Salt Lake City, UT - HDTV - Page 62

No static or pop.

Due to their extreme lip sync problem, I have to resort to watching my HD TiVo but listening to my SD TiVo in order to prevent the headache, I can get them synced together pretty darn good, if I do say so myself.

I do switch over every so often and listen to the HD TiVo to see if the audio has magically synced itself up, but no dice.

I did notice that they were only in 2.0 digital instead of their normal 5.0, I've never seen 5.1 on KUCW.
This was a week ago's Smallville and Supernatural.
Maybe they've switched back to 5.0 this past week, and it's the one thats popping?


Jerry

The first FOX NFL game has been SD for most of the 3rd quarter and all of the 4th quarter so far. I am viewing OTA. There has been no mention of this on the general programming thread so it looks like someone is asleep at the wheel or there are some issues at the local station. I hope this is resolved before the Giants game.

Any one else seeing this?

I don't watch football so I wasn't watching FOX. I turned to fox, and the football game that is on right now is in HD. I'm getting it through Comcast and not over the air.

Thank you. Further investigating my OTA automatically switched from 13-2 to 13-1 and 13-2 disappeared from my lineup. A rescan brought it back up. All is well with FOX.

I'm just using it for OTA, off antenna.
Same with my HR10-250, mainly OTA except for the occasional HBO-HD, SHO-HD or TNT-HD program.

No plans on dumping DirecTV, at least while my R10 and HR10 are chugging along happily.
Once they die, then perhaps I'll get another S3 and give Comcast a try.

If your planning on using the S3 for primarily HD content, then I'd highly recommend getting a bigger hard drive, 30 hours vanishes quite rapidly.
I got a 500 gig from Weaknees and installed it before I even powered up the S3.
I have the original 250gig sitting on a shelf as a backup, 60 hours seems like just enough.


Jerry

Well, did everybody have a good Christmas (must'a been busy, no action on this thread for a while)?

Noticed "Annenberg" is gone from KUEN-DT 9-2.
"Worship" on KUPX-DT 16-3 seems to have a bad satellite receiver lately. Can't get hold of anyone there to fix it.
Is KUCW-DT going to change their call sign on their PSIP, from KUWB-DT to KUCW?
Is KUED-DT going to change theirs, on 7-3, from "7Kids" to "7Plus", or whatever their newsletter is calling it now?

Anyone catch the MoTab specials on PBS-HD....other than Kevin, who I saw posted on another thread?

Over the holiday week, and weekend, we got our MATV system upgraded....we now have all ten DTV channels available in our (KSL) building MATV system. Now, hopefully, our employees and guests can play a bit, and learn a little about Digital TV. Our marketing people have some budget to start doing some "2-17-09" promotion in 2007, so we could use some ideas.

Looks like the applications for LD (low-power digital "companion channels") are starting to go thru at the FCC. Many areas should start to see DTV translators in the coming months...although many sites are already on air as boosters and experimental licenses.
Unfortunately, the Saint George area looks "iffy" for KSL. The option may be to "flash-cut" to DTV down there, since there seems to be a lack of channel availability.

Jumped into the HDTV arena. I live in Park City, Prospector part of town and using a few different types of antenna's I have only been able to pick up 2 OTA HD channels. NBC and FOX. I have on order a panel UHF antenna and a preamp to see if I can get any other stations. Thing is I have a coworker that lives in Kamas and he gets 7-8 HDTV OTA signals. I did read through this BAT and it looks like not many up here are doing OTA and that most of the people that I know that are running HDTV are doing so through the cable and sat companies. I know that I can get 5 HDTV stations using the QAM tuner through cable but I am not a fan of Comcast because of issues I had years ago with them. I use Direct TV now with an SD DVR but after reading this thread it seems that Direct is skimping the locals on the signals. I was blown away when I hooked this tv up and pulled in The Tonight Show on NBC last week in HDTV and want to thank the two stations that I do get. Is this all the better I can expect living in Park City for OTA HDTV? Any others have any more luck then what I have been able to get? Thanks for any help.

FWIW I have tried indoor "HDTV" antennas (which sucked), outdoor UHF HDTV antennas, rabbit ear cheap o antenna that actually picked up the most channels and I have also put an antenna into the attic which worked better then the outdoor as I would guess as it was 30 feet off the ground. Guess I will post back after I get the antenna and preamp next week.

