Wilmington, NC - HDTV - Page 6

I think we have our HD signal going out now, but the MNF will not be in Hi-Def since they are moving the game to Tempe, AZ. So, we will be sending our usual digital signal, converted to HD for now. You guys let me know how it looks. We will be getting the audio piped out this week as well, barring any other emergency.

BTW... we are on 46-1 SD /// 46-2 HD


Thanks !

sweeeeet! thanks billy.

Yes! Good news.

I asked a few weeks back if they were going to broadcast HD on another sub-channel... need to delete then re-add for the Dish 6000 box...

Billy_Stratton,

That's fantasic news. Way to go Billy, thanks alot. I'm picking you up on 46-2 here in Pembroke just fine. In stretch mode. I'm guessing it's not set to remap to 3-2 yet. 46-2 looks slightly darker than 46-1 but that may be due to the upconversion. Other than that its looking good.

Kinda funny that the day WWAY gets their HD channel going MNF isn't being broadcast in HD. Looks like Murphy's still messing with you.

is 46-2 transmitting from the same location(direction) as 3-1. i ask cuz i have a directional silver sensor and im not able to pick it up when i scan on my samsung ts-160.

Several times last night I deleted ABC-DT, then added it back, but never picked up 46-2... Tried to get through to master control to see what was going on, but after hours the phone system is automated, the best I could do was leave a message for Ken.

Anyone else using a Dish 6000? I understand they are extremely sensitive to bad PSIP information.

I'll try at lunch when I go home...

For all of you hd lovers out there last night wway was upconvertting sd to hd .The true test will be tonight when all of the programs from 8:30 pm to 11 pm will be in true 720p not upconverted 720 p.Any way its glad to see them making progress.job well done billy.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DIGITAL DAN.

marC I am not sure how your receiver works but the toshiba dst3000 works fine with 46-2. check you local program guide and make sure you have check marks in the analog channel numbers, if you do the the digital channels will automatically add them self .at least that is the way it works on my receiver . also,check and see if you have a wilmington zip code in. sometimes these receiver will not lock the channel unless you have the right zip code infornmation dont know why but strange things happen sometimes.!!!!!!!DIGITAL DAN.

The Dish 6000 receiver might be considered 2nd generation, closer to first probably...so it's not too swift when it comes to channel tuning I suspect...

When I manually added WUNC-DT, it picked up all 5 sub-channels with no problem.

As long as I know your HD channel is broadcasting, I know it might be an issue at my end, and I'll keep trying. When I go home at lunch, I'll try tuning it with a channel scan instead of a manual addition method...

But...even though my receiver doesn't process or quite understand the PSIP stream, I understand that a "faulty" PSIP can still mess it up. So if I could tune WUNC with no problem, I still wonder if there is a possible anomaly in some part of your signal that gives my receiver fits?

I'll report back this afternoon...

Hello everyone i just talked to billy at wway tv 3 and he is trying to get the aspect ratio correct, can any one out there report back to the forum if the aspect ratio is any differant from last night.thanks in advance DIGITAL DAN . billy changed it first thing this morning.

As of 10:41 today 46-2 is still stretched. The picture looks good though. There seems to be some kind of jitter or shudder in the first moments of any movement. Audio sync is much better today but still slightly out of sync but thats probably a byproduct of feeding the same audio to both the SD and HD channel. WNCN-DT 17 has the same problem with their SD channel(55-2), they sync the audio every day or two and it drifts out of sync because their feeding their HD channels audio to the SD channel.

I agree tonight will be the true test. NYPD Blue is one of, if not the best looking tv shows in HD on ABC (MNF don't count, it's not a reorded TV show).

If you look at the scrolling on both 46-1 and 46-2 thats on right now you can see the jitter/shudder I refered to on 46-2 HD. Also 46-2 is slightly darker than 46-1 and analog channel 3.

Thanks for the input guys! We are still learning as we go here!

As for the ratio, I will set it back to where it was last night. This morning at around 8AM I changed it to "Full Width" which took care of the squatting effect, but it also chopped to top and bottom off the picture. I put it back to where we were at last night around 10am. I will leave it there for tonight and see what it looks like.

