Milwaukee HDTV User Group

HDTV Forums => Milwaukee HDTV Programming => Topic started by: Xizer on Tuesday Sep 14, 2010, 10:59:24 PM

Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: Xizer on Tuesday Sep 14, 2010, 10:59:24 PM
TMJ4: Horrible squished picture. Massive bar with election percentages the bottom. Bar appeared to be 480i? It was obviously standard definition, and appeared to have a massive, constant interlacing problem. FAIL.

WDJT: It's nice to see Milwaukee's CBS affiliate continuing its long-standing tradition of shitty broadcasting. Watching Letterman sure was a treat because it was it was switched to 4:3 SD with obnoxious 4:3 SD graphics overlaid at the bottom.

WITI: Kept the picture in HD amazingly. But they cropped it down and surrounded the picture with blue bars on three sides. Why was this necessary? Like all the affiliate solutions it was pure, unfiltered ass.

WISN: You think you guys can get anymore redundant? Picture dropped to standard def, cropped on three sides. WISN-TV splattered all over the place. The ****ing "12" logo plasted in no fewer than 3 different places on the screen. If I see that *****  *** logo one more time I'm going to punch somebody.

The CW and MyNetworkTV didn't give a **** about these elections. Good on you guys.

Just another example of why satellite is the way to go. Stupid affailiates.

(https://milwaukeehdtv.org/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bencredible.com%2Fwp-content%2Fsatellite_dish_1_c-band.jpg&hash=293188c1865269dbfa857ac652cdb5f86c4d8892)
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: WITI6fan on Tuesday Sep 14, 2010, 11:14:30 PM
WTMJ has no excuses now. Their weather ticker system is capable of running election returns and school closings according to the information on AccuWeather's website (http://www.accuweather.com/adc2004/pub/products_services/fwsc.asp?partner=accuweather&header=m).

WDJT should have November election returns in HD. I'm told CBS sent out election return templates for their Lidia HD character generator a while back.

WISN? At this rate, enjoy your 4:3 SD picture when the school closings start rolling in this winter.
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: ArgMeMatey on Wednesday Sep 15, 2010, 02:06:14 PM
Quote from: Xizer;56219Stupid affailiates.

Very Punny.
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: oz on Wednesday Sep 15, 2010, 03:45:01 PM
Nice post!  There were indeed some sad displays.

It looked like TMJ4 had a bunch of extra space below their results that did nothing but take up space.
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: SRW1000 on Wednesday Sep 15, 2010, 07:58:53 PM
This isn't picture related, but one thing I noticed was that WTMJ's election results were more current than WITI's.  At one point, WITI was showing something like 18% of the vote in for one race, and WTMJ was at 26%, and that spread stayed that far apart for something like 20 minutes.

I didn't check out the other stations, though.

Scott
Title: Lets Discuss how Xizer should be banned
Post by: WPXE ION on Thursday Sep 16, 2010, 08:49:49 AM
:OnAir:

 The use of foul language should be enough. :mad:

:deadair:

I dont mind anyone being critical here, but c'mon do you have to rant on like a 15 year old???

{fart}
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: duncantuna on Thursday Sep 16, 2010, 08:59:09 AM
I loved the rant and its salty language.  Even read it to my wife, who is very anti-potty mouth.
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: WPXE ION on Thursday Sep 16, 2010, 11:06:07 AM
And you wonder why no one from those stations post here? Except Chuck from Fox once in a while.
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: Xizer on Thursday Sep 16, 2010, 04:29:56 PM
You can't take the heat get out of the kitchen. What's someone who can't handle a few curse words on an Internet message board doing running a TV station? :confused:
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: murdoc on Thursday Sep 16, 2010, 06:13:33 PM
Quote from: Xizer;56236You can't take the heat get out of the kitchen. What's someone who can't handle a few curse words on an Internet message board doing running a TV station? :confused:

Agreed.  Plus we all know that they are too busy trying to come up with the "next great thing" to further diminish the limited bandwidth and degrade our picture quality.
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: ArgMeMatey on Thursday Sep 16, 2010, 07:42:40 PM
Quote from: murdoc;56237Plus we all know that they are too busy trying to come up with the "next great thing" to further diminish the limited bandwidth and degrade our picture quality.
Absolutely.  I've already sent a letter demanding my refund.  

