[hoosierfan227]

In posts 2629 and 2630 it was mentioned about the blurring effect during the Big 10 tournament. This has continued during the NCAA tournament and was really bad during the end of the GMU-UConn game. This is a CBS problem based on postings in the HDTV forum. I know this has been attributed to flash from cameras but college games on ESPN HD and NBA games in HD do not have this effect.


I was wondering if our engineering friends, Mr. Weber and Mr. Meyers, had heard from CBS about this problem and if any fix is on the way.

 

[goldrich]



Quote:
Originally Posted by rustysedam /forum/post/0


Thanks Mr. Meyers for the answer about throwing the switch for HD.


Wondering about your comment that WTHI HD is at Farmersburg. Antennaweb tells me to point my antenna basically at the Ohio St studios for HD reception and when I do I seem to get a better signal strength than pointing it at Farmersburg. It's about 19 or 20 when aimed at Farmersburg and 26-28 aimed at 13th and Ohio St. Did they recently move the low power tranmission from the studios to farmersburg or was I mistake all along about where the signal came from?


Thank you again for providing valuable insight.

Back in October, WTHI-DT moved from the downtown FM tower to the TV tower in Farmersburg. Here are a couple of Ken's posts about the move..............

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&post6398546
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&post6859225


Steve

 

[rustysedam]



Quote:
Originally Posted by goldrich /forum/post/0


Back in October, WTHI-DT moved from the downtown FM tower to the TV tower in Farmersburg. Here are a couple of Ken's posts about the move..............

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&post6398546
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&post6859225


Steve

Hmm. I don't get why my signal goes to about 30 when I aim it at their downtown tower and drops to about 18 when I aim it at farmersburg.

I live on North 12th St in TH and the downtown tower is on 13th St about 2 miles South and slightly east of me. The farmersburg tower is on US 41 (aka 3rd St) about 17 miles south and a little west of me.

 

[rustysedam]

Mr. Myers,


I have 4 questions I am wondering if you'd be kind enough to answer:


1) Why do commercials not get shown in HD if they are in HD? This evening right after a program went to commercial, the first one (a chevy commercial) was showing in what I am 90% sure was HD...then it went to another commercial that also appeared to be in HD, but halfway through it went back to 4:3 (non-HD)...a HUGE difference.


2) A friend of mine would like to know that since he lives in the Southern most part of Vigo county (what he thinks is NOT in the valley), would he be able to get the Indy stations decent enough to watch analog channels any better than say downtown Terre Haute, and if so, how much better....he's wanting to know if it'd be worth a high end antenna to get Indy channels.


3) When WTHI goes full power digital, will everything that they carry be in HD if it was filmed in HD?


4) What happened to the little CBS HDTV logo that would rotate around from behind the CBS eye logo at the beginning of each segment (I loved that logo as it would show my friends they were indeed watching HDTV).


Thanks so much.

 

[Ken Myers]



Quote:
Originally Posted by rustysedam /forum/post/0



I live on North 12th St in TH and the downtown tower is on 13th St about 2 miles South and slightly east of me. The farmersburg tower is on US 41 (aka 3rd St) about 17 miles south and a little west of me.

Actually the downtown tower is located at 918 Ohio Street. Not sure what tower your looking at. Just look for the tallest tower inside the city limits! Anyway, the WTHI-DT signal now originates from Farmersburg. Could be an interferance issue. Maybe cable TV egress. Are you using a UHF TV antenna? Could be a number of things...

I'm east of Brazil, and can get a "78" on the meter and SNR of almost 25 dB. I'm probably 30 miles - line of sight from the transmitter. Twice as far with no problems here.

Ken

 

[Ken Myers]



Quote:
Originally Posted by rustysedam /forum/post/0


Mr. Myers,

1) Why do commercials not get shown in HD if they are in HD?

2) would he be able to get the Indy stations decent enough to watch analog channels

3) When WTHI goes full power digital, will everything that they carry be in HD if it was filmed in HD?

4) What happened to the little CBS HDTV logo that would rotate

Thanks so much.

1. Thats the miracle of SMPTE's 19 different formats! Actually we are currently working on simulcast solutions that deal with HD conversion. If, during CBS-HD, a commercial was shot in HD, it should remain in HD.

2. Some people on top of the valley have good results with getting the Indy analogs. Not sure about south of TH though. Find neighbors!!!

3. When the DT goes to high power, that is simply a power change. The programming orginates from a different location and will be addressed in another project. The whole DT project is VERY expensive and we can only tackle parts of the project at a time. Check out your other local DT's to see what they are doing...

