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Champaign, IL - HDTV - Page 158

post #4711 of 4885
6/9/11 at 10:12pm
Thanks for the update. I thought that was the problem.
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post #4712 of 4885
6/12/11 at 2:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marty Milton View Post

If you want your TV to fill the screen, then you need to "pony up" for the HD channels. BTW, those black bars are there so people with the old 1:33:1 aspect ratio TVs receive the same content as the 1:78:1 HDTVs.

As far as Bulls games on channel 49, they also look terrible on Comcast cable, as well.

I know this is a old post, but I wanted to reply specifically about OTA signals, not the Comcast HD package and aspect ratios.

What I've seen so far with digital OTA is that not even the network broadcasts HD all of the time it seems, and many of the commercial spots - also network, not locally originated - are SD. This is my MAJOR gripe with the digital TV system in our area, or maybe the entire country. SD looks like crap on a HD LCD TV - maybe it would look OK on a plasma, but I don't have one to compare. The PQ of SD on a quality LCD TV fares very poorly compared to either of my Sony XBR SD CRT TVs. So, I have a great HD picture often on the LCD, but a crappy picture a fair amount of the time because of the program content. And, it appears that only WAND's news is in HD, so one has to put up with the poor OTA PQ with the other local stations locally-originated news programs.

Theoretically, DTV/HD is a winner. But, in reality for many people "in the sticks," and I include C-U in this unfortunate group, one can only receive 6 to 7 stations even using a decent external Hi-VHF and UHF rotatable array with a low noise preamp (switchable in and out). In the analog days, I never received fewer than 10 to 12 stations OTA, some albeit snowy, but very watchable and that included WGN.

What you constantly hear is folks in large metro areas being able to receive up to 25 to 40 DTV channels, some with only a good inside or attic antenna. Therefore, I've come to the conclusion for the majority of the country, i.e. the small city and rural areas, OTA DTV is a disaster compared to the analog days.
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post #4713 of 4885
6/13/11 at 7:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colloquor View Post

I know this is a old post, but I wanted to reply specifically about OTA signals, not the Comcast HD package and aspect ratios.

What I've seen so far with digital OTA is that not even the network broadcasts HD all of the time it seems, and many of the commercial spots - also network, not locally originated - are SD. This is my MAJOR gripe with the digital TV system in our area, or maybe the entire country. SD looks like crap on a HD LCD TV - maybe it would look OK on a plasma, but I don't have one to compare. The PQ of SD on a quality LCD TV fares very poorly compared to either of my Sony XBR SD CRT TVs. So, I have a great HD picture often on the LCD, but a crappy picture a fair amount of the time because of the program content. And, it appears that only WAND's news is in HD, so one has to put up with the poor OTA PQ with the other local stations locally-originated news programs.

Theoretically, DTV/HD is a winner. But, in reality for many people "in the sticks," and I include C-U in this unfortunate group, one can only receive 6 to 7 stations even using a decent external Hi-VHF and UHF rotatable array with a low noise preamp (switchable in and out). In the analog days, I never received fewer than 10 to 12 stations OTA, some albeit snowy, but very watchable and that included WGN.

What you constantly hear is folks in large metro areas being able to receive up to 25 to 40 DTV channels, some with only a good inside or attic antenna. Therefore, I've come to the conclusion for the majority of the country, i.e. the small city and rural areas, OTA DTV is a disaster compared to the analog days.

I have lived in the Champaign-Urbana almost all my life, and I don't recall ever getting more than 6 or 7 local channels during the analog TV days. I can even remember the days of only four local channels, WCIA, WAND, WICD, and WILL. People around here were never able to get WGN with an aerial or anywhere close to 25 stations. That is one of the reasons many people choose to have cable or satellite dishes.
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post #4714 of 4885
6/13/11 at 11:08am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marty Milton View Post

I have lived in the Champaign-Urbana almost all my life, and I don't recall ever getting more than 6 or 7 local channels during the analog TV days. I can even remember the days of only four local channels, WCIA, WAND, WICD, and WILL. People around here were never able to get WGN with an aerial or anywhere close to 25 stations. That is one of the reasons many people choose to have cable or satellite dishes.

