CBS58 2005-06 Equipment and Switching Failures

[Joseph S]

Switching Failures:

Miscellaneous -
Daily - Numerous recent switching episodes from the superior national HD upconvert to local inferior upconvert in the middle of programming. Not just during commercials, this is happening during programs.

Threshold:
9/16/2005 - Threshold - Switched out of HD in final minute of the show (9:58)

Criminal Minds:
9/23/2005- Criminal Minds - Switched out of HD in final minute of the show (9:59)

Numbers:
9/24/2005- Numbers - Switched out of HD at 9:57:20ish

[Joseph S]

Updated for Criminal Minds

[AndrewP]

Switched to SD three minutes before the end of Numbers. I wonder why they are doing this. Maybe the person who is switching has something to do also during the 10pm news?

[Joseph S]

Hadn't gotten around to it, but yes the same thing during Numbers as well. All three of these ended around 10.

Is there some sort of automatic switch doing this or some news guy as above?? CBS used to be at commercials by this point in prior years.

There was also a "Loss of input signal" at the start of Ghost Whisperer too.

[Joseph S]

12/23/2005 - Close to Home - Lopped off over a minute of the show running local promos instead of flipping the switch eliminating a huge chunk of dialogue essential to the plot.

[Joseph S]

Another last segment screwup on tonight's CSI Miami if not longer.

[Joseph S]

Major equipment failure tonight. Every HD minute of Ghost Whisperer was either "Loss of input signal" or "Green Grid Overlay." The rest was SD. We had an entire 5 minute portion of the second to last segment in "Green Grid."

Other note:
Not only are the multicasting pixelation issues more obvious... In checking my older recordings, we're getting on 1.8-2.1Mbps lower average bitrate since the add/remove of 58-3. More than 4Mbps are going to the worthless SD channel I have blocked on my OTA tuner. :mad:

[Joseph S]

Letterman not in HD tonight? Crappy signal too. Why? Some part up there frozen??

[Mark Strube]

I don't understand... can't they see how bad their image looks with the lowered bitrate? Do they only monitor this stuff on 25" screens or something? (And even then I'm sure you'd be able to see the issues when high motion comes along.) Multicasting along with an HD channel is so wrong. :bang:

[SRW1000]

Letterman not in HD tonight? Crappy signal too. Why? Some part up there frozen??I noticed the same problem. I actually switched to a different program because of it.

Scott

[bradsmainsite]

We are 3 years from the cut date how long can this go on :confused:

[Joseph S]

It's still going haywire tonight. :(

[RS922]

Friday's HD broadcast (2/17) of the Young and Restless had issues....the first half ran, then suddenly the show started over again at 11:30. Either the receiver or master control switched to the eastern time zone feed that starts Y/R at 11:30. At the top of the hour they just switched out of the first half and went to local commericals and then the next program.

[Tom Snyder]

It's not just the HD channel... Watching CBS Sunday morning, and there commercials popping in the middle of program segments, commercial breaks that ran long and joined a segment in progress, 5-10 seconds of black screen... This was on Channel 58 analog.

[Joseph S]

Signal is still dropping in and out. :(

[Joseph S]

All inferior 14Mbps just kicked the bucket on Letterman.

[DanDyer]

Low Power was on by 10:55pm and full power returned at 11:34PM on the 28th.
Dan Dyer
Chief Engineer WDJT/WMLW/WYTU

[SRW1000]

Yikes! At about 7:30 PM tonight, 58.1 became unwatchable. No sound and the picture was completely pixelated. It lasted a couple of minutes and then it was fine.

Scott

[bradsmainsite]

It had also been that way earlier this afternoon total pixalation completely
unwatchable! :bang:

58.2 was fine no problems.

[DanDyer]

At 7:30pm, we were finishing making our bandwidth pool for the multicasting. The system required rebooting, so you most likely saw the breakups as the system was restabilizing. Early in the afternoon, we were testing the limits and settings of our encoders, so you most likely saw our testing. Also later in the evening, if you have cable, you may have seen pixelization and freezing. We have changed our allocations to compensate.
Dan Dyer

[SRW1000]

At 7:30pm, we were finishing making our bandwidth pool for the multicasting. The system required rebooting, so you most likely saw the breakups as the system was restabilizing. Early in the afternoon, we were testing the limits and settings of our encoders, so you most likely saw our testing. Also later in the evening, if you have cable, you may have seen pixelization and freezing. We have changed our allocations to compensate.
Dan Dyer
Thanks for the update, Dan.

Say, do you know anything about the odd audio artifact some of us noticed in this post: Annoying Audio Artifact Repeating During Survivor on CBS58 (http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6013)?

I didn't seem to notice it tonight, but I wasn't paying all that much attention to it.

Thanks,

Scott

[DanDyer]

Actually, yes I do.
We noticed it sporadically, and finally determined that our Dolby encoder did not like our stereo audio per the recommended settings and levels from CBS. We threw those recommended settings out the door and came up with our own settings. Since that time late last week, we haven't heard the "hissing" and you should have noticed that our Dolby audio levels are down to a comfortable range.
Dan Dyer

[StarvingForHDTV]

Actually, yes I do.
We noticed it sporadically, and finally determined that our Dolby encoder did not like our stereo audio per the recommended settings and levels from CBS. We threw those recommended settings out the door and came up with our own settings. Since that time late last week, we haven't heard the "hissing" and you should have noticed that our Dolby audio levels are down to a comfortable range.
Dan Dyer

I'll have to check that out. I always felt your audio levels were set too high. It's too bad the network recommends incorrect settings to the stations.

