TUFF TV now on 83.0W

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The RTV channels were never beauty pageant winners in the PQ category in the first place. Reducing the bitrate even further is not a good thing. These channels are destined to be re-encoded and aired as digital subchannels, a process in which they will take another hit in PQ. At this rate, they're going to look real muddy by the time they reach the airwaves...

Tron
The C-Band RTV channels have more bandwidth and a better picture ;) Those are going out to the subchannels. I think even the ones that use the "national" feed there is a national feed on C-Band too
 
Tron
The C-Band RTV channels have more bandwidth and a better picture ;) Those are going out to the subchannels. I think even the ones that use the "national" feed there is a national feed on C-Band too
Correct. There's an RTV East and West and a Tuff-TV E/W as well as all the affilliate feeds. Theres about 40 or so channels.
 
I have looked through some of my older RTN recordings, and their file sizes varied from about 330,000 KB to about 480,000 KB for a half hour show. These appear to be variable bit rate encodings, and do not show the severity of blockiness as what we are receiving now. They also were 480x480 recordings, and now are only 352x480 for RTV, but are 544x480 for TUFFTV.

So we are now getting (for the Ku feeds)
-larger file sizes (bit rates)
-lower resolution (for RTV)
-more blockiness in the picture

The equipement/settings they used when they were RTN did a better job.
 
Looks like 83W Ku is down. Can Anybody confirm that? Ku. Last night was perfect..No more RTV no more TUFF??? on Ku
 
If the Cband feeds are for the sub-channel guys then who is the intended target of the Ku feeds?(just curious)

I assume my OTA RTV station (WXYZ 7-2 Detroit) gets their feed from Cband as the programming differs from the Ku feed. I'm surprised how often their reception goes out in moderately bad weather(ie RTV freezes but my OTA signal shows 100%) Maybe their antenna's a little off as I was under the impression it takes a deluge to take out Cband
 
If the Cband feeds are for the sub-channel guys then who is the intended target of the Ku feeds?(just curious)

some low powered stations use the KU feed. I know there was a guy who runs 2 low powered stations and he was talking about RTV saying you needed a 1.2m dish for reliable reception (that is back when we had signal issues)

So the KU feed is there for a station to get a national feed and doesnt want to drop money in a C-band S2 setup
 
Can someone do me a favor

On the C-Band ones I know they label the channel with the callsign of the subchannel. I know WDIO/WIRT uses the national feed

Is there a channel up there labelled with callsign WDIO? Or maybe they just grab the national feed
 
Can someone do me a favor

On the C-Band ones I know they label the channel with the callsign of the subchannel. I know WDIO/WIRT uses the national feed

Is there a channel up there labelled with callsign WDIO? Or maybe they just grab the national feed

I weeded through all of the affiliate lists on the RTV website and noted that about half of the listed networks are not on C-band, at least not for me. Almost all of the C-band feeds have a unique PDF file posted while the others show the National feed schedule. WDIO is one of the channels that are not on C-band based on what my Pansat 9200HD scanned in, I believe they are using the Nat feed. I'm receiving about 60 of the RTV + TUFF feeds from the 87W, this is after deleting one of the feeds due to low signal issues, all of the others come in just fine on my 10.5 ft mesh.

One thing I will note is that I had to change the dish configuration a bit in order to lock the two TP's 3800 & 4080. My dish was set up with the (5) C-lnb's and the 87W lnb was on the outside of the bore sight lnb, I could not pick up the S2 signal so I shifted the dish to the 87W using the bore sight lnb and now get a stable QS in the mid to upper 60's. I also tried to see if I could pick up the RTV mux with the 87W lnb 4° on the outside of the bore sight but the signal was minimal so now I have the dish dedicated primarily on the 87W bore sight lnb and also getting the 91W & 95W on the other two lnb's, this new configuration caused me to sacrifice the 99W & 103W but I already get those with the 8 ft solid BUD so no real loss there. My Pansat 9200HD is now the dedicated RTV receiver, nothing else is on it, my Viewsat HD9000 is pulling in everything else, this now gives me a total of around 165 channels including the OTA feeds, not bad for FREE TV. :D

And BTW, I scanned in both TP's as following:

3800 H 29123 5/6 S2-Qpsk pilot off
4080 H 29123 5/6 S2-Qpsk pilot off
 
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Re Ice's 2 channels, I agree that I don't see them on either of the two transponders.

Re the transponder parameters, I think the above are wrong, although I'm not sure why that would be. I've seen my Azbox sometimes scan things in with incorrect parameter, because it has some incorrect FEC values, and apparently sometimes get's confused, and my TT3200 doesn't seem to care what the parameters are, but I would have thought that the Pansat would only scan things in with proper parameters. But anyway, my Azbox only scans it in with parameters that differ from the above, and my parameters match what I've seen posted. Anyway, I'm curious whether the Pansat might scan them in via more than one setting?