I've lived in C-U since 1968. As stated, I could receive 10 to 12 stations during the analog days, including all of the Terre Haute stations. WGN was watchable at night, but only audio during the day! This was with a 60 ft. Rohn 25G tower installation, and a Channel Master Yagi on a 13 ft. boom. The antenna used today is a similar VHF-Hi and UHF Channel Master long-boom Yagi on the same 60 ft. tower.

My point is that most in the media tells everyone how wonderful OTA DTV is, but for those of us in small cities, such as C-U or rural America, with a limited number of broadcast stations, it's simply not realistic to move away from cable or satellite to OTA. Yes, the quality of OTA is superior due to the lack of cable's compression, but the national vibe of "go OTA and save $$$ by dropping cable" is simply not going to happen for the masses in central Illinois. Now, if you lived in NYC or LA, that may be a different matter.
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post #4715 of 4885
6/20/11 at 6:22pm
Close to football season again and I have one question in regard to the local FOX affiliate. I know they've done their song and dance regarding preseason HD but I'm wondering why the NFL games are coming across with only 2.0 audio via Comcast QAM? Every other channel comes across as 5.1 and WFLD (FOX Chicago) passes 5.1. I prefer to capture the Bears games via Comcast for Blu-Ray authoring but have had to use the WFLD feed through my HD PVR in order to have the 5.1 audio. I had half of last year's games ruined until I realized what these bozos were doing. At this point I'm just curious if it's a Comcast issue, a short term issue locally, or once again the local FOX station being cheap and deciding to treat their viewers like second class citizens.
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post #4716 of 4885
6/20/11 at 7:48pm
I think it's a safe bet Comcast is NOT "altering" the audio that is being passed to them by our local affiliate - better direct your frustration straight to WRSP...
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post #4717 of 4885
6/28/11 at 2:37pm
Just noticed that WAND is now broadcasting syndicated shows in HD, now. Jeopardy looks awesome in HD. Can't wait to see what the Wheel of Fortune will look like. As you know, until today WAND was only showing their news broadcasts in HD. Wheel of Fortune was also in HD and look very nice, as well.
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post #4718 of 4885
7/4/11 at 1:42pm
MeTV is coming to WRSP and WCCU, according to the MeTV website. I was looking at the program schedule on their site and realized that the shows we're most interested in are only available late-night and other suboptimal times. Do you guys have any recommendations for OTA DVRs? We need one with either RCA out or S-Video out, since our TV is an older model. Additionally, I'd like a unit that can stream to other computers (or devices like Wii, iPhone, and iPad) in the house, that way we could watch DVR content in one room at the same time as OTA content in another room. If possible, I'd like it to be sub-$100.
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post #4719 of 4885
7/4/11 at 9:53pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colloquor View Post


My point is that most in the media tells everyone how wonderful OTA DTV is, but for those of us in small cities, such as C-U or rural America, with a limited number of broadcast stations, it's simply not realistic to move away from cable or satellite to OTA. Yes, the quality of OTA is superior due to the lack of cable's compression, but the national vibe of "go OTA and save $$$ by dropping cable" is simply not going to happen for the masses in central Illinois. Now, if you lived in NYC or LA, that may be a different matter.

The propagation maps would disagree. Certainly, many in-town locations or spots down in river valleys will always net less stations. But in between metros, a good antenna and a rotor can reel in quite a few. For example, there are locations like Odell where a good system can get Champaign, Peoria, and most of Chicago. There is a broad swath of territory between Rockford and LaSalle that can get Rockford, Chicago, Davenport, Madison, and Peoria.
The true beauty of DTV is that a station from 85 miles away that stays above 16:1 SNR looks just as good as a station from 5 miles away. Again, low valleys or heavy forests are the exceptions. Up on the open prairie is DTV heaven.

