Greensboro, NC - HDTV - Page 289

I don't think it looks terrible or anything, but if the chimney (as you refer to it ) was red, that would look awful IMO. The tan is OK.

Yes since it isn't a chimney! It is a wall! A stone wall! There are no chimneys on the set.

Actually I should take a picture of the back of it and you will plainly see it is a wall! A plywood wall at that!

To see the whole set in action, we stream all our newscasts. You can see it at http://www.myfox8.com/news/livestreaming/

Foxeng,

Sept 16th at about 5:30 PM, I was just tuning into WGHP's over the air broadcast. There was a strange message on the screen... something about the encoder crashing. Ouch!!!

Shortly afterward WGHP was live again. I was surprized to see that the transport stream was running at substantually different levels than normal. The primary video stream or (elementary stream PID 49) was running well below 50 percent of the bandwidth and PID 8191 was running in the neighborhood of 60 percent.

A little later, things looked like thing were back to normal. Now PID 49 is running about 70% (13 - 14 Mbps) and PID 8191 running about 25% (5 Mbps). Forget all of the audio and other minor streams.

What happened?

By the way... what is PID 8191, mobile phone video???

Thank you,
DTV Student

We had no encoder problems yesterday (and I would be the one who would know and have to fix it) so I have no idea what you are talking about. Our encoder uses variable bit rate so if there is not much demand, it will have a lower bit rate until needed so the bit rate will vary all the time.

PID 49 (30H) is the video PID for Stream 1. We only run one stream. PID 8191 is the stuffing to fill out the 19.39 Mbps stream.

We can run up to 16 Mbps on PID 49. That is limited by FOX because of the splicer. The stuffing would be where a second stream would go and the splicer allows for that but it wouldn't be PID 8191. It would start at PID 40H (65 in decimal I think it is) if we had one.

TWC had some audio issue with FOX News Channel yesterday. We got several calls on that.

8191 are null packets
8187 are MGT infromation
8182 are Mobile Hand/Held packets
7450-7680 (appox) are EIT and ETT infromation

You will notices that MH/H packets are constant and do not change with picture or audio content.

MSO Notes
AT&T To Squeeze Four HD Streams Into U-Verse TV Homes
Telco's U-verse services on track to generate $4 billion in 2010
By Todd Spangler, Multichannel News -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/16/2010 5:02:55 PM

AT&T will let U-verse TV customers access up to four high-definition channels simultaneously by the end of the year, thanks to a combination of DSL upgrades and improvements in MPEG-4 compression.

Until now, AT&T has allowed customers of the IPTV service to access a maximum of three HD channels at once, because of bandwidth constraints.

John Stankey, president and CEO of the AT&T Operations division, made the announcement at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media, Communications & Entertainment investor conference Thursday.

Click here to read the full article on Multichannel.com

ncmikey,

I got your message about your interest in the "Amplfied Indoor Double Diamond UHF TV Antenna Project" I documented for an old friend earlier this summer. I split the document into six sections and generated PDF files for each section. I will e-mail you one part of the document at a time at the e-mail address you provided.

If anybody else is interested in this project, e-mail me your e-mail address at DTVStudent@gmail.com

Have A Great Day,
DTV Student

This moves them from "never will consider it" to "hmmmm...." status to me. Of course I would need to hear about PQ after this change, first. Not to mention they need to get ESPNU in HD.

Is there any consensus on U-Verse PQ vs TWC vs E* vs D*?

thanks ...

If read from a prominent poster on Satelliteguys.us that on smaller HDTV's (less than 50) the PQ is fine, but on larger TVs the PQ isn't so good. This was before they even went to 3 streams. He only kept the service for a week. Between the bad PQ and bad customer service he got, he didn't like it.

For me I have 3 HD DVRs right now (6 streams) so them going to 4 HD streams still doesn't do anything for me. Next year I'm going to replace the last two old CRT TVs I have with smallish HDTVs and get 2 more HD DVRs for them. That will be 10 HD streams. I can do that with D*, my current provider. I can't with U-Verse and can't with E*. I don't know about TWC.

Most people I've read has stated that D*'s PQ is better than E*'s.

With U-Verse's limit of 25 mbps of data from the street to the house, I can't imagine what 4 HD streams will do to the PQ. Not to mention if you add the high speed Internet.

I am not sure about TWC's number of DVRs capabilities, but 5 HD DVRs would be around $50 more per month. OUCH! Every time I have priced D* (on their website) they charged $5/month per every box after the first one. Is that their pricing for HD DVRs too?

A friend just told me that he wanted a second DVR and they are charging him $20.00 more for it.

I maybe stepping in to it here, but I am really surprised at how quiet the thread has been about our HD newscasts this week. For years people complained about not having HD news in this market and when it arrives, hardly anything.

