Cincinnati, OH - HDTV - Page 445

Agreed. Though I would use the BIG flower pots or just a 5 gallon bucket.

Splicer, I'm considering buying an Antennas Direct xg91 antenna and a rotor to see what other stations I can receive other than cincy and dayton. I live in Sharonville just south of sharon woods park. Would I have a chance of receiving other cities (Indy, Columbus, Bloomington In. or Louisville) I already receive indianapolis most nights with the antennacraft u4000 antenna pointing toward indy (would the antennas direct xg91 help me receive indy during the daytime hours) or other distant cities.

Personally I think it is a waste of time & money as you will NEVER get in anything with any consistent reliability. You'd have to go high. In Mt. Orab, the cable system used to get a station out of Lexington for the basketball games. They had to mount the antenna high up on the water tank. And the picture was still fuzzy. This of course in the analog days. Today it won't work at all as the consistency is crap.

Last time I was ready to do this a lightning bolt scared the livin' crap outta me and took out some electronics. Love the idea, can't wait to try it. Concrete is for stability right? Mast is supported by the dirt I'm assuming?

When the lightning hit it raised the hairs on my neck, and it made me wonder what woulda happened if I had my attic antenna out on the balcony! Any electrician types have any insight about this? Grounding, I mean...

The balcony antenna will be grounded through the coax running to your expensive electronic systems, destroying them on its way to the ground. You would need to either properly ground the antenna or bring it inside during thunderstorms.

I don't know if someone in an apartment can properly ground an antenna because of restrictions, but here is what is required:
Run a *8AWG copper or aluminum wire from a ground camp on the mast to a copper ground rod driven at least 4 ft. into the ground. You must have good electrical connections between all steel mast sections and the antenna. The path for the ground wire should be a direct as possible. The coax must be run thru a coax ground block and a separate wire run from the ground block to the ground rod. I usually run the coax BELOW where I'm going to enter the house, put the ground block at that low point, and then run the coax back up to enter the house.

LOL, thanks, confirmed my suspicions!


Yup, sounds like too much trouble. I'd make much more headway talking the HOA members into installing a real antenna on the roof and having it wired to all the units along with being properly grounded.

I remember when the cable company first wired my house they drove a pipe into the ground and there was a copper wire running up to the feedthru block. Sometime over the years the wire disappeared and no one has said anything about it. Still we've never had issues with a lightening strike (okay, it's a bit different from an antenna). But we did have a nasty electrical surge that smoked a power strip but spared the TV. Moral of the story: do you really need a lightening arrestor?

I never thought about the grounding problem.
I'd try the GE Indoor antenna less than $20 at home depot first. This was an antenna tom tally ch.9 chief engineer recommended for me about 2 yrs. ago. It worked great at a friends condo in springdale who had drywall walls- she got cincy and dayton stations. The only channel she couldnt receive was TBN ch.43 because the I275 sound walls and a office building immediately north of her location blocked her signal from their oxford broadcasting tower. At my house in sharonville the plaster walls blocked ch.25 and all the dayton stations so I was forced to install an outside antenna. If this antenna doesn't work home depot allows 90 days for returns. For the flowerpot trick the concrete holds the mast in place and the dirt and flowers just cover up the concrete but it might be too much to water them. Tim

You also need to tie any new ground rod into the existing main ground for the building. I am not an electrical engineer but I believe this is so that Lightning won't jump over to the main ground (which grounds your electrical system that your TV is plugged into) as it tries to find the "best ground." Obviously the path from the antenna to the main ground is again through your TV and equipment. Connecting the grounds will cause them all to be treated as "one ground" and will avoid this.

Bonding the grounds together is a code requirement.

My current house, I put a 35' tower up when I moved in. I put in two ground rods and conencted them to the ground rod for the house's electrical service about 12' away. My neighbor lost his tree, about 25 foot away from the tower, when it was hit by lightning for the third time in 18 months! Tower was a few feet taller than the tree. I don't see how it missed my metal tower for his tree, but I credit it to the fact that I have the tower well grounded. ... or was lucky, three times!

Coax grounding helps, but doesn't protect as much as you think. It only grounds the outside coax shield. The inner conductor can't be grounded without killing the signal. It mainly protects against induced surges. Nothing can save you on a direct hit.

