Create gone?

[B.J.]

The Create channel on AMC-21 12180V just went away.
Was watching it, and it just went to a black screen. The other 3 channels on the transponder are fine. Went to check to see if it was OK on the 12120H transponder, and for some reason that transponder, which is usually nice and strong for me, is now so weak that I can't lock it. I'm getting the 12150 transponder 99% .
Anyway, weird goings on on PBS.

EDIT: Seems to be gone on 12120H too. It's still too weak for me to lock, but I'm seeing enough of it to tell that it's black screen there too.

 

[cracklincrotch]

I believe the magic date that PBS will be finished "building" their HD network on AMC 21 is February 10.

I haven't done anything with any PBS stuff since the first week of December when I knew the changes were being started. So with any luck, if they're on schedule with their changes that's the date they'll be done, Feb 10.

 

[B.J.]

Well Create came back. I think it was gone for about an hour or so, on both the transition transponder and the permanent transponder.

 

[Mr Tony]

good to know. They have some decent shows on there

 

[skysurfer]

good to know. They have some decent shows on there

yep. I'm estastic that in about 2 weeks my local PBS station will have it as an off-air digital multicast channel so I won't even have to fire up the Ku-band system to watch it.

 

[DiscoLoveGrapes]

yep. I'm estastic that in about 2 weeks my local PBS station will have it as an off-air digital multicast channel so I won't even have to fire up the Ku-band system to watch it.

Funny, since Ice and I are losing it OTA and will have to watch it via Ku. The local public channel is axing it in favor of their own channel.

 

[Mr Tony]

Funny, since Ice and I are losing it OTA and will have to watch it via Ku. The local public channel is axing it in favor of their own channel.

yep same here in MInneapolis. Its weird as we have 2 PBS stations (2 & 17) and right now
2-1 & 2-2 are PBS (SD & HD)
17-1 is PBS
17-2 is Minnesota channel (shows about MN from the various PBS stations)
17-4 is create
17-5 is 24/7 weather

but coming soon they're changing it....note the bold below

MINNESOTA:
Twin Cities Public Television is planning major changes to its channel lineup coinciding with the nation's transition to digital television on Feb. 17, 2009. TPT's current offering of seven channels split among KTCA-DT and KTCI-DT will be reduced to four, and both stations will remap to channel 2 on digital receivers:
2-1 (KTCA-DT1) will offer high definition programming, combining the analog simulcast currently seen on 2-1 and the HD broadcast currently seen on 2-2. This will be the primary channel carried for KTCA on cable and satellite.
2-2 (KTCA-DT2) will carry the Minnesota Channel, currently seen on KTCI-DT2. TPT says DirecTV plans to add the channel at an unknown date.
2-3 (KTCI-DT1) will be known as TPT Life, carrying lifestyle programming along with some of the programs currently seen in the evenings on KTCI's analog channel. This will be the primary channel carried for KTCI on cable and satellite. TPT Life will be similar to the national Create channel, which TPT says it is dropping, in part, due to poor picture and sound quality.
2-4 (KTCI-DT2) will carry the weather programming that has been a fixture on KTCI for decades, although most analog cable and satellite customers will no longer be able to see it.
The remaining channel leaving the lineup is PBS Kids, which is shutting down nationally and will leave TPT's lineup on Dec. 15. The new lineup leaves room for future expansion, which TPT says could include new channels, mobile TV, or a lease of spectrum to commercial interests. (11/27/2008)

 

[tvropro]

Create is also in DC II on T4 602 for free.

 

[B.J.]

....

.......
The remaining channel leaving the lineup is PBS Kids, which is shutting down nationally and will leave TPT's lineup on Dec. 15. .....
.....

.....

I thought that PBS Kids has been gone for years? Ie it used to be on AMC3 when it was all DCII, and also a while when they switched over to DVB, but then it went away, and also dissappeared from the DirecTV lineup. About the same time some other Kids show started up (I can't remember the name of that off hand), but I never saw PBS Kids on Sat after that, at least as a dedicated channel. Ie typically, when I'd see kids programming on PBS, there would be a KIDS logo on the screen, as if it came from PBS KIDS, but the channel didn't ID itself as PBS Kids.

Anyway, I've been confused, because I'm sure I saw a news blurb years ago saying PBS Kids was gone, but I kept hearing references to it, such as the above.

Anyway, HAS there been a PBS Kids channel all this time, or when they refer to PBS Kids, are they just referring to kids programming on PBS generically? Ie such as one of the schedule whatever channels that seems to have a lot of kids programming on it?

Just curious.

 

[Mr Tony]

You're thinking of "Sprout"

But the PBS Kids that was a subchannel (at least here in Minneapolis that was called TPTKIds) was mainly reruns of existing PBS shows. I remember the programs on in the evening one day would be the same shows the next morning on the "main" PBS

 

[truckracer]

hey ice, you guys have ATSC digital ota on low band vhf? channel 2? I didn't know any stations were going to do low vhf.

