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re: When will fox upgrade their HD signal?

Posted on 1/13/18 at 10:28 pm to
Posted by ibdcooldude
Member since Apr 2012
101 posts
Posted on 1/13/18 at 10:28 pm to
I'm surprised this is still happening. The feed to Alexandria was just upgraded about 2 years ago. It now only has one microwave hop. That was the main issue in the past. Dilbert, the feed to Alexandria does come from WGMB's master control though, and they don't care much about WNTZ since it isn't their main station.

The issue with WGMB is possibly that the feed from FOX comes in at 720P is then converted to 1080i before being rebroadcast, however, I haven't been working in broadcast for over a year, so their might be something else that I am missing.

I worked for KADN FOX 15 in Lafayette, but we were all owned by Nexstar at the time. Does that station look bad to y'all as well?
This post was edited on 1/13/18 at 10:33 pm
Posted by JabarkusRussell
Member since Jul 2009
15825 posts
Posted on 1/14/18 at 1:43 am to
I can't even get my attenna to pick up Fox when it scans for channels in Mandeville. I get four different NBCs though.
Posted by Tarps99
Lafourche Parish
Member since Apr 2017
7564 posts
Posted on 1/14/18 at 3:19 am to
Fox/ESPN/ABC=720p
NBC/CBS=1080i

720p, full resolution 1280x720 60 frames per second, really 59.94 for you tv tech nerds
1080i, resolution 1920x1080 but each 1080 line is split into even and odd fields so you only get half resolution for each field at 60 fields per second and when combined make a 1080 30 frame image, but can lead to zigzag lines on fast motion, but now most TVs have some sort of correction to fix this.

Also, some stations on the over the air side have bit rate issues. Some stations are packing now 2 or 3 subchannels that are robbing the bit rate. Stations are working with about a 19 mbps window to send its feeds. So depending on what mix of encoding methods variable or constant can lead to wild swings in picture quality.

Also it doesn’t help that the broadcasters are still using the MPEG2 codec from the 1990’s while most others use now MPEG 4 for satellite and even some cable transmissions. Which means that the signal could be coming in MPEG 4 from the network and then transcoded into MPEG2. (FOX is supposed to have something called a splicer that does this. The splicer would control the bit rate and increase it as necessary for sports and reduce the bit rate on the other channels but that was true a few years ago and if some stations have found ways around it). The MPEG 2 signal is then sent to the cable and satellite providers which could transcode it back into MPEG4 to reach your home (true for satellite local feeds).

So yes Virginia your signal can look like crap and the reason is above too much transcoding. Hopefully, this all changes once ASTC 3.0 rolls out and 4K broadcasts start but there is always something to screw it up.
Posted by jennyjones
New Orleans Saints Fan
Member since Apr 2006
9329 posts
Posted on 1/14/18 at 6:26 am to
quote:

I worked for KADN FOX 15 in Lafayette, but we were all owned by Nexstar at the time. Does that station look bad to y'all as well?


Yes

WGMB out of BR looks the same while Fox games through Sunday Ticket look great
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