WSAZ technical problems

[genlock]

A woman drowned today in the gauley river.
"This happened in the Kesslers Cross Lanes area of Nicholas County."
WSAZ on air graphic identified the area as "Kesslers CURTAIN Lanes"

Market leader, Indeed.

[genlock]

Anyone watch the Marshall vs Ohio Univ football game Saturday night?

Market leader, Indeed.

[the jive talkin one]

The MU/OU video quality was so bad, my wife asked if something was wrong with our computer (thinking i was playing ESPN3 on the monitor rather than a broadcast station).

As bad as that is, it still doesn't match the digital dropouts on WOWK's Dish Network feed, which seem to be pretty much constant.

[EZ103.3FM]

Lots of discussion of the quality (or lack thereof) of the WSAZ broadcast here at herdnation.com, including a posting by Dan Shoemaker of ESPN Regional Television:

http://marshall.rivals.com/showmsg.asp? ... 82&style=2

[oldtvman2]

one of the big problems is that local tv stations no longer have any cameramen. They only have news photogs. The cameras in local shows are controlled by the director and are preset on the switchers. When 13 had camera people ESPN would come in and hire local union camera people and even use wowk sat. truck for their uplink. with Parker Vision they no longer have camera peopls. I am amazed at how net camera operators can follow that golf ball in the air and have it land in the middle of the camera shot. Local stations can not put on a local studio production as most of studio space is taken up with weather. then again no camera operators. A news cast in the past normally had 3 cameras an audio man and a video operator, floor director and cable pullers along with a director. The audio levels were the same no matter what was on the air. There was also film operator changing slides and loading film spots and video tape spots.Now there is only the director and a master controll operator. About the breakups on Dish on 13 a cable system in Ohio is having the same problem. Perhaps they are using Dish for their feed?

[genlock]

My information says that all looked ok in the truck.
Spots from the studio seemed to be ok.
That leaves the satellite truck and the satellite (including path).
There seemed to be a problem with the studio dumping spots in
without regard for action on the field.
There was also a very long period with no spots at all,
which caused a flurry of ill-places spots later.
Perhaps the satellite was a weak one or too little bandwidth was specified.
Who did the uplink for the game?
As Keith Morehouse said during the game "I don't know what that was".


Market leader, Indeed.

[oldtvman2]

I saw a WSAZ ENG truck down there when I went by earlier in the morning. They had a small dish on it. don't know if they were sending the signal back to the studio by microwave or doing an uplink? Did any other stations cary this feed? They might have been sending it to BG

[Big Media]

About the breakups on Dish on 13 a cable system in Ohio is having the same problem. Perhaps they are using Dish for their feed?

This is quite common at smaller head-ends, especially post-analog. There are still a hand-full of cable systems that have a tower on a hill where they demodulate the signal and retransmit over cable only to demodulate again and retransmit again at the head-end. Crazy.

I know of a cable system in Boone County with about $6,000 worth of K-Tech demods sitting in a plywood box at the top of a mountain.

[EZ103.3FM]

I saw a WSAZ ENG truck down there when I went by earlier in the morning. They had a small dish on it. don't know if they were sending the signal back to the studio by microwave or doing an uplink? Did any other stations cary this feed? They might have been sending it to BG

I think we're talking about the MU-Ohio game. The BG game was produced by a station/network up BG's way and WSAZ just picked up the feed. Some on Herdnation said ISP produced the game not WSAZ, although I don't know whose people/hardware/facilities were used.

[oldtvman2]

Yes it was the MU/OU game. I get the teams mixed up always had to play in the band while going to school. Never did get to see much football. the cable system having a lot of breakups on 13 is Armstrong cable in Ohio along with Dish

[genlock]

sunday night football, spanish language announcers audio mixed with english announcers.
Complete dropouts of audio when someone tried to fix it.
WSAZ problem or NBC network problem?

[Bar Rat]

Probably WSAZ.

I didn't watch the pre-game or much of the first quarter. WSAZ is having periodic dropouts in the audio, for half a second or so. WLWT is perfect.

[genlock]

Watched a movie on MyZ today.
It apparently originated with This TV sat feed.
Major audio level differences between sat feed and local spots/weather drop-ins.
Maybe 10 db difference.
It's like they don't care.


Market leader, Indeed

[lastone]

Watched a movie on MyZ today.
It apparently originated with This TV sat feed.
Major audio level differences between sat feed and local spots/weather drop-ins.
Maybe 10 db difference.
It's like they don't care.

Someone probably cares but the "Geeks" don't know what a "db" is or what to do with it!

[genlock]

Someone probably cares but the "Geeks" don't know what a "db" is or what to do with it!

Sob.

[lastone]

In trying to watch the "live remote" this evening, with the same continuing audio problem, I think I understand what has happened at WSAZ.

My theory:

At some point, a real, licensed engineer came from somewhere in Gray and set up the studio. Fixing video delay and adjusting audio imputs to a 'normal' level. The sat receiver or microwave or whatever they are using for the live truck wasn't on and was therefore ignored.

So when the live truck is fired up, all is well at the truck but at the studio the 'board op' (or audio control surface op) cranks his gain to the top and can still barely hear the audio. No one at the studio knows where the audio output control is on the sat receiver or microwave, thus the problem is never fixed.

Makes sense to me. What do you think? Perhaps someone might 'drop by' one day and show them where the control is?
Could be a router problem I know, but simple things first.

I can't believe this problem hasn't been "worked".

Market leader indeed? Who are we kidding.

[genlock]

A screwed up mono to stereo conversion perhaps?
Left minus Left?

Lots of places for this to happen.
Truck, console, router, patch panel?

[lastone]

How do they manage to stay on the air if they can't even fix aduio? Really, how?

[DosPrompt]

I was told the Problem was in the Audio board -...

[genlock]

Callie Cart forgot to put the lav mike on tonight.
On the lead story.


Market leader, indeed.