Phoenix, AZ - HDTV - Page 348

Kinda quiet in here. Does anyone know how to adjust the sound so the crowd noise is not so loud on FoxAZ and MLB TV? Sometime it is hard to hear the announcers due to the crowd noise.

Currently use 4240HDC connected to Vizio TV with HDMI. Would a sound bar help?

Paulaz

Here is one method:

FOX and MLB are broadcast in DD 5.1. This means that the dialog from the announcers is in a separate channel from the crowd noise. Dialog is typically in the center channel, while music and efx is in L and R, and the crowd is in L, R, R-rear, and L-rear.

If you are using a 5.1 system, you can manually raise the level of the dialog by manually raising the level on the center channel of your AVR. That means the dialog level (announcers) can be set higher than the rest (crowd) independently at whatever level you wish. This of course throws the balance off for shows mixed correctly, but it is a workaround, and you can always set it back after the game is over. If you do not have DD through an AVR, this might be a reason to think about getting that (you can thank me later).

I am not sure why producers do this. I think they are trying to gin up false excitement by boosting the crowd noise. Who knows? But any pro audio person should be stripped of all honors and medals to date for doing this; the proper way to keep the announcers listenable is to have ducking on the crowd noise (when the announcer comments the crowd noise is driven down below the announcer level) so that the announcer is always a couple of dB louder, with a medium slow recovery curve to keep the crowd level from "breathing" too much.

But it is difficult to find audio mixers that know what they are doing, especially when they are freelancing in remote trucks; moonlighting from their real jobs, which very likely don't often have much to do with running audio boards. I'll bet this is the only contact they have with mixing 5.1 anyway, and that is a learned skill beyond simple 2.0 mixing. But even big shows like Letterman and America's Got Talent have lousy audio mixing; I think it may be a lost art. (OK, enough rant)

Actually, I have the opposite problem, in that I could not give two $#!+s what the announcers think. I am tempted to drop the audio of the C channel to zero just to not hear the announcers at all, but there would probably be enough bleed-through to make that even more annoying.
Edited by TomCat - 7/23/12 at 7:22pm

I agree with TomCat (!?). I have always wanted to do the opposite, mute the announcers and keep the crowd noise. But now that they have done me a favor and taken Daron Sutton off the air, I don't need to do that.

Anyone know yet when and what channel Cox will be launching the new Pac-12 network?

Thanks

I just escaped 5 years of Cox oppression and got DTV. Does USA HD stink on some shows for anyone else? It is close to SD. Grainy and very soft.

Well, I have not noticed a quality issue; I watched Suits last night (best summer show in years) and it was fine. Seems like garden-variety HD to me; pretty equivalent to everyone else.

One thing that is a bit unintuitive for new DTV viewers is how they handle SD duplicates. It is important to make sure that you either hide them, remove them from your favorites playlists, or be very careful that you are not selecting the SD version in favor of the HD version, which is complicated by the practice of giving both SD and HD variants the exact same channel number.

Another problem they may still have is that when you select the HD version of some channels when building the favorites lists, the listings used to be backwards; choose the HD version to get the SD version in the list, and vice versa. Ridiculously stupid, but nevertheless true. If fixed by now, they took a long time getting there. And if you think you are choosing the HD version in the favorites list and are also hiding the duplicates, you may have one "channel 242 USA" available to choose from, and that might be the SD version. Exactly what you were probably trying to avoid, or as Marv Albert is fond of saying, "Not what he had in mind". Very confusing.

OTA channels are confusing, too; channel 51 is ION the generic network feed, which has some shows in SD that are HD on 51-1, which is ION the local broadcast affiliate, and some of the shows on the network channel 51 are HD while SD on the local affil. And the schedule is offset, and offset differently during DST. I think it probably has to do with limited HD delay server capability on the local station.

I watched Suits and Burn notice. They both look pretty bad to me. I have the SD dupes off so don't see those channels.

