Norfolk, VA - OTA - Page 6

Yep! All day...

I had to turn my antenna a few degrees this morning for 13-1

I've been having problems with 13 for the past week. I have been too lazy/busy to hump it up to the attic and fiddle faddle. Just haven't watched 13 for all of that time.

There is a significant lip sync problem on Lord of the Rings tonight. The problem may not be so bad during commercials.

I've been watching it too. It appears to be the same on the upconverted NT SC local breaks as it is on the WB Pass-through, I'd call it at about 4 frames. I'll look into it tomorrow. Thanks for the comment. Bill

Bill,

Any news as to when you will be at full power?

It will be interesting to see what it does to antenna orientation, amplification etc when it does go full power.

Their current (STA) 41dBu service contour:



Their (to be) full-power 41dBu service contour:

John,

It appears that you double corrected for the switch to EST. The PSIP time code (and program information) are all 1 hour behind. I didn't catch this until mid-week when I recorded a couple of programs an hour late. BTW, the time signal on the analog carrier is correct.

Anyone in Va. Beach Norfolk area have a good recommendation for antenna installer, cabler, etc. I am about to go Hi-Def with Tivo HD and OTA. I need someone to run some cables for me.

Bill,

You probably know this already but the lip sync problem was still there tonight.

Problem seems to be gone. MNF has none of the audio/video stutters (with no apparent fluctuation in S/N) that was a problem Sunday night.

The audio on MNF has frequent pops, crackles, and chirps. At first I thought it might be my receiver but I switched to just the internal Tv speakers and it didn't go away.

As a participant in this forum I have access to the latest information on any local digital station problems which are apparent to the general public. It saves me from a great amount of anxiety and from trying to fix something at my end that isn't broken. Few owners of digital televisions have this luxury. So what's my point? When a local digital station has had problems with its digital transmissions, I do not remember ever seeing a banner go across their screen or an announcement in the newspaper telling the general public what was going on and an estimate of when it was going to be fixed. This is often done on the analog side. My question: Is there any engineering reason for this omission or has no one ever thought about doing it? Seems like a good idea to me. I know Joe Sixpack can call the station to find out what is happening, but with the complexity of the new systems and the numerous "operator error" problems often experienced by new owners, most don't (and do the engineers really want to answer all those future phone calls?).

Drew

Just had Domes out here yesterday. Installed an attic antenna (CM 4228), a multiswitch (DirecTV HD TiVo has two sat tuners plus three other rooms) and phone jack. About 3.5 hours of work. No problems. Everything working great. BUT be prepared to pay with Domes, they're not cheap...

I have talked with Domes but they are not interested in doing the install work if I am not buying the TV from them. I am going to need someone to do a plasma wall mount as well.

Hmmm. That's interesting. My tech did ask, after the fact, if I had purchased the TV console table and TV from Domes. We didn't but he did state that my wife's name was in the "system." Maybe Domes doesn't want to focus on a smaller project like mine or they want to keep their focus on Domes' customers. By the way, I'm very happy with their install...

Are you going with cable or a sat provider for programming?

Peter,

Thanks for your quick reply. I understand now. Hopefully, someday the stations will start making some money at this and be able to afford to do what is needed.

Drew

VarTV,
I currently have Directv so I plan to add the HD Tivo box and OTA antenna in my attic. I think this will give me everything I need. I have had Tivo for several years as well as DirecTV. I only wish the HD Tivo could reside on my home network like my existing stand-alone Series 2 Tivo w/ DVD burner.

Maybe someday DirecTV will let Tivo open up the networking on this box.

-----------------------------------------------------

Drew,

This reminds me of a line from WKRP.
"No, we're off the air. Now how can we announce that we're off the air when we're off the air?"

I never thought this could happen until I had a General Manager, who will remain nameless, actually ask me if I had put up a notice telling our viewers what was going on when we were off the air. I swear, it really did happen to me! Several variations of the same question, though not quite this thick, have been asked of me over the years.

We generally don't put up the old "please stand by" graphic anymore unless we have a complete loss of program source. Our first effort is always to try to fix the problem, not use our time writing crawls to put on the screen.

In the digital world, it is entirely possible for a problem to affect only a fraction of the audiance, and we don't want to annoy the rest of the viewers with meaningless notices about a problem they can't see.

If we ever have a problem big enough to make the newspapers I will probably be out of a job.