DirecTv seems to be listening. Over the past couple of weeks they have made big improvements in their Salt Lake MP4 feeds to where its hard to tell the difference between OTA and the satellite feed. I watched the NFL games yesterday on OTA and D*, switching back and forth, and it was hard to tell the difference with almost all of the MP4 compression problems gone. Only trouble now is they don't run KUED which has a lot of really impressive HD content. If you could just get an antenna that picks up KUED, the commercial stations will be fine off of D*

Does anyone else watch Heroes on KSL HD? When there is motion, like someone walking, I see a terible blurry image. It is seen in watching the face when it is moving. I'm using Comcast - I've tried both the QAM TV tuner and the set top box and it does it on both. Is this normal for KSL? I don't think it is the TV because I've watched other channels and I don't see this at all - for example, I watched Discovery Atlas on Discovery HD today and it looked great. I also see this a little on Leno. (Leno and Heroes are the only two shows I watch on NBC.)

Edit: Looks like the blurry motion is on other locals also. However, I do think it is worse on KSL than any other channel. Why does Discovery HD look better than most of the other channels?

Edit 2: I'm thinking more like it might be the TV. I changed the cable box to output 720p and I think it does look a little better. Hard to tell because only Conan is on right now and there isn't that much motion. I'll see if it looks any better when I watch Ghost Whisperer and Numb3rs on friday. Sorry for asking probably a stupid question - I just got the HDTV a little over a month ago so I'm still kind of new to this.

Edit 3: Okay. I had an amp on the cable line for a while because I used to have low signal - the line is split a lot. However, in testing today I took the amp off and it looks like the signal is stronger now because everything is fine without it. CBS HD looked great (CSI was on). FOX also looked good, but it was just football on so I don't know how it would look with a TV show. I wasn't able to check ABC because no HD was on when I was testing it. NBC still has a blurry picture in motion scenes, but it looks better than before. The blurry is reduced some since taking the amp off.

Do you have an LCD television? If you do, it is probably the TV. Do a Google search and you'll see all kinds of reviews with people complaining about motion blurring even with 8ms response times. You shouldn't be having this problem if you have a newer plasma screen. As for the Discovery HD channel, a majority of their shows don't have a lot of fast motion to cause the blurring effects.

It is an LCD. It could be motion blur, but on one channel? There was no blur on CSI last night on CBS. I mostly just see it on NBC. Since taking the amp off the line the blur reduced a little bit, so I'm thinking it is somewhere in NBC's signal. Is this not logical?

CBS and NBC broadcast at 1080i. ABC and FOX broadcast at 720p. ABC can have it's subchannels because it uses less bandwidth at 720p. CBS doesn't have any subchannels so all the bandwidth is to the HD channel. NBC has the wheather subchannel so it takes some bandwidth away from the 1080i. So, is it possible that the blurring is because of the lower bandwidth? I also notice the blurring on backup dvds that I have used dvdshrink on to get it to fit on a single side. Therefore, it makes me think that when there isn't enough bandwidth, stuff gets blurry.

Edit: I think NBC looks a little better tonight. I wish I had an antenna; I'd like to see if there is any difference OTA.

I have done comparisons between cable and OTA (not recently, probably a year ago or so). I was not able to see any difference between comcast and OTA. Another poster who I believe worked for Comcast claimed that they were the same (there were no comcast bandwidth limits imposed). From reading other forums it appears comcast does do that in some markets, but not all.

I rarely watch NBC, other then their football broadcasts. They are not near the quality of the other networks games. In the case of the football broadcasts it appears it may be due to the source quality, but I don't think the weather subchannel is helping any either. I see macroblocking and motion blur regardless of cable or OTA, FWIW.

I found the same issues with NBC.

I was using OTA HD for Sunday Night Football and saw the same motion issues... so I switched to Mpeg4 with DTV and the signal is identical. I will try and check out an HD NBC broadcast in Vegas to see if it is the same issue there...... I don't know if the problem is from the NBC source or if it is something that the local broadcaster is doing.... as DTV uses the locals now for Mpeg4 it is exactly the same as what I was seeing OTA.

I have the DB4 antenna from Antennasdirect, I have it mounted in my attic. I went from a bouncy 50% signal, up to about 90%. Its a great antenna, and I have had a solid signal since the day I installed it. Given your distance, you may consider the DB8

Signal Loss?
Has anyone noticed a reduction in the strength of the off-air signals in the past few days?
Within the past couple of days I have lost all of the local off-air channels except for 5-1 (which I receive at about 50% with pixelization).
I wanted to know if anyone else is experiencing this problem before I get up on the roof to see if I have a problem.

I am right in downtown but I have not noticed any drop in signal with OTA channels.

The only strange thing I have seen out of the ordinary is FOX's digital channel will drop off my channel list every now and then (monday being the lastest). A rescan will bring it back.

No drop in OTA signals here.

I've recently moved into a new home in South Utah County, a bit farther from the digital transmitters. Now I'm 49.2 miles from Farnsworth Peak. I've been especially vigilant over the past few weeks; I normally check the signal levels of the various channels several times over the course of any given evening to make sure all is well, especially with the recent snow storms. And all has been well.

I've seen nothing unusual in the least, other than when my antenna in the attic fell over because it wasn't anchored properly. Even then, the signal level was still acceptable, just not as high as previously. I'm still amazed that I seem to have flawless reception at this distance with such a small antenna...and mounted in the attic to boot.

Does anyone here know if Dish has any plans to add ABC to their HD line up? It's hard to get any information from them. Sure would be nice as I can't get any OTA HD channels where I'm at in the southern end of the state..

Are you sure you can't get any OTA?
I looked at your older postings, but couldn't figure out exactly where you are located, but be aware that there are numerous DTV translators on the air in Utah, where most of the development of low-power DTV was done.

Try scanning with your UHF antenna (a good, outdoor one) pointed at the normal analog translator site for your town. Then, if you have even marginal reception of another site, repoint there and give that a try. Many people in Southern Utah are getting some of the SLC DTV stations via experimental translators.

KUTV HD is on channel 9 in St George, you'd need a VHF antenna to get it.


Jerry

kenglish,
I am located in the Washington Terrace/Riverdale area outside of Ogden. This signal loss is a recent occurence. Normally I am able to get all local off-air channels at a good signal strength with no signal loss.
I will try to re-scan the off-air channels on both HD Receivers to see if that works before I get on the roof to check alignment and connections at the antenna.

I live in west valley and I have Dish Network and I get my local HD channels via sattelite but the quality is not good. I have tried many OTA antenna's and none of them can pick up a good signal in my basement...now it's not like I live in a bunker or anything my basement is half above ground. Is there a good indoor antenna that I could get?

Something that a viewer recently brought up:

If you previously deleted channel 5-1 from your channel list (due to the fact that it was the SD channel, and not in HD), you will need to undelete it, to get 5-1 to show up again in HD.

Glad they thought of that .

You should get great signal that close to the mountain.
Unless you are in Magna, then you might be too close and the signals are going over your head.

You do realize you need a UHF antenna to get the HD channels, right?


Jerry

Ken,

Crossing Jordan tonight on 5-1 was in black box (all around) and CC started very garbled. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Tom

Tibber,
I was just trying to figure out what the heck that format was... it is not 16:9, it is not 4:3 it is cropped on top, bottom, left and right... I use a samsung SIRT451, OTA, in bountiful.. Any idea what that weird cropped format is? Or is that what you are asking?

kg.

I wonder if it were a letterbox inside a pillar box, ie a letterboxed SD feed inside a widescreen HD signal.

And that's part of what I'm asking.

Cheers,
Tom

Tibber I think that you have it right... I do think it is a letterbox image, inside of a 4:3 pillar box format. I noticed again last night while the wife was watching Wife Swap. And they cut back forth from interviewing people (which they do in letterbox).

Thanks for the help.
kg.

NBC sends most of it's prime time shows in 16:9 HDTV, and a letterboxed SDTV version for analog channels.

If something happens to our HD feed, such as a recording problem, or some network change (like schedule overruns on sports or live events) that results in different programming on the SD and HD networks, we upconvert that same letterboxed SD feed to our HD channel. It drives us nuts, too, but that's all we sometimes have.

Just found out:
Sunday night's problem was due to the HDTV Backup Switcher (the "OMG! Houston, we have a problem!" switcher that keeps something on the air) locking up and putting the SDTV signal on the HD air. Resetting the whole system solved it.