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The following page was printed from RemoteCentral.com:
| Topic: | Toronto/Buffalo "Reduced Quality" HD Channels This thread has 36 replies. Displaying posts 16 through 30. |
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| Post 16 made on Wednesday December 2, 2009 at 10:23 |
wogster Long Time Member |
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Posts: | November 2009
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On December 1, 2009 at 23:37, Daniel Tonks said...
HDTV has been broadcasting in some form in Buffalo for about 7 years, so I think stereo NTSC has been around a lot longer than 10 years. Heck, I have a 1986 Sony 13" television with stereo NTSC reception, for both cable and antenna. Sure, some stations were really, really slow to start broadcasting stereo (almost entirely due to budgets), but everything's been there, waiting.
After at least 7 years worth of practical experience in the industry, I would expect close to perfection from most broadcasting stations. And generally the problems I've seen this year have nothing to do with actual technology limitations or even bugs that haven't been worked out - but rather the specific choices made by the station.
For example, it's more work and costs more to set up an auto volume leveller versus NOT having one. However it should cost the same to configure one correctly, verus Global who insists on doing it incorrectly.
And I agree the biggest problem seems to be that stations just don't watch themselves, so no one ever notices that the rear channels are swapped with the center channel, or that the picture breaks up during flashback scenes on CSI (which took years for WIVB to nail down).
Cable companies aren't any better. I recall a few years ago it took Rogers over 6 months to correct a problem where they were only broadcasting CTV with left channel audio. And then the problem switched to two different stations for another month until they noticed. Of course, my reports of the problem fell on deaf ears... I recall one rep saying that "if it were that way, then all of Toronto would be like that"... well, so? :-) I stand corrected on the time of stereo TV. I think your right, stations see only the internal master control signal, they never see what actually goes over the air. Of course they then need to count on viewer reports. I think though reports often get lost in the 5m between the customer support cubical and the engineers cubical. This is quite common, in business, because there is often no followup. Cable companies are also bad for this....
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| Post 17 made on Wednesday December 9, 2009 at 04:31 |
Bruce H.Campbell Long Time Member |
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Posts: | January 2007
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On October 6, 2008 at 17:34, OTAHD said...
Yeah...I've found it's better to watch CBS on Pro Logic of the 2.0 than in 5.1...
HD's past it's infancy now... me too, I just keep the regular Dolby settings or force 2-channel, then switch for DVD playback.
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| Post 18 made on Wednesday December 9, 2009 at 04:43 |
Bruce H.Campbell Long Time Member |
Joined:
Posts: | January 2007
339 |
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On December 2, 2009 at 10:23, wogster said...
snipped Miami Vice....1st NTSC stereo, so much so that I ran the audio out on the Toshiba to the old regular Beta and just used the tuner inside for video, gave me imputus to go for a SuperBeta/w NTSC stereo for all those Phil Collins' tunes!
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| Post 19 made on Wednesday December 9, 2009 at 20:12 |
wogster Long Time Member |
Joined:
Posts: | November 2009
111 |
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On December 9, 2009 at 04:43, Bruce H.Campbell said...
snipped
Miami Vice....1st NTSC stereo, so much so that I ran the audio out on the Toshiba to the old regular Beta and just used the tuner inside for video, gave me imputus to go for a SuperBeta/w NTSC stereo for all those Phil Collins' tunes! I guess I should have been more specific, of analog TV's probably well over half are monaurial, I had one mono and one stereo up until the stereo one's picture tube started dying, and replacing the tube would have cost more then the TV originally had. For digital TV's it's likely that most will be stereo using the built in speakers, few people will care about whether it has 5.1, 7.1 or even 69.1 sound capability. Those built in speakers are often tiny and tinny, so the broadcaster boosts the bass to make it sound reasonably good under those conditions. Many probably have never listened to see if it sounds good under 5.1, because 5.1 is a very small portion of their customer base and it's not worth the cost of bringing in a sound engineer and obtaining the equipment to test it. Think about it, OTA is a small portion of today's TV market in Canada. Of that small portion, a small portion have implemented more then 2.0 sound. The majority of folks have cable or satelite, it doesn't really matter what the broadcaster puts out Roger$ et al will monkey with it until your expensive surround sound system sounds like a dollar store AM radio anyway.....
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| OP | Post 20 made on Tuesday October 5, 2010 at 08:41 |
Daniel Tonks Wrangler of Remotes |
Joined:
Posts: | October 1998
28,780 |
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OK, what is the deal with Global this season.
