Quick Update
You may already be aware, but we shut down the 17-3 Weather Channel last Friday to give the bandwidth to the Super Bowl. Since another service will take its’ place next month, we decided to not fire the Weather channel back up. We can not run the new service and three channels with the available bandwidth allocated to each channel. We do apologize for the inconvenience and any confusion this has caused, but we can’t continue offering the Weather channel anymore.
You may have noticed a significant improvement in picture quality on our main channel 17-1 or 1117 on Time-Warner systems. This is due to a new HD encoder that is much more efficient compressing the signal and reducing artifacts in the picture the older system couldn’t. It is now being used as a back-up just in case the main system fails.
It is always risky changing anything that affects the main bitstream, as older boxes and receivers may loose the ability to tune in a channel. We have heard from some owners of the Magnavox converter boxes that are having problems. If you have one of these boxes and can’t get our signal, or have no audio, pull the power off the box for about 30 seconds, then plug it back in and test it on all channels. If that does not work, perform a full channel scan in the menu and that should recover all channels.
As always, if you need technical advice, call our Digital Hotline at (919) 835-6250. If one of us is not available to pick up, leave a message and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
Did You Miss Me?
We encountered an issue with our Word Press plugins that caused a couple of the blogs to disappear for a couple of days, but as you can see we are back! I did lose a couple of posts, but at least I was able to recover the majority of it. I can assure you I’ll make more frequent backups this year!
I’ve been extremely busy the last few months, and the next few weeks will be even more hectic. Our new Master Control is now switching the programs in the background for testing to make sure it is programmed properly. If all goes well, I will put it on the air this week. This will eliminate the SD and HD switchers that work separately, but together to put programs on the air. Everything will live on one device and make on air switches much more precise. It also uses embedded audio, so the video and audio are always in sync with each other. This is one thing I am very excited about!
We are also installing new MPEG 2 encoders later this month, and a new PSIP generator for the program guides. I’ll now have a back-up encoder in case the main encoders fail. We’ve had encoder failure before, and it isn’t pretty when you lose these devices without a back-up to go to. (Dead Air!) The new encoders are supposed to be far superior to the older encoders we use now, and it should improve our final product.
And if that wasn’t enough, we’ll be launching MH DTV in February. I’ll have more on it later, but it’s pretty awesome technology for hand held devices as demonstrated at this years’ CES show in Las Vegas. Soon, smart phones will be able to pick up over the air TV, as well as other handheld devices.
Oh yeah, we have the Super Bowl next month. No pressure on this Engineer, nope, none at all!
If you need me, I’ll be curled up in a ball in a dark corner the next few weeks.
It’s Really Not My Fault!
Last evening we began getting calls that our signal was breaking up on DirecTV. They reported that the customer service rep stated it was our fault.
I did a quick check and confirmed the signal issue on DirecTV, but Off Air and Dish Network as well as Time-Warner were fine.
I called DirecTV’s trouble line and they confirmed they had an issue with the transport stream that feeds all the local Raleigh-Durham stations to their up-link facility and they were working on the problem.
I only have a general idea how their system works, but basically they use an antenna in the area to pick up the local signals and combine them together into one transport stream to the satellite transmitter facility in the Western part of the country.
We hope they will have the problem resolved soon, but in the meantime, you can switch to your antenna for the local signals. Both major satellite companies make it very easy using the remote to switch between the dish and antennas.
I am a DirecTV customer also, so this affects me as well. I’m sure they will have it resolved soon.
Digital, Smigital
Whew! Boy did AT&T know what was going to happenback in 1993! I’ve seen a lot of “future” videos, and few have accurately painted a correct picture of the two thousands. We still do not have flying cars that fold up into a briefcase, although the crazy hairstyles the models of the Fifties and Sixties demonstrated have materialized, if you watch “Project Runway”.
So I was asked by several readers how to navigate these new technologies. It really is accelerating at a phenomenal pace, and if you snooze, you loose. Or do you? Do we really need instant access to everything anywhere we go? Aren’t we overloaded with the digital revolution, and missing the key things about life?
