Peoria, IL - HDTV - Page 70

Man WEEK sucks. The olympic HD is full of macroblocking big time and the stupid bluriness is still there after 7 years. They are horrible.

That should not be a problem since the only important parts of the coverage are the announcers and interviews which are fairly static. Presenting the actual competition is secondary to the entertainment portions as far as NBC is concerned.

Man, ain't that the truth. I am actually enjoying watching when there is an event they show, but I am very thankful for the DVR to get through all of the announcer BS and the commercials. I know NBC spent a lot to get the broadcast rights, but wow. I like the start of the primetime coverage everynight, a shot of the country side with music, Bob Costas saying what events they will show for the night for 2 minutes, then more commercials. It has to be 30 minutes of commercials for 1 hour of broadcast. I can't remember life before DVR's, nor do I want to.

Is there anything going on with WYZZ tonight? My wife is trying to watch Bones through Comcast, but it is constantly breaking up. A storm rolled through Peoria about an hour ago, but it wasn't very strong. A teething baby and no Bones is not making the wife happy, which means I'm not having a good night.

Wow, I just noticed that WCIA & WICS became the second and third of the Springfield, Decatur, Campaign stations behind WAND to upgrade their newscasts to HD. All Quad Cities stations have now been broadcasting their newscasts in HD for almost a year. And now, even one of the tiny Quincy stations, WGEM is broadcasting it's news in HD.

So why isn't HD newscasts playing in Peoria?

I'd like to think that Nexstar is currently upgrading WMBD since they upgraded their sister station, WCIA, in a similar-sized market. But WCIA had to compete with the aggressive likes of WAND & WICS whereas WMBD only has to compete with the bumbling WEEK, which, I'm sure, has NO plans of ever upgrading their newscasts to digital HD. Until they change, I'll just watch the QC stations when in Galesburg.

I'm truly convinced that lack of competition has caused the Peoria area stations to become complacent to perform at way less than what they are capable of.

Has WEEK dropped WeatherPlus on 25.2? It was still around Christmas weekend but when I was back in the area for another family holiday gathering the following weekend, it was gone. WEEK was receptible in my near-downtown Springfield apartment this evening--and still no picture on 25.2. Anyone know what's up? If WeatherPlus is history in Peoria what are the chances of 25.2 staying blank rather than going with the likes of CoziTV (NBC's classic TV subchannel now in the works).

WEEK dropped 25.2 the first of the year. Mediacom started scrolling on the weather channel about it being discontinued today. I've seen or heard nothing about anything replacing it.

That article was a riot. Steve Tarter has no clue what he was writing about.
NBC Weather Plus DID cease operation, in 2008!!!!
The TelevisionWeek article cited was correct, in 2008!
NBC did buy the Weather Channel, in 2008!
The Capus quotes were made, in 2008! (Steve, welcome to 2013)

What WEEK had been broadcasting since 2008 was a service provided by their weather graphics provider Accu-Weather (hence the big 'powered by Accu-Weather.com' banner displayed in the lower corner of the screen). That service still exists in other markets across the country. WEEK re-branded the channel WeatherFirst and had called it that ever since.

With that level of accuracy, I expect to see something on 25.2 by the end of the week.

I made the same mistake and found links to the same shutdown that Steve Tartar mentioned. Then a friend also pointed out the 2008 dates to my embarrassment. Remember to filter "Google" by date when searching any recent changes!

Sandy Gallant used to mention the 25.2 sub channel on the midday news, so she is the most likely to 'fess up'.

Re-read the article Zaphod

"NBC shuts down digital channel Weather Plus
By STEVE TARTER
of the Journal Star
Posted Dec 31, 2012 @ 07:00 PM
Last update Dec 31, 2012 @ 09:07 PM"

@eureka22 - Do we expect anything less from the local media? I'm really disappointed in the local "HD" broadcasts. During local news it's just SD no? Everything else (National pass thru) seems overly compressed and exhibits tons of artifact. Just junk.

Zaphod is right, NBC, the network, discontinued their own Weather Plus in 2008. And yes, what WEEK has been broadcasting ever since has been a service provided by Accu Weather, who currently provide their weather graphics.

Though I'm surprised to see that WEEK would totally drop their weather channel knowing that there's none other in Peoria. Though at the same time, I probably shouldn't be surprised. Either way, I haven't been in the Peoria area for a few weeks, so I wouldn't know.