Update: After some research on TV Fool, I can see that in-town Champ/Urb is not good for getting signals from other markets. It's just a little too far from Peoria, Indy, & Chicago to have any chance at them. There are some ridges to the northwest and southeast of town that don't do you any favors, either.
Of course, up on top of those ridges is a different story. The town of Ridge Farm, south of Danville, can get Champaign, Indy, and Terre Haute.
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post #4720 of 4885
7/6/11 at 7:19am
There was a band opening to the east this morning. I got my first full reception from Terre Haute on digital UHF (WTWO), a partial decode of WFXW (first on digital), 2 partial decodes from Indy (WRTV, first on digital, and WFYI, that one's an all-time new one for me). I think it's not too late to make an attempt at Indy.
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post #4721 of 4885
7/10/11 at 12:42pm
The band is really open today. If you want to try some VHF-Lo DXing, today's the day to do it. I heard KHDX (88.1) from St. Louis today on a car radio here in Danville. Come to think of it, it's certainly my first K station (of any sort) above 30 MHz, maybe my first K broadcast station from Danville period.
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post #4722 of 4885
7/25/11 at 6:32pm
Another good opening today. I got a partial decode from Evansville on RF 28! VHF is pretty good today, too.
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post #4723 of 4885
7/25/11 at 8:23pm
It's up here too. I'm getting a bunch of your stations, plus, indy & St. Louis. Also lots of stuff from eastern Iowa.
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post #4724 of 4885
7/31/11 at 2:33pm
Caught a good opening around 9 AM, right before I had to leave for church. I had to stop the scan at Channel 30, but I got full decodes of just about all of the Indy UHF stations up to that point, including WRTV and WTTK. Frame skip and pixelation, but they came in well enough to add them to the channel list. WRTV in spite of co-channel from WCCU, and WTTK is only two channels away from W31BX, which is literally just a mile away.
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post #4725 of 4885
8/11/11 at 1:06am
Does anyone know if this market finally got it's act together and will have the Bears preseason in HD? At the very least I hope WCCU passes through FOX's 5.1 audio once the season starts.
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post #4726 of 4885
8/16/11 at 12:27am
Why did I ever believe that this cowpoke station would ever get it's act together? Yet again not only no HD but substandard SD with ghosting on their HD channel.
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post #4727 of 4885
8/16/11 at 6:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by msajeff View Post

Does anyone know if this market finally got it's act together and will have the Bears preseason in HD? At the very least I hope WCCU passes through FOX's 5.1 audio once the season starts.

Quote:
Originally Posted by msajeff View Post

Why did I ever believe that this cowpoke station would ever get it's act together? Yet again not only no HD but substandard SD with ghosting on their HD channel.

I was suprised that WIFR in Rockford had the game in SD as well, but then about 1/2 way through the first quarter, it suddenly went HD. It could have been related to weather warnings, though.
Up in secondary-market Madison, WKOW did have the Packers game in HD, like the Bears/Packers primary market preseason stations always do (WFLD, WTMJ).
Personally, I can't stand watching sports in SD these days. I wonder why a station would do that...does it cost more to broadcast the Bears network feed in HD?
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post #4728 of 4885
8/16/11 at 7:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by msajeff View Post

Why did I ever believe that this cowpoke station would ever get it's act together? Yet again not only no HD but substandard SD with ghosting on their HD channel.

Sweet jesus man, I don't think I can take another season of you whining about not getting a football game in HD. Boo-freaking-hoo. If you want to complete your archive of the games, I'm sure the NFL would be happy to sell you a copy.
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post #4729 of 4885
8/16/11 at 1:18pm
Then maybe the local stations should join the 21st century. I mean for christsakes...WAND cut into a Notre Dame game a few years ago for local programming. That's something NBC learned not to do 40 years ago with the Heidi Game. I don't care how much the engineers want to whine about not having the equipment. We are years after the digital changeover and it's been even longer since HD became the norm. It's obvious that WFLD is sending out an HD feed. If WCCU doesn't want to modernize their equipment just shut it down and let us get our FOX programming from Chicago. I highly doubt many people will miss the college quality newscasts or local programming if any of these locals folded.

