Wilmington, NC - HDTV - Page 3

Alright! We're really getting some traffic for lowly Wilmington...

Wayne-- I caught part of the Italy travel show--looked great. Also saw a portion of a show on a NJ beach talking about tiny stone figurines--also looked quite good.

Now, on to my question, related to my earlier query about signal bit-rate. I made the assumption that a higher bit rate should result in a better signal, or at least it could have less compression, so OTA HD, with a higher bit rate should look better than Dish (or other satellite)?

But, last night I again saw compression artifacts, especially in the scenes with grass in the Italy piece (shimmering), and in the shots of the ocean off the NJ shore (blockiness). I should add that I'm watching on a 58" Pioneer--maybe these effects are less visible on a small direct view set?

I have rarely (can't think of a time) seen compression artifacts in any Dish HD material (Showtime, HBO, CBS New York)--maybe I've just been lucky...

I'm sure this has been discussed ad nauseum in other threads--but in this case we can hear directly from the master of the electrons for the station... What do you think is going on?

foxeng--points taken and understood. The part about number of viewers is especially true here, very very few getting OTA-DT let alone our meager HD. If cable started to carry the DT signal though, and it looked like crap, then there would be some action I suppose... I only call the engineers maybe once a month or so for status on HD feedthrough, or in the case of our NBC station, a status on transmitter activation. My approach is one of giving feedback on signal quality, and asking questions...

I'll bet our cable will carry local DT and HD before anyone even knows they could use an antenna--then all of a sudden viewership goes way up, then the stations will probably care a bit more...

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the Fall season of network programming, and finally being able to see it in HD........

Marc & others
Excellent words of wisdom from foxeng, he- or she is right on the mark. I completely agree with him. The small market local commercial station is usually working with only one or two technically knowledgeable engineers and they have priorities. News is one of those priorities and everything related to keeping the analog side of things going. With the added work and financial burden of putting a digital station on the air he has his hands full and priorities have to be set. Digital is a new frontier and I am learning a great deal about this every day.
As for bit rates and pixellization etc. I see motion artifacts all the time in Dish network and DirecTv programs as well as most OTA dt broadcasts. It may be that I am sensitized to this as this is my field of work. Some shows exhibit more than others. I watched 2 of the shows last evening and a couple of minutes of the History Detectives. I did not see the shimmering Marc is talking about but I have a direct view 34 inch wide screen Panasonic. I sincerely enjoy reading the excellent exchanges on this forum.
Wayne Estabrooks Chief Engineer - Transmission UNC-TV

Quite he. (and my wife is damn glad of it too!


DirecTV has really dialed down the bit rate. On a 480i 4:3 SD only TV you don't see it much, but with my 34" Sony XBR800, I can really see how much they have dialed it down. Also you may be seeing the 1080i motion artifacts that people talk about in the 720p v 1080i debate.

Wayne, come over the HD Programming and there if you are a broadcaster, you are part of the Evil Empire that is holding up 24/7 HD. It is a hoot sometimes, but you better have a tough hide for other there!

Wayne, when you say you see motion artifacts on Dish, are you referring to other than their HD programming? I was referring strictly to Dish's HD content where I haven't seen, or rarely see artifacts--not DT programs in general.

To be honest, I've ended up concentrating my viewing on the HD sources, so haven't really been watching much else. Now for a while, Dish did something funny with their compression scheme (or at least that's the current opinion--even though Dish won't admit to anything) and many channels had tons of artifacts, the Food channel being one of the worst--the least bit of motion would would be very blocky--but they fixed it.

I've never seen any artifacts on the HD demo loop either.

I was just curious as to why I would immediately notice a lot of artifacts with OTA-HD, with it's higher bitrate, compared to my Dish HD programs. I've been watching Dish HD for almost a year, so if I was used to seeing artifacts you'd think I wouldn't notice them so readily in the PBS programming. Maybe it's the equipment on my end? Maybe my OTA module in my Dish 6000 receiver? I have no idea... Just trying to get a handle on the differences between programming quality...

