Reno, NV - HDTV - Page 3

Anyone notice lately on KRNV that the commercials are a LOT louder than the shows?

Closed captioning for KTVN is now working.

I live in Carson Valley and also have the LG-LST 3510A, I have a direct view of Slide Mt. So I'm able to get HD ABC, CBS, NBC. The WB station, which also on Slide Mt, is only @ 500w, and can't pull it in, until they erect their new antenna.
Fox HD is transmitting from Peavine Mt, so I can't get it either because Slide Mt is in the direct path. They too, are suppose to be putting an antenna on Slide.
I think that the PBS station has an antenna on the mountain at the north end of Carson City, but Hot Springs Mt is in between there and my house, so I don't get it either.

Where did you hear this? Do you know the planned frequency/power?

Nice to see Fox Reno got their act together and made the manual switch from SD to HD on American Idol (5 minutes into the program). The program had been in SD the last four weeks. I also talked to the station and got the same information that jerryhb mentioned-the switch from SD to HD from the Fox network was being done manually. I noticed the 5.1 DD mix was terrible last night. The singers could hardly be heard from the center channel and the background singers overpowered them. They need a new sound engineer.

Back in Nov I called both channel 11(fox) and channel 27(wb). I both cases, I talked to the engineer. The guy at 11 said they were waiting FCC approval to put a digital translator on Slide. The guy at 27 told me that their current digital tower is only to get compliant, thus only 500w, until late spring/early summer, when they can get up to Slide to erect their full power antenna.

Commercials are always louder, to get your attention. Channel 8(ABC) local commercials, during the football season, were way off the charts. Just about blow my ears out. Now their volume is less than the rest.

Over 20 years ago, in LV, I complained about the commercials being too loud, on one of the local stations. I was told that commercials and shows were at the same volume, and it was my imagination. I told them ********. The audio signal bars on my beta hifi would jump way up when a commercial came on.

Has anyone else been having troubles with Cinemax HD on Charter? I have no sound on the SD channels and the HD ones freeze continuously but the audio stays perfect.

I know they're usually louder, but it seems to me the commercials on KRNV lately are louder than usual. They have me reaching for the volume control which I never felt the need to before. Could just be my imagination though...

It's not just you. The walls rattle at our place when the commercials hit. If you call and ask they just deny it though. They told me it was my imagination because everything is the same volume which is a load of crap. The only thing I can think of is that the audio for the commercials is compressed almost like a "night" DSP mode which would basicaly be amplifying some frequencies and make the whole thing seem to be louder. Just a really far fetched guess though.

Received mailing from Charter, they are adding Discovery and TNT effective 5/3 for 6.99/mo to the HD pack. Also the CSR I spoke to had no idea about 3.2 rollout for the Moxi.

They're also adding Starz HD on 780 (reno). I didn't see it in the mailing so I thought I'd mention it.

Anyone on Charter notice audio/video sync problem on KOLO HD? I called KOLO and they said the OTA and feed to Charter were good and I stopped by Charter in Fallon and told them and they were going to call the head end to reset their receiver. They also did not know about TNT or Disc. HD but knew about price increase!! Another also Moxi S/W 3.2 supposedly in June but I have heard many dates.

My HK 635 receiver has an A/V sync control, I haven't had to use it yet. But a year or so ago I wish I had it then, when I had a sync problem on the sat.

Charter may have HD channels in Reno, but they don't even have a schedule as to when they will have any HD channels in Carson Valley.

But C-band rules for both HD and SD.

The Carson Valley rollout is supposed to be by June 1st according to the local and national office. Of course Charter sucks at meeting their own deadlines so this could change. I've kind of found a workaround for dealing with Charter.

The worst part is that most of their employees don't even know what all the "holes" on the back of the STB are for let alone how to use them. You have to keep confusing them (politely) until they get a supervisor. (Bring up the firewire ports or say IEEE 1394 and that will usually get the ball rolling nicely) The supervisor will try to tell you that you are wrong and they know all. Just stick to your guns and bring up firewire again and soon you'll confuse them as well. At that point you'll actually get sent to the engineers if you confuse the supervisor enough.

The engineers are the ones who know what is happening because they are the ones making the changes. They know all the changes and rollout dates before anyone else does. They will tell you anything you want to know, but if it's technical don't expect them to dumb it down for you. Learn to speak engineer first.

Charter TNT and Disc. HD up and looking good. Charter CSR also said Motorola/Digeo transmitted the rest of S/W 3.2 on 4/23, Charter Fallon said hopefully by end of may. New moxi boxes are also in the stream for a summer? rollout.d

Yup, the new channels are looking good. Though I hate how TNT-HD stretches the SD programs (stretching the left & right more than the middle). I'd rather they pillar boxed.

I hope they're right about 3.2. I can't stand manually switching resolutions much longer.

I am on Charter Reno/Fallon and they started a new tier for HD(added TNT and Disc) and all was well tuesday but on Wed. the "blue Screen of Death" came on for HDNet, HDMovies, ESPN, TNT,Disc and after many calls Charter still says they are working on it. Any one have any clues?

Did you try restarting your box? I had a similar problem and talked to Charter and the guy did a couple of things on his end. Eventually I got things working again after a reboot.

