St. Louis, MO - HDTV *OLD* - Page 6  

I am defiantly getting "sparklies" in the picture from my 811 via DVI.
Using the same cable in the same DVI input, I do NOT get sparklies from
my Bravo D1 nor my Samsung SIR T165. The fault must lie with the 811.
And I doubt it's a software problem. The picture is clean via component.
The sparkles haven't been a distraction during normal programing,
but when the 811 is outputting an all black screen, there are definitely
flashing white pixels sparkling around the screen like a swarm of mosquitoes.

Sorry, I can't confirm, my receiver lacks optical inputs.
I can run dolby digital thru coax only.

I am having NO audio problems with my 811. I can confirm that KMOV drops - but otherwise things are looking solid. We have now been able to move to the 811 as our primary receiver.

I also do not get the lock-ups we were seeing in the past. The 962 update is by no means perfect, but its a solid step. Hopefully we'll see another next week or first of the year that solidifies the over the air reception and channel mapping.

Chris

EDIT: I am using optical out to a Sony STR-DE565. Receiver is set to DD/PCM.

I'm sure you mentioned before, but what antenna are you getting from Skywalker?

I've decided to invest some money into improving my OTA reception. Its almost there, I just don't think the generic Radio Shack Yagi's are going to get me the 99.99% I'm after.

Chris

Chris,

The one recommended was a Channel Master CM4228A.

I ran my own, and now wish I ran quad shield RG6. Penny wise dollar foolish. My reception is good, but could be better. I run about 75'. I threw an amplifier on it, which helped a little. All you can do is run it and see for yourself, as YMMV based on different factors.

I think I posted this earlier, but when I was having problems with my father-in-law's OTA set-up the quad sheild RG6 made a huge difference over standard RG-6. It was sort of a last ditch effort before I tried a new antenna or a pre-amp. Signals went from 50% with regular RG6 to 90% with quad sheild RG6.

Anyone doing a new antenna install- I highly recommend starting with quad sheild RG-6, especially for longer (over 50ft) cable runs.

Sunday's KMOV programming after the Rams game:

I emailed the following to KMOV a few minutes ago. A few more messages might do some good, but then again I could be dreaming.

"I was really surprised not to see the KC game listed following the Rams
game. And I was even more taken back when I saw that game is also a HDTV
production.

So at least show the game on CH 56 DT for those of us that can appreciate
it.

Skiing instead of a HDTV football game that involves two teams of some local
interest. Please."

If the Rams are on Channel 4 and since they are at home I don't think they are allowed to show a double header, Fox has to present a game which can only be the 3pm game since game is at Noon. Televised Rams Home games can be the only football game shown at that time slot. You should send a letter to Tagliabue along with a check for about a billion dollars or get NFL Sunday ticket. Sorry

Forgot to mention, I believe CBS HD game of the week is the Chiefs-Vikings game which is Saturday, so there is no HD game Sunday, please correct me if I'm wrong.

No - CBS is doing two HD games per weekend from now on (the SEC football HD is no longer needed). We should get a Sunday HD game.

Chris

Correct. CBS is doing two HD games per week but Sunday's HD game is Miami-Buffalo which is also at noon. CBS will be showing the Rams-Bengals game locally which is not in HD.

Here's where you can check out CBS Sports schedule.
http://cbs.sportsline.com/u/cbs/sports/

Your SD digital receiver is included in the cost of your current digital cable package. If they were to price it out ala carte for you, you're actually paying about $6 for that receiver.

The $14 for HD stuff is for the receiver and HDNet/HDNet movies. Dump the HDNet channels and it should bring you to only around $9 extra per month (price of the receiver and remote).

The local digitals are free, as are HBO/SHO HD (if you have those subs).

There is no "HD programming" charge. The locals are free. When they add CBS/ABC, they will be free too. Assuming you dump the pair of HDNet channels, all you would be paying for is the box and remote, and at $9/month, that's a heck of a bargain considering the alternative (high up front cost of owning your own HD receiver with a DSS company, $5 mirroring charge for that HD receiver, and a $11 HD package with channels that you may or may not want).

