How to get more HD Programming in Maine

First of all, if you live in Southern Maine, your cable company may carry the Boston network channels as well as the Portland network channels. Watch the Boston ones. Most are in High Definition for their local news broadcasts, some are producing their own HD programming locally, and some can record and playback High Definition programming apart from the Network Feed.

Not ONE Portland Network Channel can do any of this. In my dealings with the many network affiliates in Portland (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CW, MyNetwork, FOX), none of them are even close to the technical capabilities of the Boston channels and to make it worse, I have received communicates from some affiliates General Managers who have said things like "we are only mandated to switch to digital, we are not required to do anything more than that".

Translation: They will do the very least to be in compliance with the laws set forth by the FCC, no more, no less. So if you are waiting to put your new HDTV to the real test, don't look for it in Portland. If you can get the Boston stations, do that. If not, get Satellite and if you can, just try to get the national network feeds, not your local network feeds. You can use you PC or the newspaper to check the news if it's important to you. It's all about ratings which means it's all about revenue. Money talks. If nobody is watching their channels because they are not in HD, then they will have no choice but to change their attitude.

In a recent communication with the NBC affiliate in Portland, I was told that they don't have the capability to broadcast, for example, reruns of HD television shows, in HD. For example, WCSH airs reruns of Law and Order in the afternoon. Law and Order is (and was) originally produced in High Definition. But WCSH doesn't have the equipment to record it and play it back in High Definition. They can only air High Definition programming that is being fed to them from the network during prime time (8 - 11 pm). I was also told that they have no plans to change this through 2009 and beyond. It's not even on their radar screen.

These TV stations don't care about providing the public with an excellent product; they are trying to skate by, doing the least amount of work possible. And there you have it, the new American Dream. Do as little as possible to get by. No wonder we are failing in this global economy.

There are a few exception. My personal opinion is that WPME and WPXT, managed by the same people, are doing as much as possible within their budet constraints to provide an excellent product to the public. They are self-producing a television program aimed at visitors to the state of Maine. The program is broadcast to hotels in the Portland area but anyone with a Digital TV and an antenna (forget cable or satellite) can receive this programming as well. They are thinking outside the box and that's what you need to be successful.

Update to the Maine HDTV Forum - Digital TV and basic cable

It has been over a week since I have written any new posts to this blog. My goal is to keep up as much as possible with the mission of the blog so I want to at least provide some regular updates.

I have a few things in the fire but the most important is a question that arose this week about which I wrote to a few of my contacts to try and get a definitive answer.

According to published information about the conversion to digital television in February 2009, if you have an older analog TV but subscribe to a cable or satellite service, you should be all set and don't need to buy further equipment. As such, you wont' loose your signal.

I believe, but need to verify, that they are talking about people who subscribe to a cable or satellite service who have a set top box that comes with that service. If you have a set top box for your analog cable, digital cable, or satellite TV, that box comes with a separate remote. And with or without the analog/digital converter boxes that have recently been made available (well, the discount coupons are available) from the FCC, we need to know the answer to this question.

I don't believe they are talking about people who pay for cable but not the cable box, because they have a "cable ready" TV. A "cable ready" TV is a TV that will accept the coax cable/satellite company directly into the coax connection on your TV, no cable box required.

So I have posed this question to my cable company, who did not know the answer, believe it or not. I am assuming I was speaking with someone new as they suggested I call back when it gets closer to the conversion date.

Next, I posed the question to my DTV expert folks who are in the TV broadcasting industry. It would be in their best interest to know the answer to this question as well since their DTV and HDTV can be received for free over the air, bypassing cable/satellite completely.

I hope to have an answer soon and will let you know as soon as I find out.

Ask the Forum about HDTV - Questions and Answers

Do you have questions about High Definition TV?

If you’ve looked through our site and can’t find your answer, or don’t feel like searching, simply send your question to mainehdtv@gmail.com. We’ll do our best to answer you question as quickly as possible. We’ll send you the answer directly if you provide your email address and post your answer on the blog to help others.

What do I need to do to prepare for digital/HD in February 2009?

First, digital TV and High Definition (HD) Television are two different things. The FCC has mandated that all TV broadcasts be digital by 2/17/2009. That is step one.
Digital television must be in place in order for High Definition TV to be broadcast. So all HD broadcasts are digital. But not all digital broadcasts are HD. You need special equipment to receive HDTV.

If you have a cable box (or satellite box) you should be all set. You will only have a problem if you are receiving over the air TV signals (via an antenna), or your cable TV wire goes directly into the back of your TV set.

