High-def is supposed to be available by the end of this week according to an article in today's Odessa American.
UPDATE: 06/15/09
Although it's not reflected in the program guides yet, the high-def picture showed up on Grande (Channel 403) over the weekend.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
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4 comments:
So when will the local stations stop turning my 16:9 HD programming into a 4:3 standard signal every time there is some weather warning where they have to put up those stupid maps and/or list of counties affected?
I pay money for the HD channels and I'm getting tired of this.
Besides...who cares if there is a flash flood warning in some desolate county anyway?
The problem generally has to do with the station's graphics engines only being capable of 4:3 generation...and replacing those things is not a cheap proposition.
As for who cares...how about the people that live there? Actually, I think people in Dallas have the same attitude about us that you seem to have about our rural neighbors.
At my house, we don't pay for HD locals, mostly because we have three (of five) TVs with QAM tuners.
Speaking of QAM tuners...if you've gotten a TV set recently, it likely has one in it, and you can get whatever the cable system sends unencrypted. CableOne used to send several HD basic channels like ESPN, TNT, TBS, etc. in the clear, but quit last November. They still send the local stations in the clear, mostly because they are not permitted to encrypt them. FYI if you're on CableOne in Odessa, they are:
88-460 KOSA (CBS)
88-465 KWES (NBC)
88-470 KPBT (PBS)
93-455 KMID (ABC)
93-456 KWWT 30.3 (MTV Tres)
93-457 KWWT 30.4 (Retro TV)
93-475 KPEJ (Fox)
As of now, you can only get MTV Tres and Retro TV on digital, so you either have to have a cable box, a QAM-capable TV, or an antenna. No CW HD yet, though...not that I care much.
CableOne also send the Music Choice channels in the clear, on ch. 84 (84-801 to 84-824) and ch. 85 (85-825 to 85-846), as well as their largely pointless PPV preview channel (75-200). (I say pointless because if you're not using the box or CableCard, you can't get the PPV stuff anyway.)
It is nice when CableOne does free previews and unlocks the premium channels from time to time, like they did week before last. I still wish they would find a way to isolate the HD basics on the system so that those of us with tuners don't have to pay further to get channels we're largely entitled to because we pay to receive the analog versions. I also wish they would fix their PSIP so that I don't have to punch 6 buttons to turn to NBC HD (literally, you have to punch in 8,8,-,4,6 and 5 to tune directly; it's faster just to hit 88, wait for the TV to catch up, then hit channel up), or even better if I could just hit 9-1 to get there.
No Univision HD, though KUPB are now broadcasting an HD upconversion on 18.2. CableOne, however, does not carry KUPB at all, as they are using the Univision national feed on channel 4. (How can you tell? No local news at 10.)
Thanks for the pertinent comments, Scott. I'll add only that there are alternatives to the cable box... A CableCard-capable TV (although there are few choices now) or a DVR like the Series 3 Tivo allow reception of the encrypted channels. A few new DVRs to compete with Tivo, such as the Moxi are beginning to show up, too.
Although Tivo requires a subscription, the subscription cost and monthly charge for the CableCard(s) is about the same as the monthly rental of the cable company DVRs.
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