PBS in Minneapolis

[Mr Tony]

weird question for the Mpls folks (or maybe somebody else has heard of this)

We have 2 PBS stations in Minneapolis
KTCA 2 (the "main" PBS)
KTCI 17

Now on digital KTCA only has one channel, 2-1 and its the "national" PBS feed
KTCI has
17-1 SD feed of KTCA
12-2 SD feed of KTCI
17-3 TPT Kids (TPT is Twin Cities Public TV)
17-4 is "Create"
17-5 is the weather radar

Why is the SD feed of channel 2 on 17? Why wouldn't it be on 2-1?

 

[GeorgeLV]

Probably because they don't want to worry about receivers that have buggy implementations of PSIP. Be lucky they Mpls is one of the few cities without a horribly bit-starved PBS HD.

 

[Pepper]

That actually makes sense. Stuff all the SD of both stations onto one transmitter, leaving the other one free for the HD. If they weren't affiliated or in some sort of agreement, most likely both of them would carry the HD feed along with two or three of the others, resulting in lower quality all around.

 

[gjh3260]

Ice.........i get the Mpls PBS stations and was wondering the same thing. As far as the programming guide is concerned I have Dish Network and for 2-1, 17-1, 17-3 17-4 and 17-5 the guide only shows "digital service" On 17-2 the guide shows weather but thats incorrect as weather is on 17-5. Go figure

 

[Mr Tony]

I did some reading late last night and found out 2-1 is the National HD feed (so it says)

KTCA-DT 34 (2.1)
KTCA-DT came into existence on August 1, 2003. KTCA-DT originally broadcast in 1080i, but recently has changed over to 720p. PBS-HD is the only 24/7 over-the-air broadcast HD network.

http://www.hdtvtwincities.com/mainframe.php/channels

yeah weather is 17-5, KTCA (2) is 17-1 and KTCI (17) is 17-2

I just wondered what was going on when at 10:00 I hit 2 and got something other than Red Green, but he was on 17-1

 

[navychop]

You're lucky. No more RedGreen show in northern VA.

 

[Mr Tony]

Red Green is actually done (series finished up in April...300th show)

They're just showing old shows (1999 or so) on KTCA

 

[navychop]

I thought it was done years ago, and all there were, were reruns. I've only seen a couple dozen, I'd love to DVR them all. We need more British and Canadian comedies.

 

[Mr Tony]

nope. This year (05-06) was the 15th and last season on CBC in Canada. Some of the PBS stations are current (both our PBS stations "in market" were current. Reason I say in market is there is one PBS about 150 miles from Mpls but still in the DMA so satellite gets it) but some PBS stations only carried the older seasons.

Some PBS stations didnt buy the newer seasons, so all they show is the old ones

 

[navychop]

Thanks. I guess I'll be waiting for R-G in HD on Blu-ray!

 

[jegrant]

I think it's great when PBS affiliates can cooperate (or in this case, they are actually co-owned) to avoid duplication of programming and provide the benefits of both 24/7 HD service along with multicasting of other services.

 

[Mr Tony]

I agree!

There is some duplications on both stations for the SD programming but usually they use 17 as an "overlfow" of stuff. Its mainly locally produced shows

but TPT2 is the main PBS station