Jacksonville, FL - HDTV - Page 55

I hope CBS local does a better job with the Gator Game tomorrow. It seems they are not keeping up with which games are HD or not. It took a long time for them to flip the switch on the Win.- Goz game tonight.

I sent you a pm concerning this projector about an hour ago.

I have the national East and West coast feeds of the networks from Direct-Tv and even with the compression the standard definition feeds are clearer then 47-1.I also get the HD national network feeds,I am very glad for this.47-1 seem to be having trouble with their HD. for the NCAA tournament.

I have VOOM. I put it in for no out of pocket cost and just pay for the programming. Today the price to put it in has gone up. It will cost you a whole dollar! No Joke, but if you have been reading up on VOOM then you know that.

Performance- Please note I also have D* and E*. The deal is this with local digital channels. The 921 I have is the least sensitive to out OTA channels. It works very well. Unfortunately the receiver's functionality with recording the OTA channels suck. D*- I have the HDTIVO. This is the trickiest receiver to get working with locals. This receiver seems to have a narrow window of acceptable signal quality or it doesn't work. However, once you get the HDTIVO adjusted, it is rock solid for locals. I highly recommend it. BTW- It took me about a month to zero in on a system that pulled in the OTA channels with consistency. Once achieved, it has worked without failure since (about 9 months).

Now for VOOM, by comparison- The VOOM on OTA is a digital OTA receiver only. VOOM does not offer any Local channels via it's satellite service, while the analog channels are offered on satellite with E* and D*. Voom's receiver works very well for all the channels. In fact, I demonstrated for Jeff (Gator99) how it received all but two channels here with no antenna connected. It is a real sensitive receiver of OTA. But the real advantage to VOOM is their HDTV lineup. 4 times what the others offer so you will always have something in HDTV to watch for around $100 per month subscription. Yes, many are cautious about the trouble VOOM has been having with Cablevision and continuing. Currently they are expanding and adding new channels. Adfded a new HDTV channel along with 5 SD channels again today. So, it boils down to this- Order in an install to VOOM for a dollar. Watch and pay the monthly for as long as it lasts, could be a month, could be forever. Then, if it goes south, what have you lost? D* and E* will still be there. I just wouldn't purchase any equipment from VOOM at this time.
As for "hanging on by a thread" Let me say this, I wouldn't mind hanging on by a billion dollar + thread. and that's the current backing that C. Dolan has but he is a smart businessman who doesn't hang his laundry out for everyone to sniff through.

Don, I sent you a pm b/c I have a question for you.

Looks like Comcast is planning to have Digital Simulcast completed for our area by end of June which is end of thier 2nd QTR. This is coming from a comcast employee not a CSR.


Hoooray then I can watch all my analog favorites without being totally annoyed by the picture quality.

Pardon me for being to lazy to go reread the last 28 pages but is there any HD VOD or PPV on Jax Comcast if I don't (or do?) subscribe to premium channels.

I looked briefly last week but if so it wasn't obvious from the VOD menus on my 6412.

- Tom

TR:

Yes, bring up On-demand and goto: Movies -> then scroll down to HDTV you will see about 6-8 HDTV PPV movies you can rent.


Comcast had been getting better at adding more HDTV Ondemand movies I remember when they just had 1 to offer.

Also for your info I rented Shrek 2 HD on On demand and the quality was great.


Jeremy

Strange. I just get some VOD server unavailable, try again later message on that now. So I guess I'll try again later, like the magic 8-ball says.

Previously I could get to VOD but could see no way to see which ones if any were HD.

- Tom

I've heard from five seperate comcast employees and they all had the same thing to say about OnDemand... it's a mess. Somewhere in the loop of things, there's a serious flaw that's causing a lot of the HD and PVR box owners to be denied access during peak hours. It doesn't really seem to have any effect on the old black box owners. One tech said that the most common thing is that the VOD network behaves like it's at full capacity but according to him, they've never gone over 75% and the average load on the network was around 50% in peak hours.

