Greensboro, NC - HDTV - Page 331

This goes to show the CSR's have no clue what they are doing. That is why I have no confidence any technical info goes above their immediate level. They have no idea what a subchannel is. If they think that a .2 of station is a DIFFERENT station technically, then they have no clue what is going on. Both stations are on the SAME TRANSMITTER. If 1 million watts is low power, the 8.2 is low power. It is the SAME power as the .1. Why? It is coming off the SAME DAMN TRANSMITTER! If you receive the .1 with no issues, the .2 will come in with the SAME reception. They don't get it.


Stations go through the same thing the subscribers do. We had an issue with the stream breaking up prior to the transition and shortly after. Both times the technical people (one being a former broadcast engineer) kept saying it was our problem. After I sent a stream capture of our signal to them. The problem mysteriously fixed itself. Yeah, it happens.


No. The .2 has only been active since December of 2010 so at the time of the transition and at the time channel 8 was shut down (March of 2010), there was only one stream, 8-1. DirecTV never added the .2 to the program guide until March or April. I don't remember which. Again, it was like pulling Eye Teeth with them. You can go back through this thread and see how long it took.

Since John Malone's Liberty bought DirecTV from News Corp, they run it like a cable company. When News Corp owned them, stations had direct access to the people we needed to talk to. No more now. You go through a gauntlet of people to get where you need to go and then there is no guarantee you will get the right person and you never get the right person the first time any more. This last call about the .2 issue, I literally had to call the emergency TOC number stations have when there is a technical issue. Of course they can't help because they just handle station interfaces and uplinks. They would have to have me email them all the info so it could be escalated up the chain. The program guide is done from a division called "Programming" which has nothing to do with programming. Go figure. It is the "Programming" division is what handles the program guide issues and they are VERY insulated from the outside word. The only reason I know that is when we were trying to get the .2 listed in the first place last year, it took months to get to them and then I had a devil of a time getting them to list it then. I suspect that is when this issue began since the .2 has never completely worked correctly from the get-go.

This is scary. And to think I was considering getting D* last year It almost makes me wonder if the level of service is possibly better with the CSRs at TWC? Could that actually be possible?

At any rate, I hope this issue is resolved for all viewers of D* How much longer can it take them to get the picture about what is going on with 8.2?

I can understand that - I'm certainly no fan of TWC, but I wouldn't take a bullet for D* either. We had cable for 30+ years. After I moved back home to help my folks with some health issues, the only entertainment expense we had was TV. There were so many shows one or more of us enjoyed that I think we had something like 55 series recordings programmed at one point with TWC.

After the 'upgrade' to Navigator in October 2009 (not coincidentally the same time I joined AVS - for the forum info about the new guide), things got immediately worse. After about a year, I was missing about as many recordings as I was getting - and only had 160GB of hard drive space to work with. As I've said many times, if your DVR won't R, what good is it?

With costs that kept rising, we decided to take a leap into the world of satellite, thinking it could hardly be worse and we'd at least have more money. I can honestly say that it's been great, from a hardware perspective. Twice in 13-14 months, we lost connection in the whole house setup - both times, I reset both DVRs and everything was back to normal.

I can't think of a time when a recording has been missed, and I probably have 60+ series spread between the 4 tuners on the 2 500GB DVRs. The only issues have been occasional loss of signal, say during an overnight thunderstorm, that rendered the recording unwatchable in places. You only have to glance at the last few days of posts in the TWC Navigator thread (which I still follow) to see that recording reliability doesn't seem to have improved at all.

This 8.2 issue has been supremely frustrating, but as much from the principle of the thing as anything else. For our uses (we RARELY watch anything live), the changeover to D* has been like trading a Yugo with three wheels in for a Bentley. I know that's supreme hyperbole, but the stress reduction has also been priceless.

