New Orleans, LA - HDTV - Page 270

WGNO and WNOL came back on DIRECTV about 9PM last night.

Just look.

They came back on at about 8:30 PM April 4.

I can't. I don't have DTV. I'm surprised that got it resolved so quickly, given the complexity of the situation.

Don H

If you look at the FCC petition that DIRECTV filed, I think the arguments that they presented were pretty solid. The investment bankers must have realized they didn't want to get dragged into a situation that could end up with fines and possibly scuttling the bankruptcy agreement.

Exactly this.

When I read through that filing with the FCC I thought it was quite likely that the Tribune stations would be restored to DirecTV promptly because one of these two things would happen:

• The investment bankers would realize they had overstepped their authority from a legal point of view and back off. (This appears to be what happened.)
• The FCC would insist that the channels be restored on an interim basis while they considered the complaint.

Has anyone else noticed audio issues with WWL where slight "blips" occur, causing syllables or sometimes whole words to be dropped? This seems to have just started in the past few days (I think). I've noticed it on both the Stereo and the 5.1 audio tracks, via OTA. Before I email WWL Engineering yet again, I figured I would ask here to be sure that me (and my wife) aren't the only ones hearing this . . .

I've been hearing these on WDSU on cable, stereo, I think.

Don H

There's nothing we watch on NBC outside of football season. I think a certain amount of audio glitches seems to be "normal" in the 10 years I've had HDTV at home. But the the audio glitches in the Tuesday night and Wednesday night shows on WWL this week seemed way excessive, happened far too often.

IIRC, I get momentary audio dropouts on multiple HD OTA channels and can't claim there's noticeably more of 'em on any particular station. Most of the times, it seems the broadcast dropped the 5.1 audio and briefly switched to stereo. It's most common when transitioning between programming and commercials, but occasionally happens--always at a crucial moment--in the middle of program dialog.

If the dropouts become numerous enough to drive me to bring up the signal diagnostics screen, 95 percent of the time I can adjust the antenna for better signal and resultant decrease in audio issues. It's the other 5 percent of the dropouts where signal is OK and no signal errors occurring that drive me up the wall. Until I get my outdoor antenna installed, I'll lay the blame for that latter 5 percent on atmospherics, fluttering leaves, and occasional technical glitches in the broadcast chain.

When will WWL learn not to interrupt network programming with inadvertent injections of news promos followed by partial showing of a commercial before suddenly reverting back to the network feed, leaving viewers scratching their head as they try to decipher what dialog and action they just missed?!!!

Morons did it again tonight during Blue Bloods ~9:25 the first time and again with a different promo/commercial combination a couple minutes later. The second time must've been thrown in for good measure, in case you weren't sufficiently convinced of their stupidity by the first.

I thought this only happened on Sundays when they were dealing with a sports related delay. Now it sounds like a GIGO problem.

It happens during the mentalist also.

It's so pervasive throughout prime time programming, I ponder whether it's triggered by malfunctioning automation or just plain inept personnel.

If the former, then what the blue blazes is wrong with their engineers that they haven't figured out and eliminated the issue after all these many months? If it's a keypunch error at the controls, then what's wrong with the management? Are they training new personnel during prime time or running the operation with evidently unmotivated staff?

Either way, the condition is chronic and it's highly unprofessional.

That WWL has been putting local promos and commercials over the top of network programming for YEARS is mind boggling. They were bad about this back in the analog TV days (but seem to be getting worse).

On a totally different local channels topic:

DirecTV's feed of WDSU has been hosed for the last several weeks, and is steadily getting worse. The glitches in picture and sound have become so bad and so frequent that it's unwatchable. WDSU is the only local channel carried by DirecTV that's doing this.

I've switched most of my DVR recordings of WDSU programs from the satellite feed to the OTA tuner, which is glitch free (or very nearly so). I prefer the satellite feed (if it's not glitchy) though, because the MPEG4 takes up a lot less disk space than the OTA MPEG2.

