What is "high-definition" called in French? I'd be surprised if was abbreviated HD!SECAM? ;) Just kidding.

cheers,
stampeder

If you consult Canadian Cable and Satellite Database, you will see that all Digital Transmitters are ending with a dt suffix. One wonders what would be the meaning...

http://www.mcquarrieweb.ca/canada/ota/montreal.htm

If you consult Canadian Cable and Satellite Database, you will see that all Digital Transmitters are ending with a dt suffix. One wonders what would be the meaning...Industry Canada assigns call letters to stations, and its their policy to append the DT to the end of the analog call signs that they will eventually replace. In the U.S. the FCC does the same thing.

cheers,
stampeder

Nope - we'll complain because we can't get Coronation Street or Doctor Who or anything from the CBC in HD this far from the center of the universe aka Toronto/Montreal :)
The Vancouver digital transmitter should be up and running in September...

What is "high-definition" called in French? I'd be surprised if was abbreviated HD!

Nick

High Definition is haute définition in French. So, HD = HD! DT must stand for Digital Television (télévision numérique in French). That is precisely why I was wondering if the SRC was broadcasting in mere digital tv instead of HD.

Téléphage,
Where are you located in Montreal? I am in Pointe-Claire and cannot get the channels. Know anyone in the West-Island that can?

I live on the 32nd floor of a downtown apartment building facing South. I can see the CBC tower from my living-room window. So far, I haven't met or spoken to anyone who was getting CBC or SRC HD over-the-air. But believe me, it works great! Make sure you connect a 3 or 4-meter coaxial cable to the back of your receiver as I explained in Post 269. In your case, maybe a longer antenna (facing East) would be needed. I was told that in some cases a simple rabbit-ear antenna could be used but I haven't tried it.

Good luck!


Guy

Yes, this is going to become more and more of an issue. Right now the info we have from our schedule is not very granular--it basically shows an entire program as either 16:9 or 4:3. If we use the 16:9 upconverter, we know when the commercial breaks are, and can put them back through the regular 4:3 upconverter process. But when the material inside a programming block contains both aspect ratios, we're currently choosing one or the other. The trick is to go one level deeper and get the timing for aspect ratio changes *within* a program segment. The timings exists of course, it just requires different information flows, and results in more switches than our presentation group typically has to deal with. But I'm told it is possible.

I'm going to try and get this sorted for the Slammin' Iron doc on Passionate eye on April 13. The program segments will be HD, but the show opening and intro are SD 4:3. So the upconversion process has to be smart enough to know exactly when to switch. Let's see how we do!

P.S. Peter Cottontail on Sunday March 27 will also be HD (5-7pm ET)

mhyland.. You seem to have material in an additional format namely 14:9. Why do you present this material on the regular network as 14:9 (black bars top and bottom) but on the DT network as 16:9? For us DT'ers it should also be shown in that format (narrow black bars on the sides). Anything else chops the top and bottoms off of the picture because its framed for another format and we end up seeing LESS picture information then the regular network. Just finished watching the 5'th estate this evening comparing the two networks on one picture tube using picture in picture feature. The regular network was presented correctly as 14:9. The DT transmission incorrectly zoomed in the picture to fill the my 16:9 screen. Result = lots of missing picture info top and botton and an initial impression that your great camera folks are having a bad day when the only problem is you've got another HD workflow setting incorrect.

I got the following reply from Bell ExpressVu today -

We have been advised that CBC HD will be added to our line up this
month, however, a specific date was not provided.

Well, less than a week to go in the month of March, half of which will be lost to a long weekend; what are the odds that BEV subscribers are going to see CBC-HD as intimated by their reply to HDB?

The regular network was presented correctly as 14:9. The DT transmission incorrectly zoomed in the picture to fill the my 16:9 screen.
We're now going to present 14:9 material through the regular 4:3 upconverter. The picture won't fill the screen, but it won't be cropped either.

Well, less than a week to go in the month of March, half of which will be lost to a long weekend; what are the odds that BEV subscribers are going to see CBC-HD as intimated by their reply to HDB?A fiasco... a complete and utter fiasco... :rolleyes:

Lyngsat updated their Nimiq2 page on March 24 but CBC-HD doesn't show up on any of the transponders as far as I can tell (click the letter "P" on each transponder to see what's carried on it).

http://www.lyngsat.com/packages/expressvu2.html

cheers,
stampeder

We're now going to present 14:9 material through the regular 4:3 upconverter. The picture won't fill the screen, but it won't be cropped either.

Maybe you should try and zoom 14:9 LB programmes to 14:9 full screen. This will result in only two thin side black bars (about half the size of when 4:3 programming is shown).

Maybe you should try and zoom 14:9 LB programmes to 14:9 full screen. This will result in only two thin side black bars (about half the size of when 4:3 programming is shown).Rather like what you often see on CITY-HD.

We're now going to present 14:9 material through the regular 4:3 upconverter. The picture won't fill the screen, but it won't be cropped either.

Cool will watch for the results on my end this evening. Like some of the others above I'm hoping that will fill the picture top to bottom and just leave the narrow black bars on the sides. BTW do you guys realize your channel information system that should show the upcoming programs has been down for days? Just displays "No Data".

Mhyland: some of us here would like to be able to calibrate our TVs based on an authentic HD test pattern. Would CBC-HD please offer this during some "down" hours? This would be a terrific asset for people like myself who cannot hide the steep price of a good HDMI/DVI based signal generator system from our wives. ;)

cheers,
stampeder

Mhyland: some of us here would like to be able to calibrate our TVs based on an authentic HD test pattern. Would CBC-HD please offer this during some "down" hours?
I'll look into it.

btw, did anyone see the Peter Cottontail movie on Sunday (5-7pm)? Any comments?

Picture was clear here in NB. The sound was coming from where it was supposed to be. The only mishap is at the beginning when Peter's father is going down the ramp to extinguish the fire, the rapid movement going down made the picture very fuzzy. It's like if it had a hard time "being drawn" and trying to keep up with the frames. Do you understand what I'm trying to describe?

I think so... like the MPEG stream was struggling with the rapid movement and lost picture detail for that shot?

Compression artifacts and macroblocking are "typical" for fast movement scenes in HD due to the limitations of MPEG. MPEG is compressing a stream of information that was over 1 Gb/sec to under 19.4 Mb/sec - a compression factor of 50-60 (or more on some stations).

See the FAQ on "Acronyms and Definitions" for information on macroblocking.

57, are we in fact receiving HD programming at a rate of 19.4 mb/sec or is it typically less than that.

That will depend on the broadcaster and the material. When I've recorded HD material, it has varied from about 5 GB/hour to just under 9 GB/hour (9GB/hour would roughly equal to 19.4Mb/sec.) (8 bits/Byte)

For example, see the following post from a while ago.

http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/forum/showpost.php?p=96669&postcount=245

Note that Jay Leno - one of the clearest HD programmes is nearer the lower end than the top.

I've seen the same with DVDs. I have a bitrate meter on my DVD player and often you can get just as clear a picture at 4 vs 10 Mb/sec (as long as there's not too much "change" on screen). It's the change (movement - scene changes) that "kills" MPEG.

If you wish to discuss this further, please start another thread, or use one where a similar issue has been discussed.