Syracuse / Utica, NY - HDTV - Page 6

This raises a few questions. If we take Sinclair's position at face value, then they would not consider the cable venue as competing with the broadcast venue nor with the FCC's broadcast imperatives. Therefore, TW could conceivably receive the digital signal via the airwaves and rebroadcast it or look to source FOX from another region (kind of what the satellite folks did/do for locations that couldn't reroute a local channel).

I say, the heck with FOX (and let FOX know why). If you want to provide corrective incentive to the folks that came up with this nonsense, don't view their stations (and thereby their advertisers ads). That's what hurts the most. Fox has licensed their content to Sinclair with the expectation that their content (and advertisements) would go to as large an audience as possible.

There are a significant number of cable subscribers that this exclusionary tactic bumps into the fundamental goals of the FCC - and Sinclair is the exception for a BROADCAST company -- that's what's different here.

AGREED!!!!

I just had Time Warner come to my house Thursday to install my High Definition DVR box. The STB he installed was an Explorer 8300HD. It seemed to work fine for awhile but, while I was watching the SU-W. Virginia game in HD I had to take the dog out so I paused it for a good 15-20 minutes. When I came back I unpaused and was watching it for a bit and then, when I was getting close to catching up to the game live (I love being able to fast forward through commercials) the whole thing froze on me leaving the current image on the screen. It stayed this way for a good 10 minutes at which point I unplugged it and plugged it back in again. Then, the same thing happened to me again about 30 minutes later. I was wondering if anyone else noticed any problems with this box?

Hey everyone,
I emailed WSYT again today just wondering if they had made any progress on getting Fox HD in the Syracuse area. I actually got a reply within a few hours, which really suprised me. But, the reply is not promising...

-mjf17

Rather cool that you got such a quick response, though it certainly is disappointing. I mean, anyone who has lived in Syracuse long enough can do anything in the snow, right?

Ah well, at least the AFC playoffs (which should be more interesting than NFC) will be in HD.

A possibility exists for OTA reception from Watertown, that simulcasts CBS and Fox in digital. Channel 7.1-2. Although I've seen several CBS Sony HDTV feeds for the Bills, I haven't seen anything HD on Fox (digital signal looks good though).

Interesting... I wasn't aware that they were broadcasting FOX digital on 7.2. My antenna is still in the attic so I've only been able to pick up WWTI on channel 21.1 at times. Does anyone know if 7.2 has any HD content? (That's WNYF up there, isn't it?)

There's also the rumor floating around that WUHF, Rochester is aiming to be at full power by the time the superbowl rolls around, though I'm not sure how much faith I put in that.

As a lifelong CNY'er I'm pretty unimpressed by WSYT's "Ick! It's cold out!" attitude. It just cracks me up that for the past few months they've been dodging most of our emails and then when we finally get a snowfall that lasts, they jump on it like it's the bandwagon to cover their butts for another three or four months.

Well, I've tried emailing :http://www.wwnytv.net/72k/default.asp?area=inside+wwny

and asked about Fox HD programming. Haven't had a response.

See if you have better luck...

Has anyone noticed that the CBS HD feed from Channel 7 is not nearly as good as others? The primetime shows seem softer and sports programming is constantly breaking up and pixelated on close shots. Never see this on ESPN-HD or ABC-HD.

Anyone else?

David

David:
I don't watch any of the networks very much, but I have noticed that sometimes their HD is nice and crisp and sometimes it is softer. The only pattern I have noticed with CBS HD is that they have much more stuff in Dolby Digital 5.1.

My HD comes from Time Warner Cable but I have an LG 3510A that I want to try this weekend... I'll see what I can pick up over the air and what the quality of it is...

Thanks! When I first got HD via TWC, I complained about the Watertown Channel 7 HD feed and they tried to rectify it, but apparently it is the feed that TWC is getting from Channel 7.

Appreciate any help as I do not think it is a universal CBS thing, just the local affiliate.

Do you have lots of break-up and pixelization on sports from the Syracuse CBS HD signal?

