Fort Myers, FL - HDTV - Page 34

Anybody notice that WGCU-DT was off the air for three days? They're back on now but no explanation of what happen. And WZVN analog looks very snowy tonight- must be on reduced power.
It would be nice to have people on board here from these stations to tell us what's going on. The AVS thread for my home town (Greensboro,NC) has a couple engineers from local stations who post regularly keeping the public informed about technical matters with the local stations. Wish that was the case here.

If only the engineer at WINK would get a clue. He's been running his main channel at a fixed 15Mbps since day 1, but insists it's the network feed from NY that feeds him that crappy macroblocky football He's been throwing away a good 4Mbps of bandwidth for the past couple years, apparently doesn't know how to program his encoder.

A 7-year agreement between the two companies is done. A new HD DVR will appear sometime in the future.

nbc2 is currently showing 4:3 while they crawl some weather alerts and a map. come on already and upgrade the equipment

According to a filing with the FCC yesterday, WGCU-DT has completed their power boost from 50 kW to 63 kW. I doubt anyone will notice in terms of signal strength, but...

- Trip

Still a ridiculously low power considering most UHF stations run close to 1000 KW. At times WTVJ in Miami wipes them out at my house.

Ok, I thought I'd give you a while before asking. So do you like the HR/AM 21 combo or are you just biding your time until the new DirecTiVo's are available?

the new directv tivos wont be available for at least a year.

Hey Big Guy!

Both are rock solid machines so far. When going from a DirecTV HD channel to an OTA HD channel there is a tad longer delay before the picture comes up than when I jump from a DirecTV HD channel to a DirecTV HD channel. Other than that, there are no issues, no lock ups, no reboots and no quirks. I'm happy.

I still prefer the Tivo interface and really miss "list view" on the guide like the DirecTivos have. My HDTivo was moved to the master bedroom and is still going strong. Wether I get a new DirecTivo when they come out will really depend on the timing of its' release coinciding with a my contract expiration with DirecTV. I am done paying hundreds of dollars for a box, much less a leased box.

I was excited to hear about the new box, but as it stands now the difference b/w the upcoming Tivos and what I have now is like the difference b/w a Toyota and a Lexus: Noticeable, but not earth shattering.

Peace,

DM

The FCC ruled Comcast should carry the league's NFL Network on its popular digital cable package.

Back in North Naples, scanned the QAM offerings and was not able to locate the ABC affiliate?? I have NBC, FOX and CBS. Any updates???

QAM OTA?? You mean ATSC OTA? QAM implies cable. No idea, I don't have cable. I can tell you that the local ABC OTA digital signal (ATSC) was OK last night when I looked at about 8pm.

...but it looks like the ruling will be of little help this year.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/...?desc=topstory

So glad I have DirecTV. What's that judge got against football?!

Peace,

DM

Oh I'm pretty sure it's just his way of showing the FCC who's in charge. They told him to give a quick ruling, and he obviously took offense to the suggestion that any judge should be required to do any such thing.

wj777 - True, very true. I bet you're glad you're not a the game today.

Ok, here's my rant. I have grown weary of our local stations being unable to run a weather ticker without downresing the network feeds to SD. I've seen this on all of our local channels. WINK is doing it with the Fins game right now and the goobers over at FOX4 are not only doing it to the Bucs game, but forgetting to throw the switch back to HD.

Why are they incapable of preserving the HD picture and adding a ticker? Most have the equipment to receive and store syndicated HD. Most have the equipment to produce their own HD newscast. What box do they not have yet?

Help.

Peace,

DM

Just so you lay blame correctly, Fox stations are currently unable to overlay on the HD. The equipment Fox has given its stations does not allow for this, though Fox plans to replace that equipment by next fall so stations can do HD overlays.

That doesn't excuse them forgetting to go back to HD, but if they have to do a weather warning, they have to drop back to SD to run it.

- Trip

Trip, are you saying you believe that Fox4 is the only station unable to overlay in HD?

WINK was definitely "unable" today during the Fins game. I have seen in the past that both NBC and ABC have also been unable to do overlays in HD. That may have changed since the last storm which was a month ago.

Peace,

DM

No, what I'm saying is that the other stations have to acquire the equipment necessary (I'm surprised 20 and 26 don't have it, since I receive co-owned WVIR and they have it), but that since Fox controls all the equipment affiliates use for network HD, Fox 4 is the only station that can't do anything about it.

