rv65 3 Posted November 7, 2008 Posted November 7, 2008 Well Fox is planning to deploy a new splicer to all affiliates. It will debut in 2009 and will offer some good improvements. It supports Weather/Emergency overlays. Now you can have weather overlays while still being able to watch the show in HD. Thats one limitation since overlays have to force the affiliate to show a 4:3 SD image. There will be some new updates as well. I think the splicer is a good and elegant solution. This will make it better.
kjohnson 17 Posted November 7, 2008 Posted November 7, 2008 Good. Watching KTVI flip back and forth from HD to SD during severe weather is jarring, to say the least. KMOV and KSDK (which had it first) have this system. KPLR has something similar.
rv65 3 Posted November 7, 2008 Author Posted November 7, 2008 I'm sure the O&O's in the major markets will get it first then the smaller ones will get it. It will be done by market. KSWB will of course get it. I hope they don't mess up the splicer. The splicer can really save bandwidth transponder wise.
rv65 3 Posted November 18, 2008 Author Posted November 18, 2008 The current splicer can display emergency alerts if the station has 20 to 30K on inserting equipment.
rv65 3 Posted December 9, 2008 Author Posted December 9, 2008 Fox has plans to just distribute only the HD feed to the affiliates. They can either center cut using AFD or letterbox for SD cable/satellite users. DirecTv and Dish just center cut the HD feed.
rv65 3 Posted December 15, 2008 Author Posted December 15, 2008 Version 2 of the HD splicer should come out by in time for next football season. Maybe there will be an 18 mbps mode for stations without subchannels. Yes it will have graphics insertion capability for severe weather warnings. That means it's not ready in time for the DTV transition. Next football season sounds likely. Hope they fixed the reliability problems. The splicer has some reliability problems mainly with the cooling system.
rv65 3 Posted May 6, 2009 Author Posted May 6, 2009 Well they are certainly preparing for it. Fox took down a transponder and reconfigured it to DVB-S2 at 8PSK modulation. Fox is moving to a DVB-S2 HD only distribution system. Paytv providers can easily downscale it to SD viewers. Fox is doing surveys of stations so expect them to upgrade this soon.. The splicer upgrade will contain 3 splicers in Phase 1. Phase 2 there will only be 2 splicers. The new splicers are made by Cisco. This will be a 2 phase process. Phase 1 is where they put in new radio gear, PC, and the splicers. The existing BP5100 will only be used for putting in the local bug. The Cisco one is capable of inserting logos but not right now. The emergency updates will have to be switched to SD for now. This will happen some time this year. Fox will provide a Cable internet connection to monitor the splicers or to communicate with the station. Stage 2 is where they will use just the Cisco splicers. The BP5100 will finally be retired. This is when they can do weather alerts without disrupting the HD picture. It will be some kind of animation file they can insert on to the screen since there is no HD-SDI input. It's still better than having to revert to SD to display those alerts. More info on this is available at http://splicer.foxpico.com
rv65 3 Posted May 25, 2009 Author Posted May 25, 2009 The Satellite radio gear may be installed before they put in the new splicer due to the complexities of installing both at the same time. They should have the new Motorola radio gear installed by August 14. The majority of affiliates should have the new Splicer 2.0 by September 1st though it might take longer than that.
rv65 3 Posted June 6, 2009 Author Posted June 6, 2009 A couple of days ago KSWB got the new Splicer 2.0 and the new radios. Word on the street say this is a step backwards. Though next year the weather/emergency alert capability will be enabled.
rv65 3 Posted May 2, 2010 Author Posted May 2, 2010 Fox is still working on a solution that will finally allow stations to show weather/disaster alerts without having to switch over to SD.
rv65 3 Posted May 2, 2010 Author Posted May 2, 2010 If Fox affiliates had their way, they wouldn't have used a splicer for HD; however, it's great for smaller stations that don't have the budget for HD. It allows a small analog plant to be HD and DD5.1 capable at a minimal cost to the station.
Weeters 1973 Posted May 3, 2010 Posted May 3, 2010 Fox is still working on a solution that will finally allow stations to show weather/disaster alerts without having to switch over to SD. Does this just have to do with overlays? WITI can show weather info in HD by scaling back the video and showing the alert underneath...
kjohnson 17 Posted May 3, 2010 Posted May 3, 2010 KTVI can run the weather graphics through the FOX East HD feed now, without center cut.
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