This is a pretty vocal bunch here and I would be interested to hear your opinions so far. No rah rah. Just honest criticism. If there is none, then that is OK too (I don't believe THAT one for a minute! ) Good intended feedback is welcomed.

For months, way prior to the HD conversion, I have thought that the overall set and graphics package from WGHP was the best in the area. As I mentioned here several months ago, my main frustration with Triad news is the on air personalities - each of the stations has someone on air that seems to make my skin crawl.

I've noticed for years, to my own frustration, that I respond quickly with a first impression to a new face - TV or movie actor, newscaster, etc. I'll watch a new TV series and a lot of my sticking with a series has very much to do with my knee jerk reaction to the first appearance of the main cast members. I won't try to do anything to defend this superficialness - it's just an automatic response that I'm aware of and deal with.

I'd love to be able to choose a dream team for a Triad news broadcast - weather from this one, sports from another, anchors and field reporters picked from all, etc. While the set, graphics, PQ, etc. is superior at WGHP, that's not enough to make it my first choice.

One aside - I did watch a broadcast on the second or third day after the transition, via TWC's WGHP feed. I realize I was being hypercritical because of the discussion here, but the wide shot of the newsdesk showed either something stuck to the floor, or a piece of trash or maybe even just a discolored area of concrete. Anyway, it was oddly distracting since I was extra aware if it being a new set.

But, strictly from an appearance standpoint, re: the work that you and the designers, other engineers, etc., have done - it all looks fantastic.

Thanks for the comments. They are appreciated.

As for the "trash on the floor" actually they are marks for the talent and rolling monitor placements on the new set. HD shows EVERYTHING. We now have TWO rolling monitors, the old one from the old set and a new one. As we get more accustom to the set and placements, those will go away.

Right now we have to be careful how the cameras shoot the set because we have 11 monitors on set now (including the group of three 55 inchers on their sides we joking call the "hydra" for the "three headed monster"; actually we officially call it the "Vid Wall") and an errant camera shot might show a piece of a monitor with a picture for an upcoming story and not the story the talent is talking about so we have to be sure what the shot is before it goes on air. We have tried to step up our production values with this set. We have all kinds of camera shots on this set we didn't have before and this has created issues we didn't used to have. Like the old saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.

I think that the new Fox8 HD news is great, but it takes more than just a great picture for me to watch the news. Personally, I like channel 12's news. For weather, I think that Van Denton does the best job. Whenever there is severe weather in the area, I always turn to channel 8. No need to even mention channel 2 because overall I think they are just terrible. They might as well replace the news for The Andy Griffith Show.

You are making a point I have been saying for years and many in the Programming Threads on AVS disputes. Pretty pictures are great, but ...... you have to have the content. I think we also have the content and have been for a long time and that is why we are consistently number 1 in many newscasts and demos in newscasts, even though another station says they are number 1 in everything (huh??) when they can't back any of it up and are resorting to using twist of phrase to keep it legal. ("Number 1 favorite newscasts." According to who? The favorites people? How about Nielsen next time? Just saying?! There is something called believability I like.)

I am sorry we don't currently meet what you are looking for in local news. I hope you will periodically check us out as we are always changing our newscasts and thanks for your feedback. Honest!

The new WGHP set and broadcast look great. I watch OTA and can tell a big difference between HD and the other stations' SD. I was especially impressed with the onscreen graphics that appear beside the anchor with each story. It reminded me of the graphics on the nightly national news.

As some would say.."Number 1 in Number 2.." Of course, what really matters..especially nowadays..is market billing and cash flow/profitability.

Congrats on a job well done foxeng.

Is WXLV-45 planning on adding a subchannel? I noticed yesterday that their PSIP now reads "WXLV-AB" whereas before it just read "WXLV" (I think).

I already have 5 DVRs now. Two of them are SD DVRs. D*'s pricing break down is this. The DVR service is $7 a month which covers the whole house. I doesn't matter if you have 1 or 5 like I do. It's just $7. The first receiver, no matter what kind it is, is free. Each additional receiver is $5, no matter what kind of receiver it is. So with D*, my total cost in fees for 5 DVRs (3 HD, 2 SD) is $27. By comparision, with E*, a HD DVR duo room model is $17 a month.

There were a couple of missteps the first night but those have been worked out. I'm not crazy about the stone wall though. But overall I really love the all HD newscast. It's the only newscast I watch. I don't want to watch the other two guys' 16x9 SD newscast.

Stone is the "in thing" in sets these days. We did tone it down from what the designer wanted if that is any consolation.

I saw that too. Don't know, but Sinclair does do subchannels in many of their other markets. Could be they will be doing something here. It is -AB because there are only 7 spaces and to do ABC the protocol would need to be expanded to 8. It is really intended to be call sign plus suffix, if any. WAAA-TV.