Wayne,

On your HD/SD switching are you guys doing Trickle Stream or Program Splicing?

I am looking for screen caps of the DTV stations to put on the NCHDTV.com website. If you have any you would like to share, please feel free to contact me either here or PM me and I will be happy to post them.

There is a nice collection that has begun, but it is mostly the Raleigh environs. Feel free to check it out.

I'll try to take some pictures--do you have any specific requirements? Size, resolution, etc... I've got ABC and PBS digital, PBS HD, can't get Fox DT anymore... I've got a 3 megapixel camera...

I think the problem I have getting to your website from work is that www.w4cl.net is using port 8090 (is that your host?), and I'm sure our firewall is blocking anything except port 80... I'll have to try at home.

ABC picture is still bad--even their analog seems to be worse, washed out and too bright. I've removed my antenna amp and receive PBS and ABC in the 80-100 range--with my attic 4-bay Channel Master. Probably why I can't get Fox anymore, with their 5kW or so power...

PBS HD programming looks good, lately though I've seen a glitch where the image disappears for a second, then comes back--the screen just goes black, like an edit cut with no image...

Marc,
I noticed the same thing also. I also noticed that the station logo is still showing when the picture goes black.

foxeng,

Sorry but I have no way of capturing any screenshots.

I can resize them so that isn't really a problem. The more res the better though.


AH! You may be correct. It is true. There are multiple domains running on that box and port assignment is the only way to get them all on one box and the NCHDTV.com site is using port 8090.

WWAY-DT 3 has been off the air all morning. Wonder what their up to? Their analog channel was off air for a short period early this morning also.

If you don't mind, you can send what you have to hdtv@w4cl.net.

Thanks

I noticed ABC-DT off the air also--their analog picture continues to look worse I think... makes me wonder what the cable re-broadcast looks like. I'm hoping this means Ken is looking at the signal...

Did anyone watch Juliard on PBS last night? I had pretty bad audio synch, once in a while it seemed to get closer, but would drift off again. Also had the black screen pop up frequently. On a good note, artifacts were very infrequent, although the content wasn't too taxing for encoding I guess...

MarcS,

You said WWAY may be going HD by next month. Maybe that's why they have been on and off air for the past week or two. We can hope.

Any idea if WECT will be using the same tower as WWAY? If so, that could be the reason. WECT according to antenna.ord and titantv.com should go digital Sept. 20th. But that could change as it has many times before.

Daryl, Marc & others in Wilmington viewing area
FYI;
WECT has an agreement with UNC-TV to use the new WUNJ DTV tower in Delco and their building is under construction there. Their antenna and transmission line has been installed on the tower. It doesn't look like they will make their Sept. 20 sign on date unless a miracle occurs. As for poor lip sync on some UNC-TV HD shows, I have noticed that also. I will discuss with our encoder / digital gurus to see if there is a fix. It is a complicated issue.
WWAY is nearing completion of their tower modifications and DTV antenna installation that they started last September. That is the reason they and we have been off the air a lot over the past few months so as to provide for the safety of tower workers climbing by our analog channel 39 transmit antenna. I hope you have enjoyed some of the HDTV shows on UNC-TV
Regards;

Wayne,

Wow, thanks alot for the info. Its just really kewl knowing kinda whats going on behind the scene. I'm in no way in a rush about these stations. I'm more or less just a curious dude. If I were a cat I'd been killed by curiosity long ago. Besides I get ABC SD out of Florence SC, ABC, CBS, PBS and FoxSD OTA and on Cable out of Raleigh area and HBO, SHO, DiscoveyHD and soon InHD on cable so I'm all set for HD viewing. WFXB-DT 43 Fox out of Marion SC I think is scheduled to go live Sept, 1st. We'll see Monday.

Well, WFXB-DT 43 Fox out of Myrtle Beach didn't make teir Sept, 1st date to go live unless their at low power on their local stations 200ft tower. Antennaweb.org changed their status to Unnder Review.

