Greenville, SC - HDTV - Page 298

WHKY, not WSKY. And I believe 14-4 is My Family TV (found on WGGS 16-2 as well), not Me-TV.

- Trip

Also in NC, WBTV-3 has 2 subchannels, and WJZY-46 and WMYT-55 should soon have 2 subchannels.

And WBTV's 3.1 channel quality is terrible. I do hope the major affiliates in GSP don't add more sub channels. Otherwise, watching high quality HD content will no longer be available in this market.

Thanks for the correction Trip. Here channel 3 is excellent. Excellent video quality and it comes in when none of the other Charlotte channels do. I'm in the highway 101 and I-85 area. 14.4 I noticed bounces around different networks like 16.2. It did have some of the lagging video/audio problems 16.2 seems to have alot. Tuff TV is good. Watched it for hours.

That was my concern when they added Bounce on 3.3. But overall I think it still looks good. Looks pretty similar to 7.1 for CBS. And overall, they have a very stable, strong signal. No problem with interference or weather related dropouts. Always 10 bars.

When I said "signal", I wasn't referring to the OTA signal but the quality of the feed. Try watching sports on WSPA 7.1 and WBTV 3.1. There's a pretty big difference in the quality.

That could be why I don't notice it. I don't watch any sports. I watch mostly the sub channels because I'm pretty much fed up with what network TV has to offer

All 3 WBTV channels look pretty good to me. And 3.1 may not be quite as good as 7.1, but I don't see a dramatic difference. Sometimes CBS Sports looks very good, other times, not as good.

When everything becomes pixelated during any type of motion, then it is bad. If WSPA adds another sub channel, I'm not sure I will be watching any more of their content if 7.1 ends up as bad as 3.1.

Nevertheless, it is good that you are able to receive WSPA on RF7 in Mecklenburg County, as HiVHF digital reception can be problematic. You must have a good antenna setup. Do you also receive WLOS-13 or WYFF-4? And because I have good Samsung and Panasonic plasma displays, issues with motion blur and pixelation are minimized moreso than with LCD/LED. But I appreciate your concerns, regardless of what type of TV you may have. And I would rather see WBTV have 1 rather than 2 suchannels unless there is some way they could improve the HD pic quality on 3.1.

Why WLOS 13 doesn't carry the ABC Saturday Morning block called LITTON'S WEEKEND ADVENTURE every week? I know over the years channel 13 was pre-emption crazy (when they didn't carry ALL AMERICAN GIRL, THE EDGE OF NIGHT during the ABC era, MIKE and MATY, the final years of RYAN'S HOPE, and the early years of DARK SHADOWS, THE DREW CAREY SHOW, THE VIEW, and OLTL in which recently ended on January 13th).

While channel surfing I noticed the SEC basketball telecast with Auburn v. Miss St appeared much sharper on 9.5 than 62.1. Much better pic quality on WSOC rather than WYCW. And I don't know if it's a factor, but WSOC broadcasts in 720p as does the ESPN produced SEC, and WYCW is 1080i. But both channels are one HD channel and one SD subchannel, so all things should be about equal in that regard. Just an observation. And come tomorrow, I will check out the NBC Superbowl broadcast on both WCNC-36 and WYFF-4. It would be nice if WCNC would drop the Live Well channel for a few hours to increase the pic quality on the HD telecast. Same for This on channel 4. But we'll see tomorrow.

There are a number of factors that determine picture quality and certainly bandwidth is the most important but not the only one. It would be interesting to know if the basketball game was actually produced and transmitted to stations in 720p or 1080i. One station had to cross convert to their transmit format. Most cross conversions don't significantly impact video quality but it's possible.

Every station has an MPEG2 encoder to compress the video for transmission. As you can imagine, current encoders do a much better job of encoding than early models. Depending on the age of encoders, two stations can devote the same bandwidth to their HD video but not have identical picture quality. One very important factor is how the encoder deals with fast motion which requires more bandwidth to prevent pixelization. Those that use statmuxing (VBR) will generally do better than those using CBR. The majority of stations use statmuxing for that reason.

As for dropping sub-channels, reconfiguring an encoding system is not a trivial task and not recommended on Super Bowl Sunday. A small configuration error in encoding can cause problems with receivers and the last thing you want is receivers unable to decode your bit-stream. Many DTV receivers don't handle major encoding changes well, especially when a whole program stream is eliminated.

