Greenville, SC - HDTV - Page 301

Anyone noticed for the past few weeks WSPA constantly has a couple of lines of noise on the left side of the screen, about even with the bug? I saw a similar problem on WNTV a few years ago and it turned out they had to replace some hardware to fix it.

Is it just my imagination, or did Jimmy Watts (the traffic guy) start to wear a suit on the air only after WYFF's switchover to HD news? I don't remember him wearing a suit before.

It is not your imagination.

Ditto

Looks like the drop out problem with ESPN HD is back tonight on Charter (channel 808). I guess we will have to suffer through this again for another few days until Charter fixes it. It's a shame this happens at least once a month and Charter doesn't seem to have a clue.

Good evening,

I am very sorry to hear about the trouble with ESPN HD tonight. Is that the only channel that is acting up, or are others doing the same thing? I would be happy to investigate this for you, and see what is causing the trouble.

Thanks,

Jeremy

Yes, only ESPN HD. This happens about once a month on the same channel and the drop outs will last for a few days before it is fixed. It is happening with friends of mine 10 miles from me so I don't think it is specific to me.

Well that is no fun! I am talking with one of our team members over at the NOC, and they are getting in touch with the headend to see what is going on. I will let you know what I hear back. Sorry again for the trouble, and I appreciate your patience while we look into this!

I will be in touch soon.

Thanks,

Jeremy

Will any Charter customers in Greenville or Umatter please post when Charter rolls out the new HD additions later this month? I'm ready to cancel Dish but don't want to pull the trigger until the new HD is active.

AFAIK, these are the ones to be added this month:

TV Land
G4
GSN
MTV2
Hub
WE
Cooking
DIY
Planet Green
OWN
BIO
H2
IFC
GMC
HBO2
HBO Signature
HBO Family
MoreMax
ActionMax
SHO Shocase
SHO Extreme
SHO Too
TMC Xtra
Encore
Starz Cinema
Starz In Black
Starz Kids & Family

BBCA isn't on the list but is/has been added elsewhere. Would also like to know if/when that is coming to Greenville.

Thanks

Good evening mdavej,

First of all I am glad you are excited about the new HD channels coming soon! You are scheduled for launch on June 6th and you can find all the new additions here.

www.charter.com/futuretv

Please let me know if you have any questions, or concerns.

Thanks,

Jeremy

Thanks Jeremy. Can anyone confirm if any of the channels above actually went live today?

It appears they all did from what I can tell. I don't have access to all of the new channels but they are all appear in the guide. And the ones I do have access to are showing up fine.

Great. Thanks.

EDIT: Got cable today and can confirm all these channels are indeed live. Charter now has a basic HD lineup equal to or better than both Dish and DirecTV. DVR interface is from the 80's, but very fast and functional, and PQ is very good.
Edited by mdavej - 6/8/12 at 6:19pm

I also posted this question on the Charlotte thread. Does WYFF-4 still provide an OTA signal to Marion, NC and the McDowell County area since they sold their translator to WSOC a few years ago? Or is WCNC the NBC option there now? And is Marion still a part of the AVL-GSP market, or now within the Charlotte viewing area? Marion is featured on the WSOC weathermap, so it must be at least significantly viewed. Although I would guess that WLOS may cover McDowell County the most. Interesting how borders and boundaries are arbitrarily chosen and assigned.

McDowell County is still in the AVL-GSP market, though I have no idea how well the WYFF signal (RF 36) does in McDowell. If memory serves me, WYFF sold their translator to WSOC and WSOC put in on the air in Burke County near Valdese. I believe there were land issues/disputes at the site near Marion, and I believe other translators had to abandon the site, too. I think a WYFF engineer visits this board so maybe he can verify or dispute my information. By the way, the WSOC translator is still licensed to Marion.

Perhaps the WYFF digital signal reaches McDowell County better than the old analog on RF4, so they may have decided there was not a need to replace that translator. But as a result, WSOC gets a better signal in that area.

You are correct. WSOC bought the translator license and then moved it to cover a shadowed area they had in Burke County. The land we were on was donated to the city of Marion and we were told our lease would not be renewed. I think NC ETV took action and was allowed to keep their translator there. The rest of us left the site.

I'm sure 36 doesn't cover that area any better than 4 did. With cable and satellite there are often very few translator viewers so in some cases it doesn't make economic sense to keep them going.

Not that I'm not happy with the huge additions made to the HD line-up, but is there still no hope of getting CBS or Fox On Demand like other cable systems do?

Honestly, there's a few HD additions I could have lived without and would have rather have had Charter spend money just to firm up basic things like having all four major networks available On Demand.

Good Afternoon,

We are looking into being able to provide both. There is not an ETA or confirmation as of yet though.

Thanks,

Dylan

Does Charter have plans to phase out analog cable channels, and what is the timeframe? We have expanded basic cable, no box, connected to TiVo. Will I need to get a cable card or tuning adapter? And if I get a cable card now, will I get digital versions of these analog channels? I know for HD we would have to upgrade the service, but will we at least get digital versions in SD with a cable card? Currently I mainly get the locals in HD via clear qam. So just wondering how I should upgrade for the future. I also have an antenna for AVL/GSP and Charlotte channels, so I am mainly concerned about the analog cable channels such as CNN, ESPN, etc.

