[carltonrice]

There was so much content on last night that it was overwhelming. The NCAA game in CBS, the Time to Kill movie on ABC, then HBOHD, and HDNet. And PBS here locally in DC. I kept switching between everything and just marveled at how good all of the images were.


Kudos to WMAR-DT in Baltimore. I had seen their schedule in the Washington Post earlier in the day and they were to show local college basketball during primetime (I thought) instead of the ABC HD movie. Well, to my pleasant surprise, they showed the ABC movie in HD on 2-1, the local college basketball games on 2-2. They do a fantastic job up there!

 

[Panther1]

I have to agree. I almost got craps in my thumbs from so much swithcing. Let' hope the trend continues.

 

[brewerboy]

Quote:

Originally posted by carltonrice Kudos to WMAR-DT in Baltimore. I had seen their schedule in the Washington Post earlier in the day and they were to show local college basketball during primetime (I thought) instead of the ABC HD movie. Well, to my pleasant surprise, they showed the ABC movie in HD on 2-1, the local college basketball games on 2-2. They do a fantastic job up there!

Is this correct? I thought that there would be a bandwidth problem? If 2-1 is truley in HD can they show something else on 2-2 and then there still is the weather loop on 2-3. I thought the allocation was for only one HiDef channel?

 

[carltonrice]

The PQ on A Time To Kill looked like some of the best HD I've ever seen on ABC, so I don't think the broadcasting of the SD basketball game or the weather map on the other two subchannels affected this at all. In fact, WMAR-DT always sends out the (3) channels. HD on 2-1, SD on 2-2, and weather map on 2-3. The only difference Saturday night was that the program content on 2-1 and 2-2 was different. Normally, it's the same.

 

[jbruno]

Carlton:


After your glowing remarks about WMAR-DT I thought I should finally join this forum so I could publicly thank you. You, and many others, have given us much good feedback and encouragement over the last 22 months, and putting "Time to Kill" on the HD stream, even though we pre empted the analog network feed, was our little surprise for all of you.


Incidentally, we are using a very low bit rate for the two 480i streams and getting good results due to the quality of the MPEG encoders we are using. That way we can still devote a fairly high bit rate the 720p feed. The HD encoder was picked specifically for its exceptional performance in 720p mode and the PQ can be stunning even with the two 480 streams.


Joe

 

[hpierce]

Joe, welcome to the forum, great to have you here! You guys are always right on time passing the HD through, and have one of the best upconversions around. My guests are constantly fooled into thinking that Monday Night Football is in HD because of how good the upconversion looks. It's great to have a local TV guy here to contribute to the forum.

 

[albertso]

Hello, Joe,


You might remember we talked about your 5.1 Dolby, before you got it! Great job up there in B'More. You sure know how to shame WJLA...


Anyhow, welcome to the forum and thanks for the great HDTV and participation.

 

[carltonrice]

Joe,

Great to have you on the forum! The bad news from me is that I will probably not be posting much here for a while. I sold my house (good for me), but that means I'll be packing up my HD system and putting it with all my other things into storage until I find another house. I'm sure my home owners' association here will be ecstatic when I take my Channel Master 4248 down. I don't know where the next house will be, but I can only hope that when I get in and settled and re-install my HD setup that I'll still be able to pick up WMAR-DT (and the other Baltimore and DC stations). I guess the only HD I'll be seeing for a while is in the stores.


In looking for another house, it's funny. The realtor thinks I'm looking for certain features. Rambler style, 3 bedrooms, etc. In truth, one of the first things I notice about a house now is the terrain surrounding it. Are there too many trees in the yard to get a clear shot with my satellite dish (I turned down a great deal on a house in Howard County because of this), or does the house have a good elevation for line of sight to the Baltimore candelabra? Maybe I'll luck up and get a house that can even get reception on WMPT-DT which I don't get here. Some houses I've been headed to, if I had to go down a steep hill aimed south with a lot of trees, then I don't even bother to look at the house. HD reception is the biggest criteria on my mind these days.


Of course, I can only guess, but hopefully whereever I end up, I'll still be able to pick you guys up with the roof antenna I'll be installing much to the chagrin of the new neighbors.

 

[jbruno]

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome. I just hope we continue to live up to your expectatoins and not "miss the switch".


Good luck with the house search Carlton! At least you have your priorities correct by putting HD reception at the top of the list because we need all the viewers we can get.


Joe

 

[joblo]

WMAR is truly the shining star of Washington/Baltimore DTV.


I especially appreciate the radar subchannel since I dropped cable in favor of satellite and no longer have local radar from the weather channel. The fact that the map includes my area of northern Virginia is very cool.


WMAR provides far and away the best signal reading I get from Baltimore, usually better than local stations WETA and WHD. Indeed, WMAR is the only station ever to produce a reading of 100 on my DTC-100. (Didn't last long - usually the DTC-100 tops out at 94, but I did see it once.)


And of course, WMAR is indispensable for those of us that would otherwise be stuck with WJLA… please keep up the great work and welcome to the forum!!!