Saw a widescreen (SD upconverted) local commercial on WLWT. It was for Cincinnati Bell Wireless. I don't recall seeing widescreen (or HD) local commercials on any of the Cincinnati stations previously. I do recall seeing widescreen local commercials on WHIO out of Dayton but that was when they were stretching 4:3 content to fill 16:9. WLWT was not stretching - they had the proper aspect ratio.

WLWT has done station promos in widescreen for quite some time.

WSYX/WTTE and WBNS have been doing this for quite some time.

Yes... we are a bit behind in this market

FYI, here is a link from TVB beta list of station that can do HD spot inserts http://admin.tvb.org/iframe/marketpr...subchannel.asp

Elliott

That's awesome!! Thank you. I notice WLWT isn't listed, however as I said they were doing an SD widescreen upconvert. Looked pretty good but obviously not HD. Also interesting to see that WRGT Dayton is on the list. I do believe I recall seeing an HD spot there.


Also wanted to thank you for bringing us Universal Sports. 25-2 is as frequently watched in this house as any of the major networks. We might watch it even more if the quality could be improved a bit and/or it went widescreen (SD at a good bitrate and good handling and compression would be great! -- I know HD is most likely cost prohibitive for a lower power station at this point). It looks fine on my 20" CRT with OTA converter box but on my 56" HD DLP it can look more like YouTube. I know you have a business to run but just throwing my 2 cents in for what this viewer would like to see in the future.

I would echo jimp's comments re. channel 25 PQ. I appreciate the programming alternatives (JTV being the exception but I realize it probably helps pay the bills). However, I find that family of channels unwatchable on anything but a 27" or smaller analog TV.

I don't know what the sweet spot is but going forward, as more homes have 32"+ digital TVs, I think you will need to make some adjustments to retain your viewership.

Just watched the Arizona Ironman on 25-2. Watching those people finish gets to me every time!!

Jump2244,
I have talked to the people a Universal Sports about the pixelazation of there feed. That told me a lot of there content is shot in HD then down converted, that is where the problem is, when I looking at there feed directing on a 14" rack mounted monitor it look pixeled. We use 3.5 mps bandwidth which is more than enough, but the problem is what goes in goes out. A1 just increased it bandwidth to us on the bird from 3 mbs to 4.5 mbs, we broadcast it @3mbs. Some of the tape delayed Pal converted sports really look bad, but they are about the only source in the USA for some of the sports. Check out Jewelry TV it look great (except during slow transitions) and its at only 2.5 mps.
A break down of our bandwidth is as follows,
WKRP 4.5
Universal Sports 3.5
RTV 3.0
JTV 2.5
A1 3.0
the rest is audio, and PISP
with about 1 mps for null fill.
I hope all of you on the AVS Fourm have a great New Year!

Elliott

Thanks for the insider info! Are there any composite analog connections along the way? Because that's almost what it looks like. Maybe it's at the network's end. I guess they are typically feeding NBC affiliates running the sub at less bandwidth than you are, so maybe they haven't given quality much of a thought. Just thinking out loud. Thanks again

A quick question, can any body tell if RTV is airing of the c-band (mpeg4) feed or the Ku (mpeg2 feed) I can see a difference in the artifacts on the mpeg4 feed on our studio monitor.
Also just checked out http://www.rabbitears.info/search.ph...iversal+Sports and most of the other 52 affiliates including the NBC O&O station are using 3-4 mps bandwith. We are at 3.5mps. We are using a Motorola DSR-4550 receiver that is provided by NBC, they have to authorize the signal because its encrypted, so all the affiliates should be looking about the same. From the receiver the video goes to an Adtec Duet (commercial inserter) the to an Adtec 2100 Encoder out of the encoder to an Adtec 3050 Mux out of the mux as an asi signal then down the fiber to the transmitter, not a very completed path on our end.

Since we went to HD so early in the process (what, three or four years ago?), it seems like we were always HD and/or 16:9. It seems odd that anybody else, especially in a similar-sized market, is still using the old way. Of course, reality hits you when you travel to a real market like Orlando and see they are doing live ENG remotes in HD. It's also odd to me that so many network O&O stations such as KNSD in San Diego still haven't gone HD.