[SRW1000]

Actually, yes I do.
We noticed it sporadically, and finally determined that our Dolby encoder did not like our stereo audio per the recommended settings and levels from CBS. We threw those recommended settings out the door and came up with our own settings. Since that time late last week, we haven't heard the "hissing" and you should have noticed that our Dolby audio levels are down to a comfortable range.
Dan Dyer
Thanks again for another update, Dan. It's great to hear that you're keeping an eye on these types of problems. I'll keep an ear out for it when Survivor comes back.

Scott

[SRW1000]

There's a big problem with the OTA sound during The Amazing Race tonight. It kind of sounds like the static sound I was hearing during Survivor, but it's almost constant.

Scott

[Joseph S]

It's the same thing. They finally switched to national feed where the problem doesn't exist. You can tell the difference by absence or presence of white junk at the top of the feed and blacks too.

[StarvingForHDTV]

I think the audio levels are still way too high on 58-1. Also I noticed that the programming guide is sending out totally wrong information about what show I am watching and what is coming up in the future.

[Nels Harvey]

I think the audio levels are still way too high on 58-1. Also I noticed that the programming guide is sending out totally wrong information about what show I am watching and what is coming up in the future.

I agree with Starving for HDTV! The 58-1 levels out of my receiver are always hot compared with all the other OTA HD signals in Milwaukee. I have all the other signals pretty much balanced with the SD levels I receive, but whenever I switch to 58-1, I need to turn down my audio gain. For example, if my preferred audio level is at 30 for everyone else, 58-1 needs to be lowered to about 22 on my TV. It seems to be about 30 to 40% higher than the others.

On analog broadcast signals there are limits set by the FCC for deviation. Often on cable there are noticable variations from one service to another because the audio deviation is not regulated as an OTA signal has to be. Does OTA HD audio have similar parameters for levels as the analog counterpart, or is it simply set to please the Program Directors?

Nels....

[Static]

In the Past Things like Amazing Race and Survior would look way better they they do now. I belive they use to send the National feed and it looked very good but the last few months they have been doing the Upconvertion themselfs and it looks bad. I know I can not be the Only one noticing this. Why are they doing this? ?

And yes I know they are not HD but they looked way better before.

[Joseph S]

And yes I know they are not HD but they looked way better before.

They no longer send the national feed because it actually requires that someone does a job. CBS58, like the other local affiliates, no longer cares about the quality of their product. They don't care that it looks like crap or that you may hear a hissing snake during the local upconvert. They are perfectly happy making money off of our airwaves at the local community's expense. This was a major factor in my decision to pursue employment elsewhere in the country. I will soon have access to multiple markets this Summer and none will be Milwaukee. Milwaukee HDTV is headed for the toilet.

[SRW1000]

There's a big problem with the OTA sound during The Amazing Race tonight. It kind of sounds like the static sound I was hearing during Survivor, but it's almost constant.

Scott
Tonight's Amazing Race is plagued with that horrible static sound again. It sounded like someone was trying various sound levels at the beginning of the show.

As I type this, the sound keeps changing.

I hope they get this corrected. I don't want to have to go back to analog.

Scott

[SRW1000]

The problem was never fixed during tonight's episode.

Scott

[Joseph S]

What a pathetic job they did tonight. You literally can watch them flip back and forth from the national upconvert with perfect ound and picture to local upconvert with inferior picture and garbage at the top plus the awful hissing over and over again.

The local affiliates are plunging from the toilet to the sewer. My moving process begins tomorrow with house hunting. :) New remote and to-be localish HDPVR in Boston market with full bandwidth CBS with another to follow in who knows where I finally land.

[Static]

Yes, Watching The Amazing Race was Horrible :mad: . I am Done with Watching 58-1 They have no idea of what they are doing. They flipped back and forth like 5 times. I Truely wonder if corprate CBS likes them ruining Stuff like this. I have Changed my Tivo to record anything that comes on CBS to do it off the New York feed from Direct TV, Cause even with all the compression Direct tv uses it looks AND SOUNDS way better then the Crap 58 is doing.

[Joseph S]

Audio hissing is back again.

[SRW1000]

This thread kind of died out, and the problem seemed to have been fixed.

Tonight, listening to 60 Minutes, the sound it horribly distracting. Anytime someone is talking, there is an terrible hissing sound that goes along with it. Commercials are even worse (especially ones with music),

It's happening on both my HDTV OTA receivers, so I don't think that's the problem. And the other stations are just fine, so I don't think it's my audio set up.

Anyone else notice the problem?

Scott

[LoadStar]

I just flipped on WDJT @ 1:25 a.m. on TWC, and I'm hearing the same hissing sound. It's clearly local, as they're playing Farscape right now (not even a HD program, unfortunately).