Grand Rapids, MI - HDTV - Page 4

I think the audio and video problems were coming from Houston. I watched on WSBT and it had some minor problems too, not normally common to WSBT. Too bad they were not broadcasting 5.1 from WSBT.

Overall I thought it looked good, not great though. IMO, those SEC HD games were much better.

so what happened at the end of half time that they wouldn't show us? Sounded like some naked lady ran out on the field or similar.

I think it was some guy, seemed to be dressed sort of like a Ref, went out to where the ball was T'd up and stripped and danced a jig i think!

Janet Jackson had Timberlake expose her breast.

Got a pic?

They showed it all on "Best D Sports Show Period" The guy had a thongish thing on, and an ad on his back. He "streaks" often - BDSSP showed him at a soccer game carding a player then stripping to dance. Silly.

The commercials were good - except for the bad ones.

WSBT and WWMT potentially face fines along with every other CBS station that carried halftime. It is the broadcaster, not the network, that holds final responsibility for what airs ... and not that flag desecration and the rest of halftime wasn't offensive programming but the "costume malfunction" will draw the attention. Commissioner Powell was watching with his children.

BTW: My wife and I didn't notice Janet's show when watching live. We only saw the replays.
Pictures of Janet and the "streaker" are available online in several places --- search engines should have it all indexed by now.

JL

Here's some shots of Janet Jackson at half-time:

http://halftime.ryangs.net/

You can clearly see there's some sort of metal stick-on over her nipple, so it was entirely intentional. I don't see what the big deal is. This is nothing new for MTV, if you've ever seen that show with Lil' Kim wearing gold star stickers over her nipples (and nothing else).

"My children were watching! Think of the children!" So letting them watch a rather violent sport doesn't bother you, but a boob goes? Grow up.

Anyways, now I get to cut out the (crappy and repeat) comercials and archive my recording to a WMV9 DVD or two. Sounds like fun...

Sorry I posted this late, for the Super Bowl that is. I live in Spring Lake and am in the process of putting up an antenna (when the weather clears). On Super Bowl Sunday, around 5 pm I called D* and asked if I was eligible for a waiver for CBS. Lo and Behold..... I was. 5 min later I was watching CBS on the east coast feed in HD. Just in time for the game! It costs me $1.50 per month, so its nice to know that if my antenna can't pull in CBS out here on the coast in Spring Lake, I can get CBS for $1.50, granted its not the local affiliate, but I don't really care.

Give it a try, whine, sob, cry like I did. Make sure you talk to a "customer specialist". So, if you live in Muskegon, Spring Lake, Grand Haven area... and have trouble with CBS, I think you can do as I did.

Cheers

I don't know what the big deal is. I don't see anything offensive about that at all. It'd be different if her big dark nipple was bared flapping in the breeze. But it's not. I see more on Las Vegas and that's on prime time tv.

What happened to WOOD DT tonight? I recorded Law and Order special victims. But it's in SD not HD. Not only that but it appears NBC lost the show a couple of times because there's a couple places where all I see for a while is black screen with the NBC and olympics logo in lower right hand corner.

NBC Ops. notified affiliates that no HDTV available for Law & Order : SVU.

So, affiliates broadcast upconverted SD.

"Technical difficulty."

I understand that Comcast digital cable now has espn hd in Grand Rapids. They are "working on" getting the local channels on hd.

Does anyone have any additional information? For example, how does the espn hd feed look? Which box are they using and what are the connection options? When will they have the local channels? Do we think the cable version of CBS will have better bandwidth than the OTA?

I have an OTA antenna right now, but I can't get ESPN, obviously, and CBS is often pixelated because of the bandwidth issue that is well discussed on this thread. I'm wondering when and if I should switch to digital cable.

Digital cable will probably not look any better because I believe they'll be using the same HD feed from WWMT that you're seeing. In fact, they might even compress the channel even more, making it look worse.

How did you hear about HD on Comcast? They're supposed to e-mail me when it's available and I can't confirm it on their site.

