Hello…
Just wondering if this is happening everywhere and bugs everyone as much as it does me. KOKI, FOX23 in Tulsa frequently switches the HD broadcast to a 4×3 SD version to add in “Breaking News” or other self promotion graphics. When they do this, my audio system “pops” loudly (I assume because they are switching between 5.1 and stereo) and disrupts he flow of the show. I pretty much refuse to watch their news anymore just for that reason. Does this also occur in OKC and other areas? I totally understand this happening during local commercials and programming, but not during a network HD show. Note they never put any of that stuff in, including the weather info during commercials. I am sure because the advertisers would not stand for it, so why should we? I spent good money for my home theatre system and I expect to see HD programming when its available, not news graphics. Maybe we could get waivers to get networks from NY and LA without the annoying graphics.. I have not noticed KOTV or KTUL doing this.. For whatever reason, I can’t get a good enough signal from KJRH to watch on a consistent basis.
Let me know your thoughts and whats going on in other places!!
Thanks!
11 Comments
Yea I have noticed this too, and it just started in the last month or so on Fox. I haven’t noticed it on any other channel (including KJRH) I think it is because the stations do not have the capabilities to insert graphics into the HD stream.
Another thing that gets me is interupting the HD feeds to show weather updates during storms. At most all they should do is inform us to tune to the SD station or the digital sub channel, as anyone who has access to the HD feed will have access to those also (whether you have cable or OTA)
The above poster is right… Most stations don’t have the capability to insert graphics over the HD feed. Is the technology available? Yes… but just like actually getting HD or digital station even on the air took time, so will this. Getting a waiver to get around this? Not gonna happen. The stations are merely trying to advertise other products that they have on their stations.
Also as far as weather break ins are concerned… Give this time too. Eventually stations may bew able to direct you to one or the other for severe weather. Think about it this way.. say there’s a tornado warning issued, but the station wants to leave the HD feed alone. They still need to inform you that they’re broadcasting important information on the SD side. How are they going to do it? Insert a graphic…dropping the signal to SD anyway. It all comes down to the fact that an OTA station’s main purpose is to provide a public service, and warning the public during a dangerous event is as much a public service as anything.
I understand your frustration but really we’re at the mercy of the local station. I don’t believe they have the cash right now to spring for the ability to insert their graphics including the weather stuff over the HD feed. It is likely a cost vs "how many people are going to see this" type thing.
For me I don’t get any pops in my audio system at all. I do see my DD light go off and then go back one once it switches but it’s not a huge deal.
I am the 1st poster. I wasn’t completely clear, I did not mean not dropping to SD to briefly tell us to tune to the SD or sub channels. I meant the complete interuption for the entire hour that they are inclined to do. They have 2 or 3 channels to use and should only do extended interuptions during weather on the OTA and sub channels that everyone has access to.
What you describe does not occur on Waco’s KWKT-DT (Fox/WB), KXXV-DT (ABC), KWTX-DT (CBS), or KCEN-DT (NBC). Plenty of weather graphics on HD programs. Sometimes to many.
KWKT and KWTX have HD delay capability. Smallville comes on KWKT at 9PM in spectacular HD.
KXXV, KWTX, and KWKT have automated switching. One doesn’t sit around twenty minutes waiting for a person to switch to HD. KCEN sometimes is a problem, especially during NASCAR broadcasts.
No Waco station yet has HD local news, weather, and sports. But heck. We may beat you guys. Good luck to you.
I would like to chime in reguarding weather breakins during prime on the Fox stations.
Because Fox uses the splicer for HD feeds, their is no way to put a crawl on the HD feed. The only option available is to switch back to a SD or local feed, run the crawl, then go back to the HD feed.
While I was attending NAB in Vegas 2 weeks ago I brought this up at the Fox Engineering Meeting. They are aware of the problem, and are working on a solution. So as you can see, that is the only option left to the station right now to get this information on the screen during a HD feed is to dump back to a SD feed. I hope this helps you understand why this happens.
Steve
While I appreciate knowing the technical reasons why it happens, it doesn’t address the larger problem. Engineers and other technical types may see the problem as "A station has to put graphics on the screen but can’t do it over an HD feed."
Customers, on the other hand, tend to see the problem as "Fox is heavily advertising its HDTV programs, including at the beginning of each one of them (‘Brought to you by DirecTV’, another News Corp. subsidiary), but won’t spend the money to make the programming work properly in the real world. Advertising something that you stop providing at the drop of a hat is not ‘HDTV’, it’s ‘bait-and-switch.’"
I think customers appreciate that the necessary equipment is expensive – but so were our HDTV systems.
Steve…
I FULLY understand the problem, and it’s NOT the splicer.. It it the stations insisting on self promoting themselves right out of my viewing habits. Its one thing when its a weather advisory, but FOX 23′s "Breaking News" last week when Oral Robert’s wife passed away was crazy.. While its truly a sad situation, the world was not about to end.. yet they insisted multiple times to interrupt the program flow to make us aware of this.. GIVE ME A BREAK!!!!!
When the networks wise up and bypass the locals all together, that will be serving the public interest.
Well even if they switched the feed to SD for the whole show to warn to turn to the SD channel for more details, it would be better than the bandwidth they waste to interupt the show on both the analog and digital feeds. At least we would get the desired programming content live rather than maybe replayed who knows when. The FCC gave them all this bandwidth, they should learn to utilize it to enhance viewing rather than show 24 hours of radar along with the results of the latest virus scan half on the screen.
I agree with doing the extended breakin on a sub-channel. But there would still need to be something displayed on the primary DT channel advising viewers that something is going on with weather (or whatever else) on the subchannel. The easiest way would just be a crawl that says tune to 4-2 or whatever for more info. [Simply dropping from HD to SD for a second or two would get the few people who happen to notice it when it goes across, but in the reality of attention spans, you would need this crawl up the entire time incase someone was either grabbing a snack or watching a different channel when the initial crawl/breakin was broadcast.] This gets us back to square one where the stations don’t yet have the ability to insert graphics over the HD feed.
The problem with this is that as long as the station airs the episode somewhere, the networks usually won’t let them re-air the episode in its entirety at a later date. As I’m sure you’re already aware… DT viewers are very much in the minority, so preventing the station from replaying the show for the majority of viewers just so the DT viewers can see it uninterrupted when it’s scheduled would create a mob mentality from SD viewers towards DT viewers.