But seriously, while there is no law against griping or swearing, and I am pretty sure we are all at the mercy of the forum operators, we should be asking ourselves if the language is adding to the discussion and debate, or just a distraction and detraction.  

Please notify the mods of offensive conduct and let them decide.  And send your personal attacks in private messages so the rest of us can get on with the discussion.  Thanks.
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: Tom Snyder on Thursday Sep 16, 2010, 09:01:55 PM
Sorry guys... falling down on the ******* job! lol

We have a built in censor set up to replace stuff like that with *'s... I see it missed one. I've corrected that post and the dirty words list.

Just a reminder of the rules:

Please try to be civil. We don't mind rants... heck, this site was built on rants. We'll censor profanity. And personal attacks on individuals will be deleted and get you a warning.  

But that means profane remarks about stations...while close to the line...will still remain, but will be censored. If you guys see something I haven't caught, shoot me message.
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: Martyus on Thursday Sep 16, 2010, 11:12:32 PM
Quote from: Xizer;56219TMJ4: Horrible squished picture. M***ive bar with election percentages the bottom. Bar appeared to be 480i? It was obviously standard definition, and appeared to have a m***ive, constant interlacing problem. FAIL.

I don't watch America's Got Talent, but my kids do. While they don't get to vote for their favorite acts, I did noticed that the TMJ4 election bar consumed the entire bottom third of the screen, completely covering the AGT call-in voting info for most of the AGT show... LOL. I hope no one from SE WI watching AGT wanted to actually vote for their favorite act. The kicker is that the TMJ4 election bar started being displayed with 1% of the vote. Really, who cares to see 1% returns, maybe wait until the results have some actual value (i.e. >20%).
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: Xizer on Friday Sep 17, 2010, 12:58:07 AM
That was such an important night for AGT too; it was the final four.

Makes me glad I capped the episode from Chicago's NBC affiliate instead of Milwaukee's. TMJ4 is always loaded with errors even though I get a stronger signal from them. :huh?: Just bad broadcasting all-around.
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: WPXE ION on Friday Sep 17, 2010, 08:39:33 AM
Quote from: murdoc;56237Agreed.  Plus we all know that they are too busy trying to come up with the "next great thing" to further diminish the limited bandwidth and degrade our picture quality.

You obviously know nothing about how DTV is transmitted. Study up on the ATSC standards before you talk about bandwidth!!!

The next great thing will be MPEG-4 OTA in case you want to know.
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: WPXE ION on Friday Sep 17, 2010, 08:44:29 AM
Quote from: Xizer;56236You can't take the heat get out of the kitchen. What's someone who can't handle a few curse words on an Internet message board doing running a TV station? :confused:

ION Television continues to grow! WTPX-46 in Wausau, WI launched on Charter cable May 28th, adding 60,000 new subscribers. Also, look for ION Television HD on your cable system, which has now launched in all station markets.

This is a quote from our corporate web site. I am in charge of WTPX in Wausau and for the reason above that is why I work here. Simply put I GET THINGS DONE!!!
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: WPXE ION on Friday Sep 17, 2010, 08:55:13 AM
I must say I see many posts bashing the broadcasters here about bandwidth and pixelation. I watch TV off air at home, no cable or satellite. I NEVER see any issues with pixelation or drop outs. So most likely the issues are at your end or with your provider that you are paying $100/month for service. Here are a couple things to check/consider:

1. Check your connections.
2. Get the antenna up as high as you can. Dont place it behind the TV and blame the broadcaster for pixelation. Placing the antenna near anything electrical is a mistake.
3. How old is your TV or STB? If you have an older chipset it will not work as efficiently as a newer chipset.

See Ya!!!!
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: murdoc on Friday Sep 17, 2010, 07:59:10 PM
Quote from: WPXE ION;56244I must say I see many posts bashing the broadcasters here about bandwidth and pixelation. I watch TV off air at home, no cable or satellite. I NEVER see any issues with pixelation or drop outs. So most likely the issues are at your end or with your provider that you are paying $100/month for service. Here are a couple things to check/consider:

1. Check your connections.
2. Get the antenna up as high as you can. Dont place it behind the TV and blame the broadcaster for pixelation. Placing the antenna near anything electrical is a mistake.
3. How old is your TV or STB? If you have an older chipset it will not work as efficiently as a newer chipset.

See Ya!!!!


1.  My connections are water tight
2.  I've got a Channel Master mounted on a 30' mast pointed at the antenna farm.  I can turn my antenna and pick up almost all the Madison stations, and most of the Green Bay stations (though those tend to breakup more often).
3.  My main TV is 6 years old.  My spare is 3.  The picture looks better on the 6 year old TV (DLP vs LCD).

NBC, ABC, and CBS are by far the worst picture I have on my set.  FOX is pretty good but looks bad at times as well.  CW and MyTV look outstanding.  Do you see a trend here?  The stations that look atrocious all have subchannels.  Watching NFL Sunday Ticket confirms a crystal clear picture being broadcast and that's being compressed to hell from D*.  The uncompressed signal OTA looks awful.  

Don't have Sunday Ticket?  Watch the Packers game on CBS WDJT this Sunday.  Watch the highlights later that day on the NFL Network or ESPN and then HONESTLY tell me you don't notice a difference.  :rolleyes:
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: SRW1000 on Friday Sep 17, 2010, 09:47:20 PM
Quote from: WPXE ION;56242Study up on the ATSC standards before you talk about bandwidth!!!
Some of us have spent a lot of time reading about the ATSC standards.  The format was developed with the intent of showing one HD channel or up to four SD channels.

Of course, there's no hard and fast rules on what stations can do with multicasting, so some have chosen to allocate their bandwidth to multiple HD and SD stations, but that was not the intent of the standard.

Quote from: WPXE ION;56242The next great thing will be MPEG-4 OTA in case you want to know.
I would welcome that with open arms!  There are a few problems, though.  How many current sets include an ATSC MPEG-4 decoder?  How many stations are set up to encode and broadcast OTA MPEG-4?  It took a lot of dragging to get people to go digital.  Can you imagine what it will be like to tell them that they'll have to replace their new OTA converter box with another new MPEG-4 converter box?  

Scott
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: jjallou on Friday Sep 17, 2010, 09:47:45 PM
Quote from: murdoc;56245NBC, ABC, and CBS are by far the worst picture I have on my set.  FOX is pretty good but looks bad at times as well.  CW and MyTV look outstanding.  Do you see a trend here?  The stations that look atrocious all have subchannels. Watching NFL Sunday Ticket confirms a crystal clear picture being broadcast and that's being compressed to hell from D*.  The uncompressed signal OTA looks awful.  


Um......ABC (WISN Channel 12) doesn't have any subs. Their HD looks good but the local stuff is soft.

Since FOX (the network) uses a MPEG2 Splicer system all affiliates get a 15Mbs signal that the local station can't mess with. So adding the sub didn't change the 6.1 bitrate or alter the picture.

I will agree that 58.1 & 4.1 do look like crap though. You can now also add 10.1 to that statement as well. 720p at 10Mbs what's up with that?
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: SRW1000 on Friday Sep 17, 2010, 09:54:00 PM
Quote from: WPXE ION;56244I must say I see many posts bashing the broadcasters here about bandwidth and pixelation. I watch TV off air at home, no cable or satellite. I NEVER see any issues with pixelation or drop outs. So most likely the issues are at your end or with your provider that you are paying $100/month for service. Here are a couple things to check/consider:

1. Check your connections.
2. Get the antenna up as high as you can. Dont place it behind the TV and blame the broadcaster for pixelation. Placing the antenna near anything electrical is a mistake.
3. How old is your TV or STB? If you have an older chipset it will not work as efficiently as a newer chipset.

See Ya!!!!
The problems most of us are seeing are not a result of faulty connections, interference, or old equipment.  The rampant artifacting is readily apparent on any of the multicasting stations during high-movement scenes.  It's especially evident during sports.

The bigger the screen, the easier it is to spot, and the more distracting it is to watch.  At times, the pictures will dissolve into a mess that looks like it should be hosted on YouTube.

This discussion has gotten far away from the election coverage, however.  It may be best to continue it on one of the other threads or start a new one.

Scott
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: Xizer on Saturday Sep 18, 2010, 01:38:41 AM
Quote from: jjallou;56247Um......ABC (WISN Channel 12) doesn't have any subs. Their HD looks good but the local stuff is soft.

There's only so much you can do with 720p. All the bitrate in the world can't solve the problem of ABC being half the resolution of The CW, CBS, PBS (not our ****** affiliate) and NBC.
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: trev57 on Saturday Sep 18, 2010, 01:16:58 PM
Could we please not get into the discussion on whether 720p or 1080i is better like we did on the TMJ4 HD thread?
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: murdoc on Sunday Sep 19, 2010, 04:54:40 PM
Quote from: jjallou;56247Um......ABC (WISN Channel 12) doesn't have any subs. Their HD looks good but the local stuff is soft.

Since FOX (the network) uses a MPEG2 Splicer system all affiliates get a 15Mbs signal that the local station can't mess with. So adding the sub didn't change the 6.1 bitrate or alter the picture.

I will agree that 58.1 & 4.1 do look like crap though. You can now also add 10.1 to that statement as well. 720p at 10Mbs what's up with that?

Whoops. Didn't mean to include ABC in that statement. The rest stands though.
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: WPXE ION on Monday Sep 20, 2010, 08:46:03 AM
Quote from: murdoc;562451.  My connections are water tight
2.  I've got a Channel Master mounted on a 30' mast pointed at the antenna farm.  I can turn my antenna and pick up almost all the Madison stations, and most of the Green Bay stations (though those tend to breakup more often).
3.  My main TV is 6 years old.  My spare is 3.  The picture looks better on the 6 year old TV (DLP vs LCD).

NBC, ABC, and CBS are by far the worst picture I have on my set.  FOX is pretty good but looks bad at times as well.  CW and MyTV look outstanding.  Do you see a trend here?  The stations that look atrocious all have subchannels.  Watching NFL Sunday Ticket confirms a crystal clear picture being broadcast and that's being compressed to hell from D*.  The uncompressed signal OTA looks awful.  

Don't have Sunday Ticket?  Watch the Packers game on CBS WDJT this Sunday.  Watch the highlights later that day on the NFL Network or ESPN and then HONESTLY tell me you don't notice a difference.  :rolleyes:

When the wind blows you will see break ups. Go out and shake the antenna and see what happens.:wave:
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: murdoc on Monday Sep 20, 2010, 05:51:23 PM
Quote from: WPXE ION;56263When the wind blows you will see break ups. Go out and shake the antenna and see what happens.:wave:

Quote2. I've got a Channel Master mounted on a 30' mast

(https://milwaukeehdtv.org/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg710.imageshack.us%2Fimg710%2F8242%2Fmastdr.jpg&hash=94e30b17838bd11c2b6e250b4fc2da8d51cebe60)

I can't move the antenna mast.  I haven't had a single breakup even during the 50MPH winds we had recently.  Nice try... :p  My D* dish is also mounted on there (obviously after the pic was taken).
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: murdoc on Monday Sep 20, 2010, 06:14:33 PM
http://www.rabbitears.info/search.php?request=zip_search&zipcode=53221&miles=40&address=&lat=&lon=&height= (http://www.rabbitears.info/search.php?request=zip_search&zipcode=53221&miles=40&address=&lat=&lon=&height=)

Something to nibble on... Click on the station callsign, then tech data and screencaps.  Look at the allotted bandwidth per station/subchannel.

WTMJ 4.1: 12.15Mbps
WITI 6.1:  14.55Mbps
WMVS 10.1:  7.8Mbps
WISN 12.1:  17.45Mbps constant
WVTV 18.1:  17.8Mbps constant
WCGV 24.1:  17.8Mbps constant
WDJT 58.1:      9.45Mbps

WBBM 2.1:  16.15Mbps (Chicago CBS)

Are you still going to tell us bandwidth doesn't affect picture quality?
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: WPXE ION on Wednesday Sep 22, 2010, 08:57:11 AM
Quote from: SRW1000;56248The problems most of us are seeing are not a result of faulty connections, interference, or old equipment.  The rampant artifacting is readily apparent on any of the multicasting stations during high-movement scenes.  It's especially evident during sports.

The bigger the screen, the easier it is to spot, and the more distracting it is to watch.  At times, the pictures will dissolve into a mess that looks like it should be hosted on YouTube.

This discussion has gotten far away from the election coverage, however.  It may be best to continue it on one of the other threads or start a new one.

Scott

Get a smaller TV then
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: Xizer on Wednesday Sep 22, 2010, 12:54:38 PM
Quote from: WPXE ION;56273Get a smaller TV then

lol, now you're just actively trolling.
Title: Let's discuss how the Milwaukee stations failed hard with election coverage tonight
Post by: SRW1000 on Wednesday Sep 22, 2010, 08:33:38 PM
Quote from: WPXE ION;56273Get a smaller TV then
That's what the promise of HDTV was all about, huh?