That said, I'm not on the D* payroll and would kick them to the curb if I couldn't reliably record stuff. But, for us, it really has been almost bulletproof. That being the case, I haven't had a need to test the CSRs. To me, the only mitigating factor here is that this is surely a fairly unique problem. I'm not surprised that the entry level folks are bewildered (and offer the scripted advice of reboot, rescan, etc.) but I am very frustrated that there's not something in place to say "this is a problem multiple people in X market are dealing with so it should be referred to the engineers, technicians, whatever, in Y department for resolution." I'm not an engineer by trade, but that seems to be a no-brainer. I guess it's a simple as things are being run by marketers, accountants, MBAs, etc. I can't help but think there's someone in a basement somewhere who could fix this in 10 minutes if we could make him or her aware of the issue. But foxeng has already detailed how insulated the proper people are from even the stations (ostensibly, their providers in one sense, or customers in another).

In any event, while I still have some optimism, I'm hoping that the shotgun approach of many of us contacting the consumer end of things and foxeng working from another angle might result in one 'magic bullet' hitting the target. After all, that's all we need.

My apologies for the long-winded post.

As a D* sub since 1997, I can say, the number of issues I have had with them I can count on one hand. Many people I know with TWC have that many in a month.

While the 8.2 thing really peeves me off, I wouldn't trade D* for TWC. TWC seems to be a continual issue of one thing after another. I don't have that with D*.

I've had DirecTv since day one..and I can count on several fingers the issues
I have had with them. Not so with TWC..I'd have to be a mutant to count that high.

I've never had D* But my guess would be the issue of outages during bad weather as being one of the more typical complaints. Of course, that is a technical issue. And I don't honestly know how it can be entirely eliminated without subscribers going with an extra large dish in their backyard!! And who is going to do that (even if it were offered by the satellite provider)? But, I guess we all understand that a large dish is going to be able to punch through the clouds during bad weather and keep a signal far better than the standard size dishes that homeowners are accustomed to now days.

In this regard, it would seem the cable companies have a bit of an advantage. It's been my personal experience that cable is not so affected by these issues. It just works during bad thunderstorms or other inclement weather. Well, that is if you want to keep watching....which may not always be the best idea unless you have a good surge protector (for thunderstorms)!

BUT my biggest beef with TWC is the fact that their pricing is all over the place! It seems no two customers pay the exact same price. TWC has so much creative pricing that it is absolutely ridiculous! And if you think you are locked in on a good deal, just wait till your statement reflects a new higher amount. Of course, TWC has their so called retention department and sometimes that works for people who want to haggle with them. But I have gotten very tired of it through the years. And that is precisely why I cut them off (the last time) a year ago. I am only back with them more recently b/c they contacted me and offered me the new customer rate. But as always, it is subject to change; and I am quite sure the pricing will change (go higher).

This is one of the reasons I am so passionate about the whole cause for OTA! Certainly the viewing options are limited. But there is no question that it provides the best HD picture of any delivery system that I am aware of. It's also not so bad when supplemented with a movie service and your own DVR!

There are so MANY cable channels that I NEVER watch. I watch a few of the specialty channels and that's about it besides network TV, which I can get OTA. So when my bill is raised again, I fully expect to cut them off. Now, I understand everyone's situation is different. And there are those individuals who rarely watch anything but specialty networks. So for them, perhaps they are willing to pay much more than I am for subscription TV. This commentary is just my two cents worth.

Me.... I have one... And OTA really isn't that great..compared to what it COULD be. But certainly better than TWC by far.

http://pwp.att.net/p/s/community.dll...pid=362351&ck=

Nice, Bob. This is definitely not your standard homeowner's dish! And I am sure (with your setup) you are not affected by inclement weather issues in the manner that other D* customers experience

Actually Evan, I have had very few issues with fades on DirecTv with the AU9 (?) dish.. if the dish is installed absolutely perfectly, a fade is rare..at least for me. Only in the heaviest of rain storms do I lose it. The big dish is used for "real" video using commercial equipment not available to the average viewer.

We have only lived in NC since Oct 2010. I stupidly got TWC then and finally switched last August. I just couldn't take it anymore. I had Dish Network before I lived here. With TWC, the PQ is terrible. The guide is worthless. The HD channels don't remap on top of the SD ones so they're way up in the 1000s. The boxes need to be replaced monthly sometimes. We had a lot of pixelation on some HD channels all the time. And, a killer for me, no NFL Network/Red Zone. No offense to the fans of the Panthers or WGHP, but I just can't watch them every week. Not to mention paying ridiculous amounts of money. Friends I have down here have said horrible things about losing signal with satellite in the storms and stick with TWC despite the problems described in this post and previous ones. bdfox18doe's mutant hand comment is the perfect description.