I haven't seen this at all. I don't watch almost anything on NBC, but I do watch the national nightly news often and I haven't noticed any problems. I will be on the look out.

As a recent returning DTV customer (away since 2006) I was afraid I was going to have to troubleshoot our setup with the constant WDSU issues - in fact I came to this forum (1st time in years) just to post about the WDSU issues with DirecTV at the moment - so I'm glad to see it isn't just me...

The only issue we have at all with DTV is that of WDSU dropping out on a regular basis (at least on the couple of shows that we DVR , prime-time material).

Mark another one having issues with WDSU glitching and sound dropouts. Other locals are fine. Signals are 99-100 for the transponder handling this local.

I was by my mother's sun-tues and also saw the dropout problems on wdsu thru directv.

The WDSU issue looks like a reception issue at DirecTV's local receive facility.

It varies from slightly annoying (Monday's and Tuesday's America's Got Talent episodes fell into this category) to so bad that it renders the program completely and utterly unwatchable (in other words, more "dropout" than program).

They really, really need to fix it.

WDSU is the only local doing this, and since all our locals are on the same transponder (I think, or at most, split between two) this can't be a transponder signal strength issue on our part (and that many of us are seeing it is additional evidence that it's them, not us).

All we can do is complain to DirecTV and hope someone can get to engineer to get their eyes on the feed.

In addition to seeing this problem, I've been seeing some dropouts on WNOL.

It is a great idea for everyone reading this who is a DIRECTV customer to call in and ask for attention.

There's always this...

http://forums.directv.com/pe/ekm/vie...me=view&type=7

not sure if they would listen to us though. They might if they read enough of the report to see multiple customers are involved. It looks like you can submit via email right from the form if you have an email client installed.

I'm working on some email addresses in directv so we can report our issues to them and skip the regular CSRs for WDSU.

You can always send a note to ellen.filipiak@directv.com

That is the office of SVP of customer relations. You usually get a fairly quick response.

Last thing I watched on WDSU via DirecTV was this past Tuesday's episode of "America's Got Talent" (that I actually watched on Wednesday via DVR).

There were NO glitches or dropouts in it. So, this problem may be fixed...

Days later and the studios at WVUE Fox 8 are still recovering from a direct hit by lightning. Looks like Louis has plenty on his plate. I wonder if the crystal ball says there's some new toys coming soon as a result?
 

Here's to hoping the strike got the security cameras they were using as news studio cameras.

Unfortunately the cameras are fine :-)

I have not been on here a bunch lately.. .and I am kind of surprised you guys knew about our lightning problems.

We were hit bad on Sunday July 15th.. and again on the following Friday.

We are not sure what the problem is but suspect that some of our grounding may not have been properly repaired / replaced when the entire electrical system of the building was rebuilt after Katrina. We are looking at having a lighning or eletrical consultant come in and make some recomendations.
I have obviosly worked in buildings with tall towers for over 30 years, and have never seen this many problems with electrical storms.

All that said.. on both days we lost the communicaitons boards in our production switcher, several intercom stations, numerous op amps in our audio board, as well as some misc. "glue" (D.A.'s , SD -> HD convertor boards, etc.)

On the first strike (Sunday) our building wide UPS went down meaning EVERYTHING needed to be brought back up. Not a big deal.. but a pain rebooting hundereds of computers in the correct order :-)

As of right now, we are back up 100% and are waiting on a few boards that are out for repair.

And.. no.. we got no new toys out of this... but we are getting some HUGE new toys very soon... can't say more about that yet though.

Louis

 

We'll be listening (and watching) for the scoop when you can tell us more.

I can tell you tomorrow night about what I have been working on (too much working on lately)...

or you can watch the noon news (Thursday)...
there will be an anouncement about it then...

:-)

Louis

Something to do with the studio in Benson Tower?