I will be interested to know how you think WYFF and WCNC compare for Super Bowl video quality.

Doug

My choice for the super bowl is 4 ota, and 11 (Atlanta) via sat. ota rules, so much better...I do receive 11 ota but not dependable....

Looked good on both WCNC and WYFF. Perhaps just a tad sharper on 36, but 4 looked good too, so I can't really say one was significantly better than the other. Both well done.

Can someone tell me if the over-the-air signal for WMYA is at 360 kW or 1000 kW? Their Wikipedia page says 1000 kW, but both RabbitEars and the FCC query for WMYA show 360 kW with a construction permit for 1000 kW. I am wondering because I sometimes receive WMYA over-the-air where I live and it would be nice if I could receive it more often in the future (mainly for TheCoolTV!).

I would trust the FCC query, but the one for WHKY in Hickory shows them still broadcasting at 600 kW. They had a construction permit for 950 kW at their main tower and for 18 kW at another tower in Charlotte. However, that work was completed in late September.

360 kW. The 1000 kW permit was allowed to expire.

- Trip

Despite the lower power, WMYA does have a decent UHF signal in Upstate areas where their sister station WLOS on VHF13 does not. And since My network has subpar programming, they would be better served to simulcast ABC from WLOS on 40.1 in HD. That way they could provide a strong ABC signal into the Upstate part of the market that 13 does not quite reach.

I second that!!!

Anybody know the actual clear qam channel number for WSPA, WMYA, and WYCW on Charter in Greenville County? I know WYFF4 is 114, WLOS 113, and WHNS 115. Trying a manual input into a tuner. Thanks.

more than you asked for ...

HD on these
wlos 113.1
wmya 113.2
wycw 113.3
wyff 114.1
wspa 114.3
whns 115.1
scetv 115.3

SD on these
wyff (4.2) 114.2
wspa (7.2) 114.4
cspan2 114.5
inspirational 114.6
whns weather 115.2
scc 115.4
scetw 115.5
univision 115.6

http://www.hdhomerun.com/support/channels/

Thank you, gentlemen. Project completed.

I'm near Brevard, NC and essentially lost WYFF when it switched from Ch 59 to Ch 36. I say essentially as it sometimes comes in when rainy or when leaves are on the trees. Since I don't have line of sight to Caesar's Head I must be getting it by reflection.

I can't get it to scan into my new HDTV so am having to start over. Since I am going to have to scamper all over my roof and property to find a signal I was wondering if an inexpensive field strength meter would help or if my signal would be to low to register? My antenna is the Antenna Direct 91XG.

Any suggestions or comment?

Slightly off topic, but it pertains to the HD side of things too. Does anyone know why Charter doesn't have On Demand for Fox and CBS???

I believe they do in other areas and visited my father in Myrtle Beach, where he has all the networks On Demand including HD via Time-Warner.

It's incredibly annoying, particularly when a conflict or something causes something to not be recorded on Fox or CBS.

Still around here Umatter2Charter?

It would be helpful if you posted your tvfool info/link. Your signal strength bars on your tv should be useful enough. WYFF shouldn't be a problem with that antenna.

Good Evening,

I have forwarded your inquiry along to the are marketing director to see if we have any plans in place to add this On Demand content. I'll follow up with you as soon as I hear back.

George





Edit- We currently do not have agreements in place with those broadcasters to be able to offer their content on demand.

That antenna is about as good as you can get for ch 39... an antenna amp may help... I use the 91xg with cm amp to receive Atlanta stations 80 miles away with very good results.. good luck...

My new TV is Vizio which doesn't have signal strength bars which I miss greatly. However bars do not help until a channel has been recognized by the scan. I was able to get WYFF to scan in after I realized my goof. Since the original scan failed to pick it up I was doing the add-on scans but only for ch 2-4, I woke up the other morning realizing that I needed to scan through ch 36. I now have WYFF in memory but have to peak by swinging from loss of signal to loss of signal then splitting the arc since I have no SS bars. The 91G is amped for better S/N but I don't have line of sight so I may be on a reflection which comes and goes with weather. Strangely Ch 59 was OK but Ch 36 is erratic.

Someo of the Vizio TVs reportedly do not have good tuners, so you may have better luck with an LG, Samsung, or Sony.