I have noticed a difference in live vs taped TV that I pick up with my roof mounted antenna.
The local CBS station shows the NFL game on Sunday and the picture quality is poor. But when 60 Minutes is shown immediately after the game it is clear.
What makes such a difference?
Depends on what you mean by “poor”–blocky? Fuzzy? Signals can be broadcast at different resolutions and with different degrees of compression. If it is blocky, the signal for the football game might be being compressed more than is optimal for high motion material. If it is fuzzy, your station might be showing it in a lower resolution for some unknown reason. Next time you are watching something, there should be an “information” button (by some name) that will pop up a window telling your details about the broadcast, including the resolution, such as (from worst to best) 480p, 720i, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. You might see that the fuzzy programs are broadcast at a lower resolution than the clear ones.
Thank you. Will check tomorrow.
Doesn’t CBS show all of their network programming at 1080i?
For my local stations, I don’t recall ever seeing anything higher than 720p.
Maybe it’s the station, then. Or are you watching on cable? NBC, CBS, and the CW all broadcast their HD programming at 1080i; ABC, PBS, and Fox are all 720p.
That is correct, ABC, Fox, and ESPN broadcast over the air and provide network feeds at 720p at 60 frames/sec (actually 59.94 fps). All the others are 1080i at 30 (actually 29.97) frames/sec.
However for cable subscribers you cannot control what the cable company sends you. Historically if CBS (for example) sent 1080i then the cable companies would convey that.
Unfortunately Comcast recently started down scaling and compressing the 1080i material they carry to 720p. So even if the content provider at the source (e.g, CBS, NBC, HBO etc) is giving 1080i, on Comcast you are now receiving 720p, which is a loss of about 1/2 the pixels from each frame.
The OP was apparently about over the air (OTA) broadcasts, so it should not be affected by cable issues. Why in that case 60 Minutes was better than the preceding live sports program, I don’t know.
However live material can be greatly degraded under some conditions. Here is a frame grab taken live from a Comcast feed of the 2016 Olympics. It shows severe encoder problems: NBC 2016 Olympic Image Quality - joema
ESPN broadcasts over the air? Where?
I am watching my local CBS station over the air. The antenna is on the chimney. Other stations are clear. The game is difficult to watch. A bit fuzzy and blurry but it is much worse when showing the field from far away,(showing both teams on the line of scrimmage) close-ups look better most of the time. It is not consistent. Sometimes for a few seconds, it looks clear. Motion is the most difficult to see. The ball is hard to see as it is thrown. It is as if I am not wearing my glasses. I am, really.
I am unable to tell you what is being broadcast. My info button does not tell me.
Under the Mode adjustments, I have tried the Insignia Motion under Advanced video. My choices are120 Hz Off, low, medium and high. I can see no difference when selecting any of these.
I may be forced to pay for CBS all access in order to watch the games.
Any ideas?
Out of curiosity, does the video image fit the entire screen? Does it appear that part of it is getting cropped? Also, what channel# is your local CBS on?
I am watching my local CBS station over the air. The antenna is on the chimney. Other stations are clear. The game is difficult to watch. A bit fuzzy and blurry but it is much worse when showing the field from far away,(showing both teams on the line of scrimmage) close-ups look better most of the time. It is not consistent. Sometimes for a few seconds, it looks clear. Motion is the most difficult to see. The ball is hard to see as it is thrown. It is as if I am not wearing my glasses. I am, really.
I am unable to tell you what is being broadcast. My info button does not tell me.
Under the Mode adjustments, I have tried the Insignia Motion under Advanced video. My choices are120 Hz Off, low, medium and high. I can see no difference when selecting any of these.
I may be forced to pay for CBS all access in order to watch the games.
Any ideas?
The picture does fit the screen
I just checked the channel and got this info - 62-2 WSPA-SD 480i
But I thought they called themselves channel 7.
Yup, the SD 480i tells the tale. Maybe your local CBS affiliate just sucks, or maybe there is another, better CBS.
Hey, you live within a station range of me! My CBS is also from WSPA. The CBS feed is at 7.1 (with 7.2 being MeTV and 7.3 being Ion.) They also show the same content as their 7.1 feed as channel 62.2 (with 62.1 being the CW.) Everything on 62.2 is 480i. You are seeing compression artifacts from downconverting the higher resolution signal.
Have you tried directly tuning to channel 7.1 or is the signal just too weak? Because I just did a quick search and it sounds like 62.2 is an SD simulcast of the HD broadcast on 7.1, which would obviously be preferable if you can catch it.
Yeah, that does seem to be the case. I had a nice post all typed out, but got ninja’d. But here’s the station info for WYCW in Asheville, NC, which you’re probably watching instead of WSPA.
They don’t; that was a mistake.
I can not pick up channel 7. I may need to move the antenna or get another one.
Thanks for all your help
If the channel you are referring to is WSPA, note that it broadcasts on a VHF frequency.
Back when the digital transition was made, hucksters tried to convince people that they needed to buy “digital antennas” or “HD antennas” in order to receive the new channels.
There is no such thing as a “digital” or “HD” antenna. Most of these things were UHF-only antennas. There was a widespread belief that there would be no more VHF stations, which is not true and never was true. But they made money selling special antennas that were cheapened versions of regular antennas and convincing confused people they needed them.
Now nearly all TV antennas are labeled as “digital” or “HD” because people expect that. You’ve got to carefully examine the specs for the particular antenna you are planning on buying to make sure it has a VHF section. To get RF Channel 7, you will need at least a hi-VHF section.
Yeah, go here to calculate what kind of antenna you need based on your location and what channels you want to catch.