Thanks.

e30, how do other cable channels look, like Syfy and TNT? DTV has pretty consistent HD quality, so I would have to think there is something fishy in your setup. HD quality is preserved and actually locked and prevented from degradation while in the digital domain, which for a DBS setup means the PQ coming out of the HDMI or component ports on your STB/DVR should be identical to what comes out those ports on everyone else's STB/DVR. And if you are having quality issues on just USA, well that is very strange indeed, because that essentially rules our all potential causes. A stumper.

I'll check my copy of Burn Notice when I get a chance.

It is only USA. I have an HR34 running via HDMI into a Harman Kardon AVR 645 which is running out via HDMI to my Sharp Aquos LC46LE700UN.

I am using the sound from my Vizio XVT tv. It has a 5 channel equalizer.

For those of you with DirecTV, they are adding BBC HD and Nat Geo Wild HD within the next few weeks, and more to come after that.

Frequency of EAS Test Broadcasts on CableCARD devices

I have a question for those for you with a CableCARD device, How often do you receive the EAS Test Broadcasts?
For those of you with a Ceton or SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime, you should be able to see them in the device logs.

For me it has gotten out of control, I receive at least 2 Tests per night/morning, but have had as many as 12 in one night, usually between 12am-4am, The Cox receiver I have does not get the same massive number of Tests, I have resorted to usually leaving the Cox receiver on in the other room so I can hear if the same test is sent to that receiver and most always it does not.

I'm not generally a tin foil hat person, But why is Cox sending so many more tests to CableCARDs than their own equipment. I am hoping to get some feedback, perhaps there is a problem on Cox's end, and with more feedback we can get Cox to look into it.

This has really become an issue with my TiVo's because no matter what you are watching, LiveTV, a recording, Netflix, Hulu, YouTube you are dumped out to LiveTV and forced to watch the EAS Test.

Cox is required to send the EAS Test once weekly. But I am receiving, 2-4 per night on average. I receive all of the following tests, multiple times per week.

1. Maricopa/East Valley Test
2. Pinal County Test
3. Pima County/Tucson Test
4. Cochise County/Benson Test

2 this week 8/7 and 8/10. HD Homerun Prime 3 tuner.

20120807-10:00:11 CableCARD: message: THE BROADCAST STATION OR CABLE SYSTEM HAS ISSUED A REQUIRED WEEKLY TEST FOR THE FOLLOWING COUNTIES/AREAS: Maricopa, AZ; AT 2:54 AM ON AUG 7, 2012 EFFECTIVE UNTIL
20120810-10:00:11 CableCARD: message: THE BROADCAST STATION OR CABLE SYSTEM HAS ISSUED A REQUIRED WEEKLY TEST FOR THE FOLLOWING COUNTIES/AREAS: Maricopa; Pinal, AZ; AT 2:55 AM ON AUG 10, 2012 EFFECTIV

@Bryan

I do not have a CC device, but I do have a bit of inside info on EAS, which is that there is a lot of testing of the system going on lately. I work alongside a fellow broadcast Engineer tasked with keeping up with this who would like to pull his hair out over this. They (the government) are trying to upgrade the system, which is probably why there is so much testing. The other reason there is so much testing is because so much of it fails to pass the tests.

That much I know, and now I will veer off into opinion, which is that I can't think of a government program that has been so poorly designed or implemented as has EBS/EAS over the last couple of decades. Sadly, it is probably not all that different from much of the everyday bone-headedness we might see in a number of government programs, but then I don't have a front-row seat to see just how appalling those other programs might be. Broadcasters are vainly trying to comply, but the problem is that the plan itself is a complete joke. I hope they get the bugs out in the cable TV testing before the DBS testing begins.

OK, nice to get that off my chest, but back to Bryan's issue: It seems that you are saying that CC devices are seeing more testing than other systems. Is that the case? I guess there really is no solution to EAS warnings in recorded material other than to toss you back to live, but can you then go back to your recording when you want to or are you forced to endure the test all the way to its conclusion? (that would suck). The good news is that at least for broadcast, we no longer have to put up a still graphic to run the tests over the top of; they now are run as crawls over live/recorded programming (and everybody is fully HD meaning you don't get squeezed back to SD anymore). Still not great, but better than stopping the show altogether, I guess. Still annoying.