Eventually, they'll add ESPN-HD and Disc-HD, maybe more. I had both on DirecTV and neither was worth the $11/month I was paying for them (HDNet was included with that as well). In fact, if Charter rolled out both channels tomorrow, and made their own HD package with those 4 pay HD stations, I wouldn't pay for them now either (even for $5/month). ESPN-HD is the key channel here, but they just don't have enough programming in HD to justify paying a surcharge for it (yet).

I know Charter gets bashed around alot in here, but frankly I don't see why. We're getting to rent a quality HD receiver for next to nothing ($4 more than the a mirroring charge on DirecTV), no worry about breakdown with them either (just swap it out for a new one if it breaks or they get upgraded, that's worth $$$$ right there compared to owning your own and buying a long extended warranty or product replacement plan), and whatever digital locals they do have or get in the future, are free of charge w/o having to fiddle with an antenna (which will never happen on the DSS systems).

I'm sure that most of the informed HD customers will be calling Charter in the next week or two and dropping the HDNet sub (unless they are getting good value out of those 2 channels for their $3.99 cost), the rest will call when they get their bill and see the $3.99 line item for HDNet. If Charter takes notice and their CSR's do quality work and take note of why we are dumping HDNet, maybe they'll get moving on adding ESPN/Disc HD channels a little quicker and put together a HD package with all 4 channels for a reasnable cost (like $10.99 from DirecTV).

As you can tell, I'm very pleased with the Charter HD service so far. The tuner is lightning quick, no reception problems, dropouts, PISP issues, all of my channels come through one channel guide (which I couldn't do with my 1st generation HD receiver, DTC-100.. the newer ones I understand can combine lineups). For me, it's a great value and my TV watching is much easier now. Really, my only hang up is having to occasionally switch to my DTC-100 to watch MNF or some of the CBS sitcoms in HD... but that's just a flick of the A/B switch and I'm good to go. Eventually, I'll be able to remove the DTC-100 completely, which will make the wife even happier to have one less remote to worry about and less training involved for when the babysitter wants to watch TV.

Charter appears to be charging $3.99 PER HDNet channel - I get a $7.98 line item for HDNet every month. could just be a mistake on their part. I got sick of calling them every month to cancel HDNet.

We cancelled Charter last night. Why? Because of their customer service, and the lack of all locals in digital. I also didn't like not having my digital locals on their 'normal' channels - thats a big gap in the cable receivers.

So, what about the satellite costs? If you are willing to 'rent' the equipment in the same manner that Jon is talking about, satellite is cheaper. Dish's HD package, with a total of 3 rooms, is FREE up front. I pay for the basic packaging price, $5 for the first reciever (HD) and $5 for the 322 which has two inputs and two outputs (its in the basement and has a UHF remote for our upstairs room.) So I pay a total of $10 for the rental for 3 TVs.

FYI - when you rent with Dish, they charge a $5 rental for each 'receiver', BUT they waive the $4.99 activation charge, so its a wash. You really only pay $5 more than regular customers. And with the 322, I actually pay EXACTLY the same for 3 TVs as all the 'purchase' customers.

So with these new deals, satellite can actually compete directly with cable. Yes you have to pay for the HD pack (Dish's is $9.99), but between Discovery HD and ESPNHD I think its worth it.

And the best part of it? I get all my locals in digital - no waiting for Charter to negotiate anything - and they are on their correct channels.

While I agree with Jon that eventually cable will get there, we are very happy with the newer satellite boxes and deals (and my wife doesn't have to talk to Charter anymore - which is a huge plus for her). Plus with the baby, it is nice to have Disney East and Disney West again!!!!

Chris

thanks for the confirmation on this! It will definitely be what we watch Jan 1st!