In the beganning, some stations, who actually take pride in their look, decided against the somewhat clunky weather plus from the get-go because they felt they could do a better job by powering their OWN independent 24/7 weather subchannels. I do believe KWQC & WAND ware both among those. But WEEK, on the other hand, didn't even have the staff or the brains to always run the local inserts of their weather plus or Accu Weather programs smoothly. It seems like they were ALWAYS screwing up. The audio was frequently missing, and, I once saw Ft. Wayne wx info given by mistake. And the warning "bug" always seemed to be display watches & warnings incorrectly. I believe it was WEEK's responsibility to correct the display problems with that warning bug, but actions were never taken.

The Quad Cities had 2 24-hour weather channels until recently, when WQAD dropped theirs. I never thought the QC needed 2 of them, but I find it hard to believe that the similarly-sized Peoria market can't even manage to keep one. If anything, it's because WEEK/Granite managed it so badly. Since weather subs are usually an NBC thing, I doubt that WMBD will ever launch one as Nexstar is seldom that ambitious, but they'd be able to manage one much better than WEEK if only they would.

Let's face it, the Peoria stations are pathetic, utterly inferior to any other tv market I've seen. I've been told there's no money in Peoria, but look at WGEM in Quincy. They give it their all, but the Peoria tv stations are managed by the cheapest bean-counters in the industry. Don't tell me there's more money to be found in tiny Quincy than there is in Peoria. For that matter, KHQA got much better treatment from Barrington than did sister station, WHOI, because in Peoria, they don't really have to compete.

And yes, there are NO HD local newscasts in Peoria. WEEK braodcasts 16:9 but only standard definition. This was made possible by upgrades at their hub and simply switching a ration switch on their cameras. Also, their ability to broadcast syndicated stuff in HD is ALSO result of upgrades AT THE HUB. Little investment is actually being put into the local WEEK studios, which is now almost as much of a shell as WHOI, and will be if they're able to totally outsource news operations to Ft. Wayne someday. Their current set is from 1996. Are they really interested in staying local forever?

http://peoriachronicle.com/2012/11/30/barrington-broadcasting-owner-of-whoi-to-be-sold/

As of a couple of months ago, it has been reported that Barrintgon Broadcasting is up for sale. Many people think this is going to benefit a lot of places, but I don't think so. For one thing, every time a station changes ownership, the new owner has to pay off the debt somehow, which takes away from spending revenue.

I'm also amused to see that nobody seems to be close to guessing the most likely scenario in the Peoria area.

If Nexstar acquires Barrington, there's no way they will let go of the better WMBD for ownership of WHOI. They would put WHOI back up for sale and WHOI would most likely be bought by Mission Broadcasting, which is basically a shell company of Nexstar. This could lead to an eventually change of shared-service agreements and WMBD would likely become the news producer for WHOI (which would be a far cry better than WEEK's current productions on WHOI). The second most likely scenario would be that Malara Broadcasting, which is basically a shell company of Granite, would buy WHOI.

If Sinclair buys WHOI, it is less clear what would happen as both stations (I believe) are of close to equal value. Either way, the most likely scenario would be that Cunningham Broadcasting, which is a shell company of Sinclair, would acquire one or the other. I'd hate to see Sinclair get THIS BIG, but this would be the best scenario for the Peoria area as it may lead to a return of a third independent newscast in the Peoria area on either WYZZ or WHOI & WEEK should they decide to terminate current shared services agreements, and WEEK would only be regurgitating their garbage on My59, which a lot of people w/o cable or satellite can't get anyway. This would leave WMBD producing only their own news operations, though they could always leave their mark by launching their own weather subchannel.

Would anyone be willing to help me out? I live in Normal - is there any way that an indoor antenna (such as a Leaf) would work to pick up Peoria/Decatur stations or do I need to install something on the roof? I'd like to get something going right now as we just cut the cord and my wife misses the Today show.

Any help would be appreciated.

Roof antenna is best, but Peoria and Decatur are in opposite directions. WYZZ transmitter is in Congerville so you should get that with an indoor antenna. The others are in East Peoria. Our Decatur transmitter is on the North side of Decatur. You'll just need to experiment with an indoor...probably different for each station.

Personally, I'd go with an indoor/outdoor type. I use a Philips Mant940 (not the current model) The advantage of this design is that it picks up from the front and back sides simultaneously. In Peoria, I can use it for locals and Quad Cities since they are about 180 degrees apart from my location. Try it indoors, then move outside if necessary.

Instead of roof mounting, use sections of mast on the side of the building. Set on the ground (small pad) and attached at the highest point with an eve mount, you can extend it about 10-12 feet past the highest braced point without guy wires. You can turn the pole to aim it from the ground and take it down for service or replacement without getting on the roof.

