Philadelphia, PA - OTA - Page 56

Also what kind of antenna are you using to get 36.1? Does it lock solidly for you or is it intermittent?

Since several weeks WYBE-DT 35.1 is showing a kind of regular "stop and go" pattern. The image hangs every half second or so, the program becomes un-watchable. This is on two different ATSC receivers. On my capture card, the picture is completely messed up (some pattern).

Something wrong with the station or is it my reception? I get analog fine.

I don't see any posts on the recent calls to delay the transition to a later date, including those by President-elect Obama and Consumers Union.

So, Bill Weber, if you are listening, would any such delay have any impact on WHYY's switch to digital transmission on RF12 as currently planned, or would WHYY go ahead and switch to full power on RF12, yada yada?

I'd have to think about it some more; but other than any delay in WHYY's switch, which I've been looking forward to so that I might be able to finally receive WHYY again, I guess I really don't care that much one way or the other.

Since my Samsung boxes receive both ATSC and NTSC signals, it is nice to be able to switch to NTSC and still get a pretty good quality picture and sound when my antenna has been blown a bit off the mark and I'm not getting perfect ATSC reception. Sort of a "back up" kind of a thing.

Which ain't gonna be there no 'mo after the transition.

There are four pages of posts on that topic here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1105820

I just read through the last few pages, and I see WHYY did a test of digital broadcast on the current analog frequency. Is that right? And it seems it went well for most people? That's with a lot of UHF antennas, right? If so, that's good to hear.

Any further news on WPVI doing a similar test?

Yes, yes, and yes
No

Success! I got my parent's TVs in Philly on HD! They're technology challenged and have no idea what's going on. They bought a pair of Insignia (Best Buy) 19" wide-screen TVs and "flat" digital antennas. They couldn't believe how good the picture could be. It took a couple of minutes to explain why the picture was square, then it filled the screen (program material, don't use the zoom...).

From a rowhouse in Olney (lower northeast) with the new "flat" wing antenna, I was able to get all the channels, including WHYY-DT and WNJS-DT. I can credit the better tuners in these new TVs compared to the 10+ year old CRTs that they replaced. They're happy, I'm happy.

The "wing" antenna (looks like an airplane wing to me) is actually a pretty interesting design. A folded dipole with tuning stubs and dielectric loading on a printed microstrip of cheap plastic substrate. It works. Perfect to just lay against a window or on the furniture by the TV. Since there's no room for an antenna on the TV, this is just fine. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1215217076045

FWIW, Amazon.com has this for $9.

Did channel 10 NBC change its location? I lost it for about a week and re-scanned tonight and got it back.

12 WHYY - never received that one. CC Phila.

hey, Bill Weber in the Inky: http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news..._millions.html

Friday the News Hour on 12.1 was in postage stamp format (black bars all four sides) and it seemed like everything on 12.1, 12.2 and 12.3 over the weekend was postage stamped as well. Looks like they need to do some adjustments.

T-Max:

WHYY is currently considering the options related to a possible delay in the transition date. The current, low power DTV signal situation is certainly a major element to consider regarding future switch date decisions. The jury is still out awaiting more information from inside the beltway. An extended transition period would not be in the interest of WHYY. Our earlier and successful full power digital signal test on channel 12 is the ultimate solution and is ready go when the switch is authorized.

Bill

otaguy:

Much of the current WHYY postage stamp situation is related to a PBS production standard policy decision made many years ago that permitted program producers to use equally the entire wide screen aspect ratio for all visual program elements including graphics and other important picture composition elements. Commercial networks adopted a "center-cut safe" strategy so they can easily cut the picture to 4:3 as needed.

WHYY can not center cut the picture without damaging the widescreen productions. If 4:3 content is placed within a 16:9 program, the result is a "postage stamp" on a 4:3 and some 16:9 picture displays. A technique called A.F.D (automatic format descriptor) is being implemented by the industry to dynamically make appropriate sizing adjustments based upon the nature of the original content. This industry work is not complete as of this date. PBS/WHYY are working to implement the first phase solution as quickly as possible.

