St. Louis, MO - HDTV - Page 424

I don't think I care about KSDK going dark on DirecTV. I don't think I ever watch it.

Glad I have an antenna. Heck, I even finally got rid of my east and west coast feeds of the networks that I had grandfathered for many, many years.Saves me $$$ every month.

My view is the opposite. I'd love to stop paying for locals, but would pay extra for East/West networks if I could (for those times when the local affiliate preempts a network show or has transmission problems).

I held on to the east/west feeds for probably 10 years longer than I needed to for fear I'd regret not having them. I can honestly say my gamble paid off. I really can't remember the last time I wished I hadn't cancelled fortunately.

Oops...turns out my wife cares a lot.

That's something you don't want to discover too late!

Some of us still do......

But I still find it interesting that the local stations aren't the ones paying the "cable" providers for delivering a clean signal to millions of eyeballs. If not for cable and satellite, their viewership would be much smaller. And that ultimately dictates the selling price for their ads. How many rooftop antennas do you see these days? Digital OTA reception is an art/science that many ordinary folks will never undertake or master.
Edited by moman19 - 11/30/12 at 8:39am

While that's the logical thing, the FCC has flipped that upside down with Must Carry laws. With Must Carry status, the cable companies are at the behest of the local TV stations.

If a station uses the "must carry" route, they don't get paid for their content. This is typically how small mom and pop stations end up getting carriage on the cable systems.

That's why the "major" stations and station groups have to negotiate retransmission agreements and fees. Cable and satellite operators are willing to pay for the right to carry this content so that they can offer more complete service packages to their customers.

I get that but it's still a mutually beneficial arrangement. The stations get a good signal into many more homes, and the Cable and satellite operators can offer complete packages. As I see it, the issue really revolves around the contract renewal dates the stations use to their advantage. Recently, Gannett threatened to take Channel 5 off Dish Network if they didn't reach an agreement. If Dish held ground, they probably feared that many subs would flock to Direct TV or another provider. Well, an agreement was reached at the zero hour. Now here we are, a few weeks later and Direct TV is in the same hot seat, squeezed by the same broadcast group. Is Charter or AT&T next?

In the end, no subscribers move but the broadcasters receive "undisclosed" increased (ranson? blackmail?) payments that ultimately will be paid for by higher subscription rates the providers must pass on to us.

So much for "free" TV........

Just came back from a trip. I guess KSDK hasn't gone dark yet. I too can get them OTA. Main thing I watch is their news. I positively can't stand watching KMOV. In your face...Breaking News all the time...weather that tries to stir us into thinking there will be a major disruption to our lives every week. Jeez, tone it down KMOV. From KSDK I believe I get more of the facts. Maybe that's why they were top of the ratings in November.

If you're referring to Gannett's retransmission agreement with D*, it was resolved on the 29th or the 30th and there was no service interruption for D* customers.

Personally, I can't stand KSDK's newcasts, but it's the one my wife watches so...

'Twould all be much simpler if the broadcast industry and the cable/satellite companies would state that the increased value to the broadcasters (increased viewing of commercials) and the increased value to carriers (more channels for customers) were a wash -- no fees in either direction.

Just in case you have channels 7.3 & 7.4 blocked out...
Channel 7.3 is now carrying "CoolTV" (used to be on 30.2).
Channel 7.4 has a card showing something called "P-TV" coming soon - http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/180/ptv.gif
Edited by awh - 12/16/12 at 1:37pm

I did some googling and p-tv is Punch Tv.

http://my.punchtv.net/

Looks like they're targeting the same demographic as Bounce-TV (which isn't on in STL). They'll likely to compete for audience share mostly with WRBU 46-1 which airs a lot of urban-oriented programming.

Punch TV ended up on a hard to get translator in Chicago, W25DW-D 25.4. Even if you have an outdoor antenna, certain areas of the market get some interference on RF 25, that it don't always come in. Most of Punch TV's affiliates are on low power stations.

Uh, oh. Looks like Panasonic might be getting ready to throw in the towel on plasma TV's....

http://www.digitalversus.com/tv-television/panasonic-halts-plasma-r-d-n27529.html

It's been quiet for a while on this site, so I thought I would post a rant about KSDK simply because I am fed up and I have no other options.

Although my viewership of the NBC network has dwindled down to about zero, I had no choice but to tune to good ol' Channel 5 to watch the Golden Glob awards. Well, despite the fact that my home theater system has really cool, well-adjusted Dolby 5.1 surround sound, I found the entire evening of audio only originated from the center speaker. It's really sad that after almost a decade of HD broadcasting---Remember, these guys were the "HD Leader in St. Louis----they still can't seem to get it right.

.....And good luck reaching someone at the station to provide any feedback. Trust me, no one is home.

Thankfully, I didn't watch the Golden Globes.

The two NBC shows I watch, Revolution and an occasional Leno monologue, I get from Hulu Plus on my Roku box. I've been blissfully KSDK-free for several months now.

