Fresno, CA - HDTV - Page 7

Hi Drew,

We're dealing with that one. It's a concern because Y&R is one of the higher rated daytime shows. Thanks for letting me know.

Having read the recent announcements that Fox will start doing true HD on Sept. 12, including up to 6 NFL games a week, I was wondering if anyone knows if KMPH has any plans to start broadcasting in HD. They never did step up to the plate and pass Fox's 480p widescreen and Pappas is kinda thought to be anti-HD, so I don't want to get my hopes up.

I e-mailed the station (lost the engineer's e-mail address unfortunately) and they haven't replied yet.

Copy of e-mail received from their engineer:



On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 11:36:35 -0800 "Dresser, Steve" writes:
> The plan is to begin broadcast of FOX Widescreen HD in the Fall of
> 2004,
> when FOX begins sending High Definition programming to affiliate
> stations.
>
> Steve Dresser-Chief Engineer
> KMPH TV
>

[Mr.Burns]Excellent, Smithers...[/Mr.Burns]

Thanks Drew! That is indeed good news. Soon we'll have 4 ota HD channels to choose from, all that's left is WB and UPN, and PBS, but I'm not holding my breath for them.

I noticed a problem with the audio on KGPE Sunday night May 2. The commercial breaks seemed fine, but the HD had garbled audio for Cold Case and the movie afterward. I checked the OTA signal and Comcast and the problem is on both. I thought my new TiVo unit had a glitch.

Channel 7 looks really weird on the TiVo though.

Cold case was messed up for me also - bad audio via OTA signal.

Will the local fresno CBS grant a waiver for the HD CBS from LA on DirecTV?

Did all of the 11 planned local channels come online Thursday for Dtv? How is the picture quality? Don't have a 119 dish to test and am wondering.

Are all on transponder 31 from Sat 119? It's simple to check, just tune to one of the local channels, and then goto check signal strength screen to see what transponder it is on. Doing this for each local channel would show if each one is on transponder 31. Hopefully someone can check this for me and post. thanks.

Look for channel 40 KVPT-DT on Thursday! (7-1-04)

Did I miss somthing? How long has comcast done discovery HD? I havent watched much tv lately but last night I clicked over to HD and right after INHD2 was DHDTV. =)

Just started in the last few days (I think across the nation for comcast)

Is KVPT up yet, tried a scan last night and got nada. Any word on what the delay is?

Yes, I live in Coarsegold, and it comes in like gangbusters.

got it this morning! thanks Mike!

Any word on PBS going HD? I was expecting it to be HD not just digital. The picture is better no longer have the scanning line from left to right as on analog.

Does anyone with Comcast HD package get HD NBC & ABC?

I have a set with an intigrated QAM tuner and last year I was able to get these. (I only get cable in the fall for the football season). This year I am only able to get CBS (station 1-2 on Comcast).

It's not a big deal because I can use ANT2 OTA to get these two stations other than the pain of switching inputs. FWIW I also get the INHD's & ESPNHD as I did last year.

It's odd that Comcast passes through to QAM tuners the INHD's & ESPNHD but not all the locals HD's.

Well I guess I can't complain since all I subscribed to was basic analog cable (no converter box) and I am getting these HD channels as a bonus.

What is the status of Comcast offering an HD-DVR in Fresno/Clovis? I've been off the forum for a while, so I'm sorry if this has already been answered.

Thanks!
Adam

I spoke with the engineer at KMPH and was told that they probably won't be online for the start of the football season. Definitely by the Superbowl.

Instead of accepting the FOX owned equipment, they will purchase their own, allowing them to have more control over things like subchannels.

I voiced my preference to have no subchannels when special events are on, but I was told that full bandwidth is not necessary. I didn't ask about DD 5.1, but if they don't use FOX's splicer, they will have to buy additional Dolby decoders and encoders to pass along the 5.1 stream. My fear is that the extra equipment for DD5.1 will be deemed unnecessary.

This is definitely a sad turn of events in my opinion. I was looking forward to FOX programming in 720p with DD5.1.

As far as KFRE is concerned, (also owned by Pappas Telecasting) the recent ruling will affect its power output, in a couple of years. At least the engineer now knows that the WB is indeed broadcasting HD. I knew that it was at least the second year, but after checking, it is the third year for them.

To be fair, there's hardly a ROI for the digital switchover. I guess I should be happy with what's out there.

David Ortiz

Bump.

Well, David, if you have Sunday Ticket, you can still get all of the FOX football games. I don't think we are in a blackout area. Being a 49er fan, I am really wanting to get my team in HD.

What about UPN and PBS? Any word on when they will be sending out HDTV?

Right after PBS went Digital I called and asked them about HD time frame. They said it was in their plans but could not say when. I asked if it would happen before the years end, they could not answer.

So I don't look for it any time soon

David,

If KMPH does the Fox Hd stuff in 720p there should be no problem with subchannels. KFSN (ABC) does 720p hd and 2 subchannels with no degradation of the HD signal. Apparently 720p requires less bandwidth than 1080i so the probablitity of HD picture degradation due to subchannels sapping bandwidth is a bit less.

I just wish Pappas would get their act together regarding the wierdly high audio levels on their digital channels.

Speaking of "wierdly high audio" CBS audio is way low on their digital channel until the commercials come on and then they blast you out of the room. Yet on their analog station the volume is consistent.

After switching back and forth between the two it appears that the digital channels commercials are at the same level as the analog, but for some reason on the digital the program source audio is too low.

The problem we are running into is the same we had with analog - the commercials would run the volume higher than the shows would. With digital audio, we have increased dynamic range and the commercials can blast you even more. I think an excellent solution would be for the stations to normalize the audio levels of all commercials to be the same as the program they are showing.

Who watches commercials?

oops... wrong forum

Hi Everyone,

We lost our HD encoder this morning, which means we're off the air with HD until we get a replacement in house. At this writing, we're trying to get a loaner in house, but I can't guarantee the time frame.

I'm real sorry for the inconvenience. We apologize for the loss of signal. We are working on it and will get the signal restored as quickly as possible.

Thanks for your patience.

Thanks for taking the time to post that here, Mike. I don't watch golf but think I got some in HD on KGPE-DT this afternoon while channel surfing?

On another topic, anyone else notice that KSEE-DT has started simulcasting the analog feed on 24-2? I took that subchannel off my custom list a few months ago as they were only showing a test pattern so I may have been the last to notice the subchannel was active.

They had this up this afternoon while running the Olympic opening ceremony feed on 24-1, I didn't notice any degradation in the HD feed due to the subchannel being active, at least it looked exactly the same as channel 84 on D* which was running the same HD feed.

There was a crawl on 24-2 stating the HD feed and the digital simulcast of the analog feed were sponsored by Table Mountain Casino.