Raleigh, NC - HDTV - Page 488

You're awesome! I wish all NBC stations had such a great engineer. Here in Richmond, WWBT runs their SD channel with a fixed bit rate of something like 4Mb/s, capping HD at 15Mb/s, with averages in the 11-13Mb/s range. According to mediainfo, my SuperBowl recording peaked at 14.3Mb/s for video.

Some old NBC17 recordings from before I moved look much nicer than anything I can get here.



Drew

I dont think it is NBC. Ever since WITN added a 3rd channel last year, the main channel 7.1 WITN HD has had blocks.

Officially, I can say the Weather sub-channel is gone forever. We are getting lots of calls and emails about it, but it makes no sense to fire it back up and pull it off again. I can't spare the bandwidth to keep it.

The new encoder is amazing and makes me wonder how low it can go and still look good. I guess we'll find out in a few weeks.

We will use the bandwidth from the third channel for a mobile handheld signal. Beginning later this year, smart phones will be equipped with mobile decoders so you can watch TV at 70 MPH going down the Beltline on your phone. It's an MPG-4 signal and transmitted much like Sirrus-XM radio, where the packets are resent several times and the receiver keeps them sorted out in order. WRAL and WRAZ currently have it on air now. Devices are few and far between at the moment, but were demonstrated at CES in Vegas a few weeks back.

No music channel going on. NBC decided to pull Universal Sports off air and use it as a cable channel along with the re-branded Versus channel they had on Comcast. Their apparent strategy is to compete and blow ESPN out the water with better sports. They are sewing up the NHL games and going after others. That's going to be interesting to see if they convert the ShopNBC channel to sports too.

Maybe NBC Sports could get their hands on this new encoder...

NBC17ENG, Thanks for the UPDATE.

Don't quite see the strategy in pulling Universal Sports off air. Why could it not be in both locations?

But then I really do not see any strategy with cable accept to find some ways to raise the monthly. Is anyone old enough to remember when cable was free?


In regards to "Watching TV" while driving. Will this be a monthly expense like Sirius/XM?

I have wanted to "Listen" to TV for years while driving. I use to have a 2hr one way drive twice a week and I never could figure out why some of the less used AM bands could not just reproduce the audio for tv for people on the road. I did try a portable tv but reception was what you would expect. And I do recall a car radio that would tune down just far enough to catch the audio of one tv station.

I am pretty sure Classic Radio on Sirius/XM hosts shows that are not just radio shows but also early TV shows.

I watched 17 HD last night for a while. That signal looked better than the other two NBC's in ENC. I wish WNCT could get some of these new machines.

WNCT getting 17's OLD machines would be an improvement. WRAL's prototype stuff probably looked better in 1996 than WNCT does today.

You're my hero. The game looked great. Thanks!

Does anyone else with Directv and AM21 see 22-2 as WUNWDT2 PBS and NOT WLFLDT2 Country Network? I have never noticed the 22-2 even being an option until the other day but it's clearly wrong!

NBC/Universal/Comcast declared it couldn't be OTA. Presumably Comcast thinks they can make more money from cable/satellite fees for the channel than from licensing it to their owned&operateds, especially if they dangle Olympic coverage this summer with it.

Splat!, Thanks for the info. I guess the commercials that were part of the broadcast just did not compare revenue wise.

I have often wondered if I could translate commercials into dollars and come up with an idea how much it costs me to watch a live TV show that I watch in real time.

One model for that is how much Hulu charges for commercials for recent TV show episodes.

Hulu is one of the only video "channels" (that and TeamCoco for Conan) where I watch a show with commercials in real time rather than being commercial free (e.g. Netflix or Amazon streaming) or skipping ahead on my PC-DVR for shows recorded off local broadcast channels.

I suppose another model is how much you value your own time (minus the time for commercials you actually find worthwhile to watch for entertainment or information value).

With Universal Sports no longer being available OTA, I'll have to pay for streaming video packages to watch bicycle racing on the various NBC sports channels' web sites. I guess then I'll know how much it is worth it to me...

And I will not pay cable or dish to watch winter Alpine events so I am relegated back to the spotty Olympic coverage every few years There is some on Saturday afternoon to watch but I always forget to record the coverage.

BTW - I enjoyed the bike coverage also. I even liked seeing some real estate other than LA and NYC And I was okay with the lo res. Although I know drewwho would prefer no bandwidth being wasted

Does anyone know why the Fox50 ACC Network games always look so much worse than the WRAL ACC Network games? The game that appears on WRAL also appears on WFMY and both look great, but Greensboro doesn't usually show the 2nd game and thus I have no comparison for it.

It's also unfortunate that watching something on Hulu is actually a more pleasurable experience than most networks now. Sure you get commercials, but they only last about 30-60 seconds. What you don't get watching on Hulu are bouncing graphics flying across the screen telling you something you don't watch is on next and network bugs festooned with Twitter reminders, "festive" decorations, announcements for other shows you don't watch and placed in the middle of the screen for 4:3 users that shouldn't exist now.

ejb1980,

When you say "much worse", do you mean color wise or resolution wise? I notice the color looks darker on the Miami/ Florida S. game than the Virginia/UNC game. I have two channels of each to compare.

Fox50 is a 720p operation while WRAL is 1080i. Could be why.