- Bill

HD content on WHYY 12.1 last night, including News Hour, Antiques Roadshow, and the India special, were in glorious full screen HD, so the postage stamp issue on 12.1 I saw on Friday and Saturday seems to have been fixed. 4:3 content on 12.1 such as Nightly Business Report and Keeping Up Appearances was shown pillarboxed (bars left and right) as seems appropriate.

The problem remaining is that lots of shows on 12.2 and 12.3, including Living with Chernobyl, The Narcotic Farm, Tavis Smiley, Prairie Churches, and Brule Live are being shown postage stamp. While it's good that WHYY and PBS are working on implementing AFD to address this issue, I wonder if there isn't some sort of work around to fix this in the meantime - is there a way of changing an aspect ratio flag in PSIP coding for each individual program to get rid of the extra bars, so that for example 16X9 content being broadcast on 12.2 or 12.3 at 480i would display as full screen on 16X9 TV's and letterboxed on 4X3 TV's. The issue is picture quality, plus the inconvenience of forcing viewers to use the zoom functions on their TV's or converter boxes to get rid of the postage stamp effect.

AFD is that workaround. There's no other way to do it. While you can change that flag on the fly like that, I'm not sure how great an idea it is (I've heard of receivers locking up when that happens), nor whether they even have the equipment to show the program in native widescreen SD.

- Trip

I've gotten pretty much the same answer from a couple of engineers over on the HDTV Technical forum. So I guess I'll just have to wait for PBS and the local stations to implement AFD.

Bill:

Thanks for the reply and info. But one question: You say you're ready to go "when the switch is authorized" but can't you switch early if you want to? I believe I'm correct in saying that many stations have already terminated analog transmission and are only broadcasting digital right now. Since you already own RF12, can't you go ahead and just terminate analog on it and go with digital (on RF 12)?

Pat Simon @ WLVT has advised her viewers that they are going to terminate analog broadcasting at the end of this month. And as Trip and others have advised, many PBS and other stations have already terminated analog.

So why can't you just go ahead if you want to?

Looks like the ANT111 is a much better performer. Scored 4.4 of 5 with quite a large body of reviews (76 reviews) -

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....s&nrp=15&iht=n

One of the Amazon reviewers of your wing antenna turned me on to this. And it's considerably less expensive (although neither costs much).

He took his wing back and got (another) ANT111 because the one he already had far outperformed the wing.

So he says.

Had one of those in my kitchen for a couple months until it got warm enough for me to go outside, drill a hole and run RG-6 up to my attic to join in with the rest of the sets on my attic antenna. Did perform fairly ok considering (I'm in a very tough reception area), but with the dipole elements fully extended, it was a bit unwieldy, especially since the 15" LCD TV doesn't have a "top" to sit it on. Amazon's got the wing for $9.

The reason I got the "wing" is for simplicity. This is for my parents, who are technology averse. IOW, no computer, no cable. I had to put the "wing" together for them. The ANT111 will be too complicated.

As an example, they just got their very first DVD player to replace the VCR. My Mom called me to say that the DVD wouldn't play. Turns out that she opened the drawer with the power off, inserted the DVD, and closed it. Then, she turned on the power and the DVD "disappeared" inside somewhere. This is the simplest DVD player you can get. No idea this was even possible. I'll extract it on the next visit. Why did she do it? Because she could insert tapes in the VCR with the power off and thought she could do the same here.

I'm bringing this up to point out that many viewers (like my parents) have no idea on picture aspect ratio or why you need to enter "-1", "-2", "-3" on the remote.

To WHYY-DT, please do whatever you can to keep my parents happy and reduce my anxiety level. They're your best customers - all they watch is WHYY and the news. Use AFD to keep the program material in its native format so my parents won't call me about why the picture keeps getting cut off (they don't understand the "zoom" on the remote).

