The WORST ever

[Pete Deksnis]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

what you are probably seeing is the same as what WGN (WB channel in Chicago) is doing - two program table entries for the same video, perhaps with Spanish audio on the second entry when available.

Well, okay, that means it isn’t a bad as it looks. And you’re right about the Spanish audio — but I’m still not watching the WB!

Here’s what I misinterpreted.

In the NYC reception area, WPIX channel 11 is the NTSC WB over-the-air signal. UHF channel 33 is the actual ATSC broadcast channel for the WB. (To reduce confusion, the actual broadcast channel doesn’t appear; it is replaced with the NTSC channel designation with a -n to indicate the individual, or sub, channels.)

As you can see in these screen shots taken last night, the channel 11-1 WPIX-DT image shows an icon for Dolby digital 5.1 as opposed to the channel 11-2 image with its icon for Dolby digital stereo (sometimes in Spanish).

It’s the same 16:9 1080i HD video; just the audio changes. I feel better about the technical thing, but I’m still not watching the WB!

[Jonathan]

May I add that once Thomson took over, RCA went so down hill that I never bother with their products again. It's a shame they took them over and went with cheap designs, parts, and manufactoring. I do like most of their directv receivers and HDTV receivers, but that it pretty much it.

old_tv_nut, you know so much. I want to be an engineer like you doing analog designs.

Pete, what kind of HD receiver is that?

Thanks.

Jonathan

[andy]

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[Jonathan]

Originally Posted by andy

I miss the days when there were still independent channels like WPIX 11. I used to watch that channel a lot as a kid, but I can't remember the last time I watched them (since they went WB).

It's quite a shame now, but modern tv stations and programming is going down the toilet.

Jonathan

[southernguy]

Don't forget about the infromercials, seems like theres more and more stations are running them where other programs used to be. I can remember one day when all of the local stations with the exception of PBS, where running them. Then I click over to some some low power independent station coming in from who knows where, very poor reception in and out. Channel 11 I think. Was running I love Lucy.

[TVtommy]

I have figgered out a way to put the infomercial blitzkrieg to use. It is a sigal to me to turn off the silicon sandman an go crawl in the back of an old Zenith or under the hood of my Z-28.

[Celt]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

It's quite a shame now, but modern tv stations and programming is going down the toilet. Jonathan

Exactly. Much in the same way of radio. The only thing I listen to anymore is my local NPR station on FM and as far as TV goes, it's more miss than hit there.

[Pete Deksnis]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Pete, what kind of HD receiver is that?

circa 2003, 52-inch projection w/built-in ATSC tuner, RCA HD52W140

[andy]

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[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by TVtommy

Gee, it's a shame I don't live near the Illinois area Old Tv nut, I would really love to pick your brain more intensely! An old friend of mine who just recently passed was a long time employee and xmtr super for our local CBS afilliate. When I got eat up with the vintage color bug in the 80's, we talked at lenght about the challenge of getting a color signal through those old RCA 25kw coffee cans and on the air. Seems as though there was an issue with dfferential phase distortion that reeked havoc with satisfactory hue reproduction and that it was more apparent on I/Q sets. BTW, was RCA the only man. to try and reintroduce I/Q demods in the 80's and didn't this coincide with their introduction of real comb filters? Shame they didn't have those in "54. Sorry if I'm off thread topic.

There are three kinds of phase distoriton that can happen in an NTSC transmitter. The "indcidental phase distortion" is a non-linear effect where the chroma phase is changed according to the luma it's riding on - so bright parts of a face get a different hue compared to the shadows. Then there are two linear distoritions: if the tramsmitter doesn't have a flat frequency response, it will roll off the upper chroma sidebands - this makes the Q sidebands non-symmentrical, causing crosstalk into the I channel of an I/Q set. The receiver IF can do the same thing. I think that's part of what I was seeing in the receiver. Third, the transmitter can have a poor phase response near the band edge (due to sound diplexer), which causes color transients (edges) to be wrong. Probably some of that in the receiver too. NTSC specifies the group delay response of the transmitter be precorrected to match the NTSC committee's idea of what a receiver IF would do. (Called a "Friedendall" precorrection filter after the guy who managed to design a workable one.) PAL does not use a precorrection, and lets any phase (hue) distortion be cancelled by the alternating phase.

