Chattanooga, TN - HDTV - Page 72

What is WOOT if I might ask. I know it must be a low power tv station but what type of prgramming.

http://www.rabbitears.info/market.ph...&callsign=woot

At the moment, we are testing our equipment with a demo loop running on 6-5 and My Family TV on 6-6 running temporarily.

As for a different amp, I've tried no amp, my CM7777, and my Kitztech. None provides any usable signal on the locals. The multipath eats them alive. I'm going to have some high end test gear in the apartment on Thursday that I am hoping will show me the echoes so I can see just how bad it is.

- Trip

Is anyone on Comcast in Chattanooga using a CableCARD TV tuner with a HTPC? I'm wondering if they set their content to Copy Freely or do they restrict it?

Thanks.

I am currently using a Ceton 4 tuner PCI card and I am extremely happy with the results. I have had it for approximately one year and have not had any issues. I did have to have a truck roll for a technician to call in settings that the normal csrs could not enter. Amazon is currently having a good deal on the Ceton tuners.

Everything that I have recorded is copy freely, except for the premium channels such as HBO.

Sounds good. What software are you using for your recording?

Window Media Center which comes with Windows 7. I am using 2 Xbox360s as my media center extenders. This allows me to run three different TVs from one pc.

I'm stuck w/ OTA for HD. Nothing is compatible with EPBfi right now; other than the HDPVR via compoment. I hear those are still really dodgy too. They at least do 70+ analogs; can't get any from Comcast anymore w/o that stupid DTA.

You can get HD Clear QAM over Comcast with just basic XFINITY TV cable ($14.50/mo). I'm doing that now for both my Windows7 computer/DVR and my main 42" LED LG in the front room. Skip their DTA completely and scan for digital cable channels. It works for me down here in Chickamauga, and at my workplace in downtown Chatt where I've done the same trick. All locals and their subchannels, plus WGN (HD), CSPAN, and TBS (SD only, for some reason). Have a cheap and cheesy RCA 751 on side of the house as a backup option during storms, outages, etc. Could do with something better, but since it's not my primary source, I didn't spend money on the antenna side of things.

Yeah, knew about qam. I still have 4 analog tuners so comcast option kills them outright w/o extra junk in the mix.

I just reaimed the antenna a few degrees. Maybe it'll help w/ the pixelation issues. Went to antennaweb and they now list the 3 locals as VHF. I'm within 15mi (w/ direct LOS) of the towers, but signal strength/quality dip to the low 90's sometimes. Anyone think I would benefit stepping to a different design?

I don't have the details handy for the flat attic mount I'm using now, but I'm sure I posted them about 18mon ago when we switched to EPB.

Edit: It's a Winegard HD-1080.

Thinking I might try a directional for the vhf and use the winegard for pbs through a combiner. Any opinions?

Mobile app crashed attaching the photo...

So I just got finished replacing the 1080 with a 7695P and can't really tell the difference in signal quality or strength. It did need to be aimed several degrees north of where I had the omni to get best signal across the 9, 12, 13, 40 channel spread I record on. Never got better than 85% signal quality on 40. All the channels had 95% strength & 100% "symbol" quality; HDHR Config screen.

The electroline drop amp (unity gain) specs list 54-1000MHz bandwidth; figured that was better than a 7db loss splitter.

Does anyone think a preamp and a regular 3-way would be a better option to get rid of the glitches & artifacts that show up a several times an hour?

How did you navigate across the attic flooring? I was looking for traces of planks or OSB but couldn't see any in the picture.

Walked the joists. They're about 2" under the fill. Happen to be a couple of reinforcing 2x4 near the antenna. Also have a short piece that I can move around as needed. Been up there a few times before the house was finished to run the cat5 and a coupla extra coax runs.

Good grief, when was the last time WTCI got a new encoder? I recorded Phantom of the Opera last night and watching it today, it looks really soft and pixelated. I think WBRA looked better last weekend on the 103" screen at my parents' house than it does from WTCI on my 23" screen here.

On an unrelated note, still looking for signal reports on WOOT-LD.

- Trip

Looks as if 95% isn't good enough not to glitch. *not winning*

Are you getting the glitching on all channels or just certain ones?

- Trip

Everything OTA, but not the analogs on epb. That's why I think it's signal related instead of storage device. The NAS can hold a sustained transfer several times that required by HD recordings.

