Poor PQ on CBS 58 for Badgers Game?

[Mikey]

I really don't know what is going on with CBS-Milwaukee in HD.

Last night, we watched 1 hour of NBC-HD (504) before CSI came on.  Not one issue, glitch, audio drop out or otherwise.  None.

Tuned to 505 at 8pm, started watching CSI and for that hour, the channel had a handful of audio dropouts and pixelation...also during SD commercials.

Went to my DVR list to watch The Office after CSI and it had no issues whatsoever.

I'm convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that CBS is just a crappy HD channel.  Period.  They are obviously doing something different or worse (probably both).

:huh?:

[John L]

I wonder if people would be better off complaining to the CBS TV Network since the people at CBS-58 aren't listening?  I know they wouldn't have nothing to do with the technical issues of ch. 58, but their network is fed through them.

I remember in 1993 once Fox 6 announce they were dropping CBS for Fox, a lot of people were hoping WVTV-18 was going to pick up CBS. The folks at WVTV/WCGV are very responsive and even post here keeping us updated on technical issues.

-John L.

[Lethdorr]

I really don't know what is going on with CBS-Milwaukee in HD.

Neither do I. The entire first half of the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship game was almost entirely unwatchable due to pixelation and lag. I don't have this problem with any other HD channel I have....

[Mags]

Too Funny....

I was just bitching about CBS-58 last night.  I had CSI Miami taped from April 1st and was planning on sitting down, relaxing and watching it.  It is always a fun show to watch in HD, as the panoromic scenes of South Beach are beautiful.

The show starts in HD for about 5 seconds - and then it switches to SD, with a stupid graphic on the bottom on local election results (like who was elected the new Hartland Paperboy for route 15 - stuff like that).  I thought, crap, maybe it will go away in a few minutes.

NOPE - it stayed on for the whole hour.  It was constantly updating the Paper Boy race - you know, 15% of the vote in, 7 votes for Jimmy and 5 for Suzy.  How frickin' ridiculous!

If we really wanted to know who won the paper boy race in Hartland, couldn't we just watch the 10:00 pm news on 58 and see for ourselves?

The show was pretty much unwatchable in SD.  It was a shame - it is a decent show.  To top it off, after EVERY commercial break, the show would return in HD for about a second - and then some hack at the station would put on the newspaper boy election results again and put it back in SD.

Frustrating - this wasn't life threatening, it wasn't a national (or even significant local) election.  They could have put this stuff on their SD channel if they wanted.  Why screw up the HD channel?

By the way - WAY TO GO SUZY - New Hartland papergirl for Route 15 in Hartland!{fart}

[RonH]

Actually, CBS58 does listen here, both the GM and a chief engineer of CBS58 have responded to this particular thread.  Both indicated they received perfect reception during the NCAA tournament and all posters here have issues with their equipment.  At least we know two homes have a good signal.  I also polled coworkers, 100% indicated poor quality broadcasts on CBS58 since the NCAA tournament started.

[DanDyer]

Gentlemen,
My GM watches our OTA and TWC at his home in New Berlin and I view both in Racine.  Both of our OTA receivers have no problems, whereas his TWC 505 breaks up constantly in the New Berlin area fed by the Brookfield headend(in fact this morning it was noted that all signals using a 8300 HD DVR were breaking up from channel 1 - 9999), however the TWC signal from the Greenfield headend feeding the south was stable. We believe the issues are related or isolated to the Brookfield headend.  We have been talking with TWC for over 3 weeks (including during the NCAA's) and they have not determined the exact cause of the problem for those fed from the Brookfield headend.  Two possible causes of the problems that have been relayed to us are; 1.) There is a problem with the end users cabling at their home; and #2.) They say their antenna is possibly misaligned or there is interference from a second source, possibly across the lake.  Having witnessed the video breakups ourselves from the Brookfield headend, but not the Greenfield headend, we believe it may be an antenna problem or their antenna feed line at their Brookfield headend. (possibly moisture related)  We have been told by TWC personnel to tell viewers to call TWC to have a service call made to their residence if the problems are persistent.

We wish we could help more, but we are trying to get TWC to resolve their problem.

For OTA people, a full rescan of your receiver has solved this problem for other viewers.  Please refer to previous posts on this topic about doing a full rescan.

Dan Dyer
Chief Engineer

[Bebop]

When football season starts, will 58 get full bandwidth during the games or continue to share with sub-channels?

[Martyus]

A few comments/questions about CBS 58.1...

1) This past Thursday, April 10, I was watching Survivor and CSI and experienced stutter during both shows. Survivor was still watchable, but irritating, since there was a stutter only every 10 minutes or so. However, CSI was unwatchable with stutters at least every minute. This stuttering was nothing like the dropouts and pixelation experienced during the NCAA games.

2) I watch OTA, so I checked the antenna signal strength for CBS 58.1, which was around 75% (reported by the TV). At the same time, all other stations (i.e. NBC 4.1, ABC 12.1, FOX 6.1, etc.) were all at 100%! BTW, the antenna signal for CBS 58.1 was at 100% during the NCAA dropouts and pixelation, so this appeared to be some other problem.

3) I concluded that the drop in antenna signal was due to the rain we had in the area Thursday evening, however, I am surprised that a 75% signal on 58.1 still resulted in such heavy stuttering for HD.

4) The question I have is, why was only CBS 58.1 affected by the rain? As far as I know, NBC 4.1, ABC 12.1 and CBS 58.1 all transmit from the same tower. NBC 4.1 and ABC 12.1 both had 100% signal while at the same time CBS 58.1 had 75% signal.

5) Is CBS 58.1 transmitting at a lower power level than NBC 4.1 and ABC 12.1?

6) Is CBS 58.1 transmitting on a frequency that is more susceptible to interference from rain?

7) Why doesn't CBS 58.1 show up in antennaweb.org? They have CBS 58, but not CBS 58.1?

[RonH]

7) I think there is a typo in the antenna web database.... If you look, you'll see that digital channel 1.1 is listed and I believe that should say 58.1.