Their audio compressor is set up even worse than it was before. I was watching an episode of "Outsourced" where the running gag is that you can barely hear one of the women speak. Except on Global, where as soon as there's silence the volume gets cranked up at least 21db louder and you can hear her speak at a normal level - along with so much background noise it's like they're standing next to a jet plane taking off.
It's actually so misconfigured that it's ruining shows. House is another show that has both talking and not-talking parts, and whenever there's a not-talking part Global ramps the volume so much I find myself cranking down the volume on my remote. And then the first part of the first word that someone speaks is way louder than it should be, until it catches and ramps that back down again. They quite literally want all of their audio tracks to be a perfectly flat 0db at all times - even if they have to crank up pure background hiss to achieve it.
Absolutely mind bogglingly stupid.
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| Post 21 made on Sunday October 10, 2010 at 12:11 |
Hey, it is Global... running a NTSC image on an ATSC tuner seems to be standard.
Perhaps with the new owners, their holding pattern will end.
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| Post 22 made on Monday October 11, 2010 at 12:07 |
DrSat Lurking Member |
Joined:
Posts: | October 2010
4 |
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On October 5, 2010 at 08:41, Daniel Tonks said...
OK, what is the deal with Global this season.
Their audio compressor is set up even worse than it was before. I was watching an episode of "Outsourced" where the running gag is that you can barely hear one of the women speak. Except on Global, where as soon as there's silence the volume gets cranked up at least 21db louder and you can hear her speak at a normal level - along with so much background noise it's like they're standing next to a jet plane taking off.
It's actually so misconfigured that it's ruining shows. House is another show that has both talking and not-talking parts, and whenever there's a not-talking part Global ramps the volume so much I find myself cranking down the volume on my remote. And then the first part of the first word that someone speaks is way louder than it should be, until it catches and ramps that back down again. They quite literally want all of their audio tracks to be a perfectly flat 0db at all times - even if they have to crank up pure background hiss to achieve it.
Absolutely mind bogglingly stupid. If Global's audio compression is messing up their audio so bad then don't bother watching them unless you have to. Most of their programming is from one of the US networks anyways so you will get much better quality when watching directly from the originating network. In the case of "Outsourced", this is a NBC show so you have the option of either watching it OTA from WGRZ or even better yet, from NBC's studio feed on KU-Band satellite. The bitrate on NBC's studio feed is a lot higher than WGRZ with the video being pumped close to 30 Mbps v.s. 15 Mbps.
Last edited by DrSat on October 11, 2010 12:19.
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| OP | Post 23 made on Tuesday October 12, 2010 at 04:50 |
Daniel Tonks Wrangler of Remotes |
Joined:
Posts: | October 1998
28,780 |
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Well, the main problem is my long-distance reception of ABC, NBC and CBS isn't particularly reliable, so since I timeshift almost everything I'm stuck recording on either Canadian OTA, or simsubbed Canadian Cable. Either way I end up with Global!
For Fox shows like House and Lie to Me (also "enhanced" by Global) I do indeed record Fox OTA where possible (my OTA DVR is only single tuner, though, so I can't do everything).
It would be better if they actually fixed the problem. I mean it'd be a whole lot easier for them to do nothing and have pristine audio, then do whatever they're doing and end up with the acoustic nightmare they call sound.
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| Post 24 made on Tuesday October 12, 2010 at 17:55 |
auditorydamage Long Time Member |
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Does Global's analog feed sound similar? I have a guess as to why their ATSC feed is so heavily compressed, but it's only a guess. If my guess is right, though, then their sound may improve greatly sometime after Canada's analog shutdown in 2013... 2014... 2017... whenever the terrestrial broadcasters damn well feel like it...
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Satisfied owner of a Terk HDTVa. Who needs Rogers or Bell anyway? |
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| OP | Post 25 made on Wednesday October 13, 2010 at 07:18 |
Daniel Tonks Wrangler of Remotes |
Joined:
Posts: | October 1998
28,780 |
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It's not that the audio is overcompressed as in limited bandwidth, but the dynamic range is highly compressed.
I think I'm going to have to record a comparison example... I'll see if I can remember to record both US and Canadian feeds of a show that this is particularly troublesome on.
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| Post 26 made on Wednesday October 13, 2010 at 11:18 |
auditorydamage Long Time Member |
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Sorry - I was using the same definition of compression, dynamic range, as you. It came to mind when I noticed a similar result on CTV's feed during Tuesday's SVU episode, though knowing their occasionally iffy level control (apply proper dialnorm to all ads plznthx) it's just as likely the episode was mixed that way.