 

[Mr Tony]

no. Due to PSIP (channel mapping) digital boxes will map it properly. KTCA (2 PBS) is on Channel 34 for digital and will stay there after the transition but will map to 2

Only 2 of our existing analog full power stations are going to use their analog channel for digital (Fox 9 & NBC 11)...PBS, CBS & ABC are staying on UHF but they will map to the "normal" channel

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSIP"]Program and System Information Protocol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:MPEG_Transport_Stream_HL.svg" class="image"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/ba/MPEG_Transport_Stream_HL.svg/400px-MPEG_Transport_Stream_HL.svg.png"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/b/ba/MPEG_Transport_Stream_HL.svg/400px-MPEG_Transport_Stream_HL.svg.png[/ame]

The most common reason for a television station using a virtual channel is to minimize viewer confusion when a digital transmission is airing on a different channel than the one the station used in analog mode. The virtual channel thus enables viewers to tune in the station by choosing the same channel number as they would have previously.

 

[Lone Cloud]

I'm glad it's back. To me, it's better than Food Network.

I'll really get into PBS when it all goes HD! My system picks up, from time to time, 3 1080i HD stations on that satellite. Great picture.

 

[toucan-man]

the national Create channel, which TPT says it is dropping, in part, due to poor picture and sound quality.

Really? What are they referring to?

 

[Mr Tony]

I think there is more to it...I bolded what I think is the reasoning
from the TPT website

Why are we eliminating the tpt Create channel?
TPT - Twin Cities Public Television | Digital Channels Update


The current tpt Create channel is a pre-packaged service of lifestyle and how-to programming distributed by American Public Television. While the programs themselves are very good (and quite popular) the technical quality of the signal we are receiving from Create has not been good. In addition, we are not able to customize the program schedule for our market. Therefore, we are launching our own new channel tpt LIFE, that will include most of the lifestyle and how-to programs shown on tpt Create. Prime-time on tpt LIFE will be almost entirely devoted to this genre of programming, and with much higher picture and sound quality than shown on Create.

so maybe they are getting the programs directly from PBS instead of relying on a feed.

 

[B.J.]

You're thinking of "Sprout"

But the PBS Kids that was a subchannel (at least here in Minneapolis that was called TPTKIds) was mainly reruns of existing PBS shows. I remember the programs on in the evening one day would be the same shows the next morning on the "main" PBS

I think that Sprout is what I was saying that PBS Kids became after it went away.
I just checked web.archive, and back in 2004, PBS-KIDS was DCII on 12096V19510

AMC 3 at 87.0°W - LyngSat

Then it went DVB, 12110V14025

AMC 3 at 87.0°W - LyngSat

sometime between then and 2005. Shortly thereafter, it went away. Never did see a PBS feed of Sprout, so I'm not sure how it was uplinked.
On the same transponder as PBS KIDS, was PBS YOU, which also went away, but it came back as CREATE.

Interesting about the TPTKIds thing, I never heard of that.

I'm not sure of the logic for PBS KIDS going away, and not replacing it, but I've seen random SPROUT feeds in the past on a IP/DVB channel, so they must not keep a full time channel up for it. A few years ago, I bought my son a FTA dish so that he could get PBS KIDS for my grandson, but the channel went away before he put it up.

I guess that kids watch during the daytime, and PBS has predominantly kids shows on in the daytime anyway, and the programming was the same, so I guess they just figured that it was a duplicated effort.

 

[B.J.]

hey ice, you guys have ATSC digital ota on low band vhf? channel 2? I didn't know any stations were going to do low vhf.

THere are lots of channels that will revert to their old VHF frequencies when the Feb transition occurs. Just because they are on UHF now doesn't mean that that is where they will be next month.
There are a couple web pages that describe this, one at:

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-08-72A2.pdf

This PDF has an NTSC Channel column and a DTV Channel column. In many cases, the DTV channel will be the same as the NTSC channel, which means that that channel will be returning to the old analog channel after the transition.

Where I live, of the 4 networks, for the past year, all 4 digital channels were on UHF, however come Feb, only 2 of them will be UHF. Actually, one of the 4 channels has already done the transition, and the VHF analog signal is already gone and has been replaced by the digital signal, which HAD been up on UHF.

Also, if you go to that FCC query page, ie:

TV Query - TV Technical Information - Video Division - MB (FCC)

when you get your results, they list the stations as being licensed for digital if there is a "DT" in the service column . Usually stations that are switching to UHF just have a "TV" in that column for the VHF channel, but if the VHF channel says "DT", then the odds are that it will be returning to VHF.

 

[skysurfer]

so maybe they are getting the programs directly from PBS instead of relying on a feed.

Instead of PBS, probably taking APT feeds and creating their own channel of DIY stuff from those.

>You're thinking of "Sprout"
>But the PBS Kids that was a subchannel (at least here in Minneapolis that was c

I seem to recall where I live that when the PBS Kids digital multicast channel went away, PBS Kids Sprout was launched on cable. It appears to me it was rebranding of the channel, a change to cable, and then the loss of PBS stations' ability to show PBS Kids since the idea is to drive viewers to pay tv to watch sprout.

 

[equant]

Create is also in DC II on T4 602 for free.

I just want to say thanks for pointing this out.

 

[jbmiller]

hi, in chippewa falls, wisconsin i have 3 pbs channels whwc hd 28-1, wis. channel 28-2 ,and create 28-3
both my daughters love those channels
ota rules
john