My friend up north has had Directv for years and has never lost a signal for more than a few minutes even during wicked bad storms. Since last August, we have NEVER lost our signal completely. During a storm last fall, it was blocky (like an OTA signal when the antenna is a little off) for about 2 minutes and yesterday when it changed to sleet it was blocky for about 30 seconds but that's it. I think if you have an installer who cares (mine was so precise he got back up on the ladder to fiddle with it to increase the signal level by 3 points), things go a lot better. It took him a little longer than I expected to do the install but I couldn't be happier with the results. He even helped me hide the wires, etc inside since my building is wired for TWC and the landlord won't allow additional wiring inside and helped with my antenna some. The point of this rambling post is - IF your installer cares, you won't lose your signal very much at all.

Good post. It sounds like this is the type of installer whose business card you need to hang onto. Too often (with so many businesses now days), it's the attitude is......'git-r-done' as quickly as possible without focus on the quality of the job.

My experience with signal loss has been the same as what the previous posters have seen - during a torrential downpour, we've lost signal for a few minutes but I can't remember any interruptions during anything less than that. And we haven't had any serious snows since we installed our dish.

Interestingly in all this, I spent a bunch of time last night searching around for HTPC info. I still need to install my new antenna and was thinking of setting up a computer as a PVR to give me non-satellite recording options via OTA. With as much TV as we watch, cord cutting may not be an option but, after our D* commitment is complete, I might try OTA + internet for a bit to see how much we can replace for far less $. If any of you locals have any experience with HTPC PVR kinda stuff, especially local resources, I'd love your input. PM me or use my username at hotmail for e-mail.

Look at MediaPortal: http://www.team-mediaportal.com/

I have an OTA DVR Setup at my house - my older AMD 2800+ computer acts as the "master backend" recording up and serving video. Bought two tv tuner cards for $20 each, bought a 2TB Green SATA drive when they were cheap $70, and ended up buying an HDHomeRun single tuner for $30 which hooks up OTA via ethernet (which is great, buy the dual one!).

Three tuner cards hooked up to my computer, and it records three (or if there is something on the subchannel, more) programs at once - the MythTV software has a nice web interface called MythWeb where I can set up recording rules, see the status of the system, etc.

It also will scan for commercials after done recording so I can autoskip them at each commercial break.

I bought a used pc on ebay for $70, and added a good nvidia video card with HDMI and svideo out for $30, and this computer is the frontend computer that is hooked to the living room TV - it talks to the backend pc and shows the programs.

The backend also transcodes shows to .mp4 for space savings, but mostly to run a hacked channel for the roku that will display these shows, tied into that mythweb interface - this gives me programming on the Roku, which I have in the livingroom and the bedroom. So, at night we watch the roku in the bedroom before going to sleep.

My estimate, the overall cost for me to setup everything was less than $300, and I have a multi room DVR, with great signal/PQ, and have been very happy.

MythTV can be setup fairly easily with a install distribution that will wipe an old machine and put on everything it needs to run MythTV... which is good for those who don't know linux. There are other options if you just want to stick with Windows, but I like free

Oh, and we cut satellite and are saving $1200 a year now...

Just an FYI. WKRP in Cincinnati will debut on AntennaTV on April 8th. No time has been stated publicly that I am aware of.

WKRP is one of my favorite shows. I hope we are able to iron out the DirecTV/8.2 issues in the next 5-6 weeks.

No updates from my end except to say that, since the phone call and my follow-up e-mail to them with a couple of clarifications, there's been no communication.

I am looking forward to it.

Talking about Antenna TV WGHP 8.2 as we have been has made me remember that once upon a time - for a very brief time - it did work on Directv. Now we travel down memory lane back to when it worked (and the guide was blue)...

Any thoughts? Did the conversation go nowhere or is the fix more time consuming (or further down their list) that we hoped?