You said they are getting all possible channels, so they likely don't need a better antenna. I only mentioned it because it sounded like the ANT111 is a much better performer -- in case they later have some issues with the wing not doing so hot some of the time.

Sounds like you're saying you can't figure how your Mom pulled off that DVD move. If so, I agree. All the players I'm familiar with shut the drawer automatically when you power down (assuming the drawer is open). And they also power up if you push only the "open drawer" button. And I know of no way you can even open the drawer without powering it up.

So she pulled off a good one there.


That's what Geekgirl said as well but when I clicked on her link it came up as on sale for $16.99 (normally $19.99).

Whatever.

Now, on a completely different subject and for those of you who might be interested, I just got hip to a site that's "better than AntennaWeb." See this post -

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post7625830

The only cautionary note I'd make is that his first link isn't really where ya want to go to start. You really want to start at the home page -

http://geocoder.ibegin.com/

and scroll down a bit and enter your street address in the box in the "Test Drive / Begin Geocoder" window.

Then just follow his instructions (in his post).

Now one interesting thing I found is that WHYY did not come up as a digital station at all. It only came up (as an analog station) when I checked the "List Analog Stations" box.

I have no idea why that is, but there ya go.

And I do agree -- it is MUCH better than AntennaWeb.

TVFool is a much better site than AntennaWeb, gives numbers, distances, polar plots, a slew of information on OTA TV reception. It's like the expert version of antennaweb, which is really designed for novice users.

my hdtivo didnt record nbc tonight....signal is zero..did i miss an early channel change?

rescan showed no new channels

Been using that site for a while. http://tvfool.com/ The owner maintains an AVS forum thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...841787&page=13

Also on that page is a Google Earth view of the broadcast transmitter coverage for your location. Very cool. (AVS forum thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...=821480&page=9)

On some players, a little extra force will allow you to pull open the DVD drawer. Sounds like she pried open the drawer, stuck the DVD deep in the drawer or opening, then pushed the drawer shut, which in turn shunted the DVD into the 'inner space' of the player.

Don't let her near the thing with a peanut butter sandwich!

Mako sent a crew up to their antenna at the American Tower site at 310 Domino Lane today for antenna repair work on W36DO digital 36.1. WYBE 35.1 is on the same tower, I think higher up. Turns out the cabling to the panel-type transmitting antenna wasn't hooked up right, resulting in an out-of-phase problem that was cancelling a good chunk of their signal in turn resulting in a much smaller than anticipated coverage area. I now have solid reception of the station here in Swarthmore 11 miles south of the transmitter using rooftop antennas where before this repair I had no detectable signal.

My Sony Bravia TV indicates SNR (dB) of about 24 for 36.1 versus 29-30 for most of the other stations transmitting from Roxborough, so this is my weakest station. The station has an ERP of only 3800 watts. But, for a lot of people in the Philadlephia area with a decent antenna this station should now be receivable. A service contour map for the station is here:
http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-serv...LD1281306.html
As you can see it is a two-lobed pattern. So if you are in the coverage area AND you have a decent antenna (meaning on the roof if you are I'm going to say more than 6-7 miles from Roxborough) you should be able to get this.

At the moment programming is Cornerstone TV (religious). My contact at Mako tells me there are active discussions to add more subchannels and we could see that later this year.

I'd be curious to learn if other people are having success locking in a signal and if so where you are.

i still have issues..cant get UHF 67.....signal is bouncing like severe multipath but every other stations is fine so i dont understand how just one station could have an issue

ideas?

Wait a few weeks. WCAU 10.1 is going to move from RF 67 to RF 34 post-transition.

well 34 is strong now..that mean it will be just as good later? I sure hope so!

Still for a month having to move things is a pain.

RF 67 is at the tippy top of the UHF range. Probably most antennas have better gain on 34 as compared to 67. Plus depending on where you are you will be getting a smidge more signal from WCAU on 34 than you are currently getting on 67.