I do miss watching this live - but HD will help. If you've never seen the parade in person, tune in to see some amazing color and details.

Chris

I would agree 100% that for people with a smaller amount of TV's that require service, then either dish company is a much better deal. But for those of us with 6 TV's, a couple of those where digital service is neither wanted or required (like a 13" kitchen TV where all I need is basic extended running through the TV's built in receiver), it's not even close.

As for HDNet being $3.99 per channel, my bill still shows just one line item for HDNet and it's still $0.00.

I dug up the blue price sheet that Charter sent with my list bill, here are the actual charges in their system (as of 10/03):

-HDTV Digital Receiver $3.85
-Remote $0.11
-HDTV IIS Fee (guide, music choice, interactive service, local HD, HBO/SHO with seperate subscription - $5.99
-Total for HDTV Receiver services: $9.95

Interestly, the cost of a standard digital receiver is listed as $3.85 and $0.11 for the remote, the cost difference is in the ISS fee being $4.99 with standard digital service (guide, music choice, interactive service).

HDNet, HDNet movies are listed as one item on their pricing chart, for $3.99

So, it seems that upgrading from a standard digital receiver to a HD one, is actually going to be just $1 difference in the end (not the $3 difference they told us). The $9.95 hasn't change, they have just increased the cost of their standard digital receiver service to $8.95 now (which most people don't see since they are likely getting a package deal with it included).

Let's not paint a totally rosey picture of Charter either - The most irritating part of the HD experience with Charter is the fact that their website shows that they have ALL the locals, ESPN, Discovery, HDNets and HBO/Showtime. Yet all of us Charter customers know for a fact that we do not have half of these channels yet.

Yes, it is 'free' at this moment, but come January 1st, it will not be. Also, it would be a wonderful change of pace if ANY of their csr's actually had a clue as to what is going on....but thats another story.

FYI - I was a dishnet customer until I moved to Wildwood in March. I switched then because SWBell could not get me 1.5mb download for their DSL, so I was forced to go with Charter for internet. Because of their goofy rule that you have to have some sort of basic cable [$14] to have internet I just went the 'easy' route and got my tv service thru them as well.

Honestly I have been very happy with my internet service and pretty satisfied with my tv service. But you will not 'force' me to stay with both services and make promises you cannot keep for long.

Yeah, their website has to show that since those channels are available in their other markets, and the website is a corporate site, not just for St. Louis customers only.

I can understand their $10 charge (I guess it's $14 now) if you don't have TV service, since it could be abused otherwise (if you have pipeline, all you have to do is plug the coax into a TV and you get basic cable service... so yeah, there's going to charge for that, makes sense).

Make certain I'm no Charter fanboy and have bashed them in the past, but I just see alot of broad strokes being painted around here making it seem like noone is happy with them. For my situation, my Pipeline service is exceptional and rarely if ever has been down in the past 3yrs, and my TV signal has always been strong as well (other than the occasional few hours of service outage if someone cut a cable due to construction of a new home down the street).

My big issues with DirecTV was that I had to pay an extra $5 for mirroring, plus the cost of equipment, to get service at all of my 6 TV's. Plus, even if I did pay that, I lose my PIP function, have a big ugly box with no room for it, and have an angry wife due to an extra remote with channels that are slow to change (compared to analog cable through a TV's tuner).

I can probably make your day even better - this requirement was eliminated in October. Their new pricing is $29.99 for basic (384K down), 39.99 for advanced (2MB down)- and NO surcharge. Also - all packages are 2MB until I think March.

With respect to the surcharge per receiver - it depends on how you slice that pie. I do think they (Dishnetwork) is making stides in improving that situation. With their new 522 and 322, you can feed your whole house from a 2nd output of a receiver. So in the case of the HD package, you can have your HD TV standalone. Your bedroom TV would be on one channel, and the rest of your house would be on a 3rd channel. All 3 TVs have access to EVERY channel. Total cost - $10 with NO upfront charges. With Charter you pay $10 for the HD receiver. Want HBO in the bedroom? Thats $8+ more dollars. Sure, the rest of the TVs are limited to the same channel - but how often are you that limited? But they also have a 4 TV setup for free that is still cheaper ($15) than the $18+ it takes from Charter to get 2 TVs access to HBO.

