Greensboro, NC - HDTV - Page 4

Well I have just found out (what I had told the manufacturer last week), the closed captioning software update that we got last week IS BROKEN! They have asked the FCC for an extension and they gave then until the 21st of July to comply! So I guess we will be getting more software soon! It does look like the video glitch is fixed. For the moment though!

Charles Layno
Transmitter Supervisor
FOX8 WGHP/WGHP-DT

Thank you all for keeping us informed! I try to read this thread every day to see what's happening. I am still going to put up my double bow tie antenna soon - painting the computer room and swim team practices and meets have kept me away from doing any major wiring etc...

FYI, the Radio Shack at Friendly has one more double bow tie antenna for $9.97.

In case you missed this on the "Greenboro" HDTV Group thread.

Hey, let's all get together for a dinner meeting in the next few weeks. I know it is the middle of summer, but what works for everyone between now and the first of August? I will be there and you can grill me ( ) for dinner if you want! Don has alluded that he will be there too, so there you have two to grill!

What is everyone's preference?

Would love to. Dinner sounds good. About anytime in the middle of the week over the next several weeks would be fine. How about picking several evenings and let everyone respond and then you pick the one when most can attend.

Is anyone else experiencing any difficulty receiving WFMY-DT (51) in the past few days? What was my strongest station has been totally dead since sometime during the week of July 8th. Are you folks watching 51-1 these days? I miss it.

I haven't seen WFMY since the storm the other night. I didn't think it was bad enough to knock anyone off the air, it didn't us, but since then I haven't seen them up. Of course I haven't been regularly checking them. Since they are not on much, if I watch CBS, I just watch it off Directv. but I commented last night with the antenna pointed south, I didn't see a signal. I will make a point to specifically look to see if they are up tonight.

It was mentioned earlier that WFMY was not on the air and after checking it tonight they seem to be off the air. I thought they were down since that last storm last week but I never checked to see if it was them or my antenna and tonight I am not seeing any indication that they are transmitting. Maybe we can find out next week what happened.

Went to Best Buy and Circuit City today to see what they had in the store with DTV receivers and see what they were playing on them.

I WAS AMAZED! NO 1080I pictures, all 480P and I heard one salesman at Best Buy telling a couple that the HDTV they were looking WAS displaying an HD picture! It was 480P with an in store DVD playing. I wanted to ask the salespeople there if they had any 1080I material, but I never got one, the 2 that were in the TV section had too many customers to serve and the other three went the other way when I moved toward them.

Circuit City was no better on PQ. They had an NBC race feed up on several of the monitors and it was the WORST picture I have ever seen with little digital blocks all over the picture! (Obviously NOT WXII at 2pm) It was definitely 480I up converted to something other than 480P on some monitors. I did get a salesperson and asked if they had any 1080I material and he said that they did have HDNET for the Olympics, but not anymore and that was all they had to show and I could take it or leave it. I asked him if they had any off air and he said "with only 'three' stations, it wasn't worth it."

I had been to Now Audio/Video back in March and I felt the whole time I was there, I had a gun to head to buy a TV. The salesman there tried to pass off 480P DVD as HD until I asked it they received WRAL, then he back off the "HD DVD." I will never go back in there again.

Sheesh! No wonder no one is buying. No one in those stores would know the difference anyway! I don't feel so bad now about my upconverted 480P! It is what everyone in the store is seeing anyway!

Just to add to the problem. My nieghbor told me he went to BestBuy a few days ago and the salesman there told him not to even think of buying a HDTV until 2004. I have no idea what every one is afraid of but we need more people like Mark Cuban to step forward and get this thing rolling.

I seem to have lost sound on WUPN-DT. Anybody out there getting sound on 48-1?

last few nights I check, WFMY is gone... oh well. Dinner sounds fun. Still dont have much luck with my setup so far....

Also planning to set up an IEEE 802.11b network at home soon....

Talos

btw, anyone know where can I get TIVO expand with a bigger hard drive locally?
I read the process, it require a PC for backup purpose. Only have a Mac here.