Glitched quite a bit on ch9 last night. That station has the best levels; above 95%.

And you say this is on all of the channels? Is it worse on the VHFs (3/9/12) than the UHFs (everything else)?

I'm wondering if there isn't something causing interference in your home or a home nearby.

- Trip

It's hard to say, we don't get much time to do live testing. Mostly stuff that was recorded a few days prior. I was told that 12 was glitchy earlier today. It's strange that I went from an HD1080 to the behemoth in the pic and things didn't get better; possibly a bit worse. Difficult to say for sure, but I think I'm off-axis (according to antennaweb.org bearings) from the towers to get better levels. Troubleshooting this might be difficult due to time constraints and complexity of attic access. Remind me never to let a builder put the hatch in the master closet.

Edit: I'm showing 100% on all the networks except fox and it's showing 99% signal strenght in Sagetv; hauppauge 1800, primary tuner. My HDHR has:
87% on 3
97% on 9
94% on 12
97% on 45-1 (black screen?!). 45-2 has a pic.
81% on 53-1 (another black). 53-2 has a pic.
85% on 61

*confused*

Ok, glitches showing up on all 3 networks & fox so far. Still not sure on PBS yet.

I dunno if it was the weather or what, but worst night ever on ch9 tonight between 9-10. Had to switch over to EPB STB.

I have a wifi router wiyh 19" antennas in the room below the winegard. Any chance that could interfere? Maybe due to an freq multiple?

Ok, I hate to say it, but I'm starting to think my stutter problems were really the fault of the NAS. I forced the tuners each to record to one of the local drives and haven't had a bobble since. I don't get it. I guess sustained file transfer speeds don't tell the whole story. Oh well, anything I can't stand to miss will get moved to the array for 'safer' keeping.

I read the past two years of posts looking for reviews of EPBfi TV. Not really concerned with the Internet service, since I know it is great.

I wanna know what the current opinions are of EPB's tv service and their equipment. I currently have DishNetwork, and would love to drop them, except for a few things. Their VIP 722 receiver is great. It's UI response time is better than others I've used. It has a 1 TB internal drive and supports an external drive. And they have BBC America in HD, which is hard to find on other providers.

What size hard drive are they giving with their DVRs now? Would you consider the interface to be responsive? What model box is it? Do you see the compression artifacts that I used to see on Comcast?

1) last I heard the internals are about 500GB (miniscule by my standards). All non-video ports are locked down; typical for terrestrial services & it blows that the content providers have this level of control.
2) it's not as fast as my SageTV extenders, but does what you tell it within 2sec or so unless it's deleting files.
3) I'd have to see if I can provide a useable model# for you.
4) Same artifacts that OTA displays on the same networks. No idea if it's their codec (assuming they use one) or from the head-end provider.

I use it mostly for the 30/30 internet and HD shows my wife watches that aren't OTA-friendly. I like that they transmit 2-78 via analog so my 4 PC tuners aren't idle; Comcast killed QAM except for those I can get OTA. I miss the option Comcast had for firewire capture. The component alternative still has operational issues that I can't stomach.

Just bought an Acer K 130 projector on Newegg for $350. Its 720p and hooked up to my Charter Cable Box and I'm getting a great picture at 120 inches. Anybody else have a projection system they want to brag on?

I haven't posted in a while but WTVC-TV (ABC) is finally going HD today for local news broadcasts. The local news broadcasts for WDSI (FOX) that is handled by WTVC will also be going HD.

If I'm not mistaken WTVC is the last of the three local network stations to switch to HD local news broadcasts!

I wasn't very impressed with the HD telecast. It seemed like when the camera is at a distance and it shows all of the anchorman at the same time, the picture looks really blurry (or at least the anchormen's faces do). And it seems to be a little much with the blue lighting. But on the positive side the close ups look much better and the on screen graphics look pretty good too.

DirecTV dropping WTVC? Just saw a crawl that they expect to drop this station on March 1st.

Yet another signal carriage contract re-negotiation. DirecTV can only carry the station if the station agrees and the station wants more money for that permission. Therefore, the station will tell you to call D* to complain. The sheep will do so, then will bitch to high heaven when their satellite bill increases (well, duh!) while blaming D* for the price increase.


Get an antenna and don't worry about it, if possible.