San Antonio, TX - HDTV

I had the opportunity to speak with KSAT's chief engineer this morning. He said that KSAT will be full power, 24/7 for right now. Eventually they plan to go primetime unless they perceive a big demand for digital. KSAT would then comply with the 2003 50%, 2004 75% and 2005 100% simulcast rules.

I would encourage anyone in San Antonio or Austin who can receive KSAT to write a letter to the general manager or engineer. Yeah, Maury Povich and ABC soap operas don't benefit much from digital, but it would be nice to get the digital simulcast for sports events and such during the day on the weekends. Once again, a little praise typed out on dead trees could go a long way towards showing viewer interest in HDTV here in south Texas.

Jim

I haven't checked today yet but when KSAT was testing a few weeks back my signal strength was the highest of the three networks.

KENS = 78%
KMOL = 83%
KSAT = 94%

Cool, I'll give it a shot tonight. Though given that I can't even get Austin's Fox station, my hopes aren't high.

Looks like I'm going to be sending an e-mail to KSAT. On their DT feed, they place a very bright and annoying logo at the bottom right hand side of the screen. If left there for extended periods of time, it could seriously burn in to the picture tubes.

Chris,

I was thinking just the same thing about that logo. Funny that they don't have such an intrusive logo on their NTSC channel. I guess it's ok to cause burn-in on a $3000+ HDTV but not on a $100 19" tv. Also, did their logo look at all pink/fuzzy to you? It sure did when downconverted to my 36" Toshiba.

Jim

P.S. On the plus side, KSAT is far and away my strongest digital station.

The logo looked fine on my setup.

I've noticed this evening that the logo is now at the lower left of the screen and is transparent. Maybe they actually read my e-mail or this forum!

Thanks KSAT!!!

Anybody heard anything about when KMOL will be getting their DD5.1 going? I think it would be nice for watching Leno.

I also noticed the KSAT bug and was going to say something to them until I saw it was corrected this evening.

JohnR

Speaking of Leno, I finally got to see a show last Friday. WOW! That's probably the best Hi-Def picture I've seen yet.

Too bad you don't get HDNet, Chris. Just about everything on there has picture quality equal to or better than Leno.

JohnR

Bump...

Any new news?

Anyone else having problem with picture break-ups on KSAT??

The last half of Alias and all of Practice had tons of break-ups.. signal meter was bouncing around 70-58-37-45-29-65-40- (etc)...

I had that problem when KENS first went live, but get them pretty consistent in the 70-80's. Any thoughts?? I'm located in north central (alamo heights).

Thanks in advance!

-Matt

Matt,

I'm on the west side of town, outside Loop 410 between Marbach and Potranco. I didn't have any trouble during the hi def part of Alias, but I got severe pixelation and picture freezing during some of the upconverted commercials. Must be something that KSAT was screwing around with last night; I haven't had trouble like that during other HD ABC broadcasts.

Jim

P.S. What receiver are you using? I've been using a Dish 6000.

Excuse my ignorance on this subject, please educate me. I also live in Alamo Heights and, after reading the comments here,went to RS and got a double bow tie antenna. I plugged it directly into one of the antenna inputs of my Elite 510. Nothing but static. I assume this talk of "signal strength" has something to do with stallite as if you plug the antenna directly into the set you have no way to measure strength.

Can you, or is anyone, watching HD with a conventional OTA antenna? How are you doing it?

egrady,

I don't think your Pioneer has an HDTV tuner built in. I'm pretty sure you will need an over the air HDTV receiver. There are several excellent receivers for DirecTV. Furthermore, Dish Network has the Dish 6000 and Samsung makes the SIR-T150 over air only set top box. For $400-600 you can get the most out of your HDTV.

Jim

JimboG,

Would I be correct in assuming the HDTV Receiver would have to be plugged into a component video input?

egrady,

I'm pretty sure you'd use the component video inputs. Some of the early Mitsubishis, RCAs (and possibly Pioneers) had 15 pin VGA inputs. The high def component inputs on your 510 should work just fine though.

If you're looking for the best price on an HDTV set top box, you'll probably find it online. If you're willing to pay a little bit more at a brick and mortar store, Bjorn's off 281 has some knowledgable employees and good support.

Either way, I'd really encourage you to get an HDTV receiver. CBS, NBC and ABC all have HDTV signals on air locally. Furthermore, with a satellite receiver you can get HD Showtime, HBO and (with DirecTV) Mark Cuban's HDnet. Discovery HD is coming on June 17th too.