Thanks for the help guys, I tried a few indoor and outdoor models and nothing worked in the basement (which I had figured). I had settled on the amplified Leaf for now (it was picking up channels from both directions though) with the intention of installing something more permanent on the roof this summer.

Comcast called me Saturday with a promo (my internet was going from $30 to $45 next month) for basic + faster internet for $40 for 12 months. Just figured out you can still pull local HD out with the QAM tuner, so it looks like we'll just do this for a year at least. For some reason I thought they blocked everything. Fox and CBS are on goofy channels though, not sure why.

Channel frequencies make it difficult to physically block the clear QAM channels cheaply. That's why they will eventually be encrypted. They have permission from the FCC to do so now. Enjoy them while they last.

Your TV displays a channel number either based on the actual physical frequency (ch 1-135 + subchannel) or the virtual number embedded by the original broadcaster in the data stream. (PSIP). WMBD and WYZZ fail to include this (supposedly required) information so WEEK=25.1 but WMBD=116.x (the last time I checked)

You may also find some anomalous readings like 225.1, which is data inserted into the stream by Comcast to specify the standard definition version of WEEK. 225.1/219.2/etc are SD channels created by Comcast from the HD broadcasts since no SD broadcasts exist and their standard boxes can't decode HD channels. And, of course, each TV may apply its own interpretation of the subchannel decimal.

Sinclair will be buying WHOI (and the other Barrington stations including Quincy's KHQA and KTVO Kirksville/Ottumwa), and in the process will be forced to sell WYZZ:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sinclair-broadcast-group-announces-agreement-to-purchase-barrington-tv-stations-steven-pruett-to-be-named-chief-operating-officer-of-chesapeake-tv-subsidiary-193984551.html

Any speculation on how this may affect the immediate Peoria TV landscape? And who might be the front-runners to purchase WYZZ?

Finally! Somebody else on this forum acknowledges the Barrington sell-out. I posted about it a few weeks ago. But, as usual, nobody seemed to care.

If anybody read what I wrote, I said WYZZ would likely be bought by a shell company of Granite, Nexstar, or Sinclair. And according to a couple of stories, it appears I may be right:

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvspy/sinclair-buying-barrington-tv-stations-for-370m_b82530
"Due to FCC ownership conflict rules, Sinclair will sell WSYT in Syracuse and WYZZ in Peoria as it acquires Barrington’s stations. The stations will be purchased by Cunningham Broadcasting Corporation and Howard Stirk Holdings, a new entity formed by Armstrong Williams, a political commentator and CEO of The Graham Williams Group."

However, I believe this writer was confused with the fact that 4 Barrintgon stations are to become property of these shell stations. I'm seeing nothing specifically saying that WYZZ will go to these companies.

This could be good for the Peoria area market. Sinclair, like Nexstar, is not the most loved of media companies, but they are a far sight better than Granite and Barrington, and they seem to be a lot stronger, more stable, and they are very successful in the sales department.

I don't care for Sinclair's right-wing propaganda they seem to push on all their stations, but their stability is what WHOI needs. WHOI, since it's start in 1953, has always been plagued with owners coming and going too quickly. When you purchase a station, it just creates more debt. So how can a station compete if it is never paid off.

Assuming WYZZ goes to a shell company of Sinclair, and since WMBD has already had a good partnership with WYZZ, It could very well be that WMBD takes over operations of WHOI from WEEK. If this happens, than Nexstar will probably invest heavily into the WMBD/WHOI operation and make HD news upgrades complete with a new set, with an overall look similar to how WCIA, and other Nexstar stations look after having completed all the upgrades. Though people have complained about the typical Nexstar HD set, it would still be a welcome improvement to Peoria tv. It would also take care of their 4:3 news problem which is getting annoying to view on a widescreen flat panel. As I said before, Nexstar makes full-scale upgrades when they finally get ready, Granite likes to go just half way.

Here's my favorite option. Sinclair seems to do well with revenue, so it may be in their best interest to bring back WHOI's newscast and have it regurgitated on WYZZ at 9, especially if WYZZ is bought by a shell company of Sinclair such as Cunningham. Like Nexstar, Sinclair has been known to make full upgrades to it's news facilities instead of going halfway. That is, judging by what few stations they have upgraded thus far. And WHOI would likely get one if Sinclair goes this route, since their old equipment is either already shot, in storage, or being used at another station. If Sinclair could make them look even half as good as WICS in Springfiled, the Peoria market would finally have a station and look done right, or at least unprecedented by Peoria tv standards.

