Universal Sports is on DirecTV down here in the US, and it looks no better than on the sub channel. They just have a really crappy feed/equipment. Maybe they plan on upgrading it when they go to cable but by then it won't matter.

The good news re: WGRZ, is that since they use a variable bit rate encoder, they must have more bits available for the main program now. I can confirm right now, they have fewer "nulls" than they did in June, and Universal Sports hasn't significantly changed. So that means they must be using the excess bits for the main program. Roughly 14-15 Mbps in the last snapshot I looked at.

Roughly 14-15 Mbps in the last snapshot I looked at.

Good to know. Thanks.

Does anyone know if the Rochester channels will ever broadcast any of their syndicated shows in HD?

Only network prime time shows are shown in HD.
Toronto, Syracuse, and Buffalo have all HD available shows in HD.
For example shows like Ellen, Jeopardy, ET, Access Hollywood, Anderson, etc. are all in SD.

I figured when WHAM 13 went to HD local news that their shows would do likewise, but that didn't happen.

WKBW 7 Buffalo shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy in SD. Same idea though - their local news also recently switched to HD. Wondering why they would choose to continue broadcasting these in lower quality..

Probably has to do with the equipment used to record and distribute syndicated programs through the facility. Remember that going HD means replacing old stuff - a very expensive proposition.

I don't recall seeing any local commercials in HD on WKBW which suggests that they don't have a suitable server for ingest and replay of HD material. New studio equipment for news and local shows seems to have taken priority over a server. WKBW studio pictures looked like they were using a largely analog production facility prior to introduction of local HD shows. Even with widescreen SD for field reports, it is stilll the biggest improvement in quality of any broadcast station in the Buffalo and Toronto market in my opinion.

WKBW will soon be outsourcing their master-control. Likely then we will see their commercials and syndicated programming in HD.

Humbar is correct. No sense in investing in an HD server at this point when the hub will provide whatever HD content is available. Servers aren't necessarily that pricey these days but they seem to be strapped for capital at KB.

WKBW's never been the same since Irv Weinstein left :(

BTW Retro TV seems to be gone now from WGRz :confused:

Yes - RTV went bye-bye a few days ago.....I hope they fill that sub-channel with something similar.

Maybe Irv torched it? :)

why would anyone care about commercials?
I don't wanna watch commercials.
Aside from that, commercials aren't produced by local TV stations are they?

Some commercials are still done at the station level, mostly as a courtesy to the advertiser. There's no money to be made on those services.

majortom,
The video server technology handles commercials, promos and programming. Syndicated television like Wheel and Jeopardy! are usually delivered by satellite. In the past, stations recorded the shows on tape but now they use a server. Locally produced shows may also be recorded directly on the server for replay at the scheduled time. For large chunks of the day, the station can run completely under automation with programs and commercials scheduled out of the server.

Server operations and cheap transmission facilities have encouraged companies to centralize master control operations. CBC English runs master control for all CBC broadcast transmitters except private affiliates from the Toronto headquarters. Live local news shows are backhauled to Toronto for commercial insertion and distribution to transmitter sites. Other Canadian networks do variations on the same theme.

WKBW just died. Turned to the channel on DirecTV and I got the "Technical Difficulties" message.

Over the air and on DirectTV?

Hmmm...

Looked at 3:45 and WKBW was working.

Thanks Georgemx,
Sounds much like what goes on in radio?

Yeah...turned out to be only about 10 or 15 minutes. Still long enough to miss a good chunk of the 4th Quarter of the Notre Dame game

Was in Port Hope last night, and put WROC 8.2 - BOUNCE on. It was running a loop saying the launch was Monday. Today, the channel was showing a movie (The Wiz), even though the Tribune guide data doesn't show anything scheduled till Monday's launch. Looks like they've started showing programming early.

I checked the guide for WHEC 10.2 - METV, and programming is scheduled to start 6am Tuesday.

Since WBBZ is so hard to get, I really wish I could still get WHEC from my location, but it's been killed by CKVR.

WKBW just died. Turned to the channel on DirecTV and I got the "Technical Difficulties" message.
They forgot to pay the power bill...