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NBC4ENG
09-11-2006, 05:42 PM
Greetings All,

Effective immediately, the Nielson watermark encoder is active in the HD chain. This enables the Nielson company to track the viewers watching our HD programs. This is the same technology that we use to track viewers on the analog side of the station. The viewers are picked by Nielson and have decoders in their homes. The data is polled for use the next day.

Our encoder was tested this afternoon and Nielson is happy. Let me know if you hear any popping in the audio during the shows. This box is incredibly complicated and everything digital passes thru it. I have not heard any issues today. Thanks.

BTW, starting Wednesday, the today show will be in HD.

Thanks,
Shaun
nakedeye
09-11-2006, 06:57 PM
sweet! on both!
Scott
09-11-2006, 07:15 PM
Good news!

Hopefully more of the NBC affiliates with HD capabilities are going to do this--might give the corporate office more desire to broadcast other events in HD!
vman41
09-12-2006, 12:36 AM
So if you record the show on a Media Center PC and play it later, does the nielson equipment pick up the watermark?
JeffInHD
09-12-2006, 11:55 AM
I don't know if it was related to this, but I did notice popping in the audio while watching the Notre Dame / Penn St. game on Saturday. It was noticeable through my Time Warner box and my OTA HD receiver...
NBC4ENG
09-12-2006, 12:46 PM
I can't explain the popping on Saturday. The encoder was hotted up yesterday. Several months ago the encoder failed and caused audio pops on high peaks. That's why it was sent in for repair. If you were to hear the problem, it would have started yesterday in the afternoon.

With regards to the watermark being recorded, it would be indeed. However, a Nielson box would be needed in your house to decode the data. I'm not quite sure how many decoders are out there.

NBC has put a countdown clock on the HD feed for the Today Show. New studios and new HD cameras are in store for Wednesday. Hopefully, we're not forgetting anything that will pop up during the show.
nakedeye
09-13-2006, 12:23 AM
cept the hd picture....
velvet396
10-24-2006, 04:21 PM
I've been hearing popping lately, often accompanied by picture problems, but not always. Sometimes the audio will drop out, "pop", come back & pop at the same time, or just come back. I started to worry about my speakers getting damaged.

I watch Heroes, although that was just fine last night (10/23) aside from the signal going blank around midway, I just switched to analog and came back to the digital a couple minutes later and it was fine.


The popping was probably during sunday night football this past weekend (10/22). I didn't know what it was so I didn't make note of it to report exactly what and when later, sorry this is the best I can do.
nakedeye
10-24-2006, 09:18 PM
lots of small break ups on my end recently
velvet396
10-24-2006, 10:09 PM
lots of small break ups on my end recently
I definitely have to agree with that. But I just assumed it was Time Warner...
nakedeye
10-25-2006, 12:43 PM
interesting, im getting it ota. at first thought it was my antenna due to the heavy winds recently.

tw gets a fiber feed so there should be no issue. perhaps there is a problem before distro?
velvet396
10-25-2006, 03:03 PM
interesting, im getting it ota. at first thought it was my antenna due to the heavy winds recently.

tw gets a fiber feed so there should be no issue. perhaps there is a problem before distro?

I dunno, I'm not paying for the HD channels so I'm hesitant to call TW up and ask. We pay for digital cable, but not HD, and when I bought my new TV it has a built-in ATSC tuner. I just have it hooked up straight to the coax from the wall and get a few HD and other digital channels in the 100's.