We can ask them nicely to be good corporate citizens and to serve the interests of their OTA viewership.

Which is what I have done. My contact at Rogers has been very supportive and was not aware of this problem. They are looking into the situation and he will let me know what their plans are.

You're a good man, Roger. :cool:

Actually as I think of this more, it is probably in Omni's (and City's to some extent) best interest to use the virtual channels.

- Every other channel in the GTA will use their familiar channel numbers.
- Some people will hit "57" or "69" instinctively if they've been analog viewers for a while and get frustrated
- Some people will hit "51" and Ion Television will appear (if it gets scanned in first)

Any one of these could lead to people calling into Omni reporting "reception issues", creating a big headache for people answer the phones at Omni.

As already mentioned in this thread, different tuners handle the "collision" differently and I'm sure Omni doesn't want to keep a list of what devices do what.

I will have to dig out where I got this info. But I know it's there in the ton of documents we regulary get at the office from IC and the CRTC.

But one thing for sure, the only thing that IC and the FCC only regulates between the two countries is the physical frequencies according to the treaty they have agreed in the past. All the rest is up to respective authorities to deal with.

One thing I'm sure of is that all DTV stations must have their virtural channel ID approved by the FCC in the US and I sure that it is the same with us too.

I will look throughly in these documents, but as crazy as it look's, these regulations were established about 12 years ago when the ATSC standard was designed.

Nothwithstanding what you may find in the ATSC documents, no one in Canada regulates any part of the PSIP stream other than the TSID.
For example, ATSC has a mandatory specification for the tolerance of the system clock, but no one in Canada enforces it.

I don't know if we are talking about the same thing. The info I refer to is inside the TVCT table included in the MPEG tables of the TS stream of any ATSC station. All info in this table refers to the tv set for displaying purposes like the virtual channel, program name, etc.

I agree with you that not everything included in this table is regulated, but some are inforced by authorities, the MPEG service number and TSID (this info is not displayed, but essential to any TV set in the digital management of the program), the station name and the virtual channel are mandatory.

All other info in this table is not inforced in Canada unlike the USA. This is one of the reason why there is not many TV sets sold in Canada that includes tv guides displays. Manufacturers are not crazy, they knew that the could save on that stuff for Canadian TV and they did. Shame on them. At least, most of the TV stations are including the program name and description because some sets can at least display this info live.

Nice evening :cool:

RFMAN,

Does this mean OTAers are likely to get a better TV for OTA purposes (PSIP, show info) if we drive to USA and pick up our TV there?

Would an identical model in each country differ in terms of progamming guides?

I doubt Omni,Rogers will have channel remapping going come September.It took years for them to set the clock right.

To be fair to Rogers, it only took about 1.5 months after I told them about the problem with their clock to get a permanent solution. The key is talking to the right person and I have obviously found him.

As for the guide data, as I said in post #98 (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=1170189&postcount=98), it requires a bigger automation project and will take time. I suspect they are focusing on getting through the digital transition before looking at this one.

I don't know if we are talking about the same thing. The info I refer to is inside the TVCT table included in the MPEG tables of the TS stream of any ATSC station. All info in this table refers to the tv set for displaying purposes like the virtual channel, program name, etc.

I agree with you that not everything included in this table is regulated, but some are inforced by authorities, the MPEG service number and TSID (this info is not displayed, but essential to any TV set in the digital management of the program), the station name and the virtual channel are mandatory.

All other info in this table is not inforced in Canada unlike the USA. This is one of the reason why there is not many TV sets sold in Canada that includes tv guides displays. Manufacturers are not crazy, they knew that the could save on that stuff for Canadian TV and they did. Shame on them. At least, most of the TV stations are including the program name and description because some sets can at least display this info live.

Nice evening :cool:
My point was that the only agency that has "adopted" the ATSC spec in Canada is IC, and they are not interested in enforcing any mandatory part of the spec other than TSID. This is only done reluctantly, as part of their RF planning responsibility. TSIDs in the states were allocated origianlly not by the FCC, but by the "Maximum Television" roganization. Not sure who does it now.

There are mandatory parts of ATSC/65 that refer to the minimum number of valid EIT entries presented, for example, or the accuracy of the system time data. These items are not enforced in Canada, unlike in the States.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=1283329&postcount=308

Past few days I've been annoyed with CityTV 17.1 in Ottawa being 10 minutes off (behind) with it's PSIP time information. I realize I could turn off my TV's auto-time update feature, but I have it connected to a power bar so it's very convenient. It's messing with timed events, I almost feel like mapping CityTV out.

Would be great if Rogers took PSIP data seriously (including title and program guide data!). I'm sure they would prefer we all subscribe to cable instead of servicing OTA properly; but seems to me their advertisers pay for content and would rather be seen as broadly as possible.

Fota, I will pass this on to my contact at Rogers. I have found him to be very responsive and takes OTA very seriously.

I heard back from him and apparently the virtual channel number will be the same as the physical channel number for all three stations post transition. I alerted him to the problem with WPXJ and he said he will look further into it (I don't think they quite understood the situation the first time around).

I forgot to reply with an update on this. My contact said according to Industry Canada and one of his consultants, this shouldn't be a problem. I explained the situation observed by Steve Smart, and he said that while he understands his concern he has nothing else to offer as a specific solution at this time. As a result you will have to wait and see what happens and if you are negatively affected, complain at that time.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

See ya told you Rogers will not have channel remapping going come Aug 31st.It will be their channel that wont come in if your tuner cant handle 2 51-1 channels.Before Rogers got involved with City ,they had guide data and everything on city-dt.

Fota, I will pass this on to my contact at Rogers.Thanks, much appreciated. :)
Edit: looks like it's fixed today! Happy. :D

This question has been asked before but does anyone know the real answer. Is CITY Tv going to be broadcasting at 1000 KW or at a lower ERP. I've seen it posted elsewhere by a supposed Rogers engineer that it will be broadcasting from the BOM at 1000 KW, yet others say it's the lower ERP. I know they will be on CH-44.

My understanding is that CITY-TV will be hosted temporarily (post-transition) on First Canada Place in Toronto, while work on the CN Tower transmitter and antenna are completed.

When the station returns to the CN Tower, it's broadcast license allows for a maximum ERP of 21kW, and it's radiation centre will be about 13 metres lower than it previously was on the CN Tower.

To my knowledge, no TV station from Toronto will be broadcasting at or anywhere near 1000kW. The most we'll see is about 106.9kW from CBLT.

I thought I something on DHC about the Rogers stations going to 100 KW on the CN Tower. Jase88, is there an update to the IC database with new parameters?

I have not seen any applications nor approvals on the CRTC or IC websites/databases indicating that any Rogers station in Toronto will be increasing ERP beyond what has already been approved for their post-transition transmitters.

The OMNI stations are increasing their antenna height significantly, however. About 187-189 meters. And this will obviously dramatically improve reception for many.

They were originally listed as 1 MW (lol.) and 99kW for the OMNIs

If you look at stampeder's list, the IC authorization (AU) is significantly lower than the first PT values:
http://www.user.dccnet.com/jonleblanc/Canada_TV_Stations/ON.html

About 20kW for all three rogers stations.