Dallas, TX - HDTV - Page 219

47.1 looks like an upconversion to me. Partially zoomed, so the top & bottom are cropped slightly, but the pillar box bars are smaller. Some of the commercials are 16:9 and you see a window box, but smaller than usual.

47.4 is straight SD, so the viewer has a choice. Nice touch.

PQ looks good on both.

Hello group. Am I the only one experiencing a choppy KXAS ch 5 on D* hd LiL? No storms, dish is nailed dead on. No signals under 85. I am even getting a 65 for the Houston spot beam The hockey game is awfully choppy. Borderline unwatchable. Been noticing this for a few days now. Only channel of the HD LiL's.

I noticed random stutters last night on KXAS during SNL. This was on Verizon FiOS so I switched over to OTA and also noticed it. I just sat on the hockey game for a few mins and it's fine for me on FiOS.

It looks like KTXD has adjusted the aspect ratio on 47.1 to 4:3.

Yep same here on KXAS 5, was doing it last night and this morning during their 6-7AM local news. OTA here.

Noticed the adjustment on 47.1 too. I can duplicate that same in-between aspect ratio with the narrow black side bars with my DTVPal set to "Partial" zoom on 4:3 video.

i stopped the recording on D* and picked up on WMC OTA and my reception is flawless. 98% according to WMC. IDK. Thanks for the reply. I thought L3 communications was handling the LiL HD fiber infrastructure. Why are these stations being picked up OTA and then xmitted to D*. Is it not possible to get a fiber feed from the affiliates? If so, why not?

I don't know about locally, but in another market, some stations offered D* a direct fiber feed and D* declined because they would have had to split the costs, and OTA was free.

Man, looks like KTXD is just a bit too weak. Granted I live 70 miles out and have my antenna in the attic, but I get KTXA, KDFI, KDAF, KXTX, KDFW, etc, all the full power stations, pretty much 24/7. But KTXD at only 600kW looks like it's going to cut out for me during the day and even at night just like all the LP stations do. It's a real bummer, because the programming (and picture quality) is so much better than either Antenna TV or RTV, and I only really pickup Antenna TV. Wish KTXD could be a bit more "full power"

Now that KTXD/47 has become a mainstream station (with still some glitches from its "soft launch"), my dream would be for London to trade facilities with KAZD/55 on RF-39. The latter has one of the top four plants in the market based on square miles covered per RabbitEars.

The big coverage area of KAZD seems wasted since it appears that the programming on its streams appeals primarily to those living in the heart of the DMA, which RF-46 covers just fine.

I'm sure the novelty of MeTV will eventually wear off for me, but this weekend my "TSL" has been sky high watching programs like "Get Smart", "Mission Impossible", "The Untouchables" and a younger Peter Falk in "Columbo".

These are likely just reruns to most people. But as I worked my way through 4 years of college over a span of 11 years in the 70's, I was so busy juggling multiple jobs and classes that much of their fare is new to me.

I'm getting KTXD good out here between Denton and Decatur using nothing more than a Terk TV-42 clipped onto my neutered satellite dish. I get most all the DFW stations good in fact, including the 31's. I'm in retro TV heaven now that MeTV has joined HOT (31.3), RTV (31.4), Antenna (33.2) and THIS (33.3). Even KFWD (52.1) has some good older stuff on it during the day (Andy Griffith, Dream of Jeannie, Addams Family, Rockford Files, etc.).

Speaking of KTXD (47.7)....it's currently 1:12am Monday morning, and 47.1 is showing a religious infomercial and 47.4 is showing MeTV. Hmmmm..

Working from home today, so I ganged a second DB8 up in the attic. I've actually been picking up KTXD all day today, but occasionally there are still blips and macro-blocking, so it's still right on the edge, plus it's cloudy today. A hot sunny day might still obliterate the signal for me. I may still need to play with my setup to see if I can get something more solid out of this configuration.

KTXD's website is up and their programming schedule is listed. There's a surprising amount of pseudo-church stuff on the weekends until 1pm, I really hope they're still just trying to line up replacement programming for this junk.

I don't know what their long term plans are, but over the last couple of days I've noticed that they run MeTV 24/7 on 47.4, and on 47.1 they run MeTv during the day and church stuff at night.

How does KTXD compare to either KDTN/2 or KDTX/58? All three are diplexed through the same antenna. The latter two have an edge in power at 1,000 kW compared to KTXD's 600 kW, as you noted previously.

Those stations come in clear, and although I don't really watch them, as far as I remember they have always had good reception when I flipped past them. KTXD has been pretty good the past couple of evenings with all the clouds and rain. By way of comparison both KDTN and KDTX are at 5/5 bars on my set right now, while KTXD is at 2/5, but ranges from 1 to 4. I still suspect it might cut out completely on a long, hot, clear day.

At first when I ganged the second antenna all LPTV reception and KTXD reception disappeared. I did a couple things, including reversing one of the baluns, angling the antennas slightly upward and actually butting both antennas up against each other, and it all returned. Last night and tonight I was even getting fairly strong LP reception of KODF and K31GL at 4/5 bars each.