The Raycom ACC games are shot in 720p I believe. I notice though that channel 6 UNC game looks a bit sharper than channel 12. TV 6 is 1080i

It is darker. There is some pixelation around the score graphic and in fast-motion. It's not unwatchable, it's just noticeably not as sharp, crisp, and bright as WRAL and WFMY. I considered the 720 vs. 1080i, too, but football isn't like this (although the Sunday Ticket feeds are always MUCH better than WRAL, WFMY, WGHP, and WRAZ.

I wish there was an HD source for the Syracuse game. I read somewhere that WGSR Reidsville used to show CBS overflow at one point. Since they're HD, you'd think they'd try harder to get it (assumedly from WFMY). Not that anyone in the Raleigh DMA cares about WGSR...

But you do get a "hulu" logo, you also don't get HD, for the most part. :-(

Drew

Since I moved to the Richmond metro area, I don't really have a dog in this fight anymore. But I do think that the Universal Sports network was one of the few innovative major network subchannels, and a much better use of bandwidth than an SD re-broadcast of the HD sub, mobile TV, music videos, or 40 year old re-runs. I'll admit that I watched curling on it, and if I were still in the area, I'd miss it. But like you, I would not miss it enough to pay $$$ to get it via cable or sat.

I think the most innovative use of bandwidth was what WUNC did years ago, when they ran all their SD subs & turned off HD in the day, rather than waste HD bandwidth on cartoons whose target audience in the 2-5 year old age group could care less about HD. It is a shame that all the hick cable operations could not deal with subchannels coming and going.

Drew

Considering how much energy some of the new sets use, how much energy cable boxes use, and the effects on the environment, all of us should thank the people who are frugal enough to keep using the old analog 4:3 sets until they wear out. There should be some taxes on the new sets to provide money for alternative energy research.

" think the most innovative use of bandwidth was what WUNC did years ago, when they ran all their SD subs & turned off HD in the day, "

I also liked that schedule. What I find annoying is PBS UNC on a Sat morning with 4.1 and 4.2 devoted to child programming. Other networks do that also. It may be some gov thing but I am not sure.

Did you see any curling during the last winter Olympics? I looked for it but never saw it.

I actually think Universal Sports covered Olympic style sports better. But in all honestly the keep adding more and more sports to the Winter Olympics and there just is not enough time to show them all.

Curling was on CNBC and USA I believe. Curling should have it's own channel. One of the things I miss about living in Vermont where CBC Montreal was close enough to receive clearly OTA. It's in HD now, too, which I never saw but would enjoy a lot. CBC shows a lot of curling.

The Winter Olympics are much more interesting than the summer games. Maybe the channel that used to be Versus will show some of that stuff. It would fit in nicely with the pro hockey and college hockey coverage.

Curling rocks the house!

+1 from me. I grew east of Buffalo and I really miss Canadian TV.

During the Olympics we always watched the Canadian stations. Rather than cutting everything down to basically just highlights to fit in 3-4 hours of prime time, and showing soap-operas or infomercials when the events were actually happening, the CBC would show events live and forgo their normal schedule. They'd also subcontract coverage to other, non-CBS stations so that more than one event was on at the same time. I remember watching the USA / USSR hockey game live on Canadian TV in the 1984 winter olympics, and then watching the game again on our local Buffalo station later that evening.

I also miss live broadcast TV coverage of Formula-1. I remember getting up at 5am to watch the F1 races live.

I hope they're still doing decent coverage like this. I moved away after graduating college in the early 90s.

Drew

1. I grew up in UP state NY around Binghamton. As a kid my best friends father had a huge outdoor antenna and my friend claimed his Dad could pick up Canada stations.

We were lucky to have rabbit ears and 3 channels at my parents house.

But when I could afford it I bought an outside antenna and rotator and hooked it up on the second floor roof antenna of my parents house.

But.... still could not get any Canada stations. Only Elmira and Syracuse. Now that I know more about transmission I cant say as I would ever expect to pick up Canadian signals that far south unless there was atmospheric bounce or whatever.

I miss the Winter and the Winter sports. Sucks this year so far in Raleigh. I was lucky to see some ice on the road yesterday but that is it so far for signs of winter other then the temp.

I saw Eric Hayden get his last Skating Gold Metal at the Olympics but missed the "Big" Hockey game.


2. Well getting back to topic. And getting back to Antenna Combiners. I was at RS yesterday and they have about four splitter joiner choices. Should I steer clear of any of them that our Sat Frequencies? I see one that combines signal for a UHF antenna and also from a VHF antenna - what Frequency is UNC Chapel hill on? Is it UHF or VHF?

I eventually will look into ordering a antenna combiner when I get motivated or at least give my old one a try again. But for now I was thinking about just using a splitter in reverse.

3. BTW - during that big wind a few days ago my OTA reception sucked. It amazes me how much my signal gets interrupted by ghosting changes caused by the wind blowing the trees.

All stations in the Raleigh Durham are on UHF channels except channel 11 (WTVD), which is on RF channel 11.


try living in a forest and see what happens....I hear you on the wind driven trees causing multipath / poor OTA signal reception. It's kind of ironic that DBS is actually better in poor weather .

WUNC is on channel 25 physical. You can order a joiner that is tuned to channel 25 and point that antenna to the west, and join your other all channel antenna in the other port and point it east. This will take care of multi-path confusion at your tuner and both antennas won't be trying to pick up all channels from both directions. However, they are a bit expensive, and it might be BETTER to just run two coax lines to your TV and use an A/B switch. I think it would be easier, and a guarantee it will work instead of a guess.

Also, run two coax lines down to the ground from both antenna instead of joining them on the roof. This way you can experiment with splitters/combiners/switches if you wish to try different ideas.