Binghamton / Elmira, NY - HDTV - Page 116

From what I've heard, Northwest is not budging off their stance of wanting a 600% increase, and D* is not budging off their stance of not agreeing to a 600% increase.

In fact, I heard the owner of Northwest said he held out from Time Warner for 14 months to get what he wanted and he's not afraid to do it again. Now I don't know when that supposedly happened, nor do I know what the circumstances were, nor do I know if that's actually true, but if it's even partially true then it doesn't look good to get WICZ back anytime soon.

I guess Northwestern doesn't really care about their viewers. I know in my case I was willing to give up DNS once the locals became available. I do have an antenna that can get WICZ and my DirecTV DVR can record it, but I'll be keeping DNS for some time now. And record the few Fox shows using the DNS versions.

They are cutting off their nose to spite their face.

I'd like to know exactly what amount is being asked for.
Also, is Northwestern asking the same amount for all of their stations?

A possible breakthrough.

"Yesterday, Northwest Broadcasting conditionally accepted DIRECTV's offered rate based on their representation that the rate is market and the ability to have the rate independently verified. DIRECTV has not responded..."

http://www.wicz.com/news2005/viewarticle.asp?a=17148

Key word here is POSSIBLE.

We'll wait and see.

Jim

DirecTV has updated their website.
http://support.directv.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3094
But, it paints a different picture.

Yes, a big possible. At least it's something. It appears Northwest blinked IMHO.

Also, is anyone who doesn't have DNS waivers getting either chanel 398 or 399 (Fox east and west coast feeds) on Directv? I heard D* might have turned them to for affected customers of the Northwest dispute.

I don't know, but it's doubtful.

Am in NW Bradford County and receive TV only OTA.

Spent half a day yesterday trying to arrange a setup so I could receive the football games in HD. What a nightmare!! 36.2 sucks up all the local CBS OTA "oxygen" while steadfastly adhering to SD CBS broadcasts. So I'm left trying to pull in 12.1 (Binghamton) or else 22 in S/WB (good luck with that).

Nearly equal dilemma with 48.1, which I almost can receive but not quite enough signal.

For the record, NBC (18.1) and ABC (36.1) HD reception here is splendid. But yesterday and today's games are on the other two networks. HD reception on those networks (FOX and CBS) is very spotty and really tries my patience. For example, I was able to watch a few plays yesterday by sitting in precisely the "right" location in the room. Later, even that solution failed.

Anyway, enough of my BS.

I have a question I hope someone can answer:

Where is the WYDC (48) transmitter? The station itself is in Corning, I think. Is the transmitter in Corning? I need to precisely point my Yagi and I don't know exactly what I'm to be aiming at.

Also, (much) earlier in this thread it was stated WYDC was broadcasting with only (relatively) low power. Does that continue to be the case today?

Thanks.

My first question is what antenna are you using?

For station location you might find this site helpful.
http://tvfool.com/

WYDC does it digital broadcasting from the same hill that WENY and WSKA uses. I believe it is a lower power transmission than the other two since I can pick those up with an outdoor antenna and WYDC is a no go. The only NFL HD games I can pick up with an antenna are the NBC ones and I'm not as big a fan of their HD broadcasts as you seem to be.

Thanks

By some miracle I was able today to watch the FOX broadcast on WYDC by placing my antenna in a slightly different location. This means I will be able to view the Super Bowl in HD, and that's a happy prospect. I turned off the game after poor Seattle became buried.

As for CBS . . . . fuggetaboutid. I watched the game in SD on 36-2 since it was a great game. But HD certainly would have been nice.

I understand Channel 36's bandwidth limitations. But for football, at least, there almost never is a competition between ABC and CBS. Thus, for unusual situations such as happened today, I can't see why the required bandwidth cannot be allocated (temporarily only, of course) to 36-2. Nobody cares if an infomercial (or whatever) is in SD. Why waste bandwidth on programming that does not matter, and broadcast a football playoff game in SD as a result!!

Anyway, what I write here is just hot air and 36 won't care. Our CBS service here is stuck back in the last century. I guess that is better than what we had prior, which was no Elmira CBS OTA service at all.

Remind me of the situation in Elmira? Your CBS is a sub-channel of ABC, right?

