WTMJ4 2005-06 Equipment and Switching Failures

[Joseph S]

There's a post that details everything you need to know about NBC. It's not their fault at 4, it's the network.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=595724

Well, looks like no NBC-HD tonight. Raining again NYC.

Check the NYC Weather here so you can determine if you want to even try and watch NBC.

Radar:

http://radar.weather.gov/radar/loop/DS.p19r0/si.kokx.shtml/url][url]http://radar.weather.gov/radar/loop/DS.p19r0/si.kdix.shtml

http://www.weather.com/weather/local/10101?lswe=10101&lwsa=WeatherLocalUndeclared&from=whatwhere
 

 :mad:

[oflaherty]

We still read the forum every day - it's just been too busy here in the newsroom for me to respond lately.

As you know, some of the problems have been with NBC, like the Leno Dolby problem and the uplink weather outages in at NBC in NYC.

We suspect there maybe other issues.. like not enough signal strength from the NBC HD dish into our HD receivers. The dish is installed and maintained by NBC's service contractor, so we are working with them to check that out.

We also changed the audio routing a few weeks ago. That seemed to create problems, so we've gone back to the old, tried and true way.

And yes, it is very frustrating for us too. The 6th anniversary of WTMJ-DT is coming up next month. We should not still be having problems like this.

--Sean at TMJ

[Mark Strube]

. We suspect there maybe other issues.. like not enough signal strength from the NBC HD dish into our HD receivers. The dish is installed and maintained by NBC's service contractor, so we are working with them to check that out.

Would this be the cause for the constant speckling problems in your HD image?

[oflaherty]

Mark - I don't think our satellite signal is the cause of your white speckles. I don't see them here at the station - or at home.
It seems like no one else on this forum can see them either.

Over at the AVS Forum speckles are blamed on long cables, bad cables or a bad switcher:

AVS Thread on HDMI/DVI switcher

"speckles" are the result of a bad connection

Are you using a switcher for all your HD sources?

Which source do you use to get OTA stations?

--Sean at TMJ

[Mark Strube]

This isn't on my side. Your channel is the only one I see this on, on both my OTA receiver connected thru component, and my HD-DVR connected thru HDMI. I also notice it on my HD Capture Card. Take a look at this thread-

http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/forums/showthread.php?t=5576

Something's up with something on your or NBC's side.  

[oflaherty]

Mark - Are the white speckles there all the time, or just some programs?
It sounds like the two other guys just saw it in one Conan show.
I've never seen it.
--Sean at TMJ

[Mark Strube]

They were never as prominent before as they were that night, but I had always noticed them in darker or deeper, solid colors in the picture, ever since I first got HD (maybe a year now?).

[Joseph S]

Failed to flip for ER tonight.

In additon to the sparklies. The Fall 2005 screen garbage is real disracting. Hard to explain why we have to see Red and Green lines running through the stars' faces on Las Vegas.

<---------- Look there. Bold Yellow line -> Yellow, Green, and Red lines of varying width on top of the picture as you move away from the bold yellow line.

Oh yeah, don't look to your right either. The picture is jumping all over the place this Fall.

[Joseph S]

Failed to flip switch out of local commercials during Notre Dame again at the end. Outside of the USC game, they've screwed up every week including the overtime period of MSU game.

 :guns:

[Joseph S]

I think they've finally sunk to the Wiz levels at 4. Yet, another botched ending for Conan tonight. Happening 2 or more times each week.  

Then Leno has the most bizarre screwup with Keener interview running with Leno video stopping on a single frame with audio continuing for the entire seg and national commercials, not in local commercials, back on same frame with switch to HD and continuing into Conan for who knows how long. No national reports that I can find of that one.

:mad:

Oh yeah, I hear it's raining outside and I figured it out with their subchannel blocked.

[oflaherty]

The video output stopped from the NBC satellite receiver late Thursday night.
We had to figure out how to get the video going again.
--
Sean at TMJ

[Joseph S]

And we get the "same frame for an hour" with no audio screwup this time follwed by SD for the entire rest of the show during SNL tonight.

Isn't it just great that we get pixelation with any movement and  lame weather that even the GM doesn't think we watch because he interupts the HD channel when it "might" rain?

Headed for the toilet is TMJ4 quality.  :mad:

[Joseph S]

Las Vegas preempted on Friday.

Tonight's SNL was a pixelated mess and it's not going to get any better.

Conan and Leno were butchered, yet again, on Thursday. Both preempted on Friday and not recorded and shown later in HD like other markets do.

There's a thunderstorm watch somewhere in the world. Gonna post that note too?

Those f'n bogus weather "watches" conveniently weren't shown during the commercials. Seems like you don't care a lick about us after all. This station is done, I can't wait to get out of this market. Journal Communications needs to fire their GM now. That station is headed for disaster.

[Joseph S]

Crossing Jordan - 5/7 - Failed to flip switch for last segment

Conan still butchered on a regular basis.

[Joseph S]

5/13 - SNL  - Bizarre screwup -

Flip from local Arby's commercial. Audio is "I'm thinkin' ______"  and stopped short. It  was supposed to be " of Arby's," but they obviously planned wrong again and cut the commercial short.

Then it gets weird.

Photo of Julia Louis Dreyfus and audio of "I was sitting like 10 feet from the car. It flattened the tire and this other one is jammed. The tires are in a wheel well."

 :confused:

Here it is: (443kb)
http://rapidshare.de/files/20884402/Saturday_Night_Live_-_Julia_Louis-Dreyfus.avi.zip.html

There's more of it switching out the segment as well and throughout they switched late from all local breaks to national feed segments that didn't include photos resulting in missing dialog.