If Global's analog feed sounds just as crunched as their digital feed, then my guess is that they're applying compression and limiting necessary for keeping audio within NTSC limits to the audio signal before it is routed to the analog and digital encoders. If the analog feed is remarkably better, then Global is doing something very wrong on their digital feed. I won't speculate any further for the moment, but I will ask some folks at work how we're handling output levels.
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Satisfied owner of a Terk HDTVa. Who needs Rogers or Bell anyway? |
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| Post 27 made on Wednesday October 13, 2010 at 19:02 |
hd fan Long Time Member |
Joined:
Posts: | March 2006
425 |
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On October 11, 2010 at 12:07, DrSat said...
|| In the case of "Outsourced", this is a NBC show so you have the option of either watching it OTA from WGRZ or even better yet, from NBC's studio feed on KU-Band satellite. The bitrate on NBC's studio feed is a lot higher than WGRZ with the video being pumped close to 30 Mbps v.s. 15 Mbps. With the exception of the Azteca HD Mux on the mexican satellite Satmex 5 I think, and maybe Galavision HD on 135W (both on C Band) I am yet to see audio being distributed in DD 5.1. Even PBS HD on Ku 125W uses DD 2.0 (although I think I have seen it 5.1 on some shows) which I find odd since I was expecting that those master signals were distributed with the highest posible quality (well some are distributed using DC II which I have no means to receive or are encrypted) but like I said DD 5.1 is extremely rare via FTA satellite. So you'd be better off via OTA. Forget Global , I remember RSN Ontario had DD 5.0 (missing the LFE channel) for over a year at least while at least RSN Pacific and probably the others as well had full DD 5.1 untill I decided to send them an email. Not only it surprises me that their technical department did not see this happening but also that noone else ever complained. So much for having the latest equipment and yet the A/V source material we receive is not the highest quality. Well probably everybody thought , heck , somebody else will notice as well and will call , lol, a year at least !!!. Wonder if someone has send a message to Global about this?
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| OP | Post 28 made on Wednesday October 13, 2010 at 19:21 |
Daniel Tonks Wrangler of Remotes |
Joined:
Posts: | October 1998
28,780 |
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I understand that much of the problem is that no one at a television station actually watches the finished output of the station. :-)
I remember complaining when Rogers only had right-channel stereo audio for CFTO (left was completely silent)... after confirming it wasn't doing that OTA, I called them. They said I was the only one to complain and that I had to be wrong and it was my equipment because "if it was like that then all of Toronto would be that way". So? Six months later they fixed it. And at the same time broke CBC's audio in exactly the same way for about a month.
I know I'm overly picky on my audio. I have good equipment, it's set up well, and I still feel that for movies great audio is even more important than great picture. However this really isn't me being nitpicky. Anyone with an ear can hear the issue, the problem is the vast majority probably don't know it's really not supposed to suck that bad.
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| Post 29 made on Wednesday October 13, 2010 at 23:55 |
DrSat Lurking Member |
Joined:
Posts: | October 2010
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On October 13, 2010 at 19:02, hd fan said...
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With the exception of the Azteca HD Mux on the mexican satellite Satmex 5 I think, and maybe Galavision HD on 135W (both on C Band) I am yet to see audio being distributed in DD 5.1. Even PBS HD on Ku 125W uses DD 2.0 (although I think I have seen it 5.1 on some shows) which I find odd since I was expecting that those master signals were distributed with the highest posible quality (well some are distributed using DC II which I have no means to receive or are encrypted) but like I said DD 5.1 is extremely rare via FTA satellite. So you'd be better off via OTA. All of PBS HD on AMC 21 is broadcast in Dolby AC3 5.1 along with NBC on AMC 1 & AMC 18 and other channels as well. However, your satellite receiver has to be connected to an A/V receiver that supports decoding AC3 audio in order to get surround sound. Also, not all shows being broadcast were actually recorded in 5.1 surround sound so that's why sometimes, you will only get DD 2.0 sound.
Last edited by DrSat on October 15, 2010 09:08.
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| Post 30 made on Thursday October 14, 2010 at 08:20 |
DrSat Lurking Member |
Joined:
Posts: | October 2010
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When I say "connected to an A/V receiver", in most cases, this means through a SPIDIF connection as some HD FTA receivers have issues outputting 5.1 Dolby Digital over HDMI properly.
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