Special Hurricane Idalia Coverage on DIRECTV Satellite

[KyL416]

Special coverage for Hurricane Idalia is now live on DIRECTV Satellite:

361-1 Severe Weather Mix (pre-empting the News Mix) - 4 screen coverage featuring AccuWeather, Weather Channel and a local Severe Weather Channel
361-2 Severe Weather Channel - Going live soon, will have coverage from local stations in Fort Myers, Orlando, Tampa, Gainesville, Tallahassee and wherever else the storm tracks.

 

[KyL416]

The Severe Weather Channel is now active with coverage from WOGX Ocala (which is just a simulcast of WOFL Orlando's coverage) and WTVT Tampa

As of right now only stations from Tampa, Orlando and Fort Myers are providing non-stop coverage so for now they will be looping around those DMAs. Gainesville's only local news station and Tallahassee's stations went to regular programming and probably won't go into non-stop coverage until their 11pm ET newscasts.

 

[KyL416]

A friend is telling me they supposedly pulled a Padres Channel by activating the SD feed before the HD:

There is no SD severe weather channel.

 

[lordodogg]

Always thought that was the case. He must have the wrong picture settings on his TV then. Lol!

 

[videojanitor]

This is a mess right now — some local channels being presented as stretched SD, others window-boxed SD, and some HD.

 

[lordodogg]

Like I’ve been saying, it’s probably because the HD local uplinks for those stations went dead.

 

[videojanitor]

Like I’ve been saying, it’s probably because the HD local uplinks for those stations went dead.

I didn’t see a mention of that in this thread, but that wouldn’t seem to explain since local stations don’t uplink their signals to DirecTV. Rather, the station provides the signal via fiber and/or DirecTV picks it up off-air (with an antenna) at a local receive site in each market.

 

[lordodogg]

Thanks. I’m trying to say the fiber/antenna links went dead. Sometimes I use the wrong terminology!

 

[videojanitor]

Thanks. I’m trying to say the fiber/antenna links went dead. Sometimes I use the wrong terminology!

No problem. I’m trying to make sense of this myself. DirecTV is obviously getting feeds from these stations, but for many many years, you’d be hard pressed to find a station that originates an SD feed. If someone downstream desires SD, they create their own downconvert. For that reason, it makes no sense to me that DirecTV would pass along SD versions that they are most likely creating themselves. And beyond that, why are some stretched and others window-boxed? If there’s a good explanation for this, I’d love to hear it.

 

[harshness]

YouTube has a bunch of hurricane Idalia live streams going now if you can't find a nearby station represented in the DIRECTV feed.

Some stations, such as the aforementioned WOGX and WTVT are live streaming their coverage from the respective station's website.

 

[harshness]

For that reason, it makes no sense to me that DirecTV would pass along SD versions that they are most likely creating themselves. And beyond that, why are some stretched and others window-boxed? If there’s a good explanation for this, I’d love to hear it.

I can think of at least two reasons to offer an SD feed for DIRECTV:

1. DIRECTV still has a number of customers with SD equipment.
2. Nearly as important is that Ku is more likely to get through longer to those in the storm area and there's not a lot of room on 101W to add HD channels due to the modulation schemes involved.

 

[cpalmer2k]

What he's making mention of is the fact that they have an HD Severe Weather Channel (broadcasting in HD) but many of the feeds they're picking to air are the SD versions of the locals. It's still an HD channel, so it doesn't help those with SD receivers. It just looks like crap for everyone. This was being done last night when the Hurricane was still far off shore, so it can't be that they lost the HD signals. It wasn't even raining yet last night when this started happening.

I haven't really followed and looked up each of the locals being used in SD, but I wonder if one particular ownership/station group only allowed them to use their stations if they took the SD feed?

 

[KyL416]

Here's the feeds they used so far:
WTVT Tampa - FOX O&O - SD windowboxed
WFTS Tampa - Scripps - SD stretched
WOGX Ocala (Gainesvile) - FOX O&O - HD
WTXL Tallahassee - Scripps - HD

The insider announcement also says it will have stations from Hearst, Sinclair, Gray and Cox, but so far they haven't showed up. It probably didn't help that Gainesville's only local news station Gray's WCJB stuck with regular programming overnight and only broke in for short hourly updates, while their Sinclair run CBS and NBC affiliates dropped local news last year in favor of The National Desk. Tallahassee's Sinclair owned NBC affiliate also doesn't have a local newscast, while their FOX subchannel has a newscast produced by Gray's WCTV via an arrangement that predates Sinclair owning the affiliation.

If the storm keeps its strength to warrant non-stop coverage as it passes into Georgia and the Altantic, they plan to include stations from Jacksonville, Savannah and Albany. Based on the owners listed in the announcement, these are the likely options:

Jacksonville:
WJAX/WFOX - Cox

Savannah:
WTOC - Gray
WJCL - Hearst
(Sinclair's WTGS outsources their newscasts to Myrtle Beach)

Albany:
WALB - Gray
(Sinclair's WFXL also dropped their local newscasts in favor of The National Desk)

 

[I WANT MORE]

Why wouldn't they offer these to Stream customers?

 

[lordodogg]

Probably because
1. The app/stream doesn’t support sub-Channel numbering (so instead of 361, 361-1, and 361-2, it would be three 361’s)
2. Due to software limitations with Apple, Roku, etc. they can’t do mix channels because it would have to include embedded content, in this case, the movable box.

 

[KyL416]

The Stream API also doesn't get real time lineup updates, like while satellite gets new channel launches at 6am ET, they don't appear for Stream/Internet customers until sometime in the early afternoon. So by the time they would appear in the guide, the storm will already be in the Atlantic.

 

[KyL416]

For a while they were using Sinclair's WGFL Gainesville who was showing special coverage produced by their sister station WPEC in West Palm Beach for the news-less Sinclair stations across Florida.

They also added Gray's WCTV Tallahassee into the rotation.

 

[Tom Speer]

One possible explanation for why they are carrying the SD versions of those local channels. The SD feeds to the T9 spotbeams for the Tampa area are uplinked through the LABC. The HD feeds are uplinked through the SWUF and NEUF. It may ave been easier to patch those SD versions onto the mix and severe weather channels within the LABC.

 

[lordodogg]

Based on the future radar on my Weather Channel app, they may later add stations from other DMAs outside Florida into the rotation since this afternoon it will likely be heading up north into most of the GA and SC DMAs as well as some of the Charlotte, Raleigh, and Wilmington DMAs in NC:

 

[KyL416]

It already made landfall and the latest track has it predicted to weaken to a Tropical Storm by the time it reaches the Carolinas tomorrow and heads out towards Bermuda, so those locals likely won't be doing the non-stop coverage like the Florida stations are currently doing.