If you rely on over the air (antenna) television, you will need to invest in a new TV that is digital. If you invest in digital, you may as well invest in a High Definition TV. A full HD TV means that the television has an "HD Tuner" in the TV. Don't be fooled by what is called an "HD Ready" Television. HD Ready TVs are digital, but don't have HD Tunes in them. HD Ready TVs require more equipment to get High Definition signals.

Once you have bought your HDTV and want to rely on over the air (antenna) signals, you may still do that. You must purchase a relatively inexpensive UHF/VHF Antenna, which cost anywhere from $30 to $70 for the indoor type (they have outdoor antennas as well which cost more but I have yet to see the benefit if you get a good indoor model). This is a one-time purchase and you will receive the clearest HD/digital picture available. This is because it goes directly from your antenna to your TV; a very short distance with no degradation in the signal. Note: If you have an old antenna, give it a try, it may work just fine if it can pick up both UHF and VHF.

Your last alternative for this configuration is what is called an "up-converter". The FCC (yes the government) plans to send out coupons or vouchers to everyone so that you can buy this type of device that will convert the digital signal to analog so that your old TV can read the new type of signal.

If your cable TV goes right into your TV with no cable box, you will need to get a cable box from your cable company, or use your government voucher to get an "up-converter" that will do the same thing. So if you want keep your old analog TV, you can, as long as you add a cable box or "up-converter" to translate the signal.

Ultimately, it is up to you what makes sense in terms of cost for you and your family (and you budget) but you do have to make some decisions and make sure that you are covered and won't stop receiving TV all toghether.

After all is said and done, most HD Channels today are not broadcasting real HD programming 100% of the time. Right now, the major networks are only broadcasting in HD during the national morning programs and Prime Time TV. Even during those hours you can not count on all broadcast being in HD (they will simply be in digital format). So don't be disappointed. As time goes on, more and more broadcasts will be in High Definition.

How do I get HDTV?

It is a simple question. But not such a simple answer. Many television viewers probably see a logo or an announcement that the program they are watching is available in High Definition. If you know nothing about high definition, you might do some research or most likely call your cable company. You might even call a satellite company like Direct TV or DISH Network. All of these entities claim to be the only source to tell you the truth.

Here’s the truth. Over the air broadcast TV (like ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, the CW, and MyNetwork) are by law required to broadcast television signals for FREE. Local affiliates are also required to broadcast in 100% digital format by 2/17/2009. Once your local TV station transfers to digital format, it can then continue to broadcast in regular definition or it can broadcast programming in High Definition.

To receive High Definition programming, you need a High Definition TV. Once you have that you can get all of the FREE programming broadcast by over the air TV stations with an antenna. You should be able to use any UHF/VHF antenna. They do have some new models marketed as HD Antenna which essentially do this. I have one of the new ones and it works great but your older one, if you still have one, may work fine. These antennas picks up the signals in HD and shows them on your HDTV just like in the old days when television was invented. That is all you need. The new antennas cost between 30 and 60 dollars depending on which one you buy (which is a whole different article).

Now, if you want national cable TV stations in high definition (for example, The Food Network, A&E, The History Channel, The Biography Channel, National Geographic, etc) then you need to get more equipment and higher monthly charges from your cable company or satellite company. Again, how to handle this is would take a whole new article.

So the bottom line is that with an HDTV and an Antenna, you can receive all of the free HDTV broadcast available in your area without additional charges. There are right now only a very small percentage of cable channels (even the HD ones) that are actually producing ALL of their programming in HD to be careful what you pay for. Here’s an example:

TBS is a national cable channel and is on most cable and satellite channel line-ups. Programs like Seinfeld and Friends are on every day of the week. Those programs were produced back in the 1990’s before HDTV was being used to film TV programs. They are not now and never will be in High Definition even though they are being shown on what is called a “High Definition” Channel. The picture may be slightly, and I mean slightly, clearer than the original one, or maybe not. It may be stretched out to fit the size of your HD screen (16:9 aspect ratio) or it may have the black bars on the side of you HD TV and it would be in standard old style 4:3 aspect ratio. 4:3 aspect ratio is the size of all televisions since they were invented. They are basically square boxes. I’m sure you’ve noticed that HDTV sets are wider than an old style TV. This is the 16:9 aspect ratio. It is ALMOST twice as wide as it is high. So those old TV programs can be stretched and prodded to fit but they will never look normal on an HDTV and will never have the picture or sound quality of a true HD program.

So that’s how you get HDTV. You can get it for free and receive whatever you local stations are broadcasting in HD. Or you can pay the cable or satellite company lots of money and get whatever programming the stations in their channel line-up have that are offering HD programming. But keep in mind that there are only a very, very small handful of channels that are broadcasting ALL of their programs in High Definition, in fact I believe right now there less than 10, and most of them you have probably never heard of yet.