Though I wouldn't be surprised if everything just stayed the same. After all, WEEK/Granite, according to Mark DeSantis, has invested a LOAD of money in WHOI. Even though it pales in comparison to the recent investments KWQC has made on Fox 18. And even though Granite likes to go 20+ years before updating their news sets, have a fondness for outsourcing news operations and controls, and a love for stopping at EDTV Widescreen instead of going all the way to full HD, they are probably not going to want to let go of controlling WHOI. And even though Nexstar & Sinclair are managed much better than Granite is today, it may NOT be in their best interest to change anything. When looking at how Granite operates, I tend to forget that those other 2 corporations are bean counters too. Too bad Peoria doesn't have somebody like Gray Broadcasting or the Quincy Newspaper company to run one of their stations.

We'll just have to see what happens. I'm expecting for everything to stay essential the same. Though there always is that worst-case scenario where WEEK could gain control of WYZZ. But unless they loose control of WHOI, I don't see that happening. I hope not anyway.

I like the actual people who comprise the local news media, but let's face it, the look of both news operations hurt my eyes after having been spoiled by watching the QC stations.

There hasn't been a lot of participation here, you realize.
As far as WYZZ goes, I think the last show I watched was "Human Target" and the last I cared about was "Babylon 5". In general I find very little on broadcast to care about at all. TV seems programmed for "not my demographic".

The one change that would be welcomed is not likely to happen, and that's the CW not cropped. The closest HD CW station has a broadcast pattern that intentionally eliminates the Peoria area from its reception.

The News? I'd take an accurate weather forecast, but that hasn't been happening lately. The closest I've found is "Intellicast dot com". When they closed the weather radar at the airport and went "NextRad" (I think they call it) our local forecasting went down the tubes.

I've got the internet and the newspaper and rarely watch TV news. Sometimes at lunch, never in the evening or at night. (and I do mean "Never" )

Has WAOE made some changes to their transmitter?

I'm back at my father's in Glasford this week and he has been in the habit of watching "It Takes a Theif" on 59-2. However, since last fall, we've been having problems getting WAOE OTA. This is the first time our attic antenna has had trouble pulling in any local channel since the digital changeover in 2009. It started with gradual cutting out and became progressively worse.

So today, I attempted to fix the problem by moving the antenna, but no matter where I turn the antenna, the older model DirecTV receiver's signal strength meter won't budge beyond 0% strength. The antenna is a 4-bow tie vertical type, hooked to an amplifier in the basement. I have pointed the antenna everywhere form due north to do east, but still, no 59.

With a little more toil & trouble than usual, I was able to get the signal on my television through an amplified indoor RCA antenna & Magnavox digital decoder, so I know there's not a signal outage, but that outdoor antenna should easily suffice. I'm just baffled as to what the problem could be.

The antenna is on the east side of the house by the attic access hole. It's attached to nearly 100' of coax to run around several obstacles. I've had a long desire to move it to the western gable edge where it would be 3' higher and further from trees. And this would allow me to run the coax in a virtually straight line and down an inside wall. Though I'm not wild about drilling a hole in the base plate and head plate, and than fishing the cable though. I've been there and it can take several hours. But as it is, all channels were fine before last fall. But since this problem with WAOE has dragged on since fall, I don't think it will get better on their end. My question is whether or not this would be worth trying.

Thanks Zaphod.

I have noticed a decline in participation here in the Peoria TV forum. However, there does still seem to be a lot of participation in the other forums. As it is, I only watch Peoria locals when I'm over here, otherwise it is almost exclusively the QC stations.

I don't really watch a whole lot of tv anymore myself, but I will from time to time. It seems like I'm on the internet more than anything else.

I know what you mean about the weather, but there's also a number of other factors that have contributed to their lackluster forecasting. And even that seems to be worse in Peoria than in other places. Speaking of radars, it would be nice if one of the Peoria stations were to buy their own live Doppler, as at least one station in all of the surrounding markets have one. Those things make a difference. But that's pipe dreams in such a poor tv market.

WAOE has significantly lower power than the rest of the stations, so atmospheric and biologic (trees) conditions will affect it the most. Tonight, everything seems to be great, even all of the QC stations as well as Springfield are good at my place.

The thing about UHF transmission is that it always get worse with time. More buildings, taller trees, more electrical interference, etc.

The CW on 19.2 is now at least in 16:9 although still in SD. I have heard that this will be in HD before the end of the year.

Yeah, we have woods less than 100' to our east and just over 100' to our north. The west is wide open for almost the entire visual horizon with the nearest patches of isolated trees & buildings being nearly a mile away. And it is about a mile to the nearest woods in the south, but that won't help with signals that come from the northeast. In 2003, We built a pole building that is corner-to-corner just a few feet northeast of the northeastern corner of our house. And my uncle build a house that was finished in May of 2012 that is less than 100' from the northwest corner of this house. Luckily, none of these 2 building additions seemed to affect our signal. It wasn't until last Fall when WAOE suddenly dropped out on the DirecTV receiver and worsened to 0% strength.