I called them and they told me they are now offering it in GR. The customer service person told me they have espn hd and another hd station (I think it must be hd net), but they don't yet have the local stations digital feeds. They are working on it.

If you go on the comcast.com site and enter your zip code you will now see material about hd....it wasn't there 3 months ago.

isn't dish network still cheaper for what you get?

Comcast had HD info there a few months ago, then it disappeared, that's when I signed up my e-mail address. If you read the HD stuff it doesn't say it's available, just that you can sign up to be notified when it is. They'll then send you an e-mail saying it isn't available (at least in 49525 zip). They need to update their crappy site anyway. I'm guessing INHD is the other channel, that's what my cousin gets in Flint. Does anyone know if the QAM tuners on the Mitsu's can tune Comcast's digital feed?

Well, I'm finally getting WGVU-DT in lately but have yet to see any HD programming. Has anyone actually seen a HD show since they've come on-line? Or maybe even the famous PBS loop? If so, please let me know when I might be able to catch some HD programming or find a schedule which shows HD shows for WGVU.

Thanks,
Travis

There's no HD programming on WGVU yet because they don't have the equipment. I don't think anyone knows when they will, either. Their website indicates that they've only reached about 1/3 of their $3.5 million fundraising goal, perhaps that's what's hanging them up.

http://www.wgvu.org/home/digitalconversion.html

Has anybody else heard anything from Comcast? I am stuck trying to decide what to do. I've had my HDTV for almost a year and still haven't seen anything in HD on it. At the present time I have Dishnetwork and love my DVR but am sick of getting the run around on their equipment, which I thought I would of had a couple months ago. I hate to go back to cable but I want to see some HD. I called Comcast on Monday and told them I wanted the local channel package they offer which is around $14. This is a total rip off but I have them for cable internet and they charge me an extra $15 a month since I don't have cable tv so I'm basically already paying for it. Then I was going to pay an extra $5 to get the HD reciever so I could at least watch some HD, but the CSR at Comcast said they don't have the locals in HD. This is getting very old. I guess I'm stuck waiting some more for the HDTivo unless some strange miracle happens sometime sooner.

Can you add an antenna? I get plenty of HD signals OTA on my antenna. I also get the DirecTV HD package. You could consider that. Last I knew is that for new subscribers DirecTV is offering a HDTV receiver (gets OTA and DTV) plus the dish for $59.

If you can set up an antenna, definitely check this out before you head for cable or DirecTV. Hit up www.antennaweb.org to see where you stand in terms of antenna need. Most of the stations you're going to want to pick up (WOTV, WWMT, WXMI, and WOOD) are broadcast from the Gun Lake area.

Edit: I just ran my Fusion card's signal finder. Holy crap! How long has WGVK been broadcasting? It didn't start up with WGVU, did it? I've certainly never noticed it before. Now I have my choice of either... and I'm surprised that WGVK is stronger than WGVU (about 80% vs 65%) because my antenna is pointed north, and WGVK is south of me.

is WOTV-DT (Digital 20) off the air? It wasn't working as of 11PM tonight.

I've got it. Jay Leno is coming in at 76%. I think they had a power reduction or something. Because it always came in mid 80's to lower 90's before. You being in cedar springs may now be below the threshold.

Not WOOD I mean the ABC affiliate (WOTV). They should of been showing NightLine or something not Leno.

OK it is back on for me now at 93%

Why do I get alot of pixelation, and audio dropouts when there is a great deal of red in the picture? I noticed this quite a bit last night watching CSI.

MPEG2 compression problems. CSI is really stressful on the MPEG2 compression because it's grainy. MPEG2 also has trouble with deep, pure colors (especially red). WWMT just can't dedicate enough bandwidth to their HD channel right now because they have to keep the SD subchannel running for the cable company. The bandwidth inadequacy causes the blocky artifacts.

The audio dropouts seem to be something a lot of people experience so I believe it's also a problem on WWMT's end.

Yes, and also until they can afford better encoding equipment. I don't doubt that cheaper MPEG2 encoders aren't nearly as efficient with with low-bandwidth streams. The audio or video freezes are probably their encoder choking.