WBNF is a translator station of WNYB. It's identical. Its serves areas where WNYB doesn't cover very well.

I'll trade you WBNF for WNGS

hmm. coverage holes, digital translators...CBC listening??

Its serves areas where WNYB doesn't cover very well.

That is BS! RF 26 is one of the better signals out of south Buffalo that I will NEVER watch.
I wish WGRZ came in with the same strength.

For example right now with my 4228 pointed directly at WGRZ's tower:

WGRZ 22.80 dB (4 bars)
WNYB 31.20 dB (10 bars)

Crappy signal - I don't think so. It locks with the same dBs as WNED and WNLO.

I wish stations like WNGS or ION had that kind of power.

Agreed--I get channel 26 here in Kitchener 24x7, and I'm well over 100 miles away....

I do believe WNYB has the highest tower in Western New York. They broadcast at 234 KW, but their height gives them the distance. They are only tropo at my location, although I always recieved good reception on their translator on CH15.

Say goodbye to RTN. WGRZ is dropping the channel on Sept 16th due to lack of cable carriage.. No more RTN in Buffalo.
Here is the link to the article: http://wnymedia.net/alanpergament/2011/08/wbbz-shift-leads-to-channel-2-changes/ I'm thinking this also had something to do with their recent programming changes.

So, it sounds like universal sports will become channel 2.2 @ 720p HD after the rtv channel is free.
He added that the increased spectrum available after RTN is dropped will help make the programming on its other digital channel, Universal Sports, look much sharper.

He never said Universal sports was going to 720P. We can only hope that's the case. I'm hoping another Buffalo station will pick up RTV but it's doubtful. By the way Universal Sports does have cable carriage in Buffalo

Considering Universal Sports is not available over the air in HD, it's a safe bet that 2-2 will not be going 720p.

- Trip

Trip,
From the poor quality I've seen on some universal sports programs, I don't see how even 720p or 1080p would improve sharpness. Some of the events I've seen look like they were recorded with a cell phone :p

_______________________________

How does sharpness improve?:confused:

The sharpness of the broadcast could be inproved by going to 720p, but, the the sharpness of the program's content quality won't improve.

OK! So the comments made about increased spectrum improving the sharpness on wgrz's 2.2 are baffling. Can anyone explain what was meant by the comments? Either they would go to 720p, or they will stay 480i. If they stay at 480i, then how could the quality improve?

How will "the increased spectrum available" make "its other digital channel, Universal Sports, look much sharper" ?

My point is that 480i quality is only 480i quality unless they plan on moving wgrz 2.2 up to 720p.

Just because a subchannel is at 480i doesn't mean it's transmitting enough data to give you 480 horizontal lines of resolution.

Think of the difference between 1080i at 17 mbps and 10801 at 11 mpbs. They're both 1080i, but one of them is sharper.

All the more so when comparing 480i at 1.5 mbps vs. 480i at 3 mbps.

Agreed with tvlurker above.

Further, some of these sub-channels (RTV, The Cool TV, etc) also originate from a server/PC at the transmit site. Depending on the configuration, this may also lead to lower video quality.

Obviously their is some type of compression involved, or bit rate allocated, which I guess depends on what they want to allocate or what they have available to allocate.

Don't know much about this, but when I watch Diamond League Track on Universal it looks bad. When Diamond League is on CBC it's the same cameras but it's HD and looks fine.

Whatever makes it look bad on USN has to do with the way they process the data. Much of its content will filmed in HD.

Maybe it will stay SD but they'll improve the way they process the pictures.

Say goodbye to RTN. WGRZ is dropping the channel on Sept 16th due to lack of cable carriage..
Aww, that sucks. I've been a big fan of RTV and RTN (before Equity went belly up). I also used to watch it FTA on 123w. Glad I got my 30 hours of "Emergency" episodes stored on my Channel Master PVR. :)

Used to love watching Chiller Theater on Saturday nights. Totally cheesy movies from way.. back. Too bad because if WGRZ is thinking that competition from the Me TV is going to hurt viewership then they are wrong. That's probably the only reason I watched channel 2. If ME TV had a signal that I could receive regularly, I wouldn't be as upset but this pretty much stinks. The "new" ME TV tower hasn't helped anything for my reception. If you didn't get it before, your not going to get it now. Unless they've got something up their sleeve, this change doesn't do anything much for the OTA people right now.

Considering Universal Sports is not available over the air in HD, it's a safe bet that 2-2 will not be going 720p.

agree, Universal Sports is SD 480i on the NBC Muxs on C and Ku Band, where it originates from AMC1 103W (Cband) and 105W (Ku).
Will never get better than that. safe to say the guy's statement (sugar coating ) is along the lines of they'll have more BW available so they don't have to transcode it down to fit in.

Someday maybe I'll grab a TsReader dump from all 3 sources to compare the video bitrates.

Losing RTV is a major loss, and I can't recieve MeTv at my location either. Too bad. I wish WGRZ would reconsider

this is bad news No RTV, no buzz either.