But what is really irksome is that yes, we all want an alert system that works and we want to see the alerts when they are apropos, but what viewer could really give two $#!+s about a test of the system? It has no real value to us as viewers at all, and it is nothing more than an annoying PITA. all totaled, there are probably dozens more tests than there are actual meaningful alerts. Hmm. More opinion. Who knew?

Cox may be required to do a minimum number of tests, but they are not restricted from doing more than the minimum. There is always the possibility that they are trying to stick it to CC (If I had something shoved down my throat that threatened my business plan I might be tempted to do that myself), but I think we can give them the benefit of the doubt that they are not doing that. They are probably just trying to comply with whatever the government is asking of them.

Seems like a legitimate question, tho. Interested myself in why.
Edited by TomCat - 8/11/12 at 6:14pm

I just got the whole Cox Home DVR set up, the tech was here for 20 minutes and they told me it was gonna take 4 hours:mad:...Anyways the reason for my post if Video Output Format for my TV's I dont know which to use. I have resolution at 1080i, I just dont know which Output Format to use, rught now its on Sidebar 4:3pic....Any advice?

For those of you with DirecTV, they added the following HD channels today:

264 BBC
283 Nat Geo Wild
289 Disney Jr.
305 Ion
620 BeInSports, a soccer channel

Hooray!!! Doctor Who in HD for DTV customers.

Pac12 Network in SD and HD showed up on my TiVo yesterday. Wasn't authorized, but should be when it goes live at 6:00 tonight.

Yeah no kidding, finally!

FYI,
Cox AZ is in the process of remapping the "Sports and Info Package" and the "Movie Package" to the 300 block for SD and the 1300 block for the HD channels.

"Sports and Info Package" - 301 thru 349, SD and 1301 thru 1349, HD (channel reservations)
"Movie Package" - 350 thru 399 and 1350 thru 1399 (channel reservations)

Current channels should be available at both their new and old location (dual-mapped) through Oct. 25.

18 is occupied with a digital qam, don't know what is on it though

. If they do the same thing they did in Omaha that channel space will stay blank and you will either see more standard digital or HD or more space for D 3 channels.

I like having the Sports & Info channels mapped to numbers that make more sense, but I tried them right after this announcement, and the same problems still exist today. The channels seem to work OK on our DVR (8300HD), but there are several problems on our STB (4240HDC). 1310 (NHL), 1312 (CBS Sports), 1320 (Big Ten), and 1339 (Fox Soccer) don't come in at all when you try to tune them on the STB: just a blank screen. The Info and Guide buttons produce the expected display, but the video is still blank, audio silent.

I can still tune 1320 (Big Ten), but it only comes in if I go to the old number, 1177, first, then immediately tune to 1320. If I then go down & up (i.e., 1320 to 1315, then back to 1320), blank screen again.

I hope they clear this up before they disable the old channel numbers.

Probably everyone else already knew this by now, but I just found (via the Cox app on my Droid phone) that in Phoenix, Cox is carrying the PAC-12 network on 75 & 1075. I can't find them in the 3xx/13xx range.

The PAC-12 network is NOT in the "Sports & Info" Pak, So it will not be in the 300 and 1300 blocks.
The PAC-12 network is in the Expanded Pak in Arizona.

Some other Cox markets put the HD channel in the Plus Package, and the SD channel in the Sports and Info Pak.

Channel 90 - ThisTV (KTVKDT2) showed up in my TiVo Guide today, so perhaps Cox is adding it soon? the channel is currently not tunable.

CMT and CMTHD moves from Expanded to the Variety Pak

TBS and TBSHD moves from Starter TV to Expanded

Cox line-up changes.pdf 268k .pdf file
Edited by Bryan_CoxPHX - 9/16/12 at 1:04am

So I guess the HD version will no longer be in the clear via a QAM tuner

In San Diego, SD version is in Sports & Info Pak (314), and the HD is in Plus Pak @ 1314. Gorgeous video on HD channel, BTW.