Toledo, OH - HDTV - Page 60

Getting all but one the Toledo stations rock-solid should by quite easy. Even a very small antenna should do the trick if you only get it "out in the clear" - outdoors, with no obstructions within 20' of it, and point it at Oregon (OH).
The one fly in the ointment is WLMB, known as channel 40, but actually transmitting on lowband channel 5 with only 10kW from the opposite direction (Jasper, MI). WLMB is, for the most part, a religious station, but has some vintage secular family fare in the evenings. If you want WLMB, you'll need an antenna with some wide elements, and quite possibly a rotator to turn the antenna WNW. Whether WLMB is important is a matter of personal taste.

Detroit is another matter. You will need a deep-fringe antenna at some height (an amplifier is not recommended in the city because the strong TV and FM transmitters in Oregon could overload one). Your latitude will determine how high your antenna will have to be. In Temperance, a Channel Master 3020 at 30' on a chimney gets all full power Detroit (not Mt Clemens) stations solid, but go in the attic, and WDIV 4/RF45 virtually disappears, likely because it is 2 miles further away than all the rest. You might get by on a rooftop near Alexis, need a tower around Airport Rd, and a tall tower if you're near Maumee. You would have to aim the antenna NNE for Detroit. You might get Toledo solid this way as well (the signals would be plenty strong enough to make up for the mis-aiming, but multipath could be a problem with the antenna turned the wrong way).

You are absolutely right....I cannot complain about service. I am more excited when Verizon becomes 4g in my area and I can dump all of this junk and just get their service. What is everyone's experience with hulu?

Are you referring to just using 4G wireless service, with their data caps it seems like you would blow thru those in no time for in the home use, especially if you use Netflix or anything.

Switched to AT& T Uverse and absolutely love it! ALL channels are HD and many more channels. No more sorry list of HD channels from Buckeye. The only thing I lost was BCSN, but I ended up saving a couple of $$ a month and got all HD channels. Also switch the internet as well.

Got a flower bouquet delivered to the house asking me to reconsider..Ya right. LOL

Over and Out.

I've heard good things about Uverse like their good HD selection and GUI. The only bad thing I've really heard about is their poor HD quality. Anyway good for you. It's funny going to the Franklin Park Mall and seeing all of Buckeyes advertising for their awesome HD in the food court when their HD selection isn't all that good.

Does Uverse have VOD?

Yes AT&T has a much larger/better selection on VOD. Since I've had AT&T (12/23), Buckeye's service seems to provide a very tired service. BTW.. HD quality is very good!
Good Luck to all.

That's good to hear, personally I've never seen Uverses HD picture quality but I heard their SD looked pretty good (for being SD).

I noticed a minor increase in picture quality after switching from TWC to DirecTV which I assume is because of DirecTV's use of the more efficient mpeg4 codec. The HD selection isn't as great as TWC's and the VOD has to be downloaded but my internet connection is fast enough that it practically just streams. There's quite a bit of VOD content too.

I wish Uverse was available here because I'd definitely get internet through them. I'm tired of these crappy 512K upload speeds I'm getting while I'm getting 10+Mbps down.

Anyone watch the premiere of V on 13? I don't think I've ever seen a more blatant level of DNR on cable. I don't watch much on 13, so I don't if everything else is like this or not.

Are you sure it's not your TV? Most TVs have a digital noise reduction but I like to always have that turned off. 13ABC probably doesn't look that great anyway because it's only 720p. I think 1080i looks a bit sharper even though it only really shows 540 lines at a time.

It doesn't look that good on DirecTV either and I'm pretty they just pick up the signal with an antenna and rebroadcast it.

Does the CW affiliate WT05 broadcast on over the air TV or is it just on cable only? I'm kinda surprised that none of the TV stations in Toledo have made some kind of deal to air CW programming from WT05 on any of their subchannels so it can be available over the air for those who don't have cable. I would've expeceted better from the stations in Toledo IMO.

It's broadcasted on cable only. I know that it's available on BCS but it's also available on TWC. DirecTV uses WDCW CW-Washington DC because they can't pick up the signal since it isn't broadcasted.

Here's more info on WT05.

Toledo is one of the largest markets in which CW network is not available OTA from a station within the market.

However, many (it not most) people in the immediate Toledo metro area can get CW over the air from WKBD (virtual 50/RF 14) near Detroit, provided they have the proper antenna.

Question guys....I'm toying with the idea of dropping Buckeye for one of the satellite providers. Both DISH and DirecTV are cheaper and offer more HD channels. For me it's more about getting more HiDef channels, saving $20-30 a month is a nice bonus though. My main concern is PQ.. in the past I know that Buckeye's HiDef was generally considered superior to satellite but is that still true? I have some friends with DirecTV and they seem to like it well enough but I don't think they have as critical an eye as I do. Is there anyone here who's had both? How do they compare?

