Boston, MA - OTA - Page 3

Scheduled outage from ch57:


Channel 57 will not be on the air May 30,31 and June 1 as we have tower
work in progress and we cannot expose the workers to excessive RF exposure.
We will turn it back on earlier if the work is completed sooner than
expected..



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Steve P

Known problem with the E* 6000 (and scheduled to be fixed in the long-awaited update).

It should also show up with channel 23-1. (Apparently it's not ignoring a bogus ident.)

Go to 42-2 and its there. (And actually last night, I just had to "channel up" from 007-1 to get to 42-2.)

Sometime over the past day or two, the channel 4.1 (WBZ) signal loss drop-outs on my Sony HD100 stopped. Perhaps a patch was downloaded (my system says it has #256,1543 and 2049, but not #953), or perhaps something changed at WBZ.

Bob Hess - have you tried your HD100 lately? Did you do anything, or has Sony finally resolved this for us all.

Or maybe, it's just me?



[This message has been edited by SANdood (edited 06-01-2001).]

SANdood,

We have busy working on this problem and just got some suggested changes in the settings for our HDTV encoder that may fix the problem. We plan on making these changes on Monday. To date, however, we have not done anything that should affect your HD-100.

All HD-100 users: check out your reception Monday night.

Bob

On the E6000 7-1 worked fine.

It did not work the prior night even trying to direct input to 42-1 or 42-2 (the first thing I try). Direct mapping is easy. Start with a "00" for a onedigit station, like 007 or you can type 0071. One "0" for a two digit, e.g. 0421, 0422.

Tim

Anyone else notice WFXT-DT has dropped to 480p instead of their usual 720p?

At first, I thought my Panasonic STB switch was in the wrong position.

Wow, what a difference. Looks worse than NBC's 480i.

Does anybody know if this is a tempoary situation or did Boston digital TV just take a giant step backwards?

Sony HD-100 users:

We have made some changes on our end and our HD-100 is now stable. In another thread, I see that Sony has also downloaded changes via Direct TV. Please let me know if you see anything weird going on with WBZ-DT.

Bob Hess
Director, Broadcast Operations/Engineering
WBZ

[This message has been edited by Bob Hess (edited 06-04-2001).]

Anybody have lip sync problems with FOX 25-1 last night? I had to go to my DTV feed since Malcolm In The Middle was really annoying. I have a Panasonic HDS-20 STB.

WFXT-DT still transmitting only a 480p signal. Anybody getting 720p? Does anyone know what's up with that?

I also lost 4-1 and 7-1 from RCA DCT-100 last night (6/5/01). However, 30-1 and 42-1 (or 2?) had both video and audio. I guess their channel mapping wasn't working last night.

I'm guessing that you need to do a new channel search. This because we made changes to our PSIP settings to take care of a problem with Sony HD-100 receivers.

Remember our DTV Hotline: 617-787-7043

Feel free to call this number to report a problem.

Bob Hess
Director, Broadcast Operations/Engineering
WBZ-TV/WSBK-TV/WLWC-TV/WBZ-AM/WODS-FM

Anyone else getting strong signal on WBZ-DT but no audio or video? Same thing as WHDH lately. Using DTC100 signal strenght is 88 but "weak signal" appears.

I tried fiddling with things last night (6/5/2001) and afterwards could only get 20-1 (and sometimes 31-2 came in for a while, but that is no different from before, and this was what I was trying to improve by fiddling). My "post fiddle" experience was that dispite strong signal readings from 4-1 and 7-1, I got zero sound or picture. This was later in the evening ... maybe around 10:00PM. Was this problem on my end or was anything down?

I forgot to mention that I use a ProScan PSHD-105 (same as DTC-100) with the RCA VHDC-300, a Silver Sensor antenna with RadioShack attenuator, and a Sony KV-32XBR400. (I once again tried my RadioShack double-bowtie and my MegaWave MTV-1, but neither improved the situation).

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Rick W. Scogland
My Email: rickscogland@mediaone.net

My Home Theater: http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum15/HTML/000169.html

[This message has been edited by RScogland (edited 06-06-2001).]

I have a Sony KW34HD1. Original digital receiver. For the past couple of weeks, I too have not been able to tune either 4.1 or 7.l (no sound, no picture, excellent signal strength). The picture and sound come in fine when tuning 30.1 and 42.1. I've gone through the re-acquisition cycle (several times). Yesterday I started receiving WHDH-DT on 7.1 just fine. However, I still am unable to tune WBZ at 4.1. Sooo.... It seams that there is still some PSIP magic (or witchcraft) to be resolved??? Thanks and regards....

The bad news is that you're right. We do seem to have a problem and it is associated with our changes made to fix the HD-100 problem. We will look into the problem. I have the same problem with my DTC-100,

The good news is that WBZ-DT has been granted a power increase to maximize our coverage. As of today, we are increasing power from 600,000 watts to 725,000 watts.

Bob Hess
WBZ

Hi Bob,

WOW 725,000 watts I may need get that voodoo, black box, attenuator, do dad, thing a ma bob, that Tim uses.

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Hopelessly addicted to HDTV and lost deep in the woods of Charlton, MA - Rich
rharvey@at-com.com

Bob, so where does this leave us TU-HDS20 users? I haven't seen any changes at all (good or bad) and still need to tune WBZ-DT in at 30-1. Any hope of getting the right mapping soon? All other stations are mapping to this unit fine.

