairly comparable from memory since the 1080i WGN isn't that impressive on Comcast.

Huh? 720p is not proper for this series. It is delivered to the stations in 1080i29.97.

I believe that it is mastered in 1080p23.976 (could be psf). A proper 720p version would be created from the 1080p23.976 master, not the 1080i version.