DNS plus Locals: Is it possible?

Status
Please reply by conversation.

darkpowrjd

Member
Original poster
Oct 11, 2011
5
0
Ohio
Okay, so here's an issue I have, and I'm hoping someone could answer this for me.

I just got DirecTV, and I'm able to get the locals (there are two, or three if you count the PBS one) and WBNX (the Cleveland CW affiliate). It's all good and all, except for one thing.

The FOX and ABC feeds suck. This be because of the affiliate carrying them: WTRF. I live in the Wheeling, WV/Steubenville, OH area, so WTRF carries CBS on it's main channel, FOX/MNTV on a subchannel, and ABC on another one. They are NEVER in HD (even though it says it is, though they seem to get lucky with the CBS feed), and whenever I watch them, it seems like it's really...what's the word I want to use for this...unclear (hard to describe what it looks like), but it seems like anti-aliasing isn't in this station's vocabulary), not to mention the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. WTOV, the NBC affiliate, never has this problem (and has been the lead for news in this area for the longest time because of the utter nightmare that WTRF's owners have put TRF into...it's awful and degrading on SO many levels, and the owners don't seem to care of how cheap it's gotten).

So I'm about ready to say "F" it and ask for the East/West Coast feeds of the CBS, ABC, and FOX networks. Yeah, it's crude, but I've about had it with the constant screwing over about the HD and picture quality these channels have because this station will never get it as long as Brad Cray (West Virginia Media Holdings, WTRF's current owner, head honcho). I'm willing to pay extra to be able to get these feeds.

Only one problem: I don't want to lose WTOV because of this (since I heard it's one or the other, and WTOV is very good with their HD, even though they do preempt some NBC programs for local sports, though not very often). We don't get the Pittsburgh channels like we did with Comcast (which got too expensive for us to keep up with). Also, I've heard that Brad Cray is a bit of a douchebag about signing waivers (WTOV, I've heard, doesn't mind signing them), and he's got a stranglehold over the state of WV with how these subchannels are set up (he owns three other stations in the state that do the same kind of crap: have all sorts of affiliations without any care to the quality to them...or their newscasts). I don't know if there is anything I can do about this short of trying to start some revolution to get a change in ownership of at least WTRF. I've heard it took such a long time for the satellite companies to get spot beams OR distants to this area because of Cray's persistence.

So...what do I do? What CAN I do about this? Should I call DTV to see what could be done about this?
 
:welcome to Satelliteguys!

IIRC, if you get locals, you can't get DNS unless you are grandfathered in. Even then, they go away eventually.
 
:welcome to Satelliteguys!

IIRC, if you get locals, you can't get DNS unless you are grandfathered in. Even then, they go away eventually.

Thanks for the welcome.

If this remains to be the case, what can I do about this. This channel on Comcast had this issue, as well, but not as frequent. This is how I know it's a issue with the channel itself, not a DTV problem.
 
If you aren't grandfathered in, you're out of luck... I'm one of the lucky ones *crosses fingers*.

That said, I think your best option would be to "move" and get better locals from a neighboring market (there's tons of details about "moving" if you search)--something tells me you are close enough to Pittsburgh or Columbus to get all of their locals in HD--and that your locals may even be on the same spots as the larger markets--take your pick ;-) As for the locals you want to keep watching, you attach an AM21 tuner and off-air antenna, you'll get your locals again, integrated into the guide--hopefully you can get your locals off-air.


--Nat
 
Last edited:
What NGeorge posted is true. If you "move" to another city, you can get their locals. If you post your zip code we can give you an idea of what would be available to you.
 
"move" to Pittsburgh....if you must keep the Wheeling/Steubenville stations get a AM21 and use it for OTA
 
Yeah post your zip code... looking at the maps anyone in the Wheeling market should be in easy range for both Pittsburgh and Columbus, as well as Zanesville, Parkersburg and Clarksburg. I know for sure that the first 2 have a full slate of HD locals and that Zanesville does not (it's a single county DMA surrounded by Columbus--those poor bastards lol).

I agree with Iceberg... Pittsburgh would be the better choice unless you consider yourself to have more business/news interest with Columbus. The other 3 are so small that you'll have the same problem with poor production values, or lack of HD altogether.
 
darkpowrjd said:
Thanks for the welcome.

If this remains to be the case, what can I do about this. This channel on Comcast had this issue, as well, but not as frequent. This is how I know it's a issue with the channel itself, not a DTV problem.

I would contact the channel itself ...