BTW, I'm having one hard time getting these transponders to lock of late. A couple months ago, I could lock both transponders with any of my S2 receivers, including the TT3200, which is the least sensitive of the bunch, but lately the lower of the 2 freqs doesn't give a hint of a lock on my TT3200, and the other one will lock, but has lots of errors. Both lock OK on my Azbox, but the lower freq just barely locks. Once it locks, picture is fine, but it takes a LONG time and a lot of fine tuning to get a lock. I really need a new dish. :confused:
 
B.J., yes the Pansat does scan them in at either Qpsk or 8psk with pilot on. I first had scanned them in manually with the posted parameters using 8psk and all worked fine. I later tested the blind scan to see if I was missing anything and it scanned them in as Qpsk, I then deleted every single TP and blind scanned again and they came in as Qpsk again and they're working just the same. I don't have another S2 capable stb to test with. BTW, If I recall right, even after I manually scanned using the 8psk settings, they still reported as Qpsk.
 
B.J., yes the Pansat does scan them in at either Qpsk or 8psk with pilot on. I first had scanned them in manually with the posted parameters using 8psk and all worked fine. I later tested the blind scan to see if I was missing anything and it scanned them in as Qpsk, I then deleted every single TP and blind scanned again and they came in as Qpsk again and they're working just the same. I don't have another S2 capable stb to test with. BTW, If I recall right, even after I manually scanned using the 8psk settings, they still reported as Qpsk.

Interesting. I don't have that sat up right now, but when I locked the one channel with my 3200 this morning, I did notice that the mux bitrate was close to 67000, which would definately be 8PSK, not QPSK.

As mentioned, I've seen a couple times when my Azbox would scan in an S2 QPSK transponder as both QPSK and 8PSK , but I don't think I've seen the reverse, and I blamed that on the fact that the Azbox had a 7/8 FEC which isn't part of S2, and apparently it get's confused when trying to lock that FEC. But this case wasn't a situation like that, ie a normal FEC, and my Azbox just scanned it in as 8PSK, and they wouldn't scan with any settings in QPSK mode.

There are also a few transponders out there that are apparently in a mode (I forget the name of it), which is SUPPOSED to lock in both QPSK and 8PSK, which apparently they do by not having the 8 phase angles evenly spaced, and a QPSK receiver apparently interprets it as being QPSK, and an 8PSK receiver will lock in both moder, however I don't think that's the case here due to the high bitrate and the fact that I can't lock in QPSK mode.

I don't have my Diamond 9000 hooked up to C-band right now, but I just checked the channel editor, and it had them logged in as 8PSK too. One interesting thing I noticed on the Diamond parameters. I have never noticed this before, but the Diamond has a "Freq Drift" parameter. On the high freq transponder that is easier for me to lock, it is zero. On the harder to lock transpoder, it has a freq drift value of 252. I have no idea of the units or significance of this value, but it's interesting that the transponder I have problems with has an entry.
 
Since my last post this morning I tested it again by first deleting all TP's then a factory default, I then manually input the Qpsk settings and scanned, all channels scanned in, I then did the same TP deletion and a factory reset then input the 8psk settings and scanned, all the channels scanned in alike and I have noticed that the Pansat will report the parameters according to the scan settings such as Qpsk reports as Qpsk and the 8psk reports as 8psk, it doesn't appear to be any difference in how I scan them, either way works with the Pansat.
 
I am under the impression that the 9200 QPSK 8PSK setting doesn't really do anything. The only setting that's important is S or S-2. S-2 is not necessary for HD, An example: 3845H15030 @ 123W. And S-2 does not mean it is HD. So I just equate S-2 as 8PSK and a S as QPSK and don't bother with the the 8 or Q-PSK setting, Blind scan will detect correct 8 - Q PSK if you blind scan S-2 though, If I blind scan just S, all s-2 are ignored. Any way, It works for me. Maybe Pansat had a need in early development, for that setting, but was made moot after some software tweaks. I was hoping that they may have left that setting there to enable 4:2:2 upgrade in the not too distant future. (Wishful thinking)
The 2 Channels don't show in my chnl list either.
Which reminds me, I gotta check and re-peak the BUD, Iv'e lost some S-2 since the 50mph winds.
 
RTV We do not want to encrypt the feed but will if needed

I don't know how many here have read the thread at RTV's facebook site, but it is a little disturbing..... I don't want to see this happen.

"amc-9 is the back up feed for tv stations and is not authorized to be used as a common carrier for direct to home use. We do not want to encrypt the feed but will if needed."

Link to facebook site

Retro Television Network | Facebook
 
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