NBC has suspended HDTV due to news coverage  

hmm did not realize there was trouble breaking into hd programming?

Not sure what your local station is doing, but CBS is providing HDTV to all their digital affiliates, per the regular schedule.

As for NBC, it may be a technical issue that contributed to this decision.

Yeah they cut all the hd tonight, I'm crossing my fingers for Leno in hd tonight. If it isn't I'm going to be REAL mad.

That being the case, I would head out to the bar right now, and not come back until after 12:35am.

Why can they not multicast at crappy 480i for the war coverage for anyone who cares

Additional info has come my way, I'm pretty sure it's a technical issue.

The shear number of varied sources makes it almost impossible to anticipate where to route the incoming signals for conversion. It is a logistical nightmare with feeds literally coming from auto tracking flight packs on the back of a tank to mini dishes on a balcony in Bagdad. Put that together with pocket video phones and you might as well keep it in standard def and maybe 601.
By the way, the flight pack on the tank is a helicopter gyro camera and self orienting dish designed by Raytheon for NBC.
Please bear with the network during this brief period of time.
GT

Ken was right, no hd leno.

Only speculation since I left the building at 4pm, but it sounds like a Leno feed that isn't happening......
The network must have sent down an update that your local station didn't see because the head of programming iswatching the SD feed and not checking for updates.
Just my 2 cents.

Well leno is on in crystal clear (as in the best I've seen) 4:3 sd, not the same as hd though.

You don't understand. This a technical issue beyond NBC's ability to alter it at this time.

In simple terms, it comes down to this:
1) Have the ability to interrupt with breaking news from their New York news HQ studio and not do HDTV.

2) Not have the ability to interrupt with breaking news and do the HDTV programs.

It's obvious they made the correct choice.

OK, I love HD as much as anyone, but this anger is seriously misplaced.

For the few thousand of us who are watching HD at any given moment, there is a lot of effort expended on our behalf. The nation is now in the midst of a war and the networks are trying hard to bring us news and entertainment and making a thousand judgement calls each day.

Let us hope this all gets resolved quickly, and I am not referring to the HD glitches. Although once some sort of victory has been obtained -- soon, we all should hope no matter our political leanings -- I'm sure HD will be back to normal.

Mark

NO HDTV PROGRAMMING THIS EVENING
There is a report on the TIPS List that NBC is suspending HDTV programming until further notice. In talking to NBC today there is no long term view to this effect but only a temporary means for keeping channels open for breaking war news. Indeed, NBC has a positive view of HDTV and is hard at work in developing some major attractions, including more HDTV for the next Olympics.

From HDTV magazine .

What about the other networks? How are they able to continue HDTV broadcasts?

Rogo, relative to the war, HDTV is not a priority to most. However, I would argue against your presumption that since networks are broadcasting HDTV to just a relatively few of us that we should be thankful for we are getting instead of being critical. The FCC has mandated DTV broadcasts over a specific schedule. If the government had not came out with the mandate, I doubt that we wold be this far along with HDTV at this time all of us would only be watching 1930’s technology for our broadcast TV viewing. Broadcasters are not sending HD feeds to our homes just to be nice to us. While there is no mandate to use HD sources (FOX), broadcasters who don’t will be left in the eventual dust once wide public acceptance is gained.

If HDTV is going to gain wide acceptance, broadcasters must be able to provide the same level of programming on their DTV feeds as they had on their traditional NTSC feeds. We should expect the same programming, special reports and all, without dummying everything down to low definition analog. Broadcasters have had years to gear up for these issues and have known for months of the eventuality of the war coverage and breaking reports.

Lastly, the relatively few of us who do have HDTV have gone to great expense to do so. The broadcasters should want to please us the most because our experiences will feed widespread acceptance, or not, of the masses. The sooner that widespread acceptance is gained, the sooner the broadcasters will be able to dump their dual broadcast and all of the additional expenses associated with them. If the early adopters report back to their friends with that the broadcasters are having a difficult time with HDTV, more people will wait longer to add HD to their home entertainment and the longer the networks will be forced to run dual broadcasts.

Thank you Ken.

FOX too has had issues with what to put on the the "famed HD receiver C." (tongue in cheek on the HD).

Monday morning FOX provided what is called a "level 2" network cut in for Colin Powell's speech, the difference between a "level 1" and 'level 2" is 2 is outside of normal network programming and 1 is during normal network. On the analog side we had Colin Powell. On the "DTV" receiver, RX C, we had MASH on FX. (we sometimes get National Geographic Channel also during the day as well on that receiver!) So for the first two minutes of that report, those watching our DTV channel saw MASH while the analog viewers saw Colin Powell. Now I realize some of you would rather watch MASH on FX, but WE ARE NOT AUTHORIZED to the transmit that. It gets into legal issues.