David:
Frankly, I don't watch much sports anywhere - I don't mind playing sports but I can't stand to watch sports on TV. Old prejudice... So I really am not a good judge.

Hey guys,
I get HD over TWC and I try to catch some of the HD football games from CBS on Sundays and I also try to watch a little Monday Night Football on ABC. I really haven't noticed any degredation or pixelization on either CBS or ABC. But I will say that MNF consistently "wow's" me more than the CBS game, when it's on. It's really clean and always sharp.

Watching stuff like Joey or West Wing on NBC or CSI (any flavor) on CBS, I tend to find that the CBS PQ tends to be slightly better to my untrained eye.

The one thing I DID notice, however, was during the Olympics. When they broadcasted the HD portions of the olympics from NBC, that had severe pixelation anytime there was any kind of fast motion. It was so bad that I really wanted to just watch the SD stuff instead of HD...never thought I would ever say that.

BTW, this is all with the Syracuse CBS station (5), not the Watertown one (7)...

-mjf17

My HD feed is OTA with a Zenith HD420 receiver, so I can't say anything about ESPN.

However, the best picture I've seen is the CBS Sony HDTV coverage of the Bills. I haven't noticed pixelation.

However, every other show I've seen has been "soft". Especially disappointed with ABC's MNF HD feed out of Utica. I think I've read somewhere that MNF isn't true HD, but just regular video thats been scaled by ABC. Again, CBS football by Sony HDTV looks awesome!

I don't buy the 'read somewhere' remark about MNF not being HD. It isn't 1080i, it's 720p and that's still HD.

They do use 480p stat and photo insets quite a bit which they overlay on top of the HD picture -- that may be where the observation is coming from.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure MNF is true HD. In fact, I've been pretty impressed with sports in HD on ABC. When the Stanley Cup were on this past Spring, I remember watching it and really being blown away when they did interviews with players. You could see so much detail it was almost scary. And the on-ice action was very impressive, very sharp, very detailed.

I actually have read that 720p is a better HD resolution for sports becuase of being able to handle high-motion scenes better and that 1080i is better for TV shows. It's really too bad that we can't compare another 720p source for sports/tv shows (Fox).

-mjf17

Here's one place I read about it. Its been touched upon before in other threads/websites, but its not too much of a factor for most viewers. I am watching it on 120" diagonal screen, so maybe its the 1080i that makes the difference.

http://archive2.avsforum.com/avs-vb/...ght=abc+sports

For most people, its not an issue.

I don't know if CBS upconverts as well, or if ABC still upconverts, but for my setup, I prefer the CBS feed out of Watertown. I WISH my ABC MNF looked as good for me. Perhaps its the ABC affiliate in Utica thats the problem.

[quote]Originally posted by frostlich


I don't know if CBS upconverts as well, or if ABC still upconverts, but for my setup, I prefer the CBS feed out of Watertown. I WISH my ABC MNF looked as good for me. Perhaps its the ABC affiliate in Utica thats the problem. /QUOTE]

I suspect that it's your local ABC affiliate. I have found the MNF transmission from WIXT in Syracuse, which I see over TWC, to be first-rate, equal in clarity and detail with the excellent HD images from ESPN. CBS HD football looks fine too.

Perhaps I'm just too easily pleased.

Based on the posts so far, my conclusion is that the individual affiliates can impact the network hi-def feed by constraining it, possibly by choking the bandwidth, reprocessing it, etc. and that is why we experience different levels of quality watching the same networking programming via different affiliates.

Are they just incompetent? have inadequate hardware? just trying to save bandwidth? Any other conjectures?

Has anyone had any experience with Adelphia's HD cable box, or cable card? I'm in Utica, NY and I've been told I should switch to DirecTV to get the best HD choices and PQ.

Any info out there??

Thanks.

I don't have the Adelphia HD box being a D* sub for a long time. Adelphia in Utica is really bad right now anyway, only 4 channels.