Here in Binghamton our NBC is a sub-channel of ABC, both are in HD. ABC is natively in 720p and the NBC has been down rezzed to 720p. So both fit in ch34's bandwidth. I don't know how much other processing had to be done to achieve this, but NBC in 720p is a lot better than being in SD.

Did you take a signal strength test after relocating the antenna and if so, what kind of readings did you get?

It's my understanding that WENY is looking at the same approach.

Unless they're feeding CBS-HD to cable already, I can't see a justification for it. That's a lot of money to spend to upgrade everything on the CBS side to HD for only a few select events per year. (Plus some tuners seriously freak out if you change the resolution on a subchannel.)

Reallocating the bandwidth is easy. Setting up the infrastructure to provide an HD feed through that bandwidth is an entirely different story.

- Trip

Anyone hearing anything on Elmira locals on Directv?

WENY does provide a CBS-HD feed for the local TWC outlets.

Another update from today on the WICZ site:

"Northwest Broadcasting still has not heard a word from DIRECTV on Northwest's conditional acceptance of DIRECTV's rate based on their representation that the rate is market and the ability to have the rate independently verified.

Northwest Broadcasting, Inc. is still waiting to hear from DIRECTV regarding the offer Northwest made to them five days ago, Thursday of last week. DIRECTV on that same day posted on their Facebook page, "We know how frustrating this continues to be, but please understand that we are negotiating every day and spending many hours with Northwest to get your local channels back on the air as quickly as possible." "Maybe they have us confused with another company because we have not a heard a word from them since we made the proposal to their CEO," said Brian Brady CEO of Northwest Broadcasting."

http://www.wicz.com/news2005/viewarticle.asp?a=17148

Not sure of all the details, but I wish they would get this thing settled already.

Hmmm, maybe DirecTV is trying to talk to Stainless Broadcasting which is what comes up if you do a Wikipedia search using Northwest Broadcasting. Should be one and the same however.
But, weirder things have been known to happen.

I've been told not to believe everything the Northwest CEO posts.

I tend to think that it's Northwest that is not negotiating in good faith. They seem to want to be David slaying Goliath. Unfortunately they are shooting themselves in the foot.

Another update today on WICZ's website:

"DIRECTV has rejected Northwest Broadcasting's proposal which was made six days ago..."

http://www.wicz.com/news2005/viewarticle.asp?a=17148

At this moment you can't believe what either side says.

Both sides are jockeying for public opinion.

Just wondering if anyone else is having issue's with the d* guide showing "information unavailable" for an abnormal amount of channels??

All is okay for me. The first thing to do is restart your receiver. You may also need to re-authorize your receiver on the DirecTV website.

You may want to reboot your D* HD DVR twice within 30 minutes as this will flush all guide data and force it pull all new guide data from the sat.

Thanks, I will try that when I get home.

Well, there was an update about WICZ on their website.
http://www.wicz.com/news2005/viewarticle.asp?a=17242

It doesn't look too good.

Here's the latest on DirecTV's site.
http://support.directv.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3094

So being as fustrated as everyone posting on this thread I took the time yesterday morning to call DTV to see what other solutions are out their. CSR # 1, "well sir we have had a lot of problems with FOX all over the country and have been able to offer FOX East for a temporary time...(few minutes later)...oh sorry sir you do not apply for this scenario" Then I said well let me speak to someone in DNS and finally got her to transfer me. DNS rep "only thing we can do is submit a waiver..." So after 45 minutes I really got no where. The DNS rep did point me towards the STELA laws that have been recently inacted and suggested the next step be to Hinchey's office outlining this legislation...will this work? Who knows but maybe its worth a shot. Christ when the Giants played NE a few years back last week of the season representatives from this state stepped in to get the broadcasting on Time Warner...seems to be no love for DTV though...probably because their pockets are greased by cable companies!!!

Then there is always the Press & Sun...but they don't know how to print actual news.

Have you tried the OTA route? If you have a fairly good shot to the towers on Ingraham Hill you might get by with rabbit ears or another type of indoor antenna. For WICZ you'll need an antenna that can pick up RF frequency channel 8.

Well I shouldn't have to use an antenna at this point and yes I have tried for a very long time prior to having locals on DTV...My issue is all my DTV boxes no longer have the OTA tuner, they are all upgrades. I could go directly through my tv but they are all mounted which would be a pain. The signal is not that good though so its not even worth it.