As for the jitter... that is more than likely due to the bandwidth we are using now. Since we are simulcasting both our SD and HD signal, our Harris Flexicoder has pretty much gave us all she has. We are set at 14.5MBps instead of the preferred 19MBps or so. Not sure yet if that is the problem or somthing to do with our conversion, but we will get it worked out.

Now... if I only had an HD TV at home.

Thanks!

No luck at lunch time. Still can't tune the HD sub-channel.

Something has changed since HD started broadcasting. Previously, when adding channel 46, my program guide indicated 46-1. Now it maps to 3-01 instead.

Nothing I did would get the receiver to pickup, or add the HD sub-channel. Direct tuning to the channel via remote didn't work...

Again, I suspect something with the data stream, and possibly an interaction with my Dish 6000. But WUNC-PBS works just fine...

I'm stumped...

Billy,

What kind of aspect ratio converter are you using? From what little I have read here, it sounds like ABC may be doing what FOX does, sends a 16:9 picture all the time and adds black bars for 4:3 material. (I don't know since the ABC station here has no intention of running HD anytime in this decade, so they keep saying so I am running blind here, sorry)

We run the Teranex Xantus One and we have to switch aspect ratio when we change from SD upconvert to network ED.

Have you considered that?

Charles Layno
Transmitter Supervisor
FOX8 WGHP/WGHP-DT 35
High Point

Marc,

I have no idea why the dish receiver won't lock on 46-2. you said you tried manually tuning to 46-2. I'm guessing you mean you pressed 46-2 on the remote instead of 3-2 because yesterday 46-2 wasn't remapping to 3-2.

Billy,

To be honest I have no problem with any stretch mode you use on 46-2 with local upconverted material because I can easily turn to 46-1 to view local daytime programming 4x3 non-stretched. And from what I could tell lastnight, ABC broadcasted a 1 hour special from 8pm to 9pm called Fat Like Me: How to win the weight war as 4x3 in HD with black bars inserted nationally and the aspect ratio looks correct on 46-2. So tonights national HD broadcast should look correct. Can hardly wait.

I could be wrong and probably am but I don't think the jitter is caused by the bandwith because others using that bandwidth don't have the jitter. I think it's the upconversion because the jitter was absent during the 1 hour special lastnight as far as I could tell but there wasn't alot of movement on the special either.

After re-reading some posts on the dbstalk forum, I'm slowly convincing myself that there is a problem with the PSIP data stream. I think other receivers are less sensitive to it--let's face it, the 6000 is pretty old, except for the overall integration factor, if I had it to do over again I probably would not have purchased the OTA module and just gone with a Samsung...

Billy--any ideas from your end? Comments on your PSIP?

I really would like to be able to get your HD signal...

Billy,

May I ask why you want to use a stretch mode for upconverted 4x3 material rather than inserting black bars like most other stations do with upconverted local programming? ESPN-HD is doing the stretch mode with their upconverted 4x3 material also and their viewers really hate it. Look at mostly any ESPN thread on the forum.

Let me try to answer what questions I can... I'm not kidding myself here, you guys probably have been dealing with HD alot longer than we have here... so we should be asking you the questions!

Foxeng > We are using the Snell & Wilcox HD5200 High Definition Upconverter. From what I have been able to learn about it, there is no "16:9" ratio setting in that terminology anyway. What I have to change is "Full Width" which takes away the squatting while upconverting, "Full Height" that gives me the black inserted bars on the left and right, "Anamorphic" which gives us the 16x9 look, but has the video squatting effect.

Daryl > The biggest reason why we won't be inserting bars, at this point anyway, is that we don't have qualified personel here during the network HD feeds to make sure that it is changed back during that time. So to be on the safe side, we will probably leave it "stretched" or "squatted" until we can figure out a better, and safer way to switch it.

