Boston, MA - OTA - Page 89

I flipped the format switch on the back of my Sammy 160 to 480p, and the widescreen on FOX25 actually looks somewhat better than the 1080i upconvert. I'm not sure why. I think 25 broadcasts in 720p. Maybe it's the progressive scan thing that works better whether it's 480 or 720. Oh well, back to the game.

Steve,

I had the same issue as you with Fox with my DTC100. I could not get a signal no matter what I tried. I then did a channel search, and Fox reappeared on 31-2 instead of 25-1, solid as a rock.

Have you tried a new channel search?

Larry

Yep... widescreen here on 31-1 (WFXT-DT)

Still not the CBS quality however w/ this EDTV stuff....

i agree benjii. I think that if you switch to 480p it looks better. Im glad they finally switched it over to wide for todays game.

-nate

I tried my Samsung 151 @ 480p.

I don't notice much difference...

Then again I have only had an HD receiver for 1 week now!

Just getting used to no vaseline on the eyeballs...

Benji,
FOX only does 480p.
Larry,
I don't think it's a mapping problem, because I'm getting readings in the 20's. I'm going to try moving the antenna again at halftime. If that doesn't work, I'll try the remap. Thanks for the suggestion.

Steve...I'm going to have to disagree with you on FOX25's format. I tried out a Zenith 520 receiver last week. The Zenith shows in the front window what format the digital stations are broadcasting in, and both 5-1 and 25-1 came up in 720p while the other Boston digitals showed 1080i.

If you're talking about FOX Network, I agree that they send a 480p signal but 25-1 upconverts it to 720p.

I think the picture looks pretty good on Fox; you can tell its not HD in the wide shots, but everything else looks good.

Yea, it looks pretty good, but lets face it...this is only the appetizer until the CBS broadcast is served up.

Yea, it looks pretty good, but lets face it...this is only the appetizer until the CBS broadcast is served up.

Benji,
Fair enough. I was really just trying to make the point that FOX's picture is only ED content. ABC regular football is also broadcast in 720p, but it's still fundamentally SD PQ.

j_murdock, yeah, thanks, i agree that snow is affecting my 2.1/2.2 reception. usually it is watchable in the evenings, thankfully. actually it's the major ice-dam which are really going to be a problem when melting starts. no worry of that in the near-term, -14F at my home early sunday, and we had a water-in-pipe freezing problem. (the pipes didn't freeze - they are always frozen, thankfully - it's the water inside the pipes that froze!)

in 25.1 news, i watched some NFL yesterday in both real-HD on CBS and upconverted-to-720p on WFXT-DT. usually 25.1 was showing nice widescreen which looked decent but not super. sometimes it was definitely in lame-o-stretch-o-vision though. clearly WFXT-DT is making a good effort and kudos to their engineers for doing just about the best they could possibly due given Fox's restrictions/refusal to do real-HD .

Fox seemed to switch during the game; I only noticed on my 4:3 display when stretched commercials started showing up.

I switched to widescreen, but there was a white flashing line going across the top of the screen, that usually is there only for upconverted, non-widescreen material. This was so distracting that my guests requested that I switch it back to 4:3. This line was not present on the other Fox widescreen presentations I have seen.

It also appeared that Fox wasn't filling the screen; there was blank space above and below the picture, within the 16:9 frame. With the upconvert to 720p there shouldn't be a loss of resolution, but there isn't a good reason not to use the whole screen either.

I give the engineers the thumbs-up for getting us back widescreen football, but I was disappointed that they didn't get this fixed before game time.

CBS-HD: WOW!!!!

About 3 weeks ago I stopped being able to get 41-1 on my Samsung 151. The front panel signal strength light is blinking on and off as it always used to, but instead of locking on after about 5-10 seconds (and becoming a solid light) it just keeps blinking, never finding any video or audio. I tried peaking the signal with my rotor many times over the past couple of weeks, all without success. All other Boston stations and area NH stations (when on air and antenna pointed their way) work fine.

I remember reading here a few weeks back that WLVI got new firmware for their encoder or some such upgrade around 1st week in January...right about the time I stopped getting them.

Is anyone else able to get this channel with a Samsung T-151? It smells like an encoder/decoder incompatibility and not a signal strength problem to me.

I'm about 20 miles NW of Needham.

Thanks.

I too noticed the switch during mid-game. I thought my eyes were freaking out until it switched back about 5 minutes later. Overall I was unimpressed compared to CBS's showing. I did appreciate the widescreen and some of the angles were actually pretty good but a lot of it was blurry and pixelated. Keep trying Fox.

On the note of Fox, does anyone else have trouble with their shows dropping audio and pixelating from time to time? I don't have problems with any of the other channels except Fox. The signal strength is the same as the other stations according to my decoder but it seems like it cuts in and out at times.

That station and network is a disaster I have all kinds of problems with them and only live about 12 miles from the towers.

SGlorios,

I am running a 151 here in No Attleboro and am getting 41-1 fine (after the initial 5 to 10 seconds it locks in and holds the station).

I am however having terrible audio problems with WFXT 25 (tuning in on 31-1). The sound is about 20 decibels higher than any other station and very poor quality even when I turn the volume down - are you getting FXT OK?

Thanks,

Chris10

Chris10,
Other than a somewhat weaker signal than most, WFXT 25 (31-1) on my Samsung 151 is fine in Littleton. I wonder if there are different firmware revs for the 151?

No Boston Public in 16 x 9. FOX managed to 'flip the switch' for yesterdays playoff game. Why not everything else?

Does that mean that my Mitsubishi HDTV, that will only do 480P or 1080i, will be upconverted again by my DTC-100?

I am new to this thread. What is the deal with the super bowl? Will it be in HD?

yes.

bob

The DTC-100 upconverts 720p to 1080i.

The Super Bowl will be carried in 720p HD by WCVB-DT in Boston.

I have a North Shore viewer looking for a good antenna installer. Any recommendations?

Bob
WBZ

I just hooked up a Silver Sensor to my DTC-100 and things are looking a whole lot better than the other antennae I was using, but I'm still missing ABC (ch. 5) and Fox (ch. 25).
I'm located in South Boston.
Can someone help me out on this issue? Thanks, Jan

Bob Hess...I'm good at installing rabbit ears, if that's any help!

I did not get widescreen on the playoff game using a dish 6000.

Bob - look for one of my posts somewhere in this thread for a recommendation of Pete Charbeau of Suburban Satellite. He does great work. In fact, here you go:

Pete Charbeau Suburban Satellite