Salt Lake City, UT - HDTV - Page 3

Ken,

My HDTivo guide info for channel 5-2 shows that the opening ceremonies will not be in HD? Since KSL is not an owned and operated NBC affiliate, we will not be getting the NBC direct feeds. Please tell me that the prime-time programming for the Olympics will be in HD...

Trent-

Tladle,

Here is the information

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=432732

O&O only matters for satellite, does not apply to OTA.

I wouldn't put a lot of stock in what your HDTiVo says, mine has been wrong several times in the past.

Ken,
I have a question regarding waivers from a local affiliate of NBC allowing me to get NBC-HD from Direct TV. I have called Direct TV to subscribe to Channel 84 which they indicate is going to be providing the Olympic HD coverage but they said that I needed a waiver from the local affiliate of NBC which would be KSL. They also told me that it was unlikely that I would be granted a waiver from KSL and that I would be unable to ever get any NBC channels (Bravo-HD, USA, etc.) unless KSL released the waiver.

Any help or information you or anyone else could give me would be appreciated.

Well, all I can say is that the HD broadcast has been stunning so far. (But MAN does it take up a TON of disk space.) I have to say I'm sick of the Sony commercial.

I'm glad to see the PSIP guide info from KSL. Thanks Ken et al for getting things on your end the way they are. I'm sure we have no idea what's gone into it. (Other than long days, long nights, you know, the usual ).

thanks for your reply to my issues with the Terk TV 36, I will try and move it around a little for the time being. I plan on adding D* HDTV package in the Fall for Foootball season and plan on having them install the Sensar II GS 2000A on the rooftop for 50 bucks. I might try selling my Terk for a reasonable price and try the channel master in the attic at a later date.

KEnglish,

I know what the answer will be but I HAVE to ask...

Can you sneak into the encoder settings menu and steal some bitrate allocation from all of the USDTV subchannels as well as 5-1

Its too bad such an important event and such a good feed has to get so trashed up due to starvation.

Swimming is the biggest sufferer (but it probably looks pixellated at any bitrate), but even opening ceremonies suffered a bunch.

Anyway, I had to ask.

Thanks Ken!

-Jon

USDTV went away two weeks ago. 300K of their BW went to SDTV, 3M went to the HDTV.
And, now that we aren't carrying a "99" channel, EPG works without crashing the Samsung STBs.

Ken

Just wanted to say Thanks for the hard work on getting the frame synchronizer working. The Olympic coverage is AWESOME.

Joe

Anyone else's quality of picture poor for Olympic coverage? Its strange, because sometimes the picture is great, and other times, not so much. The beginning part of the opening ceremonies (water, dancing, etc) were great - then when they cut to show the countries and athletes entering the arena, it was poor with a lot of interference and haze, then they'd cut back to Couric and Lauer and the picture would great. Different cameras making the difference? The picture quality during the coverage of events is poor, anyone else? My other channels are fantastic. Thanks. Curious....

i noticed that too. i thought it must be my tv or something. i especially noticed it during the opening ceremonies when they would show the athletes' faces. i'm not sure what it's called, but it looked like their faces were "smudged" almost, not crystal clear like hdtv usually is. i've noticed the same thing w/ the coverage of the swimming events. the swimmers' skin has the same "smudging" effect.

I think the 'faceless' faces are a symptom of bitrate starvation. Some of the newer encoders are smart enough to start 'fuzzing out' details across the whole imge to avoid excessive pixellation. The stadium scenes with all of the people are *very* hard to fit in HD bitrates because of the amount of detail and motion.

-Jon

I need a bit of antenna help! I live in Perry which is about 55-60 miles north of the transmitters and just picked up a Samsung 360 receiver with a Terk HDTVi indoor antenna (looks very similar to the Zenith Silver Sensor). The antenna is on top of my TV which is located on ground level with no buildings or trees to block the signal south.
I mapped my stations and can get just about everything perfectly except 13-1, 2 and 14-1 which are very weak and will only sometimes show a signal then pixelate and freezes. I'm wondering what other indoor antennas may work for me so that I can also pick up these stations? I saw an RCA model at Wal-Mart last night that is amplified up to 45dB for about $25 and was wondering if this is worth trying or if you guys have other ideas?
Thanks!

