Greenville, NC - HDTV - Page 13

I took a look at WWAY and WCTI's digital pic. quality and sound yesterday (both abc stations) and they both look sharp, and not as red in the face as the analog signal. The sound on WWAY was not quite as full as WCTI's signal, at least on Cable. They still do not have WNCT dt on cable down here. WITN and their radar are up and look better than directv's satellite signal quality, probably because the bandwidth is not stretched with just 2 signals.
The only difference in WWAY and WCTI is WWAY went full screen while WCTI was cropped off on both sides.
Ken 12,
Was this the cable companies manipulating or was it your stations choice? Also WITN was cropped off on their 7.1 but not on the radar channel.
Also no PAX 35.1 or WECT 6.1 are on cable, but all of the PBS stations on 19 are on and look great.

jspENC,

I've seen that on WWAY before; i've gotten the signal a couple of times up here in Greenville. Are you talking about the fact that WCTI and WITN have the black bars on the side during non network programming. I thought all stations did that if they're upconverting their 4:3 to 16:9. I think WWAY does a widescreen upconvert.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I've seen this on WWAY too and wondered why other stations don't do this during news, local, etc. programs.

Yes, the black bars easternncnewswat,
I thought it was a good idea that WWAY eliminated them. THis was during ABC news at 6:30 and AFV at 7:00 on Sunday evening.
But the sound would drop off on WWAY occasionally, and it's probably because of a bad antenna at the cable plant.

Is WWAY switching back to 480i during local programming or are they stretching their 4x3 image to 16x9? I know people hate the black bars, but distorting the picture in the signal isn't the answer. If someone hates the bars, they should have the option of manipulating the display of it on their TV.

With our Fox signal problems in Greenville, what is the likelihood that we could get waivers from the local station so we could see the Fox HD feed now available on DirecTV?

Anyone run through the waiver process with Fox locally?

Well, I can't speak to the Fox HD feed, but I can tell you that my East/West feeds of Fox were cancelled by Dish Network because of complaints by our local Fox affiliate. That's what the letter from Dish said anyway. I doubt our local Fox affiliate would even allow the HD feed though. They want you to watch their station(s). Which is funny and pathetic when you think about it; they don't even have a digital signal broadcasting yet!

Given the choice to watch the OTA HD signal or the satellite HD signal, I would gladly support them. Since they've not made it an option, I cannot support them.

So true.

I will not ever support our Fox because you can hardly pick it up! I have to go with WSFX in Wilmington for fox if I watch it OTA. On satellite is the only way WYDO looks decent.

I'm in shock! Channel 8 and 14 are both coming in today. The color on 8 is MUCH better than 14. 8 is in Stereo and 14 isn't? They used to both broadcast Stereo. I bet they won't stay clear for long, the weather is probably responsible...

Actually, UPN48, as of Monday night, had programming information showing up in the guide. Didn't check it last night. As of today, it is shoing No Data. It looks like ABC 12 has it's programming info up and running for the entire day. Remember, Ken12 said that they were going to have to enter it manually. I'm sure this is why UPN 48 is not showing the information right now.

Fox 14, analog, is coming in worse than normal for me. Just goes to show that what works for one doesn't always work for another. Typical! *LOL*

We are still having some issues with the PSIP Generator for UPN It has lost the data that we had already put in for UPN. I'm going to wait to make sure the problem is fixed before I have someone reenter the data. Probably after the first of the year.

Ken

Thanx for letting us know what happened, Ken12. Now that you've updated your psip information it's gotten me to do something I've been wanting to do for a while. I did some screen captures and am building a page about dtv offerings here in Eastern NC. I hope to have it online in a few days.

I missed reply to the post about the black bars. I upconvert our SD to a letter box I could just as easely stretch it to fill the screen actually I've had quite a few calls wanting me to do just that. But I'm sure I would get twice as many calls if I did complaining about it. I personally do not like a stretched picture and most peoples sets have the capability to stretch if they want to.

Ken

I think WWAY has 3 channels going, one is stretched, one isn't and the other was used for ABC NEWS NOW.

