Columbia, SC - HDTV - Page 331

Hey, when did WACH go widescreen with their 10pm news? I stumbled on it just now while channel surfing. Not HD, but it looks better than what they had before.

This TV started up on schedule this morning. 10.2 cut over from Weather Plus to This TV at 10:00. About 10-15 minutes later the new subchannel 10.3 appeared with Weather Plus.

WIS has the following announcement on their Web site:

http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12250940

The online program guide seems to be screwed up, hopefully only temporarily. The first movie (which is playing as I write this) is "Disaster on the Coastliner" which started at 10:00 by the looks of it. When I went to http://columbia.thistv.com as directed by the WIS announcement, on the home page I saw "On Now: 9:00am - 11:00am Disaster on the Coastliner". But under the "Schedule" tab it listed this movie as starting as 12:30pm.

However, the OTA PSIP guide data is in place and correct (as of right now), so if you have a converter box or tuner that displays a PSIP guide, you're in luck. (Up in Spartanburg, WSPA has had Retro TV on 7.2 for several months but still doesn't have PSIP guide data in place.)

IIRC, about a week AFTER WOLO went widescreen (from downtown) with HD weather and now HD field packages.

I'm not sure who told you they'd have to run new lines in your home but thats wrong. I have U-verse and they ran it in the home on the same coax cables as TWC was on. They did put a new box on the outside and just rerouted the coax from the TWC box to the AT&T box, that was it.


U-verse blows away TWC. The Cisco DVR's they use absolutely kill the crap TWC uses. They are so small and quiet and there is zero lag from when you push a button to when it actually responds to it. Plus you can record 2HD's and 2SD's at the same time, pretty soon itll be 3HD's and 1 SD. I never realized how terrible the TWC DVR was until using this one (I've never had a Tivo). Also with U-verse you get the east/west coast feeds of USA, TNT, TBS, etc. Although only the east coast feed is in HD here.

Does it blend?

I guess I just didn't notice it when WACH switched to widescreen because I so seldom used to tune to them for news. Very soft and with muddy colors, yuck. They look a lot better now.

I knew WOLO was using HD for weather, but didn't notice the HD field cams until a week or two ago when I tuned in during a segment from the
Statehouse and thought, "wow, that looks good!" I suppose now it's a matter of waiting for the studio equipment to reach the end of its life cycle before upgrading it.

I saw WACH's morning news before and I saw it in widescreen (4:3 Pan & Scan). I always use the 4:3 PS for viewing. I can tell if something is in HD or in SD by using that view.

I can feel something unexpected happening this fall at my locale when WOLO revamps its equipment and gets the power increase. I say that it will be unexpected because of the kind of antenna I am currently using.

I'm hesitant to consider U-Verse unless there's like zero impact on TV viewing when I want to do something Internet-intensive like stream a video. How does that work for you?

When the AT&T rep dropped by last year to tout the first install in my neighborhood, 16
Mbps downloads were mentioned as an upgrade option but I'd hate to pay whatever the extra cost is then find out that the TV picture quality starts to degrade the more you do other things through the one connection...

Another AT&T rep dropped by yesterday. Apparently the No Soliciting signs need explaiining. Anyway, the downloads are up to 24Mbps per her, and the wires were buried like 5 years ago that support U-Verse so all they need to do is run a fiber-and-copper-entwined (her description) cable to the house. I'm not in a position to jump on the limited-time before-the-regular-public deal she described but it's interesting that they are walking around again to push it...

are any of you guys using a tivo box in columbia?

i am thinking about getting one for my bedroom (currently there is only basic cable in there and no hd) so i could get the obvious features +netflix.

i just got off the phone with TWC and they told me that a cable card and tuner adapter is required for digital cable, and i told the lady i dont have digital cable for the tv i want to hook the tivo up to. She said i did have it because it is showing on my account and i told her that i have it in my living room b/c thats where the time warner cable box and is and also because its a hdtv. i told her that i have hd channels. In the bedroom i only get to like channel 70 or something.

she put me on hold and then came back and told me that i would still need a tuner adapter and a cable card to receive analog channels and guide data.

does anyone who has the same setup have any information to share with me?

