El Paso, TX - HDTV - Page 51

Well, they did not do this in August as originally scheduled. It was done either late last night or this morning, 9/18. Now the basic digital line-up is the same as you get over the air. The basic analog remains the same except the public/government access channel (which was showing on digital 15-2) now requires a digital set-top box. I was really hoping to watch the city council meeting today concerning the AAA ballpark.

They also made sure nothing was bleeding thru. So, no more USA or TCM for me unless I get the extended basic. Will have to wait until tonight to see how they handle the CW 7-2 channel. Hopefully, they will show it in 16:9 widescreen. Right now, the description says 16:9 HD but the Anderson Cooper show has to be downsized to 4:3 for the proper aspect and still looks like crap.

I knew that had to screw up something else. KDBC 4-1 looks great on my TV at 16:9, but on my HDD recorder it is center cut 4:3 SD. The other main channels (except CW--still need to check primetime) look great on both.

What channels are KFOX, KCOS, Univision, and Telemundo now? I can't find them anywhere (I have Time Warner Cable, but not a set top box)?

You need to rescan. FOX will show up on 14-1, KCOS on 13-1, KINT (UNIVISION) on 26-1, KTDO (TELEMUNDO) on 47-1. Basic cable channel numbers now match over the air channel numbers.

Checked out the CW on 7-2 basic cable last night and it looked great. Picture was 16:9 widescreen with the CW logo positioned as if 4:3. Switched to over the air channel 7-2 and got 4:3 crappy picture. Until KVIA gets their equipment upgraded for over the air broadcasting, I will use basic cable channel 7-2 to watch the CW shows.

Does basic cable also provide the MyNetwork (channel 4-2) prime time shows in HD?

MyNetwork is shown in 4:3 480i. I haven't watched that channel so can't say if newer shows that originally aired in 16:9 HD are shown in a size that can be stretched to fill the screen while not losing that much in picture quality.

Thanks. Most My Network shows are shown with the sides cropped off. Occasionally, they are letter-boxed which can be "zoomed" to fill the screen. I do not know if that is decided at the network or at KTSM (who runs KDBC out of the backroom).

I e-mailed Kevin Lovell late last week requesting an update on how the upgrade, due in October, is going, but have not received an answer.

Still no reply from Kevin Lovell at KVIA, doesn't even acknowledge reading the e-mail. Arti have you gotten anything?

Has anyone noticed NCIS on KDBC OTA has been very blurry since the new season? The commercials and other breaks look good. NCIS LA and Vegas look fine. Want some feed back before I e-mail KTSM's engineer who also never answers back but seems to correct problems.

KDBC also seems to have audio volume problems.

NCIS is shot on 35mm film and delivered in the apparent soft format by the netork.

Artistic license?

It sure sucks. Don't need HDTV set to watch that quality that looks like movies my father took in the 50's . LOL guess we will have to complain to the network or KDBC so they can.

Sent an e-mail to KTSM's engineer. See if I get a reply. lol

No, I still have not gotten a reply. I wonder what's going on? Hopefully the are keeping quiet for a good surprise (like new graphics/set). It has now been 2 fulls months since I first sent my email to Kevin Lovell.
I will now go through ABC-7 Listens, hopefully I should get a response (and maybe have my question answered on-air!!).

Just a quick update, I just contacted KVIA through their contact form on their website. Maybe now it will get to them. I will update you if I hear more.

Well it looks like you must contact KVIA through their website to get an answer. Yes, Mr. Lovell himself finally responded. So if you ever need to contact KVIA (or any of the other local TV stations for that matter), use their website's contact form. I received the message at 9:22AM this morning (October 8). Since today is a holiday, it took them 0 business days to respond.

The brief message that I received is below:
That's what he wrote. The message was also sent carbon copy to Rick Cabrera, Brenda DeAnda Swann, and Chris Swann. I wonder if the message will be featured in ABC-7 listens?

I guess what he is saying is that is it scheduled for probably the beginning of November 2012. But they might not work put the kinks until the new year 2013.

What do you guys think of this?

He is the station manager and he can't get a good answer from his engineers???? They are the last station in town to get 5.1 dolby audio. Some of the audio upgrades like sound leveling are federally mandated to be in by years end. Al these networks and stations are fudging with HD bandwidth and not giving the public what HD was supposed to be. Did you see any football on CBS this weekend and others. Pixilation like crazy. I'm going to check back in this forum and try and find the engineer who knew someone here and found out KDBC was way off on allocating the bandwidth necessary for the HD channel. KTSM is also getting worse. Same engineer for both KTSM AND KDBC.