Good evening,

As you have seen in our markets we are slowly moving more and more of our content over to a digital platform. Whether or not we will completely move all channels we cannot say because honestly, at this point, we do not know. In regards to your questions regarding the cable cards you would still get the digital versions of the SD channels through your Tivo. If you live in an SDV market you would have to get a tuning adapter to allow the SDV to work, but they work well with Tivos. Several of us on this team use them as well. So it is safe to say that if we do move more channels over to digital there will be a way to get you those channels with your Tivo for the package you are signed up for.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Thanks,

Jeremy

I use a cable card and tuning adapter here in Greenville and it works fine. My device (WinTV DCR-2650) doesn't have an analog NTSC tuner at all, and I still get digital versions of all SD basic and expanded channels.

New prices go into effect on 6/26 I think, so now's the time to decide if you're better off keeping your old package or getting one of the new ones.

So is Greenville a SDV market and do I need the tuning adapter? And what is the cost for the cable card and the tuning adapter?

Hi tylerSC,

Please PM us your address and phone number. We can check to see if you are in a SDV market and advise of the cost.

Thank you,
Abby

Yes it definitely is, since they've added about 60 HD channels in the past few months. There's no way they could carry the 110 or so HD channels (by my last count) without it. Go HERE and pick your area to download the latest lineup.

CC is $2/month and tuning adapter is free. I just walked into the office on Bridges Rd in Mauldin and picked them up. There are a couple of ways to connect the tuning adapter. I get the best signal if I split the incoming cable out to both the TA and the Tivo (or whatever device you have). Another way is to connect directly to the TA, then out of the TA to your Tivo. That has a bigger signal loss in my experience. Keep in mind that the TA doesn't really tune any channels or send any video. It only sends requests for channels to be put in the stream. It's strictly a data device like a modem. Your device (Tivo) usually connects to it via USB in order to tell it what channel to request.

I had great difficulty getting my card activated over the phone, but PM's to Umatter got me going in no time. The CSRs on the phone usually have no trouble activating CCs for Tivo, but have no idea how to activate one for other devices like Silicon Dust or Ceton.

If you upgrade to HD, you'll be shocked at how much there is on Charter now. They've surpassed DirecTV (not counting sports) and Dish (which is why I dropped both of those and went back to cable). And while both SD and HD picture quality used to be absolutely awful on Charter, it's now outstanding. The HD picture is razor sharp and I see virtually no compression artifacts. Even their SD is quite a bit better than satellite. I was watching WGN the other day, which is SD, and had to do a double take because it looked almost HD, or at least as good as a DVD.

Tyler, I assume you have Tivo lifetime or something like that. But if you don't, you may want to consider using an HTPC as your DVR now. You can buy a 4 tuner Ceton for under $200 (a 3 tuner Silicon Dust is $150 and 2 tuner is $100). The Windows Media Center interface is absolutely gorgeous and works great directly from a PC or from a Media Center Extender like Xbox. The beauty of an HTPC is you can add nearly unlimited storage and expand to as many tuners as you want (technically 12 per PC). It takes some tech savvy to set up, but once you do, it works really well.

So a huge thanks to Charter for finally turning things around in a major way and offering a huge HD lineup, great PQ and great service thanks to the Umatter reps on this and other forums. It's night and day from a few years ago when you guys were bottom of the barrel on nearly all counts. I'm glad to be back. Keep up the good work.
Edited by mdavej - 6/22/12 at 8:27am

I would also advise against using the supplied cable provided with the tuning adapters. I found quite a few channels missing until I replaced them on all of my tuning adapters (then they magically came in perfect).

WLOS - New Translator Applications

I notice that WLOS has applied for two new translators. One is licensed to Pickens, SC and will be atop Paris Mountain - this should certainly help the loss of their OTA signal since the demise of the broadcast on WMYA 40-2 quite a while back. The other translator is for the Robbinsville area - it will be located centrally between Topton, Andrews, and Robbinsville. I'm not sure if this is Joanna Bald where UNC-TV and NOAA Weather Radio have facilities. WLOS also has a third translator application regarding its Sapphire Valley area facility. This a displacement application which - I think - means WLOS is seeking a channel change due to interference from another facility. Maybe someone else can elaborate on such an application.

Eric
Edited by eacalhoun - 6/22/12 at 4:31pm

Regarding WLOS translator, that is very good news, as their directional HiVHF signal on RF13 does not provide a strong signal for much of Upstate SC, and we are just beyond the reach of WSOC when you go south from Spartanburg County. The other Charlotte channels from Dallas have a decent signal, but WSOC only comes in at night, and the Crowders translator does not really go past Spartanburg. I wish WSOC had a Dallas tower with full power, but that is not the case. So a more stable UHF signal for WLOS and ABC will be good news for the Upstate and hopefully it will be approved.

Changes coming to Wspa Channel 7 Translators in North Carolina

http://www2.wspa.com/news/2012/jun/13/2/changes-coming-wspa-tv-translators-nc-ar-3967162/

A displacement translator is one that the translator's 41 dbu signal coverage must all be within the main station's 41dbu coverage area, in short, it is a Gap Filler. It fills holes and shadows inside the main station's 41 dbu coverage. Three of WSOC's four translators are displacement translator. They have the same call sign as the main (i.e. WSOC-TV (main) WSOC-TV1 (Crowder's Mtn), WSOC-TV2 (Statesville)). They also can not be sold as separate translators or low-powers stations at a later date.