As far as comb filters, reasonable ones came in in the mid 60's with the invention fo the glass delay line for PAL, so this wasn't really tied to the abortive I/Q revival.

[TVtommy]

Sounds like that incidental phase distortion must be similar to IM distortion in audio. I bet that I've seen this in older sets and thought it was localized purity problems due to mask doming on strong beam current on bright fleshtones. NTSC color transmission fascinates me as much now as it did 20 years ago. I,ve met a lot of good bench techs that really don't fully understand color transmission and reception but are competant none the less. I'm just a restless inquiring mind I reckon. One of my pet projects that I've already taken one stab at is a homebrew matrix adder similar to the one in a CT-100 that I want to apply after a Zenith Beam demod. section just to see what improvement it would have over the typical 60's crt matrix. I've got a copy of the schematic for 15" Zenith set and it appears that is what they were doing there. I'm hoping for an all tube circuit that will come close to those tight black levels and improved gamma that I see on those first gen. chromacolor sets. If that works out, maybe add driven clamps for DC restoration ( I,m gettin a little carried away now..). Anyway, it seems to me that the luma/chroma area of a color set has to have some complexity for a good picture. It seem to me that the "simple" one tube approach in those old Motorola's an Maggies just didn't cut the mustard to my eyes. They should have stuck with cloning RCA's ( i'll still keep em around, space permitting).

[Telecolor 3007]

In the "conflict" CRT vs Plasma/LCD: I think the peoples want LCD/Plasma tv's because for 2 BIG reasons:
- 1. The LCD/Plasma tv's and monitors are friendly with your eyes (for eg., if you stay too much with yout eyes in the fornt of an old CRT tv, your eyes will hurt you after a time)
- 2.They are space saving
Well, the big problem with the LCD/Plasma tv's and monitors is that the image haves lower qualty than at an CRT tv/monitor (I only watch normal television, not HDTV, maybe in HDTV the image provided by the LCD/Plasma tv's is better; I saw an 16:9 17"? monitor conected to an "Apple" computer that provided an image way above than that provided by CRT's monitors-well that moniutor cost unleas $1000); and another problem with the LCD/Plasma tv's/momitors is that of the side wiew: if you stay to much on the left or on the right side of the screen you risk to see nothing.
I have a question: there is an adapter that allows you to conect an roudie to HDTV?

[worm082]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

I have a 1995 Zenith Sentry 2 which still works, and an RCA CTC185 half as old but still works as well (after one repair and the ground points around the tuner having been resoldered). Both sets have their original CRTs; the Zenith has never been serviced, and was used quite a bit from 1995-99.

I've got a 1995 Zenith 19" Sentry 2 also. Been my main TV the entire almost 11 years now. Never had a problem with it. Been used TONS. No problems.

[frenchy]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

I don't beleive anyone is doing a 1080i sub on top of a 1080i main - what you are probably seeing is the same as what WGN (WB channel in Chicago) is doing - two program table entries for the same video, perhaps with Spanish audio on the second entry when available.

Los Angeles channel 5 WB (KTLA) does the same thing, I was told this does not use any more bandwidth than one main channel since it's the same data. It's an excellent digital channel out here, they zoom in on almost everything fully or nearly fully so not much in the way of annoying black or grey side bars, only channel in LA that does that. They really do a good job at it too as I never seem to notice stuff getting chopped off vertically, maybe they zoom a little and stretch a little, but it looks great. Don't know if it's WB doing it or KTLA.

[frenchy]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

I have a question: there is an adapter that allows you to conect an roudie to HDTV?

My Hitachi HDTV has video or RF outputs but you have to have the TV on to use them, but yes I can just run that into a video/audio box that converts to RF, or right from the RF out to the antenna of any of my old tvs. Probably applies to any of the hdtv standalone tuners I would think, but not sure.