Syracuse / Utica, NY - HDTV - Page 130

Trip from rabbit ears said alot of ion stations have added the fourth channel ....our says "ISHOP" but for now they are showing ion life like 56-3 (maybe west coast feed). also no psip yet

I'm waiting to see what, if anything, it turns out to be before updating my listings. It's most, but not all, of the ION stations. A lot of stations to touch; I'd prefer to only touch them once if I have to.

- Trip

I finally have a date for WSTM and WSTQ moving to 720p: Monday, January 7 at 1:00 am EST. From what I've seen during in-house testing, it looks pretty good.

All the carriers (TWCable, Verizon, NewVisions, DishTV, DirecTV, etc.) have been notified. Hopefully the format change doesn't disrupt distribution.

Just wanted to advise anyone using a Windows Media Center HTPC with MyChannelLogos solution that I've just about finished all the custom local channel icons for the Utica and Syracuse DMA's. So, instead of a generic NBC icon you could have the actual WSTM or WKTV icon for example. I'm looking to submit them to the program for addition into it.

UPDATE: Logos are posted HERE for download.
Edited by BenJF3 - 1/8/13 at 8:24am

Anyone else having pixel blocking issues on PBS ota?
I hope so, worried my buried coax is losing it!

My OTA Antenna isn't in place yet or I'd check it out. I'm hoping we get enough of a thaw to get it on the roof, but it may wait until springtime. I want it up to at least get my HTPC setup for the extra tuners.

The WCNY encoder is running one HD and three SD signals, and is frequently bit-starved during challenging video (fast motion, fades & dissolves, etc.). I've seen the same macroblocking on enough program material and different delivery systems to conclude that it is the encoding system, not a delivery problem.

I'm still a "GO" for switching WSTQ (OTA 3.2, cable 866) to 720p at 1:00am Monday, Jan 7. WSTM (OTA 3.1, cable 863) switches from 1080i to 720p at the same time.

I will appreciate any PQ observations.

looks pretty good...i noticed on my basic cable cw changed from 14.1 to 3.2 , i also can now tape cw in hd on my over the air dvr and htpc...thanks

Here are the Syracuse/Utica Logos for the My Channel Logos Add In for Windows Media Center 7. Anyone using them, please leave me some feedback on quality and/or any issues. If you need a custom logo, feel free to drop me a PM.



I made one package for these and submitted them to MCL for inclusion into the software package. This package includes stations specific to our Time Warner division. I've also tweaked the coloring and backgrounds of some images to stand out better in the guide.

MCL Syracuse-Utica DMA WMC Logos.zip 335k .zip file
Edited by BenJF3 - 1/10/13 at 1:57am

I can confirm that the change made it to D* as I checked Hart of Dixie last night and it was in HD. PQ looked good but I didn't really watch other than to confirm HD. I'll study PQ tonight on Parenthood.

I was surprised to see WSTQ in HD on DirecTV, because my communication with them ahead of time didn't specifically address that; I just assumed they would keep showing an SD downconvert from the new HD feed, which is what DishTV is doing. I'll be contacting DishTV soon to work on getting WSTQ in HD.

Meanwhile, it occurred to me that the now-unused WSTQ 1080i encoder (which fed TWCable) could be placed into service on WTVH, replacing an old Tandberg that doesn't look very good under demanding conditions, even with 17 Mbps full-time. I plan to make that switch before the Super Bowl, which is on WTVH this year.

ohh no not phil simms calling the super bowl!

I've always thought WTVH looked great, but if you can make it even better I won't complain!

More so than in the past (watching OTA). Actually pretty severe and distracting. In the past, the artifacts weren't manifesting as blocking, but as heavy temporal filtering (smearing during motion). It was strange sometimes to see head shots where they would turn their head slightly but the eyes didn't quite move in unison! But I'd rather have that than what they are transmitting now.

Hopefully it's short term - maybe they're working on transitioning to their new facility and using an old encoder temporarily, IDK. They would be far better off cutting out one sub channel (why WCNY AND WCNY HD?) and updating their encoder to one with the latest bit-sharing algorithms.

It seems quantity of low quality trumps quality in most things these days.

Agreed. I don't know why the simulcast the main feed in both SD and HD. Complete waste of bandwidth.

