Kansas City, MO - HDTV - Page 169

41 HD sucks for NFL fast motion shots. Weather Plus is not my friend right now!

Yes KSHB 41-1 (DT-42) low bandwidth is a very poor picture quality again tonight. I just hope the local KSHB engineers see what damage the Weather Plus does to fast moving 1080i NFL football. Please KSHB turn off the Weather Plus channel and return NFL football to full-bandwidth. I am going to miss KMBC full-bandwidth Monday Night Football.

Can anyone here see what the bitrate is on Weather+? I bet they could reduce it and give some bandwidth back to the HD channel without completely turning it (Weater+) off.

Brad

Can anyone here see what the bitrate is on Weather+? I bet they could reduce it and give some bandwidth back to the HD channel without completely turning it (Weather+) off.

Brad

Brad,

The major issue with Weather+ is the fact that interlaced video does not compress very efficiently to begin with, and when a subchannel such as Weather+ is deployed, it results in the compression artifacts becoming much more visible.

I'm doubtful there is any bitrate for Weather+ that discriminating HD viewers are going to find acceptable for watching HD sports. The only subchannel that wouldn't have an impact on HD picture quality would be relatively static radar weather maps or low-resolution traffic cams. Anything with any significant amount of motion is going to torpedo HD quality when the primary channel is 1080i.

This is why PBS, which originates its national HD feed in 1080i, allows its local affilliates to convert the HD feed to 720p in order to make more efficient use of the 6 mHz bandwidth available. Still, PBS stations manage to massacre picture quality by deploying too many 480i subchannels -- one would be acceptable, two would be marginal and anything beyond that is a disaster, PQ-wise.

Broadcasters, in general, fought tooth and nail to preserve interlaced video when the HD specification was being developed, and now they are finding just how unsuitable it is for the digital era and multicasting. These guys are dinosaurs, and these are the type of business decisions they will make until they draw their final breath.

Doug,
Thanks for the reply. I guess I sort of knew what the answer would be, but was hoping for the best. In KSHB's case, they still have a (very easy) out if they choose to use it: Put Weather+ on one of their sister station's (independent KMCI) subchannels. They could still give it a 41.2 alias (if allowed by the FCC), and no one would be the wiser.

Brad

I do call KSHB engineering about the low-bandwidth 1080i broadcasting. I am always told how from the start KSHB has always had the same bandwidth assign to 1080i even before the Weather Plus sub-channel. Hey KSHB fast motion has been terrible from the start on DT-42 1080i HDTV broadcasting.

Multicasting on KSHB DT-42 (41-1) is a disaster to fast motion 1080i HDTV NFL broadcasting. We have just got to get KSHB engineering to watch a KSHB NBC 1080i HDTV OTA NFL broadcast away from their station downlink monitors to see the problem.

I watched the Sunday Night Football game on KSNT-27 in Topeka. I was watching the analog channel and I could see mostly the same pixilization artifacts on the analog feed that I noticed the week before on the HD feed. The Weather+ channel doesn't help, but it looks awful coming from NBC direct as well. Somebody said that NBC is using KU Band satellite instead of C-Band to transmit their HD content for their network up-link, I wonder if that compression is also to blame for some of this.

In contrast, the CBS and FOX HD broadcasts this week have been awesome.

Time Warner Cable Subs, you have until November to find a new provider to watch NFL Network.

http://www.nflgetreal.com/

KSHB Law and Order SVU downrezed to crappy SD in the middle of the show yesterday (8-15-2006). Was this because of the downlink problem or KSHB technical problem!! It reverted back to HD later on in the show.

I emailed KSHB and asked about Jeopardy and Wheel in HD, this is the response:

If all goes well and the special equipment arrives and is installed in time, KSHB will begin broadcasting

Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune in HD beginning the week of 9/11.

Anyone know if the Chiefs game tomorrow night will be broadcast in HD? I realize that they are playing in the national FOX game, but I'm really afraid that they might show a Chiefs Television Network broadcast, or whatever the name is of the crew that put out last week's telecast. Any info on that?

The Kansas City Chiefs will be in FULL BANDWIDTH 720P HIGH DEFINITION tomorrow night on the FOX Television Network!

"FULL BANDWIDTH" is the heart of HDTV.

I won't get to see it, because I will be helping to bring the masses play by play audio on the Chiefs Radio Network... so tune into the HDTV feed, turn the sound down low and turn up 101 The Fox. We delay the broadcast to match up on the analog tv broadcast, but add about 1.2 seconds for the Digital broadcast...