-Talos

It's the same up here in Roanoke, folks. The chain store guys just don't seem to know what they're talking about. We're the only station here doing 1080i and we went to see the chains and asked them to use an antenna and at least one display set to demo 1081i. I think BestBuy had an RCA set displaying our 1080i for a week or so, but they sold it and never went back to anything displaying material other than the chain's prerecorded stuff.
BTW, my sympathy to the two TV chiefs on the Greensboro forum. We spend a lot of days chasing our tails, too. Much of the DATV and HDTV equipment being delivered to television stations is hardly more than prototypes. Our PSIP is set up to identify our Channel 18 digital signals as 7.1(for fulltime 1080i and HDTV when we have it) and 7.2 for a standard definition test signal. The PSIP burped a week or two ago and suddenly anybody whose receiver had previously found us at 7.1 and 7.2 then found us at 18.1 and 18.2, with the same signal strength, but with no audio or video. After agonizing over what to do, the vendor had us tell viewers to turn off the program guide to get audio and video back. I think we're finally back to normal, but it lit up my e-mail inbox.
Somebody told me last week that they're watching us at WFMY, so it sounds as if we're still pouring a right good digital signal into much of the Greensboro area.

Bob, I live on the north side of Greensboro and get a good signal all the time from WDBJ. It is the only Roanoke, Lynchburg station I see here.

Charles Layno
Transmitter Supervisor
FOX8 WGHP/WGHP-DT

My creditors appreciate your watching. WSET long ago applied for a different channel for digital and it's still waiting for the FCC to act. WSLS opted for a low-power interim launch, but some of our digital viewers down along the state line tell me they can pick up the Channel 30 signal when it is working right. The Fox affiliate has a Channel 21 transmitter licensed to Lynchburg and a Channel 27 transmitter licensed to Roanoke. They fired up the Channel 20 DATV version of the Lynchburg transmitter and they're multicasting Fox and WB on it. I don't think their Roanoke DATV is up yet. The Pax O&O is digital on Channel 36, but only during prime time. People tell me it has right good coverage, too.
It's still kind of lonely out there.

I don't watch that often. HHHMMM, I don't watch CBS that often come to think of it!


We have a 5 meg NTSC channel 20 here (WB) so the DTV channel 20 can't be seen. Oh well!

Maybe your hair just isn't grey enough yet.

We talk a lot about PSIP and how important it is so the receivers will work correctly, and it is pretty complicated. The ATSC Standards Committee, (the people who thought the protocol up) has released document A/69, "ATSC Recommended Practice: Program ans System Information Protocol Implementation Guidelines for Broadcasters." It is a guide for broadcasters on how to set up PSIP. Here is the URL if you would like to look at it: http://www.atsc.org/standards/A69.pdf.

Oh, it is 93 pages long!

For JeffShoaf

I don't have sound on 33-1 either. It's been silent for almost a week, although the video is fine.

I don't have 33-1, only 33-2 (48-2) and it has color bars only on it! Been that way for a while now. At least you have more than I do!

Why does a station waste the electricity to transmit a signal that no one is decoding? Are they aware that the signal can not be decoded?

I can't speak for them, but if people call and complain to the station, it might help. The general perception in the industry here is that no one is watching and so as long there is a signal of some type that can be documented, then the letter of the law is being met. That is not the attitude I have and several others, but the people who control things believe that. That is why calls from the puplic do go along way.

How does Wednesday, July 31st sound to everyone? I was thinking around 7:30pm at the Golden Coral at Wendover and I 40. They have a back room that we can get and have some privacy and there is a good selection of entrees.

I haven't checked to see if the room is available, but if that looks good to everyone, I will set it up.

Wednesday July 31 at 7:30PM sounds good to me. Count me in.

Whoops! Now 48-1 is totally gone! No signal strength on the meter at all...

As the general manager of a local television station, I can tell you that many of us honestly believe that we have to migrate to digital or perish. We're just about the only analog entity left. Unfortunately, though, the FCC's hands-off attitude has not done anyone any favors in this conversion. Just try going into the typical electronics chain store and trying to get logical answers to your questions about digital television. Or take your pension and try buying a set with an integrated tuner. Or better yet, try going into a local store and buying a decoder.
We're wasting the electricity (our power bill alone went up $6,000 a month when we launched the digital channel) because we are required to if we want to stay in business. The public will finally come along on digital television, but it sure is taking a lot longer than any of us would like.

Now they're (WUPN-DT) back with no sound...

wdbjbob,

I can assure you the public will never be impressed by a digital TV station (33.1) that does not transmit the audio portion of its program for weeks at a time.

WFMY-DT has been off the air for three weeks. I miss them but at least they're not wasting electricity on a video signal with no audio. I wish I could receive you better.

Here is an interesting website that has a full section on DTV reception. It gets a tad bit high brow for some, but if you do outside (and I am sure some of it can be used for attics too) it is a very good primer for receiving DTV signals. Don't let the name of the site fool you, it is run by a consult and he is using all the names he can think of to get you to come to his site. Luckily, it is a free site. Enjoy!

http://www.projectorexpert.com/