Youngstown, OH - HDTV - Page 60

Agreed 100%. I'm not talking about flanking 4:3 network feeds or commercials. I don't think I've ever seen anybody do that, except syndicated shows that flank their own commercials during their show. I'm talking about how the Cleveland stations flank 4:3 file footage during newscasts, the national newscasts flank file footage, but WKBN/WYTV is not. As I said before, they were flanking the space left behind their newscasts when they ran election results, and that's what I'd like to see them do behind their 4:3 footage during the newscast.

I don't even know what you're talking about. I have a HDTV set (Pioneer) connected via OTA antenna, and I've never seen any "stretching", aside from when a station presents something stretched. But they don't do that anymore. I don't think my TV has that setting.

we now have 21 on hd on the dish...love it

Good question Tom.
I noticed the last few days WYTV has been a real struggle to receive. I was beginning to think the storms did something to their equipment.
I don't appear to loose their signal, but, picture will go to black momentarily. So if they turned their power down, to fix something, that would explain everything.

Thanks

At least WKBN/WYTV are Live when they broadcast. WICU/WSEE in Erie, one station has to to be pre taped so the other one is Live. WICU is live at 6pm and WSEE was taped at 4pm! Alot of news and weather can change in 2 hours. I'm sure WFMJ will step up and go HD too. Maybe Y-town TV station owners would buy up Erie's TV stations to make them professional again.

Yes, I checked last night and it is no ways as strong as it was when it was first turned on...........................

Oh, sorry for the confusion both of you. I am not able to watch even WKBN regularly from here, so I don't know how they're handling 4:3 footage inside the newscasts.

As noted above, I've also noticed WYTV's signal continue to weaken. It now appears to be about as strong here as it was before the initial power increase. Can anyone provide any detail with regard to how long this may last? As I'm now (again) unable to watch ABC programming (nor the news at 5:30).

I took my portable tuner out to Portage County, and was only able to pick up WYTV's signal when I got to Atwater. The same setup delivered WKBN in a parking lot in Mogadore, on the Summit/Portage County line.

Just a digital tuner with a whip mag-mount antenna on the roof of my car, but instructive.

Stilll, Atwater is much farther west than I was able to pick up WYTV before the upgrade.

Actually, I've noticed the opposite lately. A few live remotes were 16:9, but "squished" into 4:3. That seems to have ended this week. However, I noticed a few instances of 4:3 file footage were flanked with "blurred" bars. Not everything, but some things. I have a feeling they're going back through and manually flanking file tape as its being used for particular stories.

When is 21 WFMJ going to fix the problems with their channel? It keeps breaking up and losing sound every 20 seconds.

No problem here.

Then you must be as blind as a bat because there is something wrong with the channel and it isn't a signal problem it is something wrong with their output of the channel. It is even messing up my DVR when I record an event on this channel the DVR will not rewind or fast forward and just freezes. When it does rewind or fast forward it goes really slow and keeps breaking up while it's rewinding or fast forwarding. The DVR does not do this on any other channel and it didn't do this on this channel until a few days ago. 21 WFMJ needs to get someone to watch their channel and fix the problem.

I just watched 21 News at 11 P.M. and am now watching network programming on 21.1 OTA as well as 21 in HD via Armstrong Cable (111.1) and both are coming in just fine. I'm afraid either your local cable node is affected or its your PVR box that is having an issue with the signal. Have you tried rebooting the PVR box? Or have you checked your filters, etc.? If you're on Armstrong Cable with a PVR box you wouldn't be able to tell but WFMJ HD, WYTV HD, MyYTV HD, and MyValleyWeather.com are mapped to physical channel 111, the only channel above 700 MHz in their system besides a few VOD promos and whatnot. Perhaps you're losing the upper frequencies due to a bad filter or another TV/STB/Cable modem producing noise in the 700 MHz range?

I am receiving 21 WFMJ (21.1) OTA and I am running it through my Dish Network VIP622 DVR receiver. There is nothing wrong with my receiver because it does not do this on any other channel. I have older recordings that I recorded from this channel and they play fine, but for the past few days they are messed up. Everytime there is a problem with something it is not always everyone elses equipment. I am so sick of everyone always blaming problems on peoples equipment because they don't want to admit that they could have a problem. I could have a brand new $20,000 TV that I took out of the box 2 minutes ago and they would say oh it must be your TV. This is BS. This is definitely a network problem. 21 WFMJ is always having problems and they never fix them. They need to get an engineer that knows what they're doing.

I'am running the exact setup as you. Maybe you need to tweak your antenna.

Could you be blaming it on their equipment, and it's yours?