But I recently solved the problem. I just replaced the amplifier with a simple splitter and BINGO! In the Glasford area with the antenna feeding 2 TVs, we have:

100% on WMBD (the most powerful transmitter of the big 3)
93%~100% fluctuating on WEEK & WTVP
80+% on WYZZ
lower 70's% on WHOI & WAOE
WAND, WICS & WRSP want to come in from time to time, so I know they'd easily come in if we pointed the antenna south.

My guess is either the amplifier failed or the gain pot became sticky like a crackling volume control, and got bumped.

When I was a child, WYZZ BARELY came in. We'd normally watch WRSP instead. They must have increased their power some 12 years ago because reception of them was almost perfect for the last decade of their analog service. Reception of WEEK was perfect with WTVP being a close runner up with the exception of some minor ghosting & WHOI was also fairly strong, but had worse ghosting of all stations. WMBD appeared significantly snowy on many of our antennas, but was handled well by our 1981 4- antenna from when it was on it's 20' mast during dry weather, but would give us difficulty during and after the storm.

My father moved said antenna to the attic in 1998 & I replaced it's original twin-lead with coaxial cable. BIG IMPROVEMENT, but we'd all but loose WHOI's signal in the winter due to excessive ghosting and it's effect on our 1992 Zenith television. Those tvs were terrible for rolling and muting with reflected signals. The addition of the amplifier corrected all issues for nearly 15 years! But now it turns out the amplifier was causing the problem. What a switch! Now, we're going to see if the antenna can still pull all digital signals after all the greenery blooms. If so, than we will have no need for another amplifier.

But WHOI's signal is still very finicky on our other antennas, and it is some 30% weaker than WMBD, WEEK & WTVP. This I don't get, especially in comparison to WTVP. WHOI is closer to us with slightly higher power and with a slightly-taller guyed mast. This makes me think the signal must still be reflecting off of things, but I can't tell without the old analog ghosting effect we used to have.

BTW, I've decided to leave the antenna in place since all is well at the moment. There's no sense in moving it to the end of the attic where somebody has to crawl 40' just to to get to it, if it doesn't have to be. But I did stick a piece of that blue Carlon flexible conduit from the attic to the basement right next to an air pipe and I've re-routed the wire that way so it isn't draping across the garage. This is my third time of using the Carlon conduit to send antenna wire from the attic to the basement. It's one of my trade marks. LOL And since I went down beside an air pipe, it was my quickest and easiest installation. Now, if I have to move the antenna to another part of the attic, I can just grab it and run.

I just noticed even the station in Bismark (DMA 151), where A.J. Clemente was fired after swearing, started broadcasting their news in HD one year ago this month. The bigger Peoria (DMA 116) must be one of the last mid-sized markets in the country to still have not one single station broadcasting local news in HD. Absolutely ridiculous!

All about wealth. Bismarck, ND's economy is booming. Peoria...not so much.

Yeah, but that can't be true of Erie Pa, Wassau WI, Quincy & Rockford, IL. All four of those places are smaller TV DMA with at least one or more stations in HD. There's countless more examples than I have time to list tonight. Actually, better than half of all the Nexstar stations are now have HD news equipment. But in Peoria, they only have to compete with Granite Broadcasting, who has never made an HD news upgrade in house under their own management except for the Ft. Wayne hub. But still, you'd think they'd want to at least get rid of the 4:3 aspect ratio by now. I usually give Nexstar credit for going all the way instead of Granite who only cares to go half way. But still, I'm surprised Nexstar hasn't decided to at least put WMBD into digital widescreen even 3 years after WEEK did. It would be an improvement as 4:3 is very annoying on many flat panels. Since WMBD's sister station, WCIA, is doing HD newscasts now, I keep thinking WMBD is right around the corner. But than again, I can't get any responses from them, so they must not be any plans. At least WEEK management talks, even though they've fed me lies and half truths. LOL

On the opposite side of the coin, Granite has a few stations in larger markets such as Fresno. I'm sure there's a couple of million to be found in Fresno for Granite to upgrade that station's newscast to HD. But as of now, the only station Granite has ever upgraded to HD on their own is their Ft. Wayne stations (last year), and they were dead last in that area. They bought another station with existing HD news equipment & a third station broadcasts their news in HD because they closed down that station's newsroom and outsourced the news to a hub far away.

So I've been finding it has little to do with local DMA economy and more to do with the owner.