Milwaukee HDTV User Group

Quote from: foxeng;50773The FCC requires stations to provide DTV information on both analog and digital transmitters. FCC Third DTV Review.

I know it is a moot point now, but that is not true.

If a station has converted to a 100% HD-SDI plant, they take the HDTV image and center cut it and downconvert for analog broadcast.  In that case, they have no choice as they have to run the crawl over the analog broadcast and the source is HD.

Two of the stations in Madison, WMTV and WMSN have not converted to digital yet, so they were able to crawl only the analog video.  Since WMSN is the Fox affiliate, if the FCC would have required the crawl over both, they would have had to drop to SD analog upconvert and that would have sent bullets flying in the direction of the FCC.

The FCC have done a lot of stupid things, but requiring the DTV crawl over DTV was not one of them.

The local digital only stations got lots of complaints from viewers about the stupid crawl and the constant "the sky of falling" PSAs.

While I get some HD via OTA, i.e., NBC and FOX, the other networks, ABC, CBS and The CW, I get via satellite, but not D* or Dish (non of the pizza-pan suppliers).  That is why I couldn't tick the satellite box and I'm sure it was meant for pizza-pan subscribers.

I do not get any "cable-channel" type HD services (Discovery, HBO, etc).

There was a comment that OTA has the best picture.  There are many who would argue that, me being one of them.  The bitrate starved ATSC just cannot handle rapid video frame changes.  The MPEG-2 encoders just do not have enough to create a clean signal.  Jut ask anyone who watches sports on their HD displays.  I hear nothing but complaints.

Clean MPEG-2 HD requires a bitrate the is at least twice the maximum that can be put out over ATSC channels.  When you see HD with a bitrate of 35-40 Mbps, you hate going back to ATSC bitrates.  Even better video is 1080p, as provided by the hi-def DVD format war.  Unfortunately I've not seen hi-def DVD video, but everything I read is all positive.  OTA/Cable/Pizza-Pan is not going to be able to provide the video quality of hi-def DVD 1080p.

Quote from: LoadStar;43524The loss of HD was due to the affiliates decision to synchronize the network feed with local time, so that the video of the ball dropping would be shown here at midnight. This is a very disappointing decision; if they lack the ability to record and replay HD programming, they should show it at it's original broadcast time. (Frankly, they should show it at it's original broadcast time anyway. We're smart people, we can figure out that 12:00 in NY is not 12:00 here.)

WKOW-DT in Madison did the same damn thing.  But I didn't care because I watched it in HD.

The Times Square Alliance produced SD video had more coverage of the ball dropping than ABC did.  ABC went to the ball dropping really late, considering that the ball drop started one minute to midnight.

From what I could tell, Dick Clark was live in their Times Square studio, with the real event out the window, not a green screen production.

For those of you who watched before the local news, the Carrie Underwood performance was not in HD.  For some strange contractual reason, the Times Square Alliance produced the video/audio and they are only SD.  The video sent to the world did not contain the performance, as ABC had that as an exclusive.  Really strange.  All other performances were in HD.

The cameras used to cover Ryan were given an extremely low bitrate.  As I was going through my captured video, I noticed some really bad macroblocking and that just doesn't happen with the ABC high bitrate network feed.  This is what I saw:

http://vidiot.com/images/ABC-HD-NewYearsRockinEve-071231-1.png

They went for cheap out there in the street and it showed.

Quote from: Tom Snyder;36991Welcome, MrVideo!  Thanks for the info... you're apparently not from this market.  What's your background, and where are you from?

Yep, next market to the west, Madison.

I'm a Unix programmer/administrator, who has been dabbling in video for many a year.  a BUDhead with a 10' C and 12' C/Ku set of dishes in my yard, with digital gear to go with them

The Pathfire info was reported in the trades when it was released that the shows were going HD.  BTW, the Jeopardy! episodes are shot about two months in advance.  The 5000th show special week in NY was hundreds of shows after the real 5000th (no I don't know the actual air date, since it was before HD).  The other info about the show is first hand viewing experience.

While the show does look great in HD, unfortunately they have to frame for HD, so when there is a 3-shot of all the contestants, you get a letterbox/pillarbox effect from the background set.  The 3-shot would look great if they could zoom in and fill the left and right.

So, not only doesn't Milwaukee get to see these shows in HD, neither does Madison.

Quote from: digdugm;36993just checked a couple shows from last week and they don't have a fulltime bug, not sure if they pereodically throw one up.

Thanks.  That is promising.

I hate bugs.  I especially hate them on HD, considering with HD you know what channel you are on.

Here in Madison, all of the stations think we are stupid and need to be told what channel we are tuned to by placing their damn bug on the screen.  The exception to this is Fox, sorta.  It is still bugged, but it is a single bug.  All the other stations not only have the network bug on the screen, they also have their station bug as well.  The NBC affiliate is even worse in that their bug is in the 4:3 safe area at the top right of the screen.  The CBS affiliate places theirs in the 16:9 area on the top right.  The ABC affiliate places theirs right above the ABC  HD bug.

The ABC and CBS programs I can do something about (and I won't explain here, other than it is legal).  The NBC affiliate I can't.

The thought is to attempt to receive the Milwaukee NBC affiliate.  But, I will only put up the necessary expensive antenna if WMTJ does not local bug network HD programming.  I might be able to get the Rockford NBC affiliate, since they do not bug network programming.  But a smallish hill might give me trouble.

So, does WTMJ local bug the NBC network programming?

There should be a law that bans bugs and sprites.  While we are at it, there should be a maximum commercial/promo content per hour law, say 10 min max, where the remaining 50 min must be program content.  17-18 min of promos and commercials per hour is horrible.

Quote from: Bluto;36982It's been a few months - has anyone heard any updates about Channel 58 carrying these fine programs in HD?

While I can't provide any updates regarding the station, I can provide a little bit of other background regarding delivery.

The ultimate goal for CBS Distribution is to use the Pathfire system.  It is currently being used for the SD version.  But, the system does not handle HD material.  They are working on it, but I've not seen a date as to when it will go live (after the beta tests).  They can easily ship out MPEG-2 HD files, but none of the current software handles working with those files and I suspect that the major problem lies in the hardware.

In any event, until Pathfire is ready (there are those who say that Pathfire will never be ready, even for the current SD delivery ), CBS Distribution is feeding the stations via DVB-S C-Band (1080i) [Dolby-E, DD2.0 and MPEG audio].  That means the stations need the ability to receive the feed (I don't know of any who can't) and the ability to get the bits onto a server. My local NBC affiliate airs both shows and they do not have the ability to but the feeds on a server (no budget for the server).  Then of course, they have to have the ability to get the server output on air.  The odds are if you can get it recorded onto a server, you can get it off.  The tricky part is the playout of both the SD and HD versions at the same time.  If they are using Pathfire correctly, the playout is from there (otherwise they transferred it to tape first for playout).  Rolling two sources at the same time, one SD and one HD and putting in the appropriate commercials/promos is probably a master control nightmare.  That was the other reason the mocal station isn't doing it.  They can't do that.

BTW, the shows are fed two days in advance (SD/HD), which gives them pleny of time to do what they need before air.

Watch out for those pesky little insects