Madison, WI - HDTV - Page 3

I have been talking to the people at fox in Madtown for sometime. The reason Milwaikee and GB are HD now is because Sinclair owns fox 47 and not Rupert as is the case in Mil & GB. If they had their act together it would be HD now. I am also looking for an antenna to try to get the Fox 6 or maybe GB signal here. Anyone have any luck at this or thoughts?

I couldn't let this go unchallenged:

1) Emmis owns the Fox station in Green Bay, not Rupert or Fox/News Corp. (News Corp. does own the Fox in Milwaukee.)

2) Sinclair has actually converted a lot of its Foxes, including its Des Moines, Iowa station.

Although I disagree with a lot of what Sinclair does (they own the CBS station in my market), the company does own more than 60 stations and has a keen interest in making sure, if it does have to convert to digital, that those digital signals can be seen. That's why they questioned the DTV transmission standard, but cheered when it became clear that its challenges could be overcome through better receiver technology.

My bad. Fox does not own GB. Emmis does. But they only have 16 channels compared to 62 for Sinclair so what is the dam* delay in getting HD in Madison. Why shouldn't they want to convert to Digital???? I don't get your point dline. Fox does it cheaper than the other networks so the cost should not be a hurdle.

"That's why they questioned the DTV transmission standard, but cheered when it became clear that its challenges could be overcome through better receiver technology." ?? what??

Just give me my HD from FOx 47....NOW!!!!!!!!!

What about UPN 14? We get the digital signal on 3-2, but they don't put through any HD right? I've gotten into Enterprise recently, so I'd love to catch the new season in HD! Anyone know what's up?

_arock

Considering that CBS is multicasting them on their sub-channel , i doubt they are ever going to have their own HD broadcast (at least OTA). They never even had a SD broadcast OTA until the digital sub-channel. The channel wouldn't have enough bandwidth to have two HD channels on at the same time, that is why the sub-channel is in SD (just like PBS's subchannel)

I understand that digital transmission (and not HD) is required by the FCC deadline, and we've got that. But - let's say that DirecTV offers a UPN HD feed sometime in the future. Would we be eligible for a waiver to get it even though we have a local (non-HD) UPN broadcast? I suppose people in other areas of the country are in a similar situation with CBS, NBC, etc.

Hey all! Im on the west side of Madison, near fitchburg. i can see the tower from my house, and usually get good reception from my cheapo Optima antenna via my ts-160. Last night i could get exactly 0 signal from 27-1 and had to watch the game in analog. Anyone else have trouble with this one? It seems to be iffy for me. Maybe i need a better antenna?

-j

I had no issues at all, and I am in Cottage Grove.

I had no problems on the east side of town

Strange, mine was fine on the East side, but I got exactly zero from PBS 21-1 and 21-2. Haven't checked today to see if they're back.

Sail

Got an email back from the engineer at channel 3 and he said seeing channel 14 going from 3.2 to 14.1 for instance will be a while in the making. He said "Chances for 14.1 are slim as it would require another OTA channel which is not available. but I have learned to never say never in this business".....Leonard Charles Chief Engineer.

ALso got from him the bandwidth they split their siganl between 3.1 & 3.2. He said it depends on the event. For instance the super bowl they turn off 3.2 to send it through at max bits. Otherwise it is split 15mb/4mb between the two.

Thanks for the info. So in theory, they could flipflop the bandwidth split if necessary to give 15 megabit to UPN for an HD presentation, assuming that all the hardware was in place. Problem is that UPN's current HD programming broadcasts on Friday nights, which conflicts with CBS's full slate of HD programming on Fridays. I doubt that anyone wants to see 9.5/9.5.

I'd be OK with an HD rebroadcast of Enterprise, say at 2:00 AM Saturday morning, since I have a MyHD card and could timeshift it. That probably won't happen either.

_arock

Yah....The way he sounded it the whle email was.....14.1 will never happen though I too have grown to like Enterprise. AROCK, You currently use D* or what for HD service? I have Voom now and will be switching back to D* soon i think.

I have DirecTV, but only for SD. My HD is limited to OTA only until the HD Tivo actually works. I owned the HD Tivo for one day - it rebooted itself at least once every 90 minutes. Others had the same problem. For $1000, I don't want to be worrying about when that would happen again. A year from now, we should see a 2nd generation HD Tivo for $500 or so. Here's hoping ...

