Knoxville, TN - HDTV - Page 16

I have talked to other folks who are getting HD and they say they aren't experiencing these problems. The people I have talked to are using Charter and not Comcast though. I don't see the point in HD if it is so pixelated that it is distracting to watch.

This is a channel 8 issue. They have a sub channel that is dragging their main channel farther and farther down. I've watched their signal quality steadily drop over the last 3 years. They're headed in the wrong direction...

Further more, their subchannel may not even be legal. It offers no local programming beyond advertising. It was being used for the UPN network which is now, I think, defunct? I'm not sure what's on it now beyond a whole lotta infomercials and home shopping goin' on...? Subchannels were intended to be used for local programming. That was their mandate.

Notice that 6 & 10 have weather channels on their sub's. Atleast it's local....

Channel 8 butchers their own HD signal and it's not due to any provider, well, they might make it worse?

Well, this seems to happen on all my HD channels but it is worse on some than others. I'm concerned it might be something with my TV but I have no way to verify as the Comcast HD box is the only HD device I have.

Does your set lack a built-in tuner? If it has it one you ought to try it. Has independent 7 made the cable yet? It actually produces local hd content, unlike the big, fat, lazy four. I get it. The only channel that I don't get, watchable, is 20. I live too low or need a taller antenna, or maybe they should broadcast better?

All the locals have developed some problems which maybe is linked to carrying full-time sub's...? 6 has gotten better lately after massive problems with their digital signal awhile back. 43 seems to have solved their problem that hit some weeks back. 10 always has occasional pixelization. 15 has had some bad spells. 8 is consistently poor to awful and it's overwhelmingly noticable on sports! When the Vols are on my bit-starved Direc, on ESPN, it's much, much better.

8 is doggin' it, IMO....

No tellin' what you might pick-up if you live on a ridgetop....? Cable must have similar problems as OTA with the digitals? Some comments on this thread have indicated that for 6, some time back.... The local broadcasters are very inconsistent. I've seen channel 6 forget to switch their local fed back from the network atleast 30 times. I have a 1080i D-VHS tape of the ABC network loop, complete with surround sound test tones set to Space Shuttle footage, an HD Monsters Inc. ad, test screens, Good Morning America HD studio tour..... been there, done that.

So far, 6 is the leader in blind, stupid, neglectful mistakes, and 8 is the leader in fundamental problems, IMO. The big four don't take their digital signal too seriousy from all appearances, so far....

Alot of HD tv's sold now have not only a built in ASTC tuner but also a "QAM" tuner that picks up digital and HD feeds from cable. My tv has a seperate RF inputs for regular cable/antenna and digital cable/antenna. I just run a splitter and connected one to each. Through my reg. cable I get everything but Fox HD along with what seems like a million music channels, some movie channels, and a bunch of other useless stuff. The HD picture is awesome on all the channels but CBS. It's color is not as good as the other stations and it pixelates some.

Did anyone have any issues w/ HD on "The Office" this week? I didn't see HD on the digital channel 'till the last act.

Same here Dave. 'My name is Earl' was not HD either.

Same on the QAM ouput as well. Info bar said it was in HD but it wasn't.

[quote=Rachael Bellomy]Does your set lack a built-in tuner? If it has it one you ought to try it. Has independent 7 made the cable yet? It actually produces local hd content, unlike the big, fat, lazy four. I get it. The only channel that I don't get, watchable, is 20. I live too low or need a taller antenna, or maybe they should broadcast better?

You are right that Ch 7 is the only local TV station with local HD content. Charter and Comcast refuses to carry. Call your local cable operator.

What channels are you getting the locals on using your QAM tuner? The only local I get (via Comcast) is CBS. I only get a handful of channels through my QAM tuner, mainly a ton of music channels and some of the "on demand" stuff.

I get the HD of ABC, CBS, FOX and PBS thru Charter using the built-in tuner in my Sony with Charter. PBS always looks the best. Leave it to public broadcasting to do HD correctly.

Last fall I stumbled across them doing a delayed telecast of a high school football game. It was single camera coverage but with one DAMN good camera! Since I was using my DirecTivo's analog tuner, I made my own instant replays. I watched for about an hour and came to the conclusion that it looked way better than Jefferson Pilot although it was devoid of replays and graphics and such. Their production and HD commercials stomps the comp!

You'd think channel 7 would embarass the big boys into action on local HD but apparently not so far... I'd encourage anybody who has a digial tuner in their HDTV to get an antenna and see how they don't need to pay anybody for the locals and get channel 7 too. Unless one lives in some really deep canyon, it's purr-dy easy to pick up everything but 20. The higher you are the easier 20 gets, mostly, seemingly. As easy as these local broadcasts are to get, how long before the cable kompany has to offer a package sans locals?