Columbus benefits because WBNS is owned by The Dispatch and WSYX/WTTE is the most important station Sinclair owns (Baltimore and Columbus get all the toys first). Likewise with WCMH, which is the second-most important station in the Media General chain (after WFLA in Tampa). They were the first to go live with mobile TV. WSYX/WTTE's building underwent a major remodel a few years ago and supposedly everything was ripped out and the entire infrastructure was converted to digital. WKRC, WLWT and WXIX are probably lower in the pecking order since they are owned by larger chains which are probably more focussed on stations in their bigger markets.

I also find it odd that the Ohio State Buckeyes post-game show, which airs in HD here on WSYX, airs in SD on WKEF. Don't know all the technology involved, but it seems odd that they can't beam an HD signal 65 miles away to Dayton for the simulcast. Maybe WKEF should invest in a 91XG and pull it off the air like they used to in the old days.

WKRP, I can see RTV on both 83W KU and 87W Cband. I really can't tell much difference in picture quality if that's what you mean. I usually leave it on the cband dish which is an 8 footer. Have you given any thought to switching RTV to Weigels' new ME TV? They have some pretty decent programs. Thanks LMTV

Look close and see if you see more artifacts on the c-band RTV than on the Ku feed.
I been sent an ME TV schedule from MGM, they are waiting till after the first of the year and NATPE convention in Miami next month to market it. Its also on AMC 3 (87w) C-band dish, the same dish as RTV, but I don't have the transponder or pid's for it. This TV is also on the same bird.

WKRP, Well ME TV has METV1 and 2. The second channel is color bars only.
Transponder info 87W 3954 H 5725 Pids are 456, 458, 456. The signal is S2 I believe. There's also Antenna Tv starting Jan 1, that Tribune Corp is offering as well...signal on that is encrypted though. Hope that helps...LMHDTV
Also RTV signal on KU does look a little better.

2011 Bowl games if you have OTA:
Cotton Bowl on Fox
Outback Bowl on ABC!

This is just sad!

Oh well, I still refuse to pay the cable companies extortionate fees.

I wholeheartedly agree. At least put the BCS National Championship on ABC!

Looking down the road a few months, for the first three rounds, there will only be one NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament game on CBS and the rest will be on pay TV. (TBS, TNT, and... somebody else?) So start praying that Ohio State, Kentucky, or your team of choice makes it to their regional finals.

Agree with the both of you. I posted a little while back about the NASCAR Chase going from exclusively free TV to eight out of ten Chase races going on pay tv in a matter of four years or so. There may be a few factors like oversaturation, fan fav Dale Earnhardt Jr. underperforming and Jimmie Johnson (not exactly Mr. Excitment) racking up five straight Sprint Cup titles but the fact is Chase ratings slid significantly the past few years. They may not admit it but I think the switch to pay tv is an important factor.

Even though the Reds had an excellent season they still struggled at times to put butts in the seats and it has bewildered the local sports talkers. I wonder if part of the problem is having the whole season on FOX-OH and hardly any games at all on free-tv. Out of sight out of mind. I would think it would be in the Reds best interest to have 2-3 away games a month on FOX-19 just to get some exposure to ALL Reds fans but that's just my opinion.

Bowl-a-Rama and the Big Dance may be a different animal than MLB and NASCAR but then again maybe it isn't. I only know I am holding my ground and sticking to OTA.

You really find out how much sports means to you (or not) once you go OTA. I'd like to see Reds games but not for the cost of suscribing to cable or dish.
and, recent news TW is again fighting over subscription costs for the Big 4 networks.

Absolutely. And holding my ground on OTA as well. That's the only way this stops. I've missed Reds games on TV for years, and honestly I think it's caused me to go to less of them as well. This past year when they were doing so well, I was excited and did go to a few games, but years ago when I was able to watch them on TV, I would have been a lot more excited, known a lot more about what was going on, and probably have gone to a lot more. Fox 19 would be fine, but I would say what about WSTR 64? There is no way that anything they are putting on the air these days would get better ratings than a Reds game.

Problem is, FS-OH will pay more for the rights in order to keep the exclusivity. How do they get more money? Because they charge for the carriage of their channel. So really, the only way to get games back OTA is for people to stop subscribing to cable packages that carry FS-OH.