MarcS > I will look into our PSIP and conversion settings to see if I can find out if we are producing any errors. At first glance at out Flexicoder, we are not... but a terminal connected to the equipment will be more in depth. We are in the process of getting our permenant terminal connected today, and hopefully we can look at that for you. Again, You guys know more about your end of this than I do. One thing that comes to mind is that with our HD tuner (DirecTV sat receiver) it will not show our DTV channel now on 3-1 like it was before we went HD yesterday. Now it will only pick it up on 46-1 or 46-2. But, I can say that I have not had but a couple of minutes to play around with it, so I don't know if that is an indication of anything, or just the result.

I hope I have answered some of the questions you might have had... if not, feel free to post them. Maybe I created more? We have not had a chance to connect our Dolby audio yet for our upconversion. Not sure how that will sound anyway, since we are a mono station... but the network feeds should come through with whatever audio they send us. Let me know how it looks tonight!

Thanks!

Thanks Billy...

What's odd is that I always did receive 46-01 and now it has changed to 3-01. Maybe that's a key in why my receiver can't find the HD sub-channel?

I've posted over in the DBSTalk Dish forum to see if they have any ideas.

Last thing to try is power down, pull the OTA module, reinstall, power up, and see what happens...

You're a mono station??

One thing to remember here is that you have to start thinking in 16:9 terms and not 4:3. I think I heard you say that you don't have any way to monitor the signal and I also take that to mean you have no 16:9 monitor nor way to letterbox 16:9 on a 4:3. If not, and you haven't really seen what happens when these different modes are engaged, then I can fully understand your confusion here. Been there. Done that! You are NOT alone.

Let me see if we can get on the same page of terminology. If I am understanding correctly:

"Full Width" is standard 4:3 in 4:3
"Full Height" is a true 16:9 frame with a 4:3 picture with sidebars
"Anamorphic" is where a 16:9 picture is sent in a 4:3 frame.

OK. If this is all correct, here is what you should see in each mode on a 16:9 or 4:3 letterboxed | normal 4:3 monitor

Full Height - Stretched - a circle that is fatter than taller | normal 4:3 on 4:3 - a round circle in 4:3
Full Height - normal 16:9 - circle that is round | Circle that is tall and skinny on a 4:3
Anamorphic - normal 16:9 - round circle | circle that is tall and skinny

Now, what we did here to keep people from manually switching 4:3 and 16:9 was to tally off the master switcher (we have a GV Master 21 analog switcher) to a Evertz 4 source SDI router and to the Teranex GPI for 4:3 16:9 port since FOX duplicates the programming on both analog and digital receivers. When master hits net on the Master 21, it also triggers the network input on the SDI router and triggers the 16:9/4:3 GPI on the Teranex. When we switch off net, it triggers the Evertz back to the upconvert input and triggers the Teranex back to the 4:3 mode. This way we never have to worry about aspect ratio on net verses everything else. Our tentative plan for when FOX goes 720p next year is to run the Teranex in 4:3 with side bars all the time and just switch the output of the upconverted 480i to 720p with the network 720p signal dropping the aspect switch on the Teranex since the HD encoder stays in 720p 16:9 mode 24/7.

If any of that helps, feel free to use it, Billy. If you would like to talk to me directly then feel free to PM me and I will give you my phone number and if I can help, I will be happy to.

Good Luck.

Billy,

Thank's for the info, it's really appreciated. We know this HD stuff is new territory to you. We'll be patient. We also want to help by informing you of what outcome your hard work is displaying. Foxeng has been fiddling with this stuff for sometime now and has offered us plenty of knowledge and I'm sure he's willing to offer his engineering tips (for a good price just kidding) on this digital transmition stuff. Although he works at a FOX network I think he mentioned he's been upconverting their national feed to 720p for a little while now. I'm sure he's learned a few tricks during his learning (trial & error) period.

Hold on a moment, let me get my Klingon Translator out. LOLOLOLOL Just Kidding. Don't worry about me understanding that. I'm sure Billy understands it, and that's the important thing.

Billy, take the info these experience HD/digital engineers here offer the members and your boss with consider you a genious (not saying your not) and there might be a raise around the corner.