Des Moines, IA - HDTV - Page 6

Sorry if I offended you oOOkool.

You must admit that several of your coworkers at times appear to be clueless. I am sure there are some exceptions, and unfortunately I can only be in there on weekends, when I am sure the most experienced sales staff wants to be off. That leaves the high school kids.

After several bad experiences shopping for a computer, an A/V receiver, a 400 disc changer, a DVD player, a HDTV receiver and cables I decided to give Best Buy one more shot.

The straw that broke the camel's back: I had a $5000 budget for a front projection unit. I walked into Best Buy. Found someone in the TV section, asked them if they sold front projectors. After a quizzical look and a consultation with another salesperson I was told that "We have projection TV's, is that what you mean?" Short explanation of what I was looking for got me no further.

My question is: How can someone selling top of the line, digital TV's not have clue what a front projection TV is? Even if you don't sell them. Everyone at Ultimate and American seemed to know, they had a Sharp unit set up. They were pretty pricey, but they were quality machines. But they could at least try to sell me something else while I was there. I didn't get stupid looks like I was trying to buy something that they had never heard of.

Feel free to pass this along to your superiors oOOkool. I wasn't trying to flame you, and probably I got two dim bulbs around the holiday season. I apologize to you personally, but my general feelings about the overall quality of Best Buy's staff remains.

If you are in retail, your sales force is the first and most important interface with your customers. There are a lot of people able to sell me electronics cheaply, and the quality of the people selling them tells me a lot about the company's commitment to excellence. I have found this to be lacking at Best Buy. I am sure that American and Ultimate have people they aren't too proud of either, but overall I have yet to find someone at either place who was totally incompetent.

Again I apologize to you personally. If I am in the market for something again, be assured I will look you up and give you a shot at my business.

Good deal jtuck2,
One thing you do have to realize about Best Buy is that we are not a Ultimate or a American that works on commission and we care about what you want or what will fit your needs and, if you come looking for something in particular that we don't carry we wont try talking you into something that you don't want. I think the biggest thing that we need to realize is that HDTV is not something high end anymore for goodness sakes you can go to Wall-Mart now and buy a HDTV. I'm sorry but Best Buy doesn't really cater to the high end just because we have to keep over 500 stores all selling the same stuff and when your an Ultimate or an American with 50 some stores you can cater to that.

An any case I do have a Question has anyone watched FOX 17 program that they say is wide-screen actually be in Wide-screen?
Andrew

Hey everyone,

I did a rescan this evening and 13.2 (WHO-DT2) showed up. It contains a 2MBps radar stream. The new shows on NBC did take a hit in PQ, though I don't know if the two are related, as NBC was having more than a few problems tonight. We'll have to see how Leno looks.

CBS's new series OTOH are looking good. Haven't seen anything in FOX 'wide-screen' yet; so far KDSM is just wasting a lot of electricity!

-Loren

Wall -Mart has a 43" phillips HDTV Monitor is crazy i know but the have it

andrew

What is working for antennas for people in the Clive area? (West of the Interstate, approaching Waukee). I am wondering if I will be able to get by with a good interior antenna?

Has anyone herd about WB yet in Des Moines are they planing anything?

I see that Titan Tv says the are waiting for a permit but does that mean they are ready to go and waiting to turn on or what?

I want my Smallville in HD!!!

That was some interesting news Mark about ESPN HD that would be awesome 100 games in HD over one year talk about making the jump. Now your talking about stuff that people really want to watch!!!!

Andrew

It looks like WB is on and running in Iowa City i think channel 39 you can check out this web site for that info http://100kwatts.tmi.net/tv/IA.html
Andrew

I just stumbled onto this thread while searching on antennas. I'm very happy to see so much conversation in Des Moines. Keep it up.

If any one has any advice, I'd be glad to hear it. Looking for the right OTA HD antenna for the south side of Des Moines (near airport).

Thanks

A good indoor UHF antenna would probably work fine. Over here on the east side, I'm using a little Silver Sensor antenna placed by a north-facing window and get great reception.

On another subject, has anyone heard anything from KDSM about if/when they will be able to carry Fox's widescreen 480p programming?

tons of info on DTV on this web site this is were I found info on WB HDTV shows Smallville and a few others www.hdtvgalaxy.com/news.html
The site also has a HD program guide for all HD programs.

Andrew

Well, I'm finally "up and running" with HDTV" !!!

BB received their first shipments of triple LNB dishes yesterday, so I went ahead and purchased the Hughes E86 receiver with the new dish.

Installation was fairly easy. I wanted to at least try out the OTA channels tonight. The manual states that the receiver should default to component output, but that did not appear to be the case. Flying blindly I was able to toggle it back to component output.

Using a simply loop antenna, the scan option on the receiver found 13-1, 13-2, 17-1, 31-1 along with several analog stations I was not familiar with.

I am in Urbandale with the receiver in the basement. It is a walk out basement however.

Results ...

13-1 had solid 100% signal strength.

31-1 was very poor. The signal strength continuously oscillated from 100% to 0%. Drop outs occurred every few minutes. I'll probably install a roof antenna when the dish gets installed.

17-1 Didn't check this channel, what's the point? If I want 480p, I'll just watch DVD's. Sports with the 16:9 screen will be nice though.