Anybody have any information on pending additions to Charter's HD offering in Madison? I've been real happy with their package, but it would be nice to have PBS-HD, DiscoveryHD, BravoHD and FoxHD (when they get their act together).

Thanks,
John

Hey John, I am curious if you have tried the HD content from Either Voom or Direct TV? I had Charter's HD package and really was truly dissapointed. First of all they did not have a DVI out on the box, their picture was blocky, and their so called digital channels are not even all digital. This is not meant to rip on them just asking a question. It has been since March when I had them and maybe they are better now. I had both charter and D* for a week and compared the PQ via component cables and the D* PQ was much better and no blocking.

Hey Junkie, no I haven't tried either Voom or direct TV, but I used to use an OTA HD tuner and I don't see any difference in the picture quality between OTA and Cable (this in on a 64" ISF'ed Pioneer). One of the football games (it was the Tennesee vs. Florida game) I watched on CBS had some blockiness during fast motion, but it's hard to say where along the chain the fault lay. If it happens again I'll try OTA as well and see if there's a difference. All the other football I've watched on ESPNHD and ABC has been truly flawless. No problems on any of the movie channels either.

The Motorola cable box they provide now does have DVI, but I'm using component.

The non-HD channels through component are another matter. The red-push is horrendous so I also run a s-video link from the box for those channels which doesn't suffer from the problem. That also lets me use the TV's Natural-Wide stretch on SD which I'd rather use anyway so that's not really a big deal.

John

Glad to hear they have added DVI John. I have to admit that I really truly do dislike Charter's TV lineup etc so I am a hard sell there. Their Interent has been awesome so I will give credit where credit is due. Also given the fact they have to take their signal from analog to digital, and as I said when I had both the picture quality on either V* or DTV was much better when comparing all via component. Obviously that could have changed but it is hard to beat the all digital signal from Satellite.

Chris

I live near the NBC tower which is right on the Beltline. Unfortunately we are inbetween that tower and the Mineral Point tower (ABC and Fox i believe). We us an outdoor antenna attached to our chimney on the roof, pointed inbetween the two towers. It would probably work in the attic too, although not as well. We get everything pretty good. of course with any of the digital channels...it's usually go or no go.

For anyone interested we have DishNetwork with an HD on/off air tuner built in and it works great. Don't have to switch from satelite to tv at all, it's just like another satelite channel

What antenna are you guys using? I was thinking of getting a silver sensor, but isnt fox 47 vhf? Anyone use one of these, and will it pick up 47? According to antennaweb im 2 miles from the tower.

thanks,
-jamie

The silver sensor is a UHF antenna.

Woops, I read your post incorrectly.

Thats why i was wondering if anyone uses it in this area. Or should i try the Terk HDTVi?

-j

I have the ChannelMaster 3010 StealthTenna, roof mounted. My house is a few miles north of both towers. Works great for all Madison DTV stations, including Fox. You're right that WMSN-DT broadcasts on VHF 11, so you need an antenna that can receive both.

FWIW, I did not have much success with indoor antennas for DTV, as my house has aluminum siding. It also does not help being under the broadcast "umbrella", so getting your antenna up in the air helps when you're that close.

_arock

arock-

My house is single story, vinyl siding. Right now im using an indoor GE Optima antenna which has been working well (90-100 on most channels) up until recently. I think with all of the new construction going on around my house its messing with my reception. For some strange reason i cant get 27 when monday night football is on, i get 0 signal. When i check in the morning it comes in fine...strange. Recently ive had to monkey with the antenna alot more to get the stations. I think a better, directional antenna would do the trick.

-j

I couldn't get FOX (or NBC) with the Silver Sensor. I'm at the corner of Mineral Point and the Beltline, on the west side of Madison.

If anyone in this area has pointers for getting FOX or NBC, I'd love to hear them.

Eli

I'm in Cottage Grove, and I can get all of the regional broadcasts over the air (at ~80% reception). I have the powered UHF/VHF RCA antenna, which is very cheap ($27)at Walmart. I live in a two story (that is where my antenna is), and the directional tuning is very touchy, but once you get it set, I never have to
touch it. I have gotten Milwaukee (TMJ4) and Chicago (NBC), stations before, albeit very irregularily. But I am very happy with it especially given the price.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=2153142

I'd love to, but I live in a townhouse apartment. I wonder if some sort of tripod/bucket arrangement would work on my second story patio... I never use it anyway.

anything new on Fox 47 going HD? baseball and FB kill'n me.