George Randell
WGNT/WGNT-DT UPN-27
Viacom in Norfolk

I understand what Peter said in his posting to me (it is not fiscally or physically possible). I do not understand George's. I think that if I was a guy who had just spent thousands of dollars on a new TV set-up that every "big box" TV salesman in town had just told me was slicker than sliced bread and a snap to operate only to quickly realize that I had bought a big bag of tigers in a bad mood --- I would want to know what was going on down at the station. What about the man's wife who didn't want him to spend a fortune on something that was unproven so now he has to listen to her telling him "I told you so!" even though there is nothing wrong with his set? What about the local service techs who haven't got a clue about DT/HDTV, but will be asked to fix a non-existent problem? What about the stations' problems previously expressed on these pages: the closed captioning problem or the lip-synch problem or going out at half power (for how long?) or having a bad week, or SD pictures for an HD broadcast, experiments... etc, etc, etc. These were things that affected lots of us and lasted (ing?) how long? Spare me. Don't get me wrong, the examples I have just mentioned were not meant to be cheap shots at the stations. They only demonstrate my point that bad things can happen to good people over an extended period of time at both ends of the transmission. I think we have a great group of DT stations here in our area and that all their people are trying to do what's right. That's why I thanked Peter for his response and I meant it. Remember that I recently posted that I was a happy camper in HDTV Land. I still am. George, I fully understand the meaning of your WKRP example, but I don't think you understand why I originally posted.

Drew

Hey George if this ever happens drop me an email or fax. I'd like to scoop The Pilot and Press...

Relax Drew,

It just struck me as funny. Hope there are no hard feelings. I do understand your point.

To give a serious answer to you, I really don't have a way of telling the viewers of our DTV station when there is a problem. We don't have an HD character generator to put written notices on the screen. Newspapers are too slow. When we are off the air, well, see the WKRP example.

This forum here is really the best thing going! Rest assured that if we have a problem that can't be fixed in a timely manner I will post something here. If I managed a store selling HDTV sets I would look here every day!

One thing going for us is that the folks are really not as dumb as wood. If they can receive 7 out of 8 DTV channels they usually figure out that there may be something wrong with the one. That's when they call us.

You are always free to give us a call on the telephone and ask Engineering if we are having any problems. 757-393-2501.

Happy viewing!

George Randell
WGNT/WGNT-DT UPN
Viacom in Norfolk

In a perfect world there are no problems, however we live in a world that is full of wonderful technology that like everything else is subject to many factors that effect it. Problems with broadcasting, staff training, equipment problems, problems with consumers who do not understand the technology or their equipment use, consumers with unrealistic expectations and demands on others and consumers who think that whatever they want the rest should jump through hoops to provide it.

In my 61 years of which 35 were spent in an industrial environment working with hi-tech equipment I learned long ago that problems exist, and the end of the world is not near because something did not perform as I thought it should. I also learned that in a lot of cases it was us trying to get the equipment to perform a task it was not able to do. Mis-application or by design.

Stations at half-power do not effect me one bit and I'm 47 miles from them, if a program is broadcast in SD instead of HD I still watch it as it is the content that is important and the fact I have thousands of dollars invested in equipment, so what, it will not change a thing. Stuff happens and hopefully we all will get better. Constantly whining about the broadcasters is not constructive and will do little to change anything.

I appreciate the efforts of all the broadcasters in Hampton Roads and enjoy the content they provide. Like me they are not always perfect but also like me they try hard.

HJ,


Drew just spent 20 lines describing how he was NOT whining.



Peter said " Your continued comments will help make it better over time."



and you come back with this?

What was posted was not IMO constructive comments. The items could have been phrased in a more positive way. I should not have posted the reply on this thread as the other one is for this type of posts.

John,

The time in the PSIP for WHRO-DT is one hour slow. Program information and time signal for DVR are out of sync.

Harold,

Again, IMO, you are WAY off base. Drew had a well thought out post asking what the average viewer, that does not see this thread, would think about this wonderful event called the DTV Transition.

This viewer could have layed out $1500.00 for a HDTV, $200 for a ATSC tuner to watch MNF in glorious HD and BAM WVEC (Sorry Peter just an example ) has a problem and the game is in SD.

Now in this example $1700 is not an astronmical sum of money for an HDTV, heck SD RPTVs can cost this much. My viewer's wife wanted the $800 32" console to match the coffee table, but with the help of the CC, BB, Dome's salesman he was able to convince her to go HD.

Now this viewer, a couple of his buddies and his wife are looking at this square picture with 'IN HD WHERE AVAILABLE' on the screen. Wife has this look on her face, viewer says but the Green Sheet and the salesman said it would be in HD! Harry Potter was in HD last Saturday!

Now Harold, was my viewer trying to get the equipment to perform a task it was not able to do, by mis-application or by design? Or did a %$##$% chip in an encoder at WVEC's transmitter die? Or maybe a raving lunatic at the Footbal Stadium fired a grenade launcher at the HD production truck?

Peter and George both (well it took George two tries ) gave courteous and reasonable explanations and you claim:


All of the local Engineers seem to be stand up technical guys that want to broadcast the best available, but that have corporate lines to toe, which unfortunately doesn't always equal best engineering practices.

EACH of us are entitled to our own opinions.

I really don't think you need to slam every comment on this thread that is not pro OTA or pro multicasting.

Brian