You are on an AV forum...if you don't think HD is something that should be expected (when the norm for sports is now HD,) perhaps YOU should find another forum. Thank you for your suggestion though...I get the games in HD via a non-Crapcast QAM/OTA source. It just makes capping them a bit more of a PITA.
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post #4730 of 4885
8/16/11 at 1:50pm
The Colts game was on Channel 23 (in Champaign) and it was also 4:3 SD of not too good quality. The only saving grace is that most of the pre-season games are pretty junky anyway.
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post #4731 of 4885
8/17/11 at 9:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by msajeff View Post

Then maybe the local stations should join the 21st century. I mean for christsakes...WAND cut into a Notre Dame game a few years ago for local programming. That's something NBC learned not to do 40 years ago with the Heidi Game. I don't care how much the engineers want to whine about not having the equipment. We are years after the digital changeover and it's been even longer since HD became the norm. It's obvious that WFLD is sending out an HD feed. If WCCU doesn't want to modernize their equipment just shut it down and let us get our FOX programming from Chicago. I highly doubt many people will miss the college quality newscasts or local programming if any of these locals folded.

A.) A Notre Dame game is not really something to complain about being cut away from. It's not of national importance, or even local importance.

B.) a Digital signal is not the same thing as HD. Every station in the market is capable of passing an HD signal from at least one source. WILL and WAND are capable of more than that, (just recently in WAND's case.) but all stations run 100% digital signals as required by law.

C.) While spending millions on changing over to all digital, I'm sure some of the stations decided to pick up a (relatively) slightly cheaper two source HD switcher figuring they'd switch between local programming (commercials/syndication/etc.) and Network programming. They probably don't own any HD decks, so why the have ability to switch to another source?

D.) Spending $80K+ to give you 4 pre-season football games in not economically feasible.

Now, I'm not an engineer, nor do I work for WCCU, but all these seem realistic estimations for what's going on
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post #4732 of 4885
8/17/11 at 9:56am
Besides, I wouldn't be surprised if most TV stations, employing rational risk aversion, aren't buying new equipment in order to have more money to buy a new transmitter in case the FCC makes good on its current UHF spectrum reallocation plan. I doubt the FCC will do anything on that front until after the LPTV digital conversion is finished, but that's only four years away. Especially for stations in a smaller market like ours (not to mention some of the even smaller markets neighboring us), where revenues aren't as high as the big markets like Chicago and Indy, it makes more sense to take precautions for a major band reassignment. Sure, WCCU is on RF 26 and may be able to hold onto its current frequency, but consider WICD RF 41 and WCIA RF 48, RF 21, 25, 29 out of Indy, 28 out of Bloomington, etc. If I owned a TV station, I wouldn't be inclined to gamble on this situation.
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post #4733 of 4885
8/17/11 at 9:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by zundian View Post

A.)
D.) Spending $80K+ to give you 4 pre-season football games in not economically feasible.

That's what I was asking above...is this the price tag? 20 grand to pass through a game in HD? Or is that 80 for the equipment, which would amortize over several seasons?
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post #4734 of 4885
8/17/11 at 12:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by LithOTA View Post

That's what I was asking above...is this the price tag? 20 grand to pass through a game in HD? Or is that 80 for the equipment, which would amortize over several seasons?

The 80K would be a ballpark for equipment. I believe the games are negotiated as just the game, no bonus cost for HD.
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post #4735 of 4885
8/17/11 at 5:57pm
MeTV is live on 27.2. Good SD signal, no EPG available, though. MeTV has a schedule on their website and has schedule bumpers.

Edit: And rabbitears.info has updated already! Trip is pretty quick about this sort of thing, isn't he? Speaking of updating, does anyone have any idea how long it usually takes Zap2It to add new channels to their listings? It took a few weeks for them to add TheCoolTV on 15.2.