Do you get the Syracuse DTV channels OTA? I've had good luck getting everything but Fox68. Terrific signals for NBC, UPN, CBS, ABC and PBS. PBS doesn't show much HD and nothing on UPN because it's a subchannel of NBC. But the others are HD. Terrific!

One thing to face is that WKTV and the Nexstar channels (20,33,53) are going to go kicking and screaming to go to digital to avoid any short term profit loss. And I wonder if Utica Adelphia would ever have the HD versions of those Syracuse networks other than Channel 5 CBS. I mean they don't have the analog versions now so I'm wondering if they CANNOT carry them for some reason.

Doug B.

Does anyone know if any of the Syracuse digital channels show the non-Yes Yankee games? Maybe the UPN on 3-2???

If not, looks like I need to put up an antenna to try to get the Utica local UPN that does show those games. The Yankees switched from WCBS to WWOR for 2005. I used to see them via WCBS on DirecTV but WWOR is not available.

Analog...yuck! :-)

Ok, either somebody installed a band-reject filter on my line or WSYT-DT has dropped off the face of existance. I'm ~18 miles north of the broadcast tower w/ an 8-bay CM4228 + preamp, and I haven't been able to pull them in for quite some time (over a week possibly?). I get all of the other Syr stations without any problems.
I wrote to their station engineers, but based on past performance, don't expect a reply. Can anyone else in the Syracuse area pull in WSYT-DT (19) right now?

Is there any possibility that they are upgrading their equipment for HDTV broadcasts? I have TWCable, not an OTA receiver, but I can try to email them as well to see if I can get any info from them.

Boy wouldn't it be nice if it magically came back with HD before Feb 6? I'd have to run out and get a tuner...

-mjf17

That's exactly what I was hoping, but wasn't brave enough to say it. Looks like a false alarm, though - breaking all records, the chief engineer has already written back to me. His respose (quoted):


Oh well - we had to hope, right? Of course, one might argue that since they're already up there working on it, wouldn't it be great if the new HD parts came and they decided to slap them in while they were up there......... I'm not going to get my hopes up, though.

Yup, I got basically the same response as well.


But, on the bright side, Vinny has gotten back to me within a day each of the 3 times I've emailed about this. So thanks to the WSYT folks for getting back to us in a timely fashion. But, if there's ANY way to put up the HD equipment, that would be GREAT!

-mjf17

PS. You know, in both replies, there isn't actually a "No, there will be no HD equipment," it was only a "Yes, it was a transmitter problem." ... well, maybe I'm just reaching too far...

http://www.syracuse.com/entertainmen...5350256430.xml

Hey everyone,
Not sure if you all get the Post Standard, but here is the same story on Syracuse.com. For those of us who were hoping for the Superbowl in HD, it looks like it is officially not going to happen. Oh well...

Has anyone actually been able to pick up Rochester's Fox HD signal? I live near the University, not sure if that is too far to get the signal...

-mjf17

I spent about an hour last night trying to tweak my rotor control & a variable attenuator to get my dish 811 to lock onto WUFH-DT, Rochester, and finally got it to lock at around 60% signal strength. Unfortunately, the 811 absolutely STINKS when it comes to handling multipath, so 60% is nowhere near good enough to be able to watch it. Still, it's progress... I'm going to either try another 5' of mast tonight or look into picking up a better set top box (perhaps one of those Sammys at Ckt City...). I'll post my success / failure tomorrow. If neither of those work, I have a feeling nothing short of a 100' tower would work for me.

As far as my location, I'm in the Clay / Liverpool area, north of the city. With the exception of a few tree lines, I've got a pretty good shot due west.

Scratch that... I put an extra 5' of mast in last night just to see if it helped (man, was it cold up there), and in doing so I accidentally overtightened the connector on my 7775 preamp and tore the snot out of the circuit board. Like I said, it was pretty darn cold up there...

Just picked up a Winegard AP-8275 from a local wholesaler - I'll try throwing that up there tonight since I'd really like to have this up and running for this Sunday's Philly game.

Lowes usually has the CM 56326 preamp.