NOTICE: The volume issue with Fox KDVR has been addressed. Additional update regarding CBS Atlanta and Fox Denver (added 3/17/09): We are still looking into the situations with CBS Atlanta audio drop outs and the Fox Denver volume. However, our engineer reports, "The closed captioning issue on NBC is subject to the programming content. There are two different CC standards, 608 for analog and 708 for digital. The old DCII systems has a problem with the 708 captions and the NBC station flips between the two formats making it impossible for us to get 7x24 captions." This, unfortunately, is out of our control. |
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| moderator | Welcome to this month's chat. We would like to welcome your questions. |
| SLOweather | Chris in San Luis Obispo with 3 network feed questions. What's up with low audio on Fox Denver? |
| Mike_Mountford | I didn't realize there was low audio on Fox Denver. It's not a channel that's controlled by us. |
| Lobo | What's going on with the proposed improvement of the G3 uplinks? |
| Mike_Mountford | We've done some investigation...some work...and what we've got is the best we can do 'cause the equipment there is fragile, to say the least. And our engineer is afraid that if we try to make some changes we might take it all down and it may never come back again. That's not a risk we're willing to take. |
| SLOweather | Second, there are audio dropouts on CBS Atlanta... Gonna watch Big Bang Theory tonight, and there are always dropouts on it. |
| Mike_Mountford | I was not aware of that. I will pass that on to our engineer and see if there's anything we can do. |
| SLOweather | And lastly, NBC east has garbled Closed captioning. |
| Mike_Mountford | I'll check in on that also. |
| SLOweather | We have to turn the volume up on Fox Dever all the way, and its about as lous as other channels at half volume. |
| Mike_Mountford | Again, we don't directly control that channel. All we can do is contact HITS and I will do that. |
| jcooley | How can the equipment be fragile at the uplink. I never heard any kind of lame excuse as that. |
| Mike_Mountford | It's not a lame excuse. It's the truth. We're trying to do this as efficiently and cost effectively as possible and that's all I can do. |
| SLOweather | OK, thanks for all 3 of mine. |
| Lobo | Is there any timeline for another attempt at improving the G3 uplinks? |
| Mike_Mountford | As I said above...we just can't do it. We tried and that's just as far as we can go. |
| Lobo | Any news on The Weather Channel signal on 4DTV? |
| Mike_Mountford | Yes. I spoke to them last week and received an email from them today. Our technical people are attempting to contact their engineers and if we can get that approval we can move to a contract which we've already started. So, hopefully it won't be too long now...but I can't promise when, 'cause I get burned every time I do. |
| SLOweather | One more... Any chance NPS will provide G4? I don't want to go to another provider for one channel... |
| Mike_Mountford | G4 is one of the channels that we have elected not to provide to try to keep our cost down on our Abolute Digital package. If they sold it to us without forcing us to put it in Absolute Digital, we would do it but that hasn't happened up til now and I don't suppose it will. Sorry about that. If you need a Dish Network please let me know and I'll be sure to have someone get in touch with you. |
| moderator | Do we have any other questions from the room? |
| SLOweather | One coming |
| SLOweather | That brings up another queston... Do you have or can you put together Cband/Dish packages that minimize or eliminate channel overlap? |
| Mike_Mountford | Really the only thing we can do is sell you the premiums (HBO, Showtime, etc.) on your Cband system at a lower price than you'd get them from DISH, then you purchase your basics from Dish Network. We have several customers doing that currently. |
| SLOweather | OK, Thanks. I'm just trying to throw you enough business to keep you going so we can keep our networks. :) |
| Mike_Mountford | Thank you SLOweather |
| Lobo | Do you have an aproximate of how many 4DTV subscribers are still out there? |
| Mike_Mountford | approximately 25,000 |
| moderator | Are there any other questions or comments? |
| SLOweather | Not from here... |
| jcooley | SRL has a very good relationship with HITS since they also provide cable in wisconson they probably have more doors open with HITS that NPS. |
| Mike_Mountford | do you work for SRL? Sure sounds like it. |
| Mike_Mountford | If so, tell George I said "hi" |
| jcooley | I can't say |
| Mike_Mountford | Well you just did |
| moderator | Thanks for your participation today. Join us next month for our C-band chat with Mike. |
| Lobo | See you next month... |