Fox 4's hands are tied. It's just a difference in how Fox does things versus how the other networks are doing HD.

- Trip

Gotcha. Very interesting. I had no idea Fox affiliates worked that way. Good to know. Thank you.

Peace,

DM

Current Comcast Clear Qam in Naples:

1.1 NBC
1.2 PBS (SD)
1.3 FLCH (SD)
1.4 CBS
72.1 CW
72.3 FOX
77.3 PBS (HD)
78.2 ABC

There had been some premium channels free but Comcrap has eliminated them.

DirecTV has added HD PBS for Miami and other areas recently.

Anyone find WGCU HD on satellite her yet?

I have a condo in Naples I own that I'll be using and because I can't install Directv there,I going to have to go with Comcast and their HD DVR.
Do they have a decent HD selection and more importantly,if I got something like NHL Center Ice,how many HD games do they show on average?
Kind of spoiled with Directv's offerings, even if they also sometimes fall short.

Thanks

You can go to Comcast's website, type in your address there & it will give you all of the channels listed there. Comcast just started adding 1 or 2 HD channels ( Game HD & Team HD) to carry games on the sports packages, but 99% of the country does not have them yet. Naples doesn't have it yet so all Center Ice games are SD. From my memory of being at my mopms condo there, there are about 35 HD channels total.

Is there anybody on here that uses TV Guide On Screen (TVGOS) ?
BTW - I only use OTA - no cable no satellite!
I NEED it for my LG LST3410A DVR. This device uses "version 7" of TVGOS.
I was getting it fine until mid November (from Channel 26 - ABC).
Then it stopped being sent OR my unit has a problem - that's what I'm trying to find out. Do others have this problem too or is it JUST ME.
Also FYI I have a Sony DVR that uses version 8 TVGOS and it seems to be OK
and getting TVGOS info from channel 11 WINK/CBS.

I just got back from visiting my sister in Cape Coral. While there I helped install a new HD TV and rooftop antenna.

One thing I noticed was that two of the HD stations had their clocks (the ones displayed by the HD TV, not the ones controlling the programming) set a couple of minutes slow. Others stations were right on the mark. Is that such a difficult thing for them to set?

Also, before installing the rooftop antenna, we were having some difficulty receiving WINK on a bow tie next to the TV. After installing the new antenna on the roof, they were coming in like gangbusters. However, now 20.1 is weak. The bow tie next to the TV receives them fine, but the antenna on the roof must be getting some multipath or something. Unfortunately, it is a metal roof. I have returned to Indiana and I haven't gotten a report if they have been able to move the antenna to fix the problem, yet.

BTW, I enjoyed your winter weather. I came home to snow and ice and last night it got down to 1 degree. What was I thinking?

Personally, I use http://www.zap2it.com. You can program it to show whichever channels you want- via OTA, cable or sat.

First off- WINK digital is on VHF ch 9 so you will have difficulty getting it on a UHF ant like a bowtie.

UHF is funny stuff. The wavelength is so short you can get all sort of weird reflections that cause nulls and phase cancellation. Often just moving the antenna a short distance will fix the problem.


I don't know- but I'm staying down here!

I'm finishing my home theater and want to put together some sound absorbing panels. Does anyone know where in the Ft. Myers area I can purchase 2' x '4 x 2" rigid fiberglass panels (Owens Corning 703 or 705 or equivalent). I'll cover the panel with fabric. I can order these off of the web but suspect some local insulation supplier may sell these.

Hi to all. I just got a vacation condo on Sanibel that has Comcast cable included by the homeowners association. I assume this is all analog Channel 2-99 stuff, am I correct?

I called Comcast to inquire about my HD options and after the 30 minute hold I spoke with someone who said "just come to our office and pick up a $7.95 a month cable box and you will received HD". Does anyone know what the cable box alone will get me in HD? Wouldn't I need to be paying for a digital cable package too in order to get the usual CNN HD, Animal Planet HD, CNBC HD etc?

What would I get if I don't get their box and just scan for clear QAM?

Thanks in advance. Howard

Our condo association here in Bonita also includes basic Comcast service. It's all analog except for the clear QAM which will get you just the basic OTA networks. ABC,NBC,CBS,FOX,CW,PBS. Anything beyond that and you'll need to pay for a box.