Fort Wayne, IN - HDTV - Page 8

I have had a few problems with audio on WPTA (as in no audio) but have been able to remedy the problem by just changing to another channel and then back again. I'm using the sony hd-300.

As for the problem with ER on WISE read this thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=362765

Should answer your questions.

I just bought a SIR-T351 and was enjoying the Scorpion King in HD as well as the CBS feeds. I however didn't get anything on NBC in HD tongiht. Las Vegas and Jay Leno looked like upconverted SD to me. Did everyone experience this? The last time I had an HD tuner was in the fall but had to sell it becuase i needed the cash. Back then the only HD station was PBS; it is a refresher to watch normal content in HD. I was really disappointed that the Jay Leno show wasn't in HD, as that is one of my favorite shows. Also, do you know if Conan will go HD soon?

Thanks,
Ryan

Ryan,

Leno is typically in hd, not sure why it wasn't. Haven't heard when Conan will be going hd, Letterman still isn't hd either.

NBC on national level has had difficulty with some of their hd lately, not sure if this was the problem or not. Also, typically the local station (WISE) would have to "flip a switch" to allow the hd feed to be transmitted through. Only way to know if this was the problem is to find someone else who can receive NBC in a different market to see if they are getting an hd feed.

The mummy returns was really nice last night, unfortunately WPTA doesn't pass a 5.1 signal yet, and that is a great movie for 5.1 surround. Lets hope they can start soon.

I noticed that the movie wasn't in 5.1. That would have been awesome if it was. Shortly after I posted I noticed a thread in the Programing forum and no one in the country had Las Vegas in HD. I guess it had something to do with Van Damme not wanting it in HD? Oh well. While I'm here, whats the status on Fox broadcasting at a higer power? and passing along their EDTV feeds?

Thanks,
Ryan

PS. Nice sig Jason

I don't know for sure when fox will broadcast at a higher power but my best guess would not be until this fall. The only reason that I say that is fox is supposed to start having true hd broadcasts available to local affiliates some time this fall, thus giving them a good reason to raise up the antenna and turn up the power.

Just sent an e-mail to WPTA asking for the timeline of them passing a 5.1 audio signal. I'm really looking forward to them getting this going as it can really enhance the great picture we have been getting with all of the hd movies lately.

I'll post any information that I may get.

What the heck, I was watching Jay Leno in HD tonight but after a commercial break, it was the SD feed. Is that a problem at Wise or is the mix up at the NBC head office?

This is the response I received about WPTA transmitting the 5.1 dolby digital audio signal.


Hello Mr. Vereeke,

Thank you for taking time to Email us regarding WPTA's plans to
broadcast
Dolby Digital 5.1 audio on our HD channel. I agree with you whole
heartily.
Not only are the movies great to watch...the sporting events such as
Monday
Night Football are also awesome with this feature! WPTA-TV is planning
on
installing the Dolby Digital encoding equipment necessary to broadcast
this
portion of the signal however as of this writing we have no firm date
in
place. Thank you for your interest and please stay tuned!!

Best regards,

Bret Angel
Chief Engineer
WPTA-TV


Doesn't sound like they plan on doing this anytime in the near future. I would imagine as soon as more people get on the hd bandwagon that they may get more requests to do so and it could speed up the process. I can't imagine the price of the encoding equipment is chump change, so I can't really blame them for holding out.

Jason

Usually a scenario like that is at fault of the local affiliate. The show looks really good in hd too, just wish I could stay awake long enough to watch it.

I have been watching PBS HD and noticed that the audio was not in sync with the sound. I emailed wpta and they replied that they had a software update to fix it. Tonight, it was right on, but I have another question. When watching the PBS HD thread, I noticed that there are small crakling noises every so often. I am not sure if it is my receiver or just the channel. That is the only channel that has 5.1 sound so I cannot test that on another channel. Also on that PBS feed, when in 5.1, there is only sound out of the front 2 speakers. Should there be center and surround channels?

Well scratch that PBS is back in sync. I just changed over to it and it is out of sync again. How hard could it be to have the audio and video line up?

It's been like that for months...it got to the point where I just tell my kids to pretend we are watching foreign films with bad overdubs.

IIRC, we have a WISE employee on this forum and would like to thank you for broadcasting the local stuff with the black bars on the side instead of streched. It was bad cuz that was the only channel that was like that and if i went from NBC to ABC or CBS, I'd have to change the aspect of the STB. Also before when the screen was streched on local stuff, 19 had a very greenish tint to it, but now it seems fine.

Another thing, (sorry for complaing so much about wise), but the other night I was watching Jay Leno in HD, but after the first commercial break, the SD feed of Jay was on inplace of the HD. That happened on Tues and I noticed it as well on Thurs. The same place, right after the first commercial break. I email wise last night but havent heard back.

PBS does broadcast in Dolby Digital but a lot of the content is only dd 2.0, which is just sending information to the front L/R speakers. WANE can pass dd 5.1, but only for live events such as the superbowl.