I did stay up late watching Me-TV last night. When it switched to the religious stuff and I had to go to 47.4 to watch The Untouchables I noticed around midnight that 47.4 was cutting in and out for a short while even though the other substations were all solid. Go figure.

I've noticed the occasional freezes on MeTV also, but also noticed that my signal strength stayed the same. I think it's KTXD's MeTV feed in that is stuttering, not their OTA signal.

That's almost certainly the case. I have a signal analyzer off the splitter that feeds my television. When I noticed the glitches last Sunday night during "Columbo", I fired the Sencore up and kept an eye on it during the whole program. The signal itself never wavered nor did the bitstream even when the dropouts were occurring during the program.

By the way, I also noticed that the EPG data was up tonight for KTXD and was accurate, at least for "The Untouchables", the one program I had a chance to catch tonight.

Yeah, EPG was showing correctly last night for The Odd Couple and this morning for Perry Mason.

KTXD needs to check their audio levels. Watching Perry Mason just now, an Amica insurance ad came on and blasted me very loud. Adjusted volume down, program resumes and so low have to turn up volume. Same with a "Blue World Pools" ad that just came on and their ID at the top of the hour. Seems all the locally inserted stuff is way too loud. They are not complying with the CALM act that's for sure!

I agree, KTXD has some of the loudest commercial interruptions I've ever heard. I can hear the bellowing commercial in the next room or across the house, but not the program itself at the volume I normal view at, so it's pretty ridiculous.

Hi:

I have directv and use my zip in the North Fort Worth area : 76262.

I have a OTA and a AM-21 for rainy days.

I got a new receiver and remembered that I can program a secondary ZIP.
My thinking is that both FW and Dallas us the same Network feeds.

Does anyone know if using a secondary ZIP is even worth while and what would it be as to program channels and signal strength ?

Greg

So last night I couldn't watch The Untouchables because 47.4 was a blank, and tonight they're airing one of the religious spirit water hucksters on both 47.1 AND 47.4. Even KTXD's own web site claims they do air The Untouchables weeknights at 11:30, so maybe they're moving the religious crapola over to 47.4 and bringing Me-TV 24/7 to 47.1? I hope?

The people with SDTV's and converter boxes who watch KTXD are gonna be mad that another Godcaster has come to a subchannel which broadcasted MeTV in their format.

I think that 47 is still just sorting out the gremlins in the system. If they temporarily lost the MeTV feed, they had to put something on 47.4

It wasn't a temporary loss of the feed, it was deliberate, it occurred right at the time the programs change, and it happened again last night -- no Untouchables on either channel. Still hoping the shows will be back on one channel or the other, but if KTXD is going to persist in airing so much of this contemptible trash instead of regular Me-TV programming then DFW is going to end up with a rather sucktastic affiliate. Their morning schedules right now, especially on the weekends, are just ridiculous.

And how can anybody not notice the distracting ginormous blue pillar boxes on 47.1 today, complete with KTXD-TV logo splattered across them on both sides of the program. Real classy . I don't see how this can possibly be chalked up to technical issues. I like Me-TV network programming a lot, and I'm willing to be patient while they work through the bugs -- it's only free TV we're talking about here. But if some of this stuff doesn't change I'm definitely not going to be a big fan of KTXD as a station.

Originally KTXD was zooming the image slightly, which cropped a bit off the top & bottom of the screen but reduced the size of the pillars by about half. Apparently they're no longer zooming the image at all, so the pillars are now the typical size.

Given that pillar size, I guess they decided logos look better than solid black, but they take up extra bandwidth, which seems to have come out of the SD feed on 47.4. The latter seems to be down to 10-15 fps now.

I'm hoping the overnight religion is only temporary, but if they aren't airing MeTV on 47.4 while religion is on 47.1, than what's the point? They need to put it back like it was, or else drop 47.4.

They need to put MeTV on 47.1 24/7. 15 FPS on 47.4 fast enough for selling religious snake oil.

UPDATE: As of 11am CDT, it looks like KTXD has taken care of the slow frame rate on 47.4. Picture looks good, in fact. The blue color bars are still on 47.1, but that's a matter of personal taste. They're a little distracting, but I don't have a problem with them.

I wrote Neal Sabin, head of MeTV, last night (we've had an email relationship for a little over a year now) and told him about the problems with KTXD. Maybe he kicked a little butt, Chicago style, and got them to fix it. BTW, he's a great guy and a long time fixture in the Chicago television industry. He's got a genuine love for retro television, and it shows.

I don't have much of a problem with them either. If the PQ on 47.4 is fixed, you can always switch over if they bug you. All of Me-TV's shows were originally recorded for SD (4:3 aspect) anyway.

Any word on getting at least some of Me-TV's overnight/AM schedule back on at least 47.4? I really wanted to Get Smart and I know my wife would love The Brady Bunch.

I mentioned it to Mr. Sabin, but I don't know how much influence a network has over a local affiliate and their programming. I'll let you know if/when I hear something, or just check back around midnight. I still think that KTXD is in an ongoing process of sorting things out.

I just caught it tonight while doing a re-scan. The TS Reader ought to be posted on RabbitEars before too long.

My 47 channels are locked (as if paused) as of 3:30.