Others here say they're not having a problem. Maybe if you're willing to drop the "it's their problem, it can't be mine, fix it, keep an eye on your station" attitude and be specifically helpful, WFMJ could well determine that there's some sort of glitch affecting your specific equipment.

If it was a general problem with the station itself, this thread would start filling pretty quick.

I am not within WFMJ's signal range, so I'll give it a shot the next time I'm over there.

It is not a signal problem. The signal strength is 91 or 92. Which is pretty strong and the yellow box is not popping up so it is not losing signal.

Yeah sure... It's my equipment, but no other channel is doing this. Come on get real...

I'm not saying "it's your fault", for crying out loud.

The world of digital TV is weird. Some combinations of digital signals and equipment/chipsets and software causes problems.

I once had a USB HDTV tuner that would lock up when the local Fox affiliate (WJW Ch. 8 over here) went into local breaks from the network. Another tuner I had didn't have the same problem.

There was something involved in how Fox sent down changes from 5.1 to 2.0 audio in the splicer. It affected my USB tuner and only got fixed because it was also breaking up recordings on cable DVRs.

For now, you're the only one complaining about it here, and someone else who says he has the same equipment says he has no such problem. If it were general/widespread, we'd have a half-dozen messages in here complaining about it. People who don't log on regularly would find their way here.

No matter what the origination of the problem, insulting the station and its engineers is going to get you nowhere.

Do you know, for example, that WFMJ's chief engineer has posted in this very thread? I haven't seen him in a while, but you could well be taking him to task personally. I hope that satisfies you and makes you feel good.

I have the same issue as HDTV Fanatic but it is not so annoying now that Dish offers WFMJ in HD off the satellite.

The thing that crosses my mind though is multipath interference as I have heard the OTA modules for the Dish boxes are particularly sensitive to it. Is there anything in particular in the path of WFMJ's transmitter to the north that could triggers this? I would assume the other Y-Town stations would be equally affected being their transmitters are pretty much in the same general cluster relatively speaking. Yet WKBN and WYTV come in rock solid.

I do have a newly acquired USB tuner though that I plan to be heavily testing with its included telescoping mag mount antenna and can see if it has the same issues with WFMJ or not from the same locale.

The problem disappeared for me Thursday night. I am not having the issue now. The channel appears to be working fine now and it is not affecting my DVR like that now. It rewinds and fast forwards fine now. I don't know what the issue was, but they must have fixed it. I wish WFMJ Chief would come on here and tell us whether they were having a problem or not and that they fixed it. Then everyone would believe me that there was a problem with the station.

Anyone know when WFMJ news will go HD? It's getting pretty hard to continue watching them when the others look so much better.

Hmm is WFMJ the channel that shows Judge Judy during afternoons? Because the last few times I was home and watched the audio would break up consistent with what he/she was posting earlier in the thread. It was very distracting to watch and I was surprised to see it still happening 2 weeks later when I was home again. I am with Time Warner Cable.

I was wondering the same thing. AVS has been quiet for Youngstown since the early summer. I heard they were supposed to get their HD master control running by the end of June a while back. I wonder if that happened. Even if they're a month behind, it's now the beginning of August and I'd hope that things are starting to come together so that HD launch can happen soon. Perhaps they're waiting for the Canfield Fair to launch and simultaneously promote the HD newscast or something like that? IIRC, nobody has done a full newscast from the Fair since WYTV was bought by Benedek Broadcasting. It would be cool if WFMJ (being local and all) brought that tradition back.

I'm pretty sure their HD master control has been in place for a while. All of their onscreen graphics are in HD now and I have even noticed during the Today show in the morning they have their own news ticker and temperature seamlessly inserted into Today's own graphics without dropping it back to SD.

Of course, it would have to be in SD, even if WFMJ added HD studio cameras.



The only station that can do live HD in the field in Northeast Ohio is WEWS/5 here.

Actually, New Vision Television (WKBN/WYTV) in Youngstown has been doing live remotes in HD since June, about a week after their newscast went HD.

Hmm, will have to check that out. Of course, my portable set is downconverted.

Question for locals. I live in Boardman, near the WKBN towers, which I am aware overload my signal and drown out other channels from coming in. Recently, I had to redo my antenna setup, which required me to remove at least 10 feet of wire (RG6), no more than than maybe 12 feet from my setup. I have a Winegard MS-2000 multidirectional antenna, with a built in amplifier. My power injector bit the dust and I also had to replace that. I used to get a KDKA 2 out of Pittsburgh, 3 and 5 out of Cleveland, but now I even have trouble with 45 WNEO and until some tinkering, 21 WFMJ wouldn't come in either. Any recommendations, up to and including a new antenna?