@Jase88 - are they also broadcasting in 4:3 SD???

No, CBLT Toronto is 16:9 720p. Fortunately they haven't dropped down to 4:3 whatsoever (from what I've seen of the station over the past few days).

Pure speculation,.

Of course it is, you guys are a downer. I will predict thier news channel will go there. Remember MajorT we prepaid 1B$ for this stuff.

Flipping through channels today, I discovered I got CBLFT on channel 53896-3. No, that is not a typo.

That's odd. I don't see any changes to the channel mapping on my tuners (still showing 25.1). Maybe if I were to do a scan it would change.

It's apparent that CBC is in the process of making changes to their master control. During these changes, anything is possible.

looking at CBLFT in TSReader this evening, they aren't sending any TVCT, Terrestrial Virtual Channel Table. This is what your TV Receiver uses to remap it to it's "Virtual Channel".
Without it, it usually defaults to xx-programid, where xx is the RF channel no, and programid is = to the SID, which in this case is 3. As for 53896, dunno, but 538 is roughly the frequency in Mhz of the station. Perhaps a S/W Bug in your TV receiver.

They are Broadcasting a CVCT however, Cable Virtual Channel Table. Same function but for cable systems.

Edit: Just double checked and a TVCT is still not there, yet the DTT-901 isn't missing a beat, just rescanned and it
still maps it to CBLFTDT 25-1. So possibly not having a TVCT, but a CVCT only messes with certain tuners.

Must explain CBLT coming in at 1-3 then? As well as 20-3?

yep, 20-3, RF channel 20, Program 3 -> 20-3

CBLT presently has TVCT, and a CVCT, so it should be re-mapping normally.
A few Canadian Stations CBC (and I think CHCH) are the only ones I ever seen sending both TVCT and CVCT Over The Air.
Never seen both with a US Station around here.

This can also happen when ur receving a marginal quality signal from a distant station and your unable to decode the TVCT.
Not suspecting that in this case with CBLFT though, since CVCT is there. It's usually an easy thing to decode,
u'd lose the picture and audio before losing the TVCT.

Wow!
720p is really, really disappointing.
Both my stupid Samsung TVs don't know how to NOT overscan 720p.
This is bad and a shame for OTA....unless they are planning on putting in a couple more channels.

I'm puzzled by the negative comments regarding 720p. I don't want to start a debate here about it. But several of the major US networks broadcast using it, and I can't say I've seen complaints about them: ABC, FOX, ION, etc. And unless my diagnostic screen told me so, I wouldn't say I could perceive a difference.

Check out this screen grab in the Ottawa station status thread:
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=1321174&postcount=1709
It shows a bit rate between 5 and 6 Mbps for one 720p channel. Isn't that much less that one would expect?

That's basically a static image though. I'm sure the bit rate would be much higher for a very active image, right? Say a sporting event...

I've noticed the past two mornings that CBC switches to 16:9 widescreen at 7am for their kids programming and then go right back to 4:3 sidebars when adult programming resumes. This makes absolutely no sense to me.....

I would agree with Jase88. WEWS Cleveland broadcasts in 720 p and it is one of the better looking channels that I've seen. Their weather radar maps look incredible. Maybe it has more to do with the quality of programs the CBC is airing.

I've noticed the past two mornings that CBC switches to 16:9 widescreen at 7am for their kids programming and then go right back to 4:3 sidebars when adult programming resumes. This makes absolutely no sense to me.....Haven't observed that here in Ottawa (CBOT)... it's 16:9 all the time, including all last night (still some 4:3 or double-letter boxed ads once in a while, but that's not relevant).

Maybe it has more to do with the quality of programs the CBC is airing.

I've noticed on the news they frequently use what appears to be a SD camera with only the middle 360 lines used. I've also noticed CBC Bold has poor image quality, but DOC seems OK. I live in Mr. Rogers neighbourhood. ;-)

This may not be comparing apples to apples...

A good example is The View in the morning.

The PQ on 720p WKBW is terrible compared to CFTO's 1080i

I find overscanning on the flat panels really kills the deal so I avoid anything 720p. The cartoons on CBC are not as sharp.

It is still good enough and I can certainly get used to it and will be all in for 720p if they are adding some news/info type subchannels. They are badly needed.

It is still good enough and I can certainly get used to it and will be all in for 720p if they are adding some news/info type subchannels. They are badly needed.

The huge problem as I see it with 720p is this: two iterations of raster image scaling. (This assumes all the posts I've read indicating all the CBC studio work is done at 1920x1080 is true.)

The first is the scaling done by CBC studio equipment from the 1920x1080 to 1280x720 before compression. (Probably done by studio-quality equipment, using the best algorithms possible, but still, not as good as no scaling at all.)

The second happens in the majority of HDTV's inside their TV's or set-top boxes or whatever. This is back from 1280x720 to the native 1920x1080 pixels which are actually there in most HDTVs. (This will be done by whatever equipment/algorithm the HDTV manufacturer felt was "good enough" to license and will default to the lowest affordable available IMHO.)

Couple that with a large HDTV and wait for a "kick in the sensitive parts" in the image quality department.

Google around for "image scaling artifacts" and take a look a the many examples of how raster images suffer when they are scaled.


I guess the only mitigating factor we have in this department is how the competition between the quality of the "scaling algorithm" required by a 1080i->720p transformation and the "de-interlacing algortihm" required for a 1080i->1080p transformation would fare. (All digital displays are progressive in nature, none show an interlaced stream natively.)


Back onto what the others in the post have been saying, YES! An additional sub-channel or Mobile-DTV channel is definitely required to justify the move to 720p! (same goes for CBLFT!)

^^^^
I've noticed the CBC news appears to look softer.

I have tried on four or five occasions (and a number of computers) to send a complaint to the contact us location for CBC.....each has been rejected! If anyone else gets to submit a complaint, you could indicate that others are trying to complain but cannot!

To add insult to injury with this 4 x 3 SD vs 16 x 9 HD broadcasting, as noted above, this morning the childrens programming is presently in HD 16 x 9!!!!!!

Yesterday all the "normal' programming was still 4 x 3 SD. This is getting ridiculous in the extreme childrens HD regular SD.....Unless the problem is now fixed and this afternoon all will be HD...I doubt it...

I have noticed a few others note this problem, could we see how widespread this is, my local OTA station is CBNT-DT ch 8.1 in St. John's. I do not know if it is also a problem if the broadcast is on cable. The signal is 1280 x 720, but programming is 4 x 3 SD. The local news was 16 x 9 (and appeared to be HD) for the first 10 days or so now SD.

Rant over!!

Disgusted with CBC,
P.E.Hannon