Milwaukee HDTV User Group

WTMJ's packers radio broadcast is 3 to 4 seconds ahead of the OTA signal. For the last 10 years it's either been spot on or shortly behind it. During this year's preseason the WTMJ radio broadcast was perfectly synced with channel 4's OTA signal. Does anyone know what's going on with this?

Wayne and larry are way behind the fox ota broadcast (usually they're in good sync with fox ota) and well ahead of uverse. Anyone know what's up with that?

Did anyone have any issues with U-Verse during last night's Packers game?  My HD picture was great while watching the Brewers lose, then when it was time for Packers football everything got pixelated, choppy, and ultimately no picture or internet.  I eventually got through to a service rep who said someone will come out the next time I'm home.  This morning everything was working fine again.  Rebooting the box and router didn't help at all last night - tried it many times.  I've had U-verse for only 9 days and this is the first problem.

Here's what I've got:
Dell studio XPS with built in HD tuner, connected to  AT&T yahoo DSL (at 1.5 Mbps downstream, 384 Kbps upstream speed) using Linksys wireless N router that I got about a year and a half ago.  When trying to view HD broadcasts from my PC, using this service on a different computer with the same internet connection the picture looks very low-def.  Does anyone know if this is supposed to be the case?  Is it because by DSL isn't the fastest out there?  Would I have better results using an ethernet cable instead of the wireless router?
Any advice would help.

Background: After 2 years of spoiling them with Packer games on my 40 inch Samsung 1080p, my parents finally gave me the task of replacing their 27 inch Zenith (bought in 1996) with a HD display.  I determined 37 inches to be ideal size based on the dimensions of their living room.  They gave me a budget of $1000 for this mission.  Being a satisfied owner of a Samsung product, I picked up a Samsung LN37A550 when it went on sale for $999 last week.  

Investigation: Existing reviews (as well as my own in-store observations) cited this TV as having an excellent picture.  The reviews also said the sound quality is horrible and some shades of black have a greenish tint to them.  My own investigation found a limited number of inputs as well, probably explaining this units $300.00 lower MSRP than the 37 inch Sony XBR (with the TVs side-by-side at Best Buy, the Sammy has a slightly better looking picture).  I installed a home theater system for my parents 2 years ago so the audio complaints didn't bother me.  My parents aren't exactly loaded with peripherals (hell, they still don't know how their DVD player works), so this TV has enough inputs for their needs.  What I found very intriguing was the 5ms response time.

Performance: The factory settings for both audio and picture are awful.  I don't know what the engineers were thinking.  The supposed audio problems can be eliminated by adjusting the equalizer to emphasize the lower frequencies.  Seriously, the sound then became as good as you should expect from internal TV speakers.  The picture was all screwed up as well.  This TV rocks with a modified version of the "dynamic" setting.  Put the backlight and contrast to the max, the brightness to about 35, and the sharpness to whatever you prefer and you've got a great picture.  The only time I noticed the "green tint" was with standard def content with only a certain shade of black.  I've watched a ton of HD content and never noticed this problem.  
Static contrast is excellent (for an LCD) providing you're in about a 60 degree viewing field.  All LCDs loose contrast when you view them at an angle, but the effect seems a little more pronounced on this one.
The digital OTA tuner performs as expected.  As is usually the case with Samsung, the strength of signal meter doesn't give you a number, just a bunch of bars that don't indicate much.  The EPG tells you only what you're watching, and not what's on in the future.  There is no picture-in-picture.
As I stated earlier, this display has limited input capabilities.  It has only one S-Video input which is located on the side.  The two composite video/audio inputs on the back are combined with the two component inputs, so you can't use all four.  The three HDMI inputs (1 side, 2 rear) and optical audio output are standard for TVs of this size.  My parents have only a receiver, satellite box, and DVD player, so this TV is more than adequate.
My jury is still out on whether the 5ms response time makes a difference compared to the 8ms that my 40 inch has.

The Good:    
HD picture quality is as good as any 37 inch LCD
Price is good

The Bad:                   
Factory settings are awful - need adjustment
Limited inputs
Limited software
      
Overall Impression:  This TV provides a great HD picture and had a good price tag.  Unless you have a ton of stuff to hook up and/or you really like extra software capabilities, I recommend it to anyone looking for a 37 inch.

I get my digital TV OTA and would like to split my antenna cable to 4 different desitinations.  The location of my splitter will be at the end of a 100 foot coax cable that comes from my attic mounted antenna.  Two of the 4 splits will be an additional 50 feet long.  Am I better off putting an in-line amplifier near the antenna (prior to the 100 ft cable run) or with an amplified splitter at the end of the 100 ft cable.  What happens if I put amplifiers in both places?

Thanks,

I should have known better than to shoot my mouth off about WTMJ's great radio syncing this season, because now I'm eating me words with amplitude modulation all over them.  I should have seen this coming, the radio for today's game was a full 4.5 seconds behind the OTA HD broadcast for the entire game.  I guess it could have been worse, the radio being ahead of the TV ruins everything.  Thanks WTMJ!

Quote from: BillC;42837I used to put on the excellent Packers radio network years ago and mute the TV announcers.  THis has become much harder to do in recent years with various delays (i.e. the TV feed being 1- 2 seconds behind the radio broadcast, which is irritating). Now even worse with HD where there is about a 5s delay.

As my original post stated, AM620 has been out of sync with the OTA HD signal only once this season - the monday night game against the Broncos.  All others have been perfect.

I'm getting a signal strength in the mid to upper 70's here in Fox Point using an attic mounted antenna.

I couldn't help but notice all the posters in the Packers/Cowboys thread which were unhappy with Bryant Gumbel's play by play.  I was spared from him because AM620 actually had their radio broadcast in perfect sync with WISN12's HD OTA broadcast.  This is my second NFL season with an HDTV and this is the first time where an ESPN or NFL network game, passed through to local OTA HDTV, was actually synced with the radio.  WTMJ does a great job syncing Wayne and Larry to FOX and CBS broadcasts, but last year's NFL network and Monday night game, as well as this year's Monday nighter (against the Broncos) had the radio broadcast 4.5 seconds ahead of the local OTA HD signal.
I heard in the past that WTMJ was syncing radio to TWC's digital SD channel which always seemed to be dead even with the OTA HD signal, except for the Monday and Thursday night games.  Do we have any WTMJ insiders here that know which broadcast they are now using as a point of reference for the radio?  If they are switching to the OTA HD signal it's much appreciated!

I used an eyeglass lens cleaning cloth dampened with tap water and it worked like a charm.  Dampened one half of it and used the other half for drying.  In addition to the dust there were a few fingerprints and products of people sneezing which this method totally removed.  Thanks to everyone here for the insight.

Thanks for the prompt response.  Are paper towels OK or do you recommend something made of cloth?

What do you guys recommend for cleaning LCD flat panel screens?  I've had mine for 9 months now and the screen has picked up some dust.  I'm hesitant to take glass cleaner and paper towels to it 'cause it's not made of glass.  Any ideas?

I'm getting them too.  The first batch I noticed was early in the 1st quarter, the second batch started with about 1:30 left in the 1st.  I've viewing the HD signal OTA.

I dumped TWC back in 2004 when they wanted $60/month for basic analogue cable on one TV (a friend of mine, four blocks away, was paying $35 for three TV's - both of us had been with TWC for several years).  They weren't willing to "work something out" until I told them the Dish was on the roof.  My Dish Network is only standard def so I only get HD programs OTA.  I'm very happy with this for the time being.  However, if I wanted to buy more HD channels I would not go with TWC due to their history with me.