We will be providing Play-by-Play of the DTV Switchover...
12:20 AM: Almost immediately, WCPO-TV began running a crawl on the bottom of the screen, and the lead story of their now-12:25 AM newscast is the DTV switch.
12:23 AM: WCPO GM Bill Fee is live at the newsdesk with Clyde Gray, talking about the switchover.
12:27 AM: We find it hard to believe that WCPO would only spend about 3 minutes on the DTV switch. Expect a few more stories during the newscast...
12:32 AM: A promo spot for Good Morning Tri-State just ran, they promise more information tomorrow morning.
12:40 AM: We now anticipate the switchover to occur around 12:50-12:55 AM.
1:17 AM: We have recorded what happened here at the TSMW HQ...which is to say, Insight did their jobs! They turned the analog off, which had been causing interference on Insight 9's RETV channel, and WCPO's signal came in crystal clear on cable channel 8.
1:30 AM: WKRC-TV 12 about to go off air. Remember, they have to flash-cut from RF 31 to RF 12 for their digital side...so they will leave the air entirely. Not clear if this affects the cable side of things...we would assume not, seeing as we believe, as in the case of WCPO, cable subscribers in most areas would be fed via a link from a head-end at the studios on Mt. Auburn. We'll see in the next 3 minutes...
1:36 AM: Indeed, WKRC's ANALOG signal is now off. As happened with WCPO...the shutdown of the analog side of things stopped interference on the Insight end...this time, it was analog 12 interfering with CSPAN 2 on Insight Cable channel 12. Still looking to see if WKRC digital signal goes offline...and if it affects the cable folks...we suspect it will affect satellite, as those folks would get the signal over-the-air.
1:4o AM: WKRC's digital side now also off air. Expected to return to service by 5:00 AM.
2:10 AM: Quick update regarding the WKRC/CSPAN 2 situation for NKY Insight Cable subscribers...we had a query about whether a DT signal at RF 12 would cause Insight interference on what just became a clear picture on Insight 12.
I made a call to the DTV Phone Bank at WCPO to ask this very question (now you won't need to). The answer is no - and it turns out because of the headend connection - but I had the location of the headend wrong. That location is somewhere along KY 16 in Kenton County, and it serves Insight Cable customers. We assume the headend also serves the other digital channels, such as RF 10 for the now DT-only WCPO, RF 35 for WLWT, and RF 29 for WXIX.
We are now going to suspend operations for a few hours, catch a nap, and try to make it back to chronicle the WXIX transition in a separate posting, as well as catch up on the WKRC DTV flash-cut. The original posting is below...
_______________________________________________________________
We here at TSDTW can't believe it is finally here...
The DTV switchover day is just under 1 hour away, and the first switchover will be at least 30 minutes after that when WCPO-TV/Cincinnati switches off analog 9 and goes to a digital only broadcast on RF 10.
Then at 1:30 AM, WKRC-TV/Cincinnati goes off the air entirely to facilitate both the dumping of analog 12, and the switchover from RF 31 to RF 12 for its digital side. This is expected to take between 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 hours.
We will be awake and online for both switchovers, and will post as we see them taking place...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Is there a problem with channel 12's digital signals? We were able to pick up 12.1 and 12.2 but no longer. (All other channels are still okay.)
ReplyDelete