There are different ways to slice it - but I like the East/West feeds of Satellite, the OTA HD tuners, and the lower pricing (base packages are cheaper than Charter). Plus they announce intention AND we benefit from the aggressive cable companies. Dish and Direct compete nationwide, so if TWC and Comcast get aggressive on HD, Dish and Direct must compete or lose customers - Charter doesn't care.

Chris

I don't know if Charters policy is the same in all areas. On the Illinois side if you b**** enough you can have Pipeline and Satellite TV with no penalty and if you care to you can even recieve some other channels on that feed. We can even run the Pipeline signals and Satellite down the same cable if necessary.
With the equipment and promotions that Dishnetwork has to offer we can offer an inexpensive solution for almost any customer.

The local OTA DTV signals can be had with an inexpensive antenna. There are some glitches with these signals from the source. But having your own antenna rather than a cable company feed that is amplified and split to who knows how many outlets will be better.

I remember way back when the Dolby Surround signals were lost in the cable feed. I then switched to a C-Band Satellite TV system 10' dish and all. The only problem was that I had to install it myself. My Dad said I was crazy and my Wife damn near tossed me out. But I made it work. That was in 1992. In 1996 we started selling Dishnetwork.

Let me share with you what I have learned so far.

So lets say I am a cable company and now comes the need for more channels, some in HD and Internet connections. ( to be continued )

I'd say slim to none. Thankfully I have a OTA tuner and can pick up all of the locals OTA w/o issue. For the Joe Six packs without a clue about DTV, I'm sure Charter will get some nasty phone calls.

Cont. Lets say I am a cable Co.
Any service provider has a limited amount of bandwith to work with so what happens is a rob Peter to pay Paul situation. In the case of a Cable TV Co. with only wire to work with ( In our area 30yrs. old) some services won't work or others have to be compromised for new ones.
So do we run fiber?? Possibly but our budget won't allow it No make it work the best you can. Run the Pipeline on the low frequency as we get another $40 mo. subscription. We need HDTV! Again no problem just steal more bandwith from our already compromised channels and make it work.

Cont.
On the other hand a Satellte provider has way more bandwidth to work with. More channels no problem. HDTV no problem. Our HD Pack is only $9.99 The video you see on the subscription channels is at the same quality as is was broadcast in.
Unfortunately Local DTV via Satellite is not possible at this time but most can actually get it free with the proper antenna. Can I be of service?
Ned Schifferdecker satman@norcom2000.com

I currently have the Hughes E86 Hd reveiver. I am thinking of swithing to Charter Hd service eventually. I wanted to know if I can use my Hughes HD receiver for the cable instead of renting their Motorola box.

Jeff - no. You MUST use the Motorolla 5100.

Chris

Ned,
I'm using a 12 foot C-Band Dish in St. Charles and very much enjoying Showtime East/West, HBO East/West, and Starz East/West in High Definition. For locals I rely on a rooftop antenna which pulls everything in with no problem.

I strongly dislike artifacts and so have never adopted small dish for Standard Def pictures. But the future of HD may not be with C-Band as CMAX-HD and Movie Channel-HD have each illuminated using formats incompatible with my home equipment. Which HD channels do you currently offer? (please specify West feed if available). How does the digital symbol rate of the small dish compare with the original broadcast on C-Band?

Thanks!
Bill Lipscomb (Bill787

I live in SL area near intersection of Interstates 44 and 270 on what is supposed to be high ground. I'm interested in this antenna for HD OTA. Does anybody have any experience with it or knowledge of it? Thanks and Happy Holidays to all.

OKC