I just wish I could GET KSHB on OTA...

They are the only station out of KC I can't get....I can get all those stupid PAX channels and everything, but no NBC.

Glad I don't watch much Sunday Night Football.

The picture quality looked very good on WDAF HDTV DT-34 (4-1) broadcast of the Kansas City Chiefs football game.

Picture looked good on 4, Chief's didn't

Great broadcast of the Chiefs - Giants game. Not one pixel out of place the whole broadcast. 720P does look like the superior format to present sports in. 1080i will always have some pixelation, even without a second video stream. I started to listen to 101 the Fox audio with the OTA WDAF video, and the sound was not in sync. The radio announcers were calling the plays before the action showed OTA. So I switched to the WDAF audio. I never went back to check to see if the sound re-synced up.

Radio and HD will never be in synch. It takes longer to process and dispaly the HD signal on your set so there will always be a gap. You can see that if have an SD set and HD set on at same time on same broadcast. SD will always be slightly ahead. Earlier in this thread it was noted the radio station applies a delay to keep it in synch for SD channel but will be something like 1.2 second difference for HD. It is my understanding some receivers may allow you to delay signal. That would be only way I know of to get it "synched up".

on 101 The Fox, we have a delay system to sync the radio broadcast up with the TV, however we only sync it with the Analog OTA broadcast of whatever Network. Also, it takes about 3-5 minutes for our sync to match up after the game starts so we can fine-tune it. If you have Dish Network/Direct TV you will never get it synched. The FOX TV broadcast was about 3.7 seconds behind our radio broadcast so we delayed it. We could sync to the HDTV broadcast, but with no HDTV in the studio, that is kind of hard to do. It has been talked about but it most likely won't happen this season unless you start flooding KCFX Radio with letters and e-mails saying you want this, and even then, KCFX would have to be granted the rights to the Chiefs past this year.

PS> When the Chiefs play on ESPN or NFL Network, we only have DirecTV in the studio so it will be synched up to DirecTV's feed.

I have searched and not found the answer to my question, so please forgive me if it is out there. Is Comcast still allowing local HD channels to be passed through analog service to tvs with built-in QAM tuners? My wife doesn't want a box, but I would really like to be able to pick up local HD channels without having to switch between cable and antenna, then rescan the channels. My tv specs say that it has a built in clear QAM tuner, but I am not sure how this should be setup. ..for reference, I have a Westinghouse LTV-40w1.

Thanks

Got a note in my Comcast bill saying INHD 2 is going away next month. Does that mean the INHD company is ending it's 2nd channel, or that Comcast will quit carrying it? Maybe Jerky knows?

Why don't you try doing autoscan with the cable hooked up? I don't know if this TV has two different coax inputs, but if there is a separate one for digital, plug in the cable into this one and try autoscanning and see if it picks up anything. I don't have cable and cannot test this.

I have a Sanyo 30" HDTV with ATSC/QAM tuner. I use just ATSC right now.

In regard to INHD2 the same situation is happening in St. Louis with Charter Cable. I still monitor their forum even though I have lived here for over a year.

Yes, I believe it's true that INHD2 is being discontinued. Apparently, INHD is having financial troubles in general, as they have abandoned their "cable only" strategy. They are currently in negotiations with Dish Network for carriage of INHD; in fact it is already uplinked to E*'s HD sats, but not available to viewers.

Brad

Interesting production tech info:

http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/a...e.jsp?id=58639

udeyhawk:

Local Comcast does send local HD channels, via QAM, in the clear (not encrypted). So you should be able to hook up the cable line directly to your DTV-Ready HDTV and get those channels. Unless something has changed lately, you only have to have at least Expanded Basic service to get them.

olathebob:

I was expecting Comcast to drop INHD2 when they added ESPN2HD. They didn't. I believe that they are getting rid of it because it is going away. They've honestly only got enough decent (term used loosely) programming for 1 channel anyway. I don't see it as too much of a loss.

I no longer have the access I once had to new info from Comcast. I'm no longer employed there. I do still have a number of contacts though, so I should be able to get answers if need be.

Thanks, Dog. Most people don't think twice about what all goes into something like that.

Brad

It was great to see some CBS HD preseason football on KSMO last night. Will this be just for the pre season, or is this a glimpse of things to come?