Albuquerque, NM - HDTV - Page 241

Probably the automated news setup. It took a dump recently (sometime within the last 2 weeks) on the 10pm news and the front half or so of the newscast was frontloaded with commercials or the weather segment and the back half had the news/sports when they got the system working.

Time to teach people contingency plans on how to manually run a switcher and how to play out files from another computer to on-the-air because it appears their automated setup isn't reliable.

I'm hoping it's KOB 4.1 and NBC PLUS/Universal Sports timeshare on 4.2 and that THIS TV is an accident. After weatherplus/Local weather channel, I think weather only channels are overrated. I have the internet for quick access to free NWS radar images/loops and I haven't found myself often having to use 4.2 for radar because of my internet availability.

I hope KOAT adds 7.3 and makes it ABC News Now (it'd be much easier to tune/watch by punching in 7.3 on my remote than having to move a satellite dish over to it when I'm bored and looking for something to watch).

No OTA station is carrying ABC NewsNow nor has one in the last five years and I'm reasonably sure it's no longer available for that purpose.

Hubbard does not own any Universal Sports affiliates but does own a This TV affiliate, so I think This TV is more likely.

And there is also no "NBC News" station forthcoming; if there was, there would have been some type of announcement and it would likely be in almost direct competition with MSNBC. "NBC Plus" was the name given to the rebranded NBC WeatherPlus in the NBC O&O markets until the "Nonstop" channels were launched.

- Trip

Multi-casting degrades the quality of the primary channel, and is therefore something to be stopped.

+1 !! I agree.
Jr

WTAE Pittsburgh used to carry an AccuWeather subchannel, but dropped AccuWeather in favor of This TV almost two years ago...

And another Hearst station, WISN-DT Milwaukee, never had a subchannel thus far...

Hearst and DirecTV have hammered out a retrans deal - KOAT won't be going dark on DirecTV on Jan 1st.

It's too bad - I was hoping for at least a day outage so you could see all those people whining about losing KOAT when it's as simple in a lot of areas of the state to just use an antenna to get it back.

Grinch wannabe?

OTA with an outdoor ant. gives the best picture quality anyway. That's how my tivo gets all the locals.
JR

I caught a promo spot on KOB's weather channel yesterday for This TV. Supposed to start on 7 Feb. No indication of whether it will replace the weather channel or be a new sub-channel.

Banner ads on KOB.COM state the same thing. The link on the banner ad goes to the THIS TV webpage created for KOB, so no further info either on if it's going to be 4.2 or 4.3 or whatever and if Local Weather Channel goes away or changes to another multicast channel position.

Hey, congratulations on getting This TV as well; it's one of my all-time favorite channels on antenna! This TV plays some classic shows (Highway Patrol, Sea Hunt, Patty Duke, and Mister Ed, but you'll need to get up really early for these shows), MGM library titles (Turner titles excluded), and surprisingly, old DiC cartoons (like Inspector Gadget)! While not all the movies on This TV are the best, I still enjoy watching them, because This TV (like many other subchannels) reminds me of 80s/90s cable TV, but it's free!

I hear that Denver is getting This TV on KWGN (yes, that's KWGN) 2-2. See my reply in the "Denver, CO - OTA" forum; it's similar to what I wrote here.

And have fun with your new channel!

I know that the post is like 6 weeks old, but let me say something here:

Too bad you're fussing about not having AccuWeather; I live in the Dallas/Fort Worth area (#5 DMA) and I wish we had AccuWeather on one of our local stations! My family still has cable and is sick of that "storm story" garbage the "Weather" Channel plays! As for me, I prefer today's antenna over today's cable (although the 70s-early 2000s cable was so much better), and like what antenna offers!

As for the AccuWeather-Spanish-Hearst fiasco, the ABC station in West Palm Beach, Florida, had their AW replaced with Estrella TV (that's the Spanish station Hearst has in four markets including your KOAT station). WKCF (sister to WESH) in Orlando has Estrella as well but not as an AccuWeather replacement. Where I live, Estrella is the primary channel, not a subchannel!

KOB posted an article on their website Wednesday with further info about THIS TV.

http://www.kob.com/article/stories/s1954487.shtml

In summary, it will appear on the -2 channel of KOB, KOBR, KOBF in place of Local Weather Channel and KOB is advising those that still want the content of the Local Weather Channel to log onto KOB.COM for that.

As for LWC or Accuweather, I'm fine not having them anymore starting next week. I find I get the best bang for my weather needs with the free info from the NWS (NWS unadulterated radar pages combined with the Albuquerque NWS office page for forecasts, warnings, local observations and water vapor sat images).

I wonder if the movies will be aired in HD?

This TV is SD.

- Trip

Since it's on a digital station 4-2, isn't it possible to broadcast in HD? Or is all the bandwidth dedicated to 4-1, therefore all of the programming in 4-2 has to be in SD?

Some stations do dual HD, but the results are mixed. Most people think it looks terrible (I'm one of them). http://www.rabbitears.info/oddsanden...request=dualhd

But it's irrelevant in this case, since This TV is not available in HD.

- Trip

I don't watch anything in SD anymore (I even watch the local news on 13.1 because it's the only HD local news) so I won't be watching 4.2.

