Reduced signal on V-me and Create : Panorama: Rocky Mountain PBS: a9

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Reduced signal on V-me and Create

posted Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009 2:22pm

See more on: Tech Talk

From September 27-October 2, we are broadcasting "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" in HD at 8 p.m. During this time, V-me and Create will experience some signal degradation. Our apologies for the inconvenience.

Note: This may occur during today's 2 p.m. broadcast of the first episode, as well.

What's your point of view?

John
Sunday, September 27, 2009 › 11:19pm
Why do you revert to 480i for the 10pm showing? Can't you just leave it at 1080i for both the 8pm and 10pm broadcasts?

Karkus
Monday, September 28, 2009 › 10:20am
It was not an inconvenience. It was a pleasure.
Please ALWAYS broadcast your main channel at 1080i for the shows that can be broadcast this way. You used to do that, so why not anymore?

I'll renew my membership as soon as you start broadcasting in HD in primetime on a more regular basis.

Thanks.

RobT
Monday, September 28, 2009 › 8:50pm
I was delighted to see that you can show "The National Parks" in HD - so pleased that I will be joining RMPBS tonight. Thanks for going the extra mile, and I hope you get the gear to go HD full time in the spring.

johnskripko
Thursday, October 15, 2009 › 5:36pm
It was my understanding that high power transmission was supposed to
be in place in August. Why is there so much "pixelating and picture loss? I would appreciate some answers.
Thankyou. JS

GE
Thursday, October 15, 2009 › 7:16pm
John, KRMA did go to full authorized power with a new antenna on top of their tower on Monday, August 10.

At my signal challenged location behind a mesa in Louisville close to Boulder, my reception went from no digital reception on 8/09 to a rock solid digital signal on 8/10 - no pixelation or loss of signal. And the HD signal during the National Parks series was excellent.

Where are you located?

Also, you might want to read through some of the other RMPBS TechTalk blogs. A good one to start with might be on the the older ones - "UPDATE: Our DTV transition plan" which began on May 7, 2009.

Reading through the blogs will give you more perspective on resolving reception problems than you can imagine.

Catherine Kleinsmith
Tuesday, November 3, 2009 › 6:40pm
Of late watching RMPBS reminds me of watching movies at school during grade school days long ago. All the programs "skip" either sounds or the picture becomes pixelated. Watching "People vs. Leo Frank" for example: every time a strong point was being made, I missed it because the sound became garbled. What is going on? HDTV has made viewing PBS 100 times worse.

GE
Tuesday, November 3, 2009 › 10:54pm
Catherine, your description of your reception problems indicates most likely low signal level.

What city or town are you located in?Do you receive your signal via cable, satellite or Over-The-Air (OTA)? If via OTA, where is your general receive location within your area and/or placement of your antenna and is it an indoor or outdoor antenna.

Note also that KRMA-D6 in Denver was a low power for a few days but is back at full power as of today.

Paul Honeycutt
Monday, November 9, 2009 › 4:48pm
Why is it when I check the schedule on my DTV box, the times are an hour off from actual broadcast times on RMPBS, V me and Create?

GE
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 › 8:57am
Paul, the correct times are being broadcast by RMPBS according to my Over-The-Air (OTA) DTV convertor box TV and my DTV(ATSC) HDTV. I'm watching in the Denver metro area.

Are you watching RMPBS in the Mountain Time Zone? And are you watching via an OTA DTV convertor box or DTV HDTV? Or are you watching via cable or satellite?

Paul Honeycutt
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 › 12:34pm
I'm watching using an OTA DTV converter box in Fort Collins.

Catherine Kleinsmith
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 › 6pm
GE, I am in Colorado Springs and watching PBS via DirectTV. I had the same problem last night watching "Antiques Road Show" and "American Experience" although it was not as bad as it has been some nights.

GE
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 › 8:53pm
Paul, I've checked several times tonight on four different consecutive programs on KRMA 6 (Denver) for the time offset to program info and in every case, the program matched the scheduled time shown in the menu.

If you are still having the time offset problem, perhaps your DTV converter box has a daylight savings time setting that is affecting the time readout in the program schedule (I don't even know if that is possible relative to the embedded time signal in the DTV broadcast data stream, i.e., the PSIP data in the ATSC signal).

Or. if you are watching on the Fort Collins translator for KRMA, Channel 47, depending on how RMPBS is processing & rebroadcasting the signal, the time offset may still be there.

Perhaps the folks at RMPBS can help us out on this one.

GE
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 › 9:11pm
Catherine, sounds like the problem may be with DirectTV.

However, did you get local channels as part of your satellite service or is your DirectTV converter box using an antenna (rabbit ears or outside antenna) for local channels? If you are using an antenna, it's back to a low signal problem. Go to www.dtv.gov and click on "Fix Recption Problems".

If you are using rabbit ears for an antenna, assuming you are viewing RMPBS/KTSC, Channel 8, each rod of the rabbit ears should be extended approximatly16 inches and tilted somewhat horizontally from vertical - experiment with the tilt from vertical.

The Channel 8 DTV signal is broadcast from Cheyenne Mountain.

Paul Honeycutt
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 › 11:18am
The problem began before the change from Daylight Savings Time and has continued since. As of this morning all the showtimes are still an hour off. Curious. Does anyone else share this problem?