I'm interested in knowing which network channels Charter/Reno are up and running in HD. I can only get CBS and ABC OTA and thinking of buying a stand alone ATSC tuner to get the local HD channels but can't find out what Charter carries. CSR's answers are worthless.
Thanks in advance.

Off the top of my head they have available KRNV(NBC), KRXI(Fox), KOLO(ABC), KTVN(CBS), Showtime, HBO, Starz, HDNet, HDNet Movies, ESPN, Discovery HD Theater, TNT.

I have built-in HDTV tuner in my 60" Sony XBR LCD rear projection TV. I get HD OTA perfectly from the following stations:

CBS (2.1)
NBC (4.1)
PBS (5.2)
ABC (8.1)
FOX (11.1)
UPN (21.1)

I live near S. Virginia and Foothill Rd.

I wonder why you don't get the other four stations in HD OTA.

Peter

I live next to the university and could get every local except 27.1(WB) using a pair of RCA powered bunny ears I bought at Wal-Mart and using a Sony SAT-HD100 (no satellite sub needed for OTA HD reception).

I also used a Samsung SIR-T451 with great results and was able to get several random QAM feeds and the networks.

The Charter offerings can be deceiving. I pay over $70 a month just to span all the packages to get ALL the HD channels they offer. I get 15 HD channels and half of them are locals which only have HD in primetime. The standard channels aren't even watchable on my display so I essentialy pay about $10 a channel for not OTA channels.

.02

So, your current ASTC tuner does not include QAM? Since some cable companies have been trying to prevent people from receiving local only HD by rasing the broadcast frequency above 800Mhz, you may want to see how those court cases pan out before making a decision.

Being cheap myself, I hate to see anyone pay for something they could probably get for free with a bigger antenna.

Below is part of a reply email I got from Charter, when asking about when HD would be available in Carson Valley.

The HD lineup in Reno currently looks like this:

770 HDNet Hi-Def Tier
771 HDNet Movies Hi-Def Tier
773 ESPN HD Hi-Def Tier

777 HBO HDTV-West Hi-Def Premium
778 Showtime HDTV-West Hi-Def Premium

782 KTVN-DT (CBS) Hi-Def Lifeline
784 KRNV-DT (NBC) Hi-Def Lifeline
785 KNPB-DT (PBS) - Reno Hi-Def Lifeline
788 KOLO-DT (ABC) Hi-Def Lifeline

HD Service costs $3 to upgrade, and it authorizes the Hi Def "Lifeline"
channels and the Hi-Def Premium channels (If you subscribe to them).
The Hi-Def Tier is available at $6.99 per month. I would suspect a
similar lineup and charge structure when HD becomes available in your area.

See my post above, there is no Charter Hd in Carson Valley yet. And the reply email I got from them did not confirm when it would happen.
Notice that it didn't include Fox(11) or the WB(27) stations, but that list may have not been up-to-date.

I live off the Mt Rose Hiway and my OTA antenna reception is spotty through tall trees. I lucked out with my Directv dish and get all three sats through a gap in the trees but OTA for Peavine is out. That's why I'm trying to setup a QAM tuner with the basic charter cable feed I currently subscribe to but didn't want to spend the time or money if charter only offers one or two local network channels in HD. I guess of most interest to me is whether I can get PBS and Fox local HDef.

I got a astc qam tuner (stb) cheap so that part is taken care of now. I've tried different OTA antennas and get CBS (using my Directv rec) off Slide Mt even though I have no LOS with it (just 3 mi) but no chance for Peavine.

I'm now concerned about this statement that some cable companies are trying to block local HD? Where would I find more info on this?

Thanks for your web page info (renohdtv.com) by the way. Very handy for getting things started.

Chuck

I occasionally see posts in the hardware forum from people who cannot get locals over cable with only basic service. Since Charter Reno currently broadcasts in the clear, it is likely they will continue to do so for some time. If you already have the tuner, you may as well hook it up. You can probably find a free cable installation deal, provided the run is not too long. If the courts say that cable companies can force people to buy more than basic service for HD, by that time D will probably have Reno LIL HD up.

If your only problem is trees, not a big hill, maybe one of the new 5th (eventually there will be a 6th) generation LG tuners will get you all stations for free.

If the installation costs are not too high, then I have to agree that cable makes sense until something better comes along. It will probably be years before Charter upgrades its cable system up hear at the lake.

Thanks for that info. I use a good OTA antenna and able to point it through a narrow gap in trees and miss having LOS w/Slide by about 50 ft b/c of a ridge line midway between me and Slide. I get CBS the easiest (or strongest) from that and get either ABC HD or NBC HD but not both by pointing it just a couple degrees N or S. Nothing else from Peavine or wherever PBS is broadcast. I have the basic cable from Charter so that should fill the gap. I just didn't want to go through all this and find out Charter doesn't carry Fox/PBS/NBC in HDef. To make it all work well w/my system I'm need to get a component cable switch to handle both my D* rec and the QAM rec as I only have one run of component cable to my tv (40 ft from rec to tv). I'm actually only interested in this addition to my system for sports on the weekends, mainly during football season.
Chuck