You can't amplify what you aren't receiving...

Meaning, sometimes, you just need a better antenna or you need to place the antenna in a more favorable spot (eg. attic or by a window). It sounds like you're about where I was with my setup. My silver sensor got everything but Fox (13) on top of the set. I was going to get a CM 4228 antenna because that seemed to be VERY highly recommended in the HW forum. However, I moved the Silver Sensor next to a window and suddenly got Fox. So, now, the SS is mounted in the attic getting everything swimmingly.

My advice: Skip the amplified antenna altogether unless you NEED amplification. The one thing that I didn't know is that amplification is really only needed to compensate for long cable runs from the antenna to the STB. Try moving the SS-like antenna you have around. If not, you might want to look at the 4228 in the attic or on the roof. Obviously the roof is the best option. The best advice however might just be to poke around in the HDTV HW section.

I live in Tremonton and have the Channel Master 4228. I am able to pick up everything great, including 13 and 14.

Hmm, unfortunately I cant really place the antenna by a window and I REALLY dont want a large rooftop antenna such as the 4228. Of course, if it comes down to it I might have to end up going that route but would like to go indoor type if at all possible.
Anybody tried the Radio Shack 15-1880?

So...anyone else finding the HD Olympic coverage picture quality as crappy as I do? Everyone is praising the coverage available in HD to the SLC valley, but is anyone's picture really much better than standard def? I've got a great 5-1 signal strenth, with a picture barely worth mentioning(relative to what real HD should look like). ??

I haven't been watching much of the Olympics in HD because I would rather watch more current events in SD than the day old HD coverage.
The HD that I have watched is very good. It is much better than the SD picture.

Jeff

I've noticed the HD broadcast quality to be quite good but have been watching more SD material since it is same day coverage.

On my previous topic....the indoor antenna. I went to Radio Shack last night and picked up their 15-1880 and can now pick up 13-1, 2 and 14.1 where I couldnt before so I'll be returning the Terk later this week. I'm still not sure if I'm getting a strong enough signal where I wont get any drop outs in bad weather but I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Well, I dumped Comcast because I had a overdue payment of $21. Well, actually they dumped me, but I did not want to angrue with them. Comcast sucks. No more HD for me for a while, no big deal.

The HD should be coming in on 5-2. 5-1 is there SD digital feed. The HD looks really good on my end. Also remember it is a digital signal, so even if you have a less than perfect signal, the picture quality isn't diminished.


Any word on KUWB getting HD up and going? someone said they were gettting the equipment in soon.

OK, I'm retarded. I was so irritated by the picture quality, I didn't realize 5-1 wasn't the HD feed. Thanks tibor! So maybe if someone has a second - I'm confused as to what all the differnt channels are - 5, 5-1, 5-2, 5-3, 4-1, 4-2, etc. Is all HD broadcasting OTA done on x-2 channels (4-2, 2-2, 5-2, etc)? I'm confused. Thanks if you have a minute.

The Olympic coverage is great (pretty great) now. Thanks a ton. The HD coverage today is as we would have seen it yesterday SD? 1 day delay?

Thanks!

Nope. NBC has opted to basically have an "HD network" for the duration of the Olympics. There may or may not be a correlation between what you see on 5-1 24 hours prior (with the notable exception of that stupid Sony commercial), but yes, they are delaying things 24 hours.