So a quick call to the Satellite Ops Center in LA netted disturbing news. RX C is directed to main programming only during sports programming or regular network programming and not level 2 cut ins. Sorry.

WHAT!!!!!?????!!!!?????? We contacted the head of network distribution and described the situation. He instantly saw the problem, and said it deals with available bandwidth, but he thought that the receiver could be programmed in such away to take the main feed and provide it in 4:3 with sidebars for the level 2 cut ins, and it could then be reprogrammed to take the 16:9 for regular programming on the fly. They must have done this since we have taken level 2 and level 1s and regular 16:9 programming with no problems since then.

The HD viewer is not the main viewer for this war. The networks are fighting for all the bandwidth they can get for war coverage, and HD bandwidth is VERY expendable when it comes to one HD video feed verses 10 to 20 low to normal res video. Since none of it is in HD but mostly ISDN linked video sat phones, (nice rolling video on FOX News Channel, when the pixialization isn't too bad), but I can tell you, that is HARD engineering in the field. You never know when a gun is going to be shoved up your nose by a terrorist or a government solder or official for that matter. Long hours, bad to no food or water for long stretches and stress on a scale of 1-10 in the 100's! What a life!

Those guys in the field, on all the networks, have really done something historic. I sometimes wish I were there.

Yea, Leno looked really good to me last night (Friday) but was in 4:3. I have not seen Leno in HD but a couple of times...but it "looked" like it was either a "hybrid 1080i in 4:3", or just a really great SD...plus it was a "re-run."

As Rogo pointed out, yea, we can live with this. We HD-Americans (a new hyphenated minority, hopefully soon to be a majority) are a tough sort. We CAN live without HD...for a little while....:)

The ones that can continue HDTV and interrupt at will have a more advanced network distribution system.

I receive HDTV magazine by email daily. Below is the information for NBC for today.

Ken

NO HDTV PROGRAMMING THIS EVENING
There is a report on the TIPS List that NBC is suspending HDTV programming until further notice. In talking to NBC today there is no long term view to this effect but only a temporary means for keeping channels open for breaking war news. Indeed, NBC has a positive view of HDTV and is hard at work in developing some major attractions, including more HDTV for the next Olympics.

We are now four years into this transition and HD programming continues to increase even though there is still no revenue being generated by this service.

News cut-ins are not sponsored and in fact displace commercials that have been sold during the regular programming. Every time a station airs one of these reports, they lose money. Your claims that they are taking the cheap route are based in ignorance.

Complain all you want, but if you are so desperate to be entertained, go rent a DVD.

It's pretty sad that such a simple thing, as the end viewer would see it, such as cutting from one feed to another, whatever the source, can't properly be accomplished with all this "modern equipment."

But were it not for this forum, I'd never have known what was going on... or rather, why it was going on. Certainly I can see it. :) Would it kill NBC to say somewhere "due to our need for tranmission bandwidth for war coverage we have had to temporarily suspend HDTV programming in favor of our regular SD feed" or "because we can't build a technically capable network, we have had to suspend providing HDTV programming so we can break in with important war coverage as necessary."

This nebulous "because of technical issues" statement is just avoiding the real reasons.

Anyway, the picture on KING 5 in Seatlle still looks really good, whatever it is, at least right this moment with news coverage.

Doug, you must be a DBS viewer of KING5 from Seattle, since that is the only way I know of that their signal makes it to New Jersey.

I too have noticed that network and local upconverts on KING-DT are some of the best I have seen. Not HD, but WAY better than any other means of receiving their 480i SD material.

Yep, and the day I get the new receiver and get it activated, is of course the first day of bombing, so except for the PBS loop, I've only seen actual HD material on any of these 13 HD stations for maybe 10 minutes. REALLY FRUSTRATING. :) The other thing I watched for a bit was KOMO's local newscast in HD.

Oh well, what can you do?!

This statement that has no basis in fact.

I'll say it again: At this time, NBC's digital network is not technically capable of interrupting their HDTV programming with breaking news. This is the only reason NBC has temporally suspended HDTV programming.


KING-DT has their own HDTV news studio in Seattle and will continue to have local HDTV news, regardless of network issues.

The Minneapolis affiliate is stating a different reason for no more HD. Here is a response posted on a local HD message board:


NBC has just notified us that it will NOT be broadcasting any of their HD programming in HD until the war is over. They need the satellite space for their war coverage.
KARE-DT will upconvert all NBC programming on channel 35 during this period.

Jeff Phillips
Dir. of Engineering
KARE-TV


This seems different then the reasons you were giving Ken, doesn't it?


Max

Yes. It's quite possible their may be more than one legitimate reason. I'm checking with other sources for more info.