Few questions/observations...

KCCI-DT logo was slightly cut off at the bottom. Any suggestions? I have a Toshiba 57H82. At first the CBS logo was missing as well, until I realized the E86 defaults to 4:3 mode. Oops.

The E86 recognized 13-1 as WHO and 17-1 as KDSM, but 31-1 only showed up as "Local Channel".

Menu's/Guide on E86 are much faster than MediaCom's digital receiver. MediaCom's is almost to point of being unusable.


I can't remember which one was louder, but the volume on the two channels seemed to quite different at times.

Those are my first impressions. I was only able to watch a little of CSI and Jay Leno.

I'll keep you posted on my adventures.

My Zenith box initially listed KCCI as 31-1 but now remaps it to 8-1, labels it as KCC!-DT and downloads the program guide. It also remapped WHO-DT to 13-1 and it's picking up 13-2 but I haven't seen anything there yet.

The CBS logo is very close to the edge but if it's being cut off your overscan is too high on the Toshiba and the geometry needs to be corrected to see the whole picture.

AbbeyRoad,

Is the geometry something I can fix/change? I'm at work right now, so I don't have access to my TV.

Is your Zenith box a OTA/Satellite combo? When you say the program guide is downloaded, what is the source? Is program info coming from the satellite or OTA?

FYI, I get the WHO weather map on 13-2.

Thanks,

mwalter,

I am in Knoxville, so my signals aren't as high as yours. My Sony hasn't labeled any of the digital channels yet, nor has it picked up any meaningful program guide. It is still labeling 31.1 just like yours though.

I have noticed 17.1 has something wrong with the audio. It is there, but at a lot lower level than everyone else. I agree with the pointless nature of the channel anyway.

13.2 has been multicasting a feed of WHO's radar when the digital transmitter is running. Noticed this the last several times I had the TV on, so it isn't just related to weather events

Hope you get 31.1 running soon, they are heads and shoulders above everyone else in town. Watch CSI, even if you don't like the show. The picture quality is stunning.

Dave, when did your Zenith start picking up program guide data? My Sony hasn't picked up any real guide data yet. Most times it will pick up one event and call it that all day. ie: Sunday night 13.1 was 27th? Annual Emmy Awards all night. It is still screwy on channel labels too.

Does anyone have any details about the Des Moines Register blurb a couple weeks ago that said that Mediacom would be providing HDTV in January 2003? I was planning on putting up an antenna and buying a triple LNB DirecTV dish and receiver, but this tidbit has me second guessing whether that is a smart purchase.

Hi Everyone,

Nice to see so much info on this thread about DM high definition. I'm located in Fort Dodge, about 65 miles line-of-sight from DM.

Will I be able to receive any OTA channels with an attic or rooftop antenna or is this pushing it? Any antenna/preamp recommendations would be helpful. Also, what is everyone's feeling about which set-top box is the best for OTA (I probably won't go Dish or Direct unless I have no alternative.)

I just bought a Pioneer 4330HD plasma and am looking forward to HD programming (especially CBS) along with progressive DVD's FINALLY

Can anyone tell me where physically the new HD towers are located in DM? Are they northeast of Ankeny area or was I seeing something else while driving down I-35?

Thanks for all your help and suggestions,
Mike

Mark,

I also notice the switch during HD programming. This bothers me quite a bit. In fact, I wrote the chief engineer a letter about it last week! Maybe we should give them a call too.

I recall entire evenings where programming has been covered by the blinking map. If this happens, say, tonight (which it might), that would mean essentially no HD programming.

I suggested an alternative in my letter. They could simply put a small message by the KCCI logo saying, "Weather statement, tune to analog 8 for details." Since they already have a CG to put the logo there, this should definitely be possible.

I am guessing the HD feed switches to SD upconvert automatically when they do local ad insertion. But, I feel it would be worth their effort to make the HD selection independent. Otherwise, the entire purpose of HDTV (watching HD) would be defeated.

btw - welcome to the new dsm area viewers!

-Loren

Update: There were absolutely no interruptions in HD programming this evening. Thank you KCCI, keep up the great work!

mikkel,

Hello there. Welcome to the forums. You might be able to pick up some signals from Des Moines, but as I understand it, you are right on the edge of the receivable area. WHO-DT (19) is most likely to work for you. In the city, I have had problems receiving KCCI (31), though they are not yet at full power.

I say just give it a try though. On some rare occasions, I've been able to receive signals from Minneapolis (over 200+ miles away). AFAIK, the towers are just north of DSM in Aleman; so those are probably the ones you spotted.

I don't have any information on the STBs. Presently, I am using a HiPix PCI card in my computer to receive signals OTA. This is for use with HDTVs (including 1024x768p), records to hard disk; so it is a good solution if you have a spare computer you can add to your HT. Sorry I can't be of more help there.

I recently added a 10dB UHF amplifier from Radio Shack. Thanks jtuck2 for the info there. I believe they also sell an amp the boosts up to 30dB. This helped a lot with receiving KCCI. Might help if you are right on the edge of reception too. Good luck in your equipment search and in receiving the HD. Enjoy your new plasma!

Talk to you later,

-Loren

Mark,
What did you think of IPTV broadcast, It got a bit repetitive but around 8pm with the Nature shows that rocked.

Andrew