The picture quality will likely be a LITTLE better but if you think you'll be saving money think again. Satellite companies, DirecTV in my experience is tricky with their pricing plans. It could be $90 a month and they'll still advertise the $29.99 plan as that. I thought I would be saving money too but I'm paying about the same.

Check out the DBStalk.com forums if you want to know more about either DirecTV or Dish Network.

Buckeye's 1920x1080 signal with bitrates as high as 20 is superior to anything I have seen come off either of the satellite services. If you are PQ sensitive and have a large display (>=60") you will probably not be happy with satellite PQ.

No I don't work for Buckeye

Definitely not my TV. It's calibrated and all of the extra junk is off. Everything else is fine. Last season V looked fine which is why it really stood out.

.Just wanted to let everyone know that I was able to purchase 2 DVR boxes off Ebay, bring them into Buckeye to have them checked out and their card inserted. Hooked them up with no problem. Obviously there is chance that the boxes could have had problems but it worked without a hitch. Lowering my bill another 18/mth. For what I paid for the boxes including shipping they pay for themselves in less than 6months. Just food for thought to lower the cost a bit.
Sorry for the delay in this post, but it took some time.

That's very interesting. I would have never guessed Buckeye would allow it. Though, maybe they are required to do so under one of the multitude of cable regulation acts Congress is so fond of enacting. Good to know we have options.

I imagine when this because more mainstream with tablets, we will start to see more traffic monitoring tools. Also, I imagine 2 years from now the LTE network will have to be cut in half price wise because of all the new types of devices coming out. The market will be flooded and technology will need to be updated.

I don't do netflix and really have no need to currently. I am just extremely sick of paying so much money to one company for crappy limitations.

E-mailed 13 about V, and lo and behold this week it looked fine. Must have listened.

Just purchased my second Samsung HDTV 19" from Amazon.
The replaces an old 15" Sharp.

So my first TV is a Samsung Series 5 46" with the DVR cable box, HD gateway.
Picture is fantastic and looks great. I'm using HDMI.

On the 19" I've just got the coax connection, and it looks really good.
Chanel 11-1 and 13-1 look good in HD. Rest of the chanels are ok.

So for a smaller 19" set is it worth the extra $16 a month for
the DVR Cable box and HDMI?

What would you do?

$16 extra a month just for one HD DVR? I wouldn't pay that much.

16 sounds expensive, how much for a NON-dvr HD box... I thought I read/or saw sometime back that buckeye had small HD boxes... but I wouldn't pay more than 5$ per month extra personally...

I called Buckeye again and got a different price this time.

$5.51 for HD box only.
$11.09 for Digital & HD
$16.60 for Digital, HD & DVR

Talked to a tech guy there and with just coax the local
HD channels are already included such as 11-1, 13-1 ect.

Question is, would it be worth it quality wise, at these
prices, for such a small set?

How long has WUPW had a sub channel? Bummer, I was hoping the bandwidth would remain all in 46.1 since I can't get the VHF signal from Fox in Detroit on my roof antenna.

The Fox splicer prevents the local station from touching the HD feed. This is good in that it means they cannot decrease the quality; however, it also means that the Fox network feed reserves space for a subchannel regardless of whether or not a subchannel exists. In a way, Fox stations are the only stations that can add a subchannel without taking a hit in quality.

WUPW 36-1 should not look any different during Fox network programming than it did before, and should not look any different than WJBK in Detroit.

- Trip

WUPW had a subchannel in the past - simple, continuous, weather radar, no gimmicks, though they briefly had Christmas music on audio, just before they cut the subchannel without notice, about 3 years ago, IIRC.

I notice recently that WTVG has replaced AccuWeather on 13.3 with a weather radar (no audio) like WUPW had, but with current temperatures superimposed on the map.

I wonder of this change is permanent, and if it has anything to do with ABC selling WTVG.

And for that matter, does Live Well go away with the sale of WTVG, or will ABC have a deal to keep it going?

FWIW, I note that by the evening of 1/29, WTVG 13.3 was back to the full AccuWeather program.

News note:

On or just before February 3rd, WLMB (40/RF5) over-the-air has switched from transmitting in SD (480i) mode to HD (1080i) mode.

I have not seen any actual HD content yet, but I have not watched it enough to say that there isn't any.

They may just be upconverting SD video to 1080i 3:4 and sending that out. Most of what I have seen so far is pillarboxed or gutterboxed, with the left and right side of the picture displaying only their logo.