Richard,
No thing a ma bob since BZ went higher power last time. I actually don't even need the Channel Master anymore since then.

Now I don't even need to turn on my TV to get 30-1.....

The PSIP fix my have fixed the HD-100 but it messed up the D6000 too & it still does not allow the DST3000 do it's substitute programming guide (unlike the other PSIP mapping stations).

Tim

I'm with Doug. I have a TU-HDS20 and all of the other station map fine. The only problem is with WBZ, I have a 4-1 (with nothing on it) and a 30-1.

Not to worry, Doug. We'll fix it.

- Bob

Does anyone know why I can get WCVB 20-1 pretty well but I can't seem to receive 4-1 WBZ or 7-1 at all. I used to receive 4-1 sporadically. I'm using the dct-100.

Thanks

[This message has been edited by nlrich (edited 06-09-2001).]

I had to remap (rescan) the channels in order to fix the problem. Give that a try.

Pat

Seems we've taken a step backwards for Sony HD-100 users - the 'BZ drop-out is gone, but so is the PSIP!

I did a rescan on my HD-100 this weekend, and now I lost the 4-1 PSIP mapping - WBZ-DT is only on 30-1, while I was getting it on 4-1 just fine!

As of last nite, My Sony has 7-1 (WHDH-DT), 20-1 (WCVB-DT), 25-1 (WFXT-DT), and 30-1 (WBZ). I forgot to check which my Hughes Platinum has...I know it has 5-1 (which my Sony doesn't), but I'll have to check back to see where 'BZ shows up.



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2.0.1 user, upgraded Sony (~130 hour)

Too many new channel searches for me. Every time I want to watch something, I need to do a new channel search. I could care less where the channels show up, as long as they are consistant. 31-2 wont come in anymore (and I have NEVER got it as 25-1), 4-1 used to be the only one to come in perfect, and now I cant find it at all, NBC keeps switching from 7-1 to 42-1 and even 42-2, while 20-1 (which has never been 5-1 for me) is now the only one that is consistant but I dont really watch anything of their programming, and I have yet to see 57-1 show up as any number. I know most of this is my fault because I can only use an indoor antenna, but it used to work better when it was in my basement than it does upstairs in my new house (in the same town). Lately, I have been spending more time fixing things and getting frustrated than watching actual programming ... and my family makes fun of my for it! Hopefully things will be more settled in September when the new shows are out.

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Rick W. Scogland
My Email: rickscogland@mediaone.net

My Home Theater:
http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum15/HTML/000169.html

I actually would suggest PSIP mapping NOT be used if
1) it keeps changing (really messes up D6000 favorites)
2) it prevents the Advance Programming Guide to work (as is the case of 'BZ and Tosh/Mits/Hughes receivers.

There is really limited value in mapping if there are side effects. Given the number of stations it is really pretty easy to remember the DT equivalents.

Tim

Although I couldn't get it working last night, I've noticed that when watching 05-0 (analog) on my 6000 for the past week or so they had the program info working! It accurately displayed info about what was on and other pertinent info which, as far as I've seen, is a first for any Boston OTA stations to date. However it wasn't working for the 20-1 digital counterpart. Anyone else notice this? Probably not since why would anyone watch the analog version, but I stumbled upon it.

So, when will this feature be implemented on other OTA channels anyway? thanks

OK - did a rescan on both my HD receivers, and here's what I have today:

Sony SAT-HD100:
7-1, 9-1, 20-1, 23-1, 23-2, 25-1, 30-1

Hughes Platinum
5-1, 7-1, 9-1, 23-1, 23-2, 25-1, 30-1, 66-1

Both use (separate) RatShack in-house bowties, and the Hughes is a floor higher - signal strength is similar (although upstairs can "see" backwards into NH, apparently).

I used to get 4-1 on both until recently, and I've never had 5-1 on my Sony.

Bob - perhaps you should go back to the OLD PSIP settings, since the Sony patches alone seemed to have fixed the drop-outs prior to your switch-over last Monday. Please?

Anyone else using a DCT100 and having problems seeing WBZ? I've done a channel rescan many times and can't seem to get Digital WBZ anymore. I get 20-1 23-1 23-2 without any problems.

nlrich,

I am using a DTC-100 and WBZ disappeared from 4-1 for me as well, but now it's on 30-1. Give that a try. I have no audio coming from the DTC-100 at all now. I only use it for OTA HD. The drop out in audio coincided with the switch from 4-1 to 30-1.

Phil

Hi guys,

Sorry about the problems. We hope to have this problem fixed in the next couple of days. Interestingly, the HD-100 in our shop shows us on 4-1. My DTC-100 shows us on 30-1. Not going to restore the old settings since the HD-100 users can now see us but we will have this problem fixed.

As I have said in previous posts, WBZ is committed to the virtual channel. Our viewers know us now as "4" and we want to keep it that way. Fortunately or unfortunately, you guys are the pioneers who are helping the broadcasters and receiver and equipment manufacturers resolve the problems of a technology in its infancy.

Bob Hess
Director, Broadcast Operations/Engineering
WBZ-TV/WSBK-TV/WLWC-TV/WBZ-AM/WODS-FM