I sent an e-mail to WCNY about their encoder and received the following reply:


I'm sorry to say you are correct about the encoder. The issues with the break-up, I'm told by our engineering staff, should end completely once we are in the new facility. They tell me the operational switch to the new facility is hoped to take place between the end of this month and mid-February at this point. There is still a lot of testing of operations underway so no specific date can be given yet.

I have personally raised this issue at our weekly operations meetings over the past couple months. Hopefully we will move into the new facility sooner rather than later and end this problem.

Dale Wagner
TV Program Manager
WCNY

The primetime NBC stuff has been looking pretty good, but to me the real test was this past Saturday afternoon (1/19) when hockey was on NBC and college basketball was on CW. I was presently surprised how good the hockey looked, and the basketball looked good too when I flipped over to check.

Does anyone know why WSYR over Time Warner is not broadcast in 5.1 surround sound?

As far as I remember it never has been. I questioned before, but didn't get a response.

I have been very impressed by the picture quality of this encoder. Even with dual HD sports, such as you mentioned from 1/19, I have yet to see macroblocking from normal viewing distances. It was a VERY worthwhile upgrade, and I'm glad the OTA viewers now have 3.2 in HD.

Their plant was built in a way that did not support it. However, it is my understanding that upgrades which are underway will support the routing and transmission of 5.1 audio. I don't have a timeframe.

By the way, it has nothing to do with Time Warner. TW just passes the audio stream through as they receive it from the TV station.

He's right. Time Warner passes through what they get. I sent an email to WSYR sometime ago (as mentioned above) and never got an answer. Good to know they are upgrading.

Actually it was mainly that our encoders (we are a multi-station hub, not a single station) did not support 5.1 audio... but the legally required CALM loudness processors we installed last year do include the necessary components to handle 5.1 encoding, as well as upmixing to integrate stereo content seamlessly with 5.1 programming. Right now we are working out the kinks to get all of the different program sources to present audio in a consistent way so that we can in fact do 5.1 reliably (for instance, without getting Spanish, descriptive audio, or cue tones wrapped into the mix). Annoyingly, there is no fixed standard for how networks or other program providers deliver audio, so it's up to the station to resolve the differences. The whole thing was hard enough back when we were processing most content in standard definition... now that everything is processed as HD, the interchange problems are greater. Nevertheless, we're working on it... but given the size of the facility, the number of program sources, and the number of stations being fed, it isn't a trivial process.

That's right. It isn't like changing the video format, which affects how the cable company 'grooms' the signal; audio is encoded as Dolby AC-3, which has the same overall structure whether it's handling stereo or 5.1.

dtv_engineer, will you consider upping the bitrate on channel 9.2 ...its pretty bad and prob would not take much away from 9.1....thanks

What is going on with WSTQ and the picture on Directv? For a while the quality was pretty awesome, but now I see a small "box" (black bars top/bottom and the sides) for the picture.

I'm not sure what they're doing, or why. I'll contact them.

NBC(channel 863) is now being sent as 720p instead of 1080i? The picture quality is awful!

I'm seeing interlacing lines and the loss of detail is horrendous. Bring back the "antique" system.
Edited by therealjustin - 2/4/13 at 9:29pm

Hello Justin, please elaborate on what you mean by "interlacing lines."

As far as loss of detail, we have not seen anything that would be described that way. My best guess is that your set top box is not set to allow 720p native resolution, but instead is scaling it to 1080i. Please check the set top box settings for display resolution. We had one set top box here that did not have 720p checked, and there were lots of wierd artifacts in the picture, such as jaggy edges of text that should have been sharp. Maybe this is what you meant by "interlacing lines."

Seems unlikely! I believe there is even a lot of unused space in the OTA ATSC mux (although it has been a while since I looked).

9.1 looked a lot better at 14.5Mbps CBR but now that it is VBR it usually runs around 6Mbps during primetime programming on FIOS (which should match OTA as FIOS doesn't transcode the stream like Time Warner). Banding artifacts are quite noticeable.

I would ask for the bitrate of 9.1 to be restored to what it used to be a couple years ago but that is also very unlikely. I guess it was changed for a reason... one can only surmise to add more subchannels at some point? I figure by decreasing the bitrate of the existing channels years ahead of time you can eliminate any complaints about new subchannels causing degradation of the existing channels, but that seems more like a conspiracy theory!?