Colorado Springs, CO - HDTV - Page 4

I don't think the reporter gives the general public much credit for upgrading to HDTV. I'm sure that there are those that won't upgrade, but I think a lot of people will now that we finally have a station that has crawled out of the dark ages! I wonder what the percentage is in areas that have all 3 major networks broadcasting in HD?

KKTV-HD was switched on for the noon news today. They were broadcasting in stretched mode. Here's hoping that they will be turned on for the Boss Friday night!

Can anybody say when they turned it off today? Thanks. It is bugging me that I haven't been able to catch it yet.

Roy

The online program guide had the show listed as KKTV-HD 1. They also had KKTV-HD 2, KKTV-HD 3, and KKTV-HD 4 listed at 3 hour intervals but as far as I know they never came back on. The station was shown as KKTV-DT on channel 11-1.

Oops, I'm too computer oriented. I should have said on-screen program guide. I guess they sent some practice program information along with the HD-signal.

But they aren't broadcasting 24 hours or prime time yet, right? Since I get very ghosty images on the analog channels I am a bit worried about actually receiving the digital streams. And I've only been able to scan for them in the evenings.

Jack

Jack,
I got lucky and was able to find them on the air when I was home in the early afternoon, I have checked every night since then and have yet to see anything on the air.

If any of you are using a Dishnetwork#6000 receiver you DO NOT need to scan for the channel. All you hace to do is go to the "Local Channel" screen and Select "Add DTV" On the next screen enter "10" in the channel number field and select the text (K-K-T-V) to Id the channel on the onscreen channel guide. After saving the data got to the channel guide, the station should be hi-lighted in yellow. Make sense so far? Once you select the station, you will see a signal strength indication. If a signal is present the indication will be 1-100%. If no signal is present the indication will be 00%.

Were they on today? I tried scanning today, several times, with no luck. From the notes above, it looks like I shouldn't try for another couple of weeks.

Jack

drvais, I sure hope I got the quote right this time.


FWIW, there is no "y" in Canon City. It is pronounced the same a the word canyon, but not spelled that way, it is the Spanish spelling and should have a tilde over the middle 'n'. Trust me on this one, I was born and raised there waaay too many years ago. I was actually a kid here in Colorado when the Denver stations first came on the air and I also remember when we finally got TV in Canon City (first only from KOAA in Pueblo if I remember the call letters right, until the Springs stations put in some repeaters for the Canon City area) several years later. Imagine the irony in knowing that Canon City will be viewing full power HD long before those of us living in Denver and Boulder will.

Okay folks it looks like we've got some time to kill while KKTV is getting their act together. Let's see if we can discuss the other stations for a change!

1. KOAA is going to be the last station in the continental USA to get an DTV signal on the Air! The last time I looked at the FCC website the FCC had rescended their authorization for a new tower. As far as I know KOAA is now milking this situation for as much time as they can. Too bad really, NBC has some shows that I would really like to see in HD.

2. KRDO is supposed to be on the air Mar. 31, 2003 ( According to WWW.TitanTV.Com). I have sent a few emails to KRDO and they have not responded. Seems that they don't believe in sharing any information with their veiwers.

3. Fox is supposed to be on the air May 1, 2003 ( According to WWW.TitanTV.Com). Big deal!! if they do broadcast an HD signal it won't be worth watching anyway! Fox is pushing their 480p format, yeah it's better than an analog signal, but not by much!!

4. PBS is also supposed to be on the air May 1, 2003 ( According to WWW.TitanTV.Com). I have not seen or heard any thing about their progress. Anybody heard anything?

5. UPN.....???? Anyone???

I found them this morning. I was able to scan in KKTV on channel 10 on my IT910S. It showed up in the channel guide as 11-1. They were simulcasting some infomercial that was being broadcast on the analog channel 11, which is 11-0 in the channel guide.

What I noticed was that the DTV picture was cropped. The various texts and captions, like people's names and "Before and After" were cropped in DTV. One i noticed was a "before" caption; on the DTV, it was 'fore', on NTSC there was a margin on the left and then 'Before'. They may be cropping 50 or more pixels on each side to create the SDTV image they send. Very annoying.

I'm watching on a DLP set, so I just watch it as 12x9 and don't try to expand it to a full 16x9 image. I don't know if they think they are removing overscan or what, but it doesn't work. Looking again, the top and bottom appear to be the same, so no cropping there, but they are stretching the image horizontally to fill in for the missing pixels and it looks bad. I wonder if they have a square vs. rectangular pixel configuration problem?

But I am happy to see that I will be able to get some OTA DTV and maybe even HDTV.

Jack

Jack,

It is great to hear that you scanned it in on your Integra. That means that I should have no problem also. I am hopefull that they will listen to feedback and improve their presentation. What time in the morning were you able to scan it in?

Roy

drvais,
Last time I looked Co Spgs did not have a WB station. I get KWGN (channel 2 - Denver) with the Locals package from Dishnetwork.

As far as KRDO is concerned - I sent an Email to their Eng. Mgr. via their website yesterday. I'll post the reply, if I get one.


For those that have yet to get a picture on channel 10, the only time that I have been able to get a signal is around noon. I just can't bring myself to watch to much daytime TV just to see when they go off the air!

Well, I was able to scan it in this morning around 8:05! Now I know for sure that I can get it and can relax.

I have another question. Are those of you with Dish Network HD tuners or other tuners able to stretch the HD signals. My Integra tuner will do that. If the engineers at KKTV knew that most people can stretch it, then they could use 4x3 for upconverted material and let the viewer chose whether to stretch. After all, not all types of sets are subject to burn in.

Roy

Just a post for everyone here wondering about what antennas, range, etc would work for reception.

Here is what I am using to receive the signal:
Terk TV50 antenna in attic (not my choice, already here when we bought house from Vantage).
Hughes E86.

For those not familiar with the Latigo Trails area, it is North of Falcon approx 5 miles so a good distance from Cheyenne Mountain. I am on the N side of Latigo Blvd so the hill on the S side of Latigo keeps me from having direct line of sight.

With that, this morning I have receive level at 93.

Do any of you know what the reception area South of Springs is? I'm way down south in Walsenburg and would love nothing more than to get some network HD programming. I've been debating whether or not to go Canadian. It would make my decision a lot easier if I could pull some in from Springs. Anyway, just wondering if anyone had some info on my situation.

Per a note from Jim Schoedler, RMPBS Director of Network Engineering , in the Denver forum, ( POST #3840 ) PBS is supposed to be getting a low-power transmitter on Cheyenne Mountain this summer.

Jack

Well it's 3:56pm and KKTV is still on the air!

Anyone have any news about Comcast? When they take over cable is there any indication whether or not they will provide HD over the cable system? Do you know how far south they will offer their cable. I heard that they sold the southern part of CO to a cable company called Bresnan. I just wasn't sure if by southern they meant Pueblo or just south of Pueblo. I really won't be happy if all of CO can get HD over cable and us southerners still get the screws put to us. Oh well, the price you pay for living in quiet (sometimes), little communities.

I don't know what this means, but it sounds encouraging. Did you take it to mean that they now have their HD tuner? It does sound like they won't go full time until their HD capability is fully functional, including inserting commercials.

It makes sense for one person to contact them rather than having several of us bug them. Thanks for the update.

Roy