Austin TX went live with the ATSC 3.0, and upon rescan today, one of the channels (14-3 - H&I) appears to be compressed (like taking a 4:3 picture, assuming it was 16:9 and then compressing that to 4:3). Not sure if it is the broadcaster’s fault, or Tablo’s fault, but even when the screen should be 16:9, it appears to be 4:3 on the screen.
Here is an example of the picture:
This picture is from channel 14-4 (Antenna TV):
Any suggestions?
Was it fine before? From my initial search, channel 14-3 is broadcasted in 16:9 but at a 480i resolution.
Channel 14-4 is broadcasted in 4:3 and 480i resolution.
Many other 16:9 channels are broadcasted at 1080i or 720p resolution.
Assuming you are talking about H&I that use to be on KBVO, it’s Wiki page indicates it is transitioning to KEYE.
There is nothing that says it is maintaining it’s original aspect ratio.
Before the transition, programs that were in “HD” were displayed full screen, although it was in 480. Those that were in SD had the side bars. Now it appears that the HD programs have sidebars (like the SD programs looked before) and the SD programs have “double side bars”, appearing less than 4:3 ratio.
Ironically, the other channels (14-1 which is broadcast in HD, 14-2 & 14-4) appear to be full screen (no side bars).
I don’t care if it has side bars on not - It just bugs the crap out of me to see it over compressed in the smaller than 4:3 format. I am not sure if Tablo is compressing it (think of the aspect ratio on the TV being 16:9, 4:3, stretch, etc).
480i can be broadcast as either 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ration.
Someone would have to plug an antenna into a TV to check what real channel and aspect ration is currently being used.
On the TV, it appears full screen (no compression).
Most TV’s have the ability to display the tuner information about what is being broadcast.
That is completely different then what aspect ration might appear on the screen. Almost all TV’s have settings that control the aspect ratio that is being displayed:zoom,wide,stretch,etc.
As zippy alludes to 480i isn’t limited to a specific resolution, and SD is part of the digital specification, ATSC just the same as HD - not relying on wikipedia for a source for everything, it does have a table with examples - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATSC_standards.
It’s very likely tablo “takes what it gets” and doesn’t mess with the picture. I’ve seem some broadcast messed up with compression and “editing” zooming. A TV, like you tablo, show the channel resolution from the broadcast station, but not necessarily what what it gets from the network to broadcast.
Some 3rd party apps - APL Tablo as one example, reports the resolution tablo stores per recording. I have some funky height x width
-directly from tablo JSON data for each episode, I’m not sure how or where tablo generates this.
A show from MeTV
| video_details | |
|---|---|
| width | 704 |
| height | 480 |
A show from DABL
| video_details | |
|---|---|
| width | 528 |
| height | 480 |
So it seems it may be reported as a 480 channel, the end result of the picture, as recorded, can vary in ways we know nothing about.
Here’s a Cord Cutters News article full of buzz words…
The future of television is NextGen TV and we know that our viewers will embrace the multitude of services this new technology offers
lots of meaningless words, or lots of words with no real substance.
The four stations have agreed to continue making current programming available to all viewers throughout the transition to NextGen TV
“agreed to” as though that’s not part of the how it works? that’s nice of them.
serve its existing viewers with better products while also opening up greater optionality for the company to pursue a variety of new business opportunities
“new business opportunities”… as in pay-per-view or subscription services? better products for who?
with future upgrades to the system offering a more personalized and immersive viewing experience
personalized experience usually means data mining.
This is a somewhat exaggerated biased view. There is a lot of marketing hype, fancy name and something corporations are pushing to increase profits, I believe, beyond increasing service to the public. They are avoiding a lot - just where do they see this ending up? It’s not going to be put up an antenna, connect a TV and enjoy… will it?
Generally speaking (not every instance is the same), the “data mining” they do is very limited. They don’t know your name or other personal information, but they do know the programming you may tune into. If you have a cable, satellite, streaming or on demand video service, you already have similar data mining going on.
A lot of people worry about “targeted marketing”. What that means is instead of me viewing women’s undergarment commercials, they would show commercials that relate to me, based on my viewing habits.
Again, they don’t know my personal information, only the viewing habits - and 90% of the TV watchers out there already have that…
Granted OTA will likely be limited data collection compared to current sources.
I understand if I “sign up” for a service I’m providing my information. When a privacy statement says “we may” means “we do collect”. Although if I pay for a service I should get a discount since they’re collecting information and selling the aggregated data. “Free” now means no out-of-pocket, it costs money for a service, they recoup expense from you one way or another, I understand this.
Target marketing - data mining, digs deeper than interests. One tracking service combined with another tracking service, marketing trends know what you’re interested in, what you’re watching, when you get home… when you leave. How late you stay up… or how long the lights are on or the heat/AC is running. They know what you buy, how often supplies are used up.
Consumers fill out surveys, giving answers which feel good. Questions are generally worded as to get a specific answer. Tracking and mining provide specific data.
Claiming to scrub personal information before selling… connecting the dots shouldn’t be too difficult with enough (some) data and a mulit-billion dollar industry to know who you are and what you’re doing – and just how to market to you specifically.
you may not yet realize why you’re viewing commercials for women’s undergarments 
There is a simple formula for “profit”. A company buys something (in this case, they buy the rights to broadcast a program). A company then “sells” that product with a markup (generally speaking, they look to get a 5%-10% profit).
Data mining allows a company to show demographics (i.e. how many people watch the “news” nightly), so they can sell advertising (this is how they pay for the program).
They can’t “connect the dots”. Aggregate data is simply, 200,000 people watch program “A” at 6:00PM - 6:30PM. Nothing is stated by any individual. They do additional market research to find out age groups, gender, ethnicity, etc… Your TV isn’t smart enough to know you are 35-44, male, and where you come from…
It not the TV, it’s the new technology, in it’s infancy.
I’m not against companies generating profit, that’s how things work.
Users want their DVRs now, expecting broadcast business models to remain exactly the same and we’ve always known it. Just tune to a channel and it come unscrambled and watch/record it… nothing will change. Well probably in the beginning.