So be careful what you pay for. And please read more on this blog to learn more about the whole HDTV picture (no pun intended). Please feel free to email me if you have questions to which you can not find the ansers and I’ll try my best to answer them.

Why do satellite and cable companies say they have 100 HD channels?

This, to me, is the big lie about High Definition TV. There are now, and have been for a while, some very specialized channels that are in HD all the time. There is a network called HDNET which is a good example of this and HDMovies (I believe owned by the same people). You get these channels when you subscribe to the upper end HD package from you cable or satellite provider. There are a few other channels specializing in HD like the National Geographic Channel, Discovery HD, and so forth but this number is very limited.

Other nationwide cable channels like A&E, TBS, the Food Network, etc, claim to be HD channels. However they are still airing lots and lots of programming that is not really in HD but rather reformatted in a stretched out version of the original. Let me state an example.

TBS claims that all it’s programming is in HD. However, all of the re-run, syndicated shows of the past like Seinfeld, Home Improvement, Friends, etc, etc. were never filmed in HD when they were created so they aren’t in HD now and never will be. They may fill up your entire screen if you have an HDTV (16:9 ratio) but the picture will never be in 1080i or 1080p quality. They will simply stretch the picture to fit your HD wide screen but it will still be just as grainy as it ever was when it was produced. Even if the original tapes or digital format still exist, can you imaging how much it would cost to go back and re-engineer 200 episodes for Seinfeld and then redistribute them to every local affiliate that bought the rights to air it?

My advice: WAIT. If you really want an HD TV, get one, but get a UHF/VHF Antenna and pick up as many local programs in HD as you can that way. That’s what I do. When HDTV really comes into its own, then spend the money paying the cable company to receive more programming. In my opinion, it’s not worth it now. I had it all and got rid of it all because all of this supposed HD programming available is, right now, a big Hoax.

Will the FCC change the rules to force cable companies to provide free HDTV signals? Will HDTV ever be free?

Here is another question I posed: (response provided by Doug Finck from WPXT and WPME)

Here’s the part I am having trouble with, as time goes by, at some point, most channels will be in HD all of the time. So does that mean that the home user will continually have to “subscribe” to HD separately as the years go on? That sounds sort of ridiculous and just another way for cable companies to squeeze more money out of the consumer. I keep hearing advertisements for both cable, satellite, and now phone companies (like Verizon) saying they have or will have anywhere from 70 to 100 HD channels by years end or shortly there after. I just don’t see that. There aren’t 100 common nationwide cable channels broadcasting in HD. The ones I know about are the Food Channel, A&E, TBS, The History Channel, I think CNN and some others, but there are not anywhere near 100 of them. And if you use TBS as an example they are running re-runs of Seinfeld and Home Improvement that were never recorded in HD to begin with so there is so much false advertising going on. Is there any indication that the FCC may change the “rules” that would force cable or satellite companies to provide the HD signal just as they would the regular digital signal without HD?

Here is the response:

Don’t hold out a lot of hope for government intervention for the simple fact that cable doesn’t use any public resources. Cable sends their signals via wires/fibers that are hung on utility poles for which cable pays rent. Broadcasters use the airwaves which have been defined as belonging to the public. So cable can do, for the most part, whatever they want and if that includes charging extra to deliver an HD signal, then consumers have to decide; do they want to pay for the HD signal from their cable company or will they put up an antenna and watch the broadcast HD signals over the air. And if the answer is that cable has channels you like which are not available any other way, the government’s answer is “then pay the cable operator for what you want if it’s that important to you!” As far as the 70-100 channels, you are correct that some, like TBS, are running “faux” HD and pawning it off as the real thing. I suspect that there are probably 100 channels that offer some HD programming (including about 10 channels from The Discovery Networks, PBS, etc.). Some of the channels will probably be new, HD-only channels that are not currently offered anywhere, so in some ways, they may introduce channels you’ve never heard of. Finally, the cable companies will never send the HD signal they receive to the home user, simply because of the bandwidth requirements that would eat up cable’s ability to send lots of channels and services.

Basics of what to know about the conversion to Digital/HDTV on 2/17/09

I wanted to put together a basic list of what you need to know and do to get ready or be ready for High Definition (or even basic digital TV)

Do you have an analog (old style) TV or digital TV

• If Analog, you can buy a digital/HDTV, buy a converter box, or make sure that your cable or satellite provider has taken the necessary steps to ensure you will still receive a TV signal after 2/17/09.
• You don’t necessarily have to go to full HD, you just need to go digital instead of analog.
• Do you want plain digital or full HD?
• If you have a digital TV, is it an HD TV or HD Ready?
  If it is an HD TV, meaning it has an HD Tuner, you are all set
  If it is just HD ready, you need an HD receiver box
• Do you subscribe to cable/satellite?
  