I e-mailed the General Manager of WWAY-DT 3 (46-1) mentioning about their digital channels brightness and color. He replied and a few minutes after replying their digital channel came back on the air and the color looks better now and the brightness looks correct.

He also said they should go HD in a few weeks that their installing the equipment now as Wayne Estabrook said earlier in a post. He thanked me for my help on this and said it's good to have a viewer out there they can get feedback from. I've spoke with him several times before but it has been a few months ago.

Beat me to the punch--ABC looks ok now, if a bit soft... but I know that's the source material most likely... The audio level is still higher than the analog signal. Good news about HD coming on-line in a few weeks, plenty early for the new season...

Wayne--yes, I've enjoyed the programming on PBS-HD. Still some audio synch problems--seems to be program dependent...


WECT is really dragging their feet. Of course I couldn't say for sure, but it seems that their request for a new channel number was intended to allow them to "reset" the FCC deadline for being live (I believe they were originally assigned ch 55, but now have ch 44)...

Well, WWAY-DT's fleshtones and browns still look a little on the yellowish side. I just e-mailed the GM about it. If I get a reply I'll let you know what it menntions abbout the color.

nc88keyz,

I want to replace my old toshiba DST3000 with a new HD box with better reception too. But alas I cann't afford that right now. New laptop this August drained me dry.

Dang! He replied in under five minnutes. Here's his reply.

Ok ya'll. I think the colors are looking better today. What do ya'll think? I took the liberty of going ahead and sending the GM a e-mail today thanking him and the engineer for listening to and replying to my e-mails. Also for improving the picture quality this week from what it had been like before this week.

Granted it is a bit soft but thats to be expected from a analog signal being converted to digital then our STB's upcoverting it to 1080i with inexpensive converters.

Marc,
I have some information about WECT and wanted to set the record straight, they were not actually dragging their feet. WECT was originally assigned channel 54 or 55 by the FCC for DT. The channel is "out of core" which means that these channels go away after the NTSC analog is turned off. Stations that build on an out of core channel will have to move to "in core" (Channels 2-51) at some point in the future when analog NTSC goes away. The cost for this change could easily be $200,000 or more for a new antenna and transmitter modifications so a station would like to avoid this cost if possible. UNC-TV was originally assigned channel 44 for the Jacksonville station and I petitioned the FCC for a change in the rules to allow me to use channel 18 as my analog is on channel 19 and this means we could use 1 antenna to broadcast both channels. The tower was not capable of supporting both digital and analog antennas and transmission lines. The process is quite lengthy to change channels but when we were finally granted this, then channel 44 (in-core) became available. Then WECT decided to use channel 44 and had to do the required engineering studies, and petition the FCC for a similar change in the rules and table of channel allotments. Again a lengthy process. Until this is granted, a station by law cannot begin construction or purchase equipment for this channel. WECT was only recently was granted the rule change and then they had to file for a FCC construction permit, this takes awhile also. Anyway they received all the FCC permissions and have their antenna up and the building is nearing completion. They will have to install their transmitter which could take 1 to 2 months.

Wayne Estabrooks, Chief Engineer - Transmission UNC-TV

Thank you Wayne for all the valuable information you've given us!!!
It is much appreciated!!!

Hey fellas! Another guy from Wilmington here. Getting a MyHD card today so I should be enjoying some DT & HD soon. Anyways, I wanted to let you all know that I am working on a website dedicated to Wilmington OTA signals. It'll have a forum, a faq, what to buy, how to get started, signal strength, screencaps, etc. and I'd love it if you guys would contribute to it. I'll be going out of pocket on the domain and hosting as I don't intend to make money on it, just would like to make it easier for those out there who don't know where to look for information. I thought maybe we could all sort of Mod it together and make it a great little community for us Wilmingtonians. I know it was hard finding even you guys and there are others out there but they are spread all over the place. I'm up for any suggestions so please feel free to email me at nunvuru@hotmail.com if you have any. If there isn't much interest then I won't bother with it so it's up to you guys. Hope to talk to you soon.