Edit 2: I contacted WRSP/WCCU's engineering department, they say EPG will be added in the next day or so. I'll post when I notice it.
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post #4736 of 4885
8/17/11 at 8:21pm
Now that we've got a full complement of subchannels, I'd kinda like to see either WAND start a .3 general entertainment channel (or .2 then move weather to .3, I want them to keep weather) or see someone start a new channel, maybe an AntennaTV affiliate or something. I doubt any of this will come about, though. I'd still like to see GOCOM start up a translator for WBUI serving the extreme eastern section of the viewing area, like WAND does, as well, but, again, I doubt that will happen. Which really is a shame, as I like WBUI's syndicated programming much more than WCCU's, or WAND's and WICD's for that matter.
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post #4737 of 4885
8/18/11 at 7:10am
It was added this morning.
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post #4738 of 4885
8/19/11 at 8:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by kc9hzn View Post

MeTV is live on 27.2. Good SD signal, no EPG available, though. MeTV has a schedule on their website and has schedule bumpers.

Edit: And rabbitears.info has updated already! Trip is pretty quick about this sort of thing, isn't he? Speaking of updating, does anyone have any idea how long it usually takes Zap2It to add new channels to their listings? It took a few weeks for them to add TheCoolTV on 15.2.

Edit 2: I contacted WRSP/WCCU's engineering department, they say EPG will be added in the next day or so. I'll post when I notice it.

Will MeTV be coming to Comcast systems in the market soon (probably on Digital Economy and higher packages)--unless it has been already added and I didn't see it.
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post #4739 of 4885
8/19/11 at 8:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by kc9hzn View Post

Now that we've got a full complement of subchannels, I'd kinda like to see either WAND start a .3 general entertainment channel (or .2 then move weather to .3, I want them to keep weather) or see someone start a new channel, maybe an AntennaTV affiliate or something. I doubt any of this will come about, though. I'd still like to see GOCOM start up a translator for WBUI serving the extreme eastern section of the viewing area, like WAND does, as well, but, again, I doubt that will happen. Which really is a shame, as I like WBUI's syndicated programming much more than WCCU's, or WAND's and WICD's for that matter.

I see that WCIA's Nexstar sister station WMBD-31 Peoria will be the last station in the Peoria market to add a full complement of subchannels as they will be adding Bounce TV upon their launch on Sept. 26. There's a link on WMBD's website to Bounce below:

http://centralillinoisproud.com/bounce

Any chance that WCIA/WCFN could add a ".3" to their respective subchannels and add Bounce TV to both of their stations on both sides of the market--if Peoria's getting the network?

Also, what is the real reason why WICS/WICD only has one of the two music networks on each channel (Cool on WICD, Country on WICS), as opposed to other Sinclair stations in Peoria (WYZZ) and St. Louis (KDNL) having both subchannels on their stations? If the intent was to make the missing subchannel (Cool in Springfield and Country in Chambana) available on Comcast and other cable systems in the opposite sides of the market (a la WEIU-51.2 MHz World offered on Comcast in Springfield), it hasn't happened--we only have Country Network on digital cable here in Springfield.
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post #4740 of 4885
8/19/11 at 9:35am
I suppose it's possible WCIA would add Bounce as a .3. I'm not sure how well UPN did in the Champaign/Decatur/Springfield market, but, if anyone knows, it'd be Nexstar. In a market as geographically large as ours, subchannels are probably going to be the norm, as opposed to full bitrate HD, since launching a new service on a new station here requires a painful choice between cost and coverage area, whereas launching on an established station's subchannel lets you piggyback on their coverage area.

I'm surprised that there's not yet a first run general entertainment network that's launched on .2 channels, it's all niche programming, like MeTV, Bounce, weather, and the music subchannels. There was the .2 network, but that never got off the ground and seems dead now. I suppose it could be an opportunity for ION to expand their viewership without launching more stations (most of their stations are O&O). Their main network doesn't have much, if any, first run content currently, but they could package some of their ION Life and Qubo properties with some low cost first run content into a single feed for other stations to run. It wouldn't really draw in the viewers, but neither their current approach nor most subchannels do.
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