New equipment install

[NBC4ENG]

Very soon, the majority of processing equipment used on our HD system will be replaced. This will involve replacement of encoders, upconverters, DA's and other components in the stream. I'm not sure quite yet if we will be redundant during the changeover. Engineers are coming in to set the new gear up. Hopefully, the process will be quick. This should happen in the next few weeks. From what I have heard, the picture quality is fantastic, even with the WXPlus channel in the mix. Sporting events are not supposed to have any motion blur with the new gear. The latest and greatest technology.

In addition our transmitter exciters are being replaced with the latest from Thales. Every little bit helps. I'll let you know when the change occurs.

[Robbiee19]

Shaun,
Great news! Nice to see you back on the forum.

[testproggie]

:D Fantastic!! I always thought that the WXPlus channel shouldn't be sucking up very much bandwidth and I wondered if the encoders just weren't doing a good job. Now that's been confirmed. This is great news!

[Dbailey]

Could this be the reason my reception to wcmh-dt was worse after they upgraded all their equipment. I asked a similiar question earlier. Just wondering, it has been a bit frustrating.

[NBC4ENG]

The upgrade has not been done yet. No equipment or process has changed since the WxPlus addition last February. What issues are you having? I have six remote sites that keep track of our signal. They report no problems.

[Dbailey]

It has been coming in strong for last month and last couple nights both wcmh and wbns had dropouts. i had most of the dropouts from wcmh last couple of days. This is periodic and when it starts happening, it will last a couple of days or a week. It was rock solid before the big conversion you guys did. I just sort of live with it now, but was just wondering if their is anything i can do. i have a guys scheduled to come out and try different antennas but i am not sure it will work. The techy in me is just try to figure out my problems.

[NBC4ENG]

What type of antenna are you using and do you have a preamplifier in line?

[Robbiee19]

Just to let you know I live in Hilliard and use a indoor antenna (WINEGARD SHARPSHOOTER MODEL SS-3000 AMPLIFIED INDOOR VHF/UHF DIGITAL / ANALOG HI-DEFINITION ANTENNA) with great results. Signal is strong with no drop out. Just my input.

[jpdublin]

I as well am having great results from my indoor and outdoor OTA's. I have not experienced any dropouts on NBC all fall.

[FlyingJ]

Hey JP. Good to see you in the forum. Maybe now we can get pick up the pace and get some posters in here!

Flying J in Bexley

[jpdublin]

What's up Flying J? It is good see some from the .org site. Yes it has been somewhat calm in here, but it is great to see that many have started to find the site. As for HD, it has been a better fall in HD programming and I have had little to no issues with all the locals the past few months.

[whitllam]

Shaun -

Any updates on the new equipment installation? Will it be all ready to go in time for the Olympics?

Also, KenH over on AVSforum.com has mentioned that NBC is using a different delivery stream for the olympics that will dramatically improve picture quality of live HD events from here on out. Does that have anything to do with the local equipment upgrades?

[NBC4ENG]

The new equipment is racked, wired, and ready for the Harmonic engineer to come in for the final programming. The equipment will be operational before the Olympics. Those sites that are complete are reporting no issues and great pictures.

[NBC4ENG]

This Wednesday and Thursday we will be commisioning our new digital encoders. I'll let you know when we are changed out. If any of you are using Radio Shack Accurian tuners let me know if you have problems with the new encoders. For the rest of you, the PSIP stream will be interrupted and you may lose us and have to do a rescan. I keep you updated.

[NBC4ENG]

Of course, just after I sent the first post, the field engineer that is coming, pushed the commissioning to Thursday/ Friday now. Sorry for the delay.

[DBX]

Soooooooo,

Just what kind of problems should I expect with my Radio Shack Accurian tuner after the upgrade?

Thanks,

DBX

[NBC4ENG]

Washington had issues with the Accurian locking up and having to be turned off to recover. I don't know any more then that. We'll find out Thursday if a problem crops up.

[hova]

Hey, was this equipment installed?

It seems NBC broadcast of the Olympics is 'nicer'. When there is action, I don't see it fade....is this a better codec? Its better than the Norte Dame games :-)

[NBC4ENG]

An all new encoder chain was installed prior to the Olympics. All NBC owned and operated stations got new gear. This equipment is the latest and greatest out there. It handles motion much smoother then our old encoder does. We made the final adjusts a few hours before the Olympics opening ceremony started. Glad you enjoy the video.

[hova]

okay, I have to ask...

Why type of gear is involved when broadcasting HD content? Is it similar to analog?

[NBC4ENG]

The digital chain is completely different then the analog chain. The source equipment such as tape machines, studio cameras, graphics, weather computers, etc, output directly with serial data that goes thru a serial digital production switcher to serial routers. From there the standard definition digital signal goes to an digital upconverter which makes the signal 1080i. Next into the HD switcher and then to a fiber optic converter which feeds the digital studio-to-transmitter link.

The analog stream is also available on each piece of source equipment in the plant. It runs in parallel with the digital stream. Analog is susceptible to noise and distortion introduced by nonlinearities in distribution equipment, connectors, cabling attenuation. Compensation must be done to correct deficiencies from end to end. These artifacts manifest themselves as ghosts, phase distortion and other gremlins. Very shortly the analog system will completely disappear from our plant.

Digital is just 1's and 0's. No questions about what state the logic is in. On or off. Analog varies between set points. Noise is easy to enter and effect this stream. Hope this answers your question.

[zelig2]

What's the upconverter you guys are using? Just kinda wondering how the professional broadcast gear differs from the consumer grade.

[NBC4ENG]

The upconverter is Snell & Wilcox and is about $40K difference then consumer.

[zelig2]

Nice. I just looked at the spec sheet for one of their upconverters. For $40k I think I should probably look at a different product for the home theater.

After looking at the spec sheet on that upconverter I had a question for you. When watching shows on NBC when the show is in HD and the commercials are in SD I was wondering if you guys ever consider upconverting and zooming. Some of the commercials are clearly letterboxed so I would think the advertising firm is considering HD (or at least 16:9). Being a HD junkie I'm always more likely to watch HD commercials (or at least ones that fill up the screen) over SD ones.

[hova]

NBCENG:

Good post. I am a techie....just curious how things are done professionally :-)

I appreciate the answers.

[NBC4ENG]

The network HD signal is completely different then our upconverted signal. When we are in network, we stay with the network until a local break is called for. There is nothing in the automation chain that can control a resizing manuever when the network sends down an SD commercial. Whatever the network gives us, is what you see. I learned from Red,White,and Boom not to zoom an upconverted signal to full screen size. Some of you guys get really bent out of shape when an upconvert goes to full screen. I still have the smoking e-mails from that experiment. As the cutoff deadline for analog TV nears, more network HD commercials will be coming down the pipe. For us, a new HD server will be necessary to air locally produced HD spots. Even though we don't have the capability at the moment, we haven't had any requests from advertisers for HD spots. That will come soon I'm sure.