O&O Ion Affiliates HD Now??

[Mr Tony]

Noticed tonight my Owned & Operated Ion channel (KPXM 41 Minneapolis) is now in 720p HD
The subchannels (IonLife, Worship, Qubo) are still 480

Anybody else notice this? OK let me rephrase that.......anybody stumble upon this?

 

[Mr Tony]

dang...actually saw some HD on there the other day
(about as much as my local CW & My Network show)

 

[daddyzlod]

I'm about 120 miles or so from the twin cities, with a Winegard 8200U antenna, 63' up on tower, and get most
of the cities stations pretty good, except 41 ion , which is one of the harder ones to get, but if the weather is
right, it does come in.
I'll have to check out the 720p on it next time I'm flipping channels.
Now if channel 17 comes in, the whole universe is just right.

 

[Mr Tony]

17 is tough here in the SW suburbs too. They're moving to channel 26 (where Fox9 is right now) come the DTV switch (9 is moving back to the analog 9 slot)

 

[TNGTony]

Looks like Dish and ION have something going on here. They uplinked a ton of ION affiliates today and recently added the west feed. Hmmm... No ION here in Cinci except the cable channel which shows "free" Beverly Hillbillies and Andy Griffith (you know... the program that has a generic theme song rather than the "real one").

see ya
Tony

 

[Mr Tony]

Tony
I posted that in the uplink thread. They're all on TP14 so it sounds like remaps and not actual uplinks

 

[TalkingRat]

If you don't count the premature late 2007 announcement, late last year ION announced they'd be starting with ~20 DMAS on Feb 16, 2009, but with the transition delay they pushed it out a month, and it actually ahowed up a bit later than that. I think the plan was to expand to other DMAS by year end, and also to get Qubo and ION Life on HD in late 2009. Right about the time it was all supposed to happen, they announced a partnership with a company that does a lot of HD sat delivery, so maybe that will speed up their conversion. Here's the list of the first 20 markets, and the ones to follow:

Ion Launching in HD Feb. 16 - 2009-01-27 18:30:00 | Broadcasting & Cable

 

[Mr Tony]

Dont know how they would squeeze 3 HD channels and a SD channel on one channel assignment...

Thank god they dont do stretch o vision..

 

[TalkingRat]

If PBS is any indication, they can't. I hope they match their reputation for being late.