Maybe so. There’s no way yet to experience the smell of freshly cut grass in the Spring, or the Autumn smells as folks burn logs, leaves, and the smell of the dirt as crops are harvested in the fields on the Internet. And how about interacting with people? We text now instead of talking on the phone. In those AT&T commercials, we were urged to reach out and touch someone. Today that’s not desirable. We communicate, but don’t look each other in the eye anymore. Emails, IM’s, and text messages are very impersonal. You don’t get visual cues or voice inflections that help tell a story. My favorite example of this is from the original “Willy Wonker & the Chocolate Factory” when the kids would break the rules and Wonker would say “No. Don’t. Stop.” You can decode that two ways: NO, Don’t stop, or NO! DON’T! STOP!
The digital revolution does have some interesting benefits as long as we keep things in perspective, but we are fast becoming dependent on things that are constantly breaking down, crashing, upgraded often, and obsolete by the time we get it home. Just a little thing like Facebook.com being out for several hours, and many folks can not function until it comes back online. Twitter crashed many times in the early days, and people nearly lost their minds because they couldn’t send anyone “what they are doing now”.
And get this. I know many, many people who do not tweet, have never seen Facebook, nor even have email. GASP! Not even access to the internet. And they will tell you, quite frankly, they don’t need it. But others like me, found Facebook invaluable when I was able to see hundreds of pictures from my hometown of Windsor, NC flooded after the remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole dumped 20″ of rain on the area, as well as last weekend’s tornadoes that ripped through many of my friend’s and family’s homes in Bertie County.
Such disasters demonstrate the need for a dependable wireless infrastructure we can stay connected to instead of above ground wires that can snap in winds, ice, and trees falling on them. So the FCC’s Broadband Plan looks good on paper, although executing it has proved to be a massive struggle for them. They have bullied Television and Radio for years, but now they are meeting head to head with cable and cellular companies, which appears to be a worthy foe to them. The FCC wants everyone to have access to really fast connections up and down on the Internet. The cellular companies want to throttle your speed down when you are using a lot of data, and HD video on the Internet takes a lot to deliver in a high quality format. It’s a cash cow the wireless companies are drooling over and will protect as their ‘precious’.
What’s happening in Washington is almost laughable, but know this, the FCC will have their way. Even if they have to change laws to do it, they will. So Cable and cellular companies beware: The FCC giveth, and can taketh away..
So seeing where we were 10 years ago, and where we are now, just imagine the next 10 years. As I’ve said before, don’t be afraid of technology, but know if you buy the shiny great device of today, a new, better one will be out tomorrow. Are you still watching your old TV with a converter box? Then by all means go ahead and buy a new HDTV flat screen set. Should you go ahead with an Apple TV, Roku, Boxie Box, or the new Google TV enable devices? That’s up to you, but they are great devices. There’s some compelling reasons to buy now. I’M not a fan of 3D TV yet, so buying one is not high on my list, nor am I willing to buy another DVD player to play the limited number of 3D movies now available.
So how connected are you guys now? Are you following what is happening in Washington? Leave me a comment below and let me know how wireless are you, or you want to be. I’d love to hear from you!
We’re back!
We had a little glitch with our hosting company moving the blogs, but everything is back to normal now. Got anything you want to talk about?
Another Engineer Christmas
It just wouldn’t be Christmas without transmitter trouble. Ride along as I head to the transmitter site the day after Christmas. A power bump cut us to half power on both main and back-up transmitters.
My Carolina Today Live: Friday
Last day of My Carolina Today live from Crabtree Valley Mall. Comedian Keith Alberstadt joins Page and Sharon. For more information, visit My Carolina Today’s website.
My Carolina Today live: Thursday
Page Crawford and Sharon Delaney interview Ira David Wood IV who stars as Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol” at the Progress Energy Center in Raleigh. Ellen Fragola stops by and talks about Art, Sip, and Cinema event in downtown Raleigh. For more details visit My Carolina Today’s website.
My Carolina Today at the Mall: Wednesday
Live at Crabtree Valley Mall (Tuesday)
Behind the scene of MyCT live on Tuesday morning at 11:00 AM on NBC 17. Visit www.mycarolinatoday.com for more details.
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