Hartford, CT - OTA - Page 107

Same deal in West Hartford. No Sox in HD. Since people did get it on Cox I have to assume it was a Comcast problem/screw-up.
I did check later on and after the game InHD normal programming was running as usual. And BTW, is it me or has InHD gone from being a mix of about 50% decent programming (albeit repeated constantly) and 50% crap to it's current state of being almost non-stop garbage? It seems like whenever the channel isn't overridden with a Sox or Yankees game that all they show is stupid stuff like Flugtag and an assortment of other "junk" sports like ESPN used to run in the early days before they carried any real sports.
About the only decent thing they run now is "Cathedrals of the Game" and that's mostly preempted by the Sox. It wasn't long ago that they ran movies like A Clockwork Orange. They ran it 10-12 times a week for months on end but at least it was something.

I suspect that someone in Simsbury should be able to pick up all the Hartford locals (not necessarily WTNH from New haven) and possibly the Springfield ones using rabbit ears or even a wire coat hanger for an antenna.

Second night in a row without Sox in HD. I called Comcast and they're saying it's a deal between NESN and my town to black out certain games. I pushed the guy for a while saying that I thought Comcast had the deal with my town and Comcast had the deal with my town. The guy I talked to was adament that it was NESN and not Comcast's fault that we didn't have it in HD. I couldn't get him to explain why blacking out the HD and not the SD accomplished anything.

Anyone ever heard of such a thing?

The Thursday night game finally showed up in HD in West Hartford some time in the 3rd or 4th inning. Clearly it was a Comcast screw-up, not any sort of restriction imposed by NESN. It's too bad the the people who answer the phones don't say "We'll look into it" instead of making up some BS story to create the appearance that Comcast couldn't possibly have made a mistake.

I am no longer calling the 1-888-COMCAST number when I have a problem. I'm only calling local CT numbers which basically ensures getting a CT CSR instead of someone out of state. They've usually been much more helpful and last night the woman that answered my second call went to check on the situation and send a message to the headend to let them know there was a problem. I explained to her calmly my frustration about being BS'd by another CSR and that I would rather be told someone made a mistake than be given a line of bull. I tried to get the moron's name that I had talked to earlier from her but he didn't put a note on my account so there wasn't a name to get. Too bad, I'd be calling someone this morning if I had a name to give.

Now I'm just waiting to see what SBC's U-Verse/Project Lightspeed is going to have to offer as far as HD channels. At least there'll possibly be a decent alternative to Comcast within the next 12 months.

I callled Comcast last night (thursday) about the sox situation and was adament that it wasn't nesn but them screwing up. Tried to explain if it was a local blackout I would be seeing INHD, since the channel was black the problem was on their end. After insisting on talking to a supervisor and twenty minutes of hold hell the game finally appeared. Lets see all of Wednesdays game and half of Thursdays game for the jerks to get it right, thank god its not brain surgery.

I turned on soundstage tonight with John Mayor and it said that it was in HD where available. The picture had a black frame all around it and looked awful but my Sony KDF-E50A10 HDTV reported that it was receiving 1080i like it always does for 53.1. So, does WEDN ever broadcast real HD? Does anyone know why they don't broadcast in HD normally?

John,
It looks a little better than an NTSC upconvert. It is not the same program as the HD network feed which is a Chris Izack (spelling?) concert. The have in the past had real HD but I am not sure what they are doing now. Analog 53 has been off the air for several weeks so maybe they are only carrying their regular shows on the digital channel. John

Thanks, John. I hope this is only because of the loss of 53 analog. The web site says they need a new analog xmitter with an eta of 9/30 for the NTSC signal to be back on the air.

For those that watched the second episode last night, I'd like to know what you thought of the HD picture quality. I received it OTA via antenna and I was not at all impressed by the FOX HD PQ. In fact, I was left wondering if it was actually in HD. Can someone who watched it via cable tell me how the HD PQ was? I'm now thinking FOX didn't flip the proverbial switch for their OTA telecast last night.

On the other hand, if this is as good as FOX HD gets, I'm very disappointed. There is no comparison to ABC, NBC or CBS as far as I can tell. Still waiting to see HD football or baseball on FOX OTA, which I hope is much better.

I tuned in about half way through, and it clearly was not HD on Comcast.

tivotony,

At present, you can only get the SD versions of the CT locals via Direct TV or Dish. Direct is planning to offer the HD versions sometime in 2006 - I'm guessing by mid year. They are starting with the top 12 DMAs in November and will add additional markets thereafter. CT is DMA #27. As for Dish, they haven't announced any plans to provide CT locals in HD, though I would think they are studying the issue.

That would leave cable or an antenna for now. In Simsbury, he might be able to pick up WFSB, WVIT and WTIC via an indoor amplified antenna. Might be worth a shot as these antennas are fairly cheap. Otherwise, go with cable or wait until mid 2006 for Direct TV to launch them.

