Online Chat 3-13

[tenth_t2]

Well, for my first chat, things were really moving fast.  Unfortunately Jim was a bit late, and as we all started to understand the chat interface, hopefully we didn't irritate anyone too bad.

Anyway, Thanks Jim for tolerating us, I see you getting many questions at once, we may need to rethink the chat stuff a bit.  Honestly, this was the first time I chatted, and SPEED is what you need I think.  Anyway, if you read this, thanks!!

As I was watching the questions fly in, I wondered if compiling them into a summary message would be a good idea.  I'll get on that.

Greg O.

[tenth_t2]

I gave up after 30 minutes.  Clearly it would be helpful to collect some questions ahead of time, and maybe supplement you with a few folks to type responses!  Talk about outnumbered!

Maybe a separate category for each station on this site to monitor if they choose, once they are either testing or broadcasting only.  Somehow we need to slow down the question rate, maybe only allow specified users to submit replies within a given forum section, preserving a mass query to single response type of concept.

Greg O.

[kjnorman]

Yeah, lots of technical talk but very hard to pin Jim down about broadcast content.

Kerry

[RickNeff]

I would have to agree that any first time experience is going to be more of a learning experience than serious discussion.  I do think that the questions should have been obtained from the beginning and only the "moderator" should have presented the questions.  It's simply too easy for everyone to ask their "pet question" and quickly overwhelm the invited individual.

Just my personal opinion, however.

[Joseph S]

 

eah, lots of technical talk but very hard to pin Jim down about broadcast content.

Kerry

Did he answer questions as to whether or not his station is actually operating at full power?

Thanks.

[This message has been edited by Joseph S (edited 03-13-2002).]

[RickNeff]

Yes, he did address the power issue.  No, they aren't running at full power.  He said that they wouldn't run at full power until the number of HDTV owners was larger.  He mentioned that it costs a great deal of money to keep it at full power all the time.

------------------
Richard Neff
Proud Toshiba 56x81 owner!

[Joseph S]

 

Yes, he did address the power issue. No, they aren't running at full power. He said that they wouldn't run at full power until the number of HDTV owners was larger. He mentioned that it costs a great deal of money to keep it at full power all the time.

Another Chicken or the Egg case.  

Oh well, I really wish they would at least run somewhat near full power during Primetime when HD broadcasts occur.

The NBC/WTMJ setup is all I'm hoping for at this point. 6PM to end of nightly HD broadcasts and weekend afternoon football/basketball HD broadcasts. Other than that they can shut it down. There is certainly no need to upcovert that Alzner foot effect infomercial they run 7 or eight hours straight during the overnight.

[RickNeff]

Jim also explained why they weren't going to do the power-up/power-down thing that WTMJ does.  It apparently is hard on the equipment and shortens the life.

I'll agree that I wasn't overly impressed with his answer about needing more users to get to full power.  But, money is obviously the driving force for these sorts of things.

Of course, a moot point for me being stuck with Time-Warner Cable.  I wish I'd get an answer back from someone about when they might get around to carrying these channels.  I've been thinking about a set-top box, but I'd hate to spend the money (especially since I wouldn't be getting the sat dish) and find out they're going to carry the signals soon.

But, I digress...

------------------
Richard Neff
Proud Toshiba 56x81 owner!

[oflaherty]

It was great that Jim Hall was willing to stay online so long and answer so many questions. And I'm really glad he was willing to go first.

I did have three minor comments:

- I was not aware of any outage on WTMJ-DT last week.

- I'm still a little confused about the 1.1 channel number. The FCC adopted the ATSC standard A65 for digital TV. According to  http://www.atsc.org/standards/A65-A.doc   that standard says:

"ASSIGNMENT OF MAJOR CHANNEL NUMBER VALUES FOR TERRESTRIAL BROADCAST IN THE U.S.

 The assignment of major_channel_number values in the U.S. is based on the rules below.
 For broadcasters with existing NTSC licenses, the major_channel_number for the existing NTSC channels, as well as the Digital TV channels, controlled by the broadcaster, shall be set to the current NTSC RF channel number. E.g. Assume a broadcaster who has an NTSC broadcast license for RF channel 13 is assigned RF channel 39 for Digital ATSC broadcast. That broadcaster will use major_channel_number 13 for identification of the analog NTSC channel on RF channel 13, as well as the digital channels it is controlling on RF channel 39.

 For a new broadcaster without an existing NTSC license, the major_channel_number for the Digital TV channels controlled by the broadcaster shall be set to the FCC assigned RF channel number for ATSC Digital TV broadcast. E.g. Assume a broadcaster who currently has no NTSC broadcast license applies and receives a license for Digital ATSC broadcast on RF channel 49. That broadcaster will use major_channel_number 49 for identification of the digital channels that it is controlling on RF channel 49.

The two provisions above assign major_channel_number values 2 through 69 uniquely to broadcasters with license to broadcast NTSC and/or Digital ATSC signals."

- And I didn't really understand the part of the chat about why the CBS prime time HD programs didn't look as sharp as Jay Leno in HD on NBC. Jim said it was because the NBC picture is smaller so it just looked sharper. Leno and CBS prime time are both 1080i and look the same size to me.

-------
Sean O'Flaherty
at WTMJ-TV and WTMJ-DT

[Steve Mann]

 

Originally posted by oflaherty:
And I didn't really understand the part of the chat about why the CBS prime time HD programs didn't look as sharp as Jay Leno in HD on NBC. Jim said it was because the NBC picture is smaller so it just looked sharper. Leno and CBS prime time are both 1080i and look the same size to me.

Another reason for this is that Leno is shot on video tape rather than film as most of CBS programming is.

[kjnorman]

 

Originally posted by RickNeff:
I do think that the questions should have been obtained from the beginning and only the "moderator" should have presented the questions.

I'll agree with Rick here in that this is perhaps the best way to proceed in the future.

Another thought, is that perhaps this group could produce a list of questions to ask the various stations.  Get a response from them (not in a live chat) and post this in the FAQs.

May be a way to go?

Kerry

[kjnorman]

I also did not get a comment on their intention for content to be broadcast on the digital channels.

Now if Jim Hall had turned round and said that on channel 1-1 they would be broadcasting the say program line up as on the analogue channel in HD with occassional multicasting for special events to enhance the watching experience, then it would be an easier sell on my wife to get a HD tuner.  

If on the other hand they are only broadcasting sporadic HD programming, and that we have to hunt it out because of a lack of a quality HD program guide, then it will be harder for me to sell the tuner idea to my wife.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Kerry

[Tom Snyder]

We have the enitre transcript of the chat in saved file. I'm editing it down to remove all the unnecessary stuff, so we can relive the moment without wading through the junk...

Watch for it later today or tonight...

Jim did a good job of traffic cop, and got some good info out there, as well as soliciting some good info from the group. All in all I'd say it went well.  

[This message has been edited by Tom Snyder (edited 03-14-2002).]

[SugarRay]

Any word on the chat transcript yet?

[Tom Snyder]

Pretty monumental task... and I came down with a bad, bad, bug. Should be able to finish tomorrow morning.