If it isn't an emergency, like a channel is down, they take their time. Just waiting, like everyone else. I did hear a while back they were having some issue with .2 channel EPG data. It seems several markets have this same kind of issue and it usually is the last station in. Don't know if that has anything to do with this.

I was watching the Missouri-Kansas game on WRAL2 (it looks **slightly** better than the game on 2-2), and when the ACC game was over there was a crawler directing people to turn to OTA channel 5-1 or TWC channel 105 to finish the CBS game. I have noticed this with other channels, too, especially WCWG, where they say "digital channel 20-1 or cable ch. 3. Two things:
1. WHY don't they direct people to the HD channel? 1105 for WRAL for those in the DMA or 1130 for WCWG for those in our DMA. I realize not everyone has HD but this adds to the ignorance to those who don't understand that stretched out SD is NOT HD. At least mention something like "Triad CW, digital channel 20-1, cable 3 and in HD on 1130?"
2. What about Directv/Dish people?

What you're saying sounds easy enough for them to do. And it would help educate those (who you say) are ignorant to the fact that stretched out SD is not HD!

Sure has been a sad day here at work. Many tears. Everyone is pretty solemn.

I have not lived in the Triad for over 10 years now, but I can still remember Rich's distintive voice and unique delivery. In today's politically correct atmosphere I really miss his commentaries.

I will miss seeing Brenner as I have often the last few years at various places.

Antenna TV Remembers Davy Jones – “The Monkees” Marathon to air March 3 & 4

From “Daydream Believer” to “Last Train to Clarksville,” The Monkees won hearts on both sides of the pond. Beginning Saturday, Antenna TV remembers Davy Jones with a weekend-long tribute.

Antenna TV, which airs on 60 affiliates across the U.S. reaching 58% of TV households, will honor Davy Jones and The Monkees beginning with a special airing of “Head” (1968) at 1pm ET on Saturday, March 3rd. Antenna TV will also air a complete 58-episode marathon of The Monkees on Saturday, beginning at 5pm ET, and running straight through to Sunday, March 4th with an encore airing of “Head” at 10PM ET.

Sorry to hear about the loss of Rich. A great personality to say the least!

Does anyone have a recent QAM channel lineup for TWC? My Dad got a new TV recently and trying to introduce him to QAM. I am on D* now so I no longer keep up with the channel numbers. THanks!

You can get the latest QAM channels for any system, here: http://www.silicondust.com/support/channels/

This is the QAM list I have on TWC with no TWC TV subscription in Alamance County:
2.1 WFMY HD (CBS)
2.2 WFMY2 (Weather)
4.4 UNC-MX (PBS)
8.1 WGHP HD (Fox)
8.2 WGHP2 (Antenna TV)
12.1 WXII HD (NBC)
12.2 WXII2 (This)
20.1 WCWG HD (The CW)
20.3 WCWG (Estrella)
26.1 UNCTV (PBS)
26.2 UNC Kids (PBS Kids)
26.3 UNC EX (PBS)
45.1 WXLV "HD" (ABC)
45.2 WXLV2 (TCN)
48.1 WMYV "HD" (My48)
48.2 WMYV2 (CoolTV)
42 TV Guide Channel (fuzzy but watchable)
73 Disney Channel
75 NBC Sports Network
77 VH1 Classic
87.7 WTVD (ABC)
116.3 WLXI (TCT)
116.5 WGPX (Ion)
116.6 Alamance County EAS
117.2 News 14 Carolina

There are also several 4:3 chopped SD versions of HD local channels in there, too.

I've got TWC; but it's hooked up to my TiVo (with cable card) so I am not using the built-in tuner on my TV to pick up qam channels. But some things I have noted in the past:

1) It seems the CSRs at TWC and elsewhere are given no training. They will tell customers that a digital settop box is mandatory for HD viewing, even on the locals. (Lack of training..... not too surprised there).
2) I've always found it strange that some of the channels don't map to their true virtual numbers while others do. For example, here in Forsyth, WGPX has never mapped to their virtual 16.1. And Antenna TV WGHP was not correctly mapping to 8.2 for a long time. Not sure whether or not that's been changed or not. These are just two examples among others that I've seen.