Sent from my Samsung Epic using SatelliteGuys
 
Contacting the channel wouldn't do any good. It's a small-market station that doesn't have the money or won't spend the money for updated equipment. The only HD the main channel carries is from the main FOX feed, but any syndicated programming is SD. I'm guessing if there is a weather alert during FOX programming, black bars appear on the top and bottom, because of outdated equipment.
 
Contacting the channel wouldn't do any good. It's a small-market station that doesn't have the money or won't spend the money for updated equipment. The only HD the main channel carries is from the main FOX feed, but any syndicated programming is SD. I'm guessing if there is a weather alert during FOX programming, black bars appear on the top and bottom, because of outdated equipment.
So you contact the LOCAL and they expedite it to the parent company.
 
I got fed up with the crappy feeds as well!!! I already had the dns locals though. The problem that burned me up was that sunday ticket games were blacked out for me which was ok because i was supposed to watch them on my local channels. WEll there was the big problem... Their was no hd local feeds for the fox games and the fox and abc channels look like utter garbage in this dma. So what i did was "move" to get columbus locals. Now i have every set of hd locals included in my base package. I really don't think this is right that directv offers only 2 feeds of hd in this dma though. I think this is terrible for new customers that can't get distant's anymore. What they did with parkersburg locals was they gave them the 2 feeds from columbus. I wish for customers sake in this dma they could have done the same thing and either filled in with pittsburgh locals or new york locals. That would seem fair but i don't think directv is at fault because they may HAVE to offer these 2 locals even though they are complete trash. So i blame the station.
 
43935 is my zip.

And this station broadcasts in HD with no issue on Comcast still, I can confirm (at least for the night I was doing things at a Vets club that had a few TVs on the ALCS). So it's either something about DTV that is an issue, or I have to make a phone call to DTV, or there's some secret exclusivity thing I don't know about with HD, this affiliate, and Comcast. Because AFAIK, it's working with Comcast.
 
It may be that the feed Comcast uses is fiber, but Directv may pick it up ota from the source. The fiber feed may look better.
 
There are some markets where the only HD feed is via fibre and not OTA. This sounds like one of those cases. So if Directv is picking it up OTA they wont have a HD feed

Some areas carry the subchannels in 480i widescreen and claim its HD. The station down the road from me in Minneapolis (KEYC CBS Mankato) has a Fox subchannel that is 480i widescreen. Directv just picked it up (after not being on there for 4 years...D* carried Fox from Minneapolis there) and its only in SD. The CBS had a article that "call Directv and ask for the HD feed"...only issue is there is no HD feed of the station. NOt OTA and not via cable

Heck cable carries the HD feed from Minneapolis
 
I would do as Iceburg says and change your service address to a nearby market that you are in the spot beam of OR if you own any kind of RV/Travel Trailer/TractorTrailer use the title to make it a RV account and get DNS with it.

Run your address though this to see if you are actually eligible for anything. I remember long ago, if DirecTV carried your locals in SD but not HD they would allow you to get the HD DNS feeds but not the SD DNS feeds.

Enter Address

P.S. You could also invest in a elaborate C-Band setup and get NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, CW, MNT all in HD direct from the source. I originally got my C-Band dish because I lived in a crappy market with no PBS at all, the CW was a SD sub channel (and I wanted Smallville in HD), and the MNT was and still is low power ANALOG.
 
Last edited:
wtrf tv use to be the number one station in the valley. the company that bought it seems to be more interested politics then good service.
it is like they are broadcasting from a cave. i would change to the pittsburgh market. wtov will be hard to loose but you can get that over the air and have the best of both worlds.
Rosie Loves You.
 
This station is weird, though. Like, on Comcast, you can tell that the station is in HD (of some kind) with the FOX feed, and then suddenly go SD for local programming, and it would be all full screen.

I can't just "move" (I know what you mean by that), because the other station that would be lost, WTOV, is so liked in this area that no one would ever want to get rid of it. They've done so much good at reporting things in this area with their newscasts and all that that you would lose a great deal by dropping them in any way. It's a weird situation, I know, but WTRF wouldn't be a great loss, but TOV WOULD be, and it seems as if to lost one to DNS, you have to lose the other.

So I'm guessing getting the waiver for JUST the FOX and ABC affiliations (the CBS feed for WTRF is fine and broadcasts in HD on DTV) would make me have to lose the others, and there's no guarantee that such waivers will be signed. I'm sort of stuck right now.
 
Status
Please reply by conversation.
***

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 1, Members: 0, Guests: 1)

Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 1)