While we are picking on KSDK... They are running a continuous crawl announcing the death of Stan Musial. I expect full team coverage of this terrible tragedy tonight at 10:00. I swear that the death of just about 99.9% of any given heads of state in the world would get far less coverage on good old ch 5. Who want to take bets about whether or not they chose to preempt tonight's live new episode of SNL with a special 2 hour edition of sports plus covering every detail of the entire life of Stan the Man hosted by Rene Knucklehead? I really wish I could replace channel 5 permanently with some east/west coast feeds.

Hulu Plus is the next best thing to East/West NBC feeds. I haven't missed an episode of Revolution yet this season, and haven't put up with KSDK during any of it.

Not thrilled with the fact that it has commercials even though I pay $8 a month for it, but what the hey... it's fewer commercials (and fewer glitches) than I get from KSDK.

Big surprise... SNL is preempted. KSDK can DIAF!

Well there ARE ways to get an "alternate" NBC feed...but I guess these depend on how much trouble you want &/or can go thru...

- Get an OTA antenna & pull in another NBC affiliate from an adjacent market. Of course, knowing the surrounding markets, about the only one you would have a chance of getting, is going to be Columbia. (Springfield, MO is probably WAY too far away) You would very unlikely be able to pull in either WAND-Decatur or WPSD-Paducah.

- "Move" your satellite service (address) to an adjacent market. Of course, you have to pick one who's spot beam falls over your (actual) physical St.Louis location. You can go to this link on satelliteguys.us & look at the spot beam maps & see which ones would realistically work. (you need to look at the HD Ka bird beams, NOT the SD Ku ones... )
Unfortunately, DTV's Kansas City beam is too far way from STL. But according to these maps, amazingly the Chicago spot seems to reach WAY downstate thru STL. (obviously this works QUITE nicely for me for an "alternate affiliate" - can't beat an O&O, since they VERY, VERY rarely pre-empt prog from their own network. Our market beam (Springfield/Champaign) seems to get thru STL as well. (at least we have 3 different PBS's to choose from... ) I believe the Paducah/Harrisburg/Cape DMA is on the same beam as STL, so that would be another easy alternative. (not really crazy about THAT DMA, but when you're desperate... )

Doing this is as easy as a phone call to DTV; no need to qualify &/or fill out a form, like trying to get E/W feeds. satelliteguys.us has tips on how to do this - w/out throwing up a red flag to DTV or DISH.

If you would choose to do this, you know you can then use DTV's add-on OTA tuner, where you could then run an antenna into it, & STILL get your STL locals thru the DTV receiver; like having the best of both worlds.
- - - - -

Anyway, go luck trying to get your NBC programming that you SHOULD be getting; I know our locals up here are NOT the best, but I didn't realize just HOW much your (only) NBC affiliate SUCKS!
I mean pre-empting SNL - really...REALLY???

(I no longer have access to the STL locals; I now only have ours & Chicago... )

Anybody have trouble watching The Following last night? I recorded it to watch tonight (or at least I thought I did). Windows Media Center tells me it didn't record because it didn't detect a signal on channel 2-1.

Bob,

Although I was able to record the event via the E* Sat channel by default, the quality was horrible. Very similar to the breakups we all used to experience on FOX during 24 when HD was in its younger days. This begs the question: What's up with that?????? FOX football games seem fine, but when an engaging series comes on, the network seems to suddenly fall apart. Lots of pixelization, freeze ups and audio changing in volume. CRAZY!!!!!

Try to find a copy of the show. The show was excellent and scarred the wife BIG TIME.
Edited by moman19 - 1/23/13 at 6:47am

I'll take a guess that a really big breakup was happening right as the PC started to record, and either the HDhomeRun tuner or Windows interpreted it as a lack of any signal at all.

Hate to sound like a broken record, but I did manage to catch the show on Hulu Plus. It's got the potential to be this decade's 24. It's that good.

For anyone who missed it and doesn't have Hulu or Amazon, the premiere repeats Friday at 8PM on 2-1. Same bat-time, same bat-channel.

I recall the breakups were worse at the beginning, so you're probably right. I wonder if this is a network issue or a Channel 2 issue. Either way, it's yet another reason why the networks should simply be able to offer a direct signal rather than be forced to go thru a local affiliate that cannot get the chain untangled. I seldom see artifacts this bad on ANY of the National SAT channels.

Probably a KTVI issue.

When these breakups were happening during 24 several years ago, DirecTV was still letting all of us get the New York Fox affiliate, WNYW-HD. That channel didn't have KTVI's breakups, though it did have Porky Pig-style stuttering audio sometimes. So I got my 24 fix from DirecTV/WNYW quite often back then.

So the issue was KTVI then, and I'm pretty sure it's KTVI now.

Since Hulu is co-owned by Fox and NBC, it's the next best thing to having the East/West networks on satellite again. ABC and CW, not so much but I do get my ARROW fix there rather than putting up with KPLR. CBS is, unfortunately, nearly nowhere to be found there.

I think I'll record next week's show on SAT and OTA to see if there is any difference in the "noise". What a bunch of amateurs at the local stations, I hate having to pay extra $$$ to fix issues that shouldn't exist. How does the the Hulu PQ compare to the HD version via SAT? I have decent download speed via Charter cable.