PS - Forgot, SBC Uverse IPTV is suppose to roll out sometime in 2006 also. No specifics yet on areas or content, but I'd have to guess HD locals would be a must

The new channel lineup has come to the Branford system this morning. No new channels yet, and no HBO-HD, either, so it's obviously still a work in progress.

It was absolutely not in HD on Monday night. They ran a repeat of the same episode last night, and this time, the episode was indeed in HD.

The new channels wont be on till the 11th. looking foward to getting back inhd2 and for the first time discovery hd. also it looks like they are adding 3 hbo's and around 6 new cinemax'

They have added WVIT Digital Weather on ch 248. And HBO-HD now seems to be on ch 300. Seems odd that HBO-HD is grouped with all the HBOs, Cinemax-HD is grouped with all the other Cinemaxes, but ShowtimeHD and StarzHD are left separated from their SD versions. I wonder why they did it that way.

Good for you guys!

But that's BS that we were supposed to have it 2 weeks ago and someone else in CT again gets it before. I guess that just goes to show the engineers in our part of the state totally suck compared to other parts of CT.

Whats really funny is they removed TMC from analog (15) before providing the new channel line-up. Now if they were going to do that, why not just get rid of TMC and HBO (14) from analog to be able to give us INHD2 and DiscoveryHD before the full new line-up. Doesn't make sense.

Bring on SBC Project Lightspeed (gotta be better than being yanked around by Comcast) . . .
http://www.sbc.com/gen/press-room?pid=5838

Yeah, I tried to take a look at it last night just to see if the PQ was improved. Unfortunately, after watching 50+ min of House with no reception problems, I couldn't get 61-1 for more than an occasional few seconds. The few peaks I got a Prison Break did seem much improved from Monday. A local WTIC screw-up?

Hard to say. I only watched a few minutes and it seemed o.k. I've actually been running into a problem with WTIC's OTA signal the last few days in that it's hovering around the point where the signal breaks up (for my system, strenth of @ 65-70). I'm actually heading up on the roof later today to see if I can optimize. Might as well do it now in the nice weather as (depressingly enough) Fall will be here soon.

I think someone at FOX messed up! I watched the first episode in HD OTA and it was crystal clear. The second looked like it was SD upressed to HD.

The FOX HD shows are generally excellent PQ and audio.

Frank

tivotony,

I live about 20 miles South of Simsbury and pick up all 4 local networks via OTA antennas. CBS, NBC & Fox will be real easy, ABC is out of New Haven, CT or Springfield, MA and will require a large directional antenna.

Have you checked Antenna Web? They're pretty reliable.

Good luck,

Frank

I'm getting pretty frustrated with WTIC. I'm in New Haven with a very high mounted Yagi antenna, and I've got no problems with any other channel *except* WTIC. Right now (12:50 EDT local), they seem to be off the air entirely (signal strength 0). Can anyone else confirm this? I was getting okay reception two days ago, bad reception last night, and now nothing. NO changes to my system here.

I'm almost ready to give up and point my antenna south: I've been able to pick up NY area stations easier than WTIC.

Yes they were off,
They were off 2 times during working hours last week, I did call then and confirm that last week, didn't bother today, they must be ding some kind of maintenence!
The co-channel interference was very bad last night and even worse erly this morning so that was probly your other issue.

You're right about WTIC. I was just on my roof an hour ago and had the same exact problem. I also was going to fine tune WB-59 and that's off the air too......

Co-channel interference! - what the heck is that? I only see one digital channel for WTIC. Please enlighten me!

tivotony - just one clarification on a previous post - I believe most, if not all, D* customers in CT are able to get NBC in HD since a blanket waiver was granted. However, you have to subscribe to D*'s HD package.

Ross

It was a local problem. I switched to the ny Fox channel and prison break was in hd and dolby digital. WTIC was there usual stretched picture that they use for local shows. Also they weren't in dolby. They have had this problem before. It is nice that I can get NYC channels with my antenna so I have choices.

Unfortunately I TiVo'd the show and don't have access to the NYC signal. The good news is that Fox is rebroadcasting the episode next Monday as well...

Frank

Is this so?!? I hadn't heard it. I get the D* HD package and didn't know this! I'll have to check.

But, if I can get the local OTA signal, isn't it more pure, uncut and uncompressed? Wouldn't the OTA signal / PQ be better?

Frank

Co-channel means another station on the same channel. It usually occurs when air and humidity layers bends signals beyond the curvature of the earth. Here's a map that shows the conditions on Wednesday morning. The enhancement extends from New Brunswick to Virginia.

http://home.cogeco.ca/~vem3ont22/tr_...chive/4eam.jpg