If the channels you receive in your bedroom are digital, and the TIVO has a digital tuner/receiver you'll get the guide data regardless and won't need to worry about TWC.

I think that's right, but I could be wrong.

Also, if the Tivo's have a digital tuner (QAM or something) than you'll get (or should get) cleared QAM channels to your bedroom and those more than likely will have guide data attached to them.

another question what is this crap about a tuner costing 15 bucks a month from time warner plus a cable card just to get tivo to work for basic cable?

Waaaay too long with no posts.

G4-HD would be nice. Anyone know if it's coming to TWC soon, or can't come because they need to work on capacity?...

Oooooh, this got an Old Thread Warning. I hope I'm not the last...

Not sure what G4 HD has to do with local HD, but I get the channel on my box.

"Local HDTV Info" always seemed to me to be about HDTV in my area, not just stuff produced in downtown Columbia.

So where's the HD version of G4 that you get? G4 is on 311 but 1311 is not G4-HD...

Google says it's on Cablevision and U-Verse. Also satellite right next to the Watching-Paint-Dry channel.

Ah. Left off TWC on my original post. Sorry for any confusion...

On June 4, I got WOLO to come in -- with an old Magnavox indoor antenna that we had since circa 2003.

This past Sunday morning, WIS magically appeared on my Sansonic with the same antenna.

Well, since you don't list where you are.....that tells us nothing..

Thanks again to WOLO for providing such a quality reliable signal to the Barnwell area - the ONLY Columbia signal to do so. It amazes me that WIS which is essentially on the same frequency (Ch. 10 vs. Ch 8 for WOLO - both high band VHF) is the least reliable of the Columbia signals. How times have changed!

I am in Williston -- which is in northwestern Barnwell County.

The high VHF wars is on now.

WIS has now applied for a CP at 57,000 watts, several months after WOLO got an increase in power.

Um, WIS has had a permit for that power level since March of 2009. In fact, I don't think they ever operated at any power level but 57 kW.

- Trip

WIS has more ERP than WOLO (57 kW versus 43.7 kW), but WOLO's antenna is higher (613 m versus 561 m above sea level). The net result (service area) is almost identical for the two stations:

FCC service area map for WIS

FCC service area map for WOLO

Put those two maps on separate tabs in your browser and click between them to see how similar they are!

I use Google Earth. And I got a good comparison of the two stations on the most recent transmitter download that I put up (from June 1 on TV Fool).

WOLO has a bit more cyan in Elko, Blackville, Denmark and Bamberg than WIS does. Another common denominator is that each of these four cities have clear line of sight to WOLO if the antenna is 22 feet above ground level (the default height on the AntennaWeb page), and not WIS.

Do WIS-10 and WOLO-25 still have future power increases planned or requested?

WOLO's taller tower must be what makes all the difference in the world for our reception in Barnwell. WIS is mostly unwatchable except when weather conditions allow, while WOLO's signal is there 24/7 with no dropouts. I have a VHF Yagi cut for Ch. 8-10 (both WOLO and WIS) aimed at the Elgin towers. A WIS engineer told me they have been at full power since the digital transition and one reason we might be having difficulties is that (Back in Feb. '09) the digital antenna was side mounted on the north side of the tower to try and reach Charlotte and that could result in signal loss in our direction. All I know is I find it interesting that the two stations broadcast on similar frequencies with supposedly the same coverage area but WIS is not a reliable signal here.

Go to My Services

Go to Remote DVR Manager

Schedule a recording

Start PIP

At the scheduled time watch your DVR record light come on and your PIP channel change to the recording channel

Very Cool!

I get WOLO DT over Time Warner Cable here in Columbia. For at least the last several weeks the audio has been in Dolby Digital 1/0; i.e. mono. Is anyone else seeing this? What are OTA viewers getting? Maybe its a TW issue.

Thanks for any feedback

Do any of you folks still have any ESPN-HD recordings of the CWS games involving USC ???

I guess that is a "No" ...