I usually get errors 204 and 217, but I sometimes get 206, 210 and 222. One thing that helps is that the CSRs are pretty informed about the nature of the troubles and will give you zero hassles about cancelling a movie purchase if you have trouble accessing the network or lose connection during play. I ordered Shrek 2 as well and I think I got about 3/4 through it and lost VOD access for the next few days, they took off the charge and even left the rental open in case I was able to get back on at some point.

Classic definition of not quite ready for prime time.

- Tom

Jeff I sent you a pm today.

AFH - yes on the remote (confirmed)

Jerry -- who is sleeping over there - the game was in HD then in SD - someone needs to pay attention!!!!!

Has anyone called?

Jeff, I sent you a PM.

The Kentucky - Utah game is messing up quite badly on Comcast. Anyone else having this problem? Now I am getting a mix of both games on.

Anybody know what's up with PBS these days? Instead of the HD feed, 7-1 is carrying the regular SD programming.

YAY!!!

I still have some favorite channels, but hate to watch in analog.

Now if only SciFi would go HD, I would be a happy camper.

"Now if only SciFi would go HD, I would be a happy camper"

The closest you'll find to that is on VOOM!

How about some "darts and laurels" awards for our local stations. Since none of them actually originate any HD or even pass DD5.1, we are stuck with how well they actually even transmit the correct video of the network HD feed.

Major darts, again, to WTEV. After a disasterous performance in the 2nd half of 2004, they started the year 2005 much improved. But it didn't last long. They are again the worst by far local station in "flipping the switch". They escape an F grade by sometimes having a whole show in HD. But don't count on it.

Minor darts to all the others, except WJWB, for being much worse than in 2004. But still overwhelmingly better than WTEV.

There is a thread in the programming subject that is depressing. It basically says that the stations have no economic incentive to care whether the HD is being sent correctly. Which is pretty obvious, especially as to the management of WTEV.

OTOH, Comcast has been very reliable in sending out whatever the stations deliver to them. But GIGO still applies.

I just picked up a Samsung SIR-T451 and had a couple of questions. I'm feeding my analog Comcast cable feed into it and am picking up INHD and INHD2 and some others. What are the QAM numbers? It's not picking up many of the ones listed on the first page of this thread. Has something changed or am I doing something wrong. It's also frustrating that I can't MANUALLY enter in a channel number on this thing to see if it picks up ---- I can only let **it** try and find channels!! Also, I can't get the thing to pick up my analog cable channels now either. Shouldn't it at least pick up my analog HBO, and all those other channels? My Hughes HIRD-E86 worked fine with analog cable and OTA HD. Thanks for any help....

Adam

I've decided to buy the LG 4200a - the Samsung T451 is going back. For only 7 bucks more, including shipping, I can get analog cable in the LG with the QAM, simultaneously. Since there is no solution out there which integrates analog cable, digital cable, **and** OTA HD, I guess I will have to buy an remote controlled A/B converter to feed both antenna and cable feeds to the LG. This way I can get the WB from my OTA antenna and the rest of my HD from cable. I'll set up macros on my Home Theater Master to take care of that switching

BTW, I have a plasma display without a built in tuner which is why I need a solution for analog cable channels along with OTA HD.

Since I no longer subscribe to Directv, I'll be selling the Huges E86 on Ebay.

Does anyone know if WTEV-DT (CBS) is going to turn on the Masters feed on Thursday and Friday? From what I'm reading they'll have the HD feed available for the HD channels and SD feeds for analog channels. I know we'll get the HD feeds on the weekend but this year they'll have feeds available for Thursday and Friday.
Master's Thread

I know it is on UniversalHD - I doubt it is on CBS

It wasn't showing up on the Comcast Guide last night either. Its not looking good.

Don Landis or anyone,How much on average do reporters for WJXT or WTLV make in salary a year? Thanks for any info.

Is the highlight show for the Masters in HD here in Jax or are the blowing it again? I hope they get it right on Saturday.

I was in the middle of watching a movie last night on Starz ondemand and got the error code 217 I was pi$$ed. I called in and they said the server went down. Tried again this morning and still seems to be down. Maybe Ondemand has a greater user demand than they thought? I just hope they get it improved as I almost always get error 204, and 217 on using it.

Does anybody have the scoop on whether or not Comcast in Jacksonville will be adding TNT-HD in time for the NBA playoffs?

Thanks,
James