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Author Topic: DTV Feb 17 Deadline May Be Delayed Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-19-2009 07:14 AM                        At least she told the viewers what was about to happen! Most of the youtube videos just show the analog signal being killed in the middle of a program! A couple of them showed stations playing the national anthem and one ended with an Indian-head test pattern (a nice touch). This seems like it would have been the perfect opportunity for some self-promotion (perhaps in the format of a short program about the station's history), but almost no stations seem to be taking advantage of this chance. I checked with one station in Boston and was told that they didn't have any plans for a special signoff in June, but that a vintage test pattern had been discussed. They will be going into "nightlight" mode for a while after the official signoff.  |  IP: Logged Jesse Skeen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1517 From: Sacramento, CA Registered: Aug 2000 posted 02-19-2009 08:50 AM                     I think one of the first successful TV transmissions was a Felix the Cat doll, so they ought to do that. Some other station played an old Star Spangled Banner film right after American Idol ended. Can't find it right now though. Amazed at the number of stations that just cut shows off in mid-sentence.  |  IP: Logged Jim Cassedy Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1661 From: San Francisco, CA Registered: Dec 2006 posted 02-19-2009 09:53 AM                     quote: Jesse Skeen I think one of the first successful TV transmissions was a Felix the Cat doll Experemental NBC station W2XBS used a Felix The Cat doll slowly rotating on a turntable during test brodcasts in 1929 Several private individuals and institutions claim they have the "original" Felix figure used in the NBC tests. This one was on display in a museum in Europe- Just like Dorothy's ruby slippers, I don't think anyone really knows for sure what happened to the actual original item and many people lay claim to ownership. Only Felix knows for sure! "Life is just a bag of tricks"- Felix T.C.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 03-08-2009 12:17 AM                        quote: Scott Norwood A couple of them showed stations playing the national anthem and one ended with an Indian-head test pattern (a nice touch). Does anyone know the origins of the Indian Head test pattern? I mean, when engineers were sitting around designing a test pattern, what made them decide on that particular image? Is anyone, any station credited with its creation? Lots of stations seemed to use it, along with the 1kHz test tone. Strange they had a fairly robust test pattern for visual and only a single tone for aural....you would think a tone sweep and burts would have served the audio guy better than a only a wimpy single frequency tone. I am actually old enuf to remember when every station used test patterns before and after sign-off & on. In fact, I remember when the stations would be off the air a good part of the daytime hours and come on at noon. Nowasays, in the New York market, the city that never sleeps has tv stations that never do either. Wonder when they get to test stuff. They never any test patterns, never any National Athem, just continuous programming and useless infomercials. I take that back, PBS (which I am old enuf to remember was a commercial station out of NJ that only ran old silent Farmer Gray cartoons) they do run color bars & tone on Sunday nite/Monday morning; they are the only ones though. The damn FCC has its pantyhose all up in a bunch that the stations should provide instructions on how to set up converter boxes so as not to confuse the public (which it seems to think are half-wits -- typical bureacratic mindset). Like the whole DTV switch/don't switch/switch, but not until June, wasn't a laughable debacle from its inception. The public would be a lot better served if the FCC told stations which run "info"mercials all night long, that they are COMMERCIALS (usually filled with outragious claims and outright lies) and they must be treated as such -- NOT as programming. So if an informercial runs half an hour, that must count for 29 minutes of allowed commercial time and they have to cut that many commercial seconds elsewhere in the broadcast day to make up for it. They shouldn't be able to count them as programming content. In other words FCC Commissioners should DO SOMETHING USEFUL for their overpaid federal salaries if they really want to serve the public.  |  IP: Logged James Westbrook Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1133 From: Lubbock, Texas, Usa Registered: Mar 2006 posted 03-08-2009 03:16 AM                     This may cause those stations to shut down in the overnight hours - This would be better than those "infomercials!" (Reminds me why I am not on cable: From 1 AM Central time through whenever is infomercials everywhere. ) The opening of the TV series The Outer Limits showed that Indian Head test pattern, too.  |  IP: Logged Jim Cassedy Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1661 From: San Francisco, CA Registered: Dec 2006 posted 03-08-2009 03:41 PM                     quote: Frank Angel Does anyone know the origins of the Indian Head test pattern? I remember reading an article describing the history of the "Indian Head" test pattern in BROADCAST ENGINEERING or some other broadcasting industry tech magazine about 10 years ago, but I don't recall any of the details. A Wikipedia entry on the pattern can be seen HERE But the article I recall reading actually went into more detail about how the indian head graphic came to be used. Television equipment collector Chuck Pharis has an actual monoscope "Indian Head" pattern generator in his collection. You can see/read about it HERE quote: Frank Angel I am old enuf to remember was a commercial station out of NJ that only ran old silent Farmer Gray cartoons Hahahaha- - I grew up on Long Island, and I'm old enough to remember that station and those silent Farmer Gray cartoons too! I can also remember either that station or another one running "Flip The Frog" cartoons and old 16mm US Dept Of Agriculture films incessently.  |  IP: Logged Jesse Skeen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1517 From: Sacramento, CA Registered: Aug 2000 posted 06-11-2009 05:02 AM                     Looks like it's really going to happen this time! I've got Friday off, so my TV will be on starting late Thursday night up til the bitter end, and I'll be a couch potato one last time. My reception isn't quite good enough here to record, but my dad who has a roof antenna is going to try and record a few stations' final moments on DVD. I'm debating whether to bring over one of my VHS decks since that can record the SAP audio (which sort of got used in later years, but never to its full potential) on the linear soundtrack with the main audio on the Hi-Fi- can't do that with DVD. Both KCRA 3 and KTXL 40 will go off at 9AM- I'll be watching 40 since it comes in good here but 3 comes in crappy with an indoor antenna. The REAL KTXL's already been dead for over 20 years though. KOVR-13 goes at 6, and KXTV-10 is going all the way til 11:59 so Nightline will probably be their last show (they were a CBS station originally and 13 was ABC- but channel 13 has spent more time broadcasting CBS's logo than channel 10 ever did, and vice versa with ABC.) I don't know when channel 58's going off- they've been the worst station in the area for a long time (they were the first local station to start using a bug) but it would be nice to see them go off the air since I watched and taped them signing on the air in 1986- they had an hour-long special showing all the cool stuff they'd be showing, and before that they ran test patterns with music in STEREO which I've also got part of on tape.  |  IP: Logged Julio Roberto Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 938 From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain Registered: Oct 2008 posted 06-11-2009 06:56 AM                    Our old trusty analog PAL is also being switched off in the whole country by the end of the month. All programs now displaying an (annonying) message every 10 minutes: "This channel will no longer be seen blah-blah-blah". Digital coverage has finally been "fixed" in your usual hurry lately, so now finally most people get the signal even in most remote places. Digital convertion boxes have always abounded since the digital thing started several years ago, so I doubt anybody hasn't picked up the 25€ boxes from the supermarkets by now. They were even giving them away with other purchases in newstands, etc. Still an issue with some "neighbourhood associations" in condo buildings and the like that may need work done on their (distributed amplified) antenna installations and haven't done squat about it yet. I have the feeling they will in a couple of weeks Every single network has opted for several (new) channels at 580i transmissions (roughly equivalent to what we had before), so no HD over the air except in a couple of cities as an experimental thing. HD broadcasting remains a satellite-only thing (number of HD channels offered has increased from 2 to 4 or so). Phone companies have plans to roll out the Fiber-at-home thing to the whole country within the next couple of years and offer HD TV transmissions ... so we'll see what happens. But Average Joe is pretty happy with the 580i signal, so there. Most people don't care squat about HD and blu-ray hasn't made much of a stride around here either. TV programming sucks anyway, so no point in watching Big Brother in HD to be honest ...  |  IP: Logged Jesse Skeen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1517 From: Sacramento, CA Registered: Aug 2000 posted 06-12-2009 04:54 AM                     3 stations right now are showing infomercials during their last few hours- nice to know they're letting analog go out in style. I've got a digital tuner but only because it's built in to the DVD recorder I bought (which I use to transfer very old tapes). Don't have an HDTV yet but when I finally do get one it won't be used for watching broadcast TV in its current state.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-12-2009 10:58 AM                     KAUZ-TV channel 6, CBS, in Wichita Falls, TX was the last major network TV station in our viewing market to broadcast in analog. Our ABC, FOX and NBC affiliates switched back in February. KAUZ shut off their analog broadcast at the end of May. I'm not sure why KAUZ switched to DTV-only then. During the same week Dish Network added HD locals service for our market to their new Ciel-2 satellite in the 129° orbital position. The same HD local channels were already available on the E*12 satellite at 61.5°, but required many viewers to add a second dish to their rooftop. Now Dish Network customers can get complete HD service from a single dish. DirecTV doesn't carry local channels at all in the Wichita Falls/Lawton viewing market, no SD or HD. The only drawback with Dish' service is they don't carry the ABC affiliate in Lawton in HD, just SD only. For HD you have to get the channel over the air or subscribe to a couple cable companies that offer it. That ABC station already gave Dish permission to retransmit its HD local channel, but Dish is dragging its feet for some unknown reason. I'm wondering about any changes in broadcasting signal strength or even changes in channel assignment after midnight tonight. AFAIK, the DTV stations in my market are already at their final channel assignments. I may redo my channel scan just in case. Currently I can't pick up KAUZ in Wichita Falls over the air. Their signal isn't strong enough. Maybe that will change by tomorrow.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-12-2009 03:37 PM                        Has anyone seen any good signoffs? National Anthems? Vintage (or modern) test patterns? Have any stations shown a "history of this station" piece? I find it sad that most stations seem to just be cutting to static, rather than doing something special for the occasion.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 06-13-2009 12:11 AM                        The only one I saw just clipped it off in the middle of a commercial. What a way to end 50+ years of broadcasting on the same frequency than to have the last thing you show to be half of a commercial for Dealin' Doug's Used Car Lot.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-13-2009 01:04 AM                        Well, none of the Boston stations bothered to do anything special. Boo. Hiss. Youtube has a few good ones from around the country. WFAA, WKRG, WTHR, WRTV, and WFSB all did classy signoffs.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-13-2009 01:40 AM                     Nobody did anything fancy in our viewing market. The typical thing was just a show of color bars and a countdown warning from 1 minute or merely 10 seconds that analog broadcasts would end. And then the glory of snow. And then that little dead blond girl from Poltergeist could walk around your living room saying, "they're here."  |  IP: Logged Jesse Skeen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1517 From: Sacramento, CA Registered: Aug 2000 posted 06-13-2009 03:01 AM                     KOVR in Sacramento had live video at the transmitter with the camera on some meters which gradually moved to the left, and the signal gradually faded out along with them. Hopefully I'll have a copy of it to put online soon.  |  IP: Logged

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