As to channels in SLC. That's up to the individual broadcaster. KUTV, KUED, KBYU, KSL, KSTU and KTVX do it differently. (Oddly enough, KSL and KSTU - 5 and 13, FOX and KSL - are the most similar.)
2-1 CBS in HD (1080i) when available, SD the rest
4-1 ABC in HD (720p) when available, SD the rest
4-2 Some random outdoor shot from their station with radio on audio
5-1 NBC in SD
5-2 NBC in HD (1080i) when available, NBC in SD, but psuedo wide-screen when no HD available, or when they edit the content
7-1 KUED/PBS broadcast
7-2 PBS HD (1080i) loop
7-3 PBS Kids (I think)
9-1 and 9-2 educational "stuff" I never really watch in SD
11-1 KBYU HD (1080i) that comes on once in a blue moon now adays through next Winter semester.
11-2 KBYU SD
11-3 BYU TV SD
11-4 and 11-5 PBS kids and other PBS/KBYU "stuff" in SD. These go away when KBYU broadcasts HD
13-1 Fox SD (480i)
13-2 Fox SD (480p) This channel supports widescreen broadcasts and will have Fox HD soon (720p)
14-1 KJZZ SD
16-1 - 16-4 PAX "stuff" which seems to have gone dark recently (at least for me) I never really watched it though
30-1 KUWB in SD. You will (rumor has it) see WB/HD stuff sometime soon, but as far as I know, we don't know how the HD will be handled exactly.

If I missed anything, feel free to correct me. I'm not near my TV (or Utah for that matter ) at the moment, so that's from memory.

Oh, and any 99-x channels are the USDTV crap that you can ignore.

To Al Schultz at Fox 13.....

Any news on increased signal strength for FOX13? Last time I heard something, it was supposed to be increased sometime in 2004? I still have difficulty maintaining a solid signal strength in Clearfield. I usually hover around 45 with drops below on nights like tonight (frustrating) resulting in signal breakups.

Any news? The HD is starting soon and I'm nervous!

Michael.

I understand that 720p is better for sports or other fast action, which is why ABC went that route. It's a little hard to compare apples to apples on this issue, but my anecdotal experience suggests that sports indeed look better on ABC.

I'm assuming that your DLP has a native format of 720p, which means you may be seeing some conversion artifacts as your projector or video card converts the image from 1080i to 720p.

This may also explain why ABC looks better on my 720p DLP projector because the ABC broadcast is in the projector's native format.

While I agree that 720p will likely be better for sports in general, splashes (or water turbulance) is a killer for MPEG, as is flash-bulbs.

Hopefully someday soon (since we are stuck with ATSC for some time) the encoders will get better at 'helping' the MPEG out by intelligently smoothing some of the difficult stuff out while not killing the perceived quality (much like MP3 is capable of trhowing out quite a bit that our ears don't hear so well while still retaining resonable audio quality).

-Jon

Has anyone else noticed this?

As I was scanning through the channels the other day I landed on FOX 13 (channel 13-2) and was surprised to see that my guide indicated that there several programs that indicated that they where HD (by this I mean there was an HD logo listed next to the program). This is the first time that I have noticed this in relation to FOX-13. I switched it to the program that indicated it was HD and noticed that the sound was also randomly switching to dolby digital 5.1. I was wondering if our local FOX affiliate is doing the testing for the big switch to true HD in September.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Also last night on KSL (NBC) I was watching the Olympics on 5-2 and the sound was all messed up. The first thing I noticed was that it wasn't in dolby digital 5.1. The second thing was that all I could hear was the crowd noise and not the announcers.

Any comments or help would be appreciated.

I didnt watch 5-2 or 13 last night, but I noticed earlier in the week that 5-2 was in Dolby digital 2.0 and not 5.1. I'm not sure if that was the only night it was 2.0 or not though as it was the only time I turned on the surround.

Yes, last night's Olympic coverage was a bit messed up. I kinda liked not hearing the dribble of the announcers. This seemed to happen after the men's pole vault coverage and the first 5K heat. They also had trouble going to and coming back from commerical breaks.

Check out this thread about Fox HD http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=438983

Last time I spoke with the Fox enginnering guys, around the All Star game, they said they would be up and running HD for the start of football season. I did notice a bug on Fox last night while flipping around. Not sure if it's the one referred to in the above thread though.

NBC had trouble with their HD feed from Athens on Thursday night. The interruptions caused our encoders to drop back to Stereo mode, which was actually the L/R front channels only. It was manually set back to stereo on Friday morning.

I have switched it back to 5.1 now.