4. Not sure about the CBS-HDTV logo. Should be there if the program is in HD!


We are dilligently working towards the end of analog but it will be a long, expensive road. Keep watching, it will get better.

Ken

 

[rustysedam]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Myers /forum/post/0


Actually the downtown tower is located at 918 Ohio Street. Not sure what tower your looking at. Just look for the tallest tower inside the city limits! Anyway, the WTHI-DT signal now originates from Farmersburg. Could be an interferance issue. Maybe cable TV egress. Are you using a UHF TV antenna? Could be a number of things...

I'm east of Brazil, and can get a "78" on the meter and SNR of almost 25 dB. I'm probably 30 miles - line of sight from the transmitter. Twice as far with no problems here.

Ken

Geesh...I know where the tower is located, have no clue why I was thinking of 13th St. I am crazy. I think I was thinking of about where I was aiming my antenna getting best signal. Anyway, I have the cheapest rooftop antenna (uhf/vhf) that radio shack offered about 5 years ago. When I aim it due South or slightly to the east, I get a better signal (about 27-30) than I do when I aim it downtown or at farmersburg (which is basicaly in the same line of sight from my North 12th St home.) Then I only get about 20. Not sure what is going on there. At least I get it decently.


Curiously, what happened to 10.2 (the doppler radar channel)? It's been blank for a few days. Would have come in handy this weekend.

 

[Ken Myers]



Quote:
Originally Posted by rustysedam /forum/post/0


>>>Curiously, what happened to 10.2 (the doppler radar channel)? It's been blank for a few days. Would have come in handy this weekend.

Yeah, 10-2 was experimental. We are re-evaluating the service.

Ken.

 

[jasonblair]

Death to multicasting and null packets!

 

[nathill]



Quote:
Originally Posted by jasonblair /forum/post/0


Death to multicasting and null packets!

Maybe my eyes are simply too old to notice the difference, but I can't see any difference in the HD picture on a station that is multicasting. I know in theory the bandwidth is limited, and that should make a difference, but if so, I can't see it.

I especially like the radar screens, which require almost no bandwidth, as almost nothing changes.

 

[Sluggonics]



Quote:
Originally Posted by rustysedam /forum/post/0


Mr. Myers,



4) What happened to the little CBS HDTV logo that would rotate around from behind the CBS eye logo at the beginning of each segment (I loved that logo as it would show my friends they were indeed watching HDTV).


Thanks so much.

Heh. You shouldn't need a logo for your friends to notice whether they're watching HD! The difference between HD and SD is more than massive enough to simply distinguish by eye!


For example, a friend of mine in Chicago bought an HDTV in January, and I asked him what he thought of the Super Bowl in HD-- he said it was mind blowing.


When I went up to visit him in March, we had the NCAA tournament on, and I noticed on the CBS-HD channel, that the game was "letterboxed" and looked awful, and I asked him, "where's your HD feed?" So I looked at his cable box (a Motorola 6412 I believe) to try and figure out if it was set wrong, to 480i or something-- but it all appeared correct. I was fiddling with his TV settings, everything I could think of. Then when I pulled up his inputs menu, I realized the input was on "Cable"-- he was running his coaxial cable from his cable box to his TV and using THAT input! The amazing thing was that his HD channels actually produced images, as I was under the impression that those channels would just be black if viewed over a source incapable of displaying them at 720p or 1080i.


So I hooked his cable box up with component video cables and switched to the external input on his TV for the component cables, and voila, he FINALLY got to see HD, which caused him to totally flip out, to the point that he said it almost hurt his eyes it was so clear.


I was surprised that he thought he'd actually been watching HDTV for the past 2 months, as it didn't look any better than SD.

 

[goldrich]

Sadly, your experience in Chicago is not uncommon.


Steve

 

[hoosierfan227]

The blurring on tonight's NCAA championship was even worse than Saturday. I find it stunning that CBS has had this problem with their HDTV for most of the college basketball season and was never able to fix it.

 

[Tom Weber]

Radar is fixed, so it's back in the mix. Nice that I was able to give it's data space to the game, but we really could have used the radar during the past weekend!


Tom Weber

Engineering

WISH / WNDY / et al.

 

[nathill]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Weber /forum/post/0


Radar is fixed, so it's back in the mix. Nice that I was able to give it's data space to the game, but we really could have used the radar during the past weekend!


Tom Weber

Engineering

WISH / WNDY / et al.

I agree with your assesment of the need for radar this weekend. It is the best weather information available, because everybody knows where they live, and don't have to watch weather folks report problems fifty miles away.

I find it invaluable.

