Problems with PBS/FOX/CBS/ABC/NBC locals in Oklahoma City; Other stations fine

[ottergoose]

Tonight I noticed that the picture quality of the PBS (KETA), FOX (KOKH), CBS (KWTV), ABC (KOCO) and NBC (KFOR) affiliates has degraded quite a bit here in Oklahoma City. Audio seems fine, but the picture gets quite a few artifacts and turns "pixely" during transitions and quick movement. CNN, Discovery, etc. and the other local stations (KOCB, KUOK, KAUT and KTUZ - the WB and Spanish stations) don't have any issues.

A little bit of searching seems to indicate that the OKC locals are coming from the 119 satellite. I checked signal strength on the various transponders on 119, and found 80+ strength on all of them except 119-25 (strength: 0) and 119-31 (strength: fluctuates between no signal and 30). I'm not sure if those are just "spot beams" that I shouldn't be able to see here in Oklahoma City or not - the transponder table at widemovies.com doesn't have any information on either of them.

If it's useful, I checked all of the other transponders, and found 80+ signal on all of them except 101-4, 101-12, 101-18, and 101-26. My receiver is the D10 TiVo unit, and both of the tuners get nearly identical signal strengths, so I would guess it's not a cable issue.

It's also noteworthy that we moved over the weekend, and moved the dish and the cables from our old apartment to the new one. I setup the dish on Sunday evening, but the problems didn't show up until today (Wednesday). That obviously means that I did the install myself, but I was sure to use the properly rated cables, etc.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[freddog]

I was watching the amazing race last night on CBS and noticed the pixelization. So you are not the only one. I have the HD Tivo, R15, and H20 and all of them had the issue. Haven't checked today, but I will later.

 

[mike_augie]

I am here in S.W. Oklahoma and I have noticed any problems with my feeds on the news at night. I got waivers for the HD feeds so I watch all my prime time stuff on the 80"s channels, so I cant help you there but at 0700 his morning and at 1000 last night all was good down here in S.W. except looks like we will have for 2007 for HD


by the way I have a HR10-250 and a H20

 

[mike_augie]

guess i will have to take it back sitting here now watching the news and the pic is bad pic in and out little square boxes???just thought i would up date ya

 

[Greg Bimson]

Well, this may be of interest to you...

The Oklahoma City locals are on a spot-beam at 119 that carries two transponders. These transponders rebroadcast the Tulsa, Wichita and Oklahoma City locals. Tulsa's locals are on 29, and Wichita's locals are on 23. The OKC locals are split between those transponders.

Tonight I noticed that the picture quality of the PBS (KETA), FOX (KOKH), CBS (KWTV), ABC (KOCO) and NBC (KFOR) affiliates has degraded quite a bit here in Oklahoma City.

And all five are rebroadcast with the eight Wichita locals on transponder 23.

...the other local stations (KOCB, KUOK, KAUT and KTUZ - the WB and Spanish stations) don't have any issues.

And these four stations are broadcast with the nine Tulsa stations on transponder 29.

So, since each transponder is carrying 13 stations, the problem is with the stat-mux equipment for each transponder. The stat-mux (statistical multiplexing) equipment is what allows DirecTV to allocate bandwidth on-the-fly for each channel per transponder. It appears the stat-mux for transponder 29 isn't having problems, but is not allocating enough bandwidth for the channels on transponder 23.

Your best bet is to contact a couple of the station engineers who work for the affected local channels. They have contacts at DirecTV that can reset the equipment.