It's funny, a friend brought his father over one saturday to prove to the cogger that you could pick up HD football OTA..... His dad just had to see to believe......

I bet the big boys don't want 7 on the cable embarassing their naked, SD butts... I see a plot similarity to Weird Al's UHF goin' on here....

Channel 7 is great for HD High School games. They show them at 9pm on saturday night. And I agree JP sports broadcasts suck. It is a joke compared to other football conferences telecast. To be able to watch USC vs. Oregon in HD on Saturday as a FSN game of the week compared to the UGA vs. AUB game on JP Sports(Lincoln Financial now) is a joke.

I know some cable channels are available in limited locations like SPEED and Fox Sports Net HD. I didn't know if Comcast receives those signals and doesn't send them out to their customers.

Does anybody know what ESPN-U is? The men Vols were on it the last two nights, but who gets it? I asked a friend who has C-cast cable and he couldn't find it. I searched Direc and didn't find it or a isting for the game. I had ESPN2 on later, to get the score off the bottom line. and the ESPN commentators talked abut the game and that Dick Vitale had covered it...

I'm gonna go look at ESPN's website and find out what "U" is. Anybody get it???

609 on DirecTV

Thanks! I never could find it using the team's names or NIT as searchterms on m DirecTivo. I see it's some kind of pay-per-view....

Dick Vitale did not cover their games. ESPNU was started to go against CSTV, which only does college sports programming. Dish Network has it standard, not sure about DirecTV. I'm sure only cable outlets in the major cities get it, they get everything.

I checked Direc's website and ESPNU is part of the Sports Pak that costs $12 a month. The commentators were talking about Vitale doing a game that night. I thought they meant our game but maybe it was another?

They'll be on Wednesday night on ESPN2, hopefully in HD. I don't know who's calling those games.

Hi Racheal,

Sad that WVLT is the worst OTA channel. Not HD in my opinion! And lowly WMAK 7 is superb quality OTA here in Athens when it can be received. I thought that CW was supposed to be the lowest lifeform as was Fox! Lincoln Financial Sports treatment of SEC broadcasts is giving the SEC a bad name. Their SD feed is horrible. Our camcorders look better and even have decent color, eh! I have watched the above on a friend's Sony and on Ingrid's Marantz 40" plasma. I am supposed to get a 40" plasma from Marantz as well as a new Marantz 5.1 system with B & W speakers for Christmas with an installed DirecTV HD Satellite system and Channel Master Yagi with rotor for OTA usage.

Kent Teffeteller

When does the Knoxville market upgrade to the new Mpeg4 technology from DirecTV so we can receive HD over the air without the antenna?

jmgvols.....According to D*TV,"this fall".As we all know,that ain't happening!My guess is about a year.They don't even have the bugs worked out of their flagship receiver(HR20).As of now,it can't even receive OTA signals and has other issues.
And they have managed to screw up the best HD DVR on the market(HR10-250) with a new,and totally buggy,software download(6.3a).What a fouled up company.I'm beyond frustrated with Direct.
BTW,I spoke with a "Level II tech-advanced tech support" today.He told me Knoxville will get a software upgrade at 1:30AM in the morning to fix the problems.For some reason,I'm having trouble believing anything will occur overnight. Fred

Some help would be much appreciated.

I live in Arizona and my brother lives in Knoxville and just got a Westinghouse LTV-32w6. I understand that this TV has a QAM tuner. What I'm trying to do for him is to see if he can pick up any of the HD channels from his tuner, no antenna, just straight from the TV.

I tried to walk him through how to scan over the phone, but since I've never seen his TV and dont know the situation as far as available OTA digital channels in knoxville it is getting quite frustrating. He says he isnt getting any HD channels. Is anyone here able to pickup any of the digital channels just through the tuner in their TV's? He has Knology cable if that makes any difference.

Also is their a channel listing for the digital OTA numbers?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Edit*
After looking around a bit I found some indications that Knology locks out all their digital signals so you have to get their STB. Is this true?

Is the Ga - Georgia Tech game in HD on WVLT ch 8 or have they forgotten to flip the switch?

Not HD AFAIK. CBS east coast feed from D* is the same.

It was Ch 8 not flipping switch. It was fixed and HD in second qtr.

Georgia vs. GT wasn't in HD. See http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=756889

As far as the LFS SEC games, the picture quality is the fault of WVLT. I have seen highlights of their games on ESPN and the picture/color quality is good. If you'll notice, all of WVLT's SD programming looks dull.

The Ga Tech-Georgia game was supposed to be HD. But CBS, only having 4 HD crews (3 for NFL and 1 for college), decided to send their main crew to the LSU-Arkansas game. CBS orginially said they would cover the Ga Tech-GA game in HD, but that was wrong.