It's the possibility of multiple HD streams that makes me wish H264 was added into the spec (or at least have TV's easily upgradable to add that codec in case the spec is revised in order to keep from having to buy new TV's).

4-5 sweet streams of HD could fit in a terrestrial TV signal using H264. MPEG2 is just too much of a bandwidth hog for trying to squeeze more than 1 HD stream in a single terrestrial digital channel.

EDIT: Yes, THIS TV is not available in HD, but I bet it might be if the spec was changed to H264 to allow for multiple good HD channels in one terrestrial signal. As it stands now, THIS, ME, Antenna, COOLTV, TUFF, RTV are primarily meant to be secondary channels and thus will stay in SD-resolution for the forseeable future. Only RTV has one "HD" channel that I am aware of and that is probably because some mom and pop station is using it for their HD channel as a primary RTV affiliate, not because they are trying to squeeze two HD channels into one terrestrial mux.

Be careful what you wish for. 4 streams per ATSC channel would be about 5mbps per stream. Dish Network sends out channels at about 5mbps h.264 and their picture quality is complete garbage. Its so bad I'm cancelling my service in a few months when my contract expires. I barely even watch TV on Dish except for live sports (which are complete garbage picture quality wise), and a bit of news. TV shows I wait for BD or DVD.

To me, 19mbps barely cuts it for one 1080i channel with MPEG-2 encoding, and could probably support 2 channels with h.264 at acceptable picture quality.

Also, the ATSC spec actually already has been revised to support h.264. However, existing TV tuners won't support it. More than just a few years ago, the processing power necessary to decode h.264 would've been very cost prohibitive, thats why MPEG-2 remained the standard so long (or one reason). Also, I believe, few if any cable boxes out there support h.264. So a move from MPEG-2 to h.264 as the code would require most, if not all, over the air viewers to acquire a box, AND all cable companies to replace their existing rental boxes with new ones. It ain't happening any time soon.

I don't know if it's just my situation but starting yesterday (2/7/11), I can't get 13.1 on my TV connected to Comcast cable directly. I have no cable box on this TV and I tried re-scanning the stations and still no 13.1. I'm getting it fine on my TiVo box connected to Comcast just not on the TV connected directly to the cable. Anyone know if they may have changed something?

Don't you need cable cards to get the comcast channels now that they went all digital?
JR

Yes, according to Comcast, I need some cable boxes even though all of the TVs connected directly to cable have digital tuners. It doesn't make sense to me but I ordered 3 of those boxes (they say about the size of your hand) that I will connect to the cable and TV to see if 13.1 comes back. They say there is no charge for these boxes.

You do NOT need a set top box to receive FOX, ABC, NBC, or CBS in High Def. These stations are on the cable in what's known as "Clear QAM" (not scrambled). You will no doubt be totally disappointed with the free set top box and DTAs (Digital Terminal Adapters) that Comcast is giving to subscribers of BASIC and Extended Basic Services.

The free stuff they are giving away simply gives you the old analog 2 through 75, now scrambled, in Standard Definition on a channel 3 or 4 output from the boxes. NO COMPONENT or COMPOSITE VIDEO out.

My gripe is that their boxes do not have a bypass mode so that my digital-ready tv can scan the clear QAM stations. Fortunately, my Samsung also has an over-the-air tuner so that's what I use for HD. The digital tv in the master bedroom is going to be stuck with a lousy SD signal stretched to fill up a 16x9 screen. Yuk!

Just for grins the other day, I connected an old analog tv set to the cable to see what was left of analog signals. The only thing remaining was a color-bar pattern on Channels 3 and 75!!! Zero, zip, nada left of analog signals!

Also gone is the really nifty tv guide on screen (TVGOS). Comcast was letting this through on KNME's old Channel 5 SD. Alas, it's gone and they don't plan on putting TVGOS on their cable anywhere. A technician flatly told me on the phone, "Why should they do that when they provide an interactive tv guide!" What's puzzling to me is why advertisers would continue to pay Rovi (<=company that now owns TVGOS) and hence PBS to carry ads that no one can longer see??? Those small, unobtrusive ads is what pays for the TVGOS service.

I'm drafting yet another letter to the FCC for all the good it will do. The digital transition was not supposed to result in higher cable tv charges, but if you want HD you will have to subscribe to a higher tier ($) and have equipment rental fees to boot! Time to look at Dish or Direct I suppose.

As for CBS 13.1 coming and going. This is another problem that has been going on ever since the 1st round of the digital transition. Apparently, in two different markets, Albuquerque and Portland, there has been an ongoing battle between Comcast and CBS over the carrying of CBS's signal (over $).

Now that Comcast has purchased NBC (Channel 4/4.1) does anyone think this will ever be resolved? :-(

As far as 13.1 disappearing, the same thing happens to me every so often on one of my digital-tuner TV's. It doesn't do it to other channels I watch, just 13.1. I rescan and 13 locks again. My theory is that Comcast does something on purpose to frustrate us and make us get another cable box to squeeze a little more $$ from us. They don't like customers with 1 box when they should have 2 or 3. They don't like that I have "their" cable plugged into my TV and getting HD channels (granted, locals only) free. "HD isn't free. You need us to get your local channels."