Oh yeah, there may be a cheaper way to get HDTV on your Pioneer! Time Warner Cable has HD cable boxes at no extra cost. They currently have HBO and Showtime HD. Supposedly they will add ABC, NBC and CBS sometime soon. If you already have digital cable, there's no additional charge for the HD cable box. Pretty good deal really.

Jim

WHOOAAA there... who do you have to talk with at Time Warner to get a customer service rep with a clue??? I would probably be interested in this... especially if they're gonna pickup the big three...

-Matt

PS: Oh, and by the way, I've got the RCA DTC-100 reciever.

Mbeebe,

TWC Customer Service responded to my e-mail telling me they're "negociating" with the locals to add the HD transmissions. What I don't know is if the negociations are at the local or corporate level. In other words, does each market make their own deal or is it negociated at a national level?

Is there anyone out there who is already getting the big three in HD from TWC?

egrady

I wouldn't count on Time Warner Cable getting HD locals on their system any time soon and even if they did, it's almost impossible to get a converter box. They are in short supply and when you try to order one, you are put on a waiting list.

So far all three stations here in town look great. One thing that was really nice was seeing "The Sixth Sense" on ABC in Hi-Def AND Dolby Digital 5.1. That was really cool but I could't stand the numorous commercial breaks so I ended up pulling out the DVD. I will be the first in line for an HDTV recordable PVR.

I noticed today that KENS also is mapping to 5-1/5-2, but I no longer have a picture. I get a signal strength in the upper 70s on my Hughes Platinum DirecTV receiver. ALso, it seems that KSAT went away yesterday. Getting no signal at all on 48. Still 100 on KMOL though. Guess it is just a matter of working out the bugs.

According to the post of gmclaughlin in the HDTV Hardware Forum, under the heading "New Cable Boxes Debuted", the lucky TWC Customers in Maitland, FL are already getting the majors HD Broadcasts. If what he says is true, it's up to the local TWC Company to add the HD material to their line up, or not. I wonder what is holding TWC here in SAT back?

Send TWC and tell them you want HDTV where you live once the locals are broadcasting it OTA! I'm between a rock and a hard place. TWC won't say when the HD material will be added. I could buy HDTV tuners for my two sets at $600 a pop and hook them to an OTA antenna. I'm sure if I did that TWC would add the HD stuff the next day. UGH!

I tried to tune into KMOL last night to see if the LA Law movie looked decent in HD. Unfortunately they were off the air. Clear Channel is headquartered here in San Antonio. Don't any of their execs have HDTVs? Don't any of the Clear Channel staff watch their own local digital TV station?

I asked if they would have the station back in time for Saturday's Preakness. The guy at master control said they hadn't heard yet that it would be in HD. Didn't NBC send out a press release three weeks ago?

Jim

This is why it's nice to have HDNet. And yes, the press release said all three Triple Crown races. By the way, I'm really thinking that War Emblem has a great chance at the Triple Crown.

JohnR

This morning KENS-DT switched off their PSIP stream. This should enable more viewers with expensive hardware to pick up HD content on 5-1. Channel mapping remains 5-0 = KENS analog, 5-1 = KENS-DT (HD) and 5-2 = KENS-SD (multicast). Apparently there's a bug in the existing PSIP scheme that blocks some receivers and STB's from receiving video and audio stream if PSIP is streaming. I've noticed that Hughes and Toshiba receivers/STB's don't like the KENS PSIP, but RCA, Zenith and others work fine.

So what happened to KSAT? Are they off the air or am I just not picking them up? I get KMOL and KENS at 100% on my meter....

For the record, my STB is a Hughes E-86 and I use DirecTV.

Realthogue,

Welcome to the forum! That's good news about PSIP being turned off until everything can be ironed out. I'll have to go home and remap KENS this evening. If everything works out all right, I'll go ahead and let Dish know that I've moved to San Antonio. I've been afraid to lose WCBS-DT from Dish until I was certain that I could watch the local CBS HD channel. Maybe I can finally order that Dish 501!

I don't want to encourage multicasting too much, but here goes. Why doesn't KENS show their 24 hour news channel on their SD subchannel instead of just copying the channel 5 analog feed in SD? I know Belo co-produces this channel with Time Warner, but this would be an easy way for people with satellite or over the air digital only to watch the 24 news channel. Assuming this channel is advertising supported, the increased viewership could only help.

Jim