  I don’t have cable, just my HDTV and UHF/VHF antenna. If this is what you are going for, then you need and HDTV and and UHF/VHF antenna.
  
  Once you have this, you’ll need to consult the CEA website (see links on the main page) to see what digital broadcast towers are available in your area.
  
  If you want to continue to subscribe to cable/satellite, your HDTV won’t receive HD signals unless you pay them a lot of extra money. Don’t be fooled by cable or satellite advertisements that say you will get 70 or 100 High Definition channels. There are not 70 HD channels out there yet. There will be some day but not now.
  
• Keep in mind that even if you have an HDTV, and receive HD signals via an antenna or via cable/satellite, not all programming is produced in HD. In fact only a very small fraction of programming is in full HD. So what you will get most of the time is either black bars on the side of your picture, or a stretched out picture to fill the screen.
  
  As we get closer to 2/17/09 and beyond, more programming will be available in HD. Before spending a lot of money, I might be best to take the “wait and see” approach to see how things fall out.
  
• The 2/17/09 conversion date has already been extended to a yet unknown date because neither the FCC, the television industry, not consumers will be ready in what amounts to less than a year an a half to conversion time.
• 
  Please check this site for lots of additional information that might be helpful to you.

Take back control of your TV and your wallet with High Definition

A small but committed group of people here in Maine are taking back control of their TVs and their wallets through High Definition Television received over the air.

Back in the day, when broadcast television was first invented and until the advent of cable TV and satellite, we relied on our TV antennas. They were either attached to the TV inside the house or attached to the rooftop outside the house. This was analog TV; the reception was sketchy, the picture often grainy and while it was a breakthrough invention in its day, Over the Air TV was almost non-existent as we reached the 1990’s.

Now, because the FCC had the foresight to ensure that network television broadcasters maintain free transmission over the air, High Definition television can be received in your home FOR FREE.

For those of you that don’t know, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Fox, the CW, and MyNetwork are already broadcasting digital signals in addition to their analog signals. If your local affiliate is not yet doing that, it will be soon, and must by February 17, 2009. If you have a High Definition TV, a High Definition “Ready” TV (with a converter), or an old Analog TV with an even different converter, you can already receive these signals.

I stopped paying my cable company about 8 months ago. My monthly bill for just cable TV with all the add-ons you are required to to pay for to receive High Definition from them, cost me about $118 dollars a month. I already bought my HD TV, so I got rid of all my cable equipment, bought a UHF/VHF antenna (a one-time investment of about $65) and now I get all the HD programming I need FOR FREE, I HAVE NO CABLE BILL.

Now, with this commitment, I also committed to giving up some of the extras that I realized I don’t really need. Like the Food Network, and Comedy Central, and all of those channels I enjoyed, but were not paramount to my survival. There are so few non-broadcast networks (cable only) that are in HD that I realized I wasn’t missing much. I receive all of the big 7 networks (except Fox in my area but that’s another story and I will receive it soon) in digital format FOR FREE. Network TV only broadcasts certain shows in full HD format, usually primetime programming. The exeption to that is The Today Show, Good Morning America, The View, and The Young and the Restless.

I, and others, have decided not to pay our cable companies ridiculous fees to receive their services. If I can’t receive it with my HD TV and my UHF/VHF antenna, I don’t want it. Keep in mind that if you have an HD TV (or equivalent) your signal is actually better and clearer than if you get it from the cable company because there is nothing between you and the tower that is broadcasting the signal. We are hoping that others make this commitment and take back control of your TV and your wallet. It is a small sacrifice considering what we hope to get in the end. And that is more competitive, cable-provided HD pricing which is what we deserve. The industry is gouging us and is fooling the public because the public is uninformed about how this whole HD TV thing really works. Please take a few minutes to browse this site. There is a lot of information out there on how it works and how you can take back your TV, and your wallet.

Cable companies and Over-the-Air (OTA) broadcasters are not keeping up.

I noticed over the last several months that more and more cable networks are broadcasting in High Definition, but the local cable companies are not providing that to their customers.
For example, TBS, A&E, USA, Discovery Channel (basic), are now available in HD but my cable company doesn’t offer them.

So GET WITH IT cable companies. The programming is out there so give it to us!!!!

Even your regular local TV stations aren’t doing all they can. There are shows like Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune are taped in HD format. But my local stations don’t send the HD signal out, they send the regular standard definition signal. Not to mention that there is no reason why the local news can’t be done in HD.

So, for regular broadcast channels in your neighborhood, IF A SHOW IS AVAILABLE IN HD, BROADCAST IT IN HD, WHAT’S THE PROBLEM.