I found the original post on the bandwidth problems. It was from fox44ce on page 48, post 1423. I sent him a PM see if he responds. He may not even work at that station or monitor this forum. Let you know if I get anything.

Hello everyone,

I have a very important announcement! Yesterday, they aired my emailed question on ABC7 Listens.
I happened to record the whole segment and posted it to YouTube. The video should be embedded below.

I guess Mr. Lovell wanted to wait to send me all the details; Rick Cabrera answered them very clearly.
Good Job, Rick!!

Thanks for the good news Artie, Guess we will just have to monitor when the 5.1 comes on on my home theater it will indicate . Still doesn't explain why they don't answer e-mail sent to thre e-mail address. Why give them out if they have no intention of answering. We shouldn't have to send a bunch to 7 listens. All the other stations are the same. Hope 4,9 and 14 are upgrading also their audio leveling and picture quality. KDBC'a audio is so loud from the others.

You just have to use their contact form on kvia.com; not 7 listens. The reason they never respond to emails sent directly to their email address is because it probably goes directly to spam. If it is from the contact form, it is in their "safe senders" list and won't go to spam.

I wonder if "David from El Paso" ,whose email was in the video, participates on this forum.

Can we have the transcript of that youtube vid for us the Firewall impaired? I'm interested in the question and response.. Thanks

Just in case any of the local members missed the information on the Mexican HDTV thread, XEPM and XHJUB have begun transmitting in HD. What is most interesting to me is that programming on XHJUB that was originally in English then dubbed to Spanish is available in English on the secondary audio channel. That way we can all enjoy the shows. I have requested Tivo to add guide information for XHJUB. They currently only offer guide information on the digital versions of channels 11 and 44 out of the many Juarez stations. I explained the unique advantage of XHJUB's being available in both languages.
In the mean time, guide information is available here http://www.televisa.com/canal5/horarios/ although one must calculate the military time minus an hour as evidently Mexico City is in the Central Time Zone. Also, for anyone who does not read Spanish, the days are abbreviations of the Spanish translations. I at least remember that much from 4 semesters of Spanish 40 years ago.
So, enjoy the new programming options.

Wow they have The Walking Dead and Persons of Interest showing tonight, on Sunday is gonna be apocalyptic movies like War of the Worlds, Stephen King's The Mist and District 9, hopefully and I bet all in HD..

Still no KVIA upgrade, get a lot of pixilation. A couple nights ago it was real bad.

Yes, I have noticed pixelation on KVIA as well. Also in the past couple of weeks their PSIP generator has gone off causing the main HD channel to read as 7.3 and the weather channel as 7.5. I sent them an e-mail a couple of weeks ago asking if they will be able to show the late night syndicated shows such as Law and Order in HD after they get the new equipment but really did not expect a reply.

If you want a reply, be sure to use the online contact form at KVIA.com.

I got up super early today for daylight savings time end and KVIA was off the air from 3AM thru 4:45AM. They were only scheduled to be off the air from 330 til 400. When they came back on the air, they started playing Law and Order which was originally scheduled to air at 2:30. They kept interrupting it with commercials. At 5:00, they made an abrupt switch to the business journal. I wonder when KVIA will complete their transition, I was hoping it would be done by today so I could watch This Week in HD.

Also, has anyone noticed KVIA's new background graphics when they do split screen? They are blue in color; I wonder if their graphics will be changed to blue now?

According to the Directv guide, the Law and Order at 2:30AM (which did not air until 4:45 for only a few minutes) was from 1996. When aired it only for a few minutes, interrupted with oddly placed commercials, it was in 4:3 letterbox. So at least it should be widescreen SD if not widescreen HD. KVIA PLEASE COMPLETE YOUR UPGRADE SOON!!!

Going to watch Castle tonight. Using home theater I can tell if they are stereo or dolbly. Hopefully picture is better, don't know what is going on with pixilation.

No upgrade to dolby sound on Castle. Still pixilation especially near end.

This past week, I noticed severe pixilization and cut outs on the CBS show Elementary. There were 2 cut outs, when the picture and sound went blank. One was in the very middle of the show, and it did interrupt a considerable amount of the show. This also occurred with Grimm 2-3 weeks ago (KTSM). Also, KVIA shows no visible progress on their upgrade. It has just past one month since my questions were answered.

Same here. CBS, NBC and ABC have really gotten bad on cutting out and pixilation lately. Maybe they are all upgrading,doubtful, but they are really getting bad. CBS was cutting out bad yesterday during football. Pretty bad when a company tell you they will have things in by a certain time and a month later still no progress and thing have gotten worse.