Just a reminder that WISE will be giving us a little HD treat today. Daytona 500 coverage in HD followed by Shrek.

I believe this is the first Nascar race broadcast in HD (other than the Busch race on Saturday that was in HD) should be a real treat.

Just as long as WISE remember's to flip the HD switch! It's been a little flakey lately, so I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for the best!

WISE remembered to "flip the switch" and it looks pretty good. Lots of SD camera shots being used though which was to be expected.

Well looks like everything went fairly well for the race, except for the last 20 minutes or so. There was some strange ghosting going on. Other than that it looked excellent to me!

WISE still has the ghosting for Shrek. Something they'll hopefully fix tomorrow.

Greetings all,

I have not had a chance to browse the forums for a while.

I would like to respond to some issues raised here. I watched the Daytona race and the "Ghosting" appeared towards the end of the race,
right after NBC had some kind of problem with the HD feed.

The picture was freezing and stuttering and after it cleared up we had the Ghosting issue which continued into Shrek. My theory is that whatever the glitch was upset the HD satellite decoder. I don't see the problem this morning but it is only upconverted SD stuff until prime-time.

We should not have to flip the "Switch" it is controlled by a timer that allows the HD feed to air during programmed times. It works quite well unless the Master Control operator confuses it by doing what we call a "hotpunch" on the program feed.

I don't typically stay up to watch Leno, but I will check on the problems you have seen. The HD timer may have some bad timing information? Can those of you that have seen the problem tell me if the commercials you see before the show comes back in SD are local? And about what time it happens?

I'm surprised that NBC did not promote the race or shrek being in HD, to the best of my knowledge that is the first HD movie they have shown.

Regards

Matt C.E. WISE-TV

Thanks Matt,

Yes it is odd that NBC didn't promote Daytona or Shrek. Shrek was the better of the two presentations as Daytona is a very big production with lots of cameras and NBC doesn't have a lot of experience doing HD sports. NBC has show HD movies in the past but it was before WISE was HD.

Might be a good thing that NBC didn't get too carried away with promoting the 500 being HD. If you had the opportunity to watch it provided some good views with the HD cameras, however they seemed out of focus at times and they didn't have many HD cameras on location for the event. They were using lots of SD camera shots i.e. in the pits, in car cameras etc. The problem with this type of production is that there is currently no technology available for wireless RF transmission of HD camera shots making Nascar not the greatest of events to do an HD production for.

Keep visiting the forums, you'll get a lot of good feedback regarding HD in the Ft. Wayne area that could be very beneficial to you.

Thanks again,

Jason

Unfortunatly, I couldn't watch the whole race as I had to go to work. But as far as the Jay Leno issue, yes there are local commercials at the end of the commercial break. So it would go to break, national commercials with the black side bars, then local commercials, streched and looking kinda green, then the show would return and be streched and very obviously not HD. After I emailed you guys, on Friday, the show was in HD the whole night, and noticed that your local stuff had the side bars, which is good for me so that I don't have to mess with my STB's aspect ratio for only Wise. But I too noticed that the Nascar seemed slightly out of focus and it almost seemed like the audio was off by a split second. Since the local stuff was broadcast with black bars, the picture didn't seem to be as green which is very good.

Thanks,
Ryan

For those of you with DirecTV, their website is now reporting that Fort Wayne locals will be available in 2004. I'm sure it will be standard def channels, but it's still digital technically... :-D

I was listing to Pat White on WOWO and he was promoting the fact that Dish Network was carrying the Fort Wanye Channels. He said that they were going to be in HD, but somehow I highly doubt the satalite companies carry the locals in hd.

From the ads that I saw for Dish Network, they currently only carry ABC, CBS & FOX. I'm hoping when DirecTv picks up Fort Wayne they will add NBC.

WISE-33 is on Echostar/Dish Network.
The advertising campaign somehow "left us out".

Just because something is "Digital" does not always mean it is better.
The very high compression rates used have drawbacks that are very
annoying to my eye. Motion artifacts and "mosquito" noise are the two big ones.

MK

If the local HD channels are carried on either comcast or in my case, mediacom, will they be as compressed as they would be on satalite?

Directv can save their bandwidth for something else, OTA digital w/HD is/will be much better than the overcompressed locals D* will have.

Besides, why would I pay $3 per month for something I can get for free? Although if you have old school SD television and no HD tuner then it could be worthwhile. But as time goes on, more and more people will have HD tuners.

What makes that even worse is people living in Ft. Wayne will be able to receive all local digital signals with just rabbit ears.

The biggest benefit I see is having the ability to record OTA shows on my DTivo. At this point I only have one HD-capable TV and can only enjoy it with non-Tivo'd OTA shows.

And yes, while the overcompression sucks, at least on my "normal" TVs I can enjoy normal shows.

Good point. I've been holding out for an HD Tivo, not only waiting for them to come out, but also be less that the anticipated 1k. I could be waiting a while.

In the meantime I may have to get a SD tivo and I guess in that case it would be great to be able to record network shows. Not sure how much I really want to pay $3 a month for something that I am currently getting for free though.

Jason