CBS58 HD is terrible (Packers game)

[ArgMeMatey]

We can all agree that if TV stations aren't making money, they're off the air.  

Can we also agree that a 17 Mbps stream produces a better picture than 7, 10, 12, or 14 Mbps?  

Some people are going to be pickier than others.  Some people won't notice at all.  I accept that.

But there is a quantifiable difference (a difference that can be easily measured) in how a picture looks depending on the rate and other factors.  Outside of self-expression there's no point in saying "Looks OK to me" when it does not look OK to someone else.  If n out of 100 people can look at two pictures side-by-side and tell you which one looks better, and why, there's nothing to argue about.  We're not talking about "turning it up to 11" here.  

I won't speak for anyone else, but when a station says they're "HD", I expect a nominal TV (Like my 40" LCD) to have a picture that is nothing short of fantastic.  Sports or otherwise, things looked better to me before broadcasters started loading on subchannels and cutting the rate on the "main" channel (I won't stoop to calling it "HD").  For example, ABC-12 looks better than NBC-4 and CBS-58.

[Rick_EE]

I won't speak for anyone else, but when a station says they're "HD", I expect a nominal TV (Like my 40" LCD) to have a picture that is nothing short of fantastic.  Sports or otherwise, things looked better to me before broadcasters started loading on subchannels and cutting the rate on the "main" channel (I won't stoop to calling it "HD").  For example, ABC-12 looks better than NBC-4 and CBS-58.

Hear, hear.

[Tivoman44]

I know I commented last week saying how I thought the picture was good to turn your TVs sharpness down.  Yesterday I was watching the noon game on CBS.  When the camera was showing the QB calling the snap, the picture looked good, but I noticed the grainy picture with up close pictures of the players showing their reactions in between plays.

As people mention, the bandwith is being used up from the sub channels.  I admit 58-3 is a cool channel, but why do we need WMLW on 58-2 when it is already on 41-1 and analog 41?  And who watches the real estate channel on 58-4?  Wouldn't getting ride of some of those channels help?

[WITI6fan]

I know I commented last week saying how I thought the picture was good to turn your TVs sharpness down.  Yesterday I was watching the noon game on CBS.  When the camera was showing the QB calling the snap, the picture looked good, but I noticed the grainy picture with up close pictures of the players showing their reactions in between plays.

As people mention, the bandwith is being used up from the sub channels.  I admit 58-3 is a cool channel, but why do we need WMLW on 58-2 when it is already on 41-1 and analog 41?  And who watches the real estate channel on 58-4?  Wouldn't getting ride of some of those channels help?

WMLW is on 58.2 because 41.1 has significantly lower power.

What they should do is move all of WDJT's subchannels over to full power digital WBME. I highly doubt WBME is going to be broadcasting in HD anytime soon, so it makes perfect since to stick the other subchannels there since then there'd be the 4 SD channels digital TV was designed for.

But it's Weigel...

[ArgMeMatey]

What they should do is move all of WDJT's subchannels over to full power digital WBME.

Being the devil's advocate here, if they do that they will lose some "surfing" traffic from 58-1 and 4-1. In other words channel surfers would have to surf down through 55.1, 2, 3 to reach 49.x.  One could reasonably argue that no one would watch 58-4 if it weren't between 4-1 and 58-3!

Also Time Warner does not currently provide 49.x on Clear QAM, although they have WBME on midband 19.  

Any other reasons (besides inertia) that they wouldn't make a move like this?  Have they got grand plans for the 49 subchannels?

[mrschimpf]

WMLW is on 58.2 because 41.1 has significantly lower power.

What they should do is move all of WDJT's subchannels over to full power digital WBME. I highly doubt WBME is going to be broadcasting in HD anytime soon, so it makes perfect since to stick the other subchannels there since then there'd be the 4 SD channels digital TV was designed for.

But it's Weigel...

I thought they were still finessing the new transmitter for 49 since they moved from the iffy analog tower in Oak Creek during their home shopping/Kinlow era to Lincoln Park a couple years back. Then the flood complicated things, along with WHME from South Bend also on 48 and getting the best of WBME because of their higher power on days with a good trop effect.

[SRW1000]

Being the devil's advocate here, if they do that they will lose some "surfing" traffic from 58-1 and 4-1. In other words channel surfers would have to surf down through 55.1, 2, 3 to reach 49.x.  One could reasonably argue that no one would watch 58-4 if it weren't between 4-1 and 58-3!

Also Time Warner does not currently provide 49.x on Clear QAM, although they have WBME on midband 19.  

Any other reasons (besides inertia) that they wouldn't make a move like this?  Have they got grand plans for the 49 subchannels?

The channel numbers are only virtual, though.  While not positive, I don't think there's any reason they couldn't use the actual channel 49 frequency, but assign 58.2, 58.3, and 58.4 as the virtual numbers.

That would solve both the bandwidth and surfing issues.

Scott

[ArgMeMatey]

While not positive, I don't think there's any reason they couldn't use the actual channel 49 frequency, but assign 58.2, 58.3, and 58.4 as the virtual numbers.

That sounds like a great idea.  I wonder if anyone is using this approach?  

On the other hand, it seems to me that within a channel group (i.e. 58.1, 58.2, 58.3, 58.4) there is some interplay between the PSIPs.  For example, when MPTV shuffled things earlier this month, I did not have to re-scan, so I was guessing that the TV saw a change in the virtual numbering on the 10.1 PSIP and knew that there were now 10.2, 3, 4.  Maybe somebody else knows more about how that would have worked.