The graphics were all done in house. That is why it took so long to get the new graphics generator on line. The Art people had to learn how to use it and then create the graphics. It is the same graphics we have been running the last month, just the animated separators and opens and reopens are different than the SD versions (the orange based moving graphics). With all the new looks, the graphics we had been using just blended in and looked different even though it is same ones. We had to recreate the animated graphics since the old animated graphics were SD only and had to be remade for HD and were 3 years old anyway.

The reason I like WXII's news better is because they cover more of the Winston Salem area. I live in Winston Salem, so that is why it is more important to me. WGHP seems to have more High Point/Greensboro area news and Channel 2 seems to cover more Greensboro. It would be hard for one news station to cover a large area, so I can understand that it has to be more of a regional coverage. I did watch WGHP more when you guys were the first from a 4:3 to a stretch screen view. It was hard to watch WXII in 4:3 with a widescreen television. When WXII went to the stretch view, then I went back to them.

i've certainly enjoyed the HD newscasts on Fox8. and sure there have been mistakes, but those are certainly being worked out and are probably best attributed to getting used to the new equipment. (things like having the previous graphic up on the screen as the newscaster goes into the next story).

i see what looks like a power outlet in front of the anchor desk. too bad that has to show, but you gotta have power.

one thing i have seen on wsoc that doesn't happen on wghp is the off-screen talent leaning into a live shot. their camera setup must be awkward, because sometimes you'll see a nose enter the frame. of course that's not a hi-def issue, but as you said HD shows everything. haha.

question: i remember hearing that (in SD days) if you showed a TV monitor on screen the color and brightness/contrast adjustment had to be pretty far off normal to look good on camera. what about on a HD set? how is the color and brightness/contrast set on them? also, back in the "old days" a CRT shown would have a scan line crawling up it.

one thing i wish WGHP would do is to make a BIGGER deal in the openings and breaks that the newscast is in HIGH DEFINITION.... and the ONLY station in the triad doing it...that HD on the "fox box" isn't enough, i don't think.

I can completely understand why you would think WXII does more Winston-Salem news than the other stations and have no problem with that. Actually, we do quite a bit of Winston-Salem news and we have a full time manned bureau in Winston-Salem as well. Have had for as long as I have worked here. It is located at the Winston-Salem Journal.

I also understand that going from 16:9 SD to HD may not be as big a splash as going from 4:3 to 16:9 SD for those with widescreen TV's since WFMY and WXII are also doing 16:9 SD. By going HD first it does give us a marketing edge and I do know for a fact WXII wanted to be first in HD news to use that marketing edge since it is the last big "get" of marketing and they had been making noise about doing it but then all talk stopped. We suspect Hearst decided to move more toward Internet first to drive people to the newscast than HD. Both have their place, it just depends on how a company wants to implement it. Their GM over there can't be happy to loose this one though. He is a very competitive person (he once made the comment that he wished our tower would fall down and his problems would be solved) and that is why you see some of these "questionable" 1sts you see there. Like the 1st in HD promos right before we launched. While true, it was in reference to being first on the air with a digital signal and running the first HD program - Leno - in this market in 2001, but that part was never mentioned. In my eyes, that is trying to confuse the viewer. If a station does that would you want to trust them giving you the news? In my eyes it is all about creditability. Everyone reacts differently to it. But the perceived thinking being the viewer doesn't know any different and if you say it enough, people will believe it. Personally I don't subscribe to that thinking. It has a nasty habit of coming back around and biting you when you least need it to.

Sure we would love for everyone to watch us, but we also know that isn't realistic. You as a viewer have choices and that is good for you. It also makes us work harder to be better and that is good for us.

Thanks for listening.

Part of our new system automates certain functions like starting servers and changing monitors in the background and such and we are still fleshing some of that coding out.


There is no power outlet in front of the anchor desk. I will have to look and see what you are seeing.


I hadn't heard that about WSOC. Our set was designed for 16:9. If you see pictures of the old set with two anchors verses now, you can see the anchors are farther apart now than before since the old set was designed for 4:3 and you would see an anchor hand or something stick in. I need to post a picture of that. I think I have one.


Color temperature with on set monitors are still a big deal in HD. Most now have color temperature controls that will allow it to be better on camera without having an amber gel on the screen or whacking out the hue. We have set the monitors to the color temperature extreme as much as we can, but they still have a tinge of blue to them. Not sure exactly what we are going to do about it but they don't look that bad on set at the moment. (nitpicky aren't we!)


Thought I would never hear a viewer want MORE promos!

Sister WMYV is supposed to be adding "The Cool TV," but I'm pretty sure that's 48-2 and not 45-2...

- Trip