BTW, Our reception is great. Channel 6 comes in better then any other channel. We're using rabbit ears for now but plan on upgrading to an outdoor antenna.

GE
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 › 12:32pm
Paul, do you know if you are receiving Channel 6 (the virtual channel # assigned in the PSIP data signal) on RF18 (Denver transmitter), RF47 (Ft. Collins translator) or both (two Channel 6's will appear in your available stations list)?

John
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 › 2:03pm
FYI, The RF47 translator takes the signal from OTA RF18 and retransmits it. It doesn't unpack it and insert its own PSIP, so it is impossible for there to be any difference between what you get on RF18 and what you get on RF47 (I verified this once with the RMPBS engineers).

Also, I have the capability to read the PSIP data of a station directly (anyone with a PC DTV tuner card can do this by downloading the free "Lite" version of TsReader), and I can tell you that KRMA is sending the proper data with respect to the time, i.e. it did the proper transition from daylight savings time on Nov. 1st. The only stations that have not switched are KRMT and KWHD.

So, most likely Paul's converter box is confused, and a full reset will get it back on track. Paul, what model converter box do you own?

GE
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 › 2:22pm
John, thanks for the information.

Do you think Paul can just power down his DTV converter box (remove all power, i.e., unplug it from AC power) to achieve a full reset?

John
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 › 2:49pm
Most likely not, i.e. most converter boxes keep their settings in non volatile memory. There is usually some type of "set to original/manufacturer defaults" option in the setup menu.

william j. mcgurn
Friday, November 13, 2009 › 7:27pm
My signal continues to break up-pixel out etc. It's been doing this for months. What's up.

GE
Saturday, November 14, 2009 › 8:06am
William, read the posts to this blog beginning with the one from "johnskripko
Thursday, October 15, 2009 ? 5:36pm". The posts will be very helpful in answering your questions.

If you have further questions, your viewing location is very important in answering your question(s).

Paul Honeycutt
Sunday, November 15, 2009 › 7:35am
I found the problem with the time being an hour off. User error. At some point our converter box got changed from Mountain to Pacific time. It's now back on Mountain time and all is well. Duh!

GE
Sunday, November 15, 2009 › 9am
Paul, that's funny! Glad you got the problem figured out. :)

Catherine Kleinsmith
Sunday, November 15, 2009 › 10:29am
I just have a satellite dish installed on top of the house. No internal antenna anywhere. I get local channels (5/30 (NBC), 11 (CBS), 13 (ABC) local programs/national). There is a DirectTV "box" inside the house connected to the TV. Cheyenne Mountain? In that case, I should be getting excellent reception! I can see the mountain from my front window (which faces west) BUT the satellite dish is located on the facing east side of the house.

GE
Sunday, November 15, 2009 › 4:11pm
Catherine, from what you described, it appears you are getting all of your signals via the satellite dish and your line of sight to Cheyenne Mountain would not be a factor in the reception of Channel 8.

You should consider calling your satellite provider and checking with them if they are aware of any signal problems with KTSC, Channel 8, RMPBS, in Colorado Springs or if you might be having equipment problems.

Catherine Kleinsmith
Monday, November 16, 2009 › 2:39pm
Directv checked my installation today. My signal strength is VERY good, and there are no problems with connections, etc. They intimated that it was RMPBS's signal strength. They also said that RMPBS was not broadcasting HDTV signals which I was VERY surprised at as I thought you were. (If you are, somebody better let Directv know this.) Their only suggestion was to call a Dirctv service man out. The guy who came today was just an installer.

GE
Monday, November 16, 2009 › 9:26pm
Catherine, RMPBS/KTSC Channel 8, Pueblo/Colorado Springs, is broadcasting at full authorized power 9, i.e., high power for it's frequency). However, I don't recall how DIRECTV receives KTSC's signal, i.e., Over-The-AIR (OTA), microwave, or fiber cable. Based on DIRECTV'S explanation to you, it implies they are receiving it OTA. Assuming that, low signal level would be an issue at DIRECTV facilities and not a KTSC problem.

Perhaps someone at RMPBS/KTSC can give us an answer on how DIRECTTV in Colorado Springs receives the KTSC signal.

RMPBS is not broadcasting in HD at this time. However, many of their programs are being broadcast in a 16:9 format in SD (Standard Definition) which some viewers confuse as HD.

Read the postings on the blog "Screen shape update II".

Catherine Kleinsmith
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 › 7:13pm
I haven't been very thrilled with Directv. (You should see my phone bill from Qwest--it's ridiculous!) When I had Comcast, I never had any problems viewing PBS. I may have to switch cable service yet again--something I don't look forward to.

GE
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 › 2:56pm
BTW Catherine, the last I heard from RMPBS is they hope to be broadcasting in HD again sometime next spring (2010).

However, most of the RMPBS translators throughout the state have not been converted to digital yet, thus no OTA HD for those communities until RMPBS has digital translators in place that can broadcast HD.

It will be up to the cable and satellite companies to make the HD transition with their facilities once RMPBS has full-time HD in place.

John
Sunday, September 27, 2009 › 11:19pm
Why do you revert to 480i for the 10pm showing? Can't you just leave it at 1080i for both the 8pm and 10pm broadcasts?

Paul Honeycutt
Monday, November 9, 2009 › 4:48pm
Why is it when I check the schedule on my DTV box, the times are an hour off from actual broadcast times on RMPBS, V me and Create?