As I have stated before in this forum, my eyes can't tell any difference in a picture when you give it the tiny amount of bandwidth required for the radar.

And, as always, thanks for taking the time to keep us informed of what's happening at WISH / WNDY / et al.

Nat Hill IV

 

[rustysedam]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Sluggonics /forum/post/0


Heh. You shouldn't need a logo for your friends to notice whether they're watching HD! The difference between HD and SD is more than massive enough to simply distinguish by eye!


For example, a friend of mine in Chicago bought an HDTV in January, and I asked him what he thought of the Super Bowl in HD-- he said it was mind blowing.


When I went up to visit him in March, we had the NCAA tournament on, and I noticed on the CBS-HD channel, that the game was "letterboxed" and looked awful, and I asked him, "where's your HD feed?" So I looked at his cable box (a Motorola 6412 I believe) to try and figure out if it was set wrong, to 480i or something-- but it all appeared correct. I was fiddling with his TV settings, everything I could think of. Then when I pulled up his inputs menu, I realized the input was on "Cable"-- he was running his coaxial cable from his cable box to his TV and using THAT input! The amazing thing was that his HD channels actually produced images, as I was under the impression that those channels would just be black if viewed over a source incapable of displaying them at 720p or 1080i.


So I hooked his cable box up with component video cables and switched to the external input on his TV for the component cables, and voila, he FINALLY got to see HD, which caused him to totally flip out, to the point that he said it almost hurt his eyes it was so clear.


I was surprised that he thought he'd actually been watching HDTV for the past 2 months, as it didn't look any better than SD.

The HTDV logo for CBS was a nice little bonus that I actually miss. I guess it re-confirmed to me (as well as my friends who didn't ever get to see that logo on their TV's) that I was actually watching HDTV. The picture quality difference IS unbelieveable, but many of my friends who bought HD-Ready TVs a couple years ago thought they were getting HD. Had to show them what HD-Ready meant. And yet, none of them have bought a decoder yet. I will wait for NFL 2006 season and have them over to see a game in HD and I know they will all go get their decoders then!!

 

[the_gunner]

Anybody know what channels Insight Cable (Fishers, IN) uses to broadcast their digital QAM stations (both HD and digital SD)? I'm not referring to the channels mapped thru your STB, but rather the unencrypted 'in the clear' channels you would get by plugging your coax straight into your QAM tuner in your HDTV.


TIA for any info,


the_gunner

 

[cd_iso]

I see the difference 10-01 WTHI-HD without the radar. Comments saying you can't see it I would question. CSI looked fantastic tonight. With radar, it just looked ok, but it just didn't look fantastic. Does that make any sense. thanks., cd.

Quote:
Originally Posted by nathill /forum/post/0


I agree with your assesment of the need for radar this weekend. It is the best weather information available, because everybody knows where they live, and don't have to watch weather folks report problems fifty miles away.

I find it invaluable.

As I have stated before in this forum, my eyes can't tell any difference in a picture when you give it the tiny amount of bandwidth required for the radar.

And, as always, thanks for taking the time to keep us informed of what's happening at WISH / WNDY / et al.

Nat Hill IV

 

[nathill]



Quote:
Originally Posted by cd_iso /forum/post/0


I see the difference 10-01 WTHI-HD without the radar. Comments saying you can't see it I would question. CSI looked fantastic tonight. With radar, it just looked ok, but it just didn't look fantastic. Does that make any sense. thanks., cd.

It makes perfect sense to me. You have better eyes!

I truly can't see a difference when channel 8 simulcasts. It may be that WTHI-HD takes more of a chunk of bandwidth for their weather, or it may be that my brain can't see the difference through my old eyes looking at my CRT rear-projection HDTV tuned to channel 8-1, (with or without the tiny amount of bandwidth needed for their dopler radar on 8-3).

Nat

 

[balefire]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Weber /forum/post/0


Well, for full power TV stations reasonably in the Indy market, I count 10: 4, 6, 8, 13, 20, 23, 40, 42, 59, and 63.


Add to that another 5 or 6 low power stations: 27, 31, 47, 51, and 65, and the Spanish low-power: 17.


Add 30 and/or 49 as alternative full power PBSs, and that seems to me a much higher level of variety, whatever you may think of the programming on some of them.

Tom

Anyone in Zionsville getting WB (4) or channel 63? I'm currently using an indoor antenna, and getting 6.1, 8.1, 13.1, 20.1, 23.1, 40.1, and 59.1. Antennaweb lists 4 and 63 as being pretty far from me (~40 miles, bloomington). I'm a pacers fan and would be willing to get a good outdoor antenna if WB in HD is possible from Zionsville. Thanks.