I agree, Ken. I prefer to have the signal come in its original aspect ratio. The worst situation is getting a program that has been stretched, but was originally letterboxed. That leaves the viewer with no opportunity to get it back to its right state even though its original format would have looked great on a 16x9 screen.

Channel 9 is OFF for cable viewers in Jacksonville this AM. I wonder why?

Not sure why Channel 9 isn't on cable in Jacksonville. Weird. Maybe the weather caused a problem.

If anyone is interested, I've resurrected my old home page I did a while ago and added a dtv screen capture page. It's still under construction but I've got all the caps from the other day uploaded. Just go here:

home.earthlink.net/~gvillegeo/index2.HTM

and then click GeoTv for my DTV screen capture page. All commentary/criticism is welcome. Btw, I'm using an analog tv and capture device so the quality isn't as good as what you guys see on your hdtv's. However, I think on the WCTI page, you can see the better quality of HDTV broadcasts even on analog tv.

Nice screen caps. Good picture of Jami Turner of WCTI. I know Jami and her husband real well. Both of them use to work with me here in Greensboro. I hear she is expecting with her second child.

Thanx, foxeng... Jami Turner is very pleasant to listen to while watching the news. Seems very level headed; at least that's what translates on screen. I was hoping to meet her at this year's Share Your Christmas food drive here in Greenville, but it was a mad house. *LOL*

Oh well, maybe next year!

Some of her work when she was here wound up on FOX News Channel. She did some hurricane coverage at Kitty Hawk back during Bertha I think it was and she was on FOX News Channel, CNN and MSNBC as well as a host of local stations (and ours of course!).

Jami is a good person, but don't get on her bad side! WHOO!

I've been a tv news junkie since I was a kid! I lived on the outer banks for 7 years beginning in 1997. I loved hurricane season when all the news crews would come from everywhere and set up shop at the Holiday Inn where I worked or next door at the Ramada. And considering the pressure you guys work under in a situation like that, I was lucky enough that all the tv people who I got to meet were very warm and friendly even while we had water flowing through our lobby! *LOL*

foxeng,
Have you heard anything concerning wfxi/wydo digital/HD upgrades or if Fox is putting any pressure on the affiliates to get the upgrades done?

Our Fox affiliate seems to not be very concerned about getting it done or letting concerned viewers know what is going on.

Do you have an email addy at FOX hq's where we can send our concerns to someone who would be interested?

I wish I could get the Raleigh feed and they would never have to worry about me watching their station again.

I have heard that the network is putting pressure on stations that are on the air to get things up in HD before the Super Bowl, but when it comes to stations not on the air, I have no info.


askfox@foxinc.com is the only one I know of. All of the others I have are the technical people who make things work and not the ones who deal with the stations in such matters.

Thanks for the reply foxeng. Unfortunately, they probably don't have the financial resources and will probably not do anything as long as they can get extensions from the FCC.

Hopefully, Fox in Raleigh or Norfolk will kick up their power before long and I can get their signal

Uhh... Norfolk's Fox is already at full power. 1000 kW DA on channel 29.

- Trip

I copied the following off of another site. Foxeng or Ken12 have you guys heard anything about this?

Per the new legislation passed in congress recently folks who's local stations do not broadcast OTA HD will be labelled a "digital white area". As a result D and E will be allowed to send these folks the national HD feeds for the broadcasters they cannot receive (CBS/NBC/Fox and hopefully ABC).

The question is when this will happen. I've seen 60 days to 1 year....
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This would certainly help us with the local fox circus....

WRAl's feed from CBS is way behind WNCT's feed today.

I will admit I haven't had time to really read the law, with the holidays and I have been traveling for work, but I will try and explain what I know or rather, what I think I know. YMMV.

The digital white area thing is a work in progress. The law doesn't require it for 18 months, this is to give D* and E* time to get the info together from the stations so they can make a decision on who is eligible. Sad part about this is the people it is suppose to help with have full power DTV signals by the time D* and E* start to implement this. Obviously, those who are indeed too far from the transmitters will get relief and I guess that is the silver lining of this cloud.