Opinion Question About HD Quality?

[Jack 1000]

Of the broadcast stations for the Milwaukee area, rank the HD station quality from the BEST to the WORST.

Jack

[PONIES]

WVTV - The CW (1080i with full bitrate - 17 Mbps). This is the best quality you will find on any American HDTV channel outside of the master satellite feeds which require a huge dish and more technical equipment to pick up.

WISN - ABC (full bitrate - 17 Mbps). Native ABC material isn't great quality as it is half the resolution of 1080i. Native 1080i material like the news is.

WDJT - CBS (10 Mbps). Despite the low bitrate I think Milwaukee's CBS looks better than the NBC affiliate. I attribute this to a good MPEG-2 encoder encoding from a better quality source (CBS's satellite distribution feed is 36 Mbps MPEG-2 @ 4:2:2; NBC's is typically ~14 Mbps H.264)

WTMJ - NBC (12 Mbps bitrate). It doesn't look great but it is marginally better than Fox as it is higher resolution. However due to the low bitrate a lot of detail is lost, negating most of the gain in quality that 1080i could offer over Fox's 720p.

WITI - Fox (14 Mbps bitrate). Fox programming looks decent; news looks crappy. Only 720p, but at least it's not a macroblocked mess. I feel like it could improve a lot if News Corporation didn't insist on using foolish 720p over 1080i. Chicago's CW affiliate WGN is the same bitrate but it's a 1080i channel and the quality is leagues better than Fox's 14 Mbps @ 720p. Opting for 720p over 1080i was a dumb decision. Damn you Murdoch.

WPXE - ION (12 Mbps). There's a reason why ION is a minor network no one really cares about; aside from very little original programming their HD quality isn't anything to write home about. Stereo audio too. Just feels like it's run by amateurs compared to the big boys.

WCGV - MyNetworkTV (12 Mbps). Same situation as ION pretty much, only IIRC they might have 5.1 audio. I don't pay attention to this as it's all old syndicated content typically available in vastly superior format via Blu-ray, iTunes, etc.

WMVS - PBS (720p @ 10 Mbps). Congratulations, MPTV.  You successfully raped your HD channel down to being one of the worst looking PBS affiliates in the country. Previously, MPTV was a top-notch affiliate loved by PBS fans nationwide (the Internet piracy scene often used this affiliate as a source for their releases). It had a full bitrate with no subchannels. Now, it's despised. MPTV is dead to me now; I receive all my PBS programming from WTTW which is 1080i or I wait for it to be released on Blu-ray (PBS is now reliably releasing every new Nature episode on BD). They need to scrap the Spanish subchannel, the weather, the traffic, the jazz, classical, and probably even the Create channel. It's all junk no one cares about that can be obtained in superior format via the Internet, radio, and Live Well Network, DIY HD, and HGTV HD can effectively replace that "Create" channel. I won't be donating to MPTV any time soon as long as they continue this. I'd rather give my money to WTTW or New York's THIRTEEN affiliate. At least they produce original content and keep the PBS signal @ 1080i.

[SRW1000]

I'll rank and grade them:

#1 WVTV:  A
#2 (tie) WISN and WITI:   B
#3 (tie) WTMJ, WDJT, MPTV:  D.  The rampant macroblocking and artifacting due to their deciesion to multicast makes much of their programming unwatchable.

I don't watch enough of the other channels to rank them.

Scott

[mrschimpf]

My rankings -

WVTV - Indeed, perfect example of what HD can do. Just one pure signal; imagine once they finally get the HD server in at 4041 how it's going to look with syndicated HD. As it is though they're in a network I don't watch very often.

WISN - Hearst always does it right in full 1080i in everything, and with all the other good subchannels eaten up by everyone else, it hopefully will stay that way and they won't sell off bandwidth whenever the FCC approves those transfers to the wireless providers.

WDJT - This would have been in the bottom in the past, but in the last month their main signal has improved despite all the subchannels with all the BTS work. Fast motion is still an issue along with artifacts occasionally (I will still jump over to WFRV if the antenna is grabbing it perfectly), but their news transition, though lengthy, was quite worth it; they've jumped to second for my news choice by doing an HD transition right. A slight demerit for Shorewest TV, but it pays the bills and doesn't bite off too much bandwidth; made up by the fact they're the only station in the market that passes through alternate DVS/Spanish audio.

Fox Sports Wisconsin - Right down the middle. Great presentation and clarity, and leagues above the lack of PQ seen in the MSC analog days.

WPXE - Yes, it's a small channel barely watched by anyone and they have way too many procedurals. But Ion's managed to transmit three channels nationally over one pipe, and for 720p, the image quality is impressive for a small network, and all of their content outside of infomercials is HD.

(tie)WCGV - Stuck with a lousy network and some of the worst talk shows outside of 1995. When they do HD though, it's just fine, and the addition of ACC HD games with impressive picture quality makes me hope the transition is done soon.

(tie)WITI - Indeed as listed above, annoying for a network to be in 720p, and the news set shows every wrinkle of its April 1999 origination. Seems a little fuzzy at times, and the 'pretend HD' SD widescreen of many of their court shows really bugs me, but those are issues they can't do anything about.

WBME - Not HD, but perfectly fine SD picture on it and Telemundo DT-4, though Bounce remains a blocky mess at times due to issues not at Weigel's end.

WMVS/WMVT - PBS should be in 1080i. Period. That no station in Wisconsin (this includes WPT) airs the network in native format is sad. The audio channels aren't needed and the weather presentation is way too spare, though I love having NOAA audio at least, but the traffic channel is beautiful visual Sominex (on mute of course; the automated voice is too much). Despite all this, at least they aren't...

WTMJ - For the first station in the market, absolutely pitiful. NBC programming has very fuzzy edges and blur is awful. They air Packers network shows that originate in HD in 4:3 SD, which is absolutely unacceptable, and I will never forgive them for their Skype-quality "Return to Titletown" presentation last year. Bits are wasted on an AccuWeather station that could be easily brought down and a widescreen lifestyle network nobody asked for which turned out to have many more local infomercials programmed in than are acceptable to anyone, making it a literal waste of bandwidth. Still haven't completed a full HD transition, and their graphics still feel dumbed down and large, made for a 4:3 presentation.

Also; it's been four years since Today introduced ticker space for local headlines on the bottom of the screen. It has never been used by Channel 4. Use it!

WMLW-CA - Until they bump to HD, this one will always be near the bottom, be it on 58.2 or digital 13, though with the master control upgrade it is noticeably better than it had been in the past.

WVCY - Errr...this station is in digital, right? Because they're still running off all tape machines and have no plans to go HD anytime soon, and does it ever show. Leaving it at that, but a 'just getting it up' effort at running a station in 2012 doesn't work these days.

[PONIES]

The lack of a headline ticker on WTMJ's Today broadcast is actually one of the only things I like about WTMJ. Usually I say the less clutter on the screen the better; nothing more annoying than trying to watch a "Today Show Concert Series" performance by one of your favorite artists with a ticker scrolling along the screen.

[mrschimpf]

The lack of a headline ticker on WTMJ's Today broadcast is actually one of the only things I like about WTMJ. Usually I say the less clutter on the screen the better; nothing more annoying than trying to watch a "Today Show Concert Series" performance by one of your favorite artists with a ticker scrolling along the screen.

Unfortunately Today's graphics just changed on Tuesday morning; the bare space where the ticker goes is gone and replaced with an opaque space screaming 'the ticker goes here'.