Question... what would this accomplish that could not be done by an ordinary STB in pan/scan mode? An SDTV feed would essentially be a 16:9 feed with the edges chopped off. A duplicate OTA SDTV signal would be absolutely pointless. It would be received by either...

an HDTV with a built-in ATSC tuner. The SDTV signal would be pointless.
an NTSC TV set fed by a stand-alone tuner/converter box... which could pan/scan 16:9 feed itself. So again, an SDTV subchannel is pointless.

What would make a lot more sense is for Ontario CBC digital transmitters to carry TVO as a subchannel. If TVO isn't going to go digital, they shouldn't be clogging up an entire 6 mhz channel.

SD analog signals may still be around after 2011. CRTC, May 2007: (http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Notices/2007/pb2007-53.pdf)
• Television licensees will be authorized to broadcast only digital OTA signals after 31 August 2011, although exceptions may be made in northern and remote communities where analog transmissions will not cause interference.

Marc - just as an FYI:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=77714

Just another observation:
I'm still noticing very rough transitions on CBUT-DT.
On Friday during RCAF it was mostly ok on transitions between commercials and programming, but noticed what to me looked again like local insertions - couple of times 16:9 (full widescreen) promo clips for 'coming up tonight on Vancouver news' was actually inserted INTO the commercial brake, almost collapsing surrounding commercials on transitions (occurred at 20.17 and 20.38 h PT).
At around 4.00 h (7 hours later) I noticed the rerun of local Vancouver news was entirely in 4:3, also with 'cbcnews' logo that's only seen on analogue cbc, so I wonder if that was an error with 16:9 programme being shown cropped as 4:3 (although I did not see the original news show at 18.00 h to claim that it was in 16:9, but it always is).

Anyways, I too have a question for far in future.
After the transition is done in 2011, I am not looking forward to CBUT-DT going from current ch.58 to ch.2.
The reason is that I hardly ever found possible to properly receive this channel due to enormous interference of some kind (intensive waves over picture making it often unwatchable) downtown; in suburbs signal is clear. Currently there is no signal for me on CBUT-TV (ch.2) while I get CBUT-DT.
(although this is the issue for reception thread, just wanted to ask Marc for any ideas).

After the transition is done in 2011, I am not looking forward to CBUT-DT going from current ch.58 to ch.2.
The reason is that I hardly ever found possible to properly receive this channel due to enormous interference of some kind (intensive waves over picture making it often unwatchable) downtown; in suburbs signal is clear. Currently there is no signal for me on CBUT-TV (ch.2) while I get CBUT-DT.
(although this is the issue for reception thread, just wanted to ask Marc for any ideas).
I don't think you have to worry about that. While channel 58 will be abandoned in favouvour of something in the range 7..51, I don't think any ATSC station in North America will be on VHF-LO (channels 2..6). The issues have been discussed in another thread. The executive sumary is that the VHF-LO band is a bad place to get a channel. Your grandchilderen will probably be asking you why there aren't any channels 1..6.

Like Walter Dnes said, CBUT-DT will not be in the 2-6 range. I don't know what the new channel will be.

Marc, do you know what's been happening with CBC-HD and HNIC? I'm on Rogers-Ottawa, and last year CBC-HD *always* showed the Leafs game, while CBC-SD (cable 8) showed the Sens game. It seems that this year this has changed -- even if the Guide says Leafs, CBC-HD has been showing Sens games.

That said, the quality is oftne non-HD. Case in point, last Saturday's game was just horrible from a PQ point of view. It was definitely not HD. I know that CBC has two high-def setups: one for (primarily) Leafs games and the second unit they got near the end of last season, I believe, that is used (again, primarily) for the late game from out-West. Nevertheless, som Ottawa games (even when not involving the Leafs) were in high-definition.

So I guess the question is -- does teh CBC rely on a high-def feed from someone else (and add their own announcers' voice over) or what?

There are 2 HD trucks at the moment. The general rule is: the national games are HD and the regional games are WS.

A while ago, when the regional games were SD, the SD transmitter would get the regional game and the HD transmitter in that market would get the HD game. Why show a 4:3 upconvert on a 16:9 channel?

Now that the regional games are WS, they get fed to the HD transmitter.

Work continues on that front. The ugliest switches have been fixed as of today. Some fine tuning is still going on.

Thanks again, Marc. My last question was whether the CBC ever guy someone else's HD feed for the regional games? For example if the Rangers were in Ottawa and the MSG Network (or whatever they're called) already had their HD gear there. Or are we relegated to see the Sens in HD only if they play the Leafs or one of the Western teams, or when the Leafs are either not playing or playing out West?

For the record, I'm on Rogers, so I get SNet-HD for "free" but not TSN-HD (or RDS-HD, for that matter).

I can't recall a time when CBC took someone's production of an NHL game. Cameras are shared, but that's about it.

Marc,
The last few nights there has been a double channel bug during the national at certain points.

For example, last night the Tata car and At Issue panel both had double bugs on CBUT-DT.

There are a couple of ways that can happen. Someone is looking into it. Thanks

CBC plans to launch a new sports channel (http://www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2008/01/24/cbc-sportsstation.html).

Was it just me or did Pearl Harbor go from HD to SD in the middle of the movie last night.

Was it just me or did Pearl Harbor go from HD to SD in the middle of the movie last night.
Pretty sure it was always SD.

Last night, although cbc.ca did not indicate Pearl Harbour to be in HD, I was hopping it will somehow be, and was ready to watch it once again, and to tape it. But I was disappointed to see that it was 4:3 when it started.
Then, after full 2 hours of the movie, the following movie segment after commercials appeared in the 16:9 picture with black bars all around (I'm not sure how to call that effect when analogue letterboxed image is shown on HD screen). After a minute (at 21:00 h) it flipped and filled screen making it WS (not HD) 16:9. It also did not look to me like in that image there was any part of the picture cropped, making sense that it was the rest of the movie was cropped to 4:3. After the next commercial segment, the movie went back into 4:3 mode, until the end of the movie (almost looked like after realizing they had aired 2 hours of the movie in wrong format, they decided to go back to it).

It always helps me guess what is going on in these kinds o cases by also seeing analogue CBC, but I no longer have it, I canceled my cable and now I only get CBC HD.

I tuned in just as the attack was starting. I think it was around 11:20, perhaps even later. At this time CBC-HD was showing a picture that was pillar-boxed and letter-boxed, and the resolution did not look very high. At this time CBC-SD was showing a similar picture (letter-boxed and pillar-boxed). I wasn't really interested in this movie, so I kep flipping rhough the channels. A little while later I flipped back to CBC-HD and the movie now filled the entire screen, but the resolution still was not all that great.

For what it's worth, the EPG said it was HD.

Bottom line, I love the fact that the broadcasters are showing a lot more HD content, including movies, but it just doesn't appear that they have their MOP written (or, perhaps, read) right.

I just got a little annoyed again as I spent almost half an hour trying to find out what's on CBC tonight, but couldn't. The CBC.ca again had problems and would only show eastern schedule, always fails trying to display Vancouver schedule.
I just don't know what to do any more.
Saw there was a nature show after the hockey, and it was again with this 'pillarboxed/letterboxed' effect like last night, but then I saw when the image flipped (at 18:35 h pacific) and zoomed-in/filled 16:9 screen.
Later, after I came back to check what's on, there was Planet Earth on (I really hate when I miss this show, but at least I saw the ending this time). I am glad there are shows like Planet Earth and Polar Bears in HD tonight (to fill the rift towards eastern schedule) but I just wished there was a way to know about them.

It doesn't work much better here in the East, most of the time. I'm starting to think that the only CBC employee that knew how the schedule software works must have left sometime in October/November.