Milwaukee HDTV User Group

Try adjusting the dialogue normalization function of your audio decoder properties.

You really need to have a very good background in digital audio and video to understand how these various formats work and how they are processed by computers and display devices.   I use Virtual dub and virtualdub mod for inter conversions among formats.  check doom9.org  The current format in favor is MKV ( Matroska )  with H264 and Ac3 as the codecs.  You need these codecs registered in Windows.  Look for the direct show filter pack from ffdshow.  Register the ffdshow filters into Windows and virtualdub.  Get and Ac3 filter.  Then go to cccp ( combined cummunity codec pack) for the Matroska stream builder.  THe WD hard disk player is a poor choice.  Although it may support the codecs, it probably doesn't support the various video frame rates and stream packs. I remember looking at it and deciding it could't play most of my liberary.  I do a lot at 25fps 756p.   I don't know what kind of transport stream your JVC camcorder produces, but I'd think that it came with software to render the stearm into something Windows could handle.

It has to do with the FAA and the airport runway landing patterns.  Ch 4 put up the first tower on Capitol drive in the 50's.  That locked up that area long before the airport expanded.  After that, the others ended up close by because they could get FAA approval without much hassle.  Ch 6 originally had a tower on Port Washington road near the county line.  And of course ch 19/18 transmitted from downtown for decades.  New UHF antennas can be directional, and I know for sure Ch28/4 is patterned to suck in over the lake so as to not to waste signal there.

Well yes, I'd say any TWC compression artifacts are of their making.  I just don't know how bad they are compared to OTA as I don't have TWC.  I used to have my own 12 foot satellite dish and watched the C band feeds.  They were compression artifact free.  There will always be some issues when converting raw HD video to Mpeg 2 or 4.  Each has it's own set of psychovisual issues.  But each is also capable of producing perfect pictures if a high enough bit rate is used.  The reason we get bad or marginal picture quality ( OTA or Cable ) is because someone has decided that it's acceptable to the general public and put too many channels in too little bandwidth.   It's a management decision based on monitary returns.  More low quality channels attract more customers and thus make more money than a fewer high quality channels.

TWC uses 64 bit QAM ( Quadature Amplitude modulation ) on their system.  So, you can't just compare TWC bit rate to OTA which is 8 bit Vistigial Sideband amplitude modulation.  Old analog OTA TV was also VSB modulation.  It's because you need a carrier to amplitude modulate and to save some bandwidth, the lower sideband ( vistigial part ) was limited to 1.25 Mhz.  The upper sideband was then 4.75 Mhz to complete the entire 6 MHz channel width.   So you ended up with about 4.2 Mhz for the video.  At about 80 lines of horizontal resolution per Mhz, analog TV maxed out at around 320 lines (square picture).  Getting digital TV to fit into the same 6 Mhz channel limits the bit rate to about 19 Mbps.  If only one video signal is encoded, it uses about 17.4 mbps for the video and the remainder is audio and various other info ( captions, program guide, etc ).  Perfect 1080i requires the entire 17.4 mbps.  Check ch 18 OTA, they use only one video channel and seem to have the best picture in the area.  But if you add more subchannels, then you need to divide up the bits over more signals, thus reducing the quality of each.  WTMJ OTA is only using 12.5 Mbps for their main video; not enough for good 1080i.  The remaining 5 mbps is going to the subchannels.  The HD video from TMJ which goes to TWC ( fiber optic ) is not compressed by WTMJ; compresion is done by TWC to meet the bandwidth requirements of the cable system.   I don't have TWC, so I can't compare picture quality myself.

I am a former ( retired ) engineer at WTMJ.  I checked with the Engineering department, and TWC still gets their WTMJ TV fead via a fiber optic cable.  This assures that WTMJ can maintain service to the majority of viewers in the area even if there is a transmitter failure; just good business policy.

On Monday afternoon between about 1pm and 6pm, TWC was out all over the north east side of Milwaukee county....Shorewood, Whitefish Bay, Glendale, Fox Point, River Hills.....All dead.  Sure glad I don't have my telephone service with them.  At least I was able to call TWC and find out the problem was there equipment and not mine.   Point is, from time to time, weather or equipment will take down all systems.

I used TSReader to check the bit rate on wtmj OTA stream.  Keep in mind that wtmj uses a statistical multiplex encoder to dynamically allocate data among the sub streams.  Over a 1 minute average time Ch4.1  12.56Mbbs   /   Ch4.2  2.67Mbbs   / Ch4.3  2.76Mbbs.    In Milwaukee, WVTV undoubtedly looks the best as they use the full 17.4Mbbs for just one stream.

WTMJ has postponed moving their UHF antenna to the top of the tower indiffinitely.  There is no money in the budget to remove the old bat wing CH 4 antenna or move the side mounted CH 28 antenna to the top.  An extra 100 feet of antenna height wouldn't extend coverage more than a few miles into areas which don't offer much in the way of increased viewers.

WTMJ switched encoders from Flexicoder to Tandberg on June 12th.  Got that from an "insider".  Now my Panasonic receiver DVR DMR-EZ27 is having difficulty determining correct aspect ratio on WMTJ.  Also, my RCA digital TV no longer displays closed captions on WTMJ.  All other stations are still as they were before the "big switch".  To get the engineers at WTMJ to react to these issues, a list of affected devices needs to be forthcoming.  As far as they see on their ( WTMJ ) gear, everything is OK.   So, if you are experiencing an issue with WTMJ, make a posting discribing the problem and the brand and model of the equipment.

Checked with an "insider".....  DT off while working on micro wave receiver only.  Antenna move won't happen until after analog shuts down permanently.

I heard a rumor that wtmj will be moving their DTV UHF antenna to the top of the tower ( 1000 seet ) soon.  ( Maybe even this week ) ( Currently side mounted at 900 feet ) Anyone have any more info?

I can't seem to get closed captioning to work on Ch6 DT during any FOX network programs.  It works fine on all local shows ( like news and Seinfeld ), but a 7pm when they switch to network, the captioning does not display.  I have 3 digital receivers from 3 different manufactuers and they all refuse to display FOX network captions.  Oddly enough, a Radio Shack converter box on a TV in the bedroom works OK.  What's going on here?  This is not a signal / reception issue because the captions work on local shows.  I've gone through all the set-ups to insure I'm on CC1 and / or CS-1.   I'd appreciate if some of you fellow forum members could check your captioning on CH6 DT during primetime and report back if you have service.  Thanks  Tod

I do have the design experience and I did get it right.  The antenna system that I built is what I, as a professional TV engineer would recommend.  I needed this antenna arrangement for analog "ghost free" reception.  With adaptive equalizers in DTV tuners, almost any antenna will most likely be adaquate in this fellows situation.

"Blue Hole"?   You have been around a long long time.  I live with the same situation, but to the north east of the towers. ( North of Eastbrook park )  I used two small UHF bow tie antennas outside into a combiner.  The antennas are aimed at 90 degree right angles.  The combiner is the type used for satellite TV as it covers the UHF specturm with less attenuation.   Modern ( so called 5th generation ) DTV tuners have very good adaptive equalizers to deal with multipath and front ends with high dynamic range to deal with intermod from adjacent channels used by DTV.  Remember in the "old" days when UHF channels had to be spaced every 6th channel?