Network switching issues (Hall of Shame?)

[kjnorman]

After reading the thread on the CBS switching issues, and as all the season shows are getting into full gear this week, I thought I may be useful to start a single thread to record switching issues that the locals have.

Hopefully this thread will die into oblivion should the locals be perfect with their switching    But, if not perhaps this may be useful for the local engineers to help them sort this out, or perhaps it will embarish them into sorting it out if we create a Switching Hall of Shame.

I was going to post a poll until I realized that you can not vote more than once.  So instead if you see poor switching or a HD show in SD then please post below.

I though I would start here.

WTMJ (NBC):  The E-Ring (Sep 21).  Dropped to SD after 1st commercial break.  Stayed SD until about 1 minute before next break.  After that was okay.

[Steve Mann]

You must be referring to E-Ring?

[kjnorman]

You must be referring to E-Ring?

E-Ring, West Wing, E-wing - easy to confuse!

Corrected.

[mrmike]

Crossing Jordan was a mess last night, but I don't know if it was TMJs fault or not.

[Joseph S]

I was going to add Crossing Jordan, but I saw them flip it at least 3 times and it was just black. NBC's HD Feed wasn't there and neither was the telltale yellow vertical stripe on the left.

[Joseph S]

NBC and CBS are now also showing HDTV Credits for their shows. Unfortunately, last night NBC cut the credits from Las Vegas and did the same for Medium although not quick enough to hide the fact that we're missing the HD credits and previews. There was a single frame of it. See attached.

[Doug Mohr]

How about the Peacock animated screen saver that was on for about 2 seconds after a commercial break?

[StarvingForHDTV]

LOL the credits in HD..... Joseph you are amazingly fussy!  

I doubt if you will ever be satisfied.

[gparris]

Here in the southern part of the TWC area, last night during the Tonight Show after the monologue, local commercials started playing as usual.
I mention this because of our close proximity to Illinois which has Comcast.

Right before the Heiser commercial, a commercial of Comcast's  HDTV, Internet and Phone service offerings came on using a game show format
...anyone see that?
Was this a switching error or is Comcast taking over TWC for this region as it has in other areas of the country (or is it only an Adelphia area thing?)

[Joseph S]

Comcast definitely offers more than them.

Picking up all networks in HDTV (no Sinclair affiliates in Boston proper) plus NHL Center Ice, all the digital music channels, and a bunch of SD digital channels (not advertising for On Demand ) off an analog only Comcast line via QAM.

What you saw on NBC happens a lot. The credits issue is becoming a major headache with CBS and NBC. CBS seems to stick with them early on and I wish NBC would do the same. Some shows aren't wrapped up on the HD feed when they're switching. Others have shows starting in the credits of the prior show too. It makes absolutely no sense to flip the switch for SD credits when you have to swtich again 30 seconds later for the start of the new show.

[gparris]

So it was another error in the infamous NBC switching mess...okay.

Watching tha Comcast commercial and knowing very well that they have no HD package adder for INHD or ESPNHD plus all the Sinclair HD locals (no Sinclair in Chicagoland) and of course, more HD movie premium channels made me feel I could possibly be getting a switch from TWC's HD mess...but I guess I was wrong.
 
Just to the immediate south of me is Comcast Cable land...oh baby!
Too bad the enforced monopoly of cable doesn't allow for them to come on over to offer their services to us...but that would be way too easy!

[Snoogins]

This is my first post here, so sorry if I re-hash something that's already been discussed.

I noticed noone mentioned on this thread that last week's CSI (air date 10/06) switched back to SD after the last "in-episode" commercial segment.  I believe it ended up being for the last 10-15 minutes of the show, and never switched back.  Just thought I'd bring it up, since it seems we're tracking these issues here.

[Joseph S]

We have a winner for "Worst Job Flipping the Switch" in the category where the switch was indeed flipped.

Last week's Conan O'Brien with U2 Special Episode was a complete disaster.

Each and every flip out of the program was early and butchered with audio hiccups and SD. The majority of the flips into programming were late as well. I'm amazed at this considering a monkey can figure out when to flip the switch for NBC. All they have to do is flip every time there is a horizontal line at the bottom of the picture in the middle. Piece of cake and it was a complete nightmare on a very unique episode.

 :mad:

[GS kid]

What ticks me off is how switching is usually done by an automatic scheduler and in a pinch, manually.

I've said this before, but it's been awhile.

I think they should fix the problem in two possible ways.

1: Use a HD bit-flag in the broadcast stream to tell broadcasting equipment to switch to 16:9 HD mode automatically. Kinda like the 480i 16:9 bit-flag used in DVD movies that tells your television to switch to full screen mode automatically. Wish this feature worked in 480p. Just embed an HD flag in all HD programing.


OR

2: Keep broadcasts in 16:9 mode at all times and have hardware/software auto-proportion 4:3 source material so that it's not streched.


Why either of these are not able to be done in 2005 is beyond me. :bang: