Boston, MA - OTA - Page 340

Gah... I'm hoping this won't be the end of WZMY and Universal Sports in my area...

Hello-

Was wondering if one of you OTAers could help me out. I'm a Comcast subscriber and I get WSBE in SD, HD and their secondary "Learning" channel. The SD channel comes in 24x7, but the HD and the "Learning" channel shows a "this channel will be available shortly" message over Comcast until between 8:30 and 9:00 in the mornings (at least during the weekends- not sure just when it starts to come over during the work week...)

I have young kids and I like their shows for my kid's age group (6:30am is Thomas the Tank and 7:00 is Sesame Street) more than the Boston or NH PBS stations (their stuff at this time is for older ages)... but I have tune to the SD channel and not HD.

Someone over on the Comcast thread thought that perhaps Comcast picks up the SD feed directly from WSBE but gets the HD feed from OTA and that the OTA feed isn't 24x7.

So, simple question for anyone who receives WSBE OTA- do they broadcast their HD feed (and I know they only broadcast the HD feed these days... SD is gone) from roughly 8:30 am to late at night and shut down overnight?

Thanks for any info! AL

Well, their schedule is here. They appear to broadcast 24/7 on 36 and 36.2. It's been a long while since I've actually seen a TV station sign off for the day.

A couple questions:

• Have you tried receiving it with an antenna?

• Is the "this channel will be available shortly" message a WSBE message or a Comcast message?

I'm not seeing any buzz but is anyone aware of Antenna TV coming to the Boston area? We certainly have enough unused subchannels.

WSBE does in fact shut down their transmitter overnight. I know it goes off at 11:30, but I'm not sure what time it comes back on. Comcast definitely picks it up over the air, because during tropo ducting during the summer, other stations on RF channel 21 like WLIW and WBOC will come in.

Comcast gets the SD directly though, because that stays on overnight.

> Have you tried receiving it with an antenna?

Nope- I don't own one.

> Is the "this channel will be available shortly" message a WSBE message or a Comcast message?

It's a comcast message.

Thanks for the replies. AL

Is anyone else getting incorrect time off WGBH?

Note to sonicdoommario.

You might look at the Winegard HD-8800 UHF antenna. I am in Worcester and are now using this unit after trying others without great satisfaction. It is located in my attic and I receive about 35 channels. My cost was $52 from Stark Electronics here in Worcester. It needs to be assembled but is very simple to complete.

New GBX subchannel.
I just noticed there are now five GBX 44 subchannels. The 44.5 subchannel is only a test pattern but of interest is that it is 1080i.

Went to post this myself. Found it yesterday.

Hope is stays and gets populated.

Lots of new channels showing up without notice.

There does not appear to be any good channel listing anywhere with sub channels listed.

http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php



- Trip

44.1 is labeled "WGBX-SD", and 44.5 is labeled "WGBX-HD", so perhaps it will be like WGBH 2.1 and 2.2.

I emailed GBH and got a reply which in part says,

"In response to your inquiry, there has been talk of a WGBH 44 HD signal. This has not been officially announced inasmuch as engineers are continuing to test our equipment for this signal. You will surely hear more news in the coming weeks or months. Stay tuned!"

There is IMO no need for 2.2 or 11.2
If 44.5 is to be HD then there would be no need for 44.1 anymore.

The only purpose of SD feeds are for cable systems to carry SD feeds.
Centercut 4:3 programming and letterbox 16:9.

I was curious about why only the PBS stations carry both HD and SD, seems like a waste of bandwidth. I helped out during the transition at WENH and asked. If I remember correctly PBS widescreen format is different then commercial stations they want to control image quality by broadcasting both formats. I assume at some point separate HD and SD will go away.

Could someone please tell me how to use the test pattern on WGBX-HD to adjust the black level and contrast for OTA TV?

Thanks

I recommend titantv.com
I can set it up to display channels (with subchannels) from providence and boston.

Pretty nice website (TitanTV).

I added it to my yahoo tool bar.

I used to use Yahoo TV but they stopped it.

TV Guide was bothering me with all of the pop up adds. When I went back to TV Guide with Firefox, I noticed that things seemed better.

I also use Titan. However Titan does not always have every station in a given market area available. If a program listing service doesn't provide data for all stations that the user can receive, then that service is less than 100%.

I hope someone might clarify my latest scan results. I am in central MA and until about a month ago was receiving 46.1 WWDP which had Shop NBC. Now when entering the numbers 46.1 the channel goes to that position then switches to 10.3 with no call letters which now has Shop NBC. Channel 10 is a R.I. station. Also now have RF19.6 and 19.7 showing with no audio or video and no call letters.

It sounds like the WWDP PSIP gear is malfunctioning, so it's showing on 10.3, which is the physical channel location, rather than on 46.1 as it should be.

19.6 and 19.7 are artifacts of the Update TV service carried by WGBH which provides software updates to TVs. They do not show programming and can be safely deleted.

- Trip

As a note of interest, I am in Worcester and receive 40 plus total OTA including channel 50. I use a Winegard 8800 in my attic and since I am facing nearly directly East am surprised at receiving any NH stations. Also do well with the New Bedford and Providence stations such as 6, 10 and 12.

Do you get anything from either greater Springfield or Hartford?

No nothing directly South or West. I never attempted to try for those directions as East, towards Boston, has the stations I was most interested in receiving.

The last few days (since Thu/Fri?) ch7-hd has had a very low signal, so bad I loose the signal altogether for a couple of seconds at random intervals. Anyone else experience this? The Tv's with a signal strength meter show it at best now about %50. This has always been a strong signal for me (~80%). Its not my setup as all the other Boston signals are coming as strong as they were. I live in Nashua, NH. I sent an email to the station website but I can't plan on hearing anything back.

bob

rm00k, same problem in Brockton Ma. Before anyone says it's the foliage, it isn't . I have four separate outdoor antennas for Boston & Providence, and three are on rotors. Two look into pine trees. Been breaking up on and off for a bit. I've been watching ch 10 Provicence instead for NBC. All my other channels I watch from both markets haven't changed. Never had a problem with WHDH even when they were on digital VHF 7. Hope that helps

FYI

WGBX will transition to an HD service this summer. 44.5 is a temporary sub channel during the testing and transition. Once cable systems are fully over to the HD stream (MPEG program 7) 44.5 will be eliminated and 44.1 SD (MPEG program 6 will become HD MPEG progrm 7 for WGBX 44.1

Thanks for the reply HEDND. Makes me feel somewhat better that someone else is seeing this, but I wonder how you go about contacting someone about this? No phone number that I can see on their web site.

I believe WGBX is must carry and WGBH is retransmission consent,with the carriage of WGBX subchannels the terms of consent.
If a must carry channel; is ONLY in HD it MUST BE CARRIED in HD.

I checked the data rates on the WGBX subchannels, and the video data rate on 44.5 is 5.6mbps with the 1080i test card in place, compared with the regular programming on the other four SD subchannels fluctuating between 2.5 and 3.2mbps. (Audio is 192kbps on all WGBX subchannels.) I'm sure the data rate will be higher once they show something other than a test pattern.

With virtually all of WORLD's content being in letterbox, isn't it time for WORLD to be distributed in a 16:9 format? It wouldn't be as practical for Create and PBS kids which have more archive programs and fewer recent productions, but